Side Story #18: Bashō's Poem

<Author’s note: This story takes place before the events of Book 1.>

<Author’s note: This story contains mature subject matter involving a minor in a potentially dangerous situation. Nothing bad happens but reader discretion is advised.>

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Side Story 18: Bashō’s Poem

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■■ Tonogasha ■■

“Poetry? I’m all for cuttin’ class...but you nerds want to listen to poetry?” Bashō scoffed, dropping his two classmates he had raised by their kimono collars. “Empty your pockets or I’ll tell the teachers!”

For a boy the age of nine, Bashō was big, and having been raised from modest means relative to the rest of his class, he was well-suited for being a bully. He was a son of a samurai—though a dead one, and those didn’t bring in the ryō like the living ones did.

“Y-yeah, there’s gonna to be lots of famous poets there from all over Hyuga! They’ll be doing a renga, where each poet takes turns giving lines. You, uh...probably wouldn’t like it, Bashō-senpai,” one of the bully’s victims said with a nervous laugh.

“Well maybe I will!” Bashō replied, stubborn and angry. “Come on, let’s go!”

■■■■

The poetry house wasn’t far nor was it hard to find with all the signs and merchandising going on around it. Large displays of beautiful calligraphy was adorned on the walls, while merchants hawked parchments covered in verses, many of them shouting the lines of the poets inside.

Tonogasha was the only town in Hyuga where such a sight could be seen. Artisans and their benefactors made their home here, in the idyllic valley between the hills. It was a place where wealth was in abundance but work wasn’t; it was an odd dynamic that made life for those struggling to get by even harsher.

It was that sort of resentment that made Bashō walk with a chip on his shoulder. He didn’t like what he didn’t understand, and he already knew he wasn’t going to enjoy poetry, either. It was too girly and unfit for the son of a samurai. That said, he didn’t want his peers to think him uncultured or stupid, so he was the first to make it to the door into the poetry house.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t take a step inside before a large man with an even larger gut forced him out.

“Sorry, kids. Adults only! Could get a bit racy in there—especially with Sōkan-dono in the circle.”

“Come on! I’m big enough!” Bashō complained and was joined by his two classmates. But the door guard wouldn’t budge, and his bulging stomach meant squeezing past him wasn’t in the cards. Bashō was about to lose spirit and spend the day elsewhere until the man kept talking.

“You’re no allowed! There’s saké in there, and we’re not handin’ it out to brats like you. Beat it!”

The boys complied but Bashō, at least, had newfound determination. Saké was what the grown men drank—and that was reason enough for him to go in and get a taste for himself. To do so, though, required a bit of cooperation. Or at the very least a mix of bribery and intimidation.

“Alright you two, listen up,” Bashō said as he got the three of them into a huddle. He proceeded to let the two boys in on the plan, one involving an alley cat and a sack of stale fish guts. He found the guts in a barrel outside an unattended stall used to sell fertilizer, while his classmates found not one cat but two and had the cuts on their arms to show for it.

Walking around with a sack of reeking guts and two all-but-feral cats was a bad idea, and they quickly drew the ire and attention of the crowd. They had to hurry if they were going to unleash their attack on the doorsman. Unfortunately, he had both smelled and heard them coming, and had brought over a gruff looking companion—one bearing both a katana and a scowl to chase them off.

Bashō tossed the guts while his classmates released their cats in a panic. The felines scattered off and the fish innards did little more than litter the street corner. The boys then became mice themselves as they screeched and scurried off, but even this was part of Bashō’s plan. There were only two chasing them, which meant only two in their group was going to get caught.

And Bashō wasn’t going to be one of them.

“Aaaah!” one cried as he tripped over Bashō’s outstretched leg. Proving to be every bit of the bully that he was, he ran off alone into one alley and around to the next, running the perimeter of the poetry house to get to the other side.

When he got there, he slipped in through the unguarded entrance. Aside from stinky hands and sore right foot, he had managed to infilitrate the building mostly unscatched. As for his companions, well…

“I’ll be sure to tell ‘em what saké tastes like tomorrow!”

Grinning and eager, Bashō waded through the standing-room-only crowd. The poetry house itself was of an odd design: it had a large, open-roofed chamber at the center where everyone stood and chatted about in eager anticipation.

Their apparent glee raised the boy’s expectations the further he went in. Disappointment met him immediately, however, upon seeing what the crowd was surrounding: a circle of old men, smoking kiseru pipes and sitting on pillows.

Each one was more odd and less intimidating than the last. They giggled like the girls in his class, slapping their knees and cracking their bones in ways only old men could. “These are the poets everyone is so excited about? They’re just a bunch of feeble old grandpas!”

It would seem the poetry reading hadn’t started yet—not that Bashō cared to stick around long. At least this delay gave the boy time to do a bit of reconnaissance. His main goal sat at a table on the opposite side of the poetry circle. Several bottles of saké and many dozens of cups were laid out, all of them filled with glimmering, clear liquid.

