The Bandit...

The Hall of the Spring Wind

1881, Tokyo (formerly known as Edo before Imperialization)

The last great swordsman of Japan, Yamaoka Tesshu, was meditating before his tokonoma, concentrating on the tapestry's kanji characters, seeing past them, seeing everything and nothing. But he did not see through the open rice-door behind him, where a black ship had sailed into his castle's harbor.

Unaware of any of the clamoring in the pagoda halls, he knew only the answer to his long-sought question. He knew how to defeat his master at arms. He had found the key.

Tesshu stood, grabbed his sword, and strode from the quiet tokonoma. The small tapestry blew slightly from the breeze of his departure. The koan written on its fabric moved as if calling out from behind.

A woman in dark skirt and traveling coat, hat and gloves, came down the plank of the great, black ship. The flags of Queen Victoria on the mastheads far above whisked in the sunset winds. The woman in dark skirts was met by no one and carried a small golden box tucked beneath one arm. After a few moments of searching the port city, her eyes fixed on the open balcony of a pagoda palace. It was a balcony with an open rice-paper door that had a wonderful view of the harbor.

Tesshu strode into his master's dojo. Asari Gimei watched his eldest pupil come through the door and pulled his katana from his belt. Tesshu did not stop to bow, but pulled his katana from its scabbard and rushed toward his teacher. When their first strikes missed, they struck again without hesitation, whirling upon one another and then landing crossed swords.

Tesshu would not take his gaze off his teacher and Gimei smiled. Stepping back, Gimei dropped his own sword upon the ground. "You have arrived!"

Tesshu tightened his grip on his sword, bewildered by his master's exclamation.

"Yes!" Gimei insisted. "That is it!"

The two men had not noticed their visitor until that moment. The woman in black was standing just beyond the open door of the dojo. She did not venture inside when they turned to her.

One of Gimei's retainers, a small household servant with spectacles crept into the dojo, bowing low. "Gimei-san. Someone to see Tesshu."

The two warriors exchanged glances and Gimei wrinkled his brow. Tesshu bowed to his master and excused himself. "Sensei."

In the hall beyond the dojo, Tesshu walked to the woman in black. He noticed the golden box tucked awkwardly under her elbow. She was examining him, like all foreign barbarians, looking over the sweep of his short cropped hair, down past his moustache to his long goatee now streaked with grey. He wore his hair in the manner of the foreigners now, as was the new custom for many Japanese viscounts. But he still retained the robes and pants of a true warrior. Some things would never change. Some things were written in blood.

"My name is Hope Faerwald." The woman spoke to Tesshu in perfect Japanese. She bowed low before him and red curled strands of hair peeked out beneath the dark net of her traveler's hat.

"Apologies. No one spoke of your arrival here."

"Yes, I am somewhat unannounced."

"What may I do for you, lady?"

She stood up from her bow and tilted her head, as if assessing him carefully. "I came to know the thoughts of the last Samurai."

"That would have been Saigo Takamori."

"The leader of the Satsuma rebellion? No, I don't mean Lord Takamori. He is dead by the hand of your emperor. I came to speak to you."

"There are no more Samurai, lady." Tesshu stood at his full height.

"Those are the words of your emperor, but those aren't the words of your heart."

"It is my duty to follow the emperor."

"And not your heart?"

"If it is Samurai you wish to know, then know that a Samurai never heeds his own desires, but obeys his master's. I obey my emperor."

"Then I have indeed found the last Samurai." Hope Faerwald smiled and something in her smile convinced him not to dismiss her.

Tesshu walked with her, back the way she had come. "Do you have a room here?"

"Not yet," she replied.

"Then I will see to it that you are given the best amenities. Tonight, we dine with the emperor and you will come as my guest."

"Thank you," she said. "I think."

"It will be good for you to face facts. The emperor is the most powerful man in our country. If you can sit with him, then you can have my attention and ask any question of me that you wish."

Seated at low tables, but never reclining on cushions, the party of viscounts, generals and courtiers around Emperor Meiji and his wife ate carefully and quietly. The dignity of dinner and the polite conversation was contrasted by the simplicity and charm of eating on the floor.

Yamaoka Tesshu watched the woman traveler carefully, seated across from her, observing her actions discretely.

Emperor Meiji spoke and the room fell silent. "In honor of our special guest, who has traveled to our land from the West, I would like to make a toast. A toast is a traditional honor from the western countries. Please, raise your cups of sake into the air."

