The Disfavored Hero (The Tomoe Gozen Saga Book 1)

by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

  Yabushi’s sister strapped the two-pronged sword to her back, then tied the sealed pot of ashes by a rope around her neck with a wife’s care of a husband.

  It then transpired that Tomoe attended the actual funeral, for she was carried to the site. Yabushi and his sister each held a leg; the goddess bore most of the weight on her own back. Tomoe felt weightless, as though borne atop a cloud, her eyes only occasionally opening and seeing sun through the leaves of the swamp’s trees, feeling her back against the warm, soft comfort of a deity’s shoulders. Her head bobbed, and now and then she saw the woman and child holding her feet out of the mire.

  All this while, there was a persistent buzzing in Tomoe’s head, remnant of the sword’s strange touch.

  She was brought, with the bakemono’s ashes, to a dry hill where the goddess blessed the pot as a proper urn. Then the bakemono was buried near the tomb of Great Lord Walks. Little Bushi planted the narrow grave marker on the plot, the name of Kwashiorki burnt into the wooden slat. The goddess made a strange promise, that from the slat would grow a tree which would be known among the gods as Kwashiorki’s Shade. Tomoe was not certain that she approved of the fuss, when Tsuki Izutsu’s corpse had been carried off by a raving red oni, a proper burial never given her.

  After the burial ceremony, overseen by the goddess, Tomoe was carried further. She was taken away from the bakemono’s grave, and to the Shinto shrine.

  There were fragments of conversations among these memories, words shared between the two mortals and the goddess after the building of the pyre and before the arrival at the shrine. The content of these exchanges seemed more vague than dreams, certainly more vague than the Dream of Seven Oni, which had been in some fashion real. Tomoe constantly fell back into comatose slumber, especially when considering the import of the conversations she overheard.

  She half overheard, or dreamed, or imagined that Tsuki Izutsu was not actually or precisely dead, but joined with some greater thing which the goddess abhorred but which Yabushi and his sister thought wonderful. In another sense, Tsuki may have chosen her own moment of going, having understood the workings of the bakemono’s curse, knowing that only this sacrifice would save Yabushi. Contrary to this, perhaps Tomoe Gozen was personally responsible for Tsuki’s death; for Tomoe had implored the goddess save Yabushi, aware that someone else would have to die in his place if the request were to be honored. This was too terrible for Tomoe to believe, and her conscience was eased by the possibility that even gods could gamble, and none of the playing chips or the players were wholly responsible, unknowing until the last moment who was to live and who to die.

  A larger fate, which ruled even gods (presumably at their bequest, lest certainty destroy Them with attendant ennui), was the source of Tsuki’s demise, or absorption.

  Thus, caught between anger at deities who saw to Tsuki’s end, guilt for seeing to it herself, and awe of the imposing force beyond the very gods, Tomoe slipped in and out of half-consciousness. When she finally awoke—a real awakening—it was within the shrine’s small temple.

  Her head burned from the double cut, but had been cleansed of any matter which might have cause purulence. Her clothing had been somewhat cleaned as well, but were torn and ragged. She wondered momentarily how bad a scar she would have, but was not upset by any prospect.

  Near her stood Yabushi, no worry on his brow, for he trusted the goddess who bowed over Tomoe. Behind Yabushi stood a tall woman, a twin-bladed sword strapped to her back. She was somehow less beautiful without her sorrow, for the sorrow had made of her a remarkable tragic portrait. Now she was an averagely attractive woman, calm like her brother, proud. These siblings must have absorbed something of the goddess’ healing presence, for neither seemed adversely influenced by all that had transpired; both were renewed of vigor, as Tomoe was not.

  In all probability the sister knew she was still required as a geisha, for she had been legally indentured. But given the circumstances and the unlikelihood of her retrieval without Yabushi and his aides, it was likely that she could be redeemed cheaply, and Yabushi would retain a good portion of his small inheritance after all. Further, since the young woman was the proprietor of a sword of limitless worth, it could be that in the end the poor Rooster clan would be wealthy.

