Preview:
From the INTRODUCTION: (Note: this is a portion of ten pages)
"History can serve the present as a mirror of the past."
Ssu-ma Kuang (1018-1086),
a Chinese statesman and historian of the Sung dynasty.
Reference to the history of the places and people contained in Written In BLOOD are based on real history. The first part, which takes place in Japan, is based on the biography I wrote about Miyamoto Musashi, the real-life kensei (sword saint) upon whose philosophy and way of the sword the modern traditions of kendo and bushido are formed, in my nonfiction book A BOOK OF FIVE RINGS:A Practical Guide to Strategy by Miyamoto Musashi. I wanted to include Japanese culture as a stark contrast to the incidents which take place later, for reasons which will become clear as you read on.
The second, which takes place in Tibet, is inspired in part by Lost Horizon by James Hilton (1933) and the Frank Capra film released in 1937; and Tibetan history preserved on the internet by the Buddhist monks forced to live in exile in India; as the Tibet they knew has since been annexed by China and occupied for the third time in a millennium. The first time was sometime during the 14th century AD, the second was in 1959, when a Chinese Communist military garrison stationed near Llasa, the capitol city, massacred thousands of Buddhist monks and laid siege to their monasteries as well as the city proper. Some of the religious fabric of this part were also taken from The Tibetan Book of The Dead by Sogyal Rinpoche, one of a long line of monks who occupied Buddhist history from the time of Siddhartha.
A brief but romantic pause in the northern climes of India is based on the historical accounts compiled in India, A Concise History by Francis Watson, with a bit of a twist toward explaining the origins of the gypsies which were so much a part of history from the early 800's AD until modern times; using some of the official history written by gypsies themselves.
The gypsies were the remnants of the great wars between the clans written of in the Bhagavad-gita and the Upanishads, caught in later years in the middle of wars between the Muslims and the Hindus. They were driven out of the Indus Valley by the spread of the Persian Empire into the Deccan. Some migrated west into Egypt, then north into Spain to escape persecution. Other gypsies migrated north and west into the Carpathians and Central Europe, and were part of the mix of cultures trying to avoid being overrun by the Turkish Ottoman Empire. By the 17th century they were well ensconced in Romania and Hungary, Bulgaria, Bosnia and also Poland.
Their Aryan counterparts inhabiting Nepal and southern Tibet were slowly being squeezed out of their homeland by Chinese and Mongolian incursions and were forced to spread south into northern India, where they were met with stiff opposition by the Mughals, a short list of Persian and Afghan kings who were attempting to convert native Indians to Islam through trading incursions which by their very nature were more like illegal immigrations which displaced the natives over time. Hindus were forbidden to practice their pantheistic religion as long as they lived inside the Muslim dominated territories, so they moved southward into the peninsular sub-continent. There the Sikh resistance was born, and conflicts were frequent and disruptive to the Mughals' designs. Some of the mythology I use during this period is based on Joseph Campbell's award-winning work The Power of Myth, where the imagery must be to a certain degree derivative at best in the absence of a complete understanding of vedic philosophy. As this book is a work of fiction, I can only skim over the complex rhythms of the Hindu religion.
An encounter with Karel Nikolai Arkelin, a character introduced in The Queen's Marksman, is based on the history of Russia and the Kazáks (cossacks) of the Ukraine. Arkelin figures prominently in the diplomatic contact between France and Russia, from the reign of Peter the Great until his tragic and violent death in 1979. Some of the background is made up from snippets of history of the Kazáks during the great Swabian migrations eastward as they were forced out of their territories by Turkish incursions into Europe, and outlined in the book Taras Bulba by Nicolai Gogol, translated by Isabel Hapgood in 1915; as well as the film of the same title (1962) in which Yul Brynner and Tony Curtis delivered outstanding performances as father and son at odds over their ideological differences during the conflict between the Kazáks and the Polish Tatars.