The room did as it was commanded. Hope Faerwald raised her cup and smiled. Again Tesshu was drawn to the way in which her mouth held secrets that were almost tangible.

"To our foreign friends, Britain and her Queen, and the future," Emperor Meiji said. The room sat still, uncertain of what to do.

"Cheers!" Hope Faerwald broke the silence.

"Cheers!" the others in the room echoed, uncomfortably.

The Emperor took a drink of sake, looking at Hope Faerwald over the lip of the cup. "I will honor our guest with one question. Please, ask me anything you wish."

"Why did you change your world on the basis of one man's opinion?" Hope asked and further down the table an old viscount choked and coughed.

Hope Faerwald carefully replaced her sake cup, while the Emperor replied. "My favorite aide has personally witnessed the greatness of your countries, the strength of your armies equipped with modern warfare. We wish to become as great as your motherland."

"Have you personally witnessed the children working in my motherland's sweat shops?" Hope asked, and her voice stayed quiet. "The coal-blackened skies that bring sickness to my people? Have you seen the children of sixteen after their legs are blown off by cannon fire? Tell me Emperor, do you wish these things for your children, for your people?"

"Miss Faerwald, you were only given one question." The Emperor smiled. Then he and his wife stood up from the table, and departed the dinner party.

Ostracized for her questions, ignored by everyone after her outburst at dinner, Hope Faerwald made her way from the festivities into the darkest reaches of the castle. She stopped on a terrace overlooking the harbor.

"It was once a harbor known only to those who lived here," a voice spoke behind her. "But now, there are black ships coming and going. Your people's ships."

"No, not my people." Hope turned to find Yamaoka Tesshu standing in the shadows behind her.

"You are not British?"

"Not ... entirely." Hope changed the subject. "Will you tell me about the Samurai?"

"You embarrassed me in front of my Emperor."

"I spoke the words in your heart, though you did not know how to shape them."

Tesshu sighed with the smallest whisper of breath. "I will tell you the truth. But only in exchange for the truth of why you are here. Who are you?"

"I am Hope." Miss Faerwald stretched her hand out toward the water. "Or what is left of it. Do you know the Catholic Church of my people?"

"I am vaguely familiar with your religion," he replied.

"While your world was illuminated by the principles of discipline and bushido, my world was plunged into darkness. The Europeans call it ‘The Dark Ages’, a devastating time when Rome fell and great knowledge was lost, but a time when a new light was coming into being. The Church, so small then, gathered all it could of the remaining vestiges of Roman knowledge, held them, guarded them, remembered them. And when the time came, The Church Elders dispensed Roman wisdom discriminately, carefully, only as it was needed by the people of Europe and no more."

"Are you such an elder?"

"No, I do not work with the Catholic Church. But I come from a long line of patrons. Patrons of Hope. Hope for the future, when the past dies. Hope for the new orders that spring up from the ashes of the old." Miss Faerwald turned to him and for the first time, Tesshu noticed the faintest traces of grey in her red hair. "The Samurai are dying, Yamaoka Tesshu. You are the last. I need your wisdom. The world will need your wisdom."

Tesshu stepped back a pace. He stroked at his long greying beard, and did not immediately know how to respond. He was forty-five years old, had been training in The Way of the Warrior his entire life. Today, he had achieved enlightenment through meditation and bested his master. But he was far from enlightenment on these matters. "Forgive me, but I am not certain if I can believe you."

"Then I suppose you will have to trade an old faith for a new one. You asked me for the truth and I gave it."

"I thought perhaps you were a lady novelist."

Hope laughed. Unlike her hair, her eyes were young and the light of paper lanterns danced within the pale grey irises. It seemed to Tesshu that she had not had such a laugh in a very long time, for she was certainly enjoying it.

"I have ascribed the words of many throughout much of history. I spoke to the last prophet to truly walk the earth. After him, the last of the Knights Templar. I only recently found the last true Indian Chief and now ... I have come for you."

Tesshu shook his head. "I have nothing to offer that could compare with the mighty warriors and philosophers you claim to have conversed with. I know only the sword."

"Sometimes, the simplest discipline is the one which changes the world."

"My world is changing. And like you, I fear it is for the worst." Tesshu allowed his face to express his sadness. He looked down at his long, thin fingers as they rested against the low wall of the terrace. "Two million men lost their calling in life when Emperor Meiji passed his legislations. Words written by one man, destroying lives of millions, lives that were passed down by countless ancestors who now writhe in pain at such a decision. Did you know we cannot even wear swords in public?"

