Sakura walked her adopted three paces behind her Sensei. At other times He would have stopped eventually, wagged His finger with mock annoyance and motioned her to His side but today He was in essence not here, He wandered somewhere between earth and void. The black ceremonial haori hung like a weight upon His shoulders, the usual straight line gone replaced by a roundness Sakura found unsettling. His geta were noisy, drowning out her own heavy step, the stealthy cat like walk had been replaced by the heavy fall of a condemned man's careless stride. Sakura fought to keep her face calm, retain the posture and respect that echoed the occasion's seriousness but under the pancake makeup her emotions were torn and convulsed with her Masters pain. At last their path took them away from prying eyes and she allowed one tear to gently seep from her right eye to trail slowly down her cheek leaving a livid scar along the white expanse of her face.
Some confuse Buddhist and Shinto teachings with hedonism. The apparent taking of enjoyment in every moment compared with the constant search for endless pleasure. Simply let it be said that neither fatalism nor present-ism can be hedonistic. The present can indeed be good or bad, healthy or unhealthy, but must be accepted, lived and enjoyed whether through laughter or tears. True hedonism rejects any act or situation that involves discomfort or pain, therefore in one breathe refuting the converse nature of life. The endless search for pleasure has no more value than for the philosopher's stone, both are fantasies that misdirect the selfish from true experience.
As tradition decreed Raion had allowed a full funeral with the nΕkan ceremony. His father had been cleansed and placed in a coffin and had laid raised on the ceremonial alter throughout the wake the previous day. The dry ice in the coffin proved auspicious due to the days delay to avoid the bad luck of burying on tomobiki. Raion was not concerned being rarely superstitious but His mother, a devout Buddhist has insisted.
Sakura found herself at a loss to know her place. Not being family she had no accepted position but was ever keen to be at her Masters elbow. For many He may have seemed stoic, in control, but she knew every facet, every nuance of His demeanor and saw the torment barely hidden within. Eventually it was His own mother who had beckoned and seated her where she longed to be, behind and to the right side of His position. Twice during the funeral He had faltered, twice He had carefully stretched His arm backwards between the chairs to touch the knee of her black kimono.
At the end of the ceremony sakura watched sadly as Raion hammered home the coffin nails with a stone bought especially from His father's Zen garden. The procession to the crematorium was somber, the silence broken only by the chant of the Shinto priests and an unfortunate squeak from one of the hearses wheels. The cremation took an hour and a half, her Master sitting pensively in the cherry orchard just to one side. Sakura remembered longingly the many happy times they had spent in similar surroundings and prayed silently for their swift return. The ritual picking of the bones fascinated her. This was her first funeral and the shock of seeing people pass the bones from chopstick to chopstick against all normal social protocol was both startling and strangely moving.
The ceremonies completed, the ashes carefully placed in an urn the procession moved again back through the normally sleepy village. Today the streets held all the residents and their families. No work took place, no school opened, no shops served patrons, the villagers silently lined the streets bowing as both His father's remains and Raion passed. Sakura wondered at this deep degree of loss and respect. The dojo of Raion's father had served the village for his whole life, as had his fathers before him, but the outpouring of manifest devotion was truly staggering. Half way along the main thorough fare there was a halt, unscheduled but understood. The village elders accompanied by the head Shinto priest approached Raion solemnly. All stopped in a line facing her Master and bowed deeply. The mayor and priest then stepped forward and halted but a few feet away, again a deep bow. Raion seemed oblivious to anything except the bows which He returned courteously. The mayor held out before him, gripped horizontally in his right hand, Raion's tanto. Placing His hands either side of the mayors Raion nodded a bow then placed the tanto into His obi, the ritual was then repeating between the priest and Raion but this time passing His katana.
The procession proceeded, the bows from the lines of villagers continued except that the bow to Raion was now much deeper, some even paying the ultimate of respect and bowing in seiza their foreheads touching the ground. Her Master appeared unmoved, unaffected, yet somehow to sakura He seemed taller and more defined than ever before. Where once He had been Raion He was now something more, something that encapsulated everything, past, present and future.
"You must be happy to now be the courtesan of a Daimyo."
Sakura turned to find her addresser to be none other than the wife of yamato the local yakuza boss.
"I had not realized He was Daimyo and am decidedly not His courtesan."
The woman was dressed impeccably but with a style that might have been considered theatrical for a funeral. The colors of her patterned kimono and obi were subdued by comparison to her usual extravagance it was true but certainly more outlandish than sakura would ever consider appropriate. Her hair was magnificent, more so because it was obviously real and not the formal wig so often adopted for convenience. The combs and pins glinted gold, the black and purple decorative flowers exquisite.
"Even a retired geisha is traditionally allowed a little leeway in costume sakura."
Sakura bowed her acceptance demurely.
"It surprises me you were so unaware of your Masters position as heir presumptive. It alarms me more you are not His mistress. You really haven't pillowed with Him?"
Madame yamato lowered her voice to almost a whisper for the last two sentences and murmured discretely from behind the protection of a fan held in front of her mouth.
"We have not pillowed."
Sakura knew that the question did not by protocol require an answer but found herself somehow at ease sharing with the infamous lady who stared so benignly.
"A matter obviously not to your pleasure or advantage my sweet child. We shall have to see how we can help a fellow resident of karyΕ«kai, the flower and willow world."
