Lady Sanjo looked after them with pinched lips, then turned angrily on Toshiko.  “Well, I assume he’s had his way.  You might have handled this more discreetly.  I’ll send a maid to clean up.”

Toshiko was at the end of her patience.  She rose to confront the other woman.  “He has not had his way, as you put it.  But I see I was right.  You did arrange this visit,” she said though gritted teeth.  “His Majesty will hear of it.  I do not feel safe here any longer.”

Lady Sanjo glowered.  “How dare you?  Go and tell His Majesty and see whom He believes.  We saw both of you half naked.  Don’t think for a moment that His Majesty has regard for every young strumpet that warms his bed.  He is tired of you already, my girl.  And in your case, He did not think enough of the liaison to set you up in separate quarters.  Should you find yourself with child, don’t expect Him to acknowledge it.  What happened here tonight will convince Him of your low character.”  And with that, she slammed out of the room.

Toshiko was stunned by her words.  The unfairness of her situation filled her with despair.  It was not Lady Sanjo who was her most dangerous enemy; it was the emperor Himself.  Her sacrifice had been for nothing; she was no better in His eyes than a woman of pleasure.  He had brought her here and dressed her up in the shirabyoshi costume because that was how He had thought of her.  She was no more than a harlot to Him.

As the maid helped her change out of her bloodstained under robe and gathered the soiled bedding, she pondered her future.  When she was alone again, she brought a candle closer, took out her writing box, and wrote a brief note, begging His Majesty for an audience.  She intended to ask His permission to return home.

But the next day an answer from His secretary arrived, refusing her request with the explanation that His Majesty was too busy with the details of the move.  She was referred to Lady Sanjo instead.  Naturally, she did not avail herself of this recourse but stayed well clear of that lady and the others.

A servant brought her food to the eave chamber, but otherwise she was left alone.  The afternoon after her disturbed night, she heard hammering in the courtyard and peered out.  Workmen were doing something to the outside of the gate.  After dark, she slipped out to check it.  The gate had been nailed shut.  She had become a prisoner.

Soon after she fell ill.

The Dojo

Akogi ran a motherly hand through Hachiro’s tousled hair.  “Come, eat another bean cake.  You’re a growing boy and need your strength.  I bet they don’t feed you anything this good at home.”

Hachiro ate well at home, but he was always hungry these days.  His body seemed to crave food.  Food and sleep were the two things he could not seem to get enough of.

He devoured the cake and wiped his hands on his school robe.  Akogi was right.  Old Otori never offered him cakes filled with sweet bean paste and seemed to begrudge him even his bowl of gruel in the morning.  How that woman hated him!  Akogi was different.  She smiled all the time and was soft and round while Otori was as bony as a rake.  To his amazement, she did not seem to mind his ugliness or his sullen moods.  Still, he guarded against liking her too much.  People could not be trusted.  You had to grab what you could and run.

In a way, his adoption was no different from the bean cake offered by Akogi.  Hachiro accepted the benefits of his new status but he remained vigilant.  Otori’s hatred and the doctor’s dislike of him proved daily that life was still fraught with the same dangers he faced in the streets.

Master Soma was a different matter.  Master Soma deserved respect and obedience.  This had nothing to do with the fact that his students had dragged Hachiro from the frigid waters of the Kamo River and everything with Master Soma’s school.  Hachiro dreamed of becoming a famous swordsman and spent part of every day in the dojo now.

His tough childhood had already taught him the value of being smarter, quicker, and more aggressive than his enemies.  The same skills were practiced here and could win him the respect that was so lacking in his own life.  He was determined to master the art of the sword.

Swordsmanship occupied his every thought, even at the monastery school. There he was made to learn Chinese characters and to wield the brush smoothly and neatly.  He loved particularly the characters for ken, the sword and kata, the move.  Do signified the Way and shi the Master.  He practiced writing “The Way is wherever I am” over and over again, until the monk who taught the use of the brush told his fellow monks that this Hachiro must be spiritually gifted and destined to enter the Buddha’s way.

When he had heard about Togoro’s fate, he had been sick.  The sight and thought of food made him ill for days.  He slept little and had nightmares of being cast into a hell where the judge of the underworld had the doctor’s face and condemned him to be beaten by a devil with Togoro’s horribly distorted features.  During the days that followed, he moved between the doctor’s house and the temple school in a waking nightmare.  When he passed the great pagoda every day, he thought again about killing himself.  Once or twice he climbed halfway up but turned around and came back down.  He told no one what he had done.

But Master Soma could see into his soul.  One day, after the students had left and Hachiro was putting away mats and wooden swords, the Master said, “Hachiro, come here a moment.”

Hachiro knelt and bowed, his heart pounding that the Master should speak to him.

“You like what we do here?”

He clenched his hands and gasped, “Oh, yes, Master.”

“What troubles you?”

One could not lie to this man, so Hachiro looked down and said nothing, but hot tears came to his eyes.  He knew how unworthy he was, how even his presence was a contamination of this place.  If he revealed his guilt, the Master would make him leave.

There was a long silence, but just when Hachiro had made up his mind that he must go anyway and never come here again, the Master said, “It is possible to enter the Way even when you think you are lost.  Look up at the scroll on the wall. That is the meaning of the words: The Way is wherever I am.”

Hachiro looked at the characters through blurred eyes.  “I’m not worthy of being where you are, Master,” he said.  “I don’t belong here.  I don’t belong anywhere.”

The Master laughed softly.  “You misunderstand.  That ‘I’ means everyone who is looking for the Way.  I think you have been looking but without knowing that you found it.  Would you like to become my student?”

Hachiro’s eyes widened, and he drew in his breath sharply.  He looked from the Master around the dojo, turning his head slowly from the racks of weapons on his left to the kamiza --the deity’s place -- with the scroll and the Master’s seat, and then to the wall on the right, the place for the dummy used in practice.  His heart almost burst with desire.  “Oh, Master!” he said fervently.  But sadness extinguished the spark of joy at having been asked.  “It is impossible.”

“Will you tell me why?”

Hachiro talked about the doctor and the adoption, of how he had been coming here in secret, and how he would never be allowed to become Master Soma’s student because the doctor hated killing.  He did not mention the other, more grievous, obstacle.

Master Soma listened and accepted the impossibility.  He said no more, and nothing changed.  Hachiro accepted his disappointment as punishment for what he had done, but he kept coming to watch the lessons and the practice sessions, and to clean the dojo every day.

He learned much, and sometimes after he was finished with the cleaning chores, he would select one of the smaller swords and practice.  One day a new student saw him and offered him a practice bout.  The student was much older than Hachiro, but Hachiro disarmed him easily and explained what he had done wrong.  The student told others, and Hachiro found himself challenged to one practice session after another.  He won most of them.