Tale of the Warrior Geisha (14 page)

Tomoe Gozen

C
OUSIN
Y
ORITOMO
'
S
H
OUSE

I
ZU
P
R
OVINCE

H
ONSHU
, J
APAN

Fall 1181

C
ousin Yoritomo lived in the governor's house, at the center of a prosperous-looking village to the east in Izu.

Though Tomoe's brother Kanehira pointed out that Yoshinaka should send a representative, as was custom, Yoshinaka insisted on doing it in person. “I don't have to play his games. He will discuss this on my terms,” Yoshinaka said. “Now that Kiyomori is gone, we have a good chance.”

They had recently learned that leader of the Taira, Kiyomori, had died of a fever the previous spring, no doubt brought about by the famine, too. His final words were: “Do not make me a memorial stone until you can place Yoritomo Minamoto's head upon it.” Yet without the strong Kiyomori, and with the man's weaker son Munemori in place, the Taira had lost their direction. Yoritomo would take advantage of it.

In the end, Yoshinaka had brought along fifty men to see Yoritomo, most of them camped a bit outside the town. “If I send up a signal flare,” Yoshinaka said from atop Demon, “come in.” He had dressed in his best armor for this occasion, a suit made of metal and leather.

“What if you can't find fire?” Tomoe asked. This was not a good plan. Not thought out at all.

“I'll find it.” Yoshinaka shot her an irritated glance. “I'll make it.”

Kanehira drew up his horse beside her. “You had best keep quiet when we talk to Yoritomo,” he said in a low voice. “Yoritomo isn't quite as liberal as Yoshinaka.”

He was the one who asked for her, she wanted to say, but shut her mouth. If her brother was bothering to tell her this, she had better listen. Most of the time, he would say nothing at all, and let her fall on her face.

Yoshinaka and Tomoe dismounted and walked into the maze of wooden buildings. Shops, houses, restaurants. They were all crowded together, along with throngs of people. It was so much bigger than their town. Tomoe had wanted to wear her armor, but Yoshinaka said she could not.

Now she felt as if she was walking through the town naked. Everyone in town stopped what they were doing to gawk. No other samurai had a woman accompanying him. “What's the matter, Kiso, the wife won't let you out of her sight?” a man with a donkey on a rope called out. Nobody called him that in their province. Tomoe's fists clenched. Her hands ached for her bow. The crowd laughed. Yoshinaka waved him off. It didn't bother him. He always did what he wanted.

The man who had called out reached forward and touched the bottom of Tomoe's kimono with his grimy hand. His fingers left an imprint. Tomoe gasped at his forwardness. “Bit coarse for a woman, isn't it?” the man said, eliciting another laugh from the crowd. She could not stand it another moment. She lifted her foot high and stomped on his hand, pinning it to the brown dirt. “I will cut off your tongue and choke you to death with it!” she hissed. He yelped. She lifted her foot and he scuttled away.

Kanehira grimaced. “Tomoe, don't call attention to us.”

“Did you see what he did?” No one would defend her honor. This wasn't new. She had to look out for herself. For all of them.

“You should have stayed home.” Kanehira walked away.

“Believe me, I wanted to.” Very well. She kept her eyes on the ground, pretending she was a submissive, meek woman. She tucked one hand over the other, grasping her knife in her kimono sleeve. A woman who would cut the next man who touched her. Lascivious eyes crawled over her. She was a spectacle, a warrior woman, an
onnamusha
for the crazy Kiso. An old woman spat yellow phlegm at Tomoe's feet. It landed in the dirt, shuddering like a living thing. Tomoe lifted her face and glared into the eyes of the old woman. The old woman scuttled backward. Yoritomo lived among thugs. Thugs who thought they were better because they happened to be born in the city.

After what seemed like hours, they entered the gate at the governor's home. “Welcome,” said the retainer at the gate, bowing low. Even this retainer's simple beige kimono was nicer than the nicest kimono Yoshinaka owned. Yoshinaka grunted and gave him a cursory bow. The retainer wrinkled his nose, almost imperceptibly. Tomoe had grown used to his smell, but Yoshinaka was not the cleanest man who ever lived.

They stepped through into a paradise of a garden. To their left lay a meandering koi pond, full of gorgeously marked black, orange, and white fish. An arbor with purple wisteria blossoms stood overlooking it. To their right lay a raked rock garden, a path leading through this to the main house.