Our hero's brief stopover in the Bucovina and Transylvania is based on the best I could discover about the history of the area, partly constructed from the mythology of this series and partly from an attempt to intuit the events which kept the area isolated and fought over by this or that imperial group from the late 1650s to 1736. The fact that these areas were cut off from regular caravan travel and trading makes for construction of an accurate depiction difficult, as there is no literature devoted to it that can be found. We have a cursory reflection from the ongoing conflict going on in Central Europe; chiefly about Yugoslavia, Bosnia and the Banat. One can only guess what went on in the Transylvanian alps during that time.
This leads us finally to France, which became a crossroads of noblesse oblige and artistic culture from the early 1100s (Charlemagne) until the end of the Napoleonic wars. The French were considered to be the most cultured and most reasonable people on earth. They set the fashion for the architecture, the paintings, the books and haute couture throughout Europe for centuries. Their court was the most brilliant and their aristocracy the most polite and sophisticated among all the courts of the time, no matter that their politics were more often practiced in the boudoir than in the halls of government.
The economic base was slowly moving from agriculture into industry with the invention of various machines for mass production. The Faubergs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Michel (districts) concentrated the proletariat in one spot. But as young men and women from the rural areas streamed into Paris in search of work unemployment began to spread. There was simply no system of planned welfare or economic assistance of any kind administered by the state.
It was not just the lack of work that contributed to the condition of les miserables, there were also not enough days in the year to keep them employed. Religious holidays ate into the working life of the average French worker as a great majority of them were Catholic. One could expect to work only 250 days out of the year, and tithes were exacted by the church periodically. Thus, the average Frenchman was impoverished by taxation from two different yet similar directions. The average substandard wage was 625 livres per year.
By 1780, most of the Huguenots (Protestants) had vacated France due to the zealous persecution of their sect by King Louis XV. Add to that the numerous wars between France and England, Spain, Austria, Russia and Prussia, and before long the state treasury was threatened with total collapse; while the court continued to spend money as if it grew on the trees of the Palais-Royal and at Versailles. The annual budget amounted to 30 million livres per year, a substantial economic drain.
By 1788 the winters grew severe while the unemployment rate remained high. As the workers froze and starved, the upper classes consumed steadily and displayed their wealth with shameless abandon.
Then in April of 1789, Reveillon, the wallpaper magnate, announced that there would not be a raise in wages. A crowd of factory workers and the unemployed attacked his atelier and his house. The same day, the horse race at Charenton was run as scheduled, but the bourgeoisie and the nobles returning from the track to their homes were accosted by the mob. In response, King Louis XVI promised various labor reforms designed to alleviate the suffering.
His previous indifference can be blamed on his ministers and the blandishments of the nobility around him. He was a poor administrator, having the typical arrogance of his family. His grandfather, Louis XIV, had declared, "l'etat, c'est moi!" [I am the state!], echoing the sentiments of his ancestors, who claimed the divine right of kingship since the time of Charlemagne. Now that Louis realized something had to be done, it was too little too late, and his reforms became only token half-measures in order to assuage the outrage of le peupl temporarily, while hoping fervently that they would soon forget why they were so outraged. So much for God's Grace.
The problem was that Louis had an enemy in the form of his uncle, Phillip d'Anjou, Duc d'Orleans, who had served as regent to Louis XV until his ascension to the throne. Monsieur le Duc was firmly of the opinion that he should be king, but the ascendency of Louis XVI was assured both by the fact of his birth and by the church of the Holy Roman Empire, which kept the records of the nobility, the family trees and alliances, and also supervised the royal betrothals.
Not to be denied, Monsieur le Duc made pronouncements against the throne that made him a liberal leader and a friend of the people. He formed a people's party called The Third Estate. This too, was only a token show of deference to the will of the people, because he was a feckless, hopeless spendthrift and a debauche'. He only lent credibility to any cause he supported because of his royal blood. The general consensus among the Estates General [a loose parliament of knighted bureaucrats] and the nobles was that the people should stay in line and retain the monarchy as is, but as history shows, this attitude could not stand under the circumstances that existed.
