阿部一族 English

Hosokawa Tadatoshi, Junior Fourth Rank Lower, Minor Captain of the Left Palace Guard and concurrently Governor of Ecchu, in the spring of the eighteenth year of Kan'ei, the year of the Metal Snake, left behind the blossoms of Higo, his domain—blossoms that bloomed there earliest of all—and, surrounded fore and aft by the procession of a daimyo of five hundred forty thousand koku, set out with the advancing spring toward Edo for his required attendance; but he fell unexpectedly ill, and though the shogunal physicians gave remedies, these had no effect, and as his illness worsened daily, a courier rode ahead to announce his departure must be postponed.

The Tokugawa shogun of that time was Iemitsu, the third of his line and renowned as a wise lord; concerned for the welfare of Tadatoshi, who had won great merit by cutting down the rebel general Amakusa Shiro Tokisada at the time of the Shimabara uprising, he had, on the twentieth day of the third month, an official communication drawn up jointly signed by Matsudaira Izu no Kami, Abe Bungo no Kami, and Abe Tsushima no Kami, and dispatched down from Kyoto a needle-physician named Isaku.

Then, on the twenty-second, he sent a samurai named Soga Matazaemon as his envoy, bearing another communication signed by the same three ministers.

As treatment of a daimyo by the house of the shogun, it was of the utmost courtesy.

Ever since the Shimabara campaign had been put down in the spring of Kan'ei fifteen, three years before this, the shogun's house had shown Tadatoshi every attention—granting additional land to his Edo residence, bestowing cranes taken in the falconry hunt—and it was only natural, given such habitual solicitude, that upon hearing of his grave illness they should send every inquiry and consolation that precedent allowed.

Before the shogun's house had completed these formalities, Tadatoshi's illness at the Hanabatake residence in Kumamoto had already worsened, and on the seventeenth of the third month, at the hour of the Monkey, he died at fifty-six.

His wife was a daughter of Ogasawara Hyobu-tayu Hidemasa, whom the shogun had adopted as his own daughter and given to Tadatoshi in marriage; she was now forty-five years of age.

Her name was Lady Sen.

His heir, Rokumaru, had come of age six years before and received the character "Mitsu" from the shogun's house, taking the name Mitsusada; he was Junior Fourth Rank Lower, Chamberlain, and Governor of Higo.

He was seventeen this year.

He had been on his way to Edo for his attendance and had gotten as far as Hamamatsu in Totomi province when he heard the news of his father's death and turned back.

Mitsusada later changed his name to Mitsuhisa.

The second son, Tsuruchiyo, had been sent from childhood to Taishoji temple on Mount Tatsuta.

He had become a disciple of the priest Taien, who came from Myoshinji in Kyoto, and went by the name Sogen.

The third son, Matsunosuke, was being raised by the Nagaoka family, an old connection of the Hosokawa house.

The fourth son, Katsuchiyo, had been adopted by the retainer Nanjo Daizen.

There were two daughters.

The elder, Princess Fuji, was the wife of Matsudaira Suo no Kami Tadahiro.

The younger, Princess Take, would later become the wife of Ariyoshi Tanomo Hidenaga.

As for brothers—since Tadatoshi had been born the third son of Sansai—there were three: the fourth son, Nakatsukasa-tayu Tatsutaka; the fifth son, Gyobu Okitaka; and the sixth son, Nagaoka Shikibu Yoriyuki.

His younger sisters were Princess Tara, who had married Inaba Kazumichi, and Princess Man, who had married Karasumaru Chunagon Mitsukata.

The daughter born to this Princess Man, Princess Nene, was to become the wife of Tadatoshi's heir Mitsuhisa.

Above him he had two elder brothers who bore the name Nagaoka, and two elder sisters who had married into the Maeno and Nagaoka houses respectively.

His retired father, Sansai Soryu, was still living, and was now seventy-nine years of age.

Among these there were some, like his heir Mitsusada, who were in Edo, and others in Kyoto or in still more distant provinces, and their grief, coming as it did only after word had reached them, was of a different order from the grief of those who had been at the Kumamoto residence itself, whose sorrow was especially keen.

Mutsushima Shokichi and Tsuda Rokuzaemon were the two men sent to carry word to Edo.

On the twenty-fourth day of the third month, the services for the seventh day were held.

On the twenty-eighth day of the fourth month, the floorboards of the room in the residence where the coffin had lain buried in the earth were at last pulled up and the coffin raised, and, in accordance with instructions from Edo, the body was cremated at Shuun-in temple in Kasuga village, Akita district, and buried on the hill outside Korai Gate.

The following winter, Gokokuzan Myogeji temple was built beneath this mortuary shrine; the priest Keishitsu, a fellow disciple of the priest Takuan from Tokaiji in Shinagawa, Edo, came to become its abbot, and when he retired into the temple's Rinryu Hermitage, Sogen, Tadatoshi's second son who had taken holy orders, succeeded him under the name Tenzan.

Tadatoshi's posthumous Buddhist name was given as Myogeindono Taiun Sogo Daikoji.

That the cremation took place at Shuun-in was in accordance with Tadatoshi's own last wishes.

Once, at some time or other, Tadatoshi had gone out hawking and had stopped to rest and take tea at this same Shuun-in.

On that occasion, noticing suddenly that his beard had grown long, he asked the abbot whether there was a razor to be had.

The abbot brought out a basin of water together with a razor.

Tadatoshi, in good humor, had his page shave his beard while he said to the abbot,

"Well now. This razor must have shaved a good many dead men's heads, I should think."

he said.

The abbot did not know what answer to give, and was thrown into great confusion.

From that time Tadatoshi had felt an easy familiarity with the abbot of Shuun-in, and so it was that he had fixed on this temple as the place for his cremation.

The cremation was, at this very moment, in progress.

From among the crowd of retainers who had come attending the coffin, a voice cried, "Look, the hawks—the hawks!"

someone said.

Above the round stone rim of the well, over which the leafy cherry hung drooping like an umbrella, beneath a sky of dull blue bounded by the temple grounds' stand of cedars, two hawks were circling in flight.

As people watched in wonder, the two birds, tail and beak almost touching as they followed one after the other, dropped in a sudden swoop and went into the well beneath the cherry tree.

From among the five or six men who had been arguing over something at the temple gate, two ran out, came to the edge of the well, put their hands on the stone rim, and peered inside.

By then the hawks had already sunk deep beneath the water, and the surface, gleaming like a mirror amid the thick fern growth, had already gone flat and still again, as if nothing had happened.

The two men were falconers.

The two hawks that had plunged to the bottom of the well and died were Ariake and Akashi, the two that Tadatoshi had loved best.

When this became known, a whisper passed among the people:

"So even the hawks have followed him in death."

This was because, from the very day their lord had passed away up to the day before yesterday, more than ten retainers had already committed junshi, and among them, the day before yesterday, eight had performed seppuku all at once, and yesterday one more had done the same, so that there was not a single person in the whole household who did not have junshi on his mind.

No one knew through what lapse the two hawks had slipped free of the falconers' hands, nor why they had plunged into the well as though chasing some invisible quarry, but not a single person thought to inquire into it.

The hawks had been their lord's favorites, and the mere fact that on the very day of his cremation they had gone into the well of Shuun-in, the temple where the cremation itself was taking place, and died there, was enough for everyone to conclude that the hawks too had followed their lord in death.

There was no room left to doubt this and go seeking some other cause.

The forty-nine days of mourning came to an end on the fifth day of the fifth month.

Up until then, monks beginning with Sogen, and including Kiseido, Konryodo, Tenjuan, Choshoin, and Fujian, had been performing the memorial services.

Now the sixth day of the fifth month arrived, and still, here and there, men kept committing junshi.

Needless to say for the men themselves who were to die and for their parents, brothers, wives and children, but even for those who had no connection to it at all, the preparations for receiving the needle-physician coming from Kyoto and the shogunal envoy coming down from Edo were carried out absentmindedly, for everyone's thoughts were fixed on nothing but the junshi.

That year no one gathered the iris to thatch the eaves for the Boys' Festival as was done every year, and even households with a son for whom the first banner should have been raised in celebration lay hushed and still, as though they had forgotten the child had ever been born.

As for junshi, no one could say when or how it had come about, but a code governing it had formed of itself.

No matter how deeply a man might cherish his lord, it was not a thing anyone could simply do as he pleased.

It was the same as attending one's lord to Edo in times of peace, or following him into camp in time of war: to accompany him even over the Mountain of Death and across the River of Three Crossings required, without fail, the lord's own permission.

To die without that permission was nothing but a dog's death.

A samurai holds his reputation dear, and so he will not die a dog's death.

To rush into the enemy's ranks and fall in battle is a fine thing, but to break the order of battle, dash ahead alone, and die for it earns no merit.

That, too, is a dog's death, and in just the same way, to commit junshi without permission is likewise a dog's death.

When such a death is not, on rare occasion, counted a dog's death, it is because between a lord and retainer who truly valued one another there exists a silent understanding, so that even without explicit permission, it comes to the same as if permission had been given.

The Mahayana teachings that arose after the Buddha's death had not been given the Buddha's own sanction, and yet the Buddha, who through past, present, and future is ignorant of nothing, is held to have foreseen that such teachings would arise, and so to have silently sanctioned them in advance.

That junshi could be committed without permission was perhaps of the same order—as though the Mahayana teachings were being preached where once only the Buddha's own golden words had been spoken.

As for how, then, one went about obtaining that permission, the method sought by Naito Chojuro Mototsugu, one of those who committed junshi on this occasion, may serve as a good example.

Chojuro had ordinarily served at Tadatoshi's writing desk and had received particular favor from him; he had stayed at his lord's sickbed without leaving it, nursing him.

When Tadatoshi realized that his recovery was no longer to be hoped for, he had given Chojuro these instructions: "When my end draws near, hang that large scroll with the character for 'Fuji' written on it above my pillow."

he had told him.

