“My soul is serene
It dwells in another heaven
Here, cranes perch on branches of plum
No man may come.”
Historically speaking, Jingo never did remarry, but ruled Naipon for many years by herself. Ich ’yama looked from the beautifully crafted puppet depicting the ancient amazon, and then he looked at Tomoe. The look on his face did not evade her. She turned and walked away, not caring if he followed, but he did. The uncouth behavior of ronin always appalled Tomoe. She reproached him severely,
“Go bathe, ronin! I will not walk with you until you do.” Ich ’yama stopped in the middle of the street and let her go on by herself. For a moment he looked sad, but then he beamed and shouted,
“Happy Tana-bata, Tomoe!” He looked at everyone in the street and called to all, “Happy Tana-bata!” Then he went running through the crowd toward a public bath.
On her own, Tomoe investigated one of the grimmer districts of Isso. Gamblers and wanderers staggered from saké den to den. Cutthroats conspired in corners. Geishas were obscene in bright of day. Thieves patrolled the alleys. Crippled children begged—some, perhaps, crippled by their parents for precisely this occupation.
She lingered in low places, tasting stale noodles and soured sauces as an excuse to sit and overhear abominable dialogues. She heard nothing regarding the fifty men.
The ten faces shown to her by the ghost of Okio were always fresh in her mind; but she saw no one to fit these descriptions. Sometimes faces were shadowed with straw hats large as the one she wore herself. It made spying out identities difficult.
As the day progressed, she began to wonder if Ich ’yama would ever catch up to her. She rather hoped he wouldn’t. With his large mouth and doubtful intentions, he was too great a nuisance.
A tinkling of bells caught her attention. As custom dictated, the fortuneteller wore tiny bells around the rim of her hat, heralding her presence and profession everywhere she went. It made her rather too conspicuous as a shadow. This was the third time Tomoe had heard the ringing.
Tomoe moved quickly aside and hid between two buildings. The fortuneteller passed the place without detecting the samurai. As the belled woman walked by on bare feet, she leaned heavily on a staff because she was lame in one leg. She wore a red kimono with a representation of Oh-kuni-nushi, God of Occultists, embroidered on the back.
After the woman passed the place where the samurai hid, Tomoe stepped out from between the buildings and became the tracker instead of the tracked. This didn’t last long. The fortuneteller realized the trick. She stopped and turned around to face Tomoe Gozen.
Tomoe couldn’t see the woman’s face, for a veil hung from the front of her straw hat’s brim. A pair of intense eyes peered over the veil. By those eyes, it was clear that the woman beneath the hat was younger than Tomoe would have guessed; the limp, then, was the fault of injury, not age. If the occultist were ugly or beautiful, Tomoe could not tell; the eyes, at least, were normally attractive.
“Why do you follow me?” asked Tomoe.
“You followed me,” the other stated. Tomoe only stared. In a moment the fortuneteller confessed, “You looked wealthier than this district’s usual clientele. I had hoped to read your fortune and charge you double.”
“If that were true,” said Tomoe, “why reveal your ploy so easily? Now I will know if you try to cheat me.”
“My services are worth double in this case,” said the woman in red. Her bells tinkled as she talked. The staff seemed to waver in her grasp and Tomoe noted that three of five fingers were bent, as though they’d once been broken. Those eyes glared steadily from under the hat’s brim and through the crack above the veil. “By my occult power,” she said, “I sensed you were in danger. Demons haunt you! I would tell you what this portends—for a price.”
Perhaps the fortuneteller spoke truthfully. She might have sensed the gaki spirit attached to Tomoe’s sword; or she might have discerned that Tomoe had been recently in contact with demonic tengu. All the same, Tomoe had no interest in news of her future. She said, “A samurai is always prepared for death. Our ignorance about tomorrow helps us remain ready.”
The fortuneteller nodded understanding. “I will follow you no more, then. If you see me again, it is coincidence.” As the woman turned to go away, Tomoe caught a momentary outline of the face’s profile. She thought she recognized that silhouette.
