Tale of the Warrior Geisha (21 page)

“I never want to see a sword again.” Her vehemence surprised her. “But do you not have a wife? Am I to be your concubine?”

He inclined his head in affirmation. “But other women are pale imitations of you, Tomoe.”

She closed her eyes again. “You would let me get my mother and Aoi? That's three more mouths to feed, Wada. Be practical.”

“You know poets are never practical.” Wada bent his head toward her, his breath warm on her ear. “Tomoe. Come with me. We will remake ourselves.”

She thought of Yoshinaka. The homeless orphan. How he had hit her with that stick, knocking into motion the beginning of her warrior journey. Like a tremendous landslide begun by moving the smallest rock. His last act was a generous one, saving her.

A convent would provide a peaceful life. She would not have to fight or think or be concerned about anyone or anything except prayer. Shut away from the world. Wouldn't it be nice? Perhaps. But it was wrong for her.

Tomoe opened her eyes. She picked up a piece of the broken rice bowl. All of them had used it, she remembered. It was greenish-brown earthenware, made by a ceramist in the capital, brought here by Yamabuki.

Wada took it from her hands and put the pieces back together. Only one small chip of a hole was missing. “I know of a man who can repair this with gold. It will be more beautiful and stronger than it was before.”

Tomoe bent her head. “Can he repair me as well?”

“Only you can do that,” Wada said.

Sister of heart,
a familiar voice said in her head.
Live enough for all of us.

“Yamabuki,” Tomoe whispered for the final time, her voice so faint only her mind heard it.

She wanted to go with Wada.

Wada sat still, his head bent over hers, his eyes shut. “Take as long as you like to answer,” he said.

She reached for him.

Tomoe Gozen

S
URUGA
B
AY

I
ZU
P
ROVINCE

H
ONSHU
, J
APAN

Summer 1194

T
omoe wiggled the fishing line in the clear blue water of the bay. “You must not give up,” she said to the young boy sitting beside her in the light brown sand. Beyond, the imposing mass of Mount Fuji rose out of the waters, always snowcapped, even when it was so warm they wore little more than their cotton
yukata
.

The boy scowled, drawing his grubby knees up to his face, picking at a scab until Tomoe caught his hand. “It's no use,” he said. “We've been at this all day.” He skipped a rock across the water.

“That will really scare the fish.” Tomoe knew there was only one remedy for her son's grouchiness.

Yoshihide had been born two years after Wada found her at Shinowara. The boy was the miracle she and Yoshinaka could never achieve. Sometimes, Chizuru said, such things occurred. Just because they were rare didn't mean they never happened.

Now Tomoe lived here with her family, in this small fishing village near the bay. Their little house was just up off the beach. Wada had offered to keep her in a finer home up in the capital, separate from his wife, but she refused. She was happier here, far from the crowds and Yoritomo, who was now shōgun.

Instead, this turned into Wada's weekend home, with Wada visiting when he could. It had become more frequent of late, with Wada coming often to see Yoshihide, his only child, and staying for longer and longer stretches.

She reached over and tickled Yoshihide. He tried to resist, holding his body stiff, but before long his mouth wiggled and he began to giggle helplessly. “I'll teach you to scare the fish,” Tomoe said. He laughed and tried to scramble away, clawing at the sand and throwing it about dramatically, but she held on to his ankles. “You will not escape me!” Yoshihide broke away. At eight, he was almost stronger than she was. “Come back!” Tomoe said, leaping on him again, her belly landing in the sand across his legs. She growled like a monster. Yoshihide laughed so hard he stopped making noise, which amused Tomoe all the more. She went for his belly, his most ticklish spot.

“
Ai
, Tomoe, stop. You'll make him wet himself,” Aoi called from where she hung up the laundry. Tomoe paused. It was an echo of the past, this scene. Yoshihide got up and skipped off. Once Tomoe had tickled another little boy, just a bit younger than this one was now. Her eyes welled with unexpected joy and sorrow.
Two sides of one coin,
she thought.

Aoi's black hair blew in the breeze. She pulled a strand away from her smiling mouth. Her black eyebrows curved up, nearly as thick as her father's. Now thirteen, Aoi looked just like her mother, the same pale complexion and lustrous black hair. But Tomoe was determined to help Aoi weather life better than her mother had. Already Aoi was used to hard work, was smart and practical. She could fish, cook, and fight as well as anyone.

Next to Aoi, Tomoe's mother, Chizuru, now a stooped and completely white-haired old woman, sniffed the wind. “I smell rain coming, Tomoe. Perhaps we should stop.”

Tomoe smiled fondly at her mother. “All I smell is fish.”

Yoshihide stood and pitched another rock into the water. “Ha. I threw that rock so hard, I bet I hit a fish.”

