The Blood Genealogy
by Theo Kogod
The summer air outside the castle was thick with the
sweat of men gathered to watch their commander kill
himself.
In the center of the courtyard two men stood and
faced one another.
The first was Lord Soma, whose castle this was and
whose family had been daimyo of these lands for centuries. Tall, lean, and straight-backed, he never moved
without purpose, and so his very stillness seemed possessed of a divine presence. He wore his swords overtop
his blue kimono, and though all present knew his
distress, no emotion could be seen in the hard-lined
features between his beard and his topknot.
The second man was called Akio, and it was his day to
die. One could count the years of his service in the
wrinkles lining his face and the scars striping his lean
arms, but he had lived well into his sixth decade and
seen enough trials that dying could not diminish him. A
master of calligraphy and the sword, he had strong arms
and a gentle bearing befitting his rank. At his hip was
belted a single sword, his wakizashi, which he would use
in his final act of service.
Akio was a man of unquestionable honor and had
never met any obstacle he could not defeat with blade or
brush. He trained the castle guards, and was both the
weapons master and scroll keeper for the Soma Clan.
But the old man had fallen in love, and the boy he loved
had betrayed that trust. The boy was caught stealing
secrets for Lord Soma’s enemies. The youth had been
chastised, having first his hands cut off, then his feet,
tongue, nose, penis, and last his head. He confessed
before losing his tongue.
Akio spoke his final parting to Lord Soma, and none
who watched the two from the edge of the courtyard
heard this last conversation that condensed all the words
of a long friendship between daimyo and vassal into but
a few final moments. Then the conversation was finished, and Akio knelt for the final time before his lord.
His katana arced down, cleaving through the base of
Akio’s neck and out the throat. The head flew across the
courtyard, red droplets blossoming in the air behind it.
It landed amid the watching crowd with a thump, and
men screamed and whooped, even as Akio’s body bowed
slowly toward the earth at Lord Soma’s feet.
As blades slid from scabbards with ceremonial precision, a lone man from the crowd ignored the swords and
instead watched Akio’s resolute face, and the old m