A Tale of Vendetta

The Beginning

Among the retainers of the Hosokawa house in Higo, there was a samurai named Taoka Jintayu. He had formerly been a masterless samurai of the Ito family in Hyuga, but through the recommendation of Naito Sanzaemon, who at the time had risen to the post of chief steward in the Hosokawa household, he had been summoned into service and granted a new stipend of one hundred and fifty koku.

Now in the spring of Kanbun 7, at a martial-arts tournament among the retainers, Jintayu, competing in his principal art of spear fighting, struck down no fewer than six opponents. Lord Etchu no Kami Tsunatoshi himself was present with the senior elders, and so splendid was Jintayu's spearwork that he called for a match in swordsmanship as well. Jintayu took up the bamboo sword and beat three more samurai. For the fourth bout, his opponent was Senuma Hyoe, the man who instructed the young retainers of the house in the Shinkage style of swordsmanship. Thinking of the instructor's dignity, Jintayu meant to let Hyoe win. Yet he also wanted to lose gracefully enough that perceptive spectators would understand he had yielded the victory. Hyoe, facing Jintayu, instantly sensed that attitude and suddenly took a hatred to him. So when Jintayu deliberately went on the defensive, Hyoe furiously thrust straight in. The blow struck Jintayu hard in the throat, and he fell backward on the spot. The sight of it was painfully ugly. Though Tsunatoshi praised his spear technique, after that match he remained distinctly displeased and did not offer Jintayu a single word of commendation.

Before long, the way Jintayu had lost became the target of malicious gossip. "If Jintayu goes onto the battlefield and his spear shaft is chopped in two, what will he do then? Poor fellow, they say he cannot even handle a bamboo sword properly." Such rumors, no one knew from whom, spread through the whole household in an instant. Of course, mixed in were the jealousy and envy of his peers. But from the standpoint of Naito Sanzaemon, who had recommended him, it was impossible to remain silent before Tsunatoshi. So he summoned Jintayu and said heatedly, "If you suffer so disgraceful a defeat, it will not end with merely proving that I misjudged you. Either you must fight another best-of-three match, or I shall have to commit seppuku as my apology to our lord." Jintayu, too, could not maintain a samurai's honor merely by ignoring the household gossip. At once, carrying out Sanzaemon's wishes, he submitted a petition requesting another best-of-three match with the instructor, Senuma Hyoe.

Before many days had passed, the two were to have a formal match before Tsunatoshi. In the first bout Jintayu struck Hyoe's wrist. In the second, Hyoe struck Jintayu's head. But in the third, Jintayu once more landed a heavy blow on Hyoe's wrist. To reward Jintayu, Tsunatoshi ordered an increase of fifty koku to his stipend. Hyoe, rubbing the arm that had swollen up like a welted earthworm, withdrew dejectedly from before his lord.

Three or four days later, on a rainy night, another retainer named Kano Heitaro was attacked from ambush outside the wall of Saiganji Temple. Heitaro was an elderly chamberlain with a stipend of two hundred koku, a man skilled with the brush and abacus; judging even from his usual conduct, he was by no means the kind of person to incur deadly hatred. But the next day, when it became known that Hyoe had fled, the identity of the assailant was finally clear. Though Jintayu and Heitaro differed considerably in age, they were much alike in build. On top of that, both bore the same family crest, ginger enclosed in a circle. First Hyoe had been misled by the crest on the lantern carried by the attendant who lit the rainy road at night; then, seeing Heitaro under his rain cape and umbrella, he had rashly mistaken the old man for Jintayu and killed him.

At that time Heitaro had a legitimate son of seventeen named Kyuma. Kyuma promptly obtained official permission and, together with a young attendant named Egoshi Kisaburo, set out on a vendetta journey in accordance with the custom of warriors of the time. Perhaps because he could not escape a sense of responsibility for Heitaro's death, Jintayu also asked leave to travel as their guardian. At the same time, a samurai named Tsuzaki Sakon, who had sworn brotherhood with Kyuma, likewise petitioned to accompany them as an assisting swordsman. Tsunatoshi, finding Jintayu's conduct admirable, granted his request, but did not accept Sakon's.

