The Disfavored Hero (The Tomoe Gozen Saga Book 1)

by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

  The sun was their only marker. They made way toward the north, where Tomoe expected the greatest concentration of islands.

  The first day in the water was tolerably unpleasant; the second educated her more fully in regard to the sea’s willful cruelly; and on the third, Tomoe’s body began to reveal the horrific effects of extreme fatigue and long-term exposure to the sea. Had Toshima not discovered, by accident, a source of nutrition and unsalted water, certainly the torture could not have gone on so long.

  Toshima hung her arm off the back of the raft, inadvertently providing a rudder. She gasped, injured by ongoing exposure, hunger, dehydration. Fish swam slowly beneath the shelter of the raft, and one chanced to brush against Toshima’s hand. Fitfully, she snatched at it, captured it, bit into it’s living flesh, madly desirous of an end to her famished state. She was surprised to realize she had bitten into a bladder which was neither salt nor urine, but part of the specie’s biological system of ballast.

  For the second and third day of Tomoe’s long swim, Toshima provided food and drink by the determined speed of her reaching arm. On the fourth day, constant exposure to the sea stole Tomoe’s ability to swallow, and the fish vanished in any event, learning their danger in Toshima’s proximity. Thereafter, both women were expiring with increased rapidity.

  Though stronger, Tomoe suffered more. Every muscle shouted for release. Her very bones commanded rest. The sea sapped the warmth from her body despite the relative warmth of the surfacemost layer; her arms, hands, face and feet wrinkled until she looked like a hideously diseased crone. Eventually the cramps were too awful to endure, and she was repeatedly forced to climb onto the raft and lie in exhaustion. Toshima was helpful during these periods. Tomoe would lay belly down while the Lady walked up and down upon the samurai’s back, bare feet massaging warmth in, pain out. Tomoe groaned with near-ecstasy, emptied her mind, succumbed to total relaxation and illusion of renewal. But she would not allow these moments to persist. Soon, she slunk over the edge of the raft, returning to her dreadful mission.

  The harness abraded her shoulders until they were red and raw. She tried to swim with enough clothing to protect her torso, but wet cloth hampered her, and she was forced to remain naked while in the water, which at least meant dry clothing waited each time she climbed on board.

  Once, a strange fish swam beneath the shade of Tomoe, attached itself to her by means of a sucker disc. She was so numb that she did not notice it until, climbing onto the raft for another brief period of rest, the suckerfish let loose and stayed in the water. It had bitten her, and sucked her blood, but the wound was superficial. She watched out for such fish thereafter.

  A wind began to rise, and Tomoe’s jacket billowed forth—but the gods only teased and toyed. The wind grew still once more. Tomoe slid yet again into the evermore horrendous waters.

  She could no longer speak. Her tongue had swollen. Sometimes, she could barely breathe. Although Toshima’s sharp eyes kept vigilant watch, as night drew across the fifth day, no isle had betrayed itself in any direction. There seemed no end for Tomoe’s labor.

  The Lady had been burnt by the sun until every exposed portion of her body was bright red and peeling. Her arm had swelled and darkened. But she did not complain, for looking on Tomoe’s misery, she counted her own grief minor. Each time the samurai climbed onto the raft at dusk, she was completely drained, looked to be death’s sister.

  Sleep brought little peace, for Tomoe could not remain oblivious to the complaints of her every muscle. She suffered terrible chills, although she had reclad herself in all her clothing and Toshima held her close. Later she was fevered, and Toshima stripped the samurai completely, and splashed sea water on her burning body and her face. Twice, she awakened gagging on her own swollen tongue. Toshima kept awake half the night, seeing that Tomoe did not choke to death in her rough, uneven sleep or die of chills and fever.

  The next morning, the task was taken up anew. After five awful days, she did not imagine the sea could cause her worse misery. But her tongue grew larger still, blackened, could not be moved. Mucus drained from her nostrils, slicked her face. Her skin shriveled more, and whitened, until she looked no longer fully human, but like a member of the sea-dead, as though the sea prepared her in advance for an eternal existence as a thrall-corpse for the folk of the Dragon Queen’s saline country.

