“This is for young Lord Yoshinaka,” the swordmaker said. He took the metal stamp with his signature on it and tamped it down on the blade, near the handle. Then with the metal still white-hot, he applied a wet clay mixture to the back of the blade and smoothed it with a stick. Tomoe caught a glimpse of feather and bone sticking out from the mud, but knew better than to ask what was in it. The clay was a secret recipe for each swordmaker.
The swordmaker smiled at them toothlessly. “Now you witness the birth of your most important friend, Yoshinaka.” He plunged the sword into water, where it sizzled and steamed. “The front will be extremely sharp, and the clay makes the back flexible. You can strike anything and this sword will not break.”
Kaneto stood with his hands tucked into his obi. “He is the best swordmaker in all of Japan,” he said.
Yoshinaka’s face, lit by the fire, glowed. “I cannot wait to try it.”
“The handle is already done. The whole sword will be ready tomorrow,” the old man promised. “Polished and waiting.”
But when they returned the next day, the swordmaker’s shop was empty. The forge fire was unlit. All his materials were gone. There was no sign of Yoshinaka’s sword.
“Where did he go?” Yoshinaka asked, getting an angry look. “Did he take the money and skip town?” He opened a shuttered window, flooding the gloom with light.
Kaneto shook his head. He gestured to the dirt floor under the remaining bench, to the dark stain puddled there. Tomoe peered at it. Blood. She glanced at her father, alarmed. “It seems the Taira do have some capacity for action,” he said. He turned to Tomoe, squatting down before her. “Climb up on my back, to the rafters. There is a storage platform in the back. Perhaps it is hidden there.”
Yoshinaka watched silently as Tomoe clambered onto her father and reached up to a rafter. She hoisted herself up, swung a leg over, crawled to the platform. The dust made her nose itch. Her father stood calmly below. “Do you think the Taira will come back? Will they get us?”
“They won’t bother us, Tomoe,” her father said. “Do you see anything?”
Barrels and sacks were strewn around the shallow platform, filled with the swordmaker’s supplies, Tomoe supposed. She saw nothing out of place but made sure she looked in every last crevice. At the far corner, a dull gleam stuck out from under a sack, behind two barrels. “Aha,” she breathed. She pulled the sword from its hiding place.
The sword was beautiful, light and sturdy. The Minamoto crest—a gentian flower set atop a fan of bamboo leaves—was carved into the ivory hilt. Glints of red lacquer embellished the white. Tomoe wished she had one for herself.
But it seemed wrong, somehow, that Tomoe was the first to handle this almost sacred object, instead of Yoshinaka. She hoped it didn’t bring bad luck. She hoped he didn’t feel the same.
She handed the sword down.
Yoshinaka struck a dramatic pose, pointing the sword aloft. “I will not let the swordmaker’s sacrifice go in vain.”
Ever since then, Yoshinaka had been training daily. First he ran, usually with Kanehira, sometimes with Tomoe or Wada, running back and forth around the farm’s perimeter. To Tomoe’s knowledge, nobody else did this; he looked quite crazy to others who saw him. But Kaneto approved, saying it improved the heart and lungs, and gave the mind time to rest. Then Yoshinaka practiced with his sword, sparring with Kaneto, with Tomoe, with anyone who would let him; and if no one was available, he used a rice sack filled with dirt, spilling its guts all over the yard.
They all practiced daitō-ryū jūjutsu, a secret pressure-point martial art that Yoshinaka’s uncle Yoshimitsu Minamoto had developed. “Yoshimitsu took apart the corpses of the fallen enemy,” Kaneto told them, “and found out how the human joints worked.” This technique was taught only to the Minamoto clan. Each afternoon, Kaneto had them work on jūjutsu drills until Tomoe thought she could dislocate the shoulder of a charging man in her sleep. “Repetition,” her father said, “is the key to success.”
Nights Yoshinaka sat up with Kaneto, going over old battles, discussing what had worked and what hadn’t, their deep voices lulling Tomoe into slumber.
“Remember,” Kaneto warned him every evening, “we are sowing the seeds for our future. For now, we make our living as farmers.” That was the most Kaneto discouraged Yoshinaka’s dreaming. All of them knew none of them considered themselves to be real farmers.
