The Golden Naginata

by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

  “Where is Lord Kiso?” she asked softly, then, “Where are the shi-tenno?”

  The man coughed, smiled (no, it was a grimace), and said, “Lost. All. Lost.” Something caught in Tomoe’s heart. For a second the world ceased to exist. Then she found herself and managed to ask,

  “They were killed?”

  The fellow rocked his head from side to side, a negative reply. He moved his crimson fist to one side of his stomach and made the ceremonial motion of belly-slitting. Tomoe grabbed that empty hand, as though the man had really tried to kill himself, and she would delay the act. Her eyes looked up, then down. There was panic in her. If Lord Kiso had repaired somewhere to perform seppuku, it would not do that she was not with him. She must commit junshi or “attending suicide” at his side.

  She held the dying man’s fist tight and there was no softness left in her voice when she demanded, “Where have they gone for the ceremony! I must be there! I must die with them!” The mortally wounded samurai understood this well. He pulled his hand loose from hers and pointed toward a stand of pines which guarded an area of leafless maples low on a hillside. Tomoe Gozen stood, but the dying samurai groaned in a pleading way. He had placed his hand to his belly again, his eyes holding those of Tomoe. She said,

  “I understand.”

  She unsheathed the man’s shortsword and helped him hold it in his weak, shaking hands. She helped him sit up. She knelt behind him, intending to help him guide the blade into his stomach. But sitting up drained him entirely, and the man died, a rush of blood at his mouth and nostrils. Belatedly, she gave him the aid he wanted, pulled his blade inward. Then she left him with hands frozen to the hilt of a shortsword buried in his flesh, lying on his side.

  From the stand of pines, she could see Kiso Yoshinake sitting on his knees in the maples further down. No battles had been fought here. The ground was padded with crisp, brown, uncrumbled leaves … the autumn colors had mostly faded to browns and greys. On Yoshinake’s left side sat pale Tade Shimataka and dark Nenoi Yukika. To his right: Higuchi Mitsu, whose humor did not show, and Imai Kanchira, whose youthfulness was undisguised by the first downy hint of beard. None of them wore armor. They were in white under-kimonos, the closest thing to ceremonial suicide garments they could expect on such short notice.

  In their laps were lengths of white paper, on which they would write their death-poems. Each had his own brush, but would share an inks tone, wetted with their joined spittle.

  They turned to see Tomoe Gozen loping down the hillside, waited for her in silence. She virtually plowed onto her knees amidst them, and she was ready to die with them, it was sure. The shi-tenno bowed to her as she sat there panting, but Kiso Yoshinake did not bow, scarcely looked at her as he said,

  “Wada Yoshimora has withdrawn to allow us these few moments. I do not think it is necessary that you be here.”

  These were harsh words, though perhaps he thought mostly to spare her. Tomoe could not believe what he said; he would never have said it to the others with him. She could not reply. Her shock was evident, so her husband added more gently,

  “Death is shared between men, life between a man and a woman. What would people say if the Knight of Kiso died with a woman?”

  To Tomoe Gozen, these words were not kind, but outrageous. She said, “You can say this, after we have shared more than a year of death together?”

  “It was a different matter then,” her husband replied. The shi-tenno were silent. By their downcast appearance, Tomoe Gozen knew they would be glad to die with her. Kiso Yoshinake alone was unreasonable. Yet he alone could make the decision.

  Never before had Tomoe Gozen been disobedient. Now, however, she began to strip off her armor, casting it away from the circle of these men, until she sat in only black hakama and white kosode blouse, her longsword behind herself, her shortsword on the ground before her knees. She said, “We must be swift!” She withdrew a piece of paper from her undergarment’s sleeve. In other circumstances, such paper was used to clean blood from ones sword. In this case, it was for writing her death-poem. “I burned Taigawa Bridge, but enemy troops will find their way across the river soon. They will join Wada Yoshimora, find us, and take our heads. We have only a little time!”

  “It won’t do,” said Yoshinake, unyielding. “Your duty is to live, to pray for us on each anniversary of our death. Who else would do so if not you?”

  “Someone will do it!”

