The young women lined up along one edge of the field, and rice seedlings, which had been carefully nurtured from the best grains of the previous year’s crop, were tossed to them in bundles, each bundle of precious shoots carefully gathered together and tied with a twist of straw.
The planting always started festively enough, but by the end of the day each woman was exhausted by the constant bending and tedious work. Some might welcome some of the gawking men on the edge of the paddy as potential marriage prospects. The crowd included men who had no real interest in the planting except to see all the young woman of the village lined up in one place. Nagato was such a man.
Many of the girls were fifteen or older and thus already married. Nagato didn’t find these types appealing. Not because they were married, but because they looked too assured, too much like women. For some reason that made the Magistrate very uncomfortable.
Ichiro’s daughter was joining the rice planting for the first time, and as such she was tentative and unsure of herself. She shrugged off the top of her kimono, letting it hang down from her waist sash. Since she was used to working and playing in summer with her chest exposed, she was not intimidated by the costume for planting. She was simply cognizant of the fact that her invitation to participate in the rice planting marked a passage for her, from the ranks of children into the ranks of the young women of the village.
Nagato found her hesitancy very appealing. He couldn’t say why, but this quality made him have lustful feelings toward the child. That’s why it seemed like an omen when Nagato, in a black mood after his fight at home, stumbled across the daughter of the village headman gathering roots at the edge of the forest. The child had the flat basket used for collection of roots in her hand. If she had a shallow round basket, she would be gathering mushrooms. She was with her mother, a woman Nagato dismissed as he did most of the peasant women in the village.
Nagato had been marching through the village to calm down from his fight and perhaps to find a peasant to yell at. He stopped when he spotted the girl and watched her with narrowing eyes. He carefully noted the way her body pushed against the cloth of the kimono and her innocent gesture of pushing her scraggly hair out of her face as she straightened up. She wasn’t aware of the Magistrate, but her mother was.
Stepping between her daughter and the view of the Magistrate, Ichiro’s wife bobbed in a low bow and said, “Good morning, Magistrate-sama!” Her voice was a little too cheerful, as if she was forcing herself to be bright and friendly, all against her better judgment.
The Magistrate said nothing and continued to stare past the woman at the child. The young girl had turned with the voice of her mother and was now looking at the Magistrate with surprise. It occurred to Nagato that he really didn’t have to buy such a creature. As village Magistrate, he should be able to just take her. He stepped toward her.
“Would you like some freshly gathered roots, Magistrate-sama?” the mother said. Her words were innocent, but her voice took a sharp edge as she read the look on the Magistrate’s face.
“Get out of my way,” the Magistrate said as the woman further imposed herself between him and the child. Now the child had a look of fear on her face, and this incited Nagato’s lust even more. She looked as if she was about to run away.
“Please, Magistrate-sama, won’t you have some roots for your table?” the mother was pleading now, holding the basket before her like some offering. The words didn’t match her thoughts, but it was plain she knew what was on the Magistrate’s mind.
“I’ve told your stupid husband enough times what I want your daughter for, but he just doesn’t seem to understand,” Nagato told the woman. “Now I see it runs in the entire family. Now get out of my way. I am about to bestow a great privilege on that daughter of yours.”
“Please Magistrate-sama! She’s much too young! Take me instead. Please, Magistrate-sama! We can go into the woods right here and I can please you. The girl is still a child. She’s too young for such things. Please!”
For Nagato, the woman’s pleading evoked no pity. Instead, it quickened his need to take the child. He felt powerful and in control. His bluster, which so often crumbled when confronted with his new District Lord or his wife or the strange ronin, was now channeled into new and novel directions. He liked it and stepped closer to the child.
The mother imposed herself again, which surprised Nagato. The idea that a peasant might love a child and would want to protect it was one that had never occurred to him. Peasants were simply rice-producing machines: slow, stupid, dishonest, and untrustworthy. They had no human feelings.
The child was starting to run away, which enraged Nagato, and the mother had now dropped the root-gathering basket and dared to grab at his arm. “Please, Magistrate-sama! We’ll go together into the woods, neh? You don’t need the child. I can-”
Nagato struck her full force with his fist. The effect was even better than he had hoped. The woman crumpled to her knees, dazed. She released her grip on his arm, and it actually got the child to return to him and her mother.
“Please, Magistrate-sama! Don’t hit my mother!”
Nagato smiled. “Come with me and I’ll leave your mother alone.”
“But Magistrate-sama-”
Nagato raised his fist to smash the now-defenseless woman kneeling before him. The child ran to him, grabbing at his arm. He reached over and grabbed the girl’s wrist in a cruel clasp, twisting her arm and bringing a wince of pain to her face.
With her struggling to break free, he dragged her into the woods after him. Just before he stepped into the trees he looked over his shoulder and saw the mother staggering toward the village, her face cupped in her hands.
For once, Nagato felt powerful and completely in control. He actually smiled when he found a clear space in the woods and dragged the child close to him. He always knew he could kill any peasant with impunity, but he had never considered the other possibilities of what he might do.
He ignored the child’s cries as he roughly stripped the kimono from her. Because she wouldn’t stop struggling when he ordered her to, he gave her a backhanded slap that snapped her head back. He shoved her to the ground and fell on top of her, using his superior strength and weight to hold her down while he fumbled with his fundoshi loincloth.
He finally got his manhood free, but the child was still squirming and crying, and he coldly slapped her again. He wanted her chastened and subdued, but not unconscious. He found he enjoyed her struggles and the mewing pleadings that were coming out of her peasant mouth. He reached down with one hand to guide himself into her jade gates when he gave a large gasp. It was not a gasp of pleasure, it was a gasp of pain.
He reached behind to grasp the thing digging into the flesh of his back and felt the thing release its pressure. He brought his hand back to his face and was surprised to see it was covered in crimson. It took him a few moments to understand that his hand was covered in blood. His blood.
He rolled off the girl, the shock starting to ebb and the pain taking over. He could see Ichiro, the village headman, standing above him with a dagger in his hand. Nagato was astounded. A peasant in the village attacking him was unthinkable. The penalty for such an attack was the death of the peasant, the death of his family, and the death of at least four of his neighboring families. Collective responsibility extended beyond the need to cooperate to grow rice. It also meant collective punishment if one member of the village broke the laws protecting samurai and nobles.
Ichiro also seemed to understand the import of his act, because his weapon hand was shaking. His rage and need to protect his child had fueled his first thrust into the fleshy back of the Magistrate, but now, coming face-to-face with the consequences of his action, he realized he had murdered the child he wanted to protect, along with himself, his wife, and his other children. And for attacking a Magistrate, the deaths would not be quick ones.