After observing the seventh-day memorial for his father Heitaro, Kyuma left the castle town of Kumamoto, where the cherry blossoms of the warm south had already long since scattered, accompanied by Jintayu and Kisaburo.

One

When Tsuzaki Sakon had his petition to serve as second refused, he shut himself up at home for two or three days. It was deeply painful to him to make waste paper of the written oath he had exchanged beforehand with Kyuma. Nor was it entirely unfounded for him to fear that his comrades might point behind his back. But harder to bear than any of that was the thought of entrusting his sworn friend Kyuma to Jintayu alone. So on the night the vendetta party left the castle town of Kumamoto, he finally left a letter behind at home and, without even telling his parents, ran away to follow them.

Once he had crossed the provincial border, he quickly caught up with the party. At the time they were resting at a teahouse in a mountain post-station. Sakon first knelt before Jintayu and earnestly begged, again and again, to be allowed to travel with them. At first Jintayu replied sourly, "Do you think my martial skill too unreliable?" and showed no sign of readily agreeing. But in the end he relented, and with Kisaburo's mediation, while glancing sidelong at Kyuma's face, consented to let Sakon join them. Kyuma, still wearing his forelocks and so frail he looked almost like a girl, could not hide how much he wanted Sakon added to their company. Overjoyed, Sakon had tears in his eyes and repeated his words of thanks again and again, even to Kisaburo.

The four travelers knew that Hyoe's sister's husband served in the Asano house, so they first crossed the Seto at Moji Seki and made the long journey along the Chugoku highway up to the castle town of Hiroshima. But while staying there and searching for the enemy's whereabouts, they learned from the casual talk of a seamstress woman who came and went among the houses of samurai retainers that, after coming once to Hiroshima, Hyoe had secretly departed for Matsuyama in Iyo, where his brother-in-law had acquaintances. So the vendetta party at once found passage on an Iyo boat and, in the height of summer of Kanbun 7, entered the castle town of Matsuyama without incident.

Once in Matsuyama, they pulled their woven sedge hats low every day and walked about searching for the enemy's trail. But Hyoe, it seemed, was exceedingly cautious, and did not easily expose where he was. Once Sakon fixed his eye on a ronin-looking fellow who resembled Hyoe and made various inquiries, but in the end it turned out the man was a complete stranger. Meanwhile the autumn wind had already begun to rise, and outside the warrior windows of the samurai quarter in the castle town, the color of the water gradually spread out from beneath the algae that had clogged the ditches. With that, impatience steadily stirred in the hearts of the party. Sakon in particular grew desperate for an encounter and prowled about in and outside Matsuyama almost day and night. The first stroke in the vendetta had to be his. If Jintayu should get there before him, then as a samurai who had abandoned even his lord and parents to join the company, he would lose all face. Such was the fixed resolve in his heart.

A little more than two months after arriving in Matsuyama, his efforts bore fruit. One day, passing along the coast near the castle town, Sakon came upon two young attendants accompanying a closed palanquin, hurrying fishermen to ready a boat. Presently the preparations seemed complete, and the samurai in the palanquin stepped out. He at once put on a sedge hat, but the face Sakon glimpsed for an instant could only have been Senuma Hyoe. Sakon hesitated for a moment. It was maddening that Kyuma was not there to witness this. But if he did not strike now, Hyoe would slip away again somewhere else. And if he escaped by sea, there was no doubt they would be unable to trace where he had gone. He would have to announce himself and fight, even alone. Reaching that decision in an instant, Sakon flung off his hat as if begrudging even the time to compose himself and, drawing his sword, sprang forward shouting, "Senuma Hyoe! Do you remember me? I am Tsuzaki Sakon, sworn elder brother to Kano Kyuma, here to aid his revenge!" But the other man, still wearing his hat, looked at Sakon without any sign of agitation and rebuked him: "Fool. You've got the wrong man." Sakon involuntarily faltered. At that instant the samurai's hand went to his hilt, and with a great sweeping stroke of his heavy sword he cut Sakon down. As Sakon collapsed backward, he was finally able to see clearly beneath the hat pulled low over the man's face the unmistakable features of Senuma Hyoe.