“I know you!” said Tomoe. “You were a nun!” The moment she said it, she knew it wasn’t possible. The nun she was thinking of had been slain a long time ago. The fortuneteller turned back to face Tomoe once more.
“You think I could have been a nun?” There was laughter. “No one forgets me who has seen my face; I can be mistaken for no other.” She started to draw aside the veil, then thought better of it, preserving the mystery. “No, samurai, you cannot know me.” She raised a finger and pointed over Tomoe’s shoulder. “Perhaps you know her better.”
Tomoe looked behind and saw Azo Hono-o standing in the street. “Tomoe!” Azo called, hurrying forth from the crowd. “Why are you standing in the middle of the street talking to yourself?”
“I was talking to this fortuneteller.”
“To who? There is no one here!”
Tomoe scanned the street, but could not detect where the fortuneteller had gone. Azo Hono-o said,
“It’s been weeks! Remember our oath: When next we met, we were to test each others’ skills!”
“The time is not right,” said Tomoe, agitated. “No one must know I’m in Isso. A public match is not feasible.”
Azo looked annoyed. “You evade the duel too often! Could it be you fear my sword?”
“Think as you wish.”
“Well, I bring encouragement for you: Your father no longer hunts you. He has declared you officially dead!”
Tomoe looked surprised, then upset.
“It’s true,” said Azo. “He made your grandmother fold your clothing right-over-left as for a corpse. Any possessions you kept in Heida were given to a temple for distribution among the poor. As a result your grandmother will not speak to him anymore, but lives in his house. Your brother is even angrier. But as your father is the family patriarch, none can question his authority to do these things. You are no longer Tomoe of Heida. You must take another name.”
“I’ll keep my name!” said Tomoe. “My father has died for me as well. He can take another name!”
“You speak tough! But tears are in your eyes. Will you fight me, then, Tomoe Gozen? Without filial piety, what good is life anyway?”
Tomoe drew her sword and raised it above her head. Azo stepped back, smiling, pleased, hand to hilt. The beggars and other people in the street scurried away to watch from safe distances. “Too many people try my patience today!” shouted Tomoe. She untied her straw hat with one hand and let it fall from her back to the ground. “Did you search for me to give me troubling news? If you are that eager to die, we will begin!”
The sound of a larger fracas interrupted the intended duel. A laughing, howling ronin was running down the street, pursued by four large men. Tomoe’s eyes narrowed at the sight. She whispered the ronin’s name as though it were a curse:
“Ich ’yama.”
The ronin hadn’t bathed at all. He’d gotten drunk and evidently gambled. No doubt he lacked the funds to pay his losses. His pursuers were tattooed men: professional underworld gamblers. They had bared their shoulders to boastfully reveal their fierce tattoos. Although Ich ’yama fled their murderous rage, he did not seem worried. He laughed uproariously, heading straight toward Tomoe Gozen and Azo Hono-o.
“I’ve been running all over looking for you, Tomoe!” he shouted. “I wanted you to see this!”
He reeled about and drew his sword in the direction of the gamblers. The four men were surprised by the action, but prepared themselves quickly. As they raised their swords to kill the delinquent ronin, Ich ’yama was already sheathing his sword. The four men were gutted. One by one
they realized they’d been mortally cut, and fell to the ground.
Tomoe’s evil mood lessened with the sight. She never expected to feel admiration for the dirty ronin. She picked her hat off the ground, dusted it, and said to Ich ’yama, “That was excellent.”
“I know!” said Ich ’yama, eyes sparkling.
Azo Hono-o inspected the clean, killing wounds approvingly. She started to slip away, for what reason Tomoe wasn’t certain. “Where do you go?” asked Tomoe; but Azo Hono-o withdrew into an alley and vanished.
“Who was she?” asked Ich ’yama.
“A friend who wants to duel,” said Tomoe. “I expect someday we will … but I wonder why she ran away. It’s been a day of strange meetings! As I don’t believe in coincidences, I suspect occult intervention.”
She and Ich ’yama left the corpses for others to clear away. Since samurai could lawfully slay anyone equal to or below their own station, an investigation was unlikely, especially in the case of gamblers.