On the seventeenth of the third month, as his condition grew steadily worse, Tadatoshi said, "Hang that scroll."

he said.

Chojuro hung it.

Tadatoshi looked at it once, and then closed his eyes for a time.

Then Tadatoshi said, "My legs feel heavy."

he said.

Chojuro quietly turned back the hem of the quilted bedcover and, as he rubbed his lord's legs, gazed steadily at Tadatoshi's face; and Tadatoshi gazed steadily back at him.

"Chojuro has a request to make."

"What is it?"

"Your illness does indeed seem grave, and I pray to the gods and buddhas that, by the power of good medicine, you may recover your health as soon as possible. Still, there is the chance that the worst should happen. If such a thing should come to pass, I beg that this Chojuro be granted leave to follow you."

So saying, Chojuro gently lifted Tadatoshi's foot and pressed it reverently to his own forehead.

His eyes were brimming with tears.

"That will not do."

So saying, Tadatoshi, who until now had kept his eyes on Chojuro's face, turned half over as if rolling onto his side, and looked away.

"I beg you, do not say such a thing."

Chojuro again lifted Tadatoshi's foot and pressed it to his forehead.

"No, no."

he said, still with his face turned away.

From among those seated in attendance, someone said, "For one so young and lowly to press such a request is unseemly. You had better hold your tongue."

someone said.

Chojuro was seventeen that year.

"I beg you—"

Chojuro said, his voice catching in his throat, and for the third time he lifted his lord's foot to his forehead and would not let it go.

"You are a stubborn fellow, aren't you."

The tone was raised as though in reproof, but along with these words Tadatoshi nodded twice.

Chojuro said, "Yes—"

and, still holding Tadatoshi's foot in both hands, prostrated himself behind the bed and remained motionless for a while.

At that moment Chojuro's heart was flooded with a kind of slackening of tension and a settledness of mind, as of one who has come through some extraordinarily difficult passage to the place he was bound to reach, and nothing else rose into his awareness; he did not even notice that his tears were falling onto the Bingo tatami mat.

Chojuro was still young and had not one outstanding achievement to his name, but Tadatoshi had always favored him and kept him close at hand.

He was fond of drink, and had once committed a blunder for which another man might well have been reprimanded for insolence, but Tadatoshi had only laughed and said, "That was not Chojuro's doing—that was the sake's doing."

he had said, laughing.

Chojuro, who had come to feel that he must repay this kindness and atone for that fault, had, once Tadatoshi's illness grew grave, come to believe firmly that the only way left to him to repay and atone was junshi.

But if one looks closely into this man's heart, alongside the feeling that he must commit junshi of his own free will, there existed, with almost equal force, another feeling: that others surely believed he was bound to commit junshi, and so he was being driven toward death not by his own will but by leaning on the expectations of others.

Put another way, he was anxious that if he did not commit junshi, he would surely suffer some terrible humiliation.

Weak as Chojuro was in this respect, he had not the slightest fear of death.

And so his longing to be granted his lord's permission to commit junshi occupied the whole of his will, meeting no obstacle of any kind.

After a while Chojuro felt strength come into the lord's foot he held in both hands, as though it were being stretched out a little.

Thinking this meant his lord's legs had grown heavy again, he began once more to rub them gently, just as before.

At this moment thoughts of his aged mother and his wife rose in Chojuro's mind.

And thinking that the families of those who committed junshi received generous treatment from their lord's house, he thought that he could set his family in a position of security, and so die with an easy mind.

At the same time, Chojuro's face took on a look of bright relief.

On the morning of the seventeenth of the fourth month, Chojuro changed into proper dress, went before his mother, and, for the first time, revealed his intention to commit junshi and took his leave of her.

His mother showed not the least surprise.

This was because, though neither of them had spoken of it aloud, his mother had long since taken it for granted that this was the day her son would perform seppuku.

Had he said instead that he would not perform seppuku, his mother would surely have been astonished.

His mother called into the room the young bride, only newly married into the family, who had been in the kitchen, and asked her only whether the preparations were ready.

The bride rose at once and herself carried in from the kitchen the cups and trays she had long since made ready.

The bride too, like the mother, had long known that her husband was to perform seppuku that day.

She had combed her hair neatly and changed into her best everyday clothes.

Both mother and bride wore the same solemn, composed expression, but the rims of the bride's eyes were red, showing that she had been weeping while she was in the kitchen.

When the cups and trays were brought out, Chojuro called for his younger brother Sahei.

The four of them exchanged cups in silence.

When the cup had gone once around, the mother spoke.

"Chojuro. This is the sake you love. Why not drink a little more than usual?"

"Indeed, so I shall."

Chojuro said, and with a faint smile he went on refilling his cup with evident pleasure.

After a while Chojuro said to his mother,

"I've gotten pleasantly drunk. Perhaps because of all the various cares of these past days, the sake seems to have gone to my head more than usual. If you'll excuse me, I think I'll rest a little."

So saying, Chojuro rose, went into his own room, and at once lay down in the middle of the floor and began to snore.

When his wife came quietly in after him and brought a pillow to slip under his head, Chojuro only gave a low groan,

and turned over, and went on snoring as before.

His wife gazed steadily at her husband's face for a while, and then, as if suddenly flustered, rose and left for her own room.

She had thought she must not weep.

The house was hushed and still.

Just as the mother and wife had known their master's resolve without a word spoken, so too did the retainers and the maidservants know it, and from neither the kitchen nor the stables was there any sound of laughter to be heard.

The mother sat alone with her thoughts in her own room, the bride in hers, the younger brother in his.

The master of the house lay snoring in his room.

At the window of the room, thrown wide open, hung a fern basket with a wind-bell beneath it.

The bell rang faintly now and then, as though suddenly remembering itself.

Below it stood a tall stone water basin, its top hollowed out into a shallow bowl.

On the wooden dipper laid face-down across it, a dragonfly had alighted, its wings drooping in the shape of a peak, motionless.

One hour passed.

Two hours passed.

Noon had already gone by.

The maidservant had been told to prepare the meal, but the bride, uncertain whether her mother-in-law could be persuaded to eat, thought of going to ask her and yet hesitated.

She hesitated for fear it might look as though she alone were thinking of something so trivial as a meal.

It was just then that Seki Koheiji, who had long since been asked to serve as second, arrived.

The mother-in-law called the bride to her.

As the bride knelt silently, hands to the floor, waiting to see what she wished, the mother-in-law said,

"Chojuro said he would rest just a little, but it does seem a long time now. Seki-dono has just arrived, in fact. Shall we not wake him?"

"Indeed, you are right. It would be best not to let it go too late."

So saying, the bride rose at once and went to wake her husband.

Coming into her husband's room, the wife once again gazed steadily at his face, just as she had done when she had slipped the pillow under his head before.

Knowing that she was waking him only to send him to his death, she found herself unable to speak for a while.

Even in his deep sleep, the noonday light streaming in from the garden seemed to have dazzled him, for he lay with his back to the window and his face turned this way.

"My lord, husband—"

his wife called.

Chojuro did not wake.

When his wife drew close and laid her hand on his broad shoulder, Chojuro said, "Ah—ah,"

and stretched his arms, opened both eyes, and sat up abruptly.

"You slept very soundly. Mother said she worried it might be growing too late, so I've come to wake you. And Seki-sama has arrived as well."

"Is that so. Then it seems it must already be noon. I thought I would only rest a short while, but between the drink and the fatigue, I lost all track of the time. Still, I feel much the better for it. Let me have some tea over rice, and then it's time I made my way to Tokoin. Tell Mother as much, would you."

A samurai does not gorge himself when the moment of reckoning is at hand.

But neither does he take up a solemn undertaking on an empty stomach.

Chojuro had truly meant only to lie down for a little while, but had fallen unawares into a pleasant, deep sleep, and on hearing that it was now noon, said he would take his meal.

And so, for form's sake though it was, the four members of the household sat down to their trays as on any ordinary day and took their midday meal.

Chojuro made his preparations with a quiet mind, and, taking Seki with him, went to the family temple, Tokoin, to cut open his belly.

Just as Chojuro had made his plea while holding Tadatoshi's foot to his forehead, so too, among the retainers who had long enjoyed his favor, others had made their own petitions for junshi, one after another, each in his own way, and had been granted permission; counting Chojuro, there were eighteen of them in all.

Every one of them was a samurai in whom Tadatoshi had placed deep trust.

And so, in his heart, Tadatoshi wished more than anything to keep these men alive, to serve as protectors for his son Mitsuhisa.

He was fully aware, too, that it was cruel to let them die together with him.

And yet, granting each of them, one by one, that single word "I permit it—"

felt to him like tearing his own body apart, and still, under the force of things, he could not do otherwise.

Tadatoshi believed that these men, whom he had kept so close about him, held their own lives cheap.

And so he knew, too, that junshi would not be a suffering to them.

But suppose, on the other hand, that he withheld his permission, and they went on living—what then?

The whole household would surely count them men who had failed to die when they ought to have died, ingrates, cowards, and would refuse to reckon them among their number.

If that were all, they might perhaps endure it, waiting for the day when they could offer up their lives to Mitsuhisa instead.

But if someone, not knowing them for ingrates and cowards, should say that the late lord had kept such men in his service—that would be more than they could bear.

How bitterly they would resent it.

Thinking it over in this way, Tadatoshi found he could not help but say "I permit it—"

he could not help but say it.

And so, with a pain more searing even than the pain of his illness, Tadatoshi said "I permit it—"

he said.

When the number of retainers granted permission for junshi had come to eighteen, Tadatoshi, who over more than fifty years spent amid both peace and turmoil had come to know human feeling and the ways of the world to their very depths, turned over in his mind, even in the midst of his sickness, long and carefully, the matter of his own death and the deaths of these eighteen samurai.

All that has life must without fail perish.

Beside the old tree rotting and withering away, the young tree grows thick and flourishes.

Seen from the eyes of the young men gathered around his heir Mitsuhisa, the aged men he himself had employed had no more need to remain.