Two

The three who survived Sakon then spent nearly two years tracing their enemy Hyoe's movements, wandering through the Five Home Provinces and along the Tokaido, searching almost every corner. But no word of Hyoe was heard again.

In the autumn of Kanbun 9, together with the descending geese, they at last set foot in Edo. Since Edo was a place where men and women of every province, age, and rank gathered, it seemed likely to offer many conveniences for seeking clues to their foe. So they first took temporary lodgings in a backstreet of Kanda. Then Jintayu disguised himself as a masterless samurai chanting suspicious ballads while begging for alms, Kyuma became a peddler going around town houses with a box of small goods on his back, and Kisaburo entered the service of a hatamoto named Nose Soemon as a sandal bearer on a fixed term.

Kyuma wandered the city every day separately from Jintayu. Seasoned and worldly, Jintayu, receiving copper coins in his broken fan, patiently watched the bustling quarters and showed no sign of wearying. But young Kyuma, hiding his worn face beneath his sedge hat, would sink into loneliness, feeling that their vendetta was likely to end in futility after all, even as he crossed Nihonbashi in the clear autumn weather.

As the Tsukuba wind gradually sharpened with cold, Kyuma began at times to run a fever from a lingering chill. Yet even while pushing himself through fits of sickness, he continued day after day to shoulder his wares and go out trading. Whenever Jintayu saw Kisaburo, he would always speak of Kyuma's admirable spirit, often bringing tears to the eyes of this loyal attendant who cared so deeply for his young master. Yet neither of them noticed the loneliness of Kyuma, who lacked even the means to rest quietly and nurse his illness.

Then came the spring of Kanbun 10. Around that time, unbeknownst to anyone, Kyuma began visiting the pleasure quarter of Yoshiwara. The woman was a courtesan of the Izumiya house named Kaede, one of the so-called sancha girls. But she set aside her professional manner and devoted herself sincerely to Kyuma. And only while he was with Kaede was he able, if only a little, to free himself from the desolate heaviness in his heart.

When the fame of the Konno cherry trees in Shibuya was filling the second floor of the public bathhouse with talk, moved by Kaede's sincerity, he finally confided to her the grave matter of his vendetta. To his surprise, she told him that a samurai much like Hyoe had come to the Izumiya about a month earlier together with samurai from the Matsue domain. Fortunately, since Kaede had drawn lots to serve that samurai, she remembered quite clearly not only his face but even the things he carried. More than that, she had happened to overhear that within two or three days he was planning to leave Edo and head for Matsue in Izumo. Kyuma, of course, was overjoyed. But when he thought that in order to set out once more on the journey of revenge he would have to part from Kaede for a long while, perhaps forever, his heart did not rise bravely to it. That day, with her beside him, he drank to an unusual excess. And when he returned to the lodging, he immediately vomited a great quantity of blood.

From the next day onward, Kyuma took to his pillow. But for some reason he did not say a single word to Jintayu about the fact that he had now more or less learned the enemy's whereabouts. Whenever he could spare time from begging, Jintayu devoted himself to nursing Kyuma. Yet one day, after roaming around places like the theater district in Fukiya-cho, he came back to the lodging at dusk to find that Kyuma, clutching a farewell letter in his teeth, had already met a pitiful end before the lit lamp, with his sword driven into his belly. Though naturally stunned, Jintayu opened the letter at once. In it were written the enemy's whereabouts and the details of Kyuma's suicide. "As for myself, being weak in spirit, frail, and often ill, I fear I cannot accomplish the cherished aim of the vendetta..." That was the whole account. But among the bloodstained papers there was another letter rolled up inside. When Jintayu read through it, he slowly drew the lamp toward him and touched its flame to the paper wick. The fire flared up, burning the page and lighting Jintayu's bitter face.

The paper was one sheet of the written pledge Kyuma had exchanged with Kaede that spring, promising themselves to each other for the next life.