“I wouldn't be surprised, Yoshi-chan.” Tomoe watched him play. He skipped a rock so it glanced against the surface three times, then four, then five. She leaned back into the warm sand as though it were a hammock, and closed her eyes, remembering sitting near another fisherman, another time.

Water struck her forehead. The children shrieked. “Yay! A big rain!” Yoshihide danced around his mother. Thunder shook the sand, and a flash of lightning arced across the bay. Her mother had known, of course. Chizuru was already at the house, shaking her head at their thickheadedness. Aoi was pulling down the laundry as quickly as she could, flinging the clothes into a large reed basket.

“Let's go watch it from inside.” Tomoe took his hand. “Aoi, leave it! Run in.”

“Tomoe!” Wada-chan beckoned them from the door of their little wooden house. Even from here, she felt the warmth of his smile. “Hurry, before the lightning gets here.” Wada's hair was more gray than black now, and his face lean; but he was still Wada-chan. She waved to him, a lightness coming over her. Aside from her mother, he had known her longer than any other person alive.

“Race?” Yoshihide looked at his mother with a wide grin. His adult front teeth were just beginning to grow in, pearly-white and slightly serrated.

Tomoe got in the ready stance, on one knee, hands on the ground. “On the count of three. One, two . . .”

“You can't catch me!” Aoi slipped past them, the heavy laundry basket of wet clothes tilting precariously on her head. Yoshihide took off after her, shouting.

Tomoe paused, her fingertips in the sand. The humid, warm wind blew hard across the bay, sending up plumes of mist, taking the storm away as quickly as it had come. She ran inside.

One day a few years ago, I was at my father's house with one of my brothers, talking to our father about our mother. Dad said, out of nowhere, “You know, your mother was from a samurai family.” My brother and I looked at each other. No, we didn't know that.

My mother had told us her family, the Makino clan, was the bearer of the royal seal for the emperor, or something like that. Our noble blood was important, she told us—be proud.

But we didn't know of the samurai connection.

Intrigued, I wondered if there had ever been such a thing as a female samurai. Indeed, there were. Called
onnamusha
or
onnabugeisha
, these women trained in the art of war. Most did so to protect their homes while the men were away fighting, but a few—like Empress Jinju and Tomoe Gozen—were said to be as good as or better than any male warrior.

I began researching Tomoe Gozen. Said to be beautiful and skillful, she is almost portrayed as a superhero in
The Tale of the Heike
, able to rip out trees from the ground and the like. I was smitten.

I then happened to look up my mother's clan, the Makino, and found that they were an offshoot of the Minamoto clan, datable to the fifteenth century. Now I knew I had to write about Tomoe, a woman associated with my distant ancestors.

I also researched her lover, the samurai she was associated with, Yoshinaka Minamoto. Most texts dismiss him as that “crazy hillbilly of the North,” a man who basically got himself declared shōgun under duress. But Yoshinaka struck me as a tragic hero on a par with any of Shakespeare's: misunderstood, betrayed over and over again by his own family, a terrible politician but a brilliant military tactician who won many battles he really should have lost. I wanted to show a more complete picture of Yoshinaka.

At the same time, I wondered what Tomoe and Yoshinaka's relationship would have been like, and imagined what a powerful bond they must have had, as lovers protecting each other's life during war.

I wondered, too, how Tomoe must have felt as the concubine and not the wife of Yoshinaka. For Tomoe would have been Yamabuki's lady-in-waiting. Would they have been friends? Enemies? Little is known about Tomoe Gozen—some historians believe that she did not exist and that she was made up in
The Tale of the Heike
to discredit Yoshinaka. Others believe that she did exist. Even less is known about Yamabuki.

As I focused on the women's story, it became apparent that some alterations to the historical facts were necessary for the sake of this novel. So, while I attempted to keep as much of the timeline and historical figures' lives as accurate as possible, some events are compressed or left out, and some people's lives are slightly changed.

For example, I did not include the siege of Hiuchi, a different fort where Yoshinaka lived, or the battle of Shinowara, the battle of Mizushima, or the siege of Fukuryūji. The battle of Shinowara was actually where Sanemori Saito was discovered by Yoshinaka.

Yoshinori Wada did not train with Yoshinaka and Tomoe, although Wada did end up with Tomoe after Yoshinaka's death. Yoshinaka also had another concubine, named Aoi; I acknowledged her by naming Yamabuki's daughter after her. There were many more Minamoto who are not mentioned.

Thanks to Randy Schadel, scholar at the Samurai Archives website, and his wife, Dr. Ayame Chiba, also at the Archives, for reading a draft of this text and providing suggestions and corrections to many minute details. Any errors are mine.

Farris, William Wayne.
Japan's Medieval Population: Famine, Fertility, and Warfare in a Transformative Age.
Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006.

Joly, Henri L.
Legend in Japanese Art: A Description of Historical Episodes, Legendary Characters, Folk-lore, Myths, Religious Symbolism, Illustrated in the Arts of Old Japan
. London: John Lane, 1908. See especially p. 374.