Hope nodded sadly.

"Moritomo committed seppuku last night. I learned about it this morning. His suicide is not the first, and I fear it will not be the last." Tesshu looked at Hope. "What will we become?"

Their gaze met and for a moment he believed everything she had said about her past. For a moment. And then Tesshu looked down in shame.

"I have said too much."

"You have only just started, Lord Tesshu."

"Oyasuminasai, Miss Faerwald."

"Good night, Lord Tesshu."

In the stillness of night, Hope Faerwald sat before her small golden box. She pulled a locket from under her white night dress and unlatched its golden clasp. A tiny, paper-thin key slid out and dropped into her cupped palm.

She fingered it before placing it in the lock. The spring popped open, the box unlocked, and Hope clasped her locket together, carefully hiding the sacred key within.

Then she reached for the bundle of parchment papers, tied carefully with golden ribbon, and placed them gently alongside other bundles of papers within the box.

Yamaoka Tesshu wondered what the English woman had written on the papers. After sliding the small panel of her guest room closed, he walked down the hall to his quarters. He worried, wondered what she intended to do with the information he had uttered in a moment of weakness.

There were many at court who wanted favored courtesan status with the Emperor, a great many who would use that discussion against him and take his viscounty, claiming to be 'forward-thinking' and loyal supporters of the throne. He had made a grave error tonight. It troubled him.

What troubled him more than his admissions was the way in which this English woman had lured him into discussing such private matters. On second thought, lured was too strong a term for it. She had provoked him, not so much seduced him, because she was sympathetic somehow. She alone had challenged the Emperor when no one else would ask the questions he knew were pressing in on the table.

Perhaps that is why it was easy to believe in the fable of history she presented to him. But it was all just a fable. Pretty words, poetry, to provoke him into a vulnerable admission. Such thoughts were not meant for warriors. He was ashamed.

And still, my shame does not bring back the life and honor of Moritomo. He is dead. His world is dead. Do I live in honor by living a compromise?

Yamaoka had no answer for that and the night did not pass easily.

"Rest assured that everything we speak of is a private matter," Hope said.

They were standing precariously on a flat-bottom boat, while men rowed them down a great, wide river. Today was the festival of The Emperor’s Ascension and the entire court of Meiji was upon the river in a red-rimmed display of honor.

Hope was hiding beneath a dark parasol. Tesshu cleared his throat. "I said nothing which would indicate any concern."

"You didn't have to. Every subject I’ve ever contacted worries about it. I assumed you would be no different. The most private thoughts must be guarded carefully and without fail. I dedicate my life to their protection. I would have to die before others know what you’ve told me."

He glanced at her doubtfully.

"If I am a guardian, then where's my sword; that is what you're thinking." Hope smiled and again the youthful fire of her eyes betrayed what her grey hairs were insisting could not possibly be true.

"You would seem to be a lady of prominence," he replied. "Not a warrior."

"You study Zen," she pointed this out. "So you should know well that things are not as they seem. The day I arrived, you had been meditating on a koan, and you discovered the method by which you could defeat your master. I remember."

"Yes. I am a warrior monk. My personal school of swordplay, called Muto Ryu, is a means to enlightenment.”

“You teach this in your own dojo, do you not?”

“Yes, the dojo is The Hall of the Spring Wind.”

“I am from the same school of thought. You teach ascetic living through the use of an external symbol.”

“I became a Zen monk after my wife passed away two summers ago."

Miss Faerwald paled under the darkness of her parasol. "I didn't know you had a wife."

"She would have agreed with you," he replied uncomfortably and said no more.

The moment was broken by Asari Gimei, who came drifting up beside the two on his own boat. "Demon!" he called out to Tesshu. Hope's eyes widened with amusement at the nickname.

"Hai, sensei?"

"When we land, stick close to me, I have a surprise for you." Gimei laughed lightly, and saluted Hope Faerwald. "Enjoying your visit with our Demon?"

She smiled. "Immensely."

"Miss Faerwald is something of a warrior herself," Tesshu interrupted.

Gimei pulled his chin to his neck with disbelief. "Warrior? You have no sword!"

Hope, her mouth open in shock, looked at Tesshu attempting to find words, until she rushed out, "I wear my sword in my heart."

