The Golden Naginata (32 page)

However, the yamabushi were outraged that the palanquin was mishandled and the wooden god stained red. They thought Lord Kiso ought to respond more hotly than he was inclined to do. Tomoe Gozen, who had led the bulk of the yamabushi these few days, felt a certain responsibility to them, and said to her husband, “I will handle this.”

She selected eighteen men of the yamabushi, men she had been impressed with in the battles. On her white horse, its horned mask lacquered white; with her red-lacquered bow and her arrows fletched with crimson feathers and points the shape of willow leaves; in her black enameled bamboo armor with bright red cords; with a white flag mounted on her back and sticking up high; with her helmet sporting a crescent moon of gold; with the Golden Naginata named Princess Lightning in her hand and two swords at her side; Tomoe Gozen led the charge through the gates into the garden of the Ryowa chiefs' headquarters. The guards, one hundred against eighteen, surrounded the yamabushi who were on foot and the woman who was on horseback. She paraded the horse before them, her naginata wavering before their faces, and they did not attack. The yamabushi were variously armed with naginata or swords or iron staffs with rings on top. They stood ready. Tomoe Gozen shouted loud enough for the generals inside the palace to hear, “With arrows and blades Tomoe Gozen of Heida, wife of Lord Kiso Yoshinake the Rising Sun General, has fought her way into the palace yard with eighteen men at her side! We come to avenge the ill-considered treatment of Ida-ten! The weapons we bring with us bear names as famous as our own, including Inazuma-hime! The men left dead outside the gate could not stand against us. Can these one hundred here do better? See how they hesitate!”

The hundred men, insulted, started forward, but the weapons of the yamabushi went upward to the call, and Tomoe Gozen's Golden Naginata swept in front of them, and they held back once more. She shouted, “We will take our time doing what we must! Generals inside, do you hear this? We will take our time!” Then the battle was engaged with a flurry of strokes and limbs flying. It could have been finished quickly, but it was polite to give the chief-generals every opportunity to complete the rituals of seppuku, to say goodbye to one another in their palace, to write their death-poems and make known their last requests.

At length the final guard was slain, by which time the besieged generals had completed their rituals. All but one died with their bellies slit. The one general still living stepped out onto a porch to survey defeat.

This clan elder did not at first appear to be as old as Tomoe would have expected. He came out of the military palace, gazed upon the corpse-strewn garden, saw that only yamabushi were left standing, plus a woman on a white charger. His eyes stopped not upon the woman, but upon her Golden Naginata held to rest. As for himself, he carried a long spear; it was clear he intended to die fighting, being of a particular school which taught this to be the only Way. He said, “I refuse to die by seppuku!” His hand reached up to the spear's tip to remove the lacquered sheath. The two-edged, arm-long blade glistened eerie blue. Tomoe studied first the weapon, then the man, trying to guess his true age. His hair was coal black, but his eyes and gnarled fingers looked old. It could be none other than Tsuneme Heizan, who since his seventieth year had dyed his hair with ink so that, in battle, none would think him feeble and hold back.

“Grandfather Heizan,” said Tomoe Gozen. “These eighteen monks were hand-chosen by myself and, as you can see, they have helped me slay five times our number, without receiving a scratch. Nevertheless, I am sure none of these fine men are strong enough to kill you.”

“Only yourself!” Tsuneme Heizan agreed. Then he said, “Before we begin, allow me to tell you a story; it will not take long. When I was a young man, there was a blind warrior who bore the same naginata now in your possession. I remember her well. In fact, I was her first husband's rival, and her second husband's foe. The Ryowa clan contributed to her eventual downfall, but we relied on intrigue, not physical strength. All these years I have feared she might return, while at the same time I have been sad that she did not. Can you believe it?” He laughed at himself. “‘Old Man Heizan' they have called me, despite that my hair is not a bit white, as you can see; ‘Old Man Heizan fears an aged nun!' But really what I feared was the Golden Naginata, which many times has killed me in my dreams. To overcome this fear, fifty years ago I commissioned the sorcerer-smith Jimei to forge this spear you see before you now. It took forty-eight moon-cycles for him to make it, attended the whole time by fox-devils and spirits of the fire. To test it, I attacked Jimei, and killed him despite his magic; so this is his final and most remarkable creation. I have not used it since, for it was forged for one thing only, to destroy the weapon you call Inazuma-hime. Mine is named ‘Bolt Catcher' and will finish off your lightning!”