“Did you learn anything?” asked Ich ’yama. “No? Me either. I went to the most despicable places searching!” He jokingly feigned disgust for the necessity. “The bathhouse was overcrowded, so I didn’t get a chance to bathe … but … I did do something!” He blushed like a lovestruck boy as he removed a rectangle of paper and a piece of yarn from his sleeve. He had written on the paper. Seeing a rather scraggly bamboo bush nearby, he hurried toward it and began to tie the paper to a branch. “I wrote it myself!” he said. “Please read it!”
Despite herself, she was curious. If anyone had ever written a poem for her before, they had not had the nerve to show it to her. Ich ’yama’s poem read:
Women are inconstant
as streaks of golden sunset
under clouds.
She was immediately incensed. Doubtless it was intended to convey his sadness regarding her unresponsiveness to amorous clues; probably she was supposed to be flattered to be compared to golden sunsets. But the charge of inconstancy was entirely false! It revealed the ronin’s self-centered ignorance more than any comprehension of Tomoe’s strengths or nature. She tore the paper from the limb and crushed it in her palm. Ich ’yama was surprised. Tomoe growled at him, “Your sentiment would be appropriate for a courtesan or girlish page. Either might reply happily to your bid for sympathy. But to level a charge of inconstancy against a bushi is to challenge my very honor as a samurai! I will prove my constancy with my sword. You will agree to duel?”
Ich ’yama stammered, “I—I didn’t mean … I—I only meant …”
“Tomoe Gozen!”
It was Prince Shuzo Tahara hurrying out of an inn. He must have been watching this drama unfold from an upper floor window. Hidemi Hirota was with him, as they too had been spying through the low districts and doing so as a team. Tahara stopped two sword-lengths away from the man and woman samurai, and shouted as though he stood a long way off,
“Tomoe! Place your priorities according to your conscience! You want to duel the ronin! What is more important!”
“Don’t meddle, Shuzo!” she said. “He has been an affront to me all day. He has even accused me of inconstancy! I cannot waver now.”
“Let them fight,” said Hidemi.
“No! Ich ’yama has ten of the faces in his brain! Tomoe has another ten! If one dies, or they kill each other, part of our task will go uncompleted!”
“Tell us the names of the men,” Hidemi suggested to Tomoe and Ich ’yama. He looked at the prince and added, “Then we can let her kill the ronin.”
“I said no!” The young prince had the commanding posture and tone of his class, but lacked years and experience. It took more than blood to be a strong leader to samurai as willful as these. He could only plead to their sense of duty: “If you must fight, do so with boken. A wooden sword won’t ruin our chance of seeing our task completed.”
Tomoe had pushed her sword out the length of her thumb. The sword was not yet drawn. Ich ’yama looked terribly burdened and upset. He said,
“I will agree to what Shuzo Tahara says, Tomoe! We will test each other with sticks!”
Prince Tahara decided the terms: “It will be at dusk, in the gardens where we already agreed to meet. The bonze can be a witness too.”
Tomoe said, “It is dusk now.”
“Then we’ll repair to the gardens,” said the prince. “Hidemi, please run ahead and find a pair of strong bokens.” Tomoe pushed her sword tight into the scabbard, saying,
“Good.”
Hidemi Hirota was sweaty from having raced in search of wooden swords. He rested on his knees near the monk. Shindo sat in the gardens with his pilgrim’s staff at his side, his sword next to that. He did not look pleased. Tomoe was not unaffected by Shindo’s stern expression. Despite the gloomy circumstances which brought the five together, Shindo had been of bright humor. Now his humor was spent. The prospect of two in their group fighting against each other rather than a common enemy had completely overwhelmed his cheerfulness. Tomoe’s guilty feelings caused her to feel defensive. When she, Prince Tahara and the ronin came into the garden, she asked the bonze coldly:
“Why wrap the sticks in straw!”