Gimei laughed outright and winked, rowing past them.

The ships landed one by one at the base of a great stone staircase leading to a Shinto temple. Yamaoka Tesshu helped Hope, taking her darkly gloved hand in his own while she steadied her step and struggled with her dark skirts so near to the water's edge.

Gimei approached and Tesshu bowed to his master. The great swordsman smiled. "It has been 17 years that Yamaoka-san has been my student. He is the best of my men."

Tesshu spoke with the smallest hint of embarrassment. "Does the best of your men really take seventeen years to learn one principle?"

They ascended the stairs, and Gimei replied. "Enlightenment is rare, and especially rare is a man willing to put everything aside for seventeen years in the pursuit of it."

"I am honored, teacher."

"I am bestowing the honor upon you today. In front of the Emperor, when we reach the shrine. You shall become my successor."

Tesshu gasped and stopped short on the staircase.

"I give the Nakanishi-ha Itto Ryu position of headmaster to you, my greatest student." Gimei took Tesshu's hands in his own and bowed so low as to touch his forehead to his pupil's fingers.

"But ..." Tesshu looked up, and his gaze met Hope's. "Should not this honor go to Oyama? Or Mitsushige? Surely they ..."

"You, my son-that-never-was." Gimei looked up at Tesshu again. "You are my successor. I have named it. Come with me. Take your place."

Again that night, Hope Faerwald sat before her small golden box. She pulled a locket from under her flowing, white nightshift and unlatched its golden clasp. A tiny, paper-thin gold key slid out and dropped into her cupped palm. Then she reached for the newest bundle of parchment papers, tied carefully with golden ribbon, and placed them gently alongside other bundles of papers within the box.

Yamaoka Tesshu wondered what the English woman had thought of the ceremony that afternoon, and if she was writing down the way in which he reacted to his master's news. He once again closed the small sliding panel to her room and left her unobserved. Turning to head back to his own quarters, he heard the slightest shuffle from the other direction of the hall.

Had she heard him?

He turned back in time to catch the last of a shadow creeping along the rice walls at the far end of the hall.

Quietly, he crept past her door, then past doors at the end of the hall, using all the stealth he could muster so as not to make his presence known.

He peered across the empty hallway just beyond the edge of the wall. It was silent. Empty. Then another swish, a door sliding on its bamboo track. It was coming from further down the hall, and would have been the door to the Emperor's private quarters.

Hurrying now, Yamaoka Tesshu reached the rice-paper sliding door and saw no shadows beyond it. But the candles that illuminated the other side were flickering. Someone had passed through. For a moment, he thought of Miss Faerwald in her barbarian ignorance, assuming she could just enter and speak to the Emperor whenever she wished. But that thought lasted only moments. Another more terrible thought crept in and took its place.

Assassins.

Tesshu opened the sliding door and beyond it, he could see three ceremonial swords hanging on the wall just beneath the sputtering candles. He was weaponless by the Emperor's own decree. But the ceremonial swords, if not sharp, would still be something of use to him. He gently took the largest off the rack and continued down the hall.

Fear pressed against his throat when he heard the softest voices coming from behind Emperor Meiji's door to his sleeping quarters. And stopping in the hall, he saw that the door was ajar just slightly and that figures moved in the moonless night within the darkened room.

Without moving, Tesshu looked left. A sliding window panel lead toward the outer edge of the castle. It was a narrow ledge, but it would support him as he made his way around the outer castle wall. He would approach Emperor Meiji's sleeping quarters from an unobserved window.

As Tesshu made his way to the edge of the final ledge, he could hear Meiji's wife crying sadly from within. She tried not to whimper but her body was choked with sobs. It reminded him briefly of the death of his wife.

Tesshu crashed through the rice-paper frame of the panel, prepared to meet the assassins with force; ready to deal with any possibility. Perhaps Saigo's unavenged followers had scaled castle walls, perhaps another daimyo's greed had prompted an attack or ...

Tesshu came face to face, sword to sword, with his teacher, Asari Gimei.

Behind Gimei, the Empress sat with her hands and feet bound in silk ties. And Oyama, another long-lived student of Gimei's, pointed his European rifle at Tesshu's chest.

Tesshu couldn't move. His eyes were wide circles of disbelief, though he did not need to utter the words that could not cross his lips. Gimei stared back at his favorite pupil, his sword at the Emperor's throat.