In May of 1789 the Estates General (now calling themselves the National Assembly), under pressure from public sentiment, finally convened to hammer out a rough "constitution" modeled somewhat after the Bill of Rights the liberated colonies of the United States of America drafted in 1775. It was the first time that the Estates General had met in 175 years, and the first time a constitution was formed that also limited the king's power. In the Oath of The Tennis Court, the Estates General resolved not to separate until a constitution was given to the people. The deputies were lawyers and businessmen who knew how to read contracts, and they wanted to end tax exemptions for the clergy and the nobility. The status quo would remain fixed but the king himself would have to aquiesce to the will of the people.
Louis XVI was resistant to the idea but could not see any other way to have things settled and retain his throne. But when he heard how well things were progressing he summoned the army on July 8 to put down the effort. In response, a letter was dispatched to the king asking him to dismiss the troops or face an open revolt, to which he acquiesced with reluctance.
On July 9 the mob in the streets sacked the Reveillon factory again and occupied it. On July 12 a regiment of foreign troops, seeing that panic ruled the streets, charged the crowd but were called off before the situation erupted into chaos. From that moment Paris became an independent city, and Louis XVI was no longer in control of his kingship.
On July 13 the mob burned 40 of the excise offices at the city's gates, then invaded the convent at St. Lazare in search of grain. A group of 400 men met at the Hotel de Ville [Paris City Hall] and created a militia of some 48,000 men, about 800 per district, to maintain some kind of order. The mob bypassed their effort, broke into a repository of crown furniture, and seized stores of arms and armor to arm themselves.
A delegation of Parisian electors went to the Hotel des Invalides to ask for arms. The governor, the Marquis de Sombreuil, refused their request. But a mob of unarmed bourgeoise filled the Esplanade and seized the artillery. When ordered to fire upon the people, the soldiers refused. The mob stormed the Bastille on July 14 to free the prisoners and to seize the cannon in the yard, and that moment in time marked the beginning of the French Revolution.
Two Chapters:
1
September, 1645The rain fell steadily, throwing up a mist among the volcanic rock, the scrub thickets, the trees. Thunder rumbled faintly to counterpoint the hiss of the downpour.
A lone man climbed carefully up the steep, muddy path toward the top of the mountain, clad in a large oilskin and a wide brimmed bamboo hat to repel the cold water. His face was pale against the dim light fighting its way through the dark clouds. His almond shaped eyes were silver grey, glowing slightly. The long fingers of his left hand curled around the woven grip of a katana, while his right grasped at the branches of the brush lining the path to help him keep his footing on the mud cascading down the incline before him. His backpack and tabi were already soaked but he did not care about that; all would dry quickly when he could get to dry ground.
When he reached a natural landing on the steep stairs he paused and looked out over the island. The green landscape seemed to glow with life beyond the veil of rain, just as it always did to one of his kind. He glanced back up the path and saw that there was only a little way to go before he arrived at the cave. He could not sense anyone about, but that was not unusual. There was little chance of meeting anyone in this inclement weather, and the path was not well known.
The stranger resumed climbing until he reached another landing. Here he found the entrance to the cave he sought. He hesitated. It was not polite to barge in without an announcement, but as it seemed there was no one there to meet him he entered the darkness anyway.
The cave was large, almost warm compared to the outside, but there was no hearthfire nor even a candle lit. The master's small sleeping futon was rolled up and stowed in a corner, and the only other sign that he lived there was the large pot he used for cooking rice, his teapot, and a wooden spoon. His clothing and other personal effects were gone.
The stranger had come too late, and stood silently, wondering what he should do next. He could smell lingering sickness on the cold air, a hint of blood. He knew the master was ill but he did not know for how long. The master had shown only a single moment of weakness in the months he taught the stranger the craft of the sword.
There was a sound of footsteps outside. The stranger flattened himself against the inner wall next to the dripping mouth of the cave and waited. A moment later a man entered and walked toward the hearth, began to pick up the rest of the cooking utensils and then turned around. He looked up startled as he beheld the dark shadow standing before him, and his breath caught in his throat. He peered closely as he said, "who is there? Who are you?"
The stranger moved closer and replied, "it is only me, Teruo," in perfect though accented Japanese. He made a short polite bow.