Bashō’s face began to blush at the thought of his future buzz. He knew alcohol made men act silly and that it put hair on their chests, too—and that his own was certainly lacking. The fact that his mother, teachers and priests forbid the brew was all the incentive he needed to do some taste-testing.

So he slid and maneuvered himself through the audience, slowly so as not to draw too much attention, while keeping an eye out for the fat man and his ronin companion. He made it about halfway until the strings of a koto—a harp—rang out and silenced the crowd.

All eyes including Bashō’s were focused upon a beautiful young lady in a bright pink kimono. Though she was cute, her music was eerie and somehow able to echo throughout the crowded chamber. The contrast made for its own sort of charm, Bashō thought, until he shook such girlish ideas from his mind. “I’m just here for the saké!”

After one last pluck, the girl rose and bowed to the applause of everyone in attendance. Once the claps quieted down she began to speak.

“On behalf of the Blue Sky Poetry House, we welcome you to ‘Renga of Spring’! May the cold chills of winter be behind us, and a fruitful new season welcome us all. We are graced this afternoon by masters of the written verse, each a legend in his own right.”

She went on to introduce each of the old men, who took turns standing and bowing, soaking in the cheers. Bashō took the opportunity to make his move, wading through and getting ever closer to the saké table. He wasn’t alone in his journey—a balding, middle-aged man with a katana at his hip had the same idea, and him being a samurai afforded him much more space than the nine-year-old boy.

“...now known as Sōkan, he served as the court calligrapher to the Emperor himself!” the woman in pink continued. “After retiring last summer, his brush now writes tremendous verses, known throughout the land for his wit and—”

“Vulgarity! Heeheehee-hehe!” Sōkan interjected, winking at the woman young enough to be his granddaughter. He bowed in a grand fashion, outstretching his hand as he did so. Out of his sleeve came a rose, which he handed to the speaker. She couldn’t help but blush.

The audience broke out in laughs and even Bashō, too, caught himself chuckling. Though the boy had been momentarily pre-occupied by the performance, the samurai hadn’t paid it any heed and was now enjoying a cup of alcohol as if he were a fish and it water.

He slammed the empty cup down on the table and went for another until a woman heavily coated in makeup slapped him. It turned out to be his wife.

“Control thyself, Toshiaki! Don’t appear like the drunken fool that you are!” she said in a loud whisper. Following in her footsteps were three men with stern faces and katanas at their sides, each shifting their glances around like robins looking for worms. It was an apt description as under their brown cloaks were blue kimonos not unlike the bird’s belly. Except these were bright blue with white mountain trim.

“Aye, aye...but what’s so great about fancy writin’ and talkin’ anyways? I want to head back to the estate,” he said in reply. He was a man after Bashō own’s heart, or at least their minds were on the same page. He also had the thickest Southern accent Bashō had ever heard.

“Why, samurai,” said Sōkan to the heckler, “your katana can change the present. But my quill can change the past. Legacies are not written in blood, but ink!”

The poet then dipped his finger in an ink pot, and wrote a symbol on his forehead. It read ‘Sugoi’, which meant amazing...until he furrowed his brow and it changed to ‘Yamete’ which meant stop. “Words hold a power some use far too lightly!”

The calligrapher-turned-poet-turned-comedian proceeded to change his facial expressions in all manner of goofy ways, changing the writing on his face and causing the entire crowd to erupt in laughter. Bashō was right there with them, gripping his stomach and buckling over in amusement.

“I didn’t know poets could be so funny!”

The Southern samurai, now properly silenced, indulged in another drink while the poetry session began in earnest. While Bashō’s stomach was still sore from laughing, after he recovered he continued his pursuit. He was now within arm’s reach of a cup of the alluring brew.

The boy snatched it so quickly that half of it spilled down his hand. He didn’t take so much as a whiff before plunging it down—all in one go, like the adults did. Except he couldn’t keep it down.

“This is—this is terrible! It burns!”

At that frantic moment, the collaborative poem moved on to Sōkan. His line was the one everyone in the audience was holding their breath for. Bashō was, too, but for a very different reason.

“The robe of haze is wet at its hem…” the poet said, tugging his moustache as he recited the previous line. He then let out a chuckle. “Princess Saho of spring pissed while standing!”

*pssSsSH*

Bashō spouted out his saké as everyone roared out in unison. This was comedic gold—and borderline heretical, too, to speak about the goddess of spring in such a crass manner! Sōkan had taken a serious verse and turned it on its head, causing everyone to lose theirs as they joined in the merriment.

There was one exception, however: the Southern samurai’s wife, who happened to be standing right in front of Bashō. She turned slowly as her shoulders shook and as her knuckles went white in pent-up rage.

“How dare thee spit on me!”

Bashō was frozen in fear. For the scowl facing him wasn’t just deadly, but familiar.

“M-Mother?!”