  It was seven days after Tomoe’s awakening at the shrine before she was able to piece together all that transpired in the aftermath of adventure. By then, she had left Yabushi and his sister in the village, having held them good-bye, having seen especially that Yabushi would have safe passage to his dojo. Then the weary samurai trod once more upon the lonely road, toward a colored twilight, with all the half-memories of semi-consciousness whirling through her head. She thought especially of the crone-cum-goddess who had nursed her, and of returning to reasoning wakefulness in the shrine.

  On that waking moment, the goddess bowed to Tomoe Gozen’s prone body, and placed her lips twice upon Tomoe’s forehead.

  The kisses burned, and healed. The pain increased a moment, then was gone entirely, and a month’s healing was done in the span of those two kisses. Tomoe was given temporary respite, or peace, which lasted until she was on the road again. Only then was she given to these thoughts, these efforts to reconstruct the last hours’ daring enterprise.

  Before the goddess had vanished from her shrine, she had brought forth from her robes a bronze mirror. It shone like the sun. She held it before Tomoe who arose, cured by the perverse medicine of Izanami’s lips. Tomoe beheld her own reflection, and the twin-scar on her forehead: two white, ragged, vertical markings which looked like waves of the ocean facing one another in stormy combat. Viewed one way, the scar was like Tomoe’s family crest, embossed upon her brow. Viewed another way, it was like the third eye of certain Buddhas, which was shocking to see in a Shinto place, but good homage to the nun who gave her life.

  “Thank you, Izanami,” Tomoe had whispered, and reached to embrace the goddess … but the light of the mirror expanded, then faded, and Izanami was gone.

  These days later, upon the road, Tomoe found that she had become introspective for a while, remembering all of this.

  “Tomoe Gozen.”

  Sitting beneath a tree, resting from the road, was an itinerant priest, a rokubu, vile and filthy as some of them could be, or more so than others. Generally they carried images of Buddha eternally upon their backs, held on by rope, and never put them down. This one had not merely set the burden aside—he had hung the Buddha from the tree by its throat.

  “You know me,” answered Tomoe, stopping before the priest who called her by name. She trod the road unshod, having lost her clogs and tabi socks in the marshland days before. The rokubu had set out a fine, new pair of clogs and tabi, perhaps as a temptation only, perhaps to inform the samurai that here sat a rokubu of more than a beggar’s means.

  “A disfavored hero,” he said, qualifying his knowledge of her. “And you know me as well, though not by name. Mine is never spoken.”

  “I know you,” she admitted. “A year ago I slept in a peasant farmhouse, hosted by a family. That was at the beginning of my musha-shugyo. You came to the door to beg.”

  Musha-shugyo was a kind of schooling unobtainable in dojo or academy. It was had only on the road, gleaned from harsh experience. This hard-knocks university was not chosen by the will of Tomoe Gozen, for disfavor had necessitated her route. It had been useful nonetheless, though perhaps its use was served and no longer best required.

  It was often the case that seeming coincidence marked the beginning and end of some precise phase of an individual’s life, framing certain events as it were. It was possible, therefore, that this fat, vagrant rokubu had come again because Tomoe’s musha-shugyo was coming to a close. The rokubu said, “It was kind of you to spare me this mon when first we met, poor though you were.” He held his hand up and open so that the samurai standing over him could see that he held a coin of small worth, perhaps the very coin she had given him. “I see by your ragged state today your need is
greater than mine.”

  In fact, Yabushi had offered her a gift from his ryo, and when she refused, a loan. She refused that too. But the rokubu’s mon she accepted. It seemed to her a ritual, for why else would he have saved it? And why this gift of quality shoes, except that she needed them for faster travel; would a rokubu care if she could go quickly or not?

  There was many a “why” about the rokubu. Coincidence would not serve to explain two meetings in widely separated regions at critical stage in the samurai’s development. There had to be a reason for his planting his buttocks along her road on this particular hour.

  For some reason, she did not doubt that he could have met with her anytime, anywhere. How she felt this to be so, she could not ascertain. Rokubu were not more clever than ninja. Far less so. And she had evaded ninja for several weeks at a time. But this rokubu was different from other beggar-priests, and she was certain the moment and manner of their meeting was his choice.

