Hara grunted and his glittering eyes showed briefly, then his sleepy lids drooped again and he lifted his rice bowl close to his face to eat. Kataoka bobbed his head and grinned his monkey smile of pleasure at the honor of being his lord’s sole companion on such an auspicious occasion, then coughed as the smoke from the fire blew into his face. Lord Asano reached for the teapot hanging over the fire, but the smoke stung his eyes and he cursed as he flung the kettle back onto its hook.
“Mimura!” he called, and a sudden shuffling in the pantry told him that Mimura had heard.
The servant, a tall, awkward young fellow, entered in great haste and bowed low to his master. As he raised his eyes he saw that the smoke was going everywhere except out the opening in the roof made for it, and he quickly reached into the pit to pull out the green sticks that were causing the trouble.
“Who put those in there?” said Lord Asano sharply. “You know better than that, Mimura. Can’t you help get this miserable day off to a better start?”
Mimura apologized in a profusion of polite phrases and muttered under his breath about the stupidity of the new fire boy. Then he crossed to the pantry door and called out.
There was an unexplained delay and he called again. This time he was answered by the appearance of the fire boy’s head in the doorway, a great shock of black unruly hair over an impudent face. Mimura bawled him out for his carelessness, but if he expected an apology he was disappointed. The boy, in a loud raucous voice, told Mimura that if he was so particular he could make the fire himself and abruptly withdrew, slamming the door shut behind him.
The men at the fire were shocked at this display and Hara was so incensed he leaped to his feet and pulled his long sword.
“What does he mean by talking to one of our servants like that?” he exclaimed as he started for the pantry door.
“No, wait,” said Lord Asano in a weary voice of authority. “He’s only a boy. Besides, you’ll get yourself in trouble if you harm him. The laws are different here; we can’t behave as we would at home.”
“But to insult your servant is to insult you, too,” Hara insisted. “I should at least slit his tongue for him if you won’t let me take off his head.”
“Sit down—sit down and drink your tea. You’ve got to get used to the ways of Edo. Here the comings and goings of daimyo from the provinces are so commonplace that they hold no terror for even a lowly fire boy.”
Hara, still muttering, put away his sword and sat down. He watched carefully as Mimura opened the pantry door and stepped through. In a moment there came the sounds of a slap and a yelp of pain, and Hara smiled as Kataoka laughed out loud.
“That’ll take care of the young monkey,” he shouted and made the most monkeylike grin at his command. The others smiled and Kataoka was pleased that he had helped his master forget his troubles, if only temporarily.
“I wish all the Edoites were so easily handled,” said Lord Asano as he sighed and helped himself to some rice. “But I’m afraid that’s not the case. Especially with those who have a little authority.”
The two samurai exchanged glances. They knew what their master meant.
“These court dandies all ought to have their heads removed,” growled Hara, and Kataoka nodded in agreement. “They talk and dress like women and are just as troublesome.”
“Anyway, it’ll all be over after today,” Lord Asano said. “Then we can go home to Ako and forget this place. Think what it must have been like in the old days when daimyo like my father had to stay here half of every year.”
The others agreed that the present arrangement was better than that, and finished eating their rice. Hara looked sorrowfully into the bottom of his bowl and Lord Asano knew what he was thinking.
“At least in the old days we had a little meat and fish to go with our rice, eh, Hara? Well, maybe we will again some day if the Shogun’s Life Preservation Laws are ever rescinded. They may benefit the animals, but they don’t do us humans much good.” He put his bowl down and sighed again. “Most of the laws around here seem only meant to torment us. And the court’s rules of etiquette are completely beyond me. If only I didn’t have to depend for instructions on someone like Kira!”
He spat out the name like a curse and again Hara and Kataoka exchanged worried looks. They knew he would not elaborate on this subject—it would be beneath him to discuss his personal grievances with them—but from what they had heard they knew that Kira, the court Master of Ceremonies, was making his life miserable. And they also knew there was nothing they could do about it.
Kira’s name stuck in Lord Asano’s mind like a bone in his throat. He had never known such a miserable time in the capital before, and it was a place he had never enjoyed visiting. This time, however, he was an unwilling participant in the official proceedings instead of a mere spectator and was thrown into much closer contact with the Shogun’s underlings. Kira was not even of daimyo rank, having no fief of his own and being ruler of nothing. But the fact that he had been sent to Kyoto some years before to study ceremonial procedure at the court of the Emperor gave him prestige and power that he had since used to good advantage in exacting bribes from those who had to depend on his tutelage.
Lord Asano had written about Kira only the night before in a letter to his chief retainer Oishi. Although Oishi was slightly older, he was less experienced in the ways of the court at Edo than his master, and Lord Asano was able to express his feelings about Kira in the guise of offering advice on how to behave in the capital.
“Kira is the man to watch out for,” he had written. “He enjoys the confidence of the Shogun and appears to be a faithful servant, but in truth he is an unscrupulous bribetaker and uses his office solely for his own ends. There is seemingly no way of dealing with such men except to play their game, but this I refuse to do. Consequently, Kira is giving me a rough time of it, even with only one day to go. Regardless of what happens, however, I will not pay Kira for his services, which are supposed to be supplied by the court. This may be a stubborn attitude, but as far as I am concerned it is the only honorable one for a samurai to take. I do not expect that I alone can turn back the wave of decadence that seems to have engulfed the court, but I can try to hold my head above the dirty water as long as there is a breath left in me.”
He wondered if Oishi would understand. In Ako there was nothing to compare with the Shogun’s court and he himself would not have believed such corruption existed if he had not seen it with his own eyes. Still, Oishi thought like a true samurai and could appreciate his feelings. He doubted that his words would ever be taken as practical advice, but at least it was good to get the matter off his chest.
He finished eating and rose with a sigh.
“Time to put on my ‘clown suit,’” he told Kataoka, and together they moved out of the room as Hara sat scowling at the forces that were troubling his master.
At the castle Kira was up early, too. As Master of Ceremonies for all court functions he was obliged to be impeccable in dress as well as in manner and he took pains to maintain high standards. The robes laid out for him were similar in style to those the visiting daimyo and officials of the court would be wearing, but the color scheme he had chosen of dead black with a huge white crest on each oversized sleeve guaranteed him a more striking appearance than any of them.
Although scarcely middle aged, Kira affected to be older because he thought it added to his dignity. Except for two deep frown lines creased into his brow, however, his face was free of wrinkles and his heavy-set body was hard and agile. His teeth, in accord with the latest fashion, were blackened so that when he opened his mouth to speak, his listeners saw only a dark, toothless hole.
Strangely enough, for one in such exalted if temporary power over the daimyo of the land, Kira was worried about the behavior of one of them. Lord Asano was of the old school of samurai and did not seem to realize that in this modern age bribes in the right pockets would do him more good than meaningless affirmations of loyalty to the Shogun. And for