Hyakkimaru's Birth
Book 1 of the Dororo Novel Series
Toriumi Jinzō
Part 3 - A Nightmarish Fate
Chapter 4
The dim shapes of islands appeared in the south. Nadaemon peered at them with the blade of his hand over his eyes, then gave orders to shift their course to the west, taking advantage of the wind's direction. Nadaemon had an unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach that was difficult to describe.
"The pirates who were looting and burning have fled Tsushima," he said. "Their enemies from Korea are hunting for them, so I'm sure they're mustering somewhere in secret. We may be able to use their distraction to slip right past them and reach China."
Nadaemon's strategy proved effective. Tajumaru admired his foresight, but it shouldn't have been surprising. Nadaemon had once been a naval commander for the Ōuchi Clan. He'd also spent many years as a battle-hardened sailor. He knew how to move over the Genkai Sea without being easily detected. His three ships slipped past all the Korean patrol and pirate ships with ease.
Tajumaru had never spent so much time away from land. There was nothing but the ocean all the way to the horizon line in every direction. Being surrounded by so much water made him feel hopelessly trapped. Most of his thoughts revolved around China and how much he really didn't want to go there. His dream of growing up to be a brave sailor was rapidly slipping away from him. In its place, he had his father's directive to follow in his footsteps as a doctor.
"I'll do it, father." Tajumaru faced the eastern sky and shouted at the top of his lungs: "I'll do it! I will! I'll be such a great doctor that I'll know everything about medicine. Then I'll go back to the Imperial Court and show them how wrong they were to their faces!"
When Nadaemon's ships reached the Yangtze River, the current became too strong for the ships to sail against, so Nadaemon decided to transfer all the cargo and luggage that his ships were carrying to one of the dozen or so junk ships anchored along the river's mouth. The junk ships were monstrously huge. Tajumaru had never seen anything like them. Namitarō loved ships and stared avidly at the junks. "They're so big!"
"They take on the cargo of many ships that cross the the sea all at the same time," Nadaemon said. "They have to be that big."
Nadaemon's explanation added fuel to the fire of Namitarō's grand dreams of exploration. Tajumaru remembered meeting Zheng He with his father just before Zheng He had started his first voyage around the known world. Zheng He might be standing on the deck of one of an enormous junk ship right now, sailing bravely through uncharted waters.
Some smaller ships sailed downriver to greet Nadaemon's fleet. Nadaemon and Namitarō boarded one of these smaller ships with Tajumaru. A short man stood patiently on the deck; he would be their guide.
"This ship is headed for Hangzhō," Nadaemon said. "It will deliver you to the honored doctor Gōshō. Do your best to learn from him, Tajumaru."
"Yes, sir." Tajumaru felt just as dejected as he had the first time his father had forced this path onto him.
"Cheer up," Namitarō said. "If you ever come back to Japan, dad and I will come out to meet you." Namitarō put on a brave face, but Tajumaru could tell that he was almost crying.
"You will?" he asked.
"Of course I will. We're brothers."
Tajumaru nodded. "I'll...look forward to seeing you then."
Namitarō's parting words touched him deeply. Nadaemon's imperfectly repaired leg looked so heavy as he and Namitarō walked away from him. They would probably return to Japan via a northern route, heading toward Russia. That would allow them to avoid any potential pirate problems. Tajumaru watched Nadaemon and Namitarō board their ship and sail out into the open water with tears streaming down his cheeks. He tracked their progress until they sailed out of sight.
When will I see you again? he thought. When?
Tajumaru would see Namitarō again someday, but this parting with Nadaemon would be their last meeting.
As the junk ship that Tajumaru had transferred to sailed upstream, the Yangtze became shallower, making it impossible for the huge ship to continue on. Another small ship came out to the junk ship before it could founder in the shallows. Tajumaru boarded it and kept sailing toward Hangzhō.