Tomoe slid casually from the saddle, gave her quiver, her bow, and her white flag to one of the monks, and took a proper stance with Inazuma-hime. “I welcome it!” said Tomoe Gozen.

Tsuneme Heizan leapt down from the porch into the garden, an agile man despite his years. It was true he was skillful! He had, these long years, practiced every day. His style was the perfection of the Shinto Gods. It was the enlightenment of Buddha. Tomoe was impressed. When the two-edged spear struck the one-edged naginata, blue sparks and yellow sparks flew upward like fireflies, and the yamabushi moved away from this electricity. The armored woman stepped backward as the spear passed before her throat. Tsuneme Heizan blocked her return attack, and sparks flew upward again.

“Bolt Catcher is strong!” said Tomoe. “But what of Grandfather Heizan?”

“He also is strong!” said Tsuneme Heizan.

“I think so, too,” said Tomoe. “But maybe his lungs are not what once they were. Maybe he will grow weary.”

Sparks scattered a third time. The sorcerous spear and the Golden Naginata were evenly matched. Furthermore, Grandfather Heizan was without question Naipon's foremost practitioner of
yari-jutsu
, spear-art. But Tomoe Gozen was calm throughout, whereas Heizan grew more and more insistent, as though knowing he had only a few minutes to win, or thereafter be too tired. It was not long before Inazuma-hime scraped along the handle of Bolt Catcher, and Tsuneme Heizan's fingers were clipped away and fell onto the ground, writhing like wrinkled maggots. The sorcery-forged yari fell onto the ground as well, splitting a rock where one edge of the blade struck and rang. The old warrior slipped to his knees.

“Please,” Tsuneme Heizan requested, “my coup de grace.” He held his chin so that Tomoe Gozen would be able to pierce his neck. She handed the Golden Naginata to the same monk who had taken her arrows, bow, and flag. She drew forth her longsword, prepared to deliver the coup de grace required. She hesitated, feeling sad. Sweat dripped from Heizan's forehead, mixed with the ink he wore upon his hair, giving him a striped look. “That nun still lives,” she told him. “The nun you loved and feared. Next to her convent is a peaceful monastery. Let me cut your hair and not your throat! What harm a little peace in your last years?”

“It's too late for such a thing,” said Heizan, who had this while remained upon his knees, holding his fingerless hands against his waist. Now Tomoe Gozen saw blood seeping out from under the old man's obi. She realized he had committed seppuku after all, but, finding he could still move about, stuffed the belly-wound with cotton, wrapped his obi tightly to stay the flow of blood, and had come out to die in battle
in addition
to honored seppuku.

“The coup de grace,” he asked again. Instead of stabbing, Tomoe reared back with her sword and lopped off the old man's head. To a nearby monk she said, “Wipe the ink from his face and place him over there with those young men.” Then she took up the weapon called Bolt Catcher, took her bow and arrow and flag and Golden Naginata, climbed upon the white charger, and hurried to the Place of Tents to inform her husband they could take the military palace as their own.

By sorrow, by valor, by fear and by wit did the old clan perish or, failing that, fled into the west with two-thirds of Yoshinake's troops in pursuit. This was in accordance with the Shogun's wishes, though he remained in faraway Kamakura; so how could he have guessed what Yoshinake's additional intentions might have been? As soon as the Mikado could be imposed upon to confer suitable titles and authorities upon the Knight of Kiso, he would consider himself sufficiently qualified to march on the military capital, a fortnight's journey on, and take control of the military office, the bakufu …
that
was his intent. “My cousin and Madame Hojo presently rule Naipon,” said Yoshinake to his wife, in a rare mild moment. “In a while, it will be you and I.”

Although he said this; although he no doubt meant it to be a mutual endeavor from start to end; minds and reasons change, and Tomoe Gozen was at the brink of being severed from secret matters and discussions. When this came about, it would be her fault entirely; for she had too often been the conscience, and not the buttress, of Kiso Yoshinake.

