The old man sat, as he did almost every day, in the front doorway of his house, surrounded by a ragged semicircle of entranced children. Under his skilled hands and sharp knife, a piece of wood grew round and smooth. As he whittled, he told the story of the King of the Forest, the kami of the great trees, who danced the new sprouts out of the ground and whose roar made the wind blow. “And at night,” the old man went on, “he rides the wind of his own roar, standing on a magic top just like the one I’m making here.” His voice dropped to a mere whisper. “And do you know what?”
“What?” the youngest girl whispered back, round-eyed.
“Sometimes he takes children with him.”
“Ohhhh.”
The older children drew a little closer. They had heard the tale many times, but they never tired of Jiiya’s stories.
“One night, maybe even tonight, you might wake up and feel something wild on the wind. You look outside and see the King of the Forest dancing around the fields. He squats down like this…” he demonstrated, and two or three of the smaller children imitated him. “Then he jumps up, and that pulls the new sprouts out of the ground!”
The old man sat down again. “And then he takes out his magic top and spins it. He jumps on it and rides it up into the sky, and when he roars the wind makes the trees and the grass move like the sea.” He set down the top and spun it.
No one reached for the toy. This was part of the game; the top chose who it wanted to belong to. It curved past the waiting children and came to rest against a dirt-covered bare foot.
“Oro?” The foot’s owner made no move to pick up the top.
“No!”
“Not him!”
“Please, Jiiya!”
Tears shimmered in the littlest girl’s eyes, and her bottom lip trembled. She wanted to ride with the King of the Forest…
The outsider reached down and picked up the toy. He stepped forward and handed it to the smallest girl. “Here. Don’t cry.”
The girl’s older sister snatched her away and rudely struck the toy from the boy’s hand. It flew to Jiiya’s feet. “Not if he’s touched it!”
“Yeah, if you touch anything of his your mom and dad’ll get the sickness and die, just like his!”
“He’s bad luck!”
“The only reason he’s still here is the slave-dealers haven’t come yet.”
“He ought to just die like his parents!”
The little boy turned away, his head bowed, his face expressionless.
“Shinta-kun!”
The boy froze, then turned. Jiiya was holding the top out to him, smiling.
“The King of the Forest cares nothing for class or status. He cares nothing for luck. He cares nothing for sickness. He only sees the innocence of your heart, Shinta-kun, and his magic has chosen you. This is yours.”
Amethyst eyes went wide. “Sessha…?”
“Oh, you’re worthy all right. The King of the Forest knows his business. Go on, take it. It won’t bite you.”
The little boy extended a grubby hand. Callused fingers closed around the treasure. His amethyst eyes shone with delight.
“Shinta? Shinta! Why aren’t you out in the field digging madder roots?” The village headman’s wife stormed out of her house toward the group of children. “I turn my back for a moment and the worthless brat’s lollygagging out here listening to stories!”
Shinta ducked under her blow and scurried away, hiding his treasure in the sleeve of his worn, patched kimono.
The old man watched him run. After all that’s happened to him, he still has his innocent heart. I wonder how much longer he’ll get to keep it.
Moonlight poured through the holes in the wall of the shed where Shinta slept. He spun the top in the pool of silver light and tried not to cry. He couldn’t sleep, he was too hungry. The mistress had refused to give him any dinner because he had stopped to listen to Jiiya’s story. I wish the King of the Forest would take me riding on the wind to where my mother is. A tear trickled from under his squeezed-shut eyelid, then another. He slid his hand into his sleeve, hiding the top in its folds, still clutching it. It was something to hold onto, something hard, something comforting. He only sees the innocence of your heart, and his magic has chosen you.
Please, King of the Forest…
Something. Like a song he couldn’t quite hear, a feeling of excitement, a special tang to the wind. He looked outside…
Something was moving around the madder field. A cat? A rabbit? A tanuki? Whatever it was, it was as tall as the headman’s house! It took a step, then scrunched itself down, and jumped up high! When it landed, the earth shook. It took another step, and jumped again.
Why doesn’t everybody wake up? Shinta wondered. When the creature jumped, it seemed to be pulling something.
The King of the Forest! He’s dancing the new plants out of the ground!
It meant there would be more of the long, stubborn madder roots to dig, but Shinta didn’t care. Still clutching his top in his small hand, he ran out of the shed toward the dancing kami.
It didn’t acknowledge him, but it didn’t object either, when he took a place beside it. Step, scrunch, jump. Step, scrunch, jump! Step, scrunch, JUMP! A few seedlings popped out of the ground. Shinta wriggled with excitement.
Step, scrunch, JUMP! More seedlings! The field was covered with tiny plants now, pale against the dark earth. Moonlight leached the green from them, as it drained the fire from his hair. He risked a glance at the huge fur-covered bulk beside him. Step, scrunch, JUMP!
The field was a riot of growth now, plants climbing madly skyward in a frenzy to reach the stars. The King of the Forest threw back its head and roared, and the wind bent the trees and silvered the long grass under the moon. Shinta’s delighted laugh rang out along with the kami’s roar. It turned toward him and seemed to see him for the first time. Then it reached out with one massive, clawed paw and delicately took the top from him.