The small ship passed Nanking, which was a common stop for many merchant vessels, then sailed on to a slightly smaller port where Tajumaru finally disembarked. He was led to a magnificent estate with a wide gate. He was shocked at the number of people in the city. Kyōto had never been so crowded.
The most surprising thing to Tajumaru was that so many of the people were obviously foreign: Japanese, Korean, and people from other places that were less familiar to him. Men and women looked at him with open curiosity as they passed. Tajumaru had heard a few things from Nadaemon about Hangzhō that he remembered as he walked. It was a trading hub that had been traveled through by the great Venetian explorer, Marco Polo. While not a provincial capital, it was a very large and wealthy city.
Gōshō's estate was clearly ancient. It was situated in the business district of Hangzhō on slightly elevated ground. Tajumaru's guide delivered him safely into Gōshō's presence, bowed, and withdrew.
Tajumaru spoke only a little Chinese, so he bowed his head and remained silent. After a while, he lifted his head and said, "Thank you very much for welcoming me."
Gōshō had a kind-looking face. He smiled a little, then rubbed the slight mustache under his nose. He was physically fit and appeared to be about fifty years old.
"Be welcome, Tajumaru," Gōshō said. "You must be exhausted. Have you eaten?" His Japanese was perfectly fluent.
Tajumaru's jaw dropped. "Um..."
Gōshō laughed. "You can use Japanese for now. I'll teach you Chinese later."
"Thank you, sir." Tajumaru bowed again. He was glad that Gōshō was as kind as he looked.
A woman, Teihō, sat at Gōshō's side. She was a servant on the estate. She took care of Tajumaru and helped with the doctor's patients. Teihō was middle-aged and a bit overweight. Like Gōshō, she appeared kind.
Gōshō led Tajumaru through his enormous examining room. The walls were full of anatomical diagrams and charts. Tools and materials for making medicine were scattered everywhere. The disorder of the room disturbed Tajumaru at first, but the floors and surfaces were all scrupulously clean. A window to the west boasted an impressive view of the mountains. The eastern-facing window looked down on the city of Hangzhō from above. It was sunset; evening light tinged the clouds in the sky a faint pink.
"Your home is far away to the east," Gōshō said. "May your parents rest peacefully there."
Gōshō's sympathy was genuine, but his words made Tajumaru feel indescribably lonely, like he truly was all alone in the world.
Tajumaru ate dinner with Gōshō that night. The meal was a feast to celebrate Tajumaru's safe arrival. Gōshō had a taste for Shaoxing wine and drank quite a bit. He and Tajumaru talked until late into the night.
"I lived in Hakata for three years, and two years in Kyōto. I was hoping to learn new techniques and medicines from Japanese doctors, but I wound up not learning very much at all." He smiled bitterly.
Gōshō had last visited Japan in February 1407, when Tajumaru was ten years old. He’d met Nadaemon some years before, when he fitted his prosthetic leg and taught him how to use it. Namitarō had been born the same year, so Nadaemon had two things to celebrate. Nadaemon felt indebted to Gōshō, so he'd provided passage to Japan for him free of charge and in secret.
Gōshō had planned to spend a full five years in the capital to learn, but many of the Japanese court physicians were either not forthcoming or knew little of interest, so Gōshō had come back to China early. If he'd met Hisamaro during that time, Hisamaro and Tajumaru's lives might have turned out very differently.
Nadaemon had sent a letter to Gōshō while his ships were still docked in Karatsu, informing him of Hisamaro and Tajumaru's circumstances.
"I was hoping to meet your father when I was in Kyōto, but the timing never quite lined up," Gōshō said. He sighed. "And I was greatly looking forward to meeting him. He sincerely desired to advance medical research. I would have done everything I could to help him. His death is a tragedy and a great loss to the world."
Gōshō had expected to get a research partner and experienced physician in Tanbano Hisamaro. Instead, he got his son, a boy he would have to train. It was an unexpected turn of events, but none of it was Tajumaru's fault.