Three

In the summer of Kanbun 10, Jintayu, together with Kisaburo, entered the castle town of Matsue in Izumo. When they first stood on Ohashi Bridge and gazed at the mountain-like masses of cloud gathered in the sky above Lake Shinji, the hearts of both men were stirred, as if by prior agreement, with a tragic exaltation. After all, since leaving their native Kumamoto, this made the fourth summer they had greeted beneath the sky of travel.

First they took lodging at an inn near Kyobashi, and from the very next day began as before to watch for the enemy's whereabouts. Then, just as autumn was beginning to set in, it came to light that a samurai like Hyoe was being hidden at the residence of a man named Onchi Kozaemon, who was teaching the Fuden style of swordsmanship to retainers of the Matsudaira house. The two now believed their long-cherished wish would at last be fulfilled. Indeed, they believed it could not fail to be fulfilled. Jintayu especially, from the day he learned this, was unable at times to suppress surges of rage and joy. Hyoe was no longer only the enemy of Heitaro; he was also the enemy of Sakon and of Kyuma. But even before that, he was Jintayu's own bitter foe, the man who over these three years had made him taste so many hardships. Thinking thus, Jintayu, ordinarily so self-possessed, felt at moments as though he wanted to storm straight into Onchi's residence and settle matters at once.

But Onchi Kozaemon was a renowned swordsman throughout the San'in region. Accordingly, he also had many disciples at his disposal as hands and feet. So, though chafing inwardly, Jintayu had no choice but to wait for a chance when Hyoe would go out alone.

That chance did not come easily. Hyoe seemed to keep himself shut up in the residence almost night and day. Meanwhile, in the garden of their inn the crape myrtle blossoms had already fallen, and the sunlight dropping on the stepping stones was gradually beginning to weaken. In the midst of this painful impatience, they came to the death anniversary of Sakon, who had been cut down in a return stroke three years earlier. That night Kisaburo knocked at the gate of nearby Shoko-in and had the priest perform Buddhist rites. But, fearing what might happen, he did not reveal Sakon's lay name. Yet in the main hall of the temple there were, unexpectedly, memorial tablets bearing the lay names of both Sakon and Heitaro. After the service was over, Kisaburo casually asked one of the acolytes about those tablets. More surprising still, the reply was that a retainer of Onchi Kozaemon, a parishioner of Shoko-in, unfailingly came twice a month on the death days to offer memorial prayers. "He came earlier today too," the acolyte added, apparently suspecting nothing. As Kisaburo left the temple gate, he could not help feeling strengthened, as though the spirits of the Kano father and son and of Sakon were granting them aid from the other world.

As Jintayu listened to Kisaburo's story, he rejoiced at the arrival of heaven-sent fortune and at the same time bitterly regretted that they had never before noticed Hyoe's temple visits. "In eight more days it will be our great patron's death day. That the enemy may be struck on that very day must be some bond of fate," Kisaburo said, bringing his happy account to an end. Jintayu felt the same. After that, the two sat around the lamp all through the night, speaking at length of Sakon and of the Kano father and son. But both men had entirely forgotten to consider what it meant that Hyoe himself was mourning for their souls.

Heitaro's death day drew nearer day by day. Matching their sharpened blades together, the two waited calmly for the day. Now the vendetta was no longer a matter of success or failure. All that remained unresolved was that day itself, that hour itself. Jintayu had even thought out the route of escape after fulfilling his desire.

At last the morning of that day came. Before dawn had broken, the two dressed themselves by lamplight. Jintayu wore black pongee lined kimono over fitted trousers of iris-dyed leather, and beneath a crested haori of the same pongee he slung a narrow leather sash across his body. His long sword was a Hasebe Norinaga blade, his short sword a Rai Kunitoshi. Kisaburo did not wear a haori, but underneath he had wound extra clothing about himself. After exchanging cups of chilled sake and settling their account up to that day, the two strode out through the inn gate.

