The Golden Naginata (23 page)

“Oshina!” Tomoe called. “I have come with a birthday gift for Koshi!”

Oshina appeared in the dark doorway of the shrine-house, wiping hands on the towel which hung from the front of her obi. She bowed and greeted Tomoe and, while as usual the young mother did not smile, Tomoe thought the woman was glad to see her. “I worried for you,” said Oshina. “But I have made rice cakes so that we can celebrate your final visit.” There was sadness in the promise of the celebration, for it was evident from the beginning that once Tomoe had visited the second monastery in addition to the first, taking Taro with her, neither the samurai nor the friendly dog were liable to come to Lost Shrine anymore. All the same, a small party with good rice cakes sounded like just the thing for Tomoe, who said,

“And to celebrate Koshi's birthday!”

Oshina nodded, and the faintest glimmer of a smile broke her melancholy expression. Tomoe entered the house, leaving the naginata named Inazuma-hime in the outer chamber, and leaving her longsword and sandals there as well. Lanterns lit the main room, and coals burned in a large ceramic pot, making the poor shrine-house modestly comfortable and homey. Koshi was propped up on a wicker back-basket so that he could see the affair, if he could see anything. His dark eyes still did not blink; his expression did not change; he did not turn his head when there was any motion. His little claw-like hands grasped the blanket which was wrapped around him. Oshina went into a dark, adjoining room to get the rice cakes. While she was out, Tomoe sat on her knees beside Koshi and whispered to him,

“You must be brave like your mother. You must return your spirit to your flesh. Life is very hard, I know; but half your blood is that of the Rooster Clan, so you can be as strong as a samurai if you try a little harder.” She was going to say more even though Koshi seemed not to hear; but Oshina shuffled into the room with a large tray of rice cakes and pickles made from fernbrake. She sat the tray on the floor in front of Tomoe and Koshi. There was tea for everyone as well.

Tomoe ate with her fingers. “It's good,” she said. Oshina broke her cake to feed part of it to Koshi. When food entered his mouth, he began to chew and swallow in a mechanical way. Where his deformed mouth turned down, he tended to dribble as he ate, but Oshina kept his face clean with a towel.

After eating two cakes and accepting Oshina's desire to refill the samurai's teacup, Tomoe remembered, “The gift!” She reached into her baggy sleeve-pocket and came out with a colorful paper ball. “It is not, strictly speaking, a gift from me, but from a wandering temple-clown who was staying in the yamabushi temple while I visited there. He was despondent because the yamabushi are not a sect to warm up to a clown, and no one but me was interested in his juggling. To cheer him up, I told him I would like to buy one of his juggling-balls for a young friend's birthday. He would take no payment, but gave the ball to me freely, saying he made new ones now and then in any case. So this small gift is from the temple-clown more than me.”

Oshina took the light, round object in both of her hands, and held it before Koshi's face. “Do you see?” she said to the motionless boy. “The paper has crane-designs on it, Koshi! It means long life and courage!” Oshina smiled most widely now, though tears were in her eyes, and Tomoe Gozen was moved by the mother's happiness.

Then Oshina began to shed her tears for the first time, whether from gladness or sorrow Tomoe was uncertain. The young mother bowed to Tomoe rigorously as she said, “Thank you! Thank you very much!” which was embarrassing to Tomoe in the circumstance. She held Oshina by her shoulders to keep her from bowing anymore. Oshina wiped her eyes and then, turning to the pot of warm coals, dropped Koshi's paper ball within. Almost immediately, it caught fire, and Tomoe looked confused about the destruction of the gift. Oshina said,

“Now the spirit of the ball will find Koshi's spirit in the Dry River of the Hollow Land, where the souls of dead children live.” Finally, facing Tomoe in a formal position, hands upon her knees, the composed and again-melancholy mother expressed her gratitude in a few unemotional words. Tomoe rubbed her nose uncomfortably, then drank the rest of her tea, wishing it were saké. “It is nothing,” she insisted. “It is less than every child deserves.”

The next morning she set out for the yamahoshi retreat on Mount Kuji. The eager dog ran ahead, up the mountain trail, chasing some bird or rodent Tomoe could not see. “Beware of foxes, Taro!” she scolded, laughing at him. They rose above the deciduous woods of the second mountain's base, to the tremendous evergreen forests higher up.

