The Golden Naginata (21 page)

Tomoe looked at the little boy's extraordinary ugliness. He lay upon his back staring into the shrine's rafters with dark eyes unblinking. He breathed lightly. One tiny fist opened and closed in a slow, pointless manner. “Why is he so still?” said Tomoe.

“He used to be playful,” Oshina answered. “Now he never moves or speaks. He never cries out, and I must feed him by hand or he would starve. I have failed to be a good mother, or this would not have happened.”

“It's very strange,” said Tomoe, looking at the child's dark eyes. A shiver crept over her spine.

“I have named him Koshi, which means ‘dead child,' because of his affliction. When we travelled, I called him something else, and he was a happy baby in spite of his ugliness. After he was older, he began to understand certain things too well. People were very cruel to us everywhere we went, and poor Koshi started to think he was the cause of our misfortune. One day he said to me, ‘I am a monster-baby, mother, I am a monster-baby.' He had heard so many people say so when they threw stones at us and chased us from the villages. Shortly before I found this place for us to live, he became as you see him now. It is the result of our hard times that my son's spirit has fled to Hell, although his body remains healthy in the living world. I take care of him with the hope that his spirit will forgive my weaknesses and decide to return to Koshi's body.”

The mother was too strong to shed a single tear. When her story was done, she bowed to her son, head to floor, and begged, “Forgive me, Koshi, if I have failed to love you well enough to make this life worthwhile.”

Despite Oshina's lack of tears, or perhaps because of her fierce strength and sorrow, Tomoe was greatly affected. She looked at Koshi's terrible visage and saw in him a thing which exists in every child. What that thing was, Tomoe Gozen could not express in easy words. It was a kind of innocence or lack of sinful feeling, a goodness universal among the young of every species and which awakens maternal instinct in every feeling heart: The goat who suckles the kitten, the wolf who suckles a bear's cub … one may be ugly to another, one may be the other's foe when grown, but every mother knows that every child requires concern, and she will overlook certain things.

Tomoe Gozen was overwhelmed with sadness to see the motionless child and his caring, lonely mother. The sorrow was too much to bear, so that the samurai found herself backing out of the tiny room in order to escape the feeling. Before she turned away, she said, “Forgive my intrusion,” then ran away lest she be seen with tears in her eyes. If Oshina thought Tomoe ran from the child's appearance rather than from the mutual plight of mother and son, it could not be helped; Tomoe could not face Oshina's pain at that moment, and it would be unseemly for a samurai to weep; and so she had to flee.

For a while, Tomoe sat on the flat, mossy bridge watching the water rush underneath. She would like to be chivalrous in some way, but there was nothing she could do to mend the situation of Oshina and Koshi. Old Uncle Tengu was foolish to believe a single samurai could be a kami or protector to demon children.
She
could not help the brat. Yet it was a difficult thing to ignore the expectations of other people, even the expectations of a tengu, and even if the expectations were unreasonable.

Tomoe began to think it had been a mistake to save Oshina from that swamp those years before. It might have been kinder in the long run to have left her there. “It's not my trouble,” said Tomoe, but could not shake away an illogical feeling of responsibility. She stood up abruptly and drew her sword full length, exclaiming, “I will be merciful and kill them both!” Her eyes looked fierce as she turned her gaze upon the main building of Lost Shrine. But she sheathed the weapon and sat down with the same abruptness, then rubbed moisture from the tip of her nose with the back of her hand. She said, “This is too much,” and, “People must be stronger. It is weak of me to think of them.” She folded her arms, unfolded them, then folded them again, and finally kicked one foot out from under herself to force a section of moss off the bridge and into the rushing water. She might have sat there in agitation until sunset, but for the sound of far-away chanting.

It was some sutra. It seemed to be coming from high on the mountainside. Many strong voices of bonzes and priests made the chanting audible for miles around, however faint. It was the yamabushi praying for Kiji-san to rest another day, to forgive the sins of mortals and not spill her molten, menstrual blood upon the world.

