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Title: The Seven Virtues
Author Name: Lferion
Fandom: Star Wars - TPM
Characters|Pairing: Tokugawa Hideyasu, Qui/Obi implied, Qui/omc implied
Genre: AU – Indigo Warrior-verse
Category: Drama, AR, Qui/Obi, Qui/other
Rating: G
Archive: MA, Skyehawke
Word Count: 3500
Disclaimer: George Lucas &etc. owns Star Wars, not me. Tem-ve came up with the Indigo-verse. No harm, no foul, no money.
Summary: The new Shogun and the sword that made him so.
Warnings: Historical liberties are taken.
Written for: Bonus-track fic for Tem-ve's Indigo Warrior zine.
Author Notes: Epilogue to href=http://www.masterapprentice.org/archive/i/indigo_warrior.html>"Indigo Warrior". Originally published in zine form. Story notes and sources at the end.
1. Yuki – bravery
"Bring me the man, and the sword."
The watchman Gosu Ashitaka stumbled into the Shogun's presence, and abased himself, but not before Hideyasu could see that his face was grey with fear. The sword in his forward-flung hands was also grey.
He had expected blood. This was the sword that had killed his brother. (The brother who had needed killing, whispered the part of his mind trained to judgment. The brother who had paid lip-service to bushido, the warrior virtues, demanded the strictest adherence from his retainers, but had no stomach for it himself. )
But no red stained the steel. Water had washed everything away. Sheathless, no hunger sang from the edge. Even the hilt was grey, and Hideyasu felt something tighten in his breast.
"You may bring the sword to me." Cold, but unthreatening. He did not know this man Gosu. All he knew was that he was connected to the sword, had been witness to the fact that Hidetada was alone, had acknowledged that he had made the hour-bell ring unevenly at the Lady's bidding. Gosu could be either a go-piece or a player. He would soon know.
Ashitaka's face was yellow-white now, and sweat stood out like pearls on his forehead. He shuffled forward on knees and elbows, and carefully placed the damning sword on the tatami of the dais. Close enough to the Shogun to touch the weapon if he wished. Not so close that he could harm Tokugawa-dono. He stank of fear, but not of treachery. Hideyasu kept his eyes on the trembling guard, not yet looking more closely at the sword. The blade would wait. The man ... might not. He knew the men in the corners of the room would act like lightning if he so wished. He hoped he would not have to wish.
"Gosu."
"Hai!" He had returned to full obeisance, and his voice was muffled by the matting. There was no wax in his topknot, but it was neatly tied. His clothes, too, were neat without ostentation. Positive signs.
"Kneel up, please, Look at me." Gulping, the guard did so. His eyes were wide, dull with confusion as well as fear, but they met his squarely. Soft cheeks trembled.
"Would you die for this house?"
"Yes, my lord!" Unhesitating.
"Would you die for my honor?"
"Yes, my lord." A little quieter, but still firm.
"Would you willingly die for my predecessor's honor?"
Gosu Ashitaka gulped again, threw caution to the gods, and whispered "No, my lord," before once more burying his face in the matting.
Not the sharpest blade, but loyal, and brave where it mattered. Worthy of the mallow-leaves he wore. Hideyasu no longer wondered why his honored father had retained the man. He would not have lasted long under his brother. So, he knew the worth of the man, but not his story. And it would be needlessly cruel to let him kneel there expecting death to descend upon him for speaking truth.
Gently this time. "Up, please, honorable Gosu. Tell me how you came by this sword, and your part in these ... unfortunate events."
The honorific reassured Gosu, and he kneeled up with more grace, color beginning to return to his face. As he spoke, reporting all (including the hopes he had had of cutting a finer figure with the big sword) he stopped trembling, finding comfort in the ritual. He never strayed far from simple facts, and told his tale in good order. When prompted he expanded on his own feelings and thoughts, but did not speculate on the whys or wherefores of any of the orders he had followed. The Lady was playing a trick. Everyone knew the Lady was bored, unhappy, and not given the honors that even Ieyasu-dono's most junior concubine had enjoyed. He flushed as he reported that, stumbling a little in his speech, but went on, having committed himself to unlacquered truth. Hideyasu hid a smile, knowing now without doubt that Gosu was without guile. When the tale was finished, Hideyasu had but one question left unanswered.
"The sword, it came to you as it is?"
"Yes, my lord. Well, it had a long piece of brown cloth for wrapping it in, but nothing else. I was thinking of getting the hilt and fittings re-done, so's they'd be proper for the season and all, not to mention he needed a scabbard, and a hand-guard and no standard one would do, but I hadn't the funds for a really good sword-fitter, and the blade, well, he wanted the best, so I was saving up."