Mason, R. H. P., and J. G. Caiger.
A History of Japan.
Revised edition. Rutland, VT: C. E. Tuttle, 1997.

Ruch, Barbara. “Unheeded Voices, Winked-at Lives: Shamans.” In Kozo Yamamura and John Whitney Hall, eds.,
The Cambridge History of Japan
, vol. 3,
Medieval Japan
, pp. 521–540. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

The Samurai Archives. “Minamoto Clan.” http://wiki.samurai-archives.com/index.php?title=Minamoto_clan. Consulted October 2013.

Shikibu, Murasaki.
The Tale of Genji
(1021). Translated by Royall Tyler. New York: Viking, 2001.

The Tale of the Heike.
Translated by Royall Tyler. New York: Viking, 2012.

The Tales of the Heike.
Translated by Burton Watson. Edited by Haruo Shirane. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.

Turnbull, Stephen R.
The Book of the Samurai, the Warrior Class of Japan.
New York: Arco, 1982.

———.
The Samurai Sourcebook.
London: Arms and Armour Press, 1998.

———.
The Samurai Swordsman: Master of War.
North Clarendon, VT: Charles E. Tuttle, 2008.

———.
Samurai Women, 1184–1877.
Oxford and Long Island City: Osprey, 2010.

Keep reading for a preview of Margaret Dilloway's companion novel to
TALE OF THE WARRIOR GEISHA
:

SISTERS OF HEART AND SNOW

T
omoe held the round bronze mirror with steady hands, fighting her nervous pulse. A warrior stared back at her, in full battle dress. The close-fitting wrapped jacket and ankle-length pants worn under her armor, her
hitatare
, were fuchsia silk, embroidered in a repeating light pink depiction of the Minamoto crest, bamboo leaves fanning above a gentian flower. Over this she wore her armor, a crimson damask cover hiding the sturdy bamboo plates.

A bronze crown of intricate scrollwork served as her helmet, with long red tassels dangling near each high cheekbone. Her full lower lip and pronounced Cupid's-bow mouth stood out crimson in her pale face.

Behind her, Yamabuki's dark eyes shone like wet pearls. If Tomoe's skin could be called pale, then Yamabuki's was white, luminescent as sea life in the deepest waters. Yamabuki's hair was black, too, but shot through with silver and white strands.

Yamabuki worked through Tomoe's thick long hair with a tortoiseshell comb and fragrant camellia oil, her small hands working quickly to undo the knots. “There. You are ready, my captain. Your hair is so well oiled, a typhoon cannot disturb it.”

Tomoe's throat went dry. Yamabuki had begun as her rival, but soon she found that she needed Yamabuki as much as Yamabuki needed her. Tomoe the warrior, Yamabuki the poet. The strong and the gentle. Two sides of one coin. Now she could no more imagine her world without Yamabuki than she could imagine cutting off her own arm.

Yamabuki blinked rapidly and Tomoe grasped the other woman's hand. “And you? Are you prepared?”

“As ready as I need to be. What can I do? Offer the enemy some tea? Play him some music?” Yamabuki stood and retrieved Tomoe's short sword from the corner. The tiny woman staggered under its weight. Tomoe watched her, knowing Yamabuki would refuse any offers of help. “I do not understand how you can carry this, much less fight with it.”

Tomoe took the sword. Their fingers touched. Tomoe's insides seized, and she took a deep breath to steady herself. “I should stay here and protect you.”

“No.” Yamabuki retrieved the quiver of arrows and bow next. “You must go.” For a moment, she looked again like the girl she had been on her arrival. A wobbly newborn chick finding its way among piebald eagles. “I will be all right.”

There was a saying for a dear female friend you held as close as a relative. Sister of heart.

Unlike Yamabuki, Tomoe had never been good at putting what she felt into words. Instead, she retrieved her
naginata
, a small sword attached to a long pole, from its place in the corner of the room. With a bow, she presented it to Yamabuki. The woman didn't move. “Take it.” How Tomoe wished Yamabuki would heft up the
naginata
and arc it through the air with a shout. Stab at something. But the woman could barely wrap her tiny fingers around the pole.

“Arigato.”
Yamabuki inclined her head toward Tomoe, and laid the
naginata
carefully on the floor. “And I have something for you,” Yamabuki added, reaching into her pocket. It was a piece of braided red cord, hung on bright blue fabric. A good-luck amulet. “An
omamori.
To protect you.”

Outside, the army chanted for her. “Tomoe, Tomoe!” The drums and horns sounded and the men stomped their feet on the ground, banging swords against metal. Tomoe felt the vibrations in her eardrums, in her heart.

Yamabuki took a step back and bowed deeply. Tomoe bowed in return. Both filled with unspoken words that would always remain so.