The Golden Naginata (33 page)

Finally Lord Kiso made time to compose a most gracious correspondence which was taken to the Mikado by the boy who was Go-Temmu's personal companion. The boy was surly and effeminate and Yoshinake did not like him; but he merited some respect since he was the major go-between of these first communications.

The letter Yoshinake composed revealed him a poet indeed; it was quite a pretty tract, lavishing praise on His Augustness but also on himself; and the brunt of its meaning could be taken one of two ways: the
request,
or the
demand,
for favors and titles some of which were mere prestige and others of political advantage to the Rising Sun General. Dare Go-Temmu trust this self-named Liberator? Were there other choices?

Lord Kiso's dull meetings progressed. Tomoe interjected conservative advice which rubbed her husband wrong, and sometimes the shi-tenno-sided with her opinion. Yoshinake was on edge already, awaiting the Mikado's reply, and therefore was unreasonable about almost everything. Late that evening, the surly and too-pretty page returned with the Mikado's missive. Yoshinake dismissed most of those in attendance, save Tomoe and the shi-tenno.

He was in such an ecstatic state that he could not focus his eyes or hold the letter without it shaking too much. The Mikado's own calligraphy! For all Lord Kiso's successes, fame, military expertise, and greatness, he was at heart and by origin a country lord, a provincial, a rough man from the mountains. Never in his life did he expect to hold a letter addressed to him by the Mikado's hand! This may seem a contradiction from a man with audacious plans; but such a contradiction was Kiso Yoshinake, in this and many things.

Without being asked, Tomoe Gozen took the paper from her husband's hand and read it to herself. Then she folded it and put it inside Lord Kiso's sleeve, so that he might take it out and look at it and smell it and feel its every crease when he was alone to do so. To the shi-tenno and for her husband's immediate knowledge, she made this summary:

“Tomorrow aftermoon there will be a celebration for us and our chosen guests in the Mikado's palace, at which time the required titles and commissions will be given.”

Kiso Yoshinake tried to sit with utter composure, a man indifferent to such things. But he could not disguise his feelings. He kicked his feet out from under himself and gave a shout of glee. The shi-tenno—dark Nenoi, pale Tade, young Imai, funny Higuchi—these men laughed with their lord. Tomoe Gozen stood and went outside.

Shortly, meetings came to a close, and Yoshinake's shitenno strolled together through the gardens between the Imperial palace and the military one. This garden was much larger than the one inside the gates of the newly occupied headquarters. The place was like a fairy-forest, especially at dusk, when the whole of the world was most surreal, faded, still. As it was autumn, only a silktree blossomed; but the garden was no less lovely. There had been no battles here; therefore leaves of maple, peach, plum and cherry were still a soft, untrampled mattress. Naked branches were black cracks against the redness and yellow of sunset. There were dwarf pines, green-black in the failing light, and these smelled sweet in lieu of spring's flowers. Servants of the Mikado's palace were about, although few at this hour, lighting garden lanterns as they passed between the hedges and along the magic forest's highway (the lane between the palaces). They were so ethereal in their movements, these servants, that they added to the fairy-quality of the place.

The shi-tenno divided into two couples, and, strolling on, they appeared as pairs of lovers; and indeed it was common knowledge, without the least ill-thought, that dark-skinned dark-clad Nenoi Yukika and light-skinned light-clad Tade Shimataka were the worst enemies of women. It might have been supposed that youthful, playful Imai and Higuchi were more likely to be lovers; but they had not considered it. Imai Kanchira looked so like his sister that, on times, Lord Kiso petted him, and Imai liked his lord's attention, but innocent man that he was, he never was aroused. Higuchi Mitsu was an extraordinary lady's man, his voice as smooth as his face, always eager to make some girl laugh and cause infatuation. In fact this was his weakness; a samurai should be more careful than Higuchi sometimes was. All the same, when these lovely men sat themselves beneath a leafless tree, upon the mattress of the leaves, it must have looked to be a tryst to anyone who noticed. Happy smiles were on their faces and they whispered things which might have been sweet promises, or not. A maid of court happened by the lane, saw them, giggled, and hurried on. Higuchi and Imai saw her in turn, but could not guess what she thought funny.