The retainer stopped by a hollowed stone. Water trickled over its surface. Yoshinaka looked at it blankly.

Oh. Tomoe stepped forward and held her hands in the clear stream.

“Washing before going into a house? Does he think we're sick?” Yoshinaka held his grimy hands under the water, too. Tomoe reached out and scrubbed away at his dirt with her own hands. He turned them over for her, exactly as his son did for her, compliant.

“Cousin.” A man's voice boomed from inside. “Don't bother with that. Come indoors. Have a seat.”

Yoshinaka went in. Tomoe followed.

It was a fine room, beams in the ceiling, tatami mats on the floor. Screens with delicate watercolors and inks hung from the walls, pictures of deer and cherry blossoms and mountains. Tomoe had never seen anything so refined. Surely this was the kind of place Yamabuki had been used to. She wished Yamabuki had come instead of her, or that Yamabuki had thought to tell her how to behave. Tomoe was glad, suddenly, that she was in her kimono and not armor. Though she did still have the arrows and bow on her back. She took those off and handed them to the retainer, who accepted with a bow.

Yoritomo knelt on a cushion at a brown and black dining table. This man was even more of a survivor than Yoshinaka was. He'd had an affair with the daughter of his jailer, in the land where he'd been exiled as a child, getting her pregnant. The jailer kicked him out of the region. Yoritomo, however, ended up in the Kantō region and met the lord there, who hated the Taira, too. In fact, this lord wanted Yoritomo to marry his daughter so much that he'd had his daughter's betrothed killed. A strong allegiance had been formed, Yoritomo's fortunes set favorably forever.

He had a small mustache, and he wore a starched black courtier's cap on his head, covering his hair. He wore a gray silk kimono over a white
nagajuban
, or under-kimono. His nose was thin and angular, and his cheekbones jutted out sharply from his face, as did his chin. He had deep lines running from his nose to his mouth, but other than that, his face was smooth. He smiled now, meeting Tomoe's eyes warmly. “I see rumors about Tomoe have not been exaggerated.” He indicated Tomoe with a bow. “Please, Tomoe Gozen, be seated. I have heard much about you.”

She bowed back. “Thank you for your hospitality.” She looked for traces of Yoshinaka in him. They were similar in the squareness of their shoulders, but Yoshinaka's were far wider. They both pressed their lips firmly together when in thought, or nervous, which both men were doing now. But the similarities ended there.
This man,
she thought,
would die quickly in a battle.
No wonder he had Yoshitsune, his brother, do his fighting for him.

However physically weak Yoritomo was, his intelligence and craftiness made up for it. Now he regarded them with a shrewd glance and she knew he knew more about them than she could fathom—how much rice they had by how sunken her cheeks were, for example, or how much the material for her kimono cost. Yet his glance remained admiring. She had passed his first test.

She sank to her knees, Yoshinaka grunting to a position beside her. Yoritomo's retainer came in with a tray holding an iron teapot and handle-less cups. “Would you care for some green tea?” Yoritomo asked solicitously.

Green tea? What was green tea? Was it like black tea? She waited for Yoshinaka to answer. He hesitated a fraction longer than he should have before he nodded.

Yoritomo put a cup in front of Tomoe. “Perhaps you have never had green tea, where you are, way out in the countryside.” Yoshinaka frowned, but his cousin didn't notice. “We get our tea from the monastery. The monks brought some back from China and have been growing it here. It's absolutely delicious and should be savored.” He picked up a bowl containing a green powder and added it to Tomoe's cup, before pouring in hot water, whisking the powder into it. “Only those descended from the emperor may procure it,” Yoritomo added, letting them know this was a great treat indeed he had deigned to share with them.

Tomoe bowed and murmured her thanks. “I fear we are not worthy, Yoritomo,” she said. She waited for Yoshinaka to say something similar, but instead his face turned redder than a beet. Tomoe prayed he would control himself.

“Let us not delay our business.” Yoshinaka was abrupt and loud. Tomoe blanched. Couldn't he see that his cousin was observing these small social graces, even if they were meant to make Yoshinaka feel small? Yoritomo
was
descended from an emperor; this was a fact. Why did Yoshinaka have to barge ahead as if this didn't matter? “I want to talk about my father's land. I want it back. All of it. Now. I will be the general of it all.”

