Child of Vengeance by David Kirk Page B

himself. Tears of shame pricked at his eyes.
    “Do you even know your mother?” asked the monk after a moment. “What is she to you? What do you remember?”
    “I …” said the boy, and he thought back. Images, flashes of voices and smells, a vague sense of love.
    “Now,” continued Dorinbo, “knowing what you learned about her tonight, about what she did—does that sound like the same woman to you?”
    It did not. He was her instrument of revenge. A tool, not a son. Had she ever loved him, or loved what he would eventually do to Munisai? He did not know, and he would never know. The boy reeled.
    “So tell me, why is dying for someone you never truly knew right?” said Dorinbo, his voice soft and kind as he saw the realization creep across the boy’s face. “There is nothing wrong with a person who chooses to avoid murder—you did the right thing.”
    “But a samurai—” said Bennosuke, stubborn beyond reason.
    “Perhaps you are something else,” said Dorinbo.
    “But I should be samurai,” said Bennosuke.
    Dorinbo looked at his nephew, wanting to remind the boy of his offer of an apprenticeship. But what he saw was an adult’s pain on a face still more child than man, and he could not bring himself to place another burden there.
    The night was cold and long and always would be, and so with no more words he placed a hand upon Bennosuke’s shoulder and led him up to his hovel, to holy ground, where at least they could wait for morning together.

    M unisai stalked home still shuddering with rage. He breathed through his nose and tried to calm himself, but it would not come. Around him the still paddy fields reflected the stars like sheets of obsidian, and the urge was to take his sword from its scabbard and slash at them. Cut the stars and cut the sky and cut the universe, just because he could.
    But he didn’t.
    When he reached his estate he flung the door open and then slammed it shut so hard that the twisting of his body tugged on his wound and made him cry out. As his body throbbed with pain, his numb fingers fumbled with a lantern, and then by that dim and frail light he began to prowl the silent halls restlessly.
    Soon enough, without even thinking about it, he came to stand before the armor once more.
    It taunted him; the extravagance of it reminded him of how obscene a man he had once been, and of course that name that he had damned always there, stitched in white. It was too much to bear. He kicked it, and sent the suit clattering across the floor. He watched as the helmet rolled around and around until it finally came to rest, and in the silence afterward he let a single, low curse escape his lips.
    Why would the boy not kill him?
    Maybe if he had told the fullness of the story, Bennosuke might have. Maybe if he had told of the crucial moment. But that moment … That, Munisai knew he could never admit before another. Here, though, here in the solitude of the house where it all happened—here, he could remember.

    T here was once a girl who was beautiful, and more than that had a beautiful heart. Her name was Yoshiko .
    It meant child of glee, child of joy, and this was the perfect name for her, for every man she crossed paths with fell in love with her. It was said that she had a grace that she must have inherited from a past life, and from the very moment she started to grow into her womanhood she was fawned over. Many an evening she spent dining with men of wealth and renown, hearing boastful stories of bravery, intelligence, wit, and war, and so generous was she that she pretended to believe them .
    The offers of marriage duly came, and yet so little differentiated them—the size of estates, the number of maids she would have, the titles her children would inherit … Her father listened to each carefully, biding his time for the most prudent choice, but to her it meant nothing .
    Sixteen and still she wore the long-sleeved, gaily patterned kimono of the maiden. She lived in a dream