They were samurai. Warriors. If they stopped thinking of themselves as samurai, they would truly have nothing.
These ruins, with all their hiding places, was a good place for them to practice. Wada pointed to where the woods got thinner, near the bank of a stream, where Tomoe saw no trodden grass, nothing indicating any path at all. Only the fact it was near a stream made it passable, but just barely—the path was perhaps two feet wide. She wiped her forehead; it was unseasonably warm for spring.
“Our horses might slip.” Tomoe thought for a moment. “Go back out. We’ll go around.”
“They’re in the woods.” Wada sniffed the air showily. “Smoke.”
She did not point out she’d already smelled it. Wada thought she was a useless girl. Tomoe had to prove herself to these boys all over again with each new day.
Tomoe looked up to the treetops. Yes, she saw a smoke trail now, coming from the center of the woods bordering the eastern edge of the ruins. Something nagged at her. Why would they build a fire in the day, when the boys knew she was looking for them?
“Or shall we take a break? Have a picnic?” Wada indicated his knapsack, full of the food his mother had packed. He reached over and caught hold of Tomoe’s hand, turning it to meet her palm with his lips. Tomoe giggled in spite of herself. Yuki neighed and moved away. “I memorized a poem for you. It’s from the Man’yōshū. Lady Otomo wrote it.
“Painful is the love
That remains unknown to the beloved”
Tomoe stifled her sigh. How Wada longed for a life outside the farm. But she wanted to battle, not read boring poetry. She tried to let him down gently. “You’re making Yuki nervous.”
“Come on, Tomoe. I’ve hardly gotten to see you at all this season.” Wada leaned toward her. “Haven’t you missed me?” His face was handsome in the noble way, full as a moon. There had been times when they had gone into town with their families, and upper-crust ladies, the ones with the white faces, had taken notice of him. Tomoe knew what his dreams were—to help the Minamoto cousins take over the capital and secure himself a lordship at the court. He was practicing his charms on her. Only practice. She kept him at a distance.
Yet she couldn’t help remembering all the childhood times when Wada had sided with her against Yoshinaka and Kanehira. Once when Kaneto was going to take them on a long overnight hike, he wanted to leave the thirteen-year-old Tomoe at home. “It’s too rigorous,” he had said. Wada had stood up for her, insisted that she be allowed to come.
His face was now very close to hers. His lips brushed hers, not unpleasantly. Tomoe blushed, fighting the sudden urge to kiss him back. “Wada. This is not the time.”
Wada sighed. “Meet me in the plum grove at sunset?”
Tomoe swallowed. Wada was hard to say no to. She had heard Chizuru musing that Yoshimori Wada could be a good husband, if only he wasn’t going to the capital. Kaneto had merely grunted, whether in agreement or disagreement, Tomoe could not say. “How very romantic. Wada, are you planning to visit tonight and write me a poem tomorrow morning?” She was teasing. This was the custom of the nobles, not of them. For a noble to be married, all he had to do was visit his prospective wife three nights in a row, writing a poem after the first night to signify his intent. They, on the other hand, were farmers, no matter what their noble ancestry was. Kaneto and Wada’s father would strike a deal, and that would be that, a feast following.
“If I had any fine paper, I would,” Wada said. He slumped on his horse. “When
I am rich, Tomoe, I shall write you poems every day on the most beautiful paper. Epic odes to your beauty.”
“When you’re a lord, you’ll have to spend all your time writing important papers, not silly poems to me.” Foolish Yoshimori Wada. He reached for the moon and came up with a handful of air. She moved back the way they had come. “This way.”
“I’m telling you, they’re inside this way.” Wada refused to move.
The plume of smoke turned ostentatiously black and thick. They wanted her to notice it. “Trust me.” Tomoe mounted Yuki and pressed her heels into the horse’s sides, making kissing noises. She galloped around the perimeter of the forest, back the way they had come, the imprints of Yuki nearly matching her fresh ones. After a moment, Tomoe heard Wada’s horse hooves catching up. Good.
The horse saw them before she did. Under her thighs, Tomoe felt the horse tense, slowing almost imperceptibly. There. Hiding ahead. Not by the smoke, but under branches in a pit. She saw the whites of their eyes flash amid the brown. They held bow and arrow, the arrowheads practice ones their father had fashioned out of round stones.