  She was desperate, it was clear. But Yoshinake needed to say nothing more. Even if she died, she might be unable to follow him, if she had gone upon the journey through disobedience. Her duty was indeed to pray every year for their spirits. She lowered her face, defeated, ashamed, stricken because she could not die with them. Suddenly her brother staggered up from his knees and fell down again in front of her, shouting through tears, “Sister! I will die for both of us! I will be a brave Yamato hero!” His face was so twisted with fear and agony that it was doubtful he could be brave even for himself. Tomoe touched his face, and knew she dared not reveal her own hurt regarding her exclusion, for she would need to be strong for Imai and the others, witnessing their act with appropriate somberness. “Take good care of him,” said Tomoe. “Be his best councilor.”

  Lord Kiso, too, saw that Imai Kanchira was afraid, and he said to him,

  “Imai. You are young and beautiful and it is a shame for you to die. It is easy to admit it, for have we not sympathy for the flowers that die for sake of summer, the leaves that fall for sake of winter? Sympathy is not regret. Failure is as noble as success, or nobler, if we are single-minded in our approach, blithe about our individual and collective evanescence. The bravest are also the most transient: the dying toll of a temple bell; the day cherry blossoms tumble all as one, seeming winter’s deathly snow despite the mildness of spring. Take heart in this, Imai! We will be admired for this moment! We have surmounted the hateful duties and presently may free ourselves from this inconsequent world. How fortunate we are!”

  Imai Kanchira was encouraged by these words. He returned to his place beside Higuchi Mitsu. He was ready to die. To the shi-tenno, and peripherally to Tomoe Gozen, Yoshinake continued,

  “What have we sought for ourselves but this? Did we think we were seeking the conquest of foes when what we sought to conquer was nature? Did we dream of the unification of clans, while actually wishing to push back whatever was not ‘us?’ It is trees we fear, and rivers, and the ground our blood will nourish. Unable to confront our grimmer, simpler destiny, we play as though such things as power and wealth—or, more nobly, duty and honor—are our true intentions. But we are not so selfish as that, and we are more afraid. There are no victors, and few consolations. We have sought a world which obeys our voices and our swords. In this we have failed. In this, men will always fail.”

  In the distance was a clatter of hooves, the cries of Wada Yoshimora’s final assault. The enemy were further than they sounded, for they were numerous, raising a din. The shitenno calmly wrote their poems. The poem of Tade Shimataka went like this: “The world is an empty, fleeting place/ There is nothing left behind which is real.” Nenoi Yukika, the dark man at fair Tade’s side, wrote without emotion: “We are dawn’s dewdrops blasted from existence/ We were never stone.” Higuchi Mitsu had loved life too well to write anything so melancholy, and so his poem was simply, “It has been beautiful to see all that I have seen.” Tomoe Gozen took the inkstone from man to man, so that each might blacken his brush. By her brother she lingered, and held his hands until he was calm enough to write:

  “Age shall never weary me

  or make me slow.

  It is proper to go quickly.”

  They read their poems to one another, moist-eyed all, but finally unafraid. Lord Kiso, the true poet among them, read last what he had written. His voice was clear and strong. The words held both his vanity and his true power:

  “Maples shed Fall colors

  I become a picture

  embroidered on the leafy bro
cade.”

  Then Nenoi Yukika raised his longsword to Tade Shimataka’s chest, and Tade Shimataka raised his longsword to Nenoi Yukika’s chest. Higuchi Mitsu and Imai Kanchira faced one another similarly, longswords held between the breasts of their closest friends. In a moment, they were finished. Each lay upon their sides, pierced to their hearts. Thus had they committed junshi to accompany Kiso Yoshinake on his final journey.

  Yoshinake faced Tomoe Gozen, but they were far apart. He had no final words for her. His shortsword lay before his knees, and with this he should slit his belly; but he reached behind himself instead, took the Sword of Okio and unsheathed it. He wrapped his own poem around the blade so that he could hold the steel toward himself, and he exclaimed, “Okio! Be revenged on me!” Then he pierced his left side and slowly drew the sword through spleen, intestines, liver, kidneys, stomach; blood gushed onto his lap, but his face revealed no pain. He withdrew the sword, stuck it a second time beneath his diaphragm, and pushed the sword downward to complete the cross. He set the sword aside and waited. He waited until he was as pale as Tade Shimataka, then paler; until he was as weak as the man Tomoe had found on the battlefield. Though blanched, his expression did not alter. He did not fall backward. He did not fall forward. But he was dead.

