Read Online The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn by Tom Hoobler - Free Book Online Page A

The actor was a short,
wiry man, just like the acrobat Seikei had seen jump out of Lord
Hakuseki’s way on the road. Seikei stood up to see him more
clearly. But because the man wore makeup it was impossible to see
if he had a scar on his face.
    The actor’s
voice rang throughout the silent theater. “We are ronin now,” he said,
“samurai without a master.” He danced slowly down one of the
runways into the middle of the theater, and the samisens played a
mournful tune. “The shogun will take our lord’s lands and give them
to another daimyo. We can stay here to serve him. We can forget the
insult that our master died for.” He stopped, and turned to the
others.
    “Is that honorable?” His voice
sounded like a clap of thunder, echoed by the drums.
    Seikei could not stop himself from
shouting, as many in the audience did, “No! No!”
    The actor turned in a circle,
staring grimly at everyone in the theater. Seikei could not tear
his eyes from the man’s face. “Then we must agree to give up our
lives, our families, everything else that we love. We must dedicate
ourselves to one thing—to avenging our master’s honor, and our
own!”
    He ran back to the stage and then
turned to face the audience. His eyes were fierce. “Do you agree?”
he cried.
    A great cry of “Yes!” arose. Then
the Forty-Seven Ronin (there were not actually that many actors,
but everyone knew how many there were supposed to be) ran off in
all directions, disappearing from the stage.
    Seikei felt his heart beating. He
sank back onto the floor. Honor! The code that all samurai must
follow, to the death. Since death came someday to all, it was more
important to preserve one’s honor than to save one’s own
life.
    Yet during the next hour, each of
the ronin who had served the Lord of Ako appeared to have abandoned
all thoughts of honor. It was hard to watch. Oishi himself
appeared, staggering as if drunk, his clothes dirty and his hair
hanging down around his face. He fell to the ground in a stupor,
and passers-by kicked at him and laughed. “That pitiful creature is
Oishi,” they said. “He once served the Lord of Ako, but now he is a
drunken fool.”
    Seikei squirmed, feeling the
insults as keenly as the forty-seven ronin did. He watched each of
the actors play the roles that the real ronin had taken. They
wandered alone, spending their time in wine-shops, begging for
coins, and conducting themselves in the most disgraceful ways they
could think of.
    The only thing that made this
bearable was that Seikei knew all this was part of Oishi’s plan.
Finally, the last of the ronin shuffled across the stage, broken
and disgraced. The lanterns overhead were snuffed out, leaving the
theater in darkness. The music continued, and while the spectators
waited for the next act to begin, many of them ate the food they
had brought along.
    But then new lanterns winked on
over the stage, burning white like the light of the moon. Flakes of
paper began to fall from the ceiling. It was snowing, and now the
audience hushed in anticipation, for this was the wintry night when
the ronin took their revenge.
    One of them appeared from the
shadows, clad all in black, his two swords hanging from his belt.
His step was sure and purposeful. Another arrived with a rope
ladder that he threw over a wall. More ronin appeared, stealthily
climbing the ladder. Others surrounded the high wall. The music
grew louder, and the audience tensed.
    The ronin had met, as Oishi had
planned, at the castle of Lord Kira, the man who had insulted their
master and caused his death. Sword fights broke out as Lord Kira’s
own samurai awakened and tried to fight off the intruders. Seikei
gasped as the blades gleamed and clashed together. He had dreamed
of taking part in such a fight, but he could not believe the skill
and speed that the actors displayed. They danced across the stage,
swinging their swords in a display of beauty and death.
    Oishi—the actor who played
Oishi—seemed to