Teruo's shoulders grew slack. "You startled me, Karasu" he said, as he put the pots down and gave a return bow.
"I returned to see the master," Karasu said. "What has happened?"
The smaller man's voice was sad as he said, "Musashi collapsed soon after you left. He is gravely ill. We took him to the hospice in Ungen so that he could die in comfort. I have returned to collect the rest of his things and take them to his home in Miyamoto."
"I had no idea that he was that far along," Karasu said. "Is he in pain?"
Teruo shrugged. "He hides it well."
Karasu nodded. "I came to say goodbye. I cannot stay, or the daimyos will have my head. They still mistake me for a Christian no matter that I am not. Please do me the honor of conveying my goodbyes and my good wishes for his recovery."
"I will. You are almost as Japanese as the rest of us," Teruo replied.
"I have learned much that is good from your people," Karasu said. "Perhaps one day, when old resentments have passed and it is a new day, I will return to visit."
"If the gods will it," Teruo said with another courteous bow, which Karasu returned. "I must go now. The others are waiting for me on the footpath above. Good fortune to you."
With that, Teruo Nabonojo picked up the pots and exited the cave, leaving Karasu Hane, Alexander Corvina, standing alone in the dark.
He looked around, taking in the smallest detail of the cave to remember. He spotted something lying on the reed mats covering the dirt floor, bent down and picked it up. It was a small horsehair brush for writing, blackened with old dried ink and now discarded as useless. It looked lonely; the single sign of the master's art left. The ink cake and the tray for grinding and preparing the black tempera for dipping in were already gone.
Alexander remembered the day he received instruction in the making of the ink. Musashi had placed a pile of burned vegetable oil mixed with pine resin, powdered onyx and a small amount of camphor onto the grinding tray, which was a large piece of lava worn smooth by rubbing. He took another piece of stone and, stirring the mixture carefully, ground the drying gum until it reached a rich smooth consistency. Then he put the mixture into a small mold made of bamboo and let it rest to dry completely. When the cake was dry he scraped a small amount into a cup and mixed it with water, then dipped the brush into it, bringing up a small amount of black.
"You must apply the ink with smooth but gentle strokes, like this," the master said, as he pointed the brush down and dribbled a tiny amount into a small group of characters. "Never hesitate. Never rush the strokes you use, and never load your brush too heavily with ink or it will form a blot on the paper." Then he pointed the handle toward his pupil and said, "now you try it."
Alexander had taken the brush in his hand with a doubtful glance, but did as he was shown and managed a few clumsy strokes. Mushashi nodded and clapped his hands. "Now, if you would only learn to write as we do, you will indeed become Japanese. But you must study for many years, for our kanja is not easy to learn. Even I have trouble with it from time to time."
No matter. It was a treasure to Alexander, a souvenir of a time which would never come again. He tucked the brush into a fold in his dark grey kimono, hitched his pack higher on his back, and stepped out into the rain once again
After making the long perilous climb down the mountain Alexander walked into the village at its base. The rain had stopped an hour before, and the parting clouds warned of sunshine too soon. He had to find shelter from the unforgiving light before he could go on to the harbor, as his pale skin was sensitive and burned easily. But luck was with him when he found a small sake parlor at the end of the road and entered it.
The manager was a small thin man who was cheerful in greeting until he saw the tall stranger come in through the sliding door and place his pack on the floor. His smile fell as his eyes grew wide with wonder and fear. "Wohhh. You are shimigami. What do you want?" he asked. He backed away from the crude wooden counter between them, his worn features twisting and producing a pronounced squint in one eye.
"Hot sake. Please," Alexander said. "I will pay you well." As he spoke his long fingers withdrew a newly minted copper coin from a pouch in his kimono and placed it slowly and carefully on the counter. "I wish to drink a toast to my sensei before I leave this place."
The older man grunted, approached again and gingerly picked up the piece. He turned it over, then put it in his mouth and bit down, noting the taste. "Ah," he said as he removed it. "Sake. Coming right up." He seemed to recover his cheer quickly, leaving Alexander feeling more content with staying, if only for that hour.
