The Squire and the Samurai: The Warrior's Path

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Galen
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The Squire and the Samurai: The Warrior's Path

Post by Galen » Sun May 08, 2011 11:25 am

Fate does odd things sometimes.

Take, for example, two warriors, one trained in Britannian ways, the other in Tokunoese ways. When they were in their twenties, searching for their roles in life, they met me, and became my employees. Both were proud of their bloodlines and their families' accomplishments. The Britannian, John, was from the old-fashioned Township of Newcastle, the Tokunoese, Cinque, from near Zento.

One would think they would never have met, but they did, and they met in my employ. Two men proud of their bloodlines meeting in the employ of a man who had no bloodline, and no family he had not made for himself.

And now, both had been disinherited. On the same day. To make things a little worse for Cinque, his father was dead too.

To be honest I didn't know what to make of it all. I had no idea how to react to their plight other than to be disgusted at their families.

“Tell me how it happened,” I told them. Joylah served tea and sat down, her concern for the boys obvious.

“Which one of us,” asked Cinque.

“Sorry...I should've specified. Well, why not you first....That ok, John?”

John nodded. I'd picked Cinque because John didn't quite seem capable of words for the moment. Cinque's father was dead, but John's had kicked him out of the family like a mean drunk being kicked out of a bar.

“I arrive home,” said Cinque. “I mean my family home. Near Zento. I see my grandfather outside.” I don't know why he told the story in the present tense. It seemed odd, it wasn't like him at all. “I go to him, and he....He just tells me to leave. But I don't, not yet. I am confused. He says I am not part of the family anymore, that my father is dead. That I am not in the family anymore.

“'What?' I ask. 'You hear me,' he says. 'Get out!' He says my father died earlier that day, natural causes is all he says. I ask to see him, to see my father's body, grandfather says no. I run past him into the house. My grandmother is there. She says, yes, your father is dead...Just died, was probably sick in some way we couldn't see. 'He always eat fatty foods,' she says. 'It happen,' she says.” Cinque always spoke to his family in English, his Tokunoese wasn't much better than mine. I'd met his grandmother once. Cinque imitated her halting English well. Cinque continued. “I ask her why I should go, I ask to see my father's body.

“Grandfather comes in. He attacks me.”

“Wait wait....He attacked you? Physically?”

“Yes.”

“With what?”

“A daisho.”

“Both swords? He had both swords out?”

“Yes.”

No mistaking the intent. Cinque's grandfather meant to kill him, not just beat him up and wound him to get him out of the house. “Ok....Go on.” I affected a calm I didn't really feel. I felt sick. I could only imagine how the boys felt.

“I twist away, I pull my own daisho, to try to parry him off. He says, he says something like, 'you should use axe, not a samurai's weapon. You are not samurai. You have the dark blood.” Cinque's mother was Tokunoese, and long-dead. Cinque's father is...was I guess I should say....from Britannia, and his skin was black. That's what Cinque's grandfather had to have meant.

“Go on,” I said, trying to encourage Cinque. My blood was boiling whereas my manner remained calm. I knew Joylah what was going on behind my calm facade.

“There is a break in the attack. I leave. I come here. I saw John outside the house, and we spoke, and I realized the same thing's happened to him!” When Cinque got up to the present in his account, he returned to the past tense.

“No,” said John. “Not the same. My father....is not dead. I'm sorry, Cinque.” John's concern for Cinque was genuine. I probably should have focused more on Cinque, everyone agreed his experience was the worse of the two, but I had to know what had gone on with John. And, to be honest, I didn't know how long I could listen to this without exploding. And I wanted to hear both of their stories before that happened, if it did.

“So what about you, John?” I gestured for Joylah to bring me more tea, which she did.

“Well...My parents have been staying in Trinsic. Cheaper to rent some expensive rooms at the inn than it was to try and maintain an estate.”

“They left Newcastle?”

“Awhile ago, yes.”

“Go on.”

I sipped my tea. Cinque and John took some too.

“I stopped in to see them,” John continued with his narrative, “to say hello...On my last visit there, there was not so much as a suggestion anything was wrong. I knocked, entered their room at their behest, and once I stepped inside my father....Just told me to leave. 'Get out.' Just like that.

“I questioned him, I was very confused. He said I was disinherited and disowned and had to leave. His voice was flat. He was writing at a desk at the time. Mother was crying. I asked her what was going on, she wouldn't answer. 'Just listen to your father. Listen to your father.' Now that I think about it, she had more makeup on than normal.” The first thing I thought of was that she'd been hit, and she was covering up the bruises. I don't know if John thought that too. “Father handed me a paper.....I looked at it....Basically It said I was disinherited, was no longer a part of the family. Then I just left.