■■■■

“I have never suffered such indignity! The penalty for spitting upon Her Imperial Majesty is death!” the woman yelled, whipping her hand across Bashō’s reddened cheek. Welts were going to form if she kept it up. “Be lucky if I let thee live, knave!”

Bashō grimaced, his arms held up by two of the lady’s samurai. They were outside the venue in one of the back alleys the boy had used to sneak in with. One of the cats from before was there too, staring at the commotion.

“Awh...come on Saki-chan. Boy’s had enough, I reckon.” The Southern samurai intervened on his behalf, though that only sparked his wife into an even greater rage. 

“Don’t you ‘Saki-chan’ me!” Sakiko wracked her palm across Bashō once more, before inspecting her fingernails. She began to curse about chipping a nail as a cut opened up above the Bashō’s left eye. “Hmph! Very well, I’m finished with you. I do have one question, however. You called me...mother. The Lioness bares no cubs.”

‘Aye, not yet but soon m’dear,” Toshiaki chuckled and wrapped an arm around Sakiko’s waist. Or at least he tried to; she drove a sharp elbow into him to push him away.

“I’ll ask you only this once, child: why did you call me your mother?”

Bashō gulped down a wad of spit and blood. It tasted just as bitter as that saké had.

“B-because you look just like her,” he said. “But you’re a much greater bitch than she is!” he wanted to add. Wisely he didn’t, and that wisdom didn’t just save his life.

It got him a job. The sort of job you couldn’t refuse to take.

“By the power granted in me, Heir to the Imperial Throne, I demand you take me to this woman who bares my resemblance! I might have use of her.”

Though Bashō didn’t care for this foul lady in the slightest—it hadn’t hit him that he was in the presence of royalty—he did care about her entourage. There were no less than four samurai under her command, and under their cloaks were the uniforms of the Shinsengumi. Every nine-year-old son of a samurai knew they were the best of the best.

And then there was Toshiaki, too, who only wanted to hurry things along to get home.

So Bashō led the affluent couple and their bodyguards to his home, on the decidedly poorer part of town. He had hoped his mother was working late—as she usually did—but his luck turned upon sight of their chimney smoking. The scent of supper met his nose.

The door was open and the group barged in without so much as an introduction. The Shinsengumi grabbed his mother, who screamed, kicked and flailed until she caught sight of the woman who commanded them.

“The...The Lioness?!” she cried out as she buckled her knees and bowed her head low to the ground. Looking up, she saw her son next to the Emperor’s sister. “My greatest pardon for whatever Bashō-kun has done to insult you. Please forgive us, Your Grace!”

“She even sounds like ya,” remarked the husband. It earned him a sharp glare from his wife.

“What is thy name and occupation?” The Lioness growled at the prey fallen before her. Bashō’s mother meekly replied that her name was Chiasa Matsuo and that she was a seamstress.

“Matsuo...I fought in the war with a man by that name,” the Southerner noted. The mention of his father caused Bashō to gasp in surprise. He was determined to ask about him—about the man he had never met—but was silenced by yet another slap from Sakiko.

“Ahem!” she said, shifting her focus back to the mother. “Stand. From this day forth, you are no longer Chiasa the seamstress. For I, Lady Sakiko, Sister to the Emperor, First in Line to the Throne, called the Lioness and Her Grace, enlist your services for my protection.”

Chiasa did more than just stand—she lept back in shock. She then exchanged looks with each of the samurai in Sakiko’s retinue. “H-how can I be of service, Your Majesty?! I cannot wield a sword!”

“You will not serve as my bodyguard...but as my body double.”

■■■■

A week had passed since Bashō and his mother began living at Lady Sakiko’s and Toshiaki Mukai’s estate. The land and mansion had been a gift offered by the Emperor to Toshiaki in return for his deeds in the Kondo War, as well as a dowry for the marriage of his sister. Though they were the highest honors any samurai could achieve, the Southerner was treated little better than a nuisance by his new wife.

Sakiko, or Her Ladyship or Her Majesty—whichever her name was, she was a taskmaster with an insatiable appetite. Bashō learned that very quickly as he toiled away in the kitchens.

“That’s not a cleaver, you imbecile! Fetch me the proper knife before I gut you like this hog!”

Sakiko’s servants were all about as amiable as their mistress, which was to say they were far from pleasant. Between breakfast, lunch, supper and tea times, the boy was constantly on his feet and running about, getting yelled at and at times beaten.

“Curse that blasted poetry house! Going to school was much better than this!”

The schoolyard bully was now the lowest of the servants—though it wasn’t all bad. Living in a mansion as grand as this one was amazing; it was easy to get lost in and even easier to hide from your duties. The mansion had several floors: the bedrooms for the family and guests being on the higher ones, with a parlor at the front entrance and a fully-stocked kitchen in the back. Between them was a vast dining room with the largest table the boy had ever seen.

There was also a room used solely for music, another solely to display art pieces and yet another for shogi—a game in which Lady Sakiko was very skilled in.