"Is it really all right for me to stay with you?" Tajumaru asked. "Won't it be very difficult to take me in and teach me?"
This struck Gōshō as a silly question, so he laughed. He'd already agreed to take in Tajumaru long before on Nadaemon's behalf. "I wouldn't be a very good doctor if I worried about something being difficult to achieve," he said. "Your future is largely up to you. The most important work of doctors is to save lives. We exhaust ourselves for the sake of others all the time. I believe that you could exceed your father's capabilities as a physician, if that's what you really want."
Gōshō's encouragement to become a doctor sounded very much like an order to become one, but he was well-intentioned. Tajumaru obviously loved his father, so it made sense that he would want to honor him by fulfilling his last request. Japan and China had similar ideas about honoring one's ancestors.
Tajumaru remembered what Nadaemon had said to him after his initial refusal to go to China. You must go to China and honor your father's desires for your future. Learn to repair my broken wooden leg, and learn to make others just like it. Not just for me, but for all the unfortunate people who have lost their limbs in war. That task falls to you now.
Tajumaru bowed his head to Gōshō. "I would like to learn to be a surgeon," he said. "Please." He swore that he'd devote all his energy to studying medicine from that moment on. He wouldn't be safe in Japan. He had no choice but to live and study in China. He'd never wanted to be a doctor; truthfully, he still didn't. Nevertheless, he threw himself into his studies with all the fervor of someone who had found their life's calling.
Tajumaru learned to make medicines with Chinese herbs. He studied basic surgical techniques, many of them ancient. Some had been in use for hundreds or thousands of years. He also learned acupuncture, and—though his father would likely have resisted this—the branch of medicine that concerned blessings and curses.
Many classically trained Chinese physicians were excellent clinicians, but they charged through the nose for their services. Gōshō had no patience for doctors who only worked for money. He also didn't believe that Chinese doctors were the best in the world. The best teacher he'd ever had came from India.
Gōshō was twenty years old when he went to Taiwan to apprentice himself to a physician known as Ri. Ri relied on magic exclusively to diagnose and treat patients, which Gōshō hated. He left Ri and went to Quanzhō when he heard rumors about an Indian doctor named Dasgupta.
Dasgupta was a surgeon who had done much of his medical training in Greece. Gōshō was completely fascinated by him and learned everything he would teach.
When the time came for Gōshō to go home, Dasgupta said, "China does not nurture surgery as a discipline. They teach how to remove pus and infection and treat hemorrhoids, but little else. They have such little knowledge about the human body. The Chinese surgeon Hua Tuo was a brilliant man, but he lived more than a thousand years ago. Confucian teachings are incorrect when it comes to medicine. They forbid doctors from cutting into the body and shedding blood. No progress can be made if Chinese physicians adhere to custom. Gōshō, please use what I have taught you to help the suffering. Don't waste this knowledge."
Dasgupta learned much of his knowledge from applied practice, and from the scrolls of the first doctor to move away from the idea of magic in medicine, Hippocrates. Hippocrates observed broken bones and how they mended, formulating testable theories about how joints operated and behaved. He was able to explain why bones sometimes healed incorrectly and propose treatments, such as stabilization and setting limbs in casts until the bone healed. He'd lived almost a thousand years before Hua Tuo. It was amazing how much he'd been able to figure out based on simple observation and testing.
Chinese medical knowledge wasn't the best in the world, either. One thing that Japan had that China lacked was easy access to medical texts in Japanese translation. Gōshō spent years learning the language so that he could read and understand these texts. Tajumaru would now have to do something like the reverse: he would have to learn Chinese to continue his medical education.
Gōshō had a new doctor to train in Tajumaru. When Gōshō thought back to his earliest studies, he remembered a diagram that had hung in his study room. It detailed all of the body's internal organs, bones, and joints in much larger-than-life size. Gōshō had looked at it so much that he'd eventually memorized it. He decided that this diagram would be a good starting point for Tajumaru.
