Sweet Saturday Sample

Welcome! I have another short sample from my historical novel. Hiro, a former samurai soldier, has come to Hanako's farm in northern Japan and offered to help her for the season. Here, he is fishing in the stream behind her home:

            He found a sturdy old tree with a thick branch overhanging the stream.  Carefully inching out on the branch, he found that it could accommodate his weight, and lay face down along its length.  He waited, his sword poised and ready for his prey.  The rippling water played a calming melody, and the shade from the rest of the tree enveloped him in a blanket of security that he hadn’t experienced in years. 

As a warrior in the elite forces of the bushido, he had not known serenity, only anger and death.  What would it be like to live in peace and beauty, instead of constant pain and needless bloodshed?

            A splash in the water below reminded him of his task.  A school of carp, making its way upstream, swam into his vantage point.  Drawing on his survival training, he lowered his sword, spearing the largest of the group.  Quickly he raised and lowered the sword again and again, until the still-moving fish covered half his blade. 

            The water beneath him turned murky, and his arm froze as the haunting memory of another time, another knife, overtook him.  His stomach churned as he remembered a man he had known all his life, one he loved and revered, dying by his own hand.  Though Hiro had fought nobly and had observed the death of many, this time it had brought him to his knees.  It was then that he knew he could not continue as a warrior. 

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