The Samurai's Tale

After his father dies in battle, the narrator’s mother knows that her family is likely to be killed to prevent reprisals. She sends her son, who is not quite five years old, to hide with a servant girl, Yone. When a soldier finds them, he takes them back to the house, where the boy sees his mother and two brothers lying dead. He doesn’t scream or cry when he sees their bodies and notes that this “probably saved (his) life” (5). The soldiers discover he is the youngest son of the defeated samurai, and he can tell they are about to kill him, so he grabs a bamboo sword and prepares to defend himself. The soldiers laugh, and the conquering warlord Takeda is impressed. Instead of killing the boy, he gives him to an officer, Captain Nobutomo Akiyama. The officer gives the boy the name Taro. Accepting the servant’s name means that he will no longer have a claim to his father’s estate, but he can stay alive.

Takeda’s soldiers transport rice to Kofuchu, where Akiyama has his estate. They take Taro and Yone with them. Taro, who was spoiled until his parents’ death, has to walk barefoot until he cuts his food on a rock and a soldier allows him to ride on a horse. The travelers reach Kofuchu on the fourth day of the journey. One of the soldiers in the troop is a bully who hits local children and taunts Taro about his family’s fate. The soldier makes him bow to severed heads, but the man is warned off by another soldier, who takes Taro to Akiyama’s mansion. The soldier then takes them to the cookhouse and hands them over to a cook named Togan.

Taro begins to adjust to being a servant in an extremely stratified society. While he starts to understand that he must show humility to get by, he still thinks mostly about himself. He says he doesn’t care when Yoni, the servant girl, disappears from his life. He builds a relationship with Togan and reflects later that the years with Togan were the happiest of his life. One of the few servants who can read, Togan is polite to everyone, including the lowly Taro, and he is full of wise sayings. While Togan treats Taro like a son, Taro still feels like the son of a samurai and grates against his current status. Once, during an archery contest, Taro feels he should be among the high-status youths participating. He forgets himself and walks onto the field, only to be pulled back by a servant. He bursts into tears and runs home to Togan, taking out his anger by kicking a dog and then feeling shame as he realizes he identifies with the animal. Taro reflects that he isn’t content “with being a dog” (22).

Togan is proud of his strength and loves wrestling. Enticed by the prospect of seeing a skilled wrestler, he and Taro go to a match in one of the poorest parts of Kofuchu. The crowd at the wrestling venue is drunk, and Taro feels the place is dangerous. Taro sees a man he suspects is the soldier who bullied him on his trip to Kofuchu. The wrestler they have come to see beats two men who have little skill and then loses to a local champion. Annoyed, Togan complains out loud about the match and the venue. Angered by the comments, men from the crowd confront him and Taro as they try to leave. The man Taro noticed earlier leads the party, which blocks them from leaving. Taro is now sure the man is the soldier who bullied him. The soldier tries to extort money from them. When Togan refuses, the soldier attacks the cook and fatally stabs him. As Togan lies bleeding on the ground, Akiyama appears and demands to know what is happening. The man claims he was attacked, but Taro explains that the cook was unarmed when the soldier killed him. One of Akiyama’s men recognizes the soldier as a former servant who stole money from his master. Akiyama has the soldier arrested for Togan’s murder. Akiyama talks to Taro and recognizes him as the “little samurai with the bamboo sword” (30). Taro reminds the lord of a promise to make him a stable hand, and Akiyama agrees. Taro is excited to get out of the kitchens, especially with Togan gone, but then he is grief-stricken by his friend’s death. He goes to a temple to pray for Togan’s soul.

The youngest in the stables, Taro gets the worst jobs. He still struggles with his pride but has more patience after Togan’s death. The next youngest boy, Jiro, likes to give Taro orders. During the winter, there is a rumor about a revolt against Takeda, and Jiro proudly drops hints that he knows about it. The revolt, led by a man named Obu and Takeda’s oldest son, Yoshinobu, is quickly put down. Obu is denied the privilege of honorable suicide, and he and his men are executed like common criminals. Yoshinobu is imprisoned. The other boys resent Jiro’s arrogance. When he and Jiro are sent with an older boy named Matazo to retrieve three horses from a meadow, Jiro fails to capture his horse. Taro notices that Jiro isn’t good with horses because he is afraid of them. Jiro then hits a horse hard on the muzzle with a stick, causing the horse to rear up and escape. In response, Taro hits Jiro until he begins crying. After the incident, 12-year-old Taro is promoted to Jiro’s place, and Jiro becomes the lowest-ranking stable worker.

Over time, Taro moves up in status among the stable hands, and his skill with horses is respected. One evening, Akiyama sends Taro on a secret mission to accompany a rider to the temple of Toko-ji, where Yoshinobu is imprisoned. The rider is Katsuyori, another son of Lord Shingen and half-brother of Yoshinobu. When they arrive after a silent ride, Katsuyori enters the temple, and Taro waits with the horses. He grows increasingly apprehensive as he waits for hours in the dark. Near dawn, an unknown monk observes him. Katsuyori then emerges, his face as pale as a ghost.

Back at Akiyama’s mansion, Taro learns Yoshinobu killed himself by ritual seppuku at the Toko-ji temple where he was imprisoned for helping lead the revolt against his father, Lord Takeda. Gossip swirls about the death and the harshness of what is assumed to be a punishment, particularly since Takeda led a revolt against his own father at 21. Servants wonder who helped Yoshinobu die by suicide since the suicide ritual calls for a friend to cut off the person’s head as quickly as possible after he stabs himself in the abdomen. Taro wonders if it wasn’t a suicide and Katsuyori instead delivered a warrant for his half-brother’s execution.

After learning to read and write from a Buddhist priest who knew Togan, Taro aims to raise his status by attending Zen services like the samurai. One day, a monk circulates among the meditating congregants, hitting them with a stick if they appear distracted. The reader can infer that the monk is the same one who saw Taro at the temple of Toko-ji. The monk strikes Taro hard, and Taro leaves the service early. He is then confronted by two ronins, or samurai without masters, who question him. The monk confirms Taro was with Katsuyori at the temple. When he sees other samurai approaching, Taro runs away. He wants to tell his master about the incident, but Akiyama is not in the mansion, so Akiyama’s father sends Taro to bring a letter to his son.

Taro takes the letter to Akiyama, who is at Iida Castle. On the way, he tries to imitate the samurai by composing a poem about the landscape. He stops at a Shinto shrine where a priest questions him about Yoshinobu’s death and makes it clear that he sympathized with the dead man. Later, at an inn, the innkeeper and his patrons discuss a possible war and who should be the future leader of Japan. The innkeeper mentions Takeda as a strong candidate. As he falls asleep, Taro happily imagines how his status might increase if his current master were to become Shogun, or leader, of all Japan.