Child of Vengeance by David Kirk Page A

man. Now that swords were finished with, what Bennosuke had tried to banish earlier in the day seeped back into him. Tasumi noticed the change, saw the wan look that came onto the boy’s face.
    “You were bloody awful today too, I was watching you,” the samurai said, his way of polite inquiry into the boy’s well-being. “What’s the matter with you?”
    “Nothing,” said Bennosuke, but the man grabbed his hand and pulled it close to him, yanking the gauntlet off to examine critically what lay beneath.
    “Hands like a thatcher, no wonder you can’t swing a sword,” he tutted, his small eyes focused like an artisan’s. “That monk has got you working too hard, prancing about weaving like some woman. Is this because of that great burning you’re planning?”
    “Yes,” said Bennosuke, pulling his hand free.
    “Has he told you about why we do that, the festival and the pomp and the ceremony?” asked the samurai.
    “The twenty years symbolize the length of time Amaterasu spent in the cave after her brother slaughtered her handmaidens. Her light was gone from the world, and all things came close to death until they eventually convinced her to emerge once more. The world was born anew then,” said the boy, using words remembered from sermons. “And so it is when we burn the temple. A new start for all of us.”
    “Well, isn’t that pretty?” said Tasumi. “Want to know the real reason? It’s good practice, is what. Every twenty years a new batch of apprentice builders gets to remake the temple—it’s small and it’s simple and they learn the basics of construction from it, and they get to feel all holy and special while they do it. The monks get a new temple out of it too, so everyone is happy.”
    Tasumi turned away for a moment, waving one hand dismissively. He looked back into the dojo until he was certain he had registered his distaste at effete, passive things, and then when his honor as a samurai was safe he allowed himself to look at the boy again, this time as a man and as an uncle.
    “Look,” he said softly, “Dorinbo is a good man. There is worthin what he does, there really is. Just … try to remember to think whenever someone tries to sell you on a cause. There is very rarely any divine crusade or something like that. Look for the real meaning of things, not what they are said to be—you understand?”
    “Yes, Uncle,” said Bennosuke.
    “Now—what’s wrong?” said Tasumi.
    “I …” the boy began, and then stopped.
    No further words came, because there were none of his own. Visiting the ruins had left a mark upon him as it always did, and what the boy relived within himself was the morning after the earthquake and the terrible fire. He remembered the last words of his father before he had left the village, those final moments before both parents were stripped from him.
    “Bennosuke,” the man had said, his eyes red with what were maybe tears, thick black smoke curling into the air behind him, “try to be samurai.”
    His hand tightened on the boy’s small shoulder for one moment, and then he had risen and walked away. The samurai had not looked back, growing smaller and smaller until he was over the ridge and gone to the unknown horizons beyond, and that was that.
    Bennosuke often wondered if those words had formed the very core of him, or if they had merely kindled what was already there. The simple truth was that deep down he knew that he was meant to be a samurai. It was why he forced himself to face the shame of the armor and to hold his rash-plagued face high as he walked among those who recoiled in disgust. He could not deny that desire was there even if he questioned his ability to fulfill it.
    That alone was why he could not become Dorinbo’s apprentice: simple gut instinct. To explain it that way would be embarrassing and insulting to Dorinbo, to fabricate a reason and lie to him even more so.
    Tasumi would offer no advice—the boy knew that the samurai would