Post by winterglass on Apr 4, 2020 12:08:20 GMT -5
(A work in progress. This is just an introduction; a bit of a teaser about Yoriko's past. Everything is a matter of perspective, and the perspective of a samurai and that of a farmer are sometimes very far apart indeed...)
"She seems to be trying to leave the country. Which means she will need a ship. If you hear anything, see anything, that leads to her arrest, a full five hundred mon are yours'."
The reward was generous, enough to enrich a peasant beyond their most fevered dreams - though merely a positive mark in the ledgers of a silk-merchant as prosperous as this one. Indeed, many a passing pack-bearer turned their head at the words, even amid the marketplace's clamour.
"Must be a pretty important matter", the trader mused. "Given how much you're offering. What'd she do, anyway?"
A muscle worked at the side of the samurai's grey-bearded jaw, his emotions barely held in check. A sudden urge came to him, to cut the impertinent man down where he stood rather than answer.
How could he even begin to express to this grubby coin-counter, a lower order of being entirely, the grief of a samurai at the loss of his only son? The outrage at a brazen murder by ambush and deceit; at the brutal disprespect shown even to the corpse? The head taken almost clean off; the body pierced and cut many times over as if in a wild beast's desperate rage.
His dear son, Goemon. Strong and dutiful, he would have been more than fit to carry their respected family name down to another generation.
And the daisho, the soul of a warrior embodied in his paired swords, taken. They had not even left those for his father, to be displayed in a fitting place of honour - rather, the wounds suggested that at the end, they had used his own short sword to gut him, a grotesque parody of the ritual suicide held most sacrosanct by the samurai.
And all this atrocity had been committed by a few peasants turned to banditry and led by a farm-girl. By a mere sower and picker of rice, not fit to look a man of his caste in the eye.
The crime alone was unforgivable; the insult beyond comprehension.
But he needed this man's help, he reminded himself sternly. Losing his temper would be a damaging act of self-indulgence. As would blurting out the shameful truth of how the son of Takagi Kosuke met his end.
He mastered himself, and at length, he spoke heavily.
"She stole two swords."
"She seems to be trying to leave the country. Which means she will need a ship. If you hear anything, see anything, that leads to her arrest, a full five hundred mon are yours'."
The reward was generous, enough to enrich a peasant beyond their most fevered dreams - though merely a positive mark in the ledgers of a silk-merchant as prosperous as this one. Indeed, many a passing pack-bearer turned their head at the words, even amid the marketplace's clamour.
"Must be a pretty important matter", the trader mused. "Given how much you're offering. What'd she do, anyway?"
A muscle worked at the side of the samurai's grey-bearded jaw, his emotions barely held in check. A sudden urge came to him, to cut the impertinent man down where he stood rather than answer.
How could he even begin to express to this grubby coin-counter, a lower order of being entirely, the grief of a samurai at the loss of his only son? The outrage at a brazen murder by ambush and deceit; at the brutal disprespect shown even to the corpse? The head taken almost clean off; the body pierced and cut many times over as if in a wild beast's desperate rage.
His dear son, Goemon. Strong and dutiful, he would have been more than fit to carry their respected family name down to another generation.
And the daisho, the soul of a warrior embodied in his paired swords, taken. They had not even left those for his father, to be displayed in a fitting place of honour - rather, the wounds suggested that at the end, they had used his own short sword to gut him, a grotesque parody of the ritual suicide held most sacrosanct by the samurai.
And all this atrocity had been committed by a few peasants turned to banditry and led by a farm-girl. By a mere sower and picker of rice, not fit to look a man of his caste in the eye.
The crime alone was unforgivable; the insult beyond comprehension.
But he needed this man's help, he reminded himself sternly. Losing his temper would be a damaging act of self-indulgence. As would blurting out the shameful truth of how the son of Takagi Kosuke met his end.
He mastered himself, and at length, he spoke heavily.
"She stole two swords."