As she went, using the long handle of the Golden Naginata as a staff, Tomoe tried not to remember the contained, unebbing sorrow of Koshi's mother, or the sad state of the boy himself. She reminded herself instead of the good fortune she had had, meeting with yamabushi two days earlier. The
Zasu
or chief abbot had agreed to send the priests in his command, along with as many bonzes as could be rallied from outlying temples, to a village near Kyoto on the date required, where Tomoe Gozen would meet them and serve as their general. In addition, a particularly strong group of warrior-monks from a temple in the hills above Kyoto would be sent in advance, to give religious authority to Yoshinake's initial take-over. The Zasu further guaranteed that every animosity toward the rival yamahoshi would be set aside for the duration of their mutual service to Kiso Yoshinake. The head of the monastery had noticed that Kiji-san no longer glowed threateningly and, as Tomoe had predicted, this was taken as an omen in Yoshinake's behalf. Today, Tomoe hoped for equal luck dealing with the stubborn yamahoshi.

There was no quick emergency-route up Kuji-san, but neither was the regular path as winding and indirect as that which led to the other mountain's monastery. Tomoe went with long strides and found evidence of monks' activity well before nightfall. Before a grave-marking pole, several sticks of incense had been set in a pot, and none were yet burned more than halfway down.

The evergreens were extraordinarily thick and overhanging, so everything had a dark, ghostly appearance even in the day. Here and there among the trees, there were small dwellings whose doors were shut; but through wooden bars Tomoe could see that they housed individual Bodhisattvas or similar deities and relics. From within these dwellings she heard the murmurings of prayers, but did not see the bonzes. She proceeded along shadowy paths and up mossy stairways, wary of every dark place, as though expecting a mountain oni to leap out at any time.

It should not be dusk yet, but it was. The monastery was apparently situated in such a place that, during this season, the sun passed behind Kuji-san early in the day. Taro stayed close to Tomoe, as though he, too, worried about the forest's eeriness, and would be near to protect his mistress without delay.

Further up the way, acolytes with lanterns twinkling between the trees were going in a slow procession. They had silk cloths over their heads and were humming wordlessly as they went.

“Samurai!”

Taro yelped and Tomoe looked back abruptly. She saw a bonze standing lower on the stairway, a coronet upon his shaven head, his rosary dangling from one hand, a pole-axe in his other. He was not in a threatening posture, but Tomoe was leery of him, for she was unused to the idea of someone stealthy enough to come up behind her unheard.

“Did I startle you?” he asked. “I apologize.”

He had a pleasant, handsome visage, and was young. Tomoe's mistrust eased away. She said, “I am Tomoe Gozen of Heida, come for the final decision about my husband's petition.”

“My Buddhist name is Hagi-o,” said the bonze, bowing. “I know little of the temple's politics, so cannot personally reply to you. Unfortunately, our Zasu has died in the night, and there are only a few novices such as myself guarding the premises, while those in authority are deep in mourning, meditation, and prayer. I do not know if anyone can speak with you tonight.”

“I hope some meeting can be arranged,” she insisted. “There are other matters as well, each needing timely consideration.”

The young bonze led Tomoe to the monastery and through its gates. The place was situated on a bluff which made it almost impervious to attack, and was so hemmed in by trees that it was nearly impossible to see from any distance. Beyond the gate were a number of paths. She followed through areas not much less wild than the forest itself, then by several small vegetable gardens in which no one had tilled that day. She was taken past the chapel which stood hunched against the rear wall of the huge, enclosed grounds, coming to a long, low building with almost no lanterns lit within. Taro was made to sit outside. The bonze lit one lantern for the room Tomoe was brought to. He said, “You may stay here for the night. Perhaps tomorrow someone will be able to see you.”

The bonze started to leave, but Tomoe made a disgruntled noise. She said, “There must be someone I can impose upon at once. Forgive my insisting, but how could I sleep tonight? The Zasu I came to meet has died; I do not even know who has taken his place. The Knight of Kiso has made certain arrangements previously. How does this untimely parting from the world influence past negotiations?”

