The Golden Naginata (42 page)

There was unexpected excitement in the other room. The menstruating women were chattering about some visitor.

This is why Shan On began to trust Tsuki Izutsu:

At dawn, the red nun stood above the white nun, the threatening posture momentarily convincing Shan On that her visitor meant harm. But Tsuki Izutsu meant to be judged by everything she was, and everything she had ever been, and by her power opened up her mind to an unprepared Shan On. They were not memories
per se
that Shan On saw; she did not come out of Tsuki's mind having witnessed death and ascent from Emma's Hell, for instance; nor had she experienced Tsuki's mind as a series of dissertations on the nature of herself. Rather, what she touched was the essence of the red nun, stumbling over scars which held together the old Tsuki and the new Tsuki, the old with gentle humor and the new with constant pain both physical and emotional. The leg, how it hurt. The love of all things living, how it ached and washed pale. The fear of shadows, how it welled then ebbed away. The part of her that wished only to destroy, how shallow
that
part was, how insincere. In a moment, Shan On was free of Tsuki's bared self; surely to have been smitten by the red nun's staff would have been less painful. Shan On gasped air as though she had run a dozen miles. She looked up from where she sat upon her knees, up into the one visible eye of Tsuki Izutsu, the eye shining in the dimly lit room.

“How could I have known?” Shan On whispered, uncertain what it was she knew.

Tsuki Izutsu did not pity herself, and Shan On would not pity her either. The nun in white robe and yellow hood felt, instead, a fierce admiration for the spirit that bore so much and yet was unbroken.

At the same time Shan On knew that she was dealing with a woman capable of natural, raw sorcery. Could she have fabricated and projected this admiration and the emotional peaks and valleys, convinced by means of hypnotism that Shan On had seen the furthest edges of Tsuki's heart and mind? It was a thing to be considered. Shan On had been raised by a
miko,
a Shinto priestess, and it had been the shame of Shan On that there had been no natural sorcery in her, nothing to be trained and honed. Were it the red nun the priestess had raised and tutored, what a great prophetess and healer Tsuki would have been!

“As you are wise enough not to pity me,” said the red nun in a surprisingly gentle voice, “be kind to yourself as well, and spare no envy.”

It was true she had experienced a moment's envy, for what would Shan On have given to have pleased her aged guardian before the old miko died. As it were, the priestess on her deathbed told her, “You are not intended to be a Shinto priestess, for your mother is a Buddhist nun, who sends that other pantheon to watch over you with care.” How sad a day it was! To lose one mother and regain another. Shan On's faith ran too deep for her to abandon the Shinto gods, but she took a yellow hood in honor of her blood-mother, and honored simultaneously the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. What Shan On lacked in supernatural ability she made up for by her wonderful capacity for faith in gods of all sorts. It rendered her an admirable exorcist, though she could not conjure, and she had become a foremost advocate of
shinto-ryobu,
the Two Ways of the Gods.

“As you have seen my spirit,” said Tsuki Izutsu, shattering the silence once more, “so have I entered the door of your most quiet existence. Please believe that we do understand one another perfectly.”

Shan On was much older than her ageless face implied, and wise in her ways, if conservative. And she was trusting. If it were her own life at stake, she would not hesitate; but it was the fate of Tomoe Gozen she was asked to give in trust. There was still the possibility of sorcery at work, breaking down her will: the same sorcery Tsuki Izutsu sent ahead of herself, to be sure Shan On made soup enough for three. The same sorcery which created that momentary, overwhelming link of minds (and had the red nun done this consciously?). Shan On considered all these things before she said,

“I will not give absolute credence to the strength, or the weakness, you have revealed about yourself; although if what I saw was true, surely there is no greater being in this world than you. Yet I will trust you, not for what your sorcery unveiled, but for what I see with my own eyes. By your actions and your words I know that you are wounded, and I have seen this also about Tomoe Gozen. You have tried to make me understand that Tomoe needs your presence, but what I see instead is that you need hers. Perhaps, indeed, you are each the poultice the other one requires.”

