to behead him with one powerful swing of his long sword.
Chapter Three
“Why aren’t you with our master?” was Oishi’s first angry response when the dirty, sweat-covered Hara was brought before him in the middle of the night. In the old warrior’s present condition he was a disgrace to the rank of samurai, and Oishi suffered the shame he knew Lord Asano would feel to see one of his men like this. But at Hara’s first wild-eyed cry, when the servant who had brought him was gone, such trivial considerations were forgotten.
“Our master is dead,” Hara blurted out, “and the castle is to be confiscated!”
Oishi felt as though water had been poured into his ears while he was asleep. He was stunned, speechless, sure that he must still be asleep and dreaming the most horrible dream imaginable. He wanted to call out to Hara to say no more, but he forced himself to listen, incredible as it all seemed. Lord Asano had been like his brother; his loss was insupportable.
Hara, kneeling on the floor of the anteroom, rocked his head alternately down and up again as he sobbed out his story while the ungainly Mimura, who had accompanied him, nodded tearfully.
“It was Kira who did it! Kira, the court Master of Cere-monies, who provoked our master into an attack in the castle. Our master was forced to draw his sword and strike him down, even though he knew as we all do the penalty for drawing one’s sword in the castle of the Shogun!”
“And the sentence was carried out so soon?” Oishi cried, even as he took a silent oath of vengeance against those responsible.
“The same day,” Hara said hopelessly. “Before we even knew what was happening.”
“What about Lady Asano?” Oishi asked quickly. “Do you know what’s happened to her?”
“Gone,” said Hara with a sob. “As soon as our Lord was dead, the soldiers of the court came to the mansion and confiscated everything. All of us were turned out and Lady Asano was sent back to her parents’ home. She is not to return to Ako or attempt to contact any member of the family on pain of death.”
Oishi felt a stab at his heart as he thought of the little girl asleep in a nearby room, waiting trustfully for her mother and father. Suddenly he was overwhelmed by the enormity of the tragedy that had struck at the house of Asano and all its members. He turned to Mimura and sent him to fetch old Chuzaemon Yoshida, one of the elder samurai of Ako whose counsel would be welcome.
“How did you learn all this?” Oishi asked Hara, who was now beginning to show extreme fatigue after his arduous journey.
“Kataoka was there when our master committed seppuku at Lord Tamura’s—at least he was permitted that kind of death. The rest of us were too late. The palanquin bearers were delayed in the crowded streets and when we got the message, we went there but it was all over. We then hurried back to our own mansion to protect our mistress, but the Shogun’s forces arrived with the official order and at her command we obeyed it. There was nothing we could save. The order read ‘immediate confiscation of all property’ and it was carried out to the letter.”
“And the castle here in Ako is to be confiscated, too?”
“Yes,” said Hara in a barely audible tone. “A force will be arriving from Edo to carry out those instructions.”
“And what of the men you left behind in Edo? Are they on their way back? We should not be divided at a time like this.”
Hara looked up at him and explained. “I left young Horibe in charge. He and the others are closing out our Edo accounts as I thought you would wish them to. They are also watching to see when the enemy—I mean the Shogun’s troops—leave Edo.”
Oishi looked at him sharply. Hara’s attitude was not hard to fathom. He meant they should prepare to stand a siege of the castle and go down fighting. And Hara might be right—at least it was a positive plan of action to redeem their lost honor—but still Oishi felt he should not make any such weighty decisions before he was in full possession of all the facts.
They were interrupted by the arrival of the gray-haired old Yoshida, whose Buddha-like face was, for once, wrinkled in concern. They told him what had happened and he crumpled to the floor, trying to control his cries of lamentation. In his whole lifetime as a samurai, he had never known a moment so agonizing. Oishi felt his own stomach knot in despair and frustration but he refused to give way to an emotional outbreak. He was in charge, the others looked to him as an example, and he must remain coldly in charge of himself if his decisions were to have the merit of his best thinking.
To give the old man time to recover himself, Oishi asked Mimura to bring a hibachi without disturbing any of the other servants. For the time being, until they decided on a course of action, it would be better if no one else knew what terrible problems they faced. Mimura had been in the Asanos’ service since childhood and could be trusted to say nothing.
When the charcoal-burning hibachi was brought, Oishi directed that it be placed by Yoshida, who now sat with tears streaming down his cheeks. Oishi and Hara sat close to him for warmth while Mimura folded his long legs under him and sat by the door as a guard against eavesdroppers.
“Perhaps we should call Ono,” Yoshida suggested uncertainly. As treasurer of the clan, Ono had considerable say in fiscal matters, but at the moment Oishi did not think his advice would count for much. Ono would be inclined to put matters of justice and honor below those of finances and Oishi was in no mood for quibbling.
“The matter does not concern Ono,” he told Yoshida. “We can decide what must be done among ourselves.”
Oishi glanced at Hara as he finished speaking and saw the big man nod vigorously. He had no more use for Ono than his leader did.
There was silence for a while as each sat busy with his own thoughts. To dull his bitter sense of loss, Oishi deliberately turned his mind to the past, to memories of the instructions he had received as a young samurai. His lessons had been given in this very room and he could hear old Yamaga Soko’s warnings that the times were getting soft and that the strict observance of Confucian ethics was being undermined by the preachers of “new Confucianism” who were beginning to infest the court. That was why Yamaga had been exiled to the countryside—because he was out of step with the times—but he found willing listeners in the samurai of Ako, who were far removed from the softness and politics of the court. Oishi heard his condemnation of the Edo court again as though they were being spoken at this moment: “The sacrifice of the noble to the elegant.” And that had turned out to be a prophecy of Lord Asano’s death.
He thought of the circumstances of his master’s attack on Kira. He had no doubt it was justified, but if only it had taken place somewhere else!
It was not his place to criticize the Shogun, no matter what the circumstances, but it was disturbing to consider how inconsistent their ruler was in his observation of the teachings of Buddha. True, a Buddha-like detestation of violence and cruelty was at the core of his Life Preservation Laws, but had they been applied equally to the life of Lord Asano? And what of the vanity of wealth and power, the duty of abstinence from the grosser pleasures, the beauty of the life of seclusion and pious meditation? No, Tsunayoshi took from Buddhism only what suited his own purposes and this left his policies open to question by anyone bold enough to do so.
Oishi raised his eyes from the pictures he had been seeing in the glowing coals of the hibachi and saw that old Yoshida was watching him. No doubt he had been thinking the same thoughts