Yoritomo pressed his lips together. His expression turned cold. “Your father's land is doing well under me, Yoshinaka. The farmers are still producing crops despite the drought. The people are happy. I would hate to see it fail again.”

Yoshinaka took a great slurp of tea. He made a face. “This is bitter water!”

Oh, no. His manners were no better than his son's. These lessons had been sorely neglected by Kaneto. Kaneto had been more concerned with survival and military strategy. Winning with might. Chizuru had tried, but had been powerless against the three obstreperous male forces in her household. Tomoe concentrated on the table, not daring to look up at either man. She took a sip of tea. Bitter, to be sure. But also earthy and green. She took another sip, in her nervousness nearly draining the cup.

Yoshinaka's lack of manners didn't appear to faze Yoritomo. “Tomoe Gozen appears to be enjoying it.” Yoritomo added more powder and poured more hot water into her cup. “How did you find such a true lady, out in the uncivilized world?” He chuckled. “What a lucky man my cousin is.”

Yoshinaka put his cup down with an empty clang on the table. Tomoe jumped. “She is barren,” Yoshinaka said. “You don't want her.”

Tomoe controlled her anger. She clasped her hands together so hard she cut off circulation to her arms. Yoritomo laughed. “I don't need her, cousin. I was merely paying you a compliment. But if you are to be my general, you know you cannot have a woman for a captain.”

“Who says she is?” Yoshinaka frowned.

“There are rumors, just as there are rumors of her beauty. Why wouldn't those be true also?”

Yoshinaka leaned forward. “So what if they are true? What if Tomoe is my captain?”

Tomoe flushed up into her hairline. She had not gone into battle since she defended the fortress. She could contain herself no longer and stood up. Throw over the table, pour out the scalding water onto the tatami, punch holes in the walls—this is what she wanted to do. What a pig he was. But doing so would be disastrous. She swallowed. The tea had left an acrid sensation in her throat. “If I may beg your forgiveness, I do need some air.” She walked stiffly to the door and waited for the retainer to slide it open.

Outside, in the bright sun, she took several deep breaths until she felt better. Her hands were freezing, despite the warmth of the day. She tucked them into her kimono sleeves, crossing her arms. The knife was still there. Good. She would have some small means of defense.

She walked unsteadily to a bench under the wisteria arbor on the far side of the garden, her
geta
crunching and sinking into the gravel. There she sat and surveyed the koi. They were as big as her chickens. They opened and closed their mouths.

Her stomach knotted as she waited. Would Yoshinaka stay through the entire meal? She expected him to storm out of the house any minute now, either brandishing his sword, or staggering with a sword run through him.

What had possessed Yoshinaka? Couldn't he pretend to want to sit there? She had. It wasn't hard, imitating what your host did. This womanly skill, at least, she had learned. She shuddered. He was going to get them all killed. They were hopelessly outnumbered.

To occupy herself, she looked about the walled garden, imagining various mode of escape. Where she could scale a trellis. Which nooks were weak. Where her men could enter. Where she could place bows and arrows from the other side. She rubbed her cold hands together until they warmed.

Yoshinaka abruptly stormed out. He was not brandishing a sword, nor did he have one stuck through him. His face, though, had gone as white as Yamabuki's.

He proceeded through the gates without a word, pushing aside the retainer who tried to open it for him. Tomoe followed. What had happened?

He whistled for Demon, got on, and rode off, not looking at anyone. Kanehira, who had been sitting on a rock near their horses, stood. “What did you do to Yoshinaka?”

Tomoe scowled. “Why do you always assume it's my fault?” She got on Cherry Blossom and took off after him, Kanehira following shortly.

But only Cherry Blossom, with Tomoe as her rider, could keep up with Demon, especially Demon ridden hard. Yoshinaka lay so low on top of Demon she could barely tell Demon had a rider, so well did Yoshinaka's dark form blend in. She leaned low over Cherry Blossom, too. Tomoe was lighter now without all her armor, and Cherry Blossom was up to the challenge.

They galloped uphill, the ground getting more uneven and covered in leaves and needles. He had to stop soon. This was madness. He would break Demon's leg. But Yoshinaka kept on moving, darting among trunks and under branches.