They would only be in the way.

He wished he could let them live on and have them render to Mitsuhisa the same service they had rendered to him, but there were already, perhaps, any number of men ready to render that same service to Mitsuhisa, sharpening their claws and waiting for their chance.

The men he himself had employed had, over the years, in fulfilling each his own duties, surely earned the resentment of others as well.

At the very least, they had certainly become targets of envy.

Seen in this light, to force them to go on living might not, after all, be so far-sighted a course.

Perhaps granting them permission for junshi had been, in its way, an act of mercy.

Thinking this, Tadatoshi felt something of a comfort settle over his heart.

The eighteen men who had petitioned for and been granted junshi were: Teramoto Hachizaemon Naotsugu, Otsuka Kihei Tanetsugu, Naito Chojuro Mototsugu, Ota Kojuro Masanobu, Harada Jujiro Yukinao, Munakata Kahei Kagesada, Munakata Kichidayu Kageyoshi, Hashitani Ichizo Shigetsugu, Ihara Jusaburo Yoshimasa, Tanaka Itoku, Honjo Kisuke Shigemasa, Ito Tazaemon Masataka, Migita Inaba Muneyasu, Noda Kihei Shigetsuna, Tsuzaki Gosuke Nagasue, Kobayashi Riemon Yukihide, Hayashi Yozaemon Masasada, and Miyanaga Katsuzaemon Munesuke.

Teramoto's ancestor was a man named Teramoto Taro, who had lived at Teramoto in Owari province.

Taro's son Naizen no Sho served the Imagawa house.

Naizen no Sho's son was Sahyoe, Sahyoe's son was Uemon no Suke, and Uemon no Suke's son was Yozaemon, who, in the campaign against Korea, served under Kato Yoshiaki and won distinction there.

Yozaemon's son was Hachizaemon, who once fought under Goto Mototsugu during the siege of Osaka.

After entering the service of the Hosokawa house, he received a stipend of a thousand koku and became captain of fifty musketeers.

On the twenty-ninth of the fourth month he performed seppuku at Anyoji.

He was fifty-three.

Fujimoto Izaemon served as his second.

Otsuka held an inspector's post with a stipend of a hundred and fifty koku.

He performed seppuku on the twenty-sixth of the fourth month.

His second was Ikeda Hachizaemon.

Naito's story has already been told.

Ota's grandfather Denzaemon had served Kato Kiyomasa.

When Tadahiro was stripped of his fief, Denzaemon and his son Genzaemon had wandered as masterless men.

Kojuro was Genzaemon's second son, who had been called to serve as a page.

He held a stipend of a hundred and fifty koku.

He was the very first to commit junshi, performing seppuku at Kasuga temple on the seventeenth of the third month.

He was eighteen.

Moji Genbei served as his second.

Harada held a stipend of a hundred and fifty koku and had served at his lord's side.

He performed seppuku on the twenty-sixth of the fourth month.

Kamada Gendayu served as his second.

The brothers Munakata Kahei and Munakata Kichidayu were descendants of Munakata Chunagon Ujisada, and had been called into service in the time of their father, Seibei Kagenobu.

Both brothers held stipends of two hundred koku.

On the second of the fifth month, the elder brother performed seppuku at Ryuchoin, and the younger at Renshoji.

Takada Jubei served as second to the elder, and Murakami Ichiemon to the younger.

Hashitani was a man of Izumo province, descended from the Amago house.

He had been called into Tadatoshi's service at the age of fourteen, held a stipend of a hundred koku, served at his lord's side, and had tasted his food to guard against poison.

After his illness grew grave, Tadatoshi had sometimes slept with his head pillowed on Hashitani's knee.

He performed seppuku at Saiganji on the twenty-sixth of the fourth month.

Just as he was about to cut open his belly, the castle drum sounded faintly in the distance.

Hashitani told the retainer who had come attending him to go outside and find out what hour it struck.

The retainer came back and said, "I heard the last four strokes, but I don't know the full count of the beats."

he said.

Hashitani and all those gathered there could not help but smile.

Hashitani said, "Well, you've given me a good laugh to end on,"

and, having the retainer take his outer coat from him, performed seppuku.

Yoshimura Jindayu served as his second.

Ihara held a stipend paid in rice, three men's rations and ten koku.

When he performed seppuku, Hayashi Sahei, a retainer of Abe Yaichiemon, served as his second.

Tanaka was the grandson of Okiku, who left behind the tale known as the Okiku Story, and had been Tadatoshi's childhood friend from the days the two went up Mount Atago together to study.

Around that time, when Tadatoshi had thought of taking holy orders, Tanaka had quietly remonstrated with him and dissuaded him.

Later he served at his lord's side with a stipend of two hundred koku, and, being skilled in arithmetic, made himself useful.

In his old age he was granted the privilege of sitting at ease before his lord with his hood still on his head.

Since permission to follow his lord in death was not granted under the new head, on the nineteenth of the sixth month he first drove a short sword into his belly, then submitted his petition, which was at last granted.

Kato Yasudayu served as his second.

Honjo was a man of Tango province who, while living as a masterless wanderer, had been taken into service by Honjo Kyuemon, a man attached to Lord Sansai's household.

After subduing a ruffian at Nakatsu, he was granted a rice stipend of five men's rations and fifteen koku.

It was from that time that he took the name Honjo.

He performed seppuku on the twenty-sixth of the fourth month.

Ito was a rice-stipend retainer who had served as an inner storeroom officer.

He performed seppuku on the twenty-sixth of the fourth month.

Kawakita Hachisuke served as his second.

Migita was a masterless samurai of the Otomo house, taken into Tadatoshi's service with a stipend of a hundred koku.

He performed seppuku at his own home on the twenty-seventh of the fourth month.

He was sixty-four.

Tahara Kanbei, a retainer of Matsuno Ukyo, served as his second.

Noda was the son of Noda Mino, a chief retainer in Amakusa, and had been called into service as a rice-stipend retainer.

He performed seppuku at Genkakuji on the twenty-sixth of the fourth month.

Era Han'emon served as his second.

Tsuzaki's story will be told separately.

Kobayashi was a rice-stipend retainer with two men's rations and ten koku.

When he performed seppuku, Takano Kan'emon served as his second.

Hayashi had been a farmer of Shimoda village in Nango, whom Tadatoshi had called into service with ten men's rations and fifteen koku, and made a gardener at the Hanabatake residence.

He performed seppuku at Butsuganji on the twenty-sixth of the fourth month.

Nakamitsu Hansuke served as his second.

Miyanaga was a kitchen officer with two men's rations and ten koku, and was the very first man to petition to follow the previous lord in death.

He performed seppuku at Joshoji on the twenty-sixth of the fourth month.

Yoshimura Kaemon served as his second.

Among these men, some were buried at the family temple of their own house, while others were buried beside the mortuary shrine in the hills outside Korai Gate.

The rice-stipend retainers who committed junshi were comparatively numerous, but among them the story of Tsuzaki Gosuke stands out as especially striking, and so it will be told separately here.

Gosuke was a rice-stipend retainer with two men's rations and six koku, and served as Tadatoshi's dog-handler.

He always accompanied his lord on the hawking grounds and had won Tadatoshi's favor there.

He had, as it were, begged his lord for permission and received it, but the chief retainers all said to him,

"The other men were granted rich stipends and lived in honor and comfort, but you are nothing more than our lord's dog-handler. Your resolve is admirable, and that our lord granted you his permission is an honor beyond any other. Let that be enough. Give up this notion of dying, we beg you, and serve the new head of the house instead."

they said.

Gosuke would not listen to them under any circumstances, and on the seventh of the fifth month, taking with him the very dog he had always led on his lord's hunts, set out for Korinji temple in Oimawashi Tabata.

His wife came out to see him off at the door and said, "You are a man too. Do not be outdone by all those men of high rank."

she said.

The Tsuzaki family had kept Ojoin as its family temple, but out of deference—since Ojoin was a temple with ties to the house above—they fixed on Korinji instead as the place to die.

When Gosuke entered the graveyard, he found that Matsuno Nuinosuke, whom he had long since asked to serve as his second, had already arrived and was waiting for him.

Gosuke took the pale indigo bag slung over his shoulder and drew from it a rice hamper.

When he opened the lid, two rice balls lay inside.

He set them down before the dog.

The dog did not go to eat them at once, but wagged its tail and looked up into Gosuke's face.

Gosuke spoke to the dog as though speaking to a man.

"You're a dumb beast, so maybe you don't know it, but the lord who used to stroke your head with his own hand has passed away. And so all the men of rank who owed him their gratitude are cutting open their bellies today to follow him. I'm a lowly fellow, but the life I've kept alive on his stipend is no different from theirs. The gratitude I owe him for his kindness is the same too. And so I'm about to cut my belly open and die. Once I'm dead, you'll be a stray dog from this moment on. I can't bear the thought of that. The hawks that used to attend our lord threw themselves into the well at Shuun-in and died. Well then. Won't you die together with me too? If you'd rather go on living, even as a stray dog, then eat this rice. But if you'd rather die, don't touch it."

So saying, he watched the dog's face, but the dog only kept looking up into Gosuke's face, and would not touch the rice.

"So you mean to die too, then?"

Gosuke said, fixing the dog with a steady gaze.

The dog gave a single bark and wagged its tail.

"Very well. Then it's a pity, but die you shall."

So saying, Gosuke drew the dog close, unsheathed his short sword, and killed it with a single thrust.

Gosuke laid the dog's body to one side.

Then he took a sheet of writing paper from within his robe, spread it out before him, and weighted it down with a small stone.

Folding the paper crosswise in the manner he had once seen done at a poetry gathering held at someone's residence, he had written on it, as though it were an ordinary verse: "Though the elders bid me stay, stay, / stay I cannot— / this Gosuke of mine."

so he had written it, in the manner of an ordinary poem draft.

He had signed no name to it.