“There is Amaterasu's obi unrolled across the sky!” said Imai Kanchira of a stripe on the horizon. “Truly she has made herself ready for her bed.”

“That rosy stripe has been there the whole day,” said Higuchi Mitsu. “In fact I've seen it in the sky, unchanged but for position, on each day since your sister brought the yamabushi.”

“That long?” said Imai. “I have not until this moment had the chance to notice!” He sighed, as though disappointed in himself, then added, “I must strive to notice such beauty as that more often.”

Darkness completed its formation as the two men sat and spoke. In the dark, they became more serious in their conversings, and Higuchi Mitsu said,

“Imai, my stalwart, tell me: Do you ever nurture doubts about the thing our lord has planned?”

“Never for a moment!” said Imai, for Lord Kiso was his god. “How can you ask me such a thing?”

Higuchi Mitsu said, “We are among his council. Therefore it is proper that we, along with Nenoi and Tade, think in ways which other vassals never should. In order to give good advice, we must have previously considered every action and its possible outcome. We must even judge the intentions of ourselves, and of our lord. Think for instance of the sorts of advice Tomoe gives in council! It is advice which Nenoi sometimes seconds, so she is not just being a disagreeable wife. She has coined the phrase ‘great treason.' Even Lord Kiso uses it, as though it were an irony and not a terrible fault. You cannot deny our lord is quite a stubborn man.”

“An admirable trait!” said Imai of stubbornness, looking a bit upset with Higuchi's ruminations.

“What we've done until this day,” said Higuchi, “serves equally the Shogun and Mikado, not only our Lord Kiso. From this day hence, this changes. The Mikado becomes our tool as he had been that of the Ryowa. The tool becomes a weapon against Lord Kiso's lord.”

“Lord Kiso's only lord is the Mikado. Why serve first a regent?”

“That's what I asked
you,
” said Higuchi. “For myself, I cannot answer.”

“If I knew you less well,” said Imai Kanchira, “I should question your faith in our lord. You talk as though you think we have merely shuffled power; but truly we have improved matters here. Why do you doubt it? I will not accept that Lord Kiso is an unreasonable man. If it seems so at times, it is only because his reasoning is beyond you and me.”

“Beyond your sister also?”

“Perhaps she calls him unreasonable because her heart is frozen!”

“You think that?” Higuchi Mitsu did not ask his friend to pursue this notion, but said, “It's no insult to say Lord Kiso is stubborn or unreasonable; resolve is always like that, itself a noble thing. Nor is it a contradiction of fealty for his shitenno to consider these things.” Higuchi quoted an old aphorism: “‘They who serve a wicked master are the noblest retainers. Who serves a kind master are never tested.' Do you remember a story, Imai, about a retainer named Hodo Doshijei?”

“Yes I do,” said Imai, and told this tale: “Hodo Doshijei was beaten by his lord and sent on useless errands here and there. For this, he received too little rice to feed his family. Then one day his master received a letter from a wealthy acquaintance. The letter said, ‘Lord Toba, you have a retainer by the name of Hodo Doshijei whose courage I admire. As my own retainers are useless men, I would like to receive Hodo Doshijei as a gift.' Lord Toba sent for his retainer and said, ‘Useless man though you are, yet has someone noticed you, and this someone I dare not resist. Go serve him from now on!' Hodo Doshijei hurried home to tell his family, ‘I have been given the opportunity for us to live more highly, but who would serve Lord Toba if not me? No one likes him, so there is none to serve him well enough.' Therefore Hodo Doshijei composed this letter for the prominent man who was seeking a third or fourth retainer: ‘Sir. I am honored by your desire to have me in your service. As I have many children and live in poverty, I consider this the chance of my life. Yet my present master, who cannot afford a proven man, would be unable to manage his affairs if I abandon him. Though I go hungry everyday of my life, and my wife and children suffer, still must I beg you reconsider my master's position.' Soon enough Lord Toba received this final missive from his acquaintance: ‘You have the only true retainer in Naipon! I have been impressed by his sincerity. Can you forgive my bad manners in trying to take him from you?' Lord Toba sent for his retainer and, when Hodo Doshijei arrived, thrashed him soundly and sent him on some foolish errand.”