Yet among all these rooms it was the library that Bashō found himself most drawn to, if only because it was the best place to hide. He could easily escape clean-up duties between the large bookshelves, and even began to read their contents to stave off boredom. Though there were plenty of books on history and warriors of myth, it was the poetry verses that he drifted towards.

“All around me

Countless dewdrops: what

Might they portend-when

Those which fall upon my sleeve

Are tears…”

The verses were profound and introspective, so different than the droll murmurs the instructors went on about at length during his classes. What they spoke of wasn’t cold like arithmetic or dry like history. It was something more. “Something real...something beautiful.”

The beauty ended at the sound of the dinner bell. Bashō reluctantly rose from his seat on the library floor to get back to work, though before he did, he stuffed a couple books and a handful of parchments inside his kimono; he was determined for some reading material to last him well into the night.

Before going to the kitchens he took a detour outside the mansion, rushing back to the ‘supplementary’ servant’s quarters he and his mother resided in. It was a run-down shack they were told was still under construction, though there was little sign of it ever being completed.

As it was near suppertime in early spring, the sun had all but set as Bashō made his way to his new home. Unlike the mansion with its multitude of lanterns and torches, his quarters where dark and amid a thick woodlands where it was hard to see.

A cloaked figure, for example, could go completely unseen even beside the door frame—especially if it stood deadly still. Bashō had been so eager to stash away his goods that he didn’t see the stranger until after the boy had slid opened the door, hid his papers under his futon, and then ran back outside.

Needless to say, the sight frightened him.

“Yiiiii-ah!” Bashō cried out, looking for anything and everything to use as a weapon. What he found was a fistful of pebbles, which he threw with abandon until the tall stranger reacted.

“Aituo!” the figure said in a hoarse, strange voice. It held up a hand—a hairy, ghostly white hand—to show he was harmless. The gesture had quite the opposite effect on Bashō as the man was even stranger than before. He was even taller, too, as he straightened his posture to its full height.

“W-who are you?! What business do you have here?” Bashō yelled, trying to sound brave. The man replied in more words the boy couldn’t understand—whatever they were, they weren’t Hyugan. “You aren’t Hyugan,” Bashō realized. But solving that puzzle led to a hundred more, and he was already late for his supper serving duties.

Just as he was about to run and report the stranger to the samurai at the estate, the man spoke out in a language the boy did understand.

*growl*

The cloaked stranger’s stomach roared out in the familiar, pathetic fashion. Though it was against his better judgement and any practical wisdom, Bashō decided to keep his appearance a secret from the others. He even brought back some bread and cheese from the kitchens for him.

“He’s the weirdest beggar I’ve ever seen, that’s for sure.”

■■■■

A week had passed since that evening where Bashō first met the stranger, and the boy had made it his mission to teach the strange man everything he knew about speaking and writing in Hyugan. Though the boy was not much of a teacher, and they had little time together due to his duties in the kitchen, the stranger was a skilled listener and eager to learn. Having the undivided attention of an adult sparked Bashō into one animated lecture after another.

At times it was a game of charades, where he acted out drinking and swordfighting, while at others it was matching and memorizing different kinds of birds and plants, field horses and gardening tools. For the first time in his life, Bashō felt like he knew a lot—and he did, at least compared to the foreigner. He knew the names of everything!

Well, almost everything.

“Your name. You’ve never told me what it was,” Bashō said, changing the topic midway through his lecture. He pointed to himself and repeated his name, then pointed to his cloaked companion and waited.

“Leper,” was his reply. “Me is a leper.”

It was the same reply he had given yesterday and the day before that. Bashō knew a leper had diseased skin and that the condition was contagious, which explained why the foreigner kept himself so covered. But that only made him more mysterious.

The second biggest mystery was attached to the man’s hip.

“That sword you have there,” Bashō gestured, “it isn’t curved like the katanas the samurai wield. Can you unsheathe it?”

The tall leper did a shrugging motion upon the word ‘unsheathe’ to indicate he didn’t understand its meaning. After a moment of charades the man nodded, before shaking his head and looking off into the distance.

“Will never you see it, hope I.”

Bashō stomped the ground in frustration. In doing so, one of the many sheets he kept tucked under his kimono from the library came free. It flew right under the foreigner’s feet. The stranger picked it up and looked at the verse before letting out a sigh of defeat.

“Read please very much, Bashō.”

One of the stranger’s many peculiarities was that he never used honorifics—even after the boy had told him about them days prior; whatever the foreigner’s culture was must not have used them. It was refreshing in a way, and made the boy feel older. Not to mention that ‘Bashō’ had a ring to it that ‘Bashō-kun’ simply didn’t.

So he complied with the request. But speaking poetry aloud was embarrassing, he realized, as his face went red and his nerves ran his throat dry. Bashō didn’t know why he was so concerned—it wasn’t as if his audience could understand half the words anyway—so he braced his courage, cleared his throat, and spoke.