Tomoe's last six days in the sangoya were spent with Tsuki Izutsu ever near. The daylight hours remained a nuisance of heat and interruptions from village grandmothers and menstruating women, all of them well-intending busybodies, and of a class Tomoe Gozen frankly could not relate to for long periods of time. The evenings were more pleasant, filled by endless conversations between herself and Tsuki, sharing one another's feelings until long into the nights.

“I am glad that I was of use to you,” Tomoe said, and truly it provided her a sense of tremendous relief to know her trip into the Lands of Roots and Gloom had been of some avail. In the warm evenings, Tsuki sat half-clad, unashamed of the scarred half of her face and body where Tomoe was concerned. Tomoe added, “But the oni devil lurks among the grasses outside the sangoya, and you rarely show the whole of your face to others. Perhaps I was of less use than a better life required.”

Tsuki sat in the dim moonlight filtering through the rice-paper window. She coddled Tomoe's child, for Tomoe did not wish to do so. Her lame leg could not be folded beneath herself, so her position was informal, one leg sticking out and the other held close to herself. Tiny baby hands reached up and stroked the ruined part of Tsuki's face; her own hand, the one with crooked fingers, touched the child's face in turn.

“We must each of us bear our scars and devils,” said Tsuki. “It is not so hard for me.”

Often, in those few days with Tsuki, Tomoe was set to considering her own scars and devils, evaluating her sense of failure, confronting her personal and varied guilts and easing them away, planning what she would do with her future, arranging in her mind the pieces of her life. She weighed her widowhood with Tsuki's lifelong chastity; it was discussed until they had no more to say. Tomoe's reluctant motherhood was compared to Tsuki's quick maternalism. Each considered their past acts, sometimes inconsequential, sometimes ferocious, often of doubtful intent or outcome. In some of these things it was decided that Tomoe was the stronger, and in other things they agreed Tsuki was the most able to cope. Their weaknesses and faults, strengths and positive attributes, tended to balance one another: where Tomoe was uncertain, Tsuki felt secure; where Tsuki was confused, Tomoe saw an answer. Each woman soothed the other. Toward the end of that week together, they realized they were more alike than not, different as their lives might be.

“Have you thought to cut your hair?” Tsuki asked in the middle of one night, suggesting that Tomoe be a nun. “You said you feared to be like Okumi, the nun who told you of the Golden Naginata; but not all sects require seclusion, as I myself am evidence. You could be
komuso,
a wandering mendicant. Then it would cause Wada Yoshimora a loss of face to pursue you, for what pious man could lust for Buddha's woman? Also, it would cause people to say, ‘How strong she is, to give up her family and retire from worldly things.' Whereas, if you continue to pursue the fame of a samurai, people will say, ‘How wicked to abandon her sweet child like that.'”

“I have thought these very things,” confessed Tomoe. “It is a dilemma for me. Were I to cut my hair as many widows do, surely it would be an affront to any Buddha whenever I might pray, for it would be the Thousands of Myriads I addressed instead of Him. Also, though I would be judged better to have abandoned this child for a holier life, than if I abandoned him for continued fame as a warrior, still in my own heart I would have to cope with what I had really done—that is, failed to love him. Few will know of my child in any event, so there is only me to judge myself. All that I have known is bushido, and I think I will continue to pursue the Way, and try never to regret the things I have lost or left behind.”

“Forgive my trying to choose your path,” said Tsuki, lowering her face. “Only you can know what is best for you.”

On the last day in the sangoya, there was a “Going Out” celebration with several grandmothers, three menstruating peasants, the red nun, and the sangoya's midwife: Shan On. Tomoe was embarrassed by it, and felt dishonest clad in peasant cottons, holding her child as a loving mother might. She forced herself to smile and tried to show that, yes, she felt gratitude to these women, although throughout the twenty days she had been mostly rude or despondent.

It was early afternoon when she, Shan On, Tsuki, and the unnamed child left the last ashes of burnt bedding by the river and walked toward Shan On's house by Shigeno Valley Cemetery. Tomoe handed the child to Tsuki, and did not look at him during the short trek. To the side of the road, the oni devil hid, followed, curious and jealous of the way Tsuki cooed to the baby.