Since his own name, Gosuke, already appeared in the verse, he reasoned simply that there was no need to write it twice, and this simple reasoning happened, unintended, to be perfectly in keeping with custom.

Gosuke, feeling now that there was nothing left undone, said, "Matsuno-sama, I beg your service,"

and, sitting himself down at ease, loosened the front of his robe.

Then, gripping the short sword—still stained with the dog's blood—reversed in his hand, he called out in a loud voice, "Where might the falconers be now? The dog-handler is on his way to join you this very moment!"

he cried out, and, giving one cheerful laugh, cut his belly open in a cross.

Matsuno struck off his head from behind.

Though Gosuke had been a man of low standing, the widow he left behind later received treatment much the same as that given to the families of the other men who had committed junshi.

This was because his one son had, while still a child, already entered holy orders.

The widow was granted five men's rations and a new house and grounds, and lived on until the thirty-third anniversary of Tadatoshi's death.

Gosuke's grandnephew became the second Gosuke, and from then on the family served generation after generation in the mounted-patrol corps.

Besides the eighteen men who had obtained Tadatoshi's permission and committed junshi, there was one more man, Abe Yaichiemon Michinobu.

He had originally borne the name Akashi, and as a boy had been called Inosuke.

He had served close at Tadatoshi's side from an early age, and had risen to a standing of over eleven hundred koku.

At the time of the Shimabara campaign, three of his five sons had each been granted a new stipend of two hundred koku apiece for their merit in battle.

This Yaichiemon was thought, even within the household, to be a man who would surely commit junshi, and he himself, every time his turn came round to attend Tadatoshi through the night, would ask for permission to follow him in death.

But Tadatoshi would not, under any circumstance, grant it.

"I am well satisfied with your resolve, but rather than that, live on and serve Mitsuhisa instead,"

he said, and no matter how many times Yaichiemon asked, he only repeated the very same words.

As it happened, Tadatoshi had long had a habit of never listening to what Yaichiemon said.

This went back a very long way, to the days when he had still been called Inosuke and served as a page; even then, when Inosuke would ask, "Shall I bring in your meal?"

Tadatoshi would say, "I'm not hungry yet,"

he would say.

But when some other page made the same offer, he would say, "Very well, bring it in,"

he would say.

Whenever Tadatoshi looked at this man's face, something in him wanted to say no.

But did that mean he scolded him for it? Not really.

There was no one more diligent than this man; he noticed everything, and left nothing undone, so that even if one wished to find fault, there was no fault to be found.

Yaichiemon would do, without being told, what other men only did when told.

He would do, without asking permission, what other men only did after asking.

And yet whatever he did always struck exactly at the heart of the matter, leaving nothing to be criticized.

Yaichiemon had come to serve on nothing but sheer force of will.

At first Tadatoshi had thought nothing of it—he simply wanted to say no whenever he looked at the man's face—but later, realizing that Yaichiemon served purely out of that willfulness, he came to find him hateful.

Even as he found him hateful, the perceptive Tadatoshi, turning over in his mind why Yaichiemon had become this way, came to realize that it was he himself who had made him so.

And though he meant to correct this habit of contradicting the man, as the months and years piled one upon another, it grew steadily harder to correct.

Every man has people he likes and people he dislikes.

And if one tries to dig into why one likes or dislikes someone, one often finds no solid ground to stand on at all.

It was for some such reason that Tadatoshi disliked Yaichiemon.

And yet this man Yaichiemon surely had, somewhere in him, something that made him hard for others to grow close to.

This much was clear from how few close friends he had.

Everyone respected him as a fine and admirable samurai.

But no one tried to draw near him easily.

Even the rare man who, out of curiosity, tried to grow close to him would, before long, find his patience giving out and drift away again.

An older man who, back when Yaichiemon had still been called Inosuke and still wore his forelocks unshaven, had often struck up conversation with him and lent him a hand with one thing or another, had at last given up, saying, "There's simply no getting a foothold with that Abe fellow."

he said, and gave up trying.

Considered in this light, it is little wonder that Tadatoshi, though he wished to correct his own habit, was unable to do so.

In any case, Yaichiemon died still without having obtained permission for junshi, no matter how many times he had asked, before Tadatoshi passed away.

Shortly before his death, Yaichiemon had said, "This Yaichiemon has never once made a request of you in all his life. This is the one and only request I shall ever make,"

and had gazed steadily into Tadatoshi's face, and Tadatoshi had gazed steadily back at him, and had declared flatly, "No. Serve Mitsuhisa instead, I beg you."

he had said, flatly.

Yaichiemon thought the matter over deeply and came to his resolve.

Given his own standing, to survive this occasion without committing junshi and go on showing his face to the rest of the household was something that, in the eyes of every single man among them, would simply be unthinkable.

There was nothing left to him but to cut his belly open, knowing it would be counted a dog's death, or else to become a masterless samurai and leave Kumamoto altogether.

But I am who I am.

So be it.

A samurai is not like a mistress.

There is no reason his standing should collapse simply because he has fallen out of his lord's favor.

Thinking thus, he went on serving day after day exactly as before.

In the meantime the sixth of the fifth month came, and all eighteen men committed junshi.

Throughout all of Kumamoto there was talk of nothing else.

There was no other subject of conversation but who had died saying what, and whose death had been more splendid than whose.

Yaichiemon had always been a man to whom few people spoke of anything beyond business, but from the seventh of the fifth month on, even when he went to sit in the waiting room at the residence, it felt lonelier still.

And he could tell that his fellow officers were watching him while pretending not to look at his face.

He could tell they were glancing at him sideways, or looking at him from behind.

It was unbearably unpleasant.

Even so, he told himself, it is not that I go on living because I begrudge my own life; not even the man who thinks worst of me could possibly call me a man who clings to his life; even now, if it were right to die, I would die and show them so—and with this thought he would go into the waiting room holding his neck stiffly erect, and leave it again holding his neck just as stiffly erect.

After two or three days had passed, an outrageous rumor began to reach Yaichiemon's ears.

He did not know who had started it, but it went: "It seems Abe is only too glad that he wasn't granted permission, and so goes on living. Even without permission, there's no reason he couldn't have followed his lord in death all the same. It must be that the skin of Abe's belly is different from other men's. He'd better rub some oil on a gourd and try cutting that instead."

so it went.

Hearing this, Yaichiemon found it more than he had expected.

If they wished to speak ill of him, let them say whatever they liked.

But look at this Yaichiemon from any angle whatever, lengthwise or crosswise—how could anyone possibly take him for a man who clung to his own life?

Well, if that is truly how it looks to them, so be it, very well.

Then let me rub oil on a gourd and show them how I cut this belly.

That same day, once he left the waiting room, Yaichiemon sent an urgent messenger to summon his two younger brothers—each now heading separate households—to his residence at Yamazaki.

He had the sliding partitions between the sitting room and the guest room taken down, seated his heir Gonbei, his second son Yagobei, and, beside them, his fifth son Shichinojo, still a boy with his forelocks unshaven, and then, dressed in proper formal bearing, sat waiting.

Gonbei, whose boyhood name had been Gonjuro, had distinguished himself in the Shimabara campaign and had been granted a new stipend of two hundred koku.

He was a young man in no way inferior to his father.

Regarding this whole affair, he had asked his father only once, "Was permission not granted?"

he had asked.

His father had answered, "No, it was not."

he had said.

Beyond that, not another word had passed between father and son.

Father and son knew each other to the very depths of their hearts, and so there had been no need to say anything more.

Before long, two paper lanterns came in through the gate.

The third son, Ichidayu, and the fourth son, Godayu, arrived at the entrance almost at the same moment, shed their rain gear, and were shown into the room.

From the day after the forty-nine-day mourning period had ended, the weather had turned to a dreary, drizzling rain, and the dark May sky had not once cleared.

Even with the paper doors thrown wide open, the air was close and sultry, without a breath of wind.

And yet, for all that, the flame on the candlestand kept flickering.

A single firefly threaded its way through the trees in the garden and passed on.

The father, looking around at those gathered, opened his mouth to speak.

"I sent for you all in the dead of night, and every one of you has come. Since it's said to be the talk of the whole household, no doubt you've all heard it too. They say this Yaichiemon's belly is the kind that needs a gourd rubbed with oil before it can be cut. Very well then—I mean to rub oil on a gourd and cut it now. I ask you all to bear witness."

Both Ichidayu and Godayu had likewise been granted new stipends of two hundred koku for their merit at Shimabara and had set up separate households of their own, but Ichidayu in particular had long been attached to the young lord's household, and, now that the succession had passed, was one of the men most envied by others.

Ichidayu drew forward.

"I see. Now I understand. In truth, my fellow retainers have been saying that Yaichiemon-dono must be continuing in service under the late lord's own dying wish, that father, sons, and brothers alike go on serving together just as before—what a fine and fortunate thing, they say. There was something in the way they said it that seemed to carry another meaning behind it, and it galled me."

His father Yaichiemon laughed.

"No doubt there was. Pay no mind to shortsighted fools who can see no farther than the tip of their own noses. Now then—once I, who was supposedly not meant to die, am dead, there will be those who look down on you as the sons of a man denied his lord's permission. That you were born my sons is simply your fortune. There's nothing to be done about it. When the moment comes to bear shame, bear it together. Do not quarrel among yourselves as brothers. Now then—watch closely how I cut my belly with the oiled gourd."

So saying, Yaichiemon performed seppuku there before his sons' own eyes, and with his own hand drove the blade through his own throat from left to right, and died.

The five sons, who had never been able to fully fathom their father's heart, felt grief at this moment, but at the same time felt, as though a step removed from the uneasy state they had lived in until now, as if some heavy burden had been lifted from them.

"Brother—"

the second son Yagobei said to the heir.

"Father told us not to quarrel as brothers. I doubt anyone here would object to that. I did poorly at my post at Shimabara and never received a stipend of my own, so from now on I'll no doubt be depending on you. But whatever happens, know that you can always count on my spear arm as sure as anyone's. Keep that in mind."