“Snow yet remaining

The mountain slopes are misty—

An evening in spring.”

The silence that lingered afterwards made Bashō nervous, though before he could rush to fill it the foreigner raised his pale and hairy hand. “This...poetry?”

Bashō nodded. Then the stranger did something most unusual of all—he wept. He braced a hand against his eyes, though saltwater dripped down them all the same.

“Orlando innamorato...Mi manchi, cugino Matteo!”

The boy was shocked at the sight as well as the sounds of the sobbing, cloaked man. Though he still had no name he had feelings just as any person did. He was alone in a world unknown to him, and the only friend he had…

“Is me,” Bashō thought to himself. He patted his companion on the shoulder, supporting the much larger and fearsome figure to make for a sight that was almost comical. But there was nothing funny about it. Not wishing to worry the boy any further, the foreigner recomposed himself, stood up from his seat on a fallen log and apologized, even attempting a Hyugan-style bow.

“Sorry, I am,” he said, before handing the paper back. “You like poetry, yes? Bashō should write—would en...enjoy? Enjoy me hearing it.”

The accent was thick but the sentiments were clear. Though there was an obvious cultural difference between them, it was as if the much older man could see right through the younger, as Bashō had thought of little else but trying his own hand at poetry ever since hearing it from Sōkan two weeks ago.

“...I don’t know if I can. Or if I even want to,” he replied. Bashō still felt that poetry was effeminate, not something a son of a samurai such as himself ought to concern himself with. But he was nevertheless drawn to the phrases and the vivid images they planted inside his head.

Snow, for example, was something he had never seen—but through words he could feel the cold and wispy powder pass through his fingers.

“Will know not unless trying,” the foreigner remarked with a smile. Or at least Bashō imagined he did. Try as he might, the boy had never gotten a good look at the man’s face. “One day, you will—”

*DING* *DONG* *DIIING*

That was the supper bell ringing, which was strange considering that supper had ended two hours prior. The idea that something was amiss hadn’t struck Bashō yet, who instead imagined that Sakiko wished for a second helping of roasted duck.

Regardless of the reason, Bashō cut the lecture short and hurried back to the mansion. Were it not for the full moon he would’ve certainly lost his footing; he sprang up the many stairs of the mansion to see what was the matter. When he did, he nearly tripped.

The sight of a dozen samurai in glowing white robes was one you didn’t see very often.

“Like swans with fangs,” Bashō thought. “Why are they here?”

The boy hurried over to the line of servants, each standing straight yet with their heads down. He expected to be berated by his mother or one of the chefs. The fact that the scolding never came spoke volumes as to the severity of the situation.

Toshiaki and his wife came out from the mansion hand-in-hand, waiting at the top step as they inspected the samurai below. Their Shinsengumi bodyguards were at their sides, though their number was only half those of the men in white.

And among those men was one head-and-shoulders above the rest, both in body and in presence. He had a thick, greying beard and a wicked snarl, above which was a broken nose and a pair of bright brown eyes that seemed to bulge from out of his face. His most notable feature was his thick mane of curly brown hair, the top half of which was tied back in a ponytail while the bottom draped down well past his shoulders.

This samurai was by all measures a Northerner, but when he spoke it felt as if all of Hyuga was made to listen.

“Is this man before me Toshiaki Mukai, the renowned swordsman and hero of the Kondo Wars?”

Before Toshiaki could respond, Sakiko stepped forward. Indignance was both on her face and between her lips. “Is it not common courtesy to introduce oneself before hailing others, samurai?! Thee stand in the presence of the Lioness herself, Sister to the Emperor! I am Lady Sakiko, known to all as—”

“Shut up, woman,” the samurai snarled. He spit on the stone stairs before taking a step upwards. The Shinsengumi jumped in unease and placed their hands atop their katanas in preparation for battle. The Northerner paid them no heed. “Mukai. You were trained in the Nitojutsu—the two swords technique, were you not?”

“A-aye, I was,” Toshiaki murmured, then coughed to clear his throat. “I see by your emblems that ye be Uesugi. May I presume I have the pleasure of welcoming Izō Uesugi, the head of his clan?”

“Aye,” Izō replied with a chuckle to mock Toshiaki’s tone. He took another step and then one more before Sakiko’s samurai rushed in front of their lady for her protection.

“State your business at once!” Sakiko yelled from behind her men. “If you wish to be received as a guest, I suggest you humble thyself this instant!”

*schwinnnng*

Izō Uesugi unsheathed his katana and pointed it at Toshiaki. The blade glimmered in the moonlight.

“There is only one reason I’ve come here. It is to challenge you to a duel, Mukai. I wish to see the power behind the Southern schools!”

“Those schools have long since disbanded!” Toshiaki was quick to explain. “The swordmasters of that era have all retired...aye, and so have I, Lord Uesugi. My focus is on my marriage now and building this estate. Please, come as honored guests and let us speak of times long past.”