Tomoe reached back and pulled out her own bow and arrow in one smooth movement. She selected a real arrow, not a practice one. At a full gallop, she turned to the side and pulled back the string. She saw, as though the world had slowed to a crawl, the boys’ concerned expressions, a tree branch right above their heads. Kanehira and Yoshinaka with their bows drawn. She released hers.
Two arrows hit her shoulders. Each shoulder. They weren’t sharp, but the blunt force knocked her off the saddle. Yuki slowed. Tomoe grabbed for the saddle, but her stubborn hand still held the bow. She fell, rolling into a ball, falling the way Kaneto had taught her to, absorbing the shock with her whole body and not just one part of her.
“Tomoe!” she heard Yoshinaka yell.
She tried to answer, but her breath was knocked out of her. She waited for her diaphragm to recover. She swallowed, her throat dry and lumpy. The world moved about as though she was still astride Yuki. Where was that horse? Had she run off? No, she felt vibrations as Yuki returned.
The sky spread out above her like a coverlet. Tomoe blinked. Funny how she had never noticed these scudding white clouds. They reminded her of eggs dropped into hot broth. Yuki came and nudged her face, wetting it with horse saliva. Tomoe wiped it off, reaching up to cup Yuki’s chin and stare into the horse’s doleful brown eyes. She blew into the horse’s nostrils. Yuki threw back her head and whinnied.
Her brother Kanehira reached her first. His face was red, furious. He panted. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Kanehira held out his hand to help her sit up. Then, out of nowhere, he drew back his hand and slapped her soundly across her cheek.
“Ai!” She clapped her hand to it, her neck aching from the impact.
“That’s for shooting at us!” Kanehira knotted his hands into fists. “You want us to die before we get to a real battlefield?”
She scrambled to her feet and shoved her brother as hard as she could. He fell onto his bottom. “If I’d really wanted shoot you, you’d be dead.” She spat at him. “Baka-tare.”
Yoshinaka caught up next. He glowered. His recent growth had made him taller than even Kaneto, though his body had not filled out to match. Nobody in Miyako would call him handsome: with his lean face, no ladies would flutter their eyelashes at him, but he had a strong jaw and a well-shaped nose and lips that were quite full for a boy. Tomoe thought he looked more masculine than was popular. “Stop it. Both of you.”
Wada galloped up, holding the fired arrows. He got off the horse and held one out. “I couldn’t get Tomoe’s. It was stuck in the tree branch.” He clucked. “You are crazy, Tomoe.”
Yoshinaka grinned and touched the top of his head. “I felt it whoosh through my hair.” He was the only one who wasn’t annoyed. “Hell, I’d trust Tomoe to hit a dragonfly between the eyes from the back of her horse.”
She blushed again, then turned away, disgusted with herself. She did not need Yoshinaka’s approval. He was only her little brother. Little foster brother.
“There’s no need to hit a dragonfly.” Kanehira brushed off dirt from his clothes.
Wada went to Tomoe and touched her cheek with his fingertips, the handprint she still felt. “Who did that to you?”
She stepped back, aware of the sudden jealous glare from Yoshinaka. She did not want trouble. “I’m fine.”
Yoshinaka stepped forward, and now it was he who touched her face softly, his roughened fingers stroking down toward her jaw. She shivered pleasantly and he smiled, letting his hand rest briefly on her neck. “Ai, Tomoe. Your face is swelling. Let’s go to the creek and get some cool water for you.”
But Wada was in Yoshinaka’s face. He threw down the naginata. “I don’t care who your family is, you cannot hit a woman. Especially not this one.”
“Yoshinaka didn’t hit me,” Tomoe protested, but Wada ignored her.
“You have no claim to her,” Yoshinaka’s newly deep voice grumbled.
“I’ve more claim than you.” Wada pushed at Yoshinaka’s chest.
Yoshinaka smiled, and his eyes lit with a strange kind of enraged excitement that sent a burst of fear through Tomoe. Like he enjoyed being violent. Like he wasn’t the Yoshinaka she knew anymore. “First hit, eh? Good. I’ve wanted to smash in your pretty face for a long time. Your ancestors will be weeping by the time I’m done.”
“All talk. Just like the rest of your family.” Wada tore off his outer kimono.