When the sake came to hand Alexander took a tentative sip. The liquid was warm and comforting. His thoughts returned to a time a year before, when he had come to Musashi and begged on hands and knees to receive his instruction in the way of the sword.
He had admired the balance and heft of the katana, an elegant weapon made for a more civilized age. The techniques used were passed down over the generations, and were as artful as the sweeps of ink on the rice paper he saw throughout the land. He had seen other men of Japan wield their katanas with grace and speed, and he knew that his own crude swipes with a cutlass were clumsy and lacked finesse.
Musashi was already an old man and did not want to take on more pupils for fear of leaving the world with one not prepared to fight honorably. But Alexander said that he did not wish to dishonor the name of his family by staying a barbarian. He wished to know the way, and swore on his mother's spirit that he would pass on the tradition to his forebears for the posterity of the art.
It was that last statement that caught Musashi's interest. "You do me an honor by swearing thus, for I am about instructing the future generations of my people in the true way. I dislike the modern ways of warfare. By what name are you called?"
"Alexander Corvina, master," the young man replied.
"You have the aspect of shimigami. Indeed, you are paler than any European I have ever seen," Musashi replied. "You move like a ghost, for I did not hear your feet on the ground outside. Your hair is black and fine like ours, but your eyes are different. What other things must I know before I take you on as my pupil?" He said it without an ounce of fear in his voice, and Alexander thought it a good sign.
"I am but a man like other men, master, but I have certain - peculiarities that I must explain."
"I assure you that I will not share this with anyone else. But I must know your spirit."
Quietly, Alexander spoke of his birth, his family, his need to stay out of the sun, his need for blood. Musashi had listened in silence, and betrayed only a mild look of dismay when he heard the story of Alexander's ascension, the traumatic shock he experienced at learning that he was different from other men; his need to come to terms with his true nature in a world already frightened of other men like him.
When he had finished, Musashi sat quietly contemplating all that he heard. When he spoke his voice was even. "Tell me. Have you ever killed in the taking of blood for your food?"
"With respect, yes," Alexander had replied with his head bowed in shame. "But I had no wish to. I was forced to by the spirit of my own blood. In time I learned to control it, and killed no more."
"And yet, now you wish to learn to kill with a blade in your hand, not with your teeth," Musashi said.
"I am not a killer in my heart. I wish to learn how so that I can know a man's mind when he kills. So that I can defend those I love with skill and honor," Alexander replied.
The older man nodded quietly. "Those are worthy reasons. You appear to be an honest man, and I can always tell when a man lies. I must think on all you have told me. Come again to me tomorrow evening when the sun is down, and I will tell you what I decide."
After making a humble bow Alexander obeyed.
That evening his hunger came again, so he fed his fill on the blood of a deer in the forest, stripped its flesh from the bones, packed it into the last of his rice paper for writing and buried the packets in the snow. Then he retired into the branches of a tree and slept the day there.
When the sun went down and dyed the snows of Fujiyama pink Alexander rose from his sleep, retrieved the packets and took them down to the cave, where he found Musashi resting and cooking rice after a long day of training his two pupils. Alexander laid the packets down on the floor before the master as he went to his knees and bowed forward, touching his head and hands to the reed mat covering the floor. "Please accept this meat, master," he said.
Musashi regarded the packets as if they were gold, put did not make a move toward them. "You honor me with a gift. But a gift will not change my mind," he said.
Thinking that the master was about to turn him down, Alexander replied, "I apologize. I thought only to reward you for listening without prejudice, for I too can tell when a man lies."
Mushashi chuckled. "Share your company with me then, and I will cook this excellent gift. It is not often that I can have a conversation with a man without drawing a sword. You must tell me more about the world beyond the sea, for I have never seen it, and probably never will."
Through the long evening Alexander talked while the old man cooked and consumed the venison and rice he prepared, then shared a small bottle of sake he kept for the rare occasions when he had guests. "The only vice I am permitted, for it is not good to dull the senses," he said. "Do you drink?"