Outside, there was still hardly anyone about. Even so, hiding their faces beneath sedge hats, they made for the gate of Shoko-in, which they had already fixed upon as the place for the vendetta. But after they had gone only a block or two from the inn, Jintayu suddenly stopped and said, "Wait. This morning's bill was short four mon in change. I'm going back now to collect the rest." Kisaburo, exasperated, said, "It is no more than four paltry mon. There is no reason for you to go back." He wanted to hurry on to Shoko-in, which was almost under their noses. But Jintayu would not listen. "It is not that I begrudge the copper coins. But if it were said that a samurai like Jintayu lost his composure before a vendetta and blundered over an inn bill, it would be a disgrace for all posterity. You go on ahead. I shall turn back to the inn." With that he turned back alone. Kisaburo, admiring Jintayu's resolve, hurried on by himself to the appointed place.

Before long, however, Jintayu too joined Kisaburo, who was waiting before the gate of Shoko-in. That day thin clouds drifted across the sky; though there was a dim sunlight, rain fell from time to time. Standing apart on opposite sides, the two paced outside the temple wall, where the leaves of the jujube tree had yellowed, eagerly awaiting Hyoe's visit.

But even when it drew near noon, Hyoe still had not appeared. Growing impatient, Kisaburo casually asked the temple gatekeeper whether Hyoe had come to worship. Yet the gatekeeper's answer was only that, yes, what could have happened today, he still had not come.

The two quieted their anxious hearts and stood motionless outside the temple. In the meantime time passed without mercy, and at last, together with the colors of evening, the cawing of crows pecking down the jujube fruit echoed lonely through the air. Beside himself with worry, Kisaburo drew near Jintayu and whispered, "Shall we go outside Onchi's residence instead?" But Jintayu shook his head and showed no sign of consenting.

Soon, in the sky above the temple gate, sparse stars began to glimmer between the clouds massed thickly overhead. Yet Jintayu, leaning against the wall, stubbornly kept waiting for Hyoe. In truth, for a man like Hyoe, burdened with enemies, it was entirely possible that he might come late at night and make his devotions unseen.

At last the bell for the first watch sounded. Then the bell for the second watch. The two men, drenched with dew, still did not leave the temple grounds.

But however long they waited, Hyoe never showed himself in the end.

The Grand Finale

Jintayu and his retainer changed lodgings and continued to stalk Hyoe. But four or five days later, starting suddenly in the middle of the night, Jintayu was seized by violent vomiting and diarrhea. Kisaburo, sick with worry, wanted to summon a doctor at once, but the patient, fearing the matter would become known, would not permit it.

Jintayu remained sunk on his pillow, living from day to day on patent medicines. But the vomiting and diarrhea did not stop. Kisaburo finally could bear it no longer and at last persuaded him, at least, to let a doctor feel his pulse. So for the time being he had the innkeeper fetch the physician who usually attended the inn. The innkeeper immediately sent someone running to call a doctor named Matsuki Rantai, who practiced nearby.

Rantai had studied under Mukai Reiran and was a highly renowned man in Kamigata. At the same time, however, he also had something of the rough, heroic temperament about him, and though he drank day and night, he cared nothing for gold or silver. “Whether soaring above the clouds of heaven or crossing the waters of the valley, that too is the duty of the crane” he once sang of himself; and indeed those who sought his medicine ranged from the senior retainers of an entire domain down to beggars and outcasts barely able to cling to life.

Rantai did not even need to take Jintayu’s pulse before pronouncing it a case of dysentery. Yet even after he began taking the medicine of this famous physician, Jintayu’s illness did not improve. While nursing him, Kisaburo prayed with all his heart to every Buddha and every god for Jintayu’s recovery. And the sick man too, as he lay through the long autumn nights smelling the steam of the medicine boiling by his pillow, kept praying that somehow he might remain alive until he had fulfilled the desire he had cherished for so many years.

Autumn deepened further. On his way to Rantai’s house to fetch medicine, Kisaburo often saw flocks of waterfowl crossing the sky. Then one day, in the entrance hall of Rantai’s house, he happened upon another retainer who had likewise come to collect medicine. From the man’s conversation with one of Rantai’s resident disciples, it became plain enough that he belonged to the household of Onchi Kozaemon. After the man had left, Kisaburo turned to the disciple he knew and said, “It seems even a warrior such as Lord Onchi cannot defeat illness.”