It was not that she intended to be contrary. She strove to find some element of gladness in the prospect of Lord Kiso's proposed dominion. Her honor, her duty, these hinged not on power gained personally, but on service to her lord. It was the same for any samurai. The fact that serving the Knight of Kiso could be construed as serving also her own material and political interests was not invigorating, but unsettling. Yet it had been the same with Madame Hojo, states woman without peer. She fought beside her husband until they achieved regency through the Mikado; thereafter she influenced and sometimes dictated official policy, became, virtually, one and the same with the Shogun. She was younger than him by far; and whenever he should die, it was never questioned but that she would cut her hair and rule as
Ama
or Nun Shogun, regent to her child.

Tomoe Gozen tried to believe this course would be as admirable for herself as it had been for Madame Hojo. But the situations differed in important details, so it was difficult to hold Madame Hojo as the correct model, therefore difficult to applaud the possibility that Tomoe Gozen might rule Naipon at a husband's side.

Struggle as she might to feel better, what Tomoe Gozen felt was a strange and penetrating melancholy regarding this planned treason. To escape crippling sorrow, she sheltered within herself one major truth: If she served Lord Kiso properly, she need not fear anything else being in discord with her warrior's code. To be in harmony with ones lord's intentions was as much harmony as any wife, or any vassal, should require.

Even thinking this, sometimes Tomoe's tongue became sharp when it should not. Sometimes it was sharp when warranted, but no one liked to hear it.

When a quietness of sorts settled on Kyoto—when the killing at least had gone west—a good deal of celebrating arose within the city, at first instigated by the citizens who were glad the fighting ended. But soon events took on a ribald flavor unexpected by those native to the city, for the yamabushi were given to extremes of austerity
and
excess, depending on the day.

The liberator, his wife, his shi-tenno, and other important vassals had moved into the military palace (from whence the imperial palace was in view, connected by a private road and string of gardens). During a meeting between warriors of rank and sundry messengers, it was mentioned that the yamabushi were being wicked. The city yearned for a return to its usual placidity. A quieter, observance of the liberation might be preferred. These were the couched and second-hand suggestions passed along from aristocrats … aristocrats not yet certain whether or not to be delighted with the loss of their turnkeys.

Kyoto had never known such unrestrained revelry as appeared able and willing to continue unabated. Gentle, courtly people soon felt not liberated from, but abandoned by, the clan who had protected them from such knowledge as they quickly gained. Was this, or was this not, abusive language and behavior? Were these or were these not truly holy men who went helter-skelter through the city drinking saké, making noise, and pushing people over?

A few more carefully worded petitions made their way into the meeting place of the palatial headquarters. Kiso Yoshinake was not the most subtle of men, except in certain matters of poetry, and he might have responded better to a louder plea, such as, “Call off your filthy, uncouth priests!” To the quieter requests he answered, “The city is their reward!” Perhaps he misunderstood the importance of the matter. When complaints persisted, he said, “No more!”

Already he was asking to be cut off from the needs of those he purported to oversee. Already he became a tyrant, and his rule scant hours old.

It may be supposed that about this time Go-Temmu in his slightly smaller palace at the far end of a lane, insulated from affairs as he had always been, began to doubt the promises of freedom. Kiso Yoshinake had not as yet requested conference. In itself this was mannerly behavior; go-betweens and messengers were the usual and polite means of communication between the two palaces. Yet Lord Kiso broke so many other rules; why not this one? The Mikado may well have observed this to be evidence of his own continued seclusion from matters of state. Yet he had means!

His palace, overlooked by the other, had a small but steady stream of messengers and servants going back and forth between the two. Few were authorized to walk the connecting road and gardens, but who would hinder such dainty people as these? Who more than they belonged upon that lane and midst those trees?

Both palaces came alive with intrigue—Go-Temmu's intrigues. The ears of pages and dancing girls were pressed to walls, striving for news of samurai intentions. Whenever a warrior caught some maid or page or old groundkeeper or cook or stablehand in those spying endeavors, they would threaten to cut off noses and ears; but in actuality, Yoshinake felt unthreatened by the Mikado's attempts to be abreast of news, and gave no order to interfere with any of his people. Around the chambers where important matters were discussed, enough guards were placed; elsewhere, let His Augustness play as many games as he desired! It was mere courtesy to allow him this.