Alexander said, "I allow myself some from time to time. But my blood tells me when it is too much."
Musashi laughed, revealing teeth dull with age. "Other men your age are not as blessed," he said, as he poured a small amount into a cup and passed it to him.
"Some would say it is a curse," Alexander replied soberly.
"Then they would be wrong, for a man's nature is that he is what he is. There is no shame in it. The shame would be for you to abuse the gifts the gods have bestowed upon you by doing things without meaning. By killing without a good reason for doing so. True, when you enter battle you must kill, but you must think differently from what you have been taught about killing. You do not kill a man out of hatred, or disgust, or prejudice, but to stop him from killing you and to win the battle."
Alexander realized then that his instruction had already started during the course of a conversation over dinner, and his blood grew warm with the idea. "Other men kill for those reasons alone. Hatred, prejudice and fear are what drive other countries to war."
"Yes," Musashi agreed as he took a sip of sake.
"But, are you saying that a man must kill another without feeling those things?"
"Yes. Just as one kills animals for nourishment. If you wish to live well you must recognize the difference between the motivations for war and the war itself. The soldier on the battlefield must obey his commander in order to accomplish the goal of stopping an enemy, or to vanquish an enemy. There is no other motivation but that."
"So, when I take a sword into my hand I must not feel those things for my enemy no matter the reason to do battle," Alexander offered.
"Yes. In the heat of the battle there is no time to think about them. When you go to cut an enemy, that is the only thing you must think of, because your enemy will be thinking the same thing."
"What about pity? Compassion?"
Musashi paused before taking another sip of sake and asked, "what about them?"
Alexander said, "is there no room for them when I confront my enemy? I have heard from the Christian missionaries that we must have compassion for the men we kill."
"Perhaps after you have won the battle you may have those feelings, if your opponent is worthy and has fought honorably, even unto his death. There is nothing wrong with that." Musashi followed that with another sip. "Feelings are natural, but a man who has feelings during battle will lose. He becomes too distracted by them, and that is a weakness another can exploit to advantage."
"Ah. I think I understand now," Alexander replied.
"Good." Musashi put down his cup. "And now, it is getting late."
That was Alexander's cue to leave, and he rose to his feet, adjusting the scabbard at his belt. "When may I return, master?"
"Tomorrow evening, after my other pupils retire. I will show you the proper way to hold a sword, and the difference between the blades."
"Thank you, master," Alexander replied as he paid him a courteous bow, and left the shelter of the cave.
That night the moon was full, and as he looked up at the dappled orb Alexander reflected on his lessons. Then he turned his gaze on the four stars that formed the points of the cross his tutors told him of. A pang of longing pierced his soul as his blood remembered where his kind came from. His home was there, a tiny planet orbiting a red giant, a far away speck of light in the dark; never seen but never forgotten.
Yet, Alexander's home was also here, and his body was born of a human woman. His thoughts shifted to the memory of his father.
Lucien's last letter was long overdue and difficult in coming, transported with a priest traveling on a trading ship from China. It was full of regrets at not having the courage to emerge from his isolation; and his sorrow at the death of Alexander's mother. Alexander read the words over and wondered how such loving sorrow could last so long. Surely there was something Lucien could do to assuage his self-appointed guilt, but Alexander did not know what.
- 2 -The next evening Musashi gave a pair of wooden practice swords to Alexander, who had changed from his European clothes into a simple grey kimono shirt and black pleated trousers called hakama in the Japanese manner. His long hair was tucked up into a topknot, though he refrained from putting pomade into it. That was something samurai did, after shaving off a significant portion of hair from the tops of their heads. It was fashion but Alexander did not regard himself as samurai. He could not really do so unless he earned the right, as the classes were subdivided by the rigid wall of social convention and he was still a barbarian from a foreign land.
Musashi looked him up and down with an air of satisfaction. "You have adopted our way of dress well. Your Japanese is still rough but you will learn more as I instruct you. You will become a man of Japan if you take your instruction well, but you do not yet have a proper name."
"A proper name, master?" Alexander said, thinking his own ought to be good enough.