One night, Gōshō visited Tajumaru's room with a lamp. "Come with me, Tajumaru," he said.
"Yes, sir," Tajumaru said.
Gōshō and Tajumaru went outside and crossed the courtyard, then passed into an interior room on the other side of the estate. Most people weren't allowed to enter this room. Tajumaru had never been there before. Gōshō had chosen to bring him there at night to avoid the prying eyes of servants, patients and other guests during the day.
The inside of the secret room smelled musty. Tajumaru caught a whiff of rot mixed with the scent of dried herbs. The room appeared to be used for storage, though it was so dusty that it was hard to believe that anyone ever came here. Old tools and furniture were piled up in the corners, also collecting dust. A white dropcloth that looked mostly clean covered a large box in the center of the room. Gōshō removed the cloth and opened the box.
The light of the lamp was too dim for Tajumaru to identify the box's contents at first. When Gōshō brought the light closer so that he could see, he nearly jumped out of his skin.
The box was full of bones—human bones. An entire skeleton sprawled before Tajumaru's eyes, each part connected to the others by thin string that was almost transparent. Tajumaru was used to looking at bones in diagrams, but these bones seemed to belong to—he gulped—a real person. Someone who had once been alive.
"Did you make this, sir?" Tajumaru asked.
"It's real," Gōshō said.
"What?" Tajumaru shrank back from the box and put his back to the closed door of the secret room. Studying anatomy was forbidden in China. It was forbidden in Japan, too, though that hadn't prevented Hisamaro from studying it. Concealing a skeleton like this and using it as a medical demonstration tool was very illegal.
"There are many differences between skeletal diagrams and the actual human skeleton," Gōshō said. "I want you to observe them. Come closer."
"Uh…yes, sir."
Tajumaru approached the skeleton again with fearful steps and forced himself to come closer. Looking at the bones made him feel self-conscious about his own and those of other people. Would anyone ever think that they had something this intricate and mysterious hidden inside them?
Bones without muscle and skin covering them were terrifying. Tajumaru reminded himself that bones supported the entire body, allowing it to move. He was impressed at how sturdy the skeleton looked.
"These are the bones of a young woman," Gōshō said.
Tajumaru didn't know how to tell if someone was male or female based on their bones.
"Women have wider hips for childbearing," Gōshō said. "Observe."
Tajumaru nodded and focused on the hipbones. "Where did you get this, sir?" he asked.
Gōshō laughed. "I'm afraid I can't say. Aside from you, only Teihō knows that I have this."
"I swear I won't tell anyone," Tajumaru said.
"Good. Doctors need to know how to keep secrets."
***
At the end of three years of study, Tajumaru was permitted to assist Gōshō and Teihō in the examining room. Gōshō's specialty was surgery, but he had follow-ups with patients from regular hospitals as well. Other physicians came to observe his work at times, but he never spoke to or consulted with them. Most of these were self-trained doctors from the common class, so he had as little to do with them as possible, for their protection as well as his. The strictures that bound physicians of the Japanese Imperial Court were similar to those in China.
When Tajumaru wasn't helping Gōshō and Teihō diagnose and treat patients, he studied the composition and materials-gathering process for crafting prosthetic limbs. Since Hisamaro and Gōshō's medical philosophies aligned in nearly all respects, Gōshō gave Tajumaru a practical education supplemented by continuous research. Gōshō modeled himself on Hua Tuo, the last great Chinese doctor to specialize in surgery.
"Hua Tuo is the founder of our discipline," Gōshō said. "He was an excellent doctor and clinician. He also devised new ways of making prosthetic limbs and joints. His work was all to alleviate the suffering of others. I try to always keep his goals and motives in mind."