“No, the patient is not Lord Onchi. It is a guest staying there.”

The good-natured disciple answered without a thought.

From then on, whenever he went to fetch medicine, Kisaburo casually tried to learn how Hyoe was doing. Little by little, by drawing people out, he discovered that Hyoe had been suffering from the same dysentery as Jintayu ever since around Heitaro’s death anniversary. If that was so, then the reason Hyoe had failed to appear at Shoko-in on that particular day must certainly have been his illness. When Jintayu heard this, his suffering became all the harder to bear. If Hyoe were to die of sickness, then naturally, no matter how much he wished it, he would never be able to strike down his enemy. But even if Hyoe lived, if Jintayu himself were to die, the hardships of all those long years would still come to nothing. At last, biting down on his pillow, he found himself forced to pray not only for his own recovery but for the recovery of his enemy as well, Senuma Hyoe.

But fate remained utterly cruel to Taoka Jintayu. His illness grew heavier and heavier, and before even ten days had passed since he began taking Rantai’s medicine, he had fallen into a state in which it was a question of whether he would survive the day or the next. Even amid such agony, he did not let go of his obsession with vengeance. In the midst of his groaning, Kisaburo often heard the faint words “Great Bodhisattva Hachiman” slip from his lips. One night in particular, when Kisaburo as usual urged the medicine on him, Jintayu stared at him and said in a weak voice, “Kisaburo.” After a while he added, “I begrudge my life.” Kisaburo, with both hands on the tatami, could not even raise his face.

The next day, Jintayu suddenly decided to have Kisaburo fetch Rantai. Rantai, smelling of drink that day as well, promptly came to visit his sickbed.

“Doctor, for your long and constant care, Jintayu is deeply obliged.”

At the sight of Rantai’s face, he forced himself upright in bed and said this with difficulty.

“But while breath still remains in me, there is one matter I would beg of you after seeing you here. Will you hear my request?”

Rantai nodded readily. Thereupon Jintayu, speaking in broken fragments, began to explain in detail the story of his pursuit of Senuma Hyoe in vengeance. His voice was faint, yet even through the length of the tale his words never once showed confusion. Rantai listened intently, his brows knit. At last, when the story was done, Jintayu, already gasping, said:

“As a final remembrance in this life, I wish to hear of Hyoe’s condition. Is Hyoe still alive?”

Kisaburo was already weeping. When Rantai heard those words, he too seemed unable to hold back his tears. Yet he moved forward on his knees, brought his mouth close to the sick man’s ear, and said:

“Set your mind at ease. Lord Hyoe breathed his last this very morning, in the Hour of the Tiger. I, this old fool, witnessed it with my own eyes.”

A smile rose on Jintayu’s face. At the same time, cold tracks of tears showed on his wasted cheeks.

“Hyoe... Hyoe was a fortunate man...”

Muttering this in bitter regret, Jintayu bowed his disordered head over the bedding, perhaps intending to thank Rantai. Then at last he was gone...

At the end of the tenth month of the lunar calendar in the tenth year of Kanbun, Kisaburo took leave of Rantai alone and set out on the journey back to his native Kumamoto. Inside the divided carrying boxes of his luggage were the locks of hair left by Kyuma, Sakon, and Jintayu.

Postscript

In the first month of the eleventh year of Kanbun, four stone grave markers were erected in the cemetery of Shoko-in in Matsue, Unshu. The patron had evidently kept the matter strictly secret, and no one knew who it was. But when those stone markers were set up, two figures in monks’ robes, carrying branches of red plum blossom, passed through the gate of Shoko-in early in the morning.

One of them could be none other than Matsuki Rantai, famous throughout the castle town. The other, though wasted and senile almost beyond recognition, still bore in his dignified manner something unmistakably samurai-like. The two offered the red plum branches before the graves. Then they poured water in turn over each of the four new stone markers...

In later years, among the assembly under Obaku Eirin, there was an old monk who closely resembled that sickly, senile monk of those days. Beyond the monastic name Junkaku, however, nothing at all was known of his origins.

(April 1920)