“I know nothing of these matters,” the bonze said, looking upset that she would put him in such a position. “We do not ourselves know who next will master the temple.”

“Another matter, then,” said Tomoe more calmly, taking the shaku from her obi. The bonze recognized it as soon as she removed the cloth. He exclaimed,

“That belonged to Shindo!” His expression at first looked puzzled. Then realization etched sorrow on his brow. “Has Shindo died also?”

“He asked me to bring this shaku to his fight-instructor, to apologize in Shindo's name for not returning as he had promised.”

Young Hagi-o looked close to tears; and he made his handsome face quite ugly in his effort to hold back from crying. Tomoe could well imagine that there were not more than two such sensitive men in a place as severe as this, so that Hagi-o and Shindo would therefore have been close friends.

“It's been a sad day,” said Hagi-o. “Please wait here for a little while and I will see who is available.”

Tomoe was left alone in the quiet, dimly lit interior. The paper windows were as thin as the filament of an egg, through which she was able to trace the rising of the moon. A long time passed and, to calm her impatience, Tomoe watched the shadows on the rice-paper doors. The moon was a brilliant painter, making a naked branch into a silhouette against the paper. Tomoe sat on her knees, looking up; she looked at the seeming-painting. A breeze passed through the temple yards, and so the moon's brush-strokes were caused to shake.

Some insect, in the warmth and light of a garden's lantern, did not know it was time to sleep, and so was singing.

For all its austerity, it was a beautiful place, Tomoe realized; even if it were haunted, she would think the same.

The door behind her slid open. Hagi-o had returned so quietly that once again Tomoe had not heard him coming. “Shindo's instructor, Makine Hei, who I have told about the shaku, would like to receive it from you himself, as was Shindo's desire.”

She followed Hagi-o past the main chapel, on the further side of which was a large building containing the dojo where bonzes were given martial training. It was dark within, and their shuffling footsteps echoed in the instruction hall.

At the far end of the gymnasium was a raised platform on which a huge, heavy-bodied priest sat facing a reliquary. His wild mane covered broad shoulders and hung far down his back. He was praying to the funeral tablet inside the reliquary while incense trailed from the bowl in front of it. The bonze waited until the priest had offered a sutra for every bead of his rosary, and then said,

“Instructor. I have brought her as you said.”

Tomoe approached the platform and sat on her knees before it. The bonze backed out of the dojo and shuffled to his post of guarding the grounds this night. Outside, Taro whined a little. “Sohei,” said Tomoe, addressing him by the respectful title for soldier-clergy. “Officially I am here about this monastery's allegiance to the Knight of Kiso. Unofficially I am here about the Gate to Hell, through which I petition entrance for a cause. Most personally, I am here about bonze Shindo, who performed the wedding ceremony for Yoshinake and myself.”

The priest stood, still facing the reliquary, and bowed to the funeral tablet therein. Then he turned around to see Tomoe Gozen, but stood so much in shadow that Tomoe could not see his features. For an uncomfortable length of time, he stood there, a mountainous mountain-priest, his dark robes and rosary and shortsword and personal bulk making him a frightful, ghostly shape. Then he stepped down from the platform and approached the samurai, coming not too close before he got down on his knees as she. Now his face was visible, long-bearded and thick-browed and gloomy to extreme. Tomoe looked startled. Even with his hair long and face fully bearded, she recognized him. She exclaimed, “Goro!” for it was her lost friend Goro Maki.

“That is not my name anymore,” his resonant, measured voice explained. “I am Makine Hei, chief instructor of the temple, and after special services tomorrow, head priest as well.”

“Delightful news!” exclaimed Tomoe, but caught herself, for it was a sorrowful occasion as well, the previous Zasu having died. But she and Goro were old friends. She could be honest with him, and said softly, “There were doubts that the yamahoshi would ride with the rival yamabushi into battle. Now I see there is no more need for concern.”

Makine Hei did not reply, nor alter his severe expression.

Tomoe regained her natural composure, for she had bad news to offer. She held out the shaku and said, “This was the head of a staff belonging to a bonze whom you instructed …”

“I know it,” said Makine Hei, more quickly than he usually spoke. “It was forged in this temple and no two are the same. How have you come by so personal a treasure?”