"Of course. Whatever comes of things, whatever stipend I receive is as good as yours too."

So saying, Gonbei folded his arms and knit his brow, and said nothing more.

"That's right. There's no telling what may come of it. There will be fellows who say that dying without permission isn't the same as a true junshi."

So said the fourth son, Godayu.

"That much is plain to see. Whatever we may face—"

Ichidayu, the third son, said, breaking off, and looked at Gonbei's face.

"Whatever we may face, let us not scatter and go our separate ways as brothers, but stand together as one."

"Mm."

Gonbei said, but showed no sign of warming to it.

Gonbei cared deeply for his younger brothers in his heart, but was not a man given to speaking gently.

And in everything he preferred to think matters through alone and act on them alone.

He rarely consulted with anyone.

That was precisely why Yagobei and Ichidayu had both pressed the point on him.

"With all you elder brothers gathered together like this, no one will dare speak ill of Father so carelessly."

These words came from the mouth of Shichinojo, still wearing his boyhood forelocks.

His voice was almost like a girl's, but it carried within it so firm a conviction that it lit up the hearts of everyone gathered there, like a light shining upon a dark road ahead.

"Well then. Shall I go tell Mother, and have her let the women take their leave of him?"

So saying, Gonbei rose from his seat.

The succession of the headship passed to Mitsuhisa, Junior Fourth Rank Lower, Chamberlain, and concurrently Governor of Higo.

Among the retainers there were, respectively, new stipends, increases in stipend, and changes of post.

Above all, in the households of the eighteen samurai who had committed junshi, the heir was allowed to succeed directly to his father's place exactly as before.

So long as there was an heir, no matter how young, none of these households was left out of this treatment.

Widows and aged parents were granted stipends.

They were given house and grounds, and even the work of building was arranged for them from above.

Since these were houses that the late lord had held in particular favor, and had even taken along with him as attendants on his journey across the River of Death, the rest of the household envied them, but bore them no ill will.

And yet a peculiarly different disposal of the succession was visited upon the family left behind by Abe Yaichiemon.

His heir Gonbei was not permitted to succeed to his father's place exactly as it had been; Yaichiemon's stipend of fifteen hundred koku was instead broken up into portions and divided out among his younger brothers as well.

Taken together, the stipend held by the family as a whole was no different from before, but Gonbei, who inherited the main house, found himself reduced to a man of far lesser standing.

It goes without saying how narrow Gonbei's shoulders felt from that day on.

The younger brothers too, even as each of their own individual stipends increased, found that where they had once stood, as it were, in the shade of a great tree—the main house with its stipend of over a thousand koku—they now stood shoulder to shoulder like so many acorns of equal size, and felt it at once a kindness and a burden.

So long as the governance of a house runs along its ordinary, steady course, no one asks where the blame for anything ultimately lies.

But once some measure departs from the ordinary course, an inquiry inevitably arises into whose judgment lay behind it.

There was a chief inspector named Hayashi Geki, who stood high in the new lord's regard and served constantly at his side.

He had a certain shallow cleverness, well suited to entertaining the young lord in his boyhood days, but fell short when it came to seeing the larger shape of things, and was a man given, more often than not, to a harsh and overzealous scrutiny of others.

He reasoned that since Abe Yaichiemon had died without obtaining the late lord's permission, a clear line must be drawn between him and the true men of junshi.

And so he put forward a plan to divide up the Abe family's stipend.

Mitsuhisa, though a daimyo of considerable judgment, was still unseasoned in such matters at the time, and, having no close familiarity with either Yaichiemon or his heir Gonbei, showed them no particular consideration; his eye fell instead on the fact that Ichidayu, a man he had kept close about him and grown familiar with, stood to gain an increase in stipend from the arrangement, and so he adopted Geki's proposal.

When the eighteen samurai had committed junshi, the rest of the household had looked down on Yaichiemon, saying that though he had served so close at his lord's side, he had not committed junshi himself.

And then, a mere two or three days later, Yaichiemon had performed a splendid seppuku after all, but setting aside the question of right and wrong in the matter, the humiliation once suffered does not easily fade, and no one had a word of praise for Yaichiemon.

Since those above had permitted Yaichiemon's remains to be buried beside the mortuary shrine itself, there had been no need to draw any forced distinction in the matter of the succession either, and he could well have been treated exactly the same as the other men of junshi.

Had that been done, the Abe family would have had its honor restored, and would surely have thrown itself, to a man, into loyal service.

But because those above gave them treatment one rank lower than the rest, the household's contempt for the Abe family took on, in effect, the form of an officially sanctioned judgment.

The brothers of Gonbei's house were gradually shunned by their fellow retainers, and passed their days in sullen resentment.

The seventeenth of the third month of Kan'ei nineteen arrived.

It was the first anniversary of the late lord's death.

Myogeji temple had not yet been built beside the mortuary shrine, but a hall called Koin had been erected there, in which the mortuary tablet of Myogeindono was enshrined, and a monk named Kyoshuza served as its abbot.

Ahead of the anniversary day, the priest Ten'yu of Daitokuji in Murasakino came down from Kyoto.

The memorial services promised to be a splendid affair, and for a full month beforehand the castle town of Kumamoto had been busy with preparations.

At last the day itself arrived.

The weather was fine and mild, and the cherry trees beside the mortuary shrine were in full bloom.

Curtains were drawn all around Koin, and foot soldiers stood guard.

The new lord attended in person, first offering incense before the tablet of the late lord, and then before the tablets of the nineteen men of junshi.

After that, the families of the men of junshi were permitted to offer incense in turn, and at the same time received robes bearing the family crest and seasonal garments as gifts.

Those of mounted-guard rank or above received the long formal robes, and foot officers the half formal robes.

Those of the lowest ranks received a gift of incense money.

The ceremony proceeded without a hitch, but in the course of it a single strange incident occurred.

It happened when Abe Gonbei, as one of the family members of the men of junshi, came forward in his turn before the tablet of Myogeindono; having offered incense, as he turned to withdraw, he drew the small utility blade from his short sword, cut off his own topknot, and set it down as an offering before the tablet.

The samurai on duty in attendance were struck dumb with astonishment at this sudden act and stood staring blankly, but as Gonbei, as though nothing at all had happened, withdrew five or six paces with perfect composure, one of the samurai at last came to his senses and called out, "Abe-dono, wait, if you please,"

he called, and ran after him and held him back.

Two or three more men then came forward and led Gonbei away into a separate room.

When those on duty questioned him, this was, in substance, what Gonbei answered.

You gentlemen may well take me for a man out of his senses, but that is not at all the case.

It was precisely because his father Yaichiemon had served without a single blemish his whole life long that, even though he had performed seppuku without the late lord's permission, he had been admitted into the ranks of the men of junshi, and even Gonbei himself, as his family's representative, had been permitted to offer incense before the tablet ahead of others.

And yet Gonbei, being unworthy, could not render service equal to his father's, and those above, seeming to recognize as much, had divided up his inheritance and distributed it among his younger brothers.

He had no face left to show to the late lord, to the present lord, to his dead father, to the rest of his family, or to his fellow retainers.

Turning all this over in his mind, when the moment came today to offer incense before the tablet, in that instant a surge of feeling overwhelmed him, and he resolved then and there to abandon the way of the samurai altogether.

He said he would accept without complaint whatever censure fell on him for showing such disregard for the solemnity of the occasion.

He was not, he said, out of his senses in any way.

Hearing Gonbei's answer, Mitsuhisa was displeased.

He was displeased, first of all, that Gonbei had done something so plainly meant as a reproach against him.

He was displeased, too, that he himself had adopted Geki's scheme and done something he need never have done.

He was still a hot-blooded lord of only twenty-four, lacking in the discipline to master his own feelings and desires.

He was wanting, too, in that generosity of spirit that repays resentment with kindness.

He had Gonbei placed under confinement at once.

On hearing this, Yagobei and the rest of the family closed their gate and resolved to await word from above, gathering together in secret night after night to deliberate over the future of their house.

After much deliberation, the Abe family resolved at last to appeal to the priest Ten'yu, who had come down for the memorial service marking the first anniversary of the late lord's death and was still lodging in the town.

Ichidayu went to the priest's lodgings, told him the whole affair from beginning to end, and asked him to intercede so that the punishment imposed on Gonbei might be lightened.

The priest listened closely and said,

as he understood it, the turn his family's affairs had taken was a truly pitiable thing.

But it was not for him to say one word or another regarding the governance of those above.

Only, if it should come to Gonbei being sentenced to death, he would certainly intercede on his behalf and beg that his life be spared.

Especially since Gonbei had already cut off his own topknot, he was, in effect, already as good as a man who had entered holy orders.

He said he would speak on the matter of sparing Gonbei's life in whatever way he could.

Ichidayu returned home feeling reassured.

When the rest of the family heard Ichidayu's report, they felt as though a single path to survival had opened before them.

Time passed, and the day of the priest Ten'yu's return to Kyoto drew steadily nearer.

Each time the priest met and spoke with the young lord, he thought to bring up the matter of sparing Gonbei's life if the occasion should arise, but no such occasion ever came.

And this was only natural.

For this was what Mitsuhisa had been thinking all along.

If the matter of Gonbei were raised while the priest Ten'yu was still in the province, he would surely be asked to intercede for his life.

Coming from the mouth of the abbot of so great a temple, such a plea could hardly be brushed aside lightly.

And so Mitsuhisa resolved to wait until the priest had departed before taking any action.

In the end, the priest left Kumamoto with nothing accomplished.

The very moment the priest Ten'yu left Kumamoto, Mitsuhisa had Abe Gonbei dragged out to Ide no Kuchi and hanged.

He was dealt with as a man who had dared commit an act of disrespect against the tablet of the late lord, one who showed no fear of those above him.

Yagobei and the rest of the family gathered together and deliberated.

There was no denying that Gonbei's conduct had been outrageous.

