Both women laughed. The wife said, “If my husband knew I had such thoughts, he’d kill me! Still,” she said, looking up the stairs where Kaze had departed, “that is one handsome man. So good-looking, and with such muscles in his arms and shoulders.”
“I’m more interested in another muscle of his,” the servant said.
The wife laughed and slapped the servant’s arm. “You’re bad!”
“I don’t have a husband to worry about. I’ve been sending him signals ever since he showed up here, but he seems so preoccupied that I don’t think he notices.”
“He is very intense,” the wife said. “I also think there’s a sadness to him. I don’t know why.”
“He obviously wasn’t always a street entertainer. Such polite manners; you don’t learn such things on the street.”
“Maybe he’s fallen from some higher station in life,” the wife said.
“Maybe it’s some tragic love affair,” the servant said romantically. “He’s probably trying to forget some woman.”
“I’d like to help him forget! My worthless husband has been spending all his time and money on trying to get rich through gambling.”
The servant knew better than to agree about the worthlessness of the master. It was quite all right for a Japanese to criticize a spouse or child, but quite something else for a stranger to do the same thing, especially if he was a servant in the house.
Kaze knew there were people in the house long before he heard their voices. He slept with his hand on his sword, so he saw no need to act, or even move from the warm comfort of the futon, until he understood what was happening. Finally, one of the talkers raised his voice.
“Where is that worm?” A strange man’s voice.
“I don’t know. I suppose he’s out gambling.” The vegetable merchant’s wife.
“What! He’s gambling somewhere else? He owes my boss money. We want it! How dare he gamble somewhere else, after we’ve given him credit!”
“My husband says your boss doesn’t run an honest game. He says-”
A sharp slap, followed by a yelp of surprise and pain. Kaze quickly got up and shrugged into his kimono. They weren’t killing her, so there was no need to rush down the stairs dressed in just his loincloth and a sword.
“Please don’t hit my mistress!” The servant.
“Keep out of this or you’ll get the same.” A second man’s voice. So there were at least two of them.
“Hey, maybe we should give them both something, just so that bastard understands we’re serious!” A third voice.
“What do you mean?” The second voice again, so perhaps there were only three of them. Kaze, his kimono on, started down the steep stairs.
“Well, they’re no beauties, but they aren’t bad looking. Maybe we should… say, who are you?” The speaker spotted Kaze descending the stairs.
There were three of them. Two had swords, indicating they were ronin. One was the man talking to Kaze. The third man was not carrying a sword, but he towered over the others by a good head and his body was at least twice as wide, and very muscular. He could easily be a wrestler, like the kind who wrestled at the shrines during religious holidays.
“I’m your etiquette teacher,” Kaze announced.
“Etiquette teacher? What kind of stupid thing is that to say?”
Kaze sighed. “See why I’m needed? First you slap okusama, the honorable wife of this house, and now you are rude to me.” He shook his head. As he did so, he was gauging the manner of men he was facing. If he used his sword, he would have a relatively easy task, but he didn’t want to unsheathe his blade. The men had not yet done something that warranted death, and the inconvenience of three bodies would surely draw the attention of the authorities to this house. Kaze preferred to stay anonymous to the Tokugawa guards.
“I suppose I’ll have a lot of work to do,” Kaze said. “After all, rui o motte atsumaru, the same kind always gathers together. All three of you are probably badly in need of a lesson in proper manners.”
“A lesson! Why you-”
Kaze attacked.
Like all samurai, Kaze knew the value of surprise in a fight. In ancient times, samurai would formally introduce themselves before starting a fight. They would recite their lineage and the great deeds of their ancestors. If they had been in notable battles, they would tell their opponent of that, too. Then, after all the lengthy formalities were completed, the fight would finally begin.
Such stilted battle etiquette was long since forgotten, and for good reason. The warlord Nobunaga had defeated an army twelve times larger than his own with a surprise attack, and every warrior understood that striking first was usually a huge advantage. Kaze used this advantage to his benefit.
Keeping his sword in its scabbard, he brought it down on the head of the man he was talking to. With a surprised look, the ronin crumpled to the floor. His companion drew his sword and took a side cut at Kaze’s head. Kaze ducked under the swinging blade and used his scabbard to hit the swordsman right behind the knee, collapsing him on his unconscious companion.
The wrestler had charged as soon as Kaze started his attack. In the cramped confines of the vegetable seller’s house, Kaze didn’t have the room to avoid the man’s charge. The huge body hit his with a bone-jarring shock, lifting him off his feet and driving him against an outside wall. The wrestler put one large hand against Kaze’s chest, pinning him in place. He drew back his other fist and punched at Kaze’s face. Despite having the wind knocked out of him, Kaze remained alert enough to bob his head at the last moment. He felt the wrestler’s fist graze his ear and heard it smash into the wooden wall, splintering the boards as the wrestler punched his fist through the wall. The wrestler tried to draw his fist out, but the splintered wood acted like a cruel trap, jabbing into his wrist and causing him to wince as he fought to extricate his hand.
The tiny pause was all that Kaze needed. He brought his sword scabbard up between the wrestler’s legs. The huge man gave a grunt of pain, and Kaze saw tears filling the man’s eyes. Kaze repeated the maneuver, bringing his scabbard up between the man’s legs with all the strength he could muster. The man’s eyes squinted in pain and the hand that had pinned Kaze to the wall dropped to his groin.
Kaze twisted free of the giant and brought his scabbard down on the back of the wrestler’s head. The wrestler fell heavily to his knees, his trapped hand preventing him from falling all the way to the floor.
Kaze looked at the two ronin and saw that the one he had clipped behind the knee was struggling to get up on one leg, using his drawn sword as a cane. In two quick steps Kaze was next to him. He swept away the man’s sword and used his scabbard to hasten the man’s journey to the floor, clipping him across the neck and shoulder. The man lay in a heap, moaning.
Puffing heavily, trying to get his breath back after the wrestler’s charge, Kaze surveyed his three opponents. One was unconscious and the other two were stunned and in pain. The two women viewed the scene open-mouthed. The merchant’s wife still had a hand to her cheek, where she had been slapped.
Getting his breath back, Kaze said, “If… we … have … to have … more etiquette … lessons, we will… do it outside. Teaching etiquette can be … hard on … the walls of a house.”
Later that night the vegetable merchant came back to his house. The dice had not been kind to him, and he was fretting about how he would ever find the money to pay his mounting gambling debts, now owed to two different gambling bosses in Edo. The late hours for gambling were not compatible with his early rising to buy vegetables, and he wondered if the problem was that he was just showing poor judgment in his bets, instead of a run of bad luck.
His house was on a main street of the district, well situated for its dual role as abode and shop. Earlier, the street had been illuminated by lanterns helping customers find drinking establishments and shops that stayed open late, but except for a single drinking place on the corner, the entire street was now dark, with light coming only from his own house.