  Tomoe had watched without the least expression. Her brother, her friends, and her husband were before her, and she the only witness to their last moment. She had the inkstone. She had a brush. She had the paper which had been intended for her final words. Upon this paper she wrote a sort of lament for family and friends, thinking as she wrote that her desire to better herself with every passing day had never been achieved, that even in today’s great act, she had not been allowed participation, and there was no greatness in her. If she were wrong, she did not realize it.

  The sound of soldiers was louder now. She would have to flee East to relatives, perhaps to Shigeno Valley where she had served as a retainer before marriage. But she did not hurry. She finished her poem, and read it aloud to the men dead before her. Eventually, it would be printed on their grave markers, and it would be repeated by many a vassal serving lords who reached too far:

  “Like a dream

  is the life of a samurai

  from which, awakened,

  no memory remains.”

  EPILOG

  Duel at Hisa Yasu Bridge

  A hot, stifling, humid summer storm ended suddenly in the night. The overhanging cedars wept outside Shan On’s cottage at the edge of Shigeno Valley Cemetery. It was not yet dawn. The nun clad herself in white robe and yellow hood. She rolled her bedding and put it inside a closet. It was by no means chilly even in the pre-dawn, but she built a small fire for cooking. Soon water was heated. As seaweed boiled in the covered pot, the nun listened to the sound of wind playing through the cedars and to the false rain stirred from the shaking branches. The only light in her house was that from the hibachi’s orange coals.

  In the corner of her tiny house was a place where once a dog had made its bed. The dog no longer lived with her, indeed, she knew by now, no longer lived at all. A tablet with the dog’s death-name sat in that corner, surrounded with things the dog had liked and played with in its life. The name on the tablet was “Raski,” more commonly a horse’s name.

  Because Shan On was old and lived alone, she did not often feel compelled to rise before the sun, particularly not during the long-enough days of summer. But her dreams had been troubling, and that is why she began her day somewhat earlier than usual.

  When the seaweed had boiled a while, she added a few diced vegetables. These she cooked very briefly, then removed the pot from its hanger above the coals, adding miniscule mushrooms before the bubbling stopped. To the cooling liquid she added a paste of fermented soybeans and salt, which dissolved instantly. This was to be her breakfast. She had made too much, and this was odd; for she never wasted food.

  Shan On was not given to premonitions, but she felt at present a definite anxiety, as though something were reaching into her very being to make its needs known to her. Had this something to do with her unsettling dreams? She could not remember the nature of the dream which awakened her. Yet some echo of nightmare persisted, not in her mind, but among the weeping cedars.

  Before she could eat a bowl of soup, she was distracted by a scraping on the stairway leading to her house: a nailed shuffling almost like a dog, but not a dog, for it sounded like two feet, not four. Shan On was accustomed to hauntings. She stood, leaving her bowl of hot soup sitting on the floor. She moved toward the door and, trusting to her varied gods, undid the latch and moved the door aside.

  There was no beast or ghost standing on her steps in the windy morning gloom overlooking the graveyard. It was a woman. She was dressed in a red kimono. She was thin, as happens when one fasts too much. She wore a hood similar to that of Shan On, but it was a startling red, like the kimono, not somber yellow. The hood was of odd design as well, for it completely hid half the woman’s face: only one eye and half her nose and mouth were left exposed. This half-face was very beautiful.

  The red nun carried a sturdy walking staff which might double as a weapon.

  “Have I met you before?” asked Shan On,

  “I think you have, one way or another,” said the enigmatic nun-in-red. She entered the dwelling without invitation and limped toward the hibachi, expecting to be fed.

  “Yes, I recall,” said Shan On, who went to a drawer from which she took an extra bowl and chopsticks. “You were a fortuneteller, is it so? Your face was masked from me then, more so than now, shadowed by a big straw hat. But I recognize you by your voice. You have become a nun the same as me? I hope you are more satisfied than you seemed before.”