  Numbness had erased the pain at least, save only for the cramps which came and went; but weakness was making her less effective in drawing the raft. She could feel so few parts of herself that she was sometimes unaware that she was moving her arms and legs, and sometimes she forgot to do so, floating in a daze until Toshima’s shouting broke through to her vague awareness.

  Regularly, she was set upon by cramps which caused her to pull herself into a ball, and sink helplessly below the surface. When this happened, Toshima drew her forth like a fish, struggling to get her onto the raft. Each time, she begged the samurai to give up the hopeless intent, to let death come less painfully than this.

  Tomoe could not talk, could not even draw her black tongue back into her mouth; but if she could have spoken she would have said: You and I will not be slaves to the sea-folk. We will not dwell in the Dragon Queen’s city, our cold flesh monstrous among monsters. I will bring us to some island, if only a rock incapable of sustaining us. We will die on land, and be attended by better gods than these!

  With this unsaid, but grimly considered, she slipped again from the side, and Toshima lamented, as though Tomoe were already drowned. Lady Toshima scanned the horizon constantly, ever with hope, but not much of that. She also watched the strained, wretched swimmer, lest the woman cramp up, and sink away, and die before the desperate Lady could draw her up one-handed.

  The sun treated Toshima as harshly as the sea treated Tomoe. Tomoe’s aqueous task kept her from dehydrating, while Toshima lost moisture from every pore. She tempted herself to devour salt water, but refrained.

  The Lady’s face was blistered, and the blisters drained yellow fluids. She might have mourned her ruined beauty, but for the tortured face of Tomoe, leached of faintest coloration, shriveled to the texture and appearance of liverwort except around the eyes, where her lids were puffy near the point of sealing off her vision. Whenever Tomoe climbed on the raft to rest, Toshima would massage her while both shrank behind the slim shade of the samurai’s jacket, which still hung upon the sword, a useless sail. It was Toshima’s moment of rest too, for touching Tomoe was no hard task; whereas while Tomoe labored, Toshima must do so also, lest the hitched samurai drown or some island go unseen.

  “Punish my vanity, Amaterasu!” Toshima cried, and took up her own task beneath an angry sun.

  Several times, a panic-stricken Tomoe returned to the raft, having hallucinated monsters in the sea, for eventually her mind was affected. At last, however, she swam blindly, her eyes so swollen, while Toshima tugged the lines like the reins on a horse, directing the path ever north. When a monster truly appeared, Tomoe could not see it.

  Toshima shouted half-hysterically, pulled viciously on the reins. Tomoe was still powerful enough to keep Toshima from drawing her back to the raft.

  “Tomoe!” she screamed. “Stop swimming! Let me pull you in! A shark is coming!”

  A swimmer’s long strokes emulated a dying animal thrashing in the water, easy prey to a shark’s point of view. The beast was rushing toward the thrashing samurai. Tomoe’s ears were plugged and swollen, but somehow she heard, and turned to swim toward the raft, barely evading death.

  The shark lingered. It swam around and around the raft, puzzled by it. They tried to wait it out, but it would not go. Yet good came of it, for it was the longest period of rest Tomoe had taken except during the difficult, restless nights. It was probably a good thing she acquired this forced luxury, although rest brought them no closer to any goal—presuming some goal existed in the north to be achieved.

  The blackened, lolling tongue of the samurai began to lose some of its excessive size, so
that she could hold it in her mouth at least, though it was still too large to allow speech. After a long while out of the water, her eyes were less swollen so that she, like Toshima, could follow the shark’s patterned cruise. Feeling returned to her hands and feet, with Toshima’s persistent rubbing. Tomoe’s nose, however, managed to increase mucus production, so that nose as well as mouth would not allow easy breath. When the samurai began to convulse and gag, Toshima struggled to force breath into her throat, blowing down Tomoe’s nostrils and into her mouth.

  The shark fin disappeared periodically, but always manifested itself again.

  More time passed; and had there been anything more edible than rope, Tomoe might have regained her strength. She could breathe easily at last, but the stress had greatly reduced her energy. By perverse will alone she maintained a semblance of prowess.