Samurai who survived wars needed more than just martial prowess—they required cunning, too, paired with a refined ability to judge their opponents. Toshiaki was no match for this Northerner and lacked the pride to be forced into a duel he couldn’t win.

“Damn. It’s as I thought,” Lord Uesugi said, returning his katana into its sheath. Both the samurai and staff of the estate let out a held-in breath all at once. “We’ll take you up on that offer. What a shame, though: I had wanted to see the style in action before my duel with Gensai.”

With tensions settled, the butlers, maids and kitchen staff went into a flurry of activity to make rooms and meals for the surprise guests. There were a dozen of them and each were hungry. Though Sakiko didn’t care for them in the slightest, she wasn’t the type of hostess to disappoint. The Uesugi were going to have a three-course dinner paired with the best saké they had on hand—even if it was a quarter till midnight!

“Ba-kun!” the chef barked. “Keep those ovens lit or I’ll toss you in there to spare us the firewood!”

Bashō rushed from one furnace to the next, filling them with coals and pumping the bellows—a blacksmith’s tool used to make sure fires got enough air—as if his life depended on it. Might be that it did, judging from the temperament of the staff. Many had been roused from their beds at such a late hour.

In contrast, Bashō was energetic and his spirits were high upon the sight of so many fearsome samurai. Though Lord Uesugi was frightening, the other samurai were far more friendly—particularly after the saké started getting passed around. They began telling jokes and trading stories with the Shinsengumi. There was even an attempt at a game of Chō-Han for a bit of gambling before Sakiko forbade it.

“Crass games of chance have no place in a royal’s hall! If you gentlemen wish to play a game, may I suggest shogi?”

None of them took her up on the offer, opting instead to put away their dice and return to their drinking. Given the shortage of waiters, Bashō was enlisted in picking up and replacing the saké decanters. While most of the samurai were displeased it was him serving them instead of one of the maids, they mostly ignored him so long as he kept the alcohol flowing.

There was one exception, however: Lord Uesugi stared at him from the far end of the long dining table, sitting unamused as Toshiaki Mukai spoke feverishly across from him. When the Northerner raised his decanter and gestured over, Bashō knew he could ignore him no longer.

The boy reached to grab the pitcher though once he did, the samurai lord grabbed his arm.

“This one looks more like a weasel than a boy. Where did you pick him up at, Mukai?” He squeezed and traced a finger across Bashō’s arm. It took everything in the boy not to pull away, but given the strength in the man’s hand—he didn’t think he could.

“That’s er...Baru? Banka?”

“It’s Bashō. Bashō Matsuo!” the boy corrected. He then snapped his arm out from beneath Lord Uesugi’s grasp. He stuck out his tongue and pulled down an eyelid, too, in a rude gesture that earned him a slap from Sakiko—or would have, had the samurai lord not intervened.

“I like his spirit. Reminds me of my own child,” he said with a growl. “I think I’ll have you keep me company for dessert.”

He yanked Bashō down to the seat beside him, placing him across from Sakiko herself. Her Ladyship said nothing but her eyes certainly did: the black pupils were shaped like daggers that threatened all manner of misery if Bashō disobeyed. He didn’t.

“Aye, fought with the boy’s father during the war. Shifty looking fellow—but one of our best scouts. His sacrifice saved many lives in that forest. You ought to be proud, Bashō-kun.”

“Sacrifice?” the boy and samurai lord asked in unison.

Toshiaki was beset by a nervous fit of laughter, and scratched his balding scalp while thinking of a way to change the subject. Luckily, Lord Uesugi wasn’t keen on talking about trout fishing. Toshiaki was forced to elaborate.

“Well er, you see, ain’t right to talk about a man’s death in front of his kid. Might be we best save this for later.”

“Speak. Spare no detail,” Lord Uesugi ordered, brushing his shoulder against Bashō. The boy was trembling from both fear—for being next to such a frightening samurai—as well as from grim anticipation. He wanted to know how his father died.

“Aye, very well then. Order was from His Imperial Majesty himself—your brother, Seijirō-sama,” Toshiaki said, turning to his wife and grinning. Sakiko looked like she wanted to gag. “We had us a stubborn group of dirtskins raiding our backlines, and supplies were gettin’ mighty sparse that time of year. Wantin’ to put an end to the war, the Emperor sent us a group of his best shugenja with orders to burn the Kondos out. Said we were to send out a scout to gather them up, all to get ‘em in range of the spell.

“And that...aye, that was Matsuo’s job. Worst of it was,” Toshiaki paused, unable to look Bashō in the eye. “Poor bastard didn’t even know about it. We couldn’t risk telling him, so we didn’t. Burnin’ alive ain’t a fate I’d wish upon my worst enemy, but—”

“You’re a liar!” Bashō yelled, jumping from the table and breaking a set of porcelain plates while doing so. “My father was a samurai in the Emperor’s army! The Emperor couldn’t...he wouldn’t do something so horrific to his own soldier!”