Hua Tuo was born in the year 140, during the late Han Dynasty (206 BCE to 220 AD). He was the first doctor in China to use anesthesia in surgery. The anesthetic was something that he invented by combining wine with a solution of cannabis and water, plus a few other ingredients. His anesthetic numbed the body and made patients unresponsive during the surgical process, which reduced complications and allowed for faster recovery post-surgery.
The warlord Cao Cao was Hua Tuo's best patient. He was a powerful man who manipulated the Chinese Emperor of the time to his will. He strong-armed Hua Tuo into becoming his personal physician, which Hua Tuo resented. Hua Tuo lied often and said that his wife was ill to avoid treating Cao Cao. When Cao Cao discovered the deception, he ordered Hua Tuo executed.
Hua Tuo tried to pass a scroll through the bars of his prison cell that contained the formula for his anesthetic and much of his medical knowledge. "Please, use this to save lives," he pleaded on the evening of his death. When his guards refused to accept the scroll, he asked for a torch and burned it. So much knowledge was lost that it took other Chinese physicians centuries to recover it all.
"Hua Tuo was the greatest physician on earth," Gōshō said. "If there is an afterlife, it would be my greatest honor to meet him."
There were times when Gōshō would praise Hua Tuo without consciously realizing it, like he was chanting or praying.
"Hua Tuo also developed the Exercise of the Five Animals from studying the movements of tigers, deer, bears, and apes. From this, he was able to make observations about each animal's diet and how their movements reflected their general state of health. He advocated for studying animals and the natural world to learn more about human health."
Tajumaru studied under Gōshō for another four years. Over time, he was permitted to mix medicines and diagnose and treat patients without being supervised. He was restricted to easier cases to treat, especially at first. His first day of treating surface-level cuts and burns had not gone well for him. He'd shrunk back behind Teihō or Gōshō until he found his courage again.
Studying the real skeleton helped Tajumaru even more than Gōshō knew. Understanding how all the parts and pieces fit together in practice allowed him to become more comfortable laying his hands on people. Seeing blood, bile and other bodily fluids no longer caused him any anxiety. He didn't so much learn how to be a doctor in the examining room as get used to it.
At the end of his formal training, Tajumaru was permitted to read what Hippocrates had written regarding surgery in Chinese translation. His father had owned the same book. Reading through it from start to finish filled Tajumaru with nostalgic longing. The book made many things clear to him in a practical sense that he had only understood theoretically before. He would have loved to discuss the book with his father more than anything else in the world.
This was the point in Tajumaru's training where he felt his previous resistance to becoming a doctor disappear. His primary motivation in studying medicine was no longer to fulfill his father's dying wish: he genuinely wanted to help people, and he had both the ability and opportunity to do exactly that.
After Tajumaru completed his study of Hippocrates' book, Gōshō gave Tajumaru demonstrations and assignments for making the pieces of prosthetic limbs.
"War is endless in China," Gōshō said with a weary sigh. "Many people lose arms and legs every day. Prosthetics give hope to the child who can't walk, or the mother who can't hold her baby. Research into prosthetics has always been focused on giving people better quality of life."
Gōshō smiled. "It is the great work of my life to create prosthetic limbs that are able to move as naturally and easily as real ones." This was a dream that Gōshō had carried with him since the day he'd seen a woman walking on a wooden leg for the first time.
"I'm still young, Master Gōshō," Tajumaru said, "and I want to accomplish the same thing. Maybe we'll be able to achieve it together."
"Your father would be overjoyed to hear you say that," Gōshō said with a kind smile. "I'm sure Nadaemon would be as well."
Tajumaru now had a goal that he desperately wanted to achieve—and the motivation for it was no longer his father's dying wish.
***
Years passed. Tajumaru came of age at twenty. The skeleton of the young woman was as familiar as a friend. He'd investigated each bone and joint, spending extra time on the hands, wrists, knees, ankles and feet to figure out how everything fit together. He copied out more complex pieces of the skeleton on parchment so that he could study them at any time.