But their late father Yaichiemon had, after all, been counted among the men of junshi.

Given that, if his heir Gonbei were sentenced to death, there was nothing to be said against it.

Had he been ordered to perform seppuku, as befits a samurai, they would have had no objection.

But what was this? He had been hanged in broad daylight, as though he were some common thief or traitor.

Judging from how matters stood, it seemed unlikely the rest of the family would be left in peace either.

Even supposing no further word came down from above, what face would the family of a man who had been hanged have left to show, mingling among their fellow retainers and serving their lord?

There was nothing left to debate.

It was at this very moment that the words their father Yaichiemon had left them—that whatever happened, the brothers must never scatter and part from one another—came back to them.

With not a single voice raised in objection, the family resolved that there was nothing left but to take on the punitive force sent against them and die together, all of them, as one.

The Abe family gathered together their wives and children and shut themselves up in Gonbei's residence at Yamazaki.

Word of the family's ominous state reached those above.

Inspectors were sent out to observe them.

At the Yamazaki residence, the gate was shut fast and barred, and all was hushed and still within.

The houses of Ichidayu and Godayu stood empty.

The arrangements for the punitive force were fixed.

At the main gate, Takenouchi Kazuma Nagamasa, a captain of the personal guard, was placed in command, with the squad leaders Soejima Kuhei and Nomura Shobei under him.

Kazuma held eleven hundred fifty koku and was captain of a company of thirty musketeers.

The hereditary retainer Shima Tokuemon attended him.

Soejima and Nomura each held a hundred koku at the time.

At the rear gate, command was given to Takami Gon'emon Shigemasa, a captain of the guard holding five hundred koku, also captain of thirty musketeers.

Under him were the inspector Hata Judayu and Chiba Sakubei, a squad leader under Takenouchi Kazuma holding a hundred koku at the time.

The punitive force was set to be dispatched on the twenty-first of the fourth month.

On the evening before, night patrols were posted around the Yamazaki residence.

Late in the night, a man of samurai rank, his face masked, climbed over the wall from within and came out, but was cut down by Maruyama Sannojo, a foot soldier of the patrol company under Sabri Kazaemon.

After that, nothing more happened until dawn.

Word had already been given beforehand to the neighboring households.

One instruction was that even those on duty elsewhere were to remain at home and keep careful watch against fire.

The other was that, while it was strictly forbidden for anyone not part of the punitive force to enter the Abe residence and take a hand in the matter, any man who tried to flee could be cut down freely by whoever caught him.

The Abe family learned the day before which day the punitive force would come, and first cleaned every corner of the residence thoroughly, burning everything that might look unseemly.

Then young and old alike gathered together for a drinking feast.

After that, the old and the women took their own lives, and the young children were each killed by their own kin's hand.

After that, a great pit was dug in the garden and the bodies were buried in it.

What remained afterward were only the strongest of the young men.

Under the direction of the four brothers Yagobei, Ichidayu, Godayu, and Shichinojo, the sliding partitions were taken down to make one great hall, into which the retainers were gathered; gongs and drums were sounded, prayers to the Buddha were chanted aloud, and so they waited for dawn to break.

This was said to be done in mourning for the old and for the wives and children, but in truth it was a precaution taken so that the lower servants would not be seized by cowardice.

The Yamazaki residence where the Abe family shut themselves in was, in later years, the home of Saito Kansuke; across from it lived Yamanaka Mataza'emon, and on either side lived Tsukamoto Matashichiro and Hirayama Saburo.

Of these, the Tsukamoto house was one of the three houses—Tsukamoto, Amakusa, and Shiki—that had once divided the Amakusa district among themselves and ruled it.

When Konishi Yukinaga governed half of Higo province, the Amakusa and Shiki houses had committed offenses and been put to death, and only the Tsukamoto house had survived, going on to serve the Hosokawa house.

Matashichiro had long been on close terms with the Abe family, and not only the two heads of household but even their wives had gone back and forth between the two houses.

In particular, Yagobei, Yaichiemon's second son, was skilled with the spear, and since Matashichiro too was devoted to the same art, the two of them, close as they were, would boast to one another, saying, "However skilled you may be, you'll never match me,"

"Nonsense, why should I ever lose to you,"

and so they would go on.

And so, from the moment he first heard, during the late lord's illness, that Yaichiemon had petitioned for junshi and been refused, Matashichiro had guessed at the depth of Yaichiemon's feelings and pitied him for it.

After that, as events unfolded one after another—Yaichiemon's belated seppuku, his heir Gonbei's act at Koin, the death sentence that followed from it, and finally the family's barricading themselves in under Yagobei and the others—and the fortunes of the Abe house sank steadily lower, Matashichiro suffered as much anguish over it as if they had been his own blood kin.

One day Matashichiro instructed his wife, and late that night sent her to call on the Abe residence to offer her sympathy.

Since the Abe family had rebelled against those above and taken up something like a siege, the men of the two houses could not deal with one another.

And yet, knowing the whole course of events as he had from the very start, Matashichiro could not bring himself to hate the family as villains.

All the more so, given the years of close friendship between the two houses.

He reasoned that if his wife, as a woman, paid a quiet visit of sympathy, it would surely be a thing for which no excuse would be needed even if it later came to light, and so it was with this thought that he sent her.

His wife, hearing her husband's words, gladly gathered together a set of thoughtfully chosen gifts and, late in the night, called on the house next door.

She too was a woman of considerable resolve, and had resolved that if the matter should ever come to light later, she would take the blame entirely on herself and see that no trouble fell on her husband.

The joy of the Abe family was immense.

Out in the world it was spring, with flowers blooming and birds singing, and yet here they were, forsaken, it seemed, by gods and buddhas and men alike, shut up in this house of theirs.

That a husband should tell his wife to go and comfort them, and that a wife should honor his word and come to them so—both husband and wife alike—they felt, from the very bottom of their hearts, what a truly precious kindness this was.

The women of the family, weeping, said that once things had come to this and they were to die, there would surely be not a single soul left in the world to pray for the repose of their souls, and begged that, should she ever think of them, she offer up even a single prayer on their behalf.

The children, who were not permitted to set even one foot outside the gate, clung to Matashichiro's wife from either side the moment they saw her—she who had always been so kind to them in ordinary times—and would not easily let her go home again.

The night before the punitive force was to march on the Abe residence arrived.

Tsukamoto Matashichiro turned the matter over deeply in his mind.

The Abe family were close to him.

And so, even knowing there might well be censure for it later, he had gone so far as to send his own wife to call on them.

But tomorrow morning the punitive force sent by those above would come at last to the Abe house.

This was, in effect, no different from a campaign waged by the lord's own army against a band of rebels.

The order had said to guard against fire and not to take a hand in the matter, but there was no way a true samurai could simply stand by with his arms folded and watch such a thing unfold.

Compassion was compassion, and duty was duty.

He decided there was a course of action left open to him.

So, deep in the night, he crept out on stealthy feet through the back door into the dim garden, and cut every one of the binding cords on the bamboo fence that divided his land from the Abe family's.

Then he went back in, dressed himself for battle, took down the hand-spear hung on the lintel rack, drew off the sheath marked with his hawk-feather crest, and waited for dawn to break.

Takenouchi Kazuma, who was to lead the force against the main gate of the Abe residence, had been born into a house famed for its skill in the martial arts.

His ancestor was Shimamura Danjo Takanori, who had served under Hosokawa Takakuni and won renown for the strength of his bow.

When Takakuni was defeated at Amagasaki in Settsu province in the fourth year of Kyoroku, Danjo seized two enemy soldiers, one under each arm, and threw himself into the sea and died.

Danjo's son Ichibei served the Yasumi house of Kawachi and for a time took the name Yasumi, but when he came to hold the Takenouchi Pass, he changed his name to Takenouchi.

Takenouchi Ichibei's son Kichibei served Konishi Yukinaga, and for his merit in the flooding of Ota Castle in Kii province, was given by the Taiko, Toyotomi Hideyoshi himself, a battle coat of white silk with a red sun disc.

During the campaign against Korea, he was held for three years as a hostage of the Konishi house, confined within the palace of the Korean king.

After the fall of the Konishi house, he was taken into the service of Kato Kiyomasa with a stipend of a thousand koku, but, after a quarrel with his lord, withdrew from the castle town of Kumamoto in broad daylight.

In case the Kato house should send men after him, he withdrew with his musket loaded and its fuse already lit and held ready in hand.

It was Sansai who later took him into service in Buzen with a stipend of a thousand koku.

This Kichibei had five sons.

The eldest also took the name Kichibei, but later shaved his head and took the name Yasumi Kenzan.

The second son was Shichirouemon, the third Jirodayu, the fourth Hachibei, and the fifth was Kazuma himself.

Kazuma had served as Tadatoshi's page, and had been at his lord's side during the Shimabara campaign.

On the twenty-fifth of the second month of Kan'ei fifteen, when the forces under Hosokawa were about to storm the castle, Kazuma had begged Tadatoshi, "I beg you, send me into the vanguard,"

he had begged.

Tadatoshi would not hear of it.

When Kazuma pressed his request again all the more insistently, Tadatoshi lost his temper and shouted, "Get out of my sight, you insolent brat,"

he shouted.

Kazuma was sixteen at the time.

Crying out "Ah!"

he ran off at once, and as Tadatoshi watched him go, he called after him, "Don't get yourself hurt now,"

he called.

The retainer Shima Tokuemon, a sandal-bearer, and a spear-bearer followed after him.

Master and three attendants, four in all.

The musket fire pouring out from the castle was so fierce that Shima seized the hem of the scarlet battle coat Kazuma wore and tried to pull him back.

Kazuma shook him off and scrambled up the castle's stone wall.

Shima, having no choice, climbed up after him.

They fought their way at last into the castle itself, and Kazuma took a wound.