“Quiet, boy,” said Sakiko with her nose upturned. She had her arms crossed and was leaning back on her extravagant pillow-seat. “Seiji-kun is a lion, even if he likes to pretend that his claws are clipped. We of the Imperial Family see Hyuga through different eyes than yours. Your father was but a pawn in our game. You should be happy that he was so useful.”

Bashō couldn’t believe it. The shock from the truth about his father was enough to freeze him still. He wanted to scream and cry out, to curse and to lash out at the three monsters sitting beside him. He—like all Hyugans—had been taught that the Emperor was chosen by the gods, a perfect and benevolent being that could do no wrong.

“But he...he ordered my father’s death?! Curse him, his sister and the rest of his family! I hate them all!”

“The poor thing is overwhelmed with grief. Allow me to escort him back to his quarters—it’s far too late for a boy his age to be up.”

Lord Uesugi’s words were tinged in false sympathy to mask his dark intentions. Sakiko and Toshiaki obliged him, and every samurai looked the other way as the brown-haired warrior walked the boy away.

Bashō didn’t realize the danger he was in—he couldn’t imagine it, especially when his imagination was occupied with burning fires and the melting, screaming face of the man he had never had the chance to meet. “Father...no, please!”

“You sound just like my Little One. Don’t you worry. It will all be over soon.”

They went outside and down the many stairs, making their way to the Matsuo residence. In their path was a servant, rushing towards them with a bundle of sheets. She paused and nearly dropped them when she recognized who the samurai was.

She had the courtesy to bow low and grovel as expected, at least until she saw that Lord Uesugi was with her son.

“Bashō-kun? Is my son troubling you, my lord?”

“Not at all. In fact he wishes to show me something.”

“I-Is that so? Please forgive me my lord, but I haven’t had time to clean our household. I wasn’t expecting a warrior of such renown to grace us with—”

“It’s fine,” Lord Uesugi said, cutting the servant off coldly. “Leave us. Do not return here before dawn.”

“Mother!” Bashō yelled, finally finding his voice. “Stop him! I don’t wanna go with him! Help me—let me go!” Though he kicked, punched and screamed, the boy couldn’t escape the samurai’s grasp. He pleaded to his mother, to the woman who had birthed him.

To the only family he had.

But she turned away, her eyes vacant and her soul absent of all feelings. She said nothing and heard nothing—none of her son’s screams reached her ears. This was the last time Bashō would see her, and it was this moment that he would recall for years to come.

“Get moving,” Lord Uesugi grumbled as he tugged the boy by the arm, hard enough to tear it from its socket. Bashō was on the verge of tears. He still had no idea what the man intended for him, not really, but every instinct in him told him to be terrified. And he was.

“What’s this? Parchment?” the samurai asked as he pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from Bashō’s kimono. “Looks like poetry. Are you a poet, then?”

Bashō didn’t respond, though the thought of poetry was a far improvement from his current situation. He caught himself nodding and mumbling that he was, even though he had never written a verse in his life.

That was about to change. Lord Uesugi looked for a quill and a pot of ink, but the best he could find in this rundown shack was a chopstick and stale soy sauce. It would service as the writing equipment for Bashō’s first poem.

“Write something for me then. No—” the samurai quickly corrected, “—for Juu. For my Little One. A birthday gift from me to my heir once I return home.”

Bashō sat beside the small table, staring at the blank page as if it were a katana’s blade. It was just as scary to him then, to confront the razor’s edge in order to pass into a world beyond. In an unknown world.

“A world that has to be better than this one!”

When Bashō dipped the tip of his utensil into the soy sauce, the trembling in his hands stopped. The boy...no, the poet’s eyes went wide as an unfamiliar force possessed him. The words came out all on their own.

“With Father’s Love,

To My Obedient,

And My Only,

Little One.”

It was straightforward in some ways yet unexplainable in others. The energy that flowed through him wasn’t something Bashō could fathom much less describe. He knew only that the fear and doubt within him had subsided and that in their wake…

...were four simple lines.

Lord Uesugi took the soy-stained paper and read it to himself, once and then twice over, nodding all the while. He folded it up and faced Bashō with a grin.

“Better than I expected. Little One will be very pleased, I’m sure.”

Bashō smiled as any child would after being praised. His first ever poem was a success, and this memory was one he would never forget. Unfortunately the monster known as Izō Uesugi would try to turn it into a horrific one. He grabbed the boy’s kimono with the intent of tearing it apart. He got half of it undone before a thumping on the door interrupted him.

“Announce yourself!” the samurai yelled. “Who dares interrupt me?!”

There was a scratching that followed, as if the person behind the door had difficulty figuring out how to use it. Eventually the shoji door slid open and revealed the figure behind it.

Lit up by the moonlight and without his cloak, the man who claimed to be a leper proved himself to be a liar. His skin was not blemished by disease—though it was a pale white it was hardly sickly. What drew the attention of the Hyugans were his eyes—rounded and shaped like opals. Beneath them was his nose, long and pointed.