It became Tajumaru's habit to make prosthetics until late into the night in his own rooms. He was so focused on this work that he wouldn't have stopped what he was doing even if he heard someone scream.
Tajumaru thirsted for new knowledge. The skeleton was a good starting point, but it wasn't enough. He wanted to see how organs and entrails were supported by the bones; he couldn't possibly understand how all the organs worked and affected one another just from pictures and diagrams. And how did muscle tissue attach to the bones, anyway? Some diagrams showed the muscles, but none of these were specific enough to answer all of his questions. He thought that he would have to cut someone open and see it all with his own eyes if he was going to truly understand.
Knowing about bones, joints, muscles, and internal organs was foundational knowledge for the medical profession. Hippocrates himself had learned from highly practical methods, including dissection and the autopsy of cadavers.
"Master...is it possible for me to perform an autopsy?" Tajumaru asked one evening in the secret room. "Surgeons have to understand how everything works inside the body. Autopsying dead bodies seems like a good way to learn that."
"Yes, you're right," Gōshō said.
"But isn't that forbidden?" Tajumaru asked.
"Yes, it is. But we'll only get in trouble if we get caught." His lips twitched upward.
Tajumaru blinked. He didn't ask his master anything else. He feared that he'd already said too much.
On a night not long after that, Gōshō came to Tajumaru's room late at night wearing a very serious expression. "Some good ingredients and materials just came in," he said. "Follow me. We'll inspect them together."
Gōshō and Tajumaru prepared to sneak into an execution ground. An old woman had been executed at noon that day. Her body would probably still be there. Tajumaru had heard about the execution from some of his and Gōshō's patients.
Gōshō packed scalpels and tools of various sizes, which he would use to remove fleas and the worst of the dirt. Tajumaru carried a small lamp, plus long sheets of paper and cloth to wrap the body in.
Tajumaru and Gōshō saw three lights outside the small shed where dead bodies were kept before burial. They waited for all the lights to be out of sight before sneaking into the shed.
"Hurry," Gōshō whispered, ushering Tajumaru inside.
It was very dark inside the shed. Tajumaru's light wasn't bright enough to illuminate the corners. Bodies in various states of decay were piled up on woven straw mats against the shed's walls. One had rolled off of the pile and onto the floor. It was an old woman who had died very recently. She was about sixty years old, pitifully thin and wearing threadbare clothing.
Gōshō brought his hands together and bowed his head. Tajumaru did the same. His hands shook uncontrollably from nerves. He'd thought that he and Gōshō were going to carry the woman back to the estate with them, but the torches of the guards were too close to the shed. They had no choice but to perform the autopsy here.
Gōshō told Tajumaru where to stand with the light, then removed the woman's clothes. Shriveled breasts hung down on her dirty, too-thin frame.
"We'll start with the heart," Gōshō said. He removed a scalpel from his satchel and was about to cut the woman's chest open when a sudden shout from outside startled him.
"Who's there?" one of the guards barked out.
"Run," Gōshō whispered.
Tajumaru put out his lamp and faced the door of the shed. Gōshō sprinted out the door, collided with a guard, then kept running before he could be caught. Tajumaru was right behind him. He had no idea where they were going; all he knew was that they had to get away.
In the end, Gōshō and Tajumaru reached Gōshō's estate safely, though they lost the lamp and several tools in the process. They went into the examining room and sat down for a breather. Both of them were panting hard.
Gōshō caught Tajumaru's eye and laughed so hard that he fell off his cushion. Tajumaru laughed with him. They had taken a huge risk and the attempted autopsy had ended in failure, but they were safe.
***
Gōshō visited Tajumaru the year after the failed autopsy at the beginning of spring. It was evening. The crickets were beginning to chirp outside.
"I'd like you to make some house calls," Gōshō said.
This was the first time that he'd asked Tajumaru to perform house calls. He usually only entrusted them to Teihō and his senior apprentices.
"Teihō will show you the way," Gōshō said. "Make sure your examinations are thorough, and remember to be polite."