  She suspected he was a jono priest, a magician-ninja. Certainly he was not truly Buddhist, or the idol would not be hung as from a gibbet, a whimsical but damning insult to Buddhism. Too, he had spoken cryptically about his never-spoken name. Jono guarded their names and their faces. This one did not guard his face, it was true, which she admitted was not in keeping with her feeling that he was jono. But the magician-ninja used sorcery; perhaps this one had other faces. She hated to think what he might be … if not jono.

  “My blessings for the coin,” she said, tucking it away. “My gratitude for the shoes,” for she took for granted they were hers.

  The rokubu nodded, and pressed his palms together. He said, “One mon and clothing for your feet are not all I bring to you. You may have already guessed your road changes today. You are no longer ronin, if you were ever truly so. You are sworn to Lady Toshima, who has need of you.”

  “She sends you?” asked Tomoe, her interest captured. She had set herself down beside the priest to put on the tabi and clogs. The rokubu’s own feet, barely revealed beneath the hem of his robe, were naked and excessively dirty.

  Hard, cold eyes sparkled with harder, colder humor. “No one sends me,” he said. “But I come.”

  The coldness pressed at Tomoe, and she nearly cringed from the chill. She remembered the cold rain of the night she first met him.

  “Then why?” she asked, not one “why” but many.

  “This past year,” he began, looking at her from those strange, penetrating eyes, “Goro Maki has been guardian to Toshima and her mother. That was Lord Shigeno’s final command. But Goro has been mightily unhappy, so that Toshima gave him leave of the world.”

  Taking leave of the world meant that Goro Maki had shaved his head and become a priest. Perhaps in some unfathomed way, the rokubu was Buddhist, an obscure variety to whom sacrilege against idols came easily; or else how would he know Goro had done this thing …

  “Goro loves the Shinto gods!” Tomoe said. Shintoism had no monasteries, so the rokubu’s news struck harshly. It meant Goro had become a Buddhist.

  “Not all Buddhists malign Shintoism,” said the rokubu, his foul breath wafting toward Tomoe. His reassurances eased her somewhat, for all his personal vileness. “He has retreated to the mountains, among the yamahoshi. They owe allegiance to none! They study everything; teach it to any who swear to an ascetic’s life.”

  “Like your own?” she said, and his eyes glinted once more with icy humor.

  “Worse than mine,” he answered.

  At least the yamahoshi were martial priests. Goro had therefore not put down his sword, which was encouraging. Still, he must have been very sad indeed to leave the world. Tomoe wished to know, “What made my friend unhappy?”

  The beggar-priest made a gesture of unknowing, though probably he did know. He said, “Maybe he was bound by samurai codes to avenge the death of his warlord. However, suppose the killer of Shigeno was a friend! To escape his duty, he might have preferred to end his life as a samurai and start anew as a monk.”

  “You are cold indeed,” said Tomoe, stricken, “to bring these tidings. I have lately come from a Shinto haunt, and know the gods are real. Perhaps Buddhist gods are real as well, and you are some god of mischief.”

  She had said this in wicked jest, then wondered if it were true.

  “I may be that,” he said. “I may not. In whichever case, you are needed by Toshima. She and her mother are left without retainers, and the Shogun has her watched. He does not like the stories she has written since last you saw her. They are coy stories, damning of unnamed officials in high office. Things would have gone well with her but that she is compelled to intrigues!” The rokubu laughed, half sinister and half appreciative. “The Shogun no longer suffers her to write. He has decreed she take up brush no more, or else join the Mikado in exile. She is proud, and has chosen the latter course, though knowing the Shogun fears her glib texts will find their way back to the main islands nonetheless. She may not survive to see exile.”

  “To what port must I go?” asked Tomoe, quick in her resolve.

  “If you are swift, you may reach Hojikai Harbor before she is gone, and join her as is proper for her last retainer. The shoes will speed your course. But if you go, you may return to the main isles of Naipon only on penalty of death. You will be exile-by-association, and the Shogun would have you challenged if you ever returned.”