"Thank you, Gosu. Under the circumstances, you acted with honor and virtue. You may return to your post." Hideyasu did not miss the relief that straightened Gosu's shoulders, nor the happiness that brightened his eyes. A good guard, and now he would be a better.
"Yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord!" With one last faintly regretful glance at the sword lying at his Shogun's feet, Gosu Ashitaka made his way out of the rarified air of his lord and master's presence, grateful to be going back to his ordinary life.
2. Jin - compassion, love, benevolence toward humanity
Tokugawa Hideyasu, war-leader of all Japan, turned his attention to the sword at his feet. Closer inspection did not change his first impression: he recognized the hilt, and was reasonably sure he recognized the workmanship in the blade. Not that that crotchety smith would have credited it of him.
It was no wonder Gosu had planned to change out the hilt and fittings. They were nothing like the usual ones. The grey hilt -- wood wound with wire, lined with cork, weighted with lead, both ends bound in iron -- was a tsuka-siegen, a test-hilt, and an ancient one at that. Hideyasu, newly named, newly admitted to the company of men, eager to prove his strength and courage, had found it in the wreckage of one of the castles his father had conquered. It was too big for his hand, and when he got back to camp he discovered it unbalanced all his own swords. But he was determined. He had found it, he was going to use it.
Hasegawa Kaemon had watched him flail on the practice-ground, never once laughing at him (the child who would become Hidetada had laughed at his big brother become so ungraceful) until a particularly incautious move unbalanced him right off his feet. Kaemon had hauled him upright with one hand and plucked the ungainly object that was supposed to be a sword from the other.
The odd hilt fit his hand as if made for it. Kaemon-san didn't seem to notice, but in his grip, hilt and blade became a sword again. One speaking look and little brother had trotted off to find other amusement.
"Young lord, if I might presume?" Kaemon's voice was gentle, his slight accent still discernible even though he had been his father's student and retainer for much of Hideyasu's life.
Scarlet with embarrassment, the sound of his little brother's crowing laughter still in his ears, Hideyasu had mumbled something like "um, yes, of course, sir."
With a few quick movements, Kaemon had dismounted the blade, and laid it in its sheath out of harm's way. "Any time you pick up a new weapon -- and with a weighted hilt like this, your most familiar blade is a new weapon -- take the time to become familiar with it. Let it teach you what it is, how it moves. Start with both hands."
The hilt was in his hands, his feet firm on the ground, and Kaemon across from him with a switch plucked from a nearby willow. Embarrassment vanished in the exhilaration of exercise, the glow of pride that Indigo-san, his father's favorite! was taking him seriously, teaching him one warrior to another, simply and sincerely.
Kaemon made the time to work with him on several occasions after that, and each time, Hideyasu noticed that his odd hilt, never quite comfortable in his own hand however adept with it he became, always seemed right and natural in Kaemon's.
Eventually, he realized that he had learned what the hilt had to teach him, and that part of the lesson was that he didn't need an odd, special, awkward bit of gear to prove himself to anyone. Not even to himself. He presented it to Kaemon, a formal gift of thanks for the teaching.
And here it was again, only now it fit the blade it held perfectly. A war-blade, pure in its simple functionality. Experimentally, he lifted it from the mat. The grip came to his hand with familiar, awkward surety. He stood, and the attendants and guards at the edges of the room snapped to alertness. He waved them back to stillness, and let the sword speak to him.
The tempering line was not a pattern he knew, though at a glance it looked like a strange version of the classic three-mountains. A closer look showed it to be waves, curling and swelling endlessly along the edge. There were no nicks, no unevenness in the polish, the bright edge glittering against the darker flat, whorls and curls of softer and harder steel marking the layering, the patient skill of the maker. A cut, a thrust, a swoop: the sword danced in the air.
Meditatively he sat, the blade on his lap. Almost unconsciously, his fingers found the holding pin, pressed and tapped, caught both pin and hilt and laid them both aside. As he expected, the tang was unsigned, though not uninscribed. Two characters, chiseled with painful precision. Ai - indigo, and Jin, the virtue of compassion, of love. Indeed, only one man could have made this sword, and only that man would have, law, custom and possible reprisals not withstanding. Watanabe Kenji had made this sword for Hasegawa Kaemon.
3. Gi - right decision
And yet, this blade had been the death of his brother, of the appointed and invested Shogun. No hand had wielded this sword that by law did not exist. The man it had been made for had been provably (shamefully!) imprisoned at the time, though mysteriously vanished shortly thereafter.