Higuchi Mitsu slapped his knee and said, “That is exactly the story! When first it was told to me, before I had the fortune to serve Lord Kiso, I used to think about Hodo Doshijei and ask myself, ‘Was he a stupid man or valiant?'”

“He was exactly like us!” said Imai, glad to have discovered this good way of viewing Yoshinake's occasional irrationality. “Doshijei was an admirable man!”

Standing nearby was a samurai who had approached unnoticed, by accident hearing the end of this conversation. When she set foot off the swept lane, she was heard by the sound of brittle leaves crinkling. She stepped out of darkness, into the light of a garden-lamp, and stood above the two men who had been chatting beneath the leafless peach. “You should not talk so loud,” she said, “or people cannot help but overhear.” Actually she had heard very little; but, since she, too, knew the tale of Hodo Doshijei, she understood completely the good impressions Imai and Higuchi had about themselves. She said, “When your families starve to death,
then
tell yourselves you are men like Hodo Doshijei! When Lord Kiso's errands are useless and he strikes you about the shoulders when you bow, say it then! Hodo Doshijei was a selfless man, whereas
each of us benefits by what we do.
”

Higuchi and Imai looked between their knees, sitting formally beneath her gaze, a gaze as dark as that of Nenoi Yukika in his worst of moods. Seeing she had struck them to the core, and they were filled with doubt about their virtues, Tomoe Gozen softened toward them and said, “Nevertheless you are extraordinary men of battle and have minds as well. You are fine council for Lord Kiso. Please continue to remind him of his other options. If in the end he does not waver, we will see this to its end.”

She brushed past them. They turned upon their knees to see her go; and they bowed a firm agreement, although she did not see them do so.

This was precisely the kind of conscience Tomoe Gozen had become for Yoshinake, his shi-tenno, even the yamabushi. It might have been that she could have presented these things in better ways. Good advice should not make men feel stupid. Even young men like Higuchi and Imai did not like to be made to believe themselves foolish. Wise, reflective men like Nenoi Yukika and Tade Shimataka liked it less. As for Lord Kiso, he could not bear it the slightest, scowling at the sting of Tomoe's blunt opinions. It would have been better to word things in such a way that those corrected were led to believe they thought such things of their own accord. But Tomoe Gozen was convinced her influence was small (which never was the case) and saw no need to do more than register her disapproval from time to time. The result was that many of her ideas were shrugged aside by men who otherwise must feel smaller.

From that moment in the garden, Tomoe ceased attending important meetings, thinking her input little valued. She did so of her own accord, but there were none eager to insist she come. That is how it happened that she was thereafter excluded from things Lord Kiso truly would prefer to share.

As the yamabushi had been mostly under her command, Tomoe Gozen was not certain she could ignore their reported behavior. She strode the nighted avenues of Kyoto to judge for herself. Everywhere was dance and laughter where that morning had been terror. The night was lit by multitudes of paper lanterns of every color and by the strangely luminescent band of rosy mist in the sky. Samurai and warrior-monks tested one another playfully, only occasionally injuring by accident; and as accidents were considered part of the games, none had vengeful thoughts. Girls and women who had never seen or heard such deviltry as was going on were less aghast than might have been expected. Many were titillated beyond recount. Some gave up their mildness in favor of indulgence. A few were glad to offer their virginity to bonze or samurai; although it was later avowed that fewer of those ladies were as virginal as purported. Many colorful costumes were worn askew. A city noted for its taste and etiquette came apart at its seams; but one could be of the opinion that the pretty ways of the Imperial City could do with these kinds of improvements.

She was less appalled than she had thought she would be, though there was very little which appealed to her personal sense of celebration. Perhaps those aristocratic complainers who sent letters to Lord Kiso were stuffy old men and prudish old women. Certainly there was no dearth of
young
nobility playing in these streets. Some of them may have thought it a kind of tribute to their liberator, himself a man from an unruly province, trained through youth by the mountain priests before he raised his armies. Many words of praise were said for Yoshinake; a fragment of a sentence heard here, another over there, informed Tomoe of this. Perhaps things did not go so badly as Tomoe had been fearing! If the citizens were pleased, then she had been wrong to tell him to be more attentive of their needs; Lord Kiso knew the situation better than she!