My name is Tanaka Ryuunosuke (田中竜之介) or maybe Rodrigo Tanaka. I don't know. My spirit is torn between the longing for my youth in Coria del Río and my samurai soul in Cipango or Nihon (日本), as they call it here. It's crazy!

It is the year of our Lord 1644 and I find myself in the darkest corner of a dungeon in Sendai Castle -Sendai-jō (仙台城)- in the shadow of the fortress of the Date clan, whose greatness and power I could never have imagined from my land in Spain.

I write these lines with trembling hands and with a heavy heart full of uncertainty because my fate is as uncertain as the wind that blows in the mountains of Mutsu. Ten years have passed since I left my homeland with the illusion and the desire to know my father's origins and today, after a decade, I find myself locked up in this cell, where time slows down and every moment can be a threat.

I remember that this Sendai castle, when I arrived, was ruled by Date Masamune and was a bustling place. Its interior housed high-ranking samurai and their families, as well as the artisans and merchants who worked in the domain. Today the fortress is administered by his son, Date Tadamune, and everything is changing surreptitiously; the influence of the central government and the Tokugawa shogunate is growing. There is almost complete isolation of Japan from the rest of the world and Christian religious worship is forbidden.

I remember, too, how the high walls of the fortress greeted me with the honour and nobility befitting my lineage of the ‘One-eyed Dragon’ (独眼竜, Dokuganryū). Through its doors, made of wood covered with wrought iron, I entered as an apprentice and discovered that my father's world was a place of strict discipline and ancient wisdom.

I never imagined that one day those walls that sheltered me would be the same walls that now hold me prisoner.

To be continued

Header Image:

Ieyasu Tokugawa, the first Tokugawa shōgun. Source: Wikipedia