  The jacket had been the whole time a useless sail, so Tomoe took it down, tied it around Toshima’s face to protect her from worse burn. She seemed grateful to have it hidden. With her eyes peering out of the wrapping Tomoe made, Toshima looked a little bit like a jono priestess. For a long time, Tomoe gazed at the Lady, thinking of a certain jono priestess named Noyimo—and perhaps it was a good thing, in that moment, that Tomoe could not speak.

  Impatience extended a blinding hand over Tomoe’s common sense. She stood from a crouching position, dizzied by her own sudden motion. She looked about until she saw the shark again. Then she pulled her sword out of the raft where it had been stuck as mast and, incredibly, dove into the water.

  Toshima gasped, cried out, but could only watch thereafter.

  Sharks were the bullies of the sea, and like all bullies, cowards in their hearts. Something thrashing on the surface appealed. Something swimming beneath the waves like a healthy animal gave it pause. The longsword of Tomoe Gozen was wedged between her teeth, steel whiskers below puckered eyes and flat nose. She swam upward at the beast’s belly, but it turned aside to see her better, dodged to plot its own attack.

  It changed direction unexpectedly, came at her with razored maw open, but bit only her sword, which she had brought to hand. Absurdly, Tomoe took a standing posture, and slashed the beast above her from jaw to belly, successfully gutting it. It swam a distance away, trailing its intestines, excited by the smell of its own blood. The creature knew no pain, but actually began to feast upon its own entrails. When its tiny eyes saw Tomoe again, it came at her with extreme haste. It barely missed her feet as Toshima helped drag the samurai on board.

  “Foolish woman!” scolded Toshima, then averted her eyes when Tomoe tried to smile, looking uglier than before. Gazing out to where the stricken shark was shaking and rolling in the throes of death, Toshima was surprised to see many sharks coming to feast upon their kin.

  “Worse than before, Tomoe! The blood attracted others!”

  On the end of Tomoe’s sword was a length of intestine, which she removed carefully, and cut it in half with the sword’s keen edge. She handed a piece of it to Toshima, who accepted it; but Tomoe could not even chew without chewing her tongue as well—so that finally Toshima took the piece of intestine, chewed it for the samurai, and forced it from mouth to mouth as a mother bird feeds its infants. Both women gained what nutrition they could from the meager meal.

  When the sharks had finished their cannibalistic feast, they sped away to other errands. Tomoe crawled to the edge of the raft, renewed somewhat by her minuscule meal. But Toshima stopped her, said,

  “Wait. The sharks left too quickly! Something may have …”

  Before she finished her speculation, the surface of the water broke, and a huge spiny globe began to rise. Tomoe watched the monster without much concern, thinking herself again imagining. The gigantic globe fish rose half out of the water, its little eyes beneath the surface, looking back and forth. It’s tiny fins paddled furiously. It was a whimsical monster, and apparently harmless, its spiky body mere defense.

  “A blessing!” cried Toshima. “Even the ruler of the sea despises sharks, and you have slain one. The Dragon Queen rewards valor!” Tomoe still stood on hands and knees, prepared to enter the water when the hallucination dispersed. She did not restrain Toshima from quickly removing the harness. Toshima threw the rope toward the spiny globe fish, catching it on one of its spines. The fish remained half above the surface, beating its hummingbird fins rapidly, whisking the raft along at a much steadier, swifter clip than Tomoe ever managed. It took them north.

  The tracks of foot and knee and hand revealed the passage of two plodding, stumbling, bedraggled survivors out of the sea. The crooked track led from the water’s margin to grassy, higher ground. Amidst tall grass, Tomoe and Toshima lay at the side of a freshwater stream, sick from drinking too much too quickly. It was some while before they regained the strength to move along the beach of the island on which they had been deposited.

  They found an abandoned farmhouse, proving the island inhabited, or at least inhabited in some past year. The house was very old, in ruinous condition, and looked on first inspection to have been unused for generations. On closer inspection, they thought it must have been used as a camp periodically, or at least a minor supply depot, for the house was stocked with food, clothing, and folk medicines in neatly labeled apothecary jars.

