He refilled Jinichi’s and Daigoro’s before topping off his own. In his most patient tone, he said, “Forgive me, Lord Yasuda, but I don’t believe in evil swords. They’re all made for killing. A tanto isn’t a whittling knife or a kitchen knife; it’s for spilling human blood and that’s that. Call it evil if you like—”
“Answer me this,” Jinichi said. “Was Okuma Tetsuro a superstitious man?”
“I regret that I never had the honor of meeting him.”
Jinichi turned to Daigoro. “Well?”
“No,” Daigoro said. “I never knew him to be superstitious.”
The old man nodded emphatically. “Nor did I. A most practical fellow. Yet after he took Streaming Dawn from that demon, he went straight to Atsuta Shrine to have the evil kami purged from him. Atsuta, mind you. There were plenty of neighborhood shrines along the way. Buddhist temples too, but no, he went to the holiest site he could find. Now you tell me why a man like him does something like that. Hm?”
He drove the point home with a confident jut of his chin. The wattles stood out in his wrinkled neck. Daigoro could only bow, signaling his agreement. There might have been other explanations, but none of them mattered. At last he could see the next step on his path.
27
“Tip up,” Wada-sensei said. “Shoulders back. Weight forward—not so much. Keep your center. And what did I just tell you? Keep your tip up.”
Shichio raised the tip of his sword, training it on Wada’s neck. “Not so high,” Wada told him. “You want the throat, not the chin. Here.” He tapped the hollow where the tips of his collarbones met. Then, without warning, he tried to smack Shichio’s sword out of the way. Shichio anticipated the move, tightened his grip, and shoved Wada’s deflection aside.
“Tip up, Shichio-sama. When you parry, you come back here. Every time.” He tapped the hollow at the base of his throat again.
Shichio wanted to gut him. He wanted to stamp his feet, to scream, to throw his sword across the dojo—but more than anything, he wanted to get this right.
Wada-sensei was a mailed fist in a silken glove. He was a handsome man, with arms of sculpted bronze and eyes like tigereye gemstones. He was genteel in speech, but he pressed Shichio almost to the point of breaking. Wada was the only man who could promise that Shichio would never again risk the embarrassment he’d suffered in the Bear Cub’s courtyard. The next time I’m called upon to hold a sword, Shichio thought, I’ll damn well know how to use it.
He found kenjutsu to be odious and exhilarating in equal measure. The pain in his thighs and forearms he could live with. His blistered hands could be salved. Far worse was the constant badgering, the thousand niggling corrections and rebukes. But worst of all was the sweat. It began in the small of his back, and soon enough it soaked through his kosode, making the silk cling to his ribs.
On the other hand, the mask relished sword combat. It sent thrills surging through his veins with every cut.
His first sword master had laughed when he heard Shichio meant to train while masked, and japed that only women wore silk into battle. Shichio asked him to show a little sympathy, and to help him along that path, he had the man gelded and then bound head to toe in silk. When asked, Shichio’s second sword master voiced no objection to silk robes or iron masks.
In fact, it was the second sword master, Wada, who observed how effective the mask was in combat. He even asked to wear it himself, and Shichio briefly obliged him. Wada called three other samurai to spar with him, and Shichio watched as the mask transformed his sensei from a master into a living hurricane. He trounced all three opponents with ease, then four, then six. “I don’t even need to see them to fight them,” he said afterward, drained but elated. “It’s as if the mask sees their weapons on its own.”
Yes, Shichio thought. It’s just like that. Without the mask, he was an indifferent student at best. With the mask, his form was still weak, his strikes too slow, his counterstrikes too late—but oh, did he fight with spirit! That was half the battle, Wada-sensei said. If he could only get Shichio to keep the tip of his sword pointed at the opponent’s throat, he would be nine-tenths of the way there, because the mask gave Shichio one more