What had Hidetada been thinking, to so despise a teacher, a man who by right of loyal service was due respect and maintenance. Hideyasu had never understood how his brother could fail to appreciate and learn from Kaemon, especially when all his apparent desire was to be the best possible warrior. The best possible warrior would soak up knowledge and skill like a sea-sponge, spurning no source of truth.
As for accusing Indigo-san of being unmanly -- as well accuse their father, or the Toyotomi, or any of the great lords and war-lords. It didn't matter that Hidetada's original accusation had been the unconsidered words of an angry young man in the privacy of the training floor, with few but the accused to hear, repeated with relish (and the transparently fabricated tale of conspiracy) in the family quarters. The implied accusation at the banquet was even more shameful, showing that in too many ways, Hidetada was still that angry, petulant young man. To Hideyasu's way of thinking, a man who loved men was not unmanly, not even a man of mature years who was honest about his willingness to be the chrysanthemum and not the iris only. No, what was unmanly was dishonesty with oneself, jealousy, irresponsibility. All qualities that had marred Hidetada.
Was it that Hidetada had wanted what their father had - power, respect, choice of all manner of beauty and pleasure -- without the work and personal discipline that made it all possible? That he had thought it his due, his right? Had he assumed that he would possess by fiat what Indigo-san had given their father willingly?
Perhaps it was that the simple honesty of Kaemon's self-knowledge had made Hidetada realize his own secret, unacceptable, unobtainable desires. It would explain the virulence of his reaction, the anger with which he had Kaemon declared outlaw, unhoused, his name expunged, his honors forfeit. It would explain the extravagant excess of his actions at the banquet as well.
Not the actions of a ruler, of a warrior, of a lord. Not the actions of a mature man of honor. The actions of a spoiled, disappointed child.
Hideyasu sighed and gently ran one finger down the water pattern on the blade in his lap, touched the two symbols on the tang, and reassembled the hilt. It had been a needful death, an unfortunate, necessary action. Not the blade's fault, not the guard's fault, not the fault of the Exalted Wife nor the servant boy or boys (variable, according to the teller). Certainly not any fault of Hasegawa Kaemon, called Jin these fourteen years.
He would see to it that Gosu Ashitaka received a suitable sword from his hand to replace the one he had lost.
But what to do with the sword that did not exist, that - wielded by no hand - had served such a desperate purpose?
Let it go to the man who no longer existed, in token that he might live again, however he might choose. Until it went, though, he would keep it by, as a reminder of what love could achieve, and lack of judgment destroy.
4. Rei - right action, courtesy
It did not take Tokugawa Hideyasu three years to find Kiyonaga and Obi of the bath house off the Tokaido Road one road house away from the outskirts of Edo. Indeed it did not take his informants three months to bring him that information, once he set them on it. But there was much to do that took precedence over any personal desires of the Shogun, and Hideyasu was determined to be a just and good ruler like Ieyasu in more than name.
Two years after his taking up the mantle of the shogunate, Hideyasu found the time and opportunity to make use of the reports regarding Indigo-san. It was spring, the new year, and the best time for new beginnings.
He called for the sword to be brought to his retreat-room, and dismissed the attendants when they had brought the wrappings he had decided upon. This was a thing he would do with his own hands. His brother had scorned to tie his own knots, and thus had never understood the true nature of what bound Kaemon and Ieyasu, lord and retainer, samurai and shogun. Hideyasu was not his brother.
The long box, a full hand-span wide, an equal span deep, rested on a
5. Makoto - truthfulness, sincerity
Hideyasu lifted the lid, and set it aside. The only Watanabe Kenjishi there was, or would ever be. He bowed - honor to the craftsman! - and lifted the paper-wrapped blade to his lap. As he unwound the paper and looked again on the beauty of the work, he remembered the maker: rude, irascible, forthright Wa.
Wa had had no patience with boys underfoot, not even boys who were nominally men. If one was to watch the fascinating alchemy of fire and metal, muscle and will that produced tent stakes and pot-hooks and bright, sharp edges on tent-pole finials, one was quiet, and stayed out of the way. One stored up one's questions for later, for the bath house or around the evening fire.
And one was thoughtful of one's questions, for Wa would answer what he was asked, truth unlacquered, unsweetened, often unpalatable. He had opinions - strong opinions - that he would speak if asked, but would never share unasked.
In many ways, Wa was like the sword he had made: plain, functional, unusual, and the only one of its kind, seeming dour and thick, but in truth sharp and strong, at heart beautiful and deeply compassionate.
