The Blade of the Courtesans


 Contents
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Contents
 Nihon Embankment
 Misesugagaki
 Nakanocho
 Suidojiri
 Machiai-no-tsuji
 The Great Miura House
 Bohachi: Keepers of the Pleasure Houses
 Assassination of the Imperial Prince
 Expiation
 Boar-Tusk Boats
 Sendai Takao
 Shokai—The First Visit
 The Drum
 Fierce Wind of Autumn
 Ura: the Second Visit
 Yamato Kasagiyama
 Dotetsu of the Embankment
 Minowa
 The Licensed Quarters
 Najimi: the Third Visit
 A Comfortable Evening
 Naka-tambo
 Shibagaki bushi
 Eight Hundred Priestess
 The Kugutsu Clan
 The Kii Offensive
 The World of Suffering
 Great Crow
 Kagemusha: Shadow Warrior
 The Battle of Sekigahara
 The Northwest Passage
 A Lesser Cuckoo
 Kosaka Jinnai
 Sanshu Kira
 The Sound of Trees
 Katsuyama’s End
 Itezuru: Frozen Crane
 Dance of the Puppeteers
 Toshi no Ichi: The Year-end Fair
 About the Author
 
 
 
 
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 Cover
 Cover
 Title Page
 Table of Contents
 Start
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Copyright © 2008 by Jun Ikeda
 All rights reserved.
 Published by Vertical, an imprint of Kodansha USA Publishing, LLC
 Originally serialized in Japanese in Shukan Shincho, 1984-85, and published as Yoshiwara Gomenjo by Shinchosha, 1986, Tokyo.
 Ebook ISBN 9781647292485
 Kodansha USA Publishing, LLC
 451 Park Avenue South, 7th Floor
 New York, NY 10016
 www.kodansha.us
 a_prh_6.0_140999374_c1_r1
 
 
 Contents
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 
 Nihon Embankment
 Misesugagaki
 Nakanocho
 Suidojiri
 Machiai-no-tsuji
 The Great Miura House
 Bohachi: Keepers of the Pleasure Houses
 Assassination of the Imperial Prince
 Expiation
 Boar-Tusk Boats
 Sendai Takao
 Shokai—The First Visit
 The Drum
 Fierce Wind of Autumn
 Ura: the Second Visit
 Yamato Kasagiyama
 Dotetsu of the Embankment
 Minowa
 The Licensed Quarters
 Najimi: the Third Visit
 A Comfortable Evening
 Naka-tambo
 Shibagaki bushi
 Eight Hundred Priestess
 The Kugutsu Clan
 The Kii Offensive
 The World of Suffering
 Great Crow
 Kagemusha: Shadow Warrior
 The Battle of Sekigahara
 The Northwest Passage
 A Lesser Cuckoo
 Kosaka Jinnai
 Sanshu Kira
 The Sound of Trees
 Katsuyama’s End
 Itezuru: Frozen Crane
 Dance of the Puppeteers
 Toshi no Ichi: The Year-end Fair
 
 About the Author
 
 
 
 Nihon Embankment
 Early in the evening of the fourteenth day of the eighth month, by the old calendar, in the third year of the Meireki era (1657), Matsunaga Seiichiro stood on the top of the Nihon Embankment, along the moat at Asakusa.
 As far as the eye could see, the rice plant stalks left standing after the harvest quivered gently in the faint breeze. It was an entirely rural scene, one that gave Seiichiro a sense of relief.
 Having spent the previous night at an inn in Kawasaki, he had set out early in the morning and traversed the entire city of Edo with hardly a moment’s rest. It was his first view of the burgeoning metropolis, and somehow he didn’t think much of it.
 “Is this all there is to the great city of Edo?” he wondered.
 There was a great clamor, a crushing throng. Tradesmen addressed one another as if cursing, and street peddlers raised their high-pitched voices. He sensed a vague atmosphere of bloodthirstiness. There was a sharpness in the way people looked at one another. Altogether, it left him in low spirits.
 “Mountain creatures,” he thought to himself, “possess a lot more tranquility and grace.” He really did think so.
 Until he had turned twenty-six, Seiichiro had lived in the mountains of Higo, in the far-off southern island of Kyushu. There, the beasts did not violate one another’s domains, but lived peacefully, proudly. Among them he had never sensed unnecessary malice nor received harsh glares.
 “Why did the master will on his deathbed that I should come to such a vulgar city?” he wondered.
 The master was none other than Miyamoto Musashi. Seiichiro had been abandoned as a child, and for as long as he could remember, he had been raised by Musashi in the mountains of Higo. Musashi was simultaneously master and father to him. Some twelve years prior, in the second year of the Shoho era, Musashi had departed from the present world, but on his deathbed he entrusted Seiichiro to the care of his most trustworthy disciple, a retainer of the daimyo of Higo domain named Terao Magonojo.
 “Do not allow him to leave these mountains until he turns twenty-six. When he