"Your name is too hard to pronounce," Musashi explained.
"Oh. Then what shall I be called, master?"
Just then, a raven appeared on the fly and came to rest on the branches of a tree nearby, calling raucously for its mate. Musashi started at the sound and stood studying the bird. Musashi liked birds, as was apparent from the artwork he left lying around. "Ah. That is what we will call you," Musashi said. "You shall be called Karasu Hane, for the feathers of that bird are like your hair."
"Raven Wing. It has a poetic ring, master," Alexander replied.
"Later I will teach you to compose haiku, if you are of such a mind," Musashi said. "And if you are very good, perhaps we will move on to tanka, which is more difficult."
"Thank you, master," he said with a small bow.
Over the course of the next hour, the master swordsman taught Alexander how to hold his swords, what positions were right to use, how to use his feet. Alexander learned faster than expected, and retained everything he learned, so that Musashi rarely needed to repeat himself.
Then there was a brief bit of sparring, during which Musashi learned something of his pupil. Alexander was a little faster than his other pupils at adapting what he learned into new moves. At one point, Musashi had to raise his hand and say "stop!"
Alexander froze where he was, uncertain. "Did I do something wrong, master?" he asked.
The old man leaned forward, breathing hard, and placed his hand on Alexander's chest. "No," he chuckled. "You are doing far better than I had expected. I am not used to teaching someone like you, and it surprised me." Then he said, "I think that will be all for today. Come to me again tomorrow and we will begin your next lesson."
It was then that Alexander realized that Musashi was ill, but he could not divine the nature of the illness because cancer was not discovered yet, and only a few could recognize the signs. He looked into the dark eyes and saw a fatigue which was not natural, and the blood smelled sweet like apricots. He determined to go more gently on Musashi out of respect. "Thank you, master," he said.
He began to hand back the wooden blades but Musashi said, "they are yours now. When I carved them there was more hair on my head than there is now. Keep them as a gift for being a good and attentive pupil."
Alexander bowed. "I am honored, master."
Gradually, days became weeks, then months, during which time Alexander learned all he could about the way of the sword until his and the master's sword strokes matched to the instant. He came away every evening feeling more content with his own heart, more sure of himself.
He dreaded the moment that he would have to part company with the man who instructed him, and he knew that day was inevitable. He could not help but like Musashi because he was a patient teacher and his spirit was humble. But when he heard in the village that the shogun had commanded that all foreigners should leave the islands of Japan on pain of death, Alexander knew that his happy days of swordplay, calligraphy and poetry were coming swiftly to a close.
Reluctantly, he packed his things together and told Musashi he had to leave. The old man favored him with a small grunt of acceptance, then handed him a pair of steel swords in their scabbards and wrapped in a length of rough homespun silk. "These belonged to my father," Musashi said. "Please do me the honor of wearing them, as I will soon have no need of them myself."
Alexander's fingers trembled as he took the bundle. "You honor me again, master, but I do not deserve this gift. Why do you give them to me? Surely Teruo has earned the right."
"Because of all my pupils you are the only one who taught me that a man from another land can be civilized. I confess now that when I first met you I feared what you were, but you have never given me reason to fear. I can now look upon a foreigner and see the man himself, not the things he has been taught. A valuable lesson indeed, which I will take with me to the grave which is waiting for me."
"If I could change anything about that, you know that I would," Alexander said.
Musashi shrugged and smiled. "It would not profit me to be immortal now. Look at me. I am too old to change, and what woman would have me anyway? No. I prefer to die when I am destined to."
At that, Alexander said he would be back to say goodbye, and left the cave with hopes that Musashi would be there when he returned.
He went down to the harbor and arranged for a ship to take him to Manchuria, which was the only port of call the ship was going to. From there he would have to hire another ship or travel by land in a caravan, but those details were far from his thoughts just then. Since the ship would not leave until for the next two days, Alexander spent time hiking in the woods after leaving the empty cave, then went back to the village to wait.
He had become so comfortable with his own skin that he forgot what he looked like, until he ran into a group of young men carousing down the narrow street running through the center.