  “The Shogun has no champion who can slay me,” said Tomoe, not meaning it as a boast. The rokubu’s ill-words were fondly heard, for she would rather be challenged openly than be hunted anymore by ninja. Even if she were defeated in the contest, it would at least not be a dog’s death without notice. Yet it remained that to the knowledge of Tomoe, the Shogun had no champion good enough. Therefore Tomoe might return to Naipon anytime she wished, be challenged honorably, win honorably, and cause the Shogun immeasurable dishonor if he harried her longer.

  The rokubu lowered his face, closed his eyes, his hands still folded as in prayer. He said in a barely audible voice, “The Shogun has a champion,” and when Tomoe did not ask, he volunteered: “Ugo Mohri.”

  Tomoe Gozen started. She had learned much on the road, but she was not at all certain she could yet defeat Naipon’s best disciple of bushido.

  Ugo Mohri was her nemesis, not because they disliked each other, but because they would want to meet again and test one another, this time each with proper swords. He had toyed with her before, but she had used a foreign style of fighting unfit, she learned, for samurai. It must eat at him to wonder if he could beat her still. It ate at Tomoe Gozen.

  If Ugo Mohri had remained with the Mikado, the duel could never be, for the Mikado would not desire it. But Ugo was faithless—had managed to preserve his position when the Mikado fell. No doubt it had taken the full year to arrange this good grace, which was why Tomoe had not heard of it before.

  “You will hesitate to sail?” asked the rokubu, knowing she would not.

  “I will serve Toshima always. But I will not fear returning to Naipon. When I face Ugo Mohri, he will know that we are equals; in anticipation of that meeting, I will train to make it certain. And on that day, I will stand as reminder of his unfaith with the Mikado, a graver weakness than he may yet believe. He himself named me the Mikado’s samurai. I may become the Mikado’s vengeance!”

  Blood had rushed to her face when she said this, but it quickly drained away, and Tomoe added without the ostentation, “But Toshima did not send you, priest. It may be that she does not wish my service anymore. If my unfortunate slaying of Shigeno ruined Goro Maki, so might it have ruined Toshima’s love for me.”

  “You need not think it. By her intrigue, and because of her kinship with the Mikado, she learned in advance that the Battle of Shigeno Valley was inevitable. If I am not mistaken, she tried to convince you to run away with her in some fashion? She would have kept you from it all. You thought it a childish crush, but Toshima was wiser. It was at her bequest that the Mikado sent two magician-ninja to guard her father; and she pe
rsonally directed the jono-priestess to protect you also. What she had not foreseen was that you and Shigeno would meet on the battlefield. The jono could not protect you both, so it was left to fate. She blamed herself more than others.”

  “You know a lot,” said Tomoe with a hint of antipathy. She had long believed the culprit of Shigeno’s downfall was the Mikado—but the Mikado had granted immunity. Certainly the sorcerer of Ho who brought the war could not be blamed, manipulated as he had been from the Imperial City. And though Toshima might blame herself, she could hardly be held to fault for wishing those she loved protected.

  There was only one felon in the end, and that the hand which slew—the hand of Tomoe Gozen. What wonder Goro Maki would wish a grudge match against her. Goro’s honor and dedication to his bushido would have dictated he seek out Tomoe regardless of friendships, and fight even loving her. But again, Toshima would have intervened. Since Goro had been directed to obedience to Shigeno’s daughter, there would have been only one way out of the dilemma: seppuku. Toshima would have guarded against suicide as well, directing her protector to a mountain retreat instead, denying him his pride and his status, forcing him into retirement more cruel than honored death.

  Toshima had inherited the Mikado’s manipulative prowess. And like the Mikado, it had lost her much when every tile was played. She was no betrayer; she played the game for the game’s sake, not for spoils.

  “Your intent?” asked the filthy robuku, interrupting her reverie.

  “I will go with the Lady into exile. Mischief you may bring, but I thank you for it, for much of this I did not know before, although it makes good sense, and good sense to know. Tell me, am I bound to you in some way—I would return to you the favor.”

  “I require nothing,” said the rokubu. “For news and mischief, you need do one thing: resolve to play the game well, and use the pieces given. That you would do anyway, unto death, even without me. But you surprise me Tomoe! I thought you would ask me about the jono priestess, for it is true as you say, I know much.”