“It was not the paper he'd been working on. He had had it ready. The ink was dry and the color had already changed. He'd had it prepared.”

I nodded like I understood, but the truth was I had no idea about any of this. It didn't make any sense at all. Their families didn't know each other, this couldn't have been some weird plan, and in any case these bizarre actions had no more meaning combined than they did on their own.

“I'm sorry,” I told them. It meant nothing, really, but it was about all I could say.

We talked for awhile longer. They went to sleep, finally.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I couldn't imagine how they felt, really. In effect they were both, Cinque in particular, oprhans now.
Some kind of strange evil in their families had put them by design into a state I'd always been in by accident. Neither of them would cry through I know damn well they both wanted to. Family was important to both.

Eventually Joylah and I were alone. We made love, slowly, then we talked quietly in bed.

“I don't understand it,” I told her.

“Hmm. Nor do I.”

“You know more about these things than I do.” Joylah had been the mistress of more than one nobleman in her day. “Why would someone normally be disinherited, or disowned.”

“Most of the time, they did something their family disapproved of. With Cinque I could guess they never liked having him, as they never liked his father. Once his father died...”

“If he really did.”

“If he really did, but I think so, once he did, they would have no reason to keep him around.”

“Then why not do it when his mother died, years ago, why not throw them both out back then.”

“Didn't Cinque say something about that once?”

I thought hard. Joylah's memory was accurate, as it nearly always was. “Yes....Yes....His mother made the grandfather promise to care for her husband and her son as long as they both lived. The grandfather found a way out of it.”

“Once one of them died, then no more 'they both.' Not what his mother intended, but....”

“Just enough for someone who wants out of something to get out of it and still pretend he's got honor.”

“Mmmhmm.”

“Doesn't explain John....”

“No....No idea on that one, ohtar, I'm sorry....I mean, we both think his father was hitting his mother. So first thing I think is, maybe he found out he wasn't John's father at all. But that's stretching it.”

“And not John's fault, ....Even if it's true.”

“Which we don't know. And, I know, melamin. Not John's fault at all, even if it's true. But imagine your anger if....”

“Joy.....”

“See? Now imagine that feeling, and imagine being of noble birth.....Humility is that which serfs are born with but nobles must strive to attain. And most noblemen, even minor ones, don't strive.”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I couldn't sleep that night, though Joy did her best to wear me out.

John and Cinque were up early, while Joy still slept. I had dressed and watch from the bedroom window as they spoke and practiced fought outside. I could just barely hear them when they spoke.

“I have to say,” said Cinque. “I don't feel as comfortable with the daisho anymore.” He sounded surprised. “Perhaps I should use axes, like my father did.” Comfortable or not, Cinque was using the daisho when he and John clashed; John was using a katana, not his broadsword, and the wooden shield I'd given him.

“Axes are so slow, though.” They spoke in between passes at each other. John was improving; he and Cinque appeared to, for now, be evenly matched. It could've been Cinque being distraught, but I didn't think so. John was distraught too, so it would've equaled out.

“But they hit hard.”

“That they do. Did you want to try one now, Cinque?”

“No. I don't want to split your shield.”

John laughed. “Oh, I would not underestimate this shield. Some wood is harder than steel.”

They fought for a while; neither landed a hit. Finally they stopped.

“John?” asked Cinque.

“Yes?”

“What will you do now?”

“I....I don't know. Probably keep doing what I am doing.”

“Working for Galen?”

“Yes. Why not?”

“Oh, no reason not to....I will too....But I think I will also wander again for awhile. I've wandered before but....It's different now. I went to find myself, and I found myself, but now there has to be a new me to find. I cannot be what I was. And I think I will wear something over my armor.” Samurai armor was conventionally worn without a tunic or robe or surcoat over it. “Samurai are to stand out. If I am not a samurai.....”

“Do not think that Cinque....”

“No, no, it's fine.....If I am to just be an ordinary warrior? Answerable only to Galen and to my own conscience? There are worse things. I've been on my grandfather's path. It may be time to follow my father for awhile.”

John nodded.

This was an experience I couldn't share or appreciate. Both boys, men, were defined by their bloodlines. I didn't have a bloodline to define me. My family, which meant my wife and mistress, my guildmates, my friends, was self-made.

And my path, my duties, antiques dealer, interim Grand Marshal, Assistant Royal Spymaster, was set by no one but myself.
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