His outfit, too, was unlike any they had seen. It was tight-fitting save for his white sleeves, which puffed out over his arms from out of a black doublet with golden trim. Beneath his waist was a pair of breeches made from leather tightly wrapped around his lengthy legs.

To enter the household he had to hunch over, but after he did he took what was in his hand—a black glove made from velvet—and tossed it down in front of Izō Uesugi.

“I...am...Roderico da Mirandola! I challenge you, samurai!”

■■■■

It was a battle beneath the full moon fought between a grove and a creek. The competitors were silent but the frogs and crickets around them were more than willing to serenade them in their nightly chorus. Bashō looked on, praying a wordless prayer that the foreigner—Roderico—would come out safe and unharmed.

“Came here looking for a new sword style,” the samurai said with a grin. “Guess I found one.”

All the two had in common were that they wielding steel; the length, design and manner in which they used their swords was entirely different. For starters, the foreigner had but one hand on his weapon, with the other outstretched behind him. His blade was thinner and straight, and its hilt at the base was larger and encased his hand.

Lord Uesugi took note of it all and grinned. “Ikuzo! Let’s go, gaijin!”

The swords clashed but not in the manner Bashō had envisioned they would. It was not a series of sparks and giant swings but feints, dodges and calculated backstepping. Lord Uesugi quickly realized that the foreigner’s speed and range outmatched his own, turning his grin into a grimace as he was forced to put his weight on the back of his heels.

Roderico’s face, on the other hand, was without expression. We wielded his thin blade like a serpent did its head, spurring it forth at angles the samurai hadn’t expected and didn’t prepare for. The first blood was drawn when the Uesugi was too slow on his retreat.

“Kuso! Don’t you know who I am?! I’m the strongest swordsman in Hyuga!”

The samurai’s pale kimono was now colored by an ever-growing dot of pink at the side of his stomach. Bashō cheered though Roderico remained unphased. He prepared for the samurai’s next attack—one with enough force behind it to slice him in two.

“EEEIYAH!” Lord Uesugi wailed in a warrior’s cry. It had been a ruse, however, as in the last moment his overhead attack twisted sideways at the foreigner’s exposed ribs. Roderico had no chance of altering his sword in time to deflect.

So he charged forward instead. He closed the distance between them and used his spare hand as a second weapon. Roderico clenched his offhand into a fist and slammed it forward into Uesugi’s gaping mouth.

*whuNK*

The two combatants pushed off each other to recompose themselves. Roderico inspected himself for damages and found that his left hand was bleeding—though it wasn’t his blood.

“Bas...tard,” Izō grunted as he grasped his bleeding mouth. Having one hand free in battle proved superior to none, and the evidence littered the ground. The samurai spat globs of blood and eventually a tooth. One of his canines had come off.

Roderico had managed to detooth the most fierce and feared of the Northern wolves. This one just happened to take human form. He was a predator accustomed to prey much smaller than he, and when faced with an opponent that could hold his own against him…

...he could only turn tail and run.

“Mark my words, you foreign demon: I will avenge this dishonor! After I defeat my nemesis Gensai, I shall come for you next! THIS I SWEAR UPON MY FAMILY’S NAME!”

Lord Uesugi’s words were loud and frightening, though much less of the latter considering he was running away as he shouted them. After a moment passed and he was out of earshot, Bashō broke down into laughter.

Roderico, on the other hand, looked puzzled and shrugged. “What say he?”

“It...it doesn’t matter,” Bashō said with a smile before running to embrace his champion and savior. With that joy and relief came tears, too, as the boy at the young age of nine now knew betrayal. Not just by his own emperor, but by his mother, too.

He cried for perhaps a minute or an hour more—however long it was, Roderico kept him close until the tears were over. Once they were, the boy spoke. “We need to leave. Please...I hate everyone here. I’d rather be dead than live like this any longer!”

“That can be arranged,” said a voice from afar. It was Sakiko’s, whose form was frightening in its own right, though magnified by the Shinsengumi around her. “You have managed to make me an enemy out of half the entire North! You have done more damage in my plots to retake the throne than the entirety of Seijirō’s ninja!

“The death of you, child, will be the first of many gifts made to absolve me of this disgrace!”

Roderico couldn’t understand half the woman’s words, but based on Bashō’s reactions alone he knew what he had to do. He took his hand into his young instructor’s and shook it.

“Aritago. Bashō...thank you,” he said with a smile. He then pushed the boy away and sent him running. “Go! Leave! Poet—great you will be! Come back when you are!”

Bashō nodded and ran into the depths of the forest, looking back from time to time even though his vision blurred with tears. He didn’t know where he was going nor how he was going to survive alone. But what he did know was that he would come back to this place, and that him and Roderico would meet again.

“And when we do...I’ll have tons of new poems for you! I promise!”