The fine oiled silk, an uncut length of yarn-dyed, unpatterned cloth from his own workshops, the color of moonlight, the color of steel, the color of truth. Slowly, reverently, he wrapped and folded the fabric around the sword: five pleated turns for the blade, two for the hilt, one for each of the sacred seven virtues of bushido. A tuck and the end was in. A paper cord to finish, a precise bow, the common, simple knot that both Wa and Kaemon had favored.
6. Chugi - devotion, loyalty
A boy's eyes had not understood what he had seen grow between Wa and Kaemon, thinking it only friendship. But this blade had not been made out of mere comradeship. No, this had been made out of love. Hideyasu was quite sure of that.
Wa had been fortunate, having had both a good wife and a good friend. It seemed, from the reports, that Indigo-san was also fortunate. The young man - Akimoto Benjiro - abused and shamed by Hidetada, was still with Kaemon, both happy. The bath house rising from ash, business beginning to flourish.
The attendants had wondered at Hideyasu's request for a loom-length of red cotton. Silk they understood. Cotton, in however festive or fortunate a color not so much. Hideyasu smiled as he again wrapped and folded cloth. Cotton was practical. Would be unremarked made into items useful in an establishment a little off the Tokaido Road. He had not forgotten camp life, country life. The red sheathed the grey, blunted the crisp, flat turns of silk. Fortunate red, festive red, wedding red. Truly, he wished Kaemon and Benjiro happy together. A gold and red cord, the chrysanthemum-knot.
Roll the red in waxed linen, five turns for the five elements, five-fold protection from the unquiet spirits, the ghosts who could not, or would not, cross the Sanzu. Fold over the ends, overlapping at the thickness that was the joint of blade and hilt. Tie with a kumihimo cord of green and blue, a triple-mallow knot. He would wrap them in the protection of his will, the work of his hands, that they might live under his seal, unfettered. His men, always, in spirit. His responsibility to maintain.
7. Meiyo – honor
The last important layer, the coarse hemp sacking. Hideyasu smiled as he took it up. His fastidious, oh so proper servant had brought it to him wrapped in paper, putting off as long as possible the need for the lord to put his hand to such a crude, common, unpleasant thing. He suppressed a snort at the thought; he had touched far more unpleasant things than the honest roughness of sacking. This sacking would serve two purposes.
The twisted, prickly strands made a dense mesh, and would be an outer covering few would bother looking past. One could travel from Kyu^shu^ to Hokkaido with a hempen sack full of things, and as long as one did nothing to stand out, no-one would ever wonder what the contents of the sack were.
But more important than outward seeming was the symbolism of the fiber. The hemp sacking represented the testing that Ieyasu had subjected all of them to in one way or another. Shibari siegen, the test of rope. Kaemon and Wa had won through. Young Benjiro had done admirably.
Hidetada had failed the test, for all that his ropes had been metaphorical rather than actual. Even Ieyasu had eventually come to realize that, but Hidetada had not been a retainer the lord could dispose of and replace, and by the time the damage had been done, all Ieyasu could do was see to it that Hidetada's men never had cause to look too hard for Indigo-san. For all he liked to play with rope, Hidetada had never understood the nature of bindings, of connections tested to the limits of their truth.
The sacking, and the rope and knots that held it were an explicit sign to one who had known Ieyasu as Kaemon had. The binding holds. The promise holds. The old man's spirit would approve. Honor was upheld.
Hideyasu knelt back to survey the fruit of his labor: a lumpy, anonymous bundle, a message, a gift, an apology. The young man likely would not see it as other than an odd sort of gift. Kaemon would know how to read every knot and fold.
So be it. He bowed once more to the bundle. Honor to the recipient! There were cherry blossom petals on the breeze. several of them danced into the room, and settled on the bundle. Blessing indeed. In the morning he would have the master of spies choose one of his best men to deliver it home.
Notes:
The seven virtues that are the section headers are the primary virtues of Bushido. The seven pleats in the hakama (five in front, two in back) are meant to represent these virtues. They are listed here in one of several standard orders. And I am not making it up that "Jin" is the one having to do with love of humanity and compassion.
Several of the words I use I made a stab at with a Japanese lexicon. Tsuba-siegen is meant to mean 'testing hilt'. I got the whole concept of this from "Samurai Executioner" (same creators as Lone Wolf and Cub, story set in pretty much the same time, mid-Edo) but the thing is only drawn, not named. Shibari-siegen (rope-bondage-test) is my attempt at a term to describe what Hidetada does to Benjiro and Jin in Indigo Warrior.