Tachibana Hida no Kami Muneshige of Yanagawa, a seasoned old warrior of seventy-two who had stormed the castle from the same quarter, had watched his performance that day, and declared that Watanabe Shin'ya, Nakamitsu Naizen, and Kazuma, the three of them, had fought splendidly, and sent the three of them a joint letter of commendation.

After the castle fell, Tadatoshi gave Kazuma a short sword by Seki Kanemitsu, and raised his stipend to eleven hundred fifty koku.

The blade was one shaku eight sun long, straight-tempered and unsigned, with horizontal file marks; its hilt ornaments bore three silver nine-star crests set side by side, its guard was of shakudo, and its fittings were of gold.

There were two holes for the hilt ornaments, one of which had been filled with lead.

Tadatoshi had treasured this short sword so dearly that even after giving it to Kazuma, he would often, on occasions such as attending the castle, say, "Kazuma, lend me that sword,"

and borrow it back to wear, more than once.

When Mitsuhisa ordered Kazuma to lead the force against the Abe residence, and Kazuma, well pleased, withdrew to the waiting room, one of his fellow retainers whispered to him,

"Even a scoundrel has his uses now and then. To have you wield the baton at the main gate—well, that was well done of Hayashi-dono, I must say."

Kazuma pricked up his ears.

"What's this—was this assignment made on Geki's own recommendation, then?"

"That's right. Geki-dono said it to the lord himself. He said Kazuma was a man the late lord had raised up above his station, and that he should be given this task to repay that debt of gratitude. Isn't that a stroke of good fortune?"

"Hmph."

Kazuma said, and deep furrows cut across his brow.

"Very well. It's nothing but a matter of dying in battle, then."

So saying, flatly, Kazuma rose at once and withdrew from the residence.

When Mitsuhisa heard of Kazuma's manner at this moment, he sent a messenger to the Takenouchi residence to tell him, "See that you come to no harm, and carry this through well."

so he had the messenger say.

Kazuma said, "Tell him, if you would, that I have received his gracious words and am deeply grateful for them."

he said.

The very moment Kazuma heard from a fellow retainer's own mouth that it was Geki who had put him forward for this task, he resolved on the spot to die in battle.

It was a resolve so firm that nothing on earth could have shaken it.

He had been told that Geki had said he was to be made to repay his debt of gratitude.

He had happened to overhear these words, but in truth there had been no need even to hear them—whenever Geki recommended a man for anything, this was exactly the sort of thing he was bound to say.

Thinking this over, Kazuma felt he could neither sit still nor stand still.

There was no denying that he had been raised up by the late lord's own favor.

But since coming of age, he had been, in effect, no more than one among a great crowd of attendants, and had received no particular distinction beyond the rest.

Everyone alike basked in that same favor.

What could it possibly mean, then, that he alone should be singled out to repay this debt of gratitude?

There could be no mistaking it: it meant that, since he had been meant to commit junshi and had not done so, he was now being sent to a post where his life was forfeit.

He was ready and glad to throw away his life at any moment, but he had no wish to die now as a mere substitute for the junshi he had once let slip past him.

If he did not begrudge his life now, why on earth would he have begrudged it on the last day of the late lord's forty-nine days of mourning?

There was no reason for it at all.

When it came down to it, there was no clear line marking exactly how deep a man's favor had to run before he was expected to commit junshi.

Since none of the other young attendants who had served alongside him had been told to commit junshi either, he too had simply gone on living.

If junshi had truly been the right course, he would have been first among them all to do it.

He had believed that much was plain enough for anyone to see.

And yet, to have been branded, after all this, as a man who had failed to commit the junshi he had long owed—it was, again and again, more than he could bear.

He had taken upon himself a stain that could never be washed away.

Only a man like Geki could ever have inflicted so deep a humiliation on another.

For Geki, it was only to be expected.

But why had his lord ever consented to listen to him?

To be wounded by Geki he might endure.

To be forsaken by his own lord, he could not.

At Shimabara, when he had tried to storm the castle, the late lord had called out and stopped him.

That had been to stop a mounted retainer from deliberately thrusting himself into the vanguard where he had no place.

This time, when the present lord told him not to get himself hurt, it meant something altogether different.

It meant: cherish that precious life of yours.

What was there to be grateful for in that?

It was like being freshly whipped across an old wound.

He wished only to die as soon as a single moment would allow.

It was not a stain that dying could wash away, and yet still he wanted to die.

Even a dog's death would do—he wanted to die.

Once this thought took hold of Kazuma, he could not sit still a moment longer.

And so he told his wife and child only briefly that he had been ordered to join the force against the Abe residence, and threw himself alone into hurried preparations.

Where all the men who had committed junshi had gone to their deaths with a settled, easy heart, Kazuma's heart was rushing toward death only to escape his own suffering.

Apart from the retainer Shima Tokuemon, who sensed how things stood and resolved to share his master's fate, there was no one in the household who grasped what lay in the depths of Kazuma's heart.

Kazuma, twenty-one this year, had a wife who had come to him only the year before, still hardly more than a girl, and she could do nothing but wander about anxiously, holding their infant daughter, not yet a year old.

On the night of the twentieth of the fourth month, with the assault to come the following day, Kazuma bathed, shaved the crown of his head, and worked into his hair the fine incense called Hatsune that Tadatoshi had once given him.

He dressed in pure white, with a white sash tied up over his shoulders and a white headband, and pinned to his shoulder the folded paper marker used as a recognition badge.

The sword at his waist, two shaku four sun five bu in length, was a blade by Masamori, sent home as a keepsake when his ancestor Shimamura Danjo had fallen in battle at Amagasaki.

Beside it he wore, as his companion blade, the sword by Kanemitsu he had been given at the time of his first battle.

At the gate a horse whinnied.

Taking up his hand-spear and stepping down into the garden, Kazuma tied the cords of his straw sandals in a man's knot, and cut away the trailing ends with his short blade.

Takami Gon'emon, who was to lead the force against the rear gate of the Abe residence, had originally borne the name Wada, being descended from Wada Tajima no Kami, who had lived at Wada in Omi province.

He had at first followed Gamo Katahide, but in the generation of Wada Shogoro entered the service of the Hosokawa house.

Shogoro had won distinction in the battles of Gifu and Sekigahara.

Having served under Tadatoshi's elder brother Yoichiro Tadataka, when Tadataka, in Keicho five, incurred his father's displeasure in Osaka after his wife of the Maeda house fled ahead of the danger, and took holy orders under the name Kyumu and wandered as a masterless man, Shogoro had attended him even as far as Mount Koya and Kyoto.

It was Sansai who later summoned him to Kokura, had him take the name Takami, and made him a company captain.

His stipend was five hundred koku.

Shogoro's son was Gon'emon.

He had won distinction in the fighting at Shimabara, but for having broken military order, had for a time been stripped of his post.

After a while he was restored to service and made a captain of the personal guard.

When preparing for the assault, Gon'emon put on a crested robe of black habutae silk, and took up and girded on a long-treasured blade by Osafune of Bizen.

Then he went out bearing a cross-bladed spear.

Just as Shima Tokuemon stood with Takenouchi Kazuma's company, so too did Takami Gon'emon bring with him a single page.

Two or three years before the affair of the Abe family, on a summer day, this page, off duty, had lain down for a nap in his room.

A fellow retainer, returning from an errand, had stripped himself bare and was setting off to fetch water at the well with a bucket in hand, when, chancing to see the page asleep, he said, "Here I've come back from my errand, and you lie there sleeping instead of drawing water for me,"

he said, and kicked the page's pillow as he spoke.

The page sprang up at once.

"Very well. Had I been awake, I would gladly have drawn your water. But is there any excuse for kicking a man's pillow? This shall not pass unanswered."

So saying, he drew his blade in a single stroke and cut his fellow retainer down with a deep slash across the shoulder.

The page then calmly straddled his fellow's chest, delivered the finishing blow, and went to the retainer-hut to report the whole matter.

"I ought by rights to have died on the spot, but I thought there might be questions raised, and so I have come to report first,"

he said, and began baring his chest to perform seppuku.

The head retainer said, "Wait a moment,"

and reported the matter to Gon'emon.

Gon'emon, who had only just come down from his post and had not yet changed his clothes, went straight to the residence and reported it to Tadatoshi.

Tadatoshi said, "That was only reasonable. There is no need for seppuku."

he said.

From that day on, the page had served Gon'emon with a life he considered already given over to him.

The page shouldered a quiver and took up a half-bow and kept close at his master's side.

The twenty-first of the fourth month of Kan'ei nineteen was one of those faintly overcast days so common in the season of ripening wheat.

Meaning to storm the Yamazaki residence where the Abe family had shut themselves in, the men under Takenouchi Kazuma reached the main gate at first light.

The house, which had rung with gongs and drums all through the night, was now so hushed and still that it might have been mistaken for an empty dwelling.

The gate doors were shut fast.

On the tips of the oleander branches rising two or three feet above the plank fence hung spiderwebs, their threads shining like strings of pearls with the night dew.

A single swallow came flying from somewhere and darted in over the fence.

Kazuma let his horse go free, dismounted, watched the scene for a while, and then said, "Open the gate,"

he said.

Two foot soldiers climbed over the fence and went inside.

Since not a single enemy stood near the gate, they smashed the lock and drew out the crossbar.

Next door, Tsukamoto Matashichiro, hearing the sound of Kazuma's men opening the gate, trampled through the bamboo fence whose cords he had cut the night before, and rushed in.

It was a house he had visited nearly every day, and he knew every corner of it by heart.

Leveling his hand-spear, he burst in through the kitchen entrance.

Among the family, who had shut fast the doors of the main room and lay in wait to cut down the attackers one by one as they forced their way in, it was Yagobei who first sensed the presence of someone at the back entrance.

He too took up his hand-spear and went out to the kitchen to see.

The two men faced each other so close that the tips of their spears nearly touched.

"Ah—Matashichiro, is it,"

Yagobei called out.

"Indeed. There's that old boast of ours to settle. I've come to see how well you handle that spear of yours."