The women and child arrived at the house by the cemetery. There, Shan On made bitter tea, which fitted the occasion, and there was trust and relaxation while they sat together. After a while, Tomoe traded the peasant cottons from the sangoya for her hakama trousers and haori waistcoat, which Shan On had kept. She bowed to her swords and apologized to them for more than twenty days of neglect. There was, among the things Shan On had kept for Tomoe, the carved wooden sheath of the Golden Naginata.

“Shan On,” said Tomoe, “you may already know that this sheath was long kept by your mother. It has been passed along to me, but my path will be difficult, and I can guard no possessions beyond my swords. I do not think I would be remiss to let you keep the sheath safe for me, or for the next hero of Naipon who needs it for some cause.”

The white nun received the sheath with pleasure, and ran slender fingers over the carved surface, sensing it was a holy and magic thing.

“Have you decided about the child,” asked Shan On, who had not been privy to six days of conversations between Tomoe and Tsuki Izutsu.

“He has been discussed,” said Tomoe, looking quickly to the bundle in Tsuki's arms. “There are wet nurses in the Castle. They attend the babes of vassals' wives. Tsuki will take my child to Madame Shigeno, who is not the sort to marry, and so requires an heir by adoption. Only she need know the boy's parentage.”

“You can do this?” asked Shan On.

“You know I can,” said Tomoe.

“Do you know that Wada Yoshimora has put guards and spies along the roads out of this valley? His informants knew that you visited the Castle many months ago, and, though you were turned away, none saw you leave the valley.”

“Tsuki mentioned it to me,” said Tomoe.

“How will you escape?”

“You have returned to me my swords,” said Tomoe.

“There is another way,” said Shan On, not liking the promise of more violence. “I will go into the castle-town where samurai live, and cause a rumor to be spread through the gay district. The rumor will be that you are hiding in some storage house behind an inn. The nearest men serving Wada Yoshimora are those who guard Hisa Yasu bridge, over the north forest river. They will be first to respond to the rumor and search the storage houses. At dusk, you will be able to slip over the bridge and away from Shigeno Valley without interference.”

“If you would be so daring,” said Tomoe, “I will accept your plan.”

“I will go at once,” said Shan On. “The summer days are long; I have several hours to plant false information here and there. Please do not be anxious, but wait until the sun is low.”

“Do not worry about me after this,” aaid Tomoe Gozen. “And do not let yourself be detected as my friend.”

Tsuki stood in the open doorway, watching the white nun walk the path through the cemetery, off toward the castletown surrounding Shigeno Castle. Tsuki held Tomoe's child in the crook of one arm, and her walking staff was held in her other hand.

“You must go also,” said Tomoe. Tsuki stepped out of the cottage without looking back, but asked softly,

“Will we meet each other soon?”

Tomoe did not answer. Tsuki Izutsu limped down the stairway from Shan On's house to the graveyard. It was important for the two nuns not be seen together, but Tsuki must use the same route through the cemetery, toward Shigeno Castle. There, by whatever means necessary, she would gain admittance to the castle, and audience with Madame Shigeno. Already, her desire went ahead of her, influencing the thoughts of guards who might otherwise stand in her way, sending Madame Shigeno herself a priming message of curiosity about a nun-in-red and something she would bring. This ability to “pave the way” was but one of Tsuki's half-realized magicks.

At the foot of the steps, at the edge of the cemetery, Tsuki Izutsu turned around and looked up at the doorway to Shan On's house. But Tomoe Gozen was not standing there, did not watch Tsuki go, did not say goodbye to the nameless child. It was best this way.

In the solitude of the cedar-shaded house of Shan On, Tomoe groomed herself in preparation for the road. She brushed her long hair, retied it at the nape of her neck, and completed other cleansing rituals. She had done these things earlier in the day for the Going Out ceremony at the sangoya; but it was necessary to observe the etiquette of grooming before any important venture. As she performed these personal chores, she meditated on a variety of subjects, and viewed herself as from an objective plane. Some of her thoughts were of the child. Only three besides herself would know about him; but this was best for his survival, not some dread secret of her own, kept lest she suffer the judgements Tsuki had described.