He set the padded bokens on the ground in front of him and denied Tomoe the courtesy of reply. He addressed the entire situation instead: “I will not consider either of you good warriors if you cause so much as a bruise. No, do not argue! The test of skill is not whether one of you can hurt the other. If you can control your blows so well as to cause no injury, that is the measure of supreme understanding of your weapons’ merits and limitations. Bokens are not swords, yet they are deadly weapons; therefore I have wrapped these in straw. If one of you kills the other by accident or intent, then both of you will have shown yourselves poor samurai. Your present duty is to Okio’s vengeance. When that is done, you may kill each other at leisure. I won’t say more. Nor will I be a witness.” Finishing his lecture, Shindo took up his sword and placed it in his sash. Then, with staff in hand, he stood and went into the house, not looking back.
Hidemi Hirota took up the straw-wrapped bokens. He said, “The bonze was ill tempered the instant I informed him of the match. I don’t understand his complaint.” He let Tomoe choose first between the bokens. They were identical, but she weighed them both before choosing.
Prince Tahara said to the fighters,
“It is unfortunate that Ich ’yama has alienated half his fellows. It is more unfortunate that Tomoe Gozen’s temper leads to this. It is almost as unfortunate that Hidemi encourages the fight and wants so badly for the ronin to be killed. Do as the bonze directed. Do not let there be a fourth unfortunate item for my list.”
Hidemi gave Ich ’yama the remaining boken with far less ceremony. He said to the ronin, “Tomoe is famous! My own Lord has mentioned her merit with reverence and awe. There are perhaps five fencers anywhere in Naipon who could begin to stand against her. Think of that when she holds back and does not bruise you.”
Ich ’yama took a stance facing Tomoe Gozen. Tomoe held her boken straight before, the hilt gripped firmly in both hands. She dug her toes into the soil of the garden. Ich ’yama slid his right foot closer.
They clashed.
Fell away.
Bits of straw scattered in the air. Hidemi looked disappointed that the ronin was not touched. Prince Tahara looked surprised and began to watch more closely. Neither of the mock-fencers revealed their feelings.
They circled one another. Ich ’yama gave ground, moving backward through a thicket. Unexpectedly, he moved forward, a blow aimed for the head. Tomoe went to one knee and blocked the cut, slipped out from under the boken and struck for Ich ’yama’s arm as she came back to both feet. A twist of the hand and he had stopped her counter cut. Again, they backed away from one another, bokens pointing outward from their centers.
Already their brows were sweaty. It was a strain for them to hide their feelings. Neither had expected a close match. Both had thought to win instantly.
The stra
w hung loose from the bokens, sad padding indeed. The pair engaged in another set of exchanges which proved neither one superior.
“It could go on all night!” said Hidemi Hirota. “How can a ronin be so good?”
“Shush!” the prince reprimanded. He and Hidemi followed the fighters through the large gardens, along paths or trampling through beds of flowers. There were no lanterns lit. As twilight became night, it was harder to see what was going on. Outside the garden, a koto played love melodies. Stars winked as darkness deepened.
Tomoe stepped into a narrow brook which ran through the grounds. Ich ’yama rushed her with his sword held high and his trunk entirely exposed to a sideways cut. She tried for the swift strike, but slipped on algae in the rocky brook, as Ich ’yama must have expected. She started to block his blow but decided to let herself fall away instead, though it meant landing on her side in the shallow waters. Ich ’yama had not expected her to perform an undignified defense. As a result, he fell forward on the momentum of his own thrust and landed face down in pepper bushes. Where the pepper scratched him, it itched.
Neither warrior looked very glamorous now, one soaked and the other scratched. Prince Shuzo called out, “Draw!”
The two had regained their feet and faced one another again. Ich ’yama said, “We should accept Shuzo’s declaration, Tomoe! We are evenly matched!”
She said, “I could kill you any time.”
Ich ’yama was indignant. “How can you say so? Admit I fight as well as you!”
“I have tested out your weak spots,” said Tomoe. “I know how to land a cut. If this were true steel, I could kill you right now.”
“You are too boastful!” said Ich ’yama. “I will not consider Prince Tahara’s decision any longer!”
Tomoe’s teeth shined in the darkness. It was a smile. She said, “Good,” then moved forward.
The Golden Naginata Page 4