“Stop!” Tomoe tried to step in between them, but Kanehira pulled her back.
“It’s not about you,” he said. “It’s between them.”
“It’s foolish.” Tomoe saw Wada’s large muscles flexing. He could beat up Yoshinaka easily. “Stop, Wada! Please. That is my brother!”
Yoshinaka’s expression changed. It startled her. Hurt.
“I am not your brother!” he said.
Wada punched Yoshinaka’s nose. Blood spurted out in a fountain.
“Yoshinaka!” Tomoe cried.
“Noses bleed a lot,” Kanehira said, but he paled.
Yoshinaka touched his bloody nose as in disbelief. He stared at his reddened hand, then lunged at Wada, his hands wrapping around the older boy’s throat as his momentum took both of them downward. They fell into the pit, crashing down five feet on top of a mess of leaves and branches. Yoshinaka leapt on top of Wada and tightened his hands around his throat.
“Yoshi, Yoshi! Stop!” Tomoe scooped up her naginata. Wada fought back, striking Yoshinaka repeatedly in the face and neck even as he turned red then blue under Yoshinaka’s grip. Tomoe turned the naginata around and tried to shove the stick between them, as she would with fighting dogs, but Wada threw Yoshinaka over and got his own hands around Yoshinaka’s neck. Now Kanehira jumped in, trying to separate them. Wada’s fist struck him in the chest and Kanehira glanced off the bigger boys like a fly. Yoshinaka wheezed in a breath.
“Stop it, right now!” Tomoe searched for something to distract them. She swung her naginata around and connected with a beech tree. Her blade sliced through it as cleanly as it would through a melon. Like slicing through a neck. “Stop!” She shoved the tree down with her foot, hard. It tilted, then began falling.
“Watch out!” Kanehira shrieked. The boys all froze. The tree smacked into the pit right next to them, Yoshimori pulling his leg out of the way just in time.
A cloud of dust and debris rose. When it cleared, Tomoe looked down on them from on top of the severed tree trunk. “Now. Pay attention.”
—
They trudged slowly back, leading the horses. The sky finally lived up to its promise, sprinkling them with light rain. Tomoe carried her naginata in one hand. Blood and dirt and rain mixed on Yoshinaka’s face, his nose swollen, his eyes black and blue, making him look
like he had a grotesque oni mask on, ready for villagers to chase this demon away. He lifted his head, mouth open, tongue sticking out, to the sky, licking out the drops. “Fresh spring rainwater. Delicious.” He smacked his lips.
“Are you sure it’s not a bird flying over?” Wada said.
Yoshinaka ignored him, turning to Tomoe. “Lift your face. It will help.” He peered at her. “It looks better now. Less red.”
Tomoe tasted the rain, too, her eyes closed. Yes, water only slightly heavier than air, putting her in mind of grass and flowers. She smiled, feeling the drops on her eyelids. When she opened them, both Wada and Yoshinaka were staring at her, making her uncomfortable. “Do I have something on my face?” she asked. Drops clung to her long lashes, falling onto her cheeks.
“No.” Wada hastened his pace, a flush spreading up his neck.
Kanehira would not let things rest. “My father will kill you, Wada,” Kanehira said. “You wait. You can’t hit the future leader of Japan.”
Wada barely controlled the snort escaping from his mouth.
“What?” Yoshinaka demanded.
“Tomoe has a greater chance of becoming shōgun than you do,” Wada said. “You have too many Minamoto cousins ahead of you.”
Tomoe could see the rage making its way into her foster brother’s eyes as they reddened even more. “Quiet,” she hissed at Wada. “I will have no more fighting.”
Wada shoved her naginata toward her and broke away from them, leading his horse to his farm. “See what I mean? She’s already in charge of you lot.” He walked away without a backward glance.
“Wada, wait. I thought . . .” Tomoe trailed off. She didn’t know what she had thought. But it was clear Wada’s feelings were hurt when she stopped him from defending her. She appreciated his efforts. They were just unnecessary.
It did not matter. Wada wasn’t serious about her. He was too set on leaving this place. Tomoe would never fit into his plans. Besides, he shouldn’t be so easily dissuaded by a comment from her. She put her chin high, a single tear mingling with the rain.
Tale of the Warrior Geisha Page 4