It flung the top to the ground with a little twist. The toy hung in midair, a few sun off the top of the grasses, spinning. It had grown to the size of Shinta’s head. With surprising grace, the King of the Forest jumped onto the spinning top. It hovered there, waiting, anticipating.
Shinta flung himself into the air. He thumped into the soft, warm body; his fingers caught at the fur to hold himself. They began to turn around, slowly, then faster. He could feel the top rising beneath them; he buried his face in the soft fur. It didn’t smell like an animal; it smelled like leaves and wind. The King of the Forest roared again; the sound raced through his blood as the wind tore through his hair. He had forgotten all about being hungry and cold and miserable. He was Shinta, riding the wind with the King of the Forest, and he laughed again and tried to roar as loudly as the kami did! Over the village they soared, over houses and fields and trees, with the wind in his face and whipping his hair, snug and warm in the kami’s soft fur…
“Shinta! Shinta!! Wake up, you worthless brat!”
Sun in his eyes and a foot in his ribs. Morning as usual. “Sumanai,” he murmured and tried to scoot under the headman’s arm.
“Not so fast, brat.” He wasn’t quite fast enough to escape the headman’s grip on one skinny shoulder. “The slave dealers are here. Go get yourself cleaned up. They probably won’t give us much for a skinny little runt like you, but you might as well get as presentable as you can. At least we won’t have to feed you any more.”
“He’s small, but he’s a very hard worker,” the headman assured the leader of the slave traders. “Just feel those muscles.”
“He doesn’t eat much, either,” the headman’s wife chimed in.
“And healthy. The epidemic carried off his parents but he never sickened at all.”
The slaver didn’t seem to be paying much attention to him. He was busy looking Shinta over from top to toe. He forced the boy’s mouth open to look at his teeth, fingered his hair, turned him toward the light to look at his eyes. In a brusque voice he told Shinta to strip and examined his naked body closely, frowning where dirt or bruises disfigured the clear skin.
“He’s biddable too,” the headman’s wife added. “He’ll do anything you tell him and never complains.”
“Stupid?”
“Oh no, sharp as you’d want, you never have to tell him anything twice.”
“Hmm… I’ll give you 300 momme for him.”
“Only 300? He’s a strong boy, he’s worth more than that!”
“Three hundred sixty, and not a zeni more. Take it or leave it.”
With a great show of reluctance, the headman’s wife accepted the money.
The last familiar tree faded into the distance, but Shinta didn’t look back. He wondered who the slave dealers would sell him to, if they’d be nicer than the headman, if they’d grow something that wasn’t as much work as madder roots. He wondered why they had paid so much attention to his hair and eyes, or why they’d had him take his clothes off.
“That brat’s gonna make our fortune, Yuu!” the leader exclaimed to his partner. “Three hundred sixty and that stupid bitch thinks she got the better of us!” He roared with laughter. “The Autumn Moon in Edo’ll give us a thousand for him easy!”
Shinta’s hand crept up his sleeve and closed around his precious top. Edo? He knew from Jiiya’s stories that Edo was the Shogun’s city, a wonderful place where everyone wore silk and the streets were littered with gems. It was like he was walking into a story himself! He almost expected to see a samurai on horseback, wearing glittering armor and brandishing a gleaming sword. What would they grow in a place like Edo? Whatever it was, it must be marvelous if people there would pay a thousand momme for a slave boy.
Thank you, King of the Forest. There was no doubt in Shinta’s mind that the kami had somehow brought about this change in his fortunes. He had no idea what his new life was going to bring them, but anything had to be better than digging madder roots for the headman’s wife – and maybe it would just turn out to be a great adventure!
NOTES, EXPLANATIONS ETC.
Not long after I saw the first Kenshin OAV, I was watching Tonari no Totoro and it hit me that Shinta’s top looked exactly like the one Totoro rode on, so I ran with the idea – including lifting the “dancing” scene wholesale. (I couldn’t really figure out anything else for a Totoro to do…) The name “King of the Forest” is taken from the Totoro dub (unfortunately the only copy I had at the time).
Dyestuffs were cash crops for many villages, and madder roots yield a red dye that produces a color called hi (as in Himura). Thanks to Serizawa-kun for the source of the color! The headman’s wife is straight out of Hakkenden, and the slave dealers are my own invention, small-time losers who think they’ve stumbled onto the deal of a lifetime.
Silver coinage, measured in momme, was more commonly used than gold in the west of Japan. According to Luriko-Ysabeth and some of my own sources, exchange ran somewhere between 60 and 100 momme to the ryou; in the beginning of Meiji the yen replaced the ryou on a 1:1 basis. The price paid for Shinta was equivalent to 5-6 yen. This was in line with the infamous Hag of Mogumi, a mid-Meiji slave dealer who bought unwanted children for that price and sold them as farm labor at a 1-2 yen markup. Of course, these two have something else in mind…