Gōshō had been suffering from severe pain in his legs recently. He didn't believe that he would ever walk on his own, without a cane, ever again. Tajumaru was unaware of his master's worsening condition. He followed Teihō to make house calls to patients for the first time without understanding the reason why he'd been sent instead of another.
At the first house they stopped at, Teihō faced Tajumaru and said, "This house has more than one patient, so take your time. I'll wait for you in a side-room to the left."
Tajumaru nodded.
Teihō smiled a little at Tajumaru's retreating back, but he didn't notice.
There was no one in the entrance to the house. Tajumaru called out a greeting and received no response. He opened the door to the first room he saw, searching for his patients.
The room he entered belonged to a woman. A kimono hung on one wall and a vase of fragrant spring flowers rested on a low table directly in front of him. Someone lay on a futon on the floor, but their face was covered by blankets.
"I'm Tajumaru, a doctor. I've come to help you," Tajumaru said. He knelt down next to the futon. "Does it hurt anywhere?"
A woman peeked her face out from beneath the futon's blanket.
Tajumaru caught his breath. Her features were delicate and shapely. She was just about his age. Her coloring was good and she didn't appear malnourished or too thin. There didn't appear to be anything wrong with her at all.
"My stomach hurts a little," the woman said. "It has for a while, so I'm worried." Her voice was as bright and clear as a bell.
Tajumaru felt his heart beat faster. He composed himself, then took the woman's pulse.
Her arm was still warm from being covered by the blanket. Her skin was dazzlingly white. Her own pulse was normal, but Tajumaru's was far too fast for the circumstances. He'd never been this close to such a beautiful woman before.
"Where does your stomach hurt?" he asked.
"Where?" she asked with a little frown. "I'm not really sure..." She stripped the blanket away and sat up. She was completely naked.
Tajumaru gasped and averted his eyes. The woman's thighs rose up, entirely eclipsing his vision. Tajumaru stayed frozen for a long moment.
The woman laughed, and it sounded mocking. She grabbed Tajumaru's hands and placed them on her shoulders. Tajumaru acted on instinct and pushed her down, burying his face in her breasts. He felt hot all over. When she guided his hands down, he felt her soft pubic hair against his palm and parted the folds of her vagina.
Her understood then that Teihō and Gōshō had set a trap for him here. Tajumaru had been so zealous in his study of the human body that he'd risked serious physical and legal harm to himself by trying to autopsy the executed woman. This was another way for him to investigate a woman's body, one that was far less dangerous. The woman was clearly cooperating with Gōshō, since she'd pretended to be sick to get him to come.
"I understand," he said quietly. "Please allow me to examine you."
The woman let go of his hands. "Make sure you look everywhere," she said sternly. "It would be terrible if you weren't careful enough and missed a bad spot."
"I'll be very thorough," Tajumaru said. "I promise."
His answer struck her as a little strange, but Tajumaru was being completely serious. He observed and examined everything from the roots of her hair to the gaps between her toes. He ran his fingers over her ribs and checked her muscle tone. He asked her to bend her elbows and knees so that he could feel them and watch them flex. He pressed gently into her abdomen where her organs were to get a feel for their shape and size. He examined her vagina, internally and externally, using his fingers when visual observation didn't tell him enough.
Tajumaru had never seen a woman's vagina before this, but he'd performed a similar physical analysis on himself. He'd wanted to autopsy a woman to better understand how the bodies of men and women were different. This was his chance to discover those differences. He had always been a very serious researcher.
The woman wasn't content with his devotion to research, so she started petting and caressing him when he wasn't looking at her hands. His hair first, then other things lower down. It took time, but she made him forget that he was supposed to be her doctor.
The woman's name was Bifuyō. She was the second wife of a wealthy merchant in Hangzhō and Teihō's distant relative. Tajumaru learned this later, when he returned to her on more house calls, and then on his own.
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