Oyama cocked the rifle.

"No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" came the scream from behind Oyama, and the man turned and shot.

The scream woke Tesshu from his hesitation and he took the ceremonial sword and cut down at his teacher like the lotus blooming in the midst of an inferno.

But Asari Gimei was still a master. He took his student's blows in stride, turning Tesshu away at every strike. This time he would not throw down his blade.

Once free of the point of a sword, Emperor Meiji raced toward the hall calling loudly for guards, rousing the entire castle.

Tesshu tried not to think of the shame Gimei would have when the soldiers arrived to find him fighting his favorite student, his own surrogate son, because he was a traitor to the Emperor. He had lied, hid his anger, and defied everyone who loved him.

"Why?" Tesshu shouted. He was red with fury.

"We cannot live like this!" Gimei replied. "Saigo is dead by rebellion! He was the best of us! Now he is gone! What will we be without the very thing that makes us strong??"

Tesshu found his opening and without hesitation he took it.

Gimei came down with his blade, but he was too late. Tesshu was faster, ready to die in order to save his mentor the grief of dying at the hands of the Emperor’s guards. Gimei had taught his student well. He crumpled, dying by the blade of his own son-he-never-had.

It was not a sharp blade, but the thrust had done its job. Tesshu couldn't bear to see Gimei dying slowly. He took his own master's sword, sharp and deadly, and decapitated his sensei in a clean and decent manner. This was the only death worthy of such a great warrior.

Then Tesshu left his master's sword sunken into the bamboo reed floor.

Oyama was down on his knees. Now that the one shot had fired from his rifle, he waited for his death with patient eyes. Tesshu walked over ... and past him. He would not waste his time on someone who killed with a rifle. Oyama could die at the hands of simple guards.

But who lay in the hall, in white and flowing loose cotton, with red hair mixing with the stain of blood upon her chest?

Oyama's rifle had destroyed Hope.

Hope Faerwald was staring up at the ceiling and as Yamaoka Tesshu collapsed on his knees beside her, she regarded him with one small smile. Her smile held one thousand years locked in silence behind those pale, trembling European lips.

"Yamaoka Tesshu," she whispered perfectly. Tesshu felt his cheeks wet with tears. "Sit with me a while, for there is something I must give you before I am gone."

Tesshu took her bare hand, pale and weak, in his own skilled fingers. "What is it?" He was hoarse.

She pulled at the chain around her neck, snapping the delicate links of gold. Entwined in her fingers was the chain of the small locket he had seen twice before. The locket of secrets and lost honor hung between them. "Take good care of this."

Then, her last breath like a breeze, she was gone.

Tesshu put the last of the papers inside the golden box that lay open before him. The scent of ages came to him through words untold, words he had read and believed. But the most surprising words came from Hope Faerwald’s own hand. She had written, in the last few lines of the last entry, Yamaoka Tesshu is unlike anyone I’ve ever met. As He who commissioned me to this fate once wrote of my own discipline, I too write of Yamaoka. Never have I met a man of such resolve, kindness and compassion. When he is ready, when he believes, I will pass this burden to him. Who better to protect the knowledge of the great orders of the world?

She had not lived long enough to honor that resolve, but she had spared Yamaoka his life, through her own death. The repayment was simple. And the choice was made. Yamaoka Tesshu would carry on her work. And perhaps, in the world that he’d never seen, he would find the answers that no longer lived in Tokyo. Out in the world, searching for others like him, he would find peace.

Yamaoka Tesshu held his family's sword in one hand and the golden box under his elbow as he stared down into Hope's grave. Then he placed his sword, scabbard and all, into the earth and left it beside her body.

In the distance, a black ship was ready to leave harbor. When he turned, a young soldier from the Emperor's army saluted him. Tesshu did not return the salute, but kept walking while others threw dirt into the deep grave.

When Emperor Meiji and his retinue came to him, Tesshu stopped out of courtesy and bowed.

"Yamaoka Tesshu, The Hall of the Spring Wind awaits you.” Tesshu stared at the black ship in the harbor and did not reply. “What of your headmaster position?" the emperor asked.

"I can teach a school of swordsmanship anywhere in the world, your majesty."

The Emperor pointed back to the grave. "But what of your family's sword?"

Yamaoka didn't wait to be excused. He kept walking toward the black ship, with the golden box tucked safely under his arm.

"I carry my sword in my heart."

THE END