The sound of them reminded Tomoe that she had more important missions to attend. She removed a cloth-wrapped parcel from her obi. The package was longer than a shortsword and somewhat thicker, easily carried in the same way as a sword. She untied the cloth, unwrapped the contents, and revealed two objects. One was the shaku from the head of bonze Shindo's staff, which she had promised to return to the yamahoshi of Kuji-san. The other was the wooden, rune-carved sheath of a naginata. These two things represented the necessity of her visit to the two sects of martial priests on their respective mounts. She must be certain they would not compete with one another but would join arms for the march on Kyoto as soon as the leaves were falling in the valleys; and she must attend her private missions in the crater of Kiji-san, and through the fearful gate on Kuji-san.

Tomoe Gozen got to her feet again, looked at the shrine once more, and decided to put the mother and son out of her mind. A strong samurai does not waver from a course. Then, hardening her heart, she turned toward the sound of the chanting, certain she could reach the yamabushi temple well before Amaterasu had gone behind the western hills.

The easy, winding path to the yamabushi monastery would have taken a day and a half of pleasant walking; but there was a less leisurely way, one which was practically a vertical ascent. The bonzes rarely used it except in cases of emergency, so it was not always a clear route. It was marked by bushes which in spring-time would have flowers, but now were prepared for autumn. The weirdly twisted, root-bared and stunted shrubbery had been planted by bonzes of earlier generations, and looked very old. The gnarled roots and limbs were arranged as useful hand-holds (a climber must be careful lest the cliff-garden be injured). The rocks in the face of the ascent had been chiseled and altered to provide additional holds for fingers and toes, but never so obtrusively as to look like steps rather than a natural mountain wall. Tomoe's sandals were slung across her shoulder as she made the trek with bare hands and feet. She did not even wear her tabi-socks, for the rough ground would tear them too quickly.

Although the route was not difficult, it was progressively colder as the day grew older and she went higher. Along the climb, she found occasional statues of gods, and she offered each some quick, mild prayer. They were Buddhist gods and did not much enthuse her, but, as she was in their territory, she gave them each small honors. One of them was Ida-ten, a special god among warrior-monks, who stood for pious life and martial ability. Tomoe lingered before him in order to offer a more heartfelt prayer of respect than she had to the others. While she rested, she slapped the soles of her feet together and rubbed her palms vigorously, to work away the chill. Then she went on from the ledge, following certain sounds.

She heard the deep chanting of bonzes beseeching Kiji-san. The sound was far up the mountainside and echoed to Tomoe in such a way that she was not convinced of the direction. There was also the sound of rushing water which hindered her ability to understand the exact wording of the sutra. A counter-chant was going, too, sounding like a dozen or so young girls. This startled Tomoe, for she didn't think there were any girls trained by the yamabushi.

She came to the top of the mountain wall to a forested plateau. Now she could hear the chanting a bit more clearly. She also heard an unseen waterfall, hidden from her view, as were they who chanted, by the towering forest. The roar of the falls matched the bass notes of the yamabushi. The sweeter chanting of girls was like rain weeping through the cedars.

Her fingers and toes were numb. She sat upon a fallen log at the pathside and put her tabi and sandals on, then pulled her arms inside her haori to press cold fingers into the folds beneath her breasts.

The woodsy, level path led to a drum-bridge arching across a river. Beyond this was a stairway made of shale. Each step was a different shape and size, but all were flat; the ascent was easy. At the top, she saw the upper portion of the waterfall rising above tall evergreens. The river came out of those trees, eager for the valleys below. Tomoe did not know how close she might be to the monastery, but at least she was close to some of the men who lived there. She now heard the prayers distinctly, coming from the direction of the waterfall.

Guided by the voices, she found a trail, not so steep as the rarely-used route that she began from, but not so easy as the stairway either. Soon she came to another plateau of trees and ferns. Along the path she saw the abandoned shack of a woodcutter and, later, two statues of Buddhist deities, larger and fiercer than the ones she had come upon before. She bowed to them but did not linger. A creek—the crashing river's smallest conceivable tributary—crossed the trail Tomoe was using. She hopped casually over the narrow strip of clear, rushing water.