"Glad to oblige. Come on, then."

The two men each stepped back a pace and crossed spears.

They fought for a while, but Matashichiro's skill with the spear proved the greater, and he drove his blade clean through the plate of Yagobei's chest.

Yagobei flung his spear aside with a clatter and tried to fall back toward the main room.

"Cowardly. Don't run,"

Matashichiro shouted.

"No, I'm not fleeing. I mean to cut my belly open."

So saying, he left it at that and went into the main room.

In that very instant, crying out "Uncle, I'll be your match,"

the young Shichinojo, his forelocks still unshaven, sprang out like a flash of lightning and drove his blade into Matashichiro's thigh.

Having just dealt a mortal wound to his close friend Yagobei, Matashichiro, for all his skill, had let his guard slip without realizing it, and so fell at last to a mere boy's hand.

Matashichiro dropped his spear and collapsed on the spot.

Kazuma entered through the gate and posted his men in every corner of the grounds.

Advancing first to the entrance hall, he found the plank door in front left open just a crack.

As Kazuma reached out to lay his hand on the door, Shima Tokuemon pushed in between them and whispered urgently,

"Wait, if you please. You are our commander-in-chief this day. Allow me to go ahead of you."

Tokuemon flung the door wide open and leapt inside.

Ichidayu, who lay in wait, drove his spear into Tokuemon's right eye, and Tokuemon staggered and fell back against Kazuma.

"Out of my way,"

Kazuma said, pushing Tokuemon aside, and pressed forward.

The spears of Ichidayu and Godayu drove clean through both his flanks, left and right.

Soejima Kuhei and Nomura Shobei rushed in after them.

Tokuemon, undaunted even by his grievous wound, turned and came back into the fight.

At this moment Takami Gon'emon, having broken through the rear gate, wielded his cross-bladed spear, driving the Abe retainers before him, and reached the main room.

Chiba Sakubei pressed in close behind him.

The two forces, front and rear, mingled together, roaring and shouting as they thrust their way forward.

Even with the sliding partitions taken down, it was a room of scarcely thirty mats.

By the same logic that makes street fighting more ghastly than battle on an open field, the scene was fit to be compared to a hundred insects thrown together on a single plate and devouring one another—a sight too terrible to look upon.

Ichidayu and Godayu crossed spears with whoever came before them, and in the course of it took wounds too numerous to count over their whole bodies.

And yet, undaunted still, they flung their spears aside, drew their swords, and went on cutting their way around the room.

Shichinojo had, at some point no one had marked, already fallen.

Tsukamoto Matashichiro, pierced through the thigh, lay collapsed in the kitchen when one of Takami's men caught sight of him and said, "You've taken a wound, I see—well fought. Best withdraw at once,"

so he said, and pressed on into the inner rooms.

"If I still had legs to withdraw on, I'd go in there myself,"

Matashichiro said bitterly, grinding his teeth.

Just then one of his own retainers, who had followed his master in, came running up, took him upon his shoulder, and withdrew with him.

Another retainer of the Tsukamoto house, a man named Amakusa Heikuro, guarded his master's retreat, shooting down with his half-bow whatever enemy came within his sight, and fell fighting on that very spot.

Among Takenouchi Kazuma's men, Shima Tokuemon was the first to die, and after him the squad leader Soejima Kuhei.

While Takami Gon'emon wielded his cross-bladed spear, the page with the half-bow kept always close beside the spear's flank, shooting down the enemy, and later drew his sword and joined the cutting and slashing himself.

Chancing to glance about, he saw a man taking aim at Gon'emon with a musket.

"I shall take that shot myself,"

the page said, and stepped in front of Gon'emon, and the bullet came and struck him.

The page died on the spot.

Chiba Sakubei, the squad leader drawn from Takenouchi's company and attached to Takami's, took a grave wound, staggered out to the kitchen, drank water from the jar there, and collapsed on the spot, unable to move further.

Of the Abe family, Yagobei was the first to cut his belly open, and Ichidayu, Godayu, and Shichinojo, one after another, at last breathed their last from their grievous wounds.

Most of their retainers, too, fell fighting.

Takami Gon'emon gathered together the men from front and rear, had them tear down the storage shed standing at the back of the Abe grounds, and set fire to it.

On that windless, faintly overcast day, the smoke rose straight up into the sky and could be seen from far off.

After that, they trampled out the fire, doused the remains with water, and withdrew.

Chiba Sakubei, who had lain in the kitchen, and the others who had taken grave wounds, were carried out on the shoulders of retainers and fellow soldiers as the company withdrew.

The hour was exactly the hour of the Sheep.

Mitsuhisa often went out to visit the homes of leading men of the household, and on the twenty-first, the very day he had sent men against the Abe family, he set out for the residence of Matsuno Sakyo before dawn had fully broken.

Since Yamazaki lay just across the way from the Hanabatake residence where he lived, as Mitsuhisa left the residence he could hear, from the direction of the Abe house, the sound of voices and commotion.

"So the assault has begun,"

Mitsuhisa said, and got into his palanquin.

When the palanquin had gone scarcely a hundred yards or so, word reached him.

It was at this moment that he learned Takenouchi Kazuma had fallen in battle.

Takami Gon'emon led the whole punitive force back as far as the front of the Matsuno residence, where Mitsuhisa was staying, and had it reported to him that every last member of the Abe family had been cut down.

Mitsuhisa said he would see him at once, and had Gon'emon shown around to the garden of the drawing room.

There, where a small wicket gate stood among hedges of deutzia in full white bloom, Gon'emon opened it, went in, and knelt down abruptly upon the lawn.

Mitsuhisa, seeing him, called out, "You've taken a wound, I see. You have all worked exceptionally hard."

he called.

Gon'emon's robe of black habutae silk was drenched in blood, and mottled besides with soot and ash that had scattered over him when he trampled out the fire in the shed on withdrawing.

"No, my lord. It is only a scratch."

Someone had driven a blade hard into the pit of Gon'emon's stomach, but it had struck the mirror he carried in his breast and the point had been turned aside.

The wound had done no more than seep a little blood into the paper he pressed to it.

Gon'emon gave a detailed account of each man's conduct during the assault, and yielded the foremost credit to Tsukamoto Matashichiro of the neighboring house, who single-handedly had dealt Yagobei his mortal wound.

"How did Kazuma fare?"

"He rushed in through the main gate a step ahead of the rest, my lord, so I could not see for myself how he fared."

"I see. Tell everyone to come into the garden."

Gon'emon called them all in.

Aside from those with grave wounds who had already been carried home, all of them prostrated themselves on the lawn.

Those who had fought were soiled with blood; those who had only helped burn the shed were covered in nothing but ash.

Among those covered only in ash was Hata Judayu.

Mitsuhisa called out to him.

"Judayu, how did you fare?"

"Yes, my lord—"

was all he said, and lay there in silence.

Judayu was a big man but a coward at heart; he had only hovered about outside the Abe residence, and had, at last, timidly gone in only when they set fire to the shed just before withdrawing.

When he had first been ordered to join the punitive force and was on his way out through the antechamber, the swordsman Shinmen Musashi had seen him and said, "What extraordinary good fortune is yours—do your very utmost to distinguish yourself,"

he said, and clapped him on the back.

Judayu, they say, had gone pale and tried to retie the cord of his loosened hakama, but his hands trembled so badly he could not manage the knot.

As Mitsuhisa rose to leave, he said,

"You have all done splendidly. Go home now and rest."

Takenouchi Kazuma's infant daughter was permitted an adopted heir to carry on the family line, but that house later died out even so.

Takami Gon'emon received an increase of three hundred koku, and Chiba Sakubei and Nomura Shobei each received an increase of fifty koku.

To Tsukamoto Matashichiro, Komeda Kenmotsu conveyed words of praise, sending the company captain Tani Kuranosuke as his messenger.

When relatives and friends came to offer their congratulations, Matashichiro laughed and said, "Back in the days of Genki and Tensho, storming castles and clashing in open battle was as ordinary as breakfast and supper. Cutting down the Abe family is nothing more than a morsel before breakfast, and a small one at that."

so he said.

Two years later, in the summer of Shoho one, once his wound had healed, Matashichiro was granted an audience with Mitsuhisa.

Mitsuhisa entrusted him with ten muskets and said, "If you wish to take the hot-spring cure to see your wound fully healed, do so; and I shall grant you land outside the town for a villa besides—choose the place you would like."

he said.

Matashichiro was granted a plot of land at Koike village in Mashiki.

Behind it lay a hill covered in bamboo groves.

"Shall I grant you the bamboo hill as well?"

Mitsuhisa had it conveyed to him.

Matashichiro declined.

Bamboo, he said, was useful even in ordinary times.

And should war ever come again, great quantities of bamboo bundles would be needed.

He said he could not rest easy taking such a thing for his own private use.

And so the bamboo hill was instead entrusted to him in perpetual keeping on the domain's behalf.

Hata Judayu was banished.

Takenouchi Kazuma's elder brother Hachibei, though he had joined the punitive force on his own initiative, had not been present at the spot where his younger brother fell, and was ordered confined to his home.

Also, a certain man, the son of a mounted retainer who served as a young attendant, lived near the Abe residence, and so was excused from other duty and told only, "See to fire prevention,"

and spent the time up on the roof with his father, beating out sparks.

Later, realizing that he had gone against the very intention behind being excused from other duty, he asked to be released from service, but Mitsuhisa said, "That was no cowardice on your part. Only be a little more mindful from now on,"

he said, and kept him on in service as before.

This same attendant later committed junshi when Mitsuhisa himself died.

The bodies of the Abe family were dragged out to Ide no Kuchi and examined.

When each man's wounds were washed one by one in the Shirakawa river, Yagobei's wound, driven clean through the plate of his chest by Tsukamoto Matashichiro's spear, was found to be more splendid than any other wound received that day, and so Matashichiro's honor was restored to him more fully than ever.

January, Taisho two.