One of them stopped and stared as he passed by, then called out, "shimigami! What mischief do you bring here!?"
The words stopped Alexander in his tracks. He turned slightly and saw the drunken eyes confronting him with an accusing stare. The mistake he made was in looking back without fear. "You mistake me for someone else," he said, then turned away and began to walk on.
"Oh! Then you must be one of those white devils. Gaijin. What are you doing dressing like us?" the youth replied loudly.
Alexander froze again, sensing that a confrontation was inevitable. As he turned around to face the boy his right hand went for the grip of the katana tucked against his abdomen, while his left thumb eased the blade out of the scabbard an inch.
"That is not your concern. By what authority do you ask? Are you a vassal of the lord of this province?" he asked.
"I am the boss here. I asked you a question. You will answer," the boy demanded, "or I will cut your ears off."
As Musashi had taught him, Alexander said not a word in reply but sized up his challenger. His opponent was thin and rangy, and tottered slightly where he stood, fighting to keep his balance. His eyes were glazed over with an alcoholic fog, and his mouth was slack. Even at that distance, the scent of fermented rice alcohol was hard to ignore.
The drunken youth did not keep him waiting long. He staggered back to get his distance while his companions moved into a rough semicircle to watch, but none dared to try and stop him. His sword came out of his scabbard without much grace at all. He raised it with both hands and ran forward with a high shriek to bring the force of his misguided hatred down on the stranger's head with the blade.
Alexander merely waited, and when the youth was in range, leaned into the attack as his sword came out in a flash and dashed the other blade aside. The steel resonated strangely and almost sang when it made contact. Then he angled the point of the blade forward and pierced the boy's sword arm with a single short stab.
The youth's eyes went wide with surprise. He staggered back and nearly fell, dropping his sword as he clutched at the wound staining his kimono sleeve dark with blood. His companions began moving toward Alexander, but he stepped back and said, "take your drunken friend home. I have no quarrel with you." His voice rang clear but echoed slightly in the darkness, lending an even more ghostly effect to his appearance.
The other young men paused, then thought better of attacking and went to help their friend. Emboldened by drunken anger and wounded pride, the boy struggled with them, shouting that he wanted to kill the stranger for his insolence, but they quietly dragged him away before he could follow through.
Alexander calmly flicked the blood from his blade with a quick dash, then resheathed it with reverence and walked on.
His thoughts returned to the present, just in time as the panel behind him slid open and three men entered the shack. The leader rested his eyes on the gaijin in front of him and said, "you are the stranger that fought with a young man but an hour ago? What is your name?"
The hand that held the cup froze in midair. Alexander turned his head slightly as he replied, "I am known as Karasu Hane to my friends. Yes. He provoked the fight. He was drunk. I was forced to defend myself."
The leader said, "I understand. He is the son of the prefect here, and has been known to challenge other men to fight before. His father views any resistance to his son's volatile nature as an insult. Finish your drink, but you must be gone from the village by dawn."
"Then I will be happy to accommodate you, because my ship sails in yet another hour," Alexander said. "Thank you for the warning."
"Good," the man said. "I will leave you in peace, then." With that, he threw a glance around the shop and then led his friends out.
The old shopkeeper looked out the open door after them and said, "how rude. They did not even stop to buy anything."
Alexander smiled. "Would you rather they had attacked me, and destroyed your shop in the process? I was prepared to fight."
"No. You are right," the old man said. "More sake?" His face was hopeful, showing that he had a short list of regular customers.
Alexander shook his head, then finished the cup, gave the keeper a generous tip and disappeared out the door.
He made his way quickly toward the harbor and the ship that was waiting for him. He found a tackle hut and entered it to change back into his European clothes. He took down his hair and put on his cloth hat, discarded the kimono but tucked the swords into his pack for safekeeping. Then he walked toward the gangplank and boarded the sloop that would take him away from Japan.
By the dawn, Alexander Corvina gave a last lingering look at the snow-capped peak that was Mt. Fujiyama, then retreated from the light of the rising sun before it caught him.
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