Eventually she came to the edge of a clearing and saw the place where the high, narrow waterfall connected with the lower river. A wooden platform had been built overlooking the pool at the base of the waterfall. A group of bonzes and a single priest were there, engaged in earnest praying. The priest was standing; the bonzes were on their knees around him. All rolled beads between their palms, eyes intent upon the glowing peak of the mountain. The yamabushi, unlike the yamahoshi, did not demand that novices shave their heads; so the bonzes as well as the priests had long beards and wild manes of hair. The hair of the priest was longest, and shot with white, and his robes were much heavier. The bonzes were clad in colorful patchwork garments intended for special rituals, and were armed with swords and spears. The priest's spear was longest, barbed, and decorated with strips of colored paper.

They looked magnificent, imposing, and pious. But it struck Tomoe Gozen as slightly humorous that they prayed against the eruption of Kiji-san, never aware of the true source of the crater's continuous glow. The Buddhists respected the celestial abode of the kirin, which was a holy monster, so that they would never approach or molest it as long as it respected their sanctuary as well. Therefore they had never gone up to look inside the mountain, to see what Tomoe Gozen intended to fetch.

As she watched the yamabushi in their serious endeavor, she began to think it a bad idea to let them know her intentions. If they knew she meant to visit the forbidden crater, they might hold her back, certain Kiji-san's wrath would be the result of her trying to injure the kirin. And certainly they would not want to accept the news that they had prayed these many generations to a volcano not really active; for Tomoe knew Buddhists to be stubborn in their beliefs.

There was the other chant, highly pitched, coming from elsewhere, but Tomoe could not at first locate its point of origin. The sutra they performed was not the same as the bonzes and the priest, but it was in harmony with it. Her keen ear located the source, and she was surprised. They were not girls but pretty boys, dressed in white, made to stand on a ledge beneath the frigid waters of the falls. The cold deluge struck the heads of these temple pages, flattened their youthful locks, rolled down their shoulders, and caused their white garments to cling to nubile, shapely bodies. They stood in an orderly group, undaunted, praying fervently that their suffering would appease the mountain for another night.

Tomoe did not interfere with the rites, but found a place to sit, trying to be warm and thinking how much more terrible the cold must be for the stalwart boys. They would become stout monks, and someday priests … if they did not die first.

When the ritual was done, the soaking pages came out from under the falls, revealing no discomfort, and joined their elders on the platform overlooking the pool. Together they faced the glowing mountain peak, and bowed. Then the entire procession retired along the path which would bring them near the place where Tomoe was sitting. She had willfully kept from their sight this whole while, planning to join them after their services were complete, and go with them to their monastery. However, a sudden plan came into her mind, which caused her to scuttle into the woods and keep low, letting the group of pages, bonzes, and priest pass without having detected her.

Her husband Yoshinake was still in doubt that the yamabushi and yamahoshi would leave their retreat to fight side-by-side in the Imperial City. The yamabushi, in addition to despising their rival sect, also took seriously their responsibilities in praying Mount Kiji into nightly silence. It occurred to Tomoe that if Kiji-san were to cease its threatening glow, the yamabushi would take this as a good omen, that the mountain intended to be calm especially so Her worshippers could aid the Knight of Kiso.

“It is not nice to mislead them like that,” Tomoe said to herself, coming back to the path and looking in the direction they had gone. But some of the cleverness of her husband had rubbed off; she could not resist the plan. She would fetch the Golden Naginata
before
visiting the monastery, and it would be doubly easy to acquire their final agreement, when they perceived Kiji-san was quiet in honor of Tomoe's request.

It meant no comfortable quarters tonight, and it would not be possible to climb the cliffs to the crater by darkness. On the last stretch of path leading to the base of the waterfall, she had seen a woodcutter's shack, abandoned and broken in. She hurried back to this place and was pleased to find a cracked hibachi left there, in which she struck a fire and prepared herself for the night.