  It was mysterious, for the food consisted only of rice, pickles and salted fruit—suggesting that whoever used the place came rarely, keeping only that which stored indefinitely. The clothing, too, was a riddle. It was all sewn for someone of largish size, but it was not all the clothing of a farmer. In a closet hung the yellow robe of a priest, and beside it, a carpenter’s pocketed smock; and here again, the motley costume of a strolling actor. As the women moved things about to clear floor space, they found a box containing a carefully folded black hood, black shirt, and black trousers. The sight caused Tomoe to exclaim hoarsely over her barely moveable tongue: “A ninja house!”

  For only ninja would need the variety of disguises held here, or an emergency sanctuary with healing drugs, itself disguised as a ruined farmhouse.

  From amidst the jars of remedies, Tomoe chose one designated for burns and abrasions. She applied this to Toshima’s sunburned hands, face and neck, with the gentlest strokes of her fingers—fingers softened by the long swim, so that the touch hurt Toshima less. After tending to the suffering Lady, Tomoe applied the same ointment to her rope-burned shoulders and torso.

  They were still too sick to explore much of the house, but Toshima managed a little. She struck tinder ablaze and started a fire in a hibachi. She bid Tomoe only rest, for the samurai’s muscles were yet stiff and needed to be exercised with complete trepidation. Tomoe acknowledged her own need, and let Toshima fetch water from the stream, boil it for rice, and serve a meal as to a lord.

  The samurai was impressed by Lady Toshima’s stamina, but disconcerted over the swift manner by which her mutual ward set up household in the ninja-farmhouse. By nightfall, the main living quarter had been cleaned and set aright, and not by Tomoe’s instigation.

  “We cannot live here,” said Tomoe, lying on a grass mat and covered by another, her head resting on a wooden pillow, her eyes staring up into darkness.

  “Where can we go?” asked Toshima. “We are thrust here by the will of the sea. It must be our home for a while. The sea is visible from our porch, but it may be a long while before we sight a friendly junk to end our marooned state.” Her arguments were convincing, but by her inflection it was obvious she anticipated rejection—personal rejection more than rejection of her plan.

  “This is no farmhouse,” said Tomoe, “and we do not know how long before a ninja comes to use it.”

  “A long while, Tomoe. If the ninja who once used this place is even still alive, or gave it to an heir, it is still clearly unused now.”

  Tomoe was too weakened emotionally as well as physically to argue, and too aware of Toshima’s unstated intentions to shatter a foolish dream. As they were indeed castaway, it would be cruel to break the dream which su
stained the Lady through hardship. But was it less cruel to let her think Tomoe shared some slight joy of the circumstance? Would it be in the long run more wicked to insinuate through silence that Tomoe held budding pleasure of the prospect of Lady and samurai living farmers’ lives, and loving one another? For it was love which made Toshima’s voice shake and made her fear rejection.

  In the night, Tomoe felt a tentative touch. The Lady’s hands were no longer soft, though already her burns were getting better, and always she was gentle. Tomoe tried not to stiffen, not to be a sorrow or a disappointment. Toshima’s hand moved along Tomoe’s skin, which had regained its firmness and was no longer white and wrinkled, but retained its ultra-softness from days submersed. It was a strange sensation, to feel her own softness, and the lady’s roughness, the reverse to be expected. It was not erotic, and Tomoe regretted that, for Toshima certainly meant it to be.

  In truth, Tomoe had been attracted to women, had loved women. It was tangentially encouraged by her society. Naipon was of limited size, and marriages were arranged for women in their middle twenties, for men in their thirties, so that successive generations of heirs were insured but not so close together that the land grew too populous. Upon marriage, women were expected to be virginal—yet skillful, pleasing lovers. How else to learn proper lovemaking and to preserve a relative chastity, except by the exploration of their own bodies and the bodies of women friends?

  The sutras which educated in these matters illustrated much of womanly love. Though rarely discussed, it was inevitable that women gain required skills in this fashion. Thereby, each betrothed would be a proficient lover at wedlock, though having always been (after the given fashion) chaste. It did happen, of course, that women occasionally became more attached to each other than to their eventual husbands, or in some way made themselves altogether ineligible as wives and lived with other women. This was at all times discouraged, and discussed even less than the original matter.