  “Not the same as you,” said the red nun. “But I am satisfied enough. When first we met, I called myself Naruka, after a hell-creature. Before that, I had been someone else.”

  “Who are you now?” Shan On asked uneasily. They both knelt in the ember-lit room and feasted. Shan On watched the red nun sip miso soup from the corner of her half-hidden mouth, and snatch bits of vegetables with the chopsticks.

  “I am not certain I can answer ‘who’ I have become. Will it suffice to say I presently use the name I had before? Please call me Tsuki, as in ‘moon,’ Izutsu, as in ‘curb of the well.’”

  “Shan On,” said the white nun, introducing herself. “It is a foreign name.”

  “Yes it is,” said Tsuki Izutsu, as though Shan On could have been wrong about her own name. She sipped more of the soup, then said, “Your miso is nice, but you have made too much for you and me. Could I impose on you to place whatever is left outside the door?” Shan On thought: What a strange request. She asked, “Have you a shy friend?”

  “I think so,” said Tsuki Izutsu, as though she were less certain of this than she had been of Shan On’s name’s origin. Shan On ladled a third bowl of soup and set it outside, then closed the door and rejoined the red nun. Shan On asked,

  “What have you come to me about?”

  “I will be frank about that,” said Tsuki. “I have been searching for several months for a friend. Her name is Tomoe Gozen, whom you know. It has been rumored that she died at the Battle of Awazu; but one of the Shogun’s generals, Wada Yoshimora, continues to search for her, so the rumor of her demise was unconvincing. I searched for her in Heida. She has not returned to her hometown, for it is watched by Yoshimora’s spies; and to go there would endanger what is left of Tomoe’s family, mainly her grandmother. I looked several other places, which even Yoshimora’s spies would not think of, but Tomoe Gozen had not taken refuge anywhere I looked. I believed she would return to her previous master here in Shigeno Valley when possible, but at the castle they told me she was turned away, I suspect because Madame Shigeno’s heart has become hard lest softness be used against her to topple her estates. I am not certain where next to look. Although I have the ability to ‘see’ matters which others cannot see, my friend hides even her thoughts, so I cannot detect where
she might be. My searching brought me this far. Did she come to you after Madame Shigeno refused to reinstate her as a retainer?”

  “I cannot be so frank,” said Shan On, “but I will try to be honest. I am not sure that I could trust you with privileged information, supposing I had such knowledge to share. I admit I saw Tomoe Gozen several months ago. She was distraught and convinced she had no friends. Madame Shigeno has rebuilt the wealth of this valley in part by playing enemies against enemies—or, it might be, friends against friends—never taking sides. Although she can be cruel, she is well loved by the people of this prospering valley; therefore there were few to whom Tomoe Gozen might turn for sanctuary, if Madame Shigeno said, ‘No.’ I did as much as I was able, helping Tomoe to understand how it would offend Wada Yoshimora for Madame Shigeno to keep Tomoe Gozen as retainer. Yet Tomoe was not much soothed by my explanation, for there was an additional matter. Although Tomoe had asked, about two years ago, to be relieved indefinitely from duties in this valley, it is debatable whether or not she was free to wed without her master’s permission, which permission was never requested. Madame Shigeno has never forgiven Tomoe Gozen’s marriage. That is why the mistress of Shigeno Valley declared Tomoe an unfit retainer and refused her audience. So, even were it politically safe or wise to keep Tomoe Gozen, there was too little trust for this to come about. It was crippling for Tomoe Gozen to understand this.”

  “She has not sought employment elsewhere?”

  “I cannot tell you.”

  “But you know?”

  “I cannot say.”

  “You are most polite in your unreasonable replies,” said Tsuki Izutsur, her tone mocking Shan On’s gentleness.

  “Be forgiving of my ill manners,” said Shan On, setting her empty soup bowl aside and bowing apologetically. “I know by the way you carry your staff that you are a fighter. I have no illusions that you are weak, just because you limp; and fewer illusions that I could defeat you, for I know only a little self-defense. Therefore I do not wish to offend you; but there is not much I can tell.”