Tale of the Warrior Geisha (4 page)

Tomoe Gozen

H
IRAIDE
R
UINS

S
HINANO
P
ROVIN
CE

H
ONSHU
, J
APAN

Spring 1169

T
he boys were too far ahead.

They were hiding again, as they had when they were small. Back then, they had hidden for fun. Now, they hid to test themselves. To see if Tomoe could find them. If they had done well, she should not be able to.

They had gone to the Hiraide Ruins, not far from their farm. This place was home to Japan's oldest ruins—pottery dating from ancient times had been found here, and there were remnants of pit houses, too. The deep holes the ancient Jomon people had dug out were still here, their walls squared off. They lived in the pit, putting roof structures over the top. Tomoe shivered to think of all the people who had once made this their home. She hoped there were no ghosts.

All of them had played here as children, hiding in the pits and springing out at each other. Yet Tomoe was not completely at ease with the ruins. With each season, another layer of leaves from the overhanging beech trees and blown-in dirt covered the pits, so the landscape underwent a constant metamorphosis. Tomoe proceeded cautiously, in case branches and leaves completely covered a pit. It was also possible the boys had set a trap for her, which they should not have done. Falling into a pit would break her horse's leg, if not Tomoe's. Nonetheless, she didn't discount the possibility.

Tomoe pulled up on her little white mare, Yuki, and dismounted. Yuki had been fitted with Kaneto's old
kura
, a saddle. It was a faded brown, the leather seat worn into her father's shape. For her brothers, Kaneto had saved his best saddles—Yoshinaka had a black lacquer one, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, while Kanehira had a black one with red lacquer accents. Her father said hers was the best for shooting with bow and arrow, though. “Just because it looks rough, Tomoe, doesn't mean it is,” Kaneto had said. He had taken off the leather seat to show her. The wooden parts of the saddle underneath were connected with cord, so each part moved separately but had stability across the horse's back. “This makes for a sturdy platform when shooting, the best I have ever used,” he had said, patting the wood. “Your aim will always be true on this.”

“Shouldn't Yoshinaka get this one, then?” Tomoe had asked. She wanted the prettier saddle, the one with mother-of-pearl accents. She pictured Yuki in it with a red bridle, red fringe hanging from the saddle blanket and bridle. Samurai horses didn't go into battle plain.

“Both boys refused it,” he answered, a disappointed slant to his posture. “The boys wanted what looked better on the surface, instead of what
was
better. But I know that you won't make that mistake.”

Now Tomoe thanked her father for his wisdom. Though she had gotten the ugliest saddle by default, it was indeed more stable; and whether by talent or the saddle, she was indeed the best archer. It was difficult enough to get an arrow out of a quiver and fire it from the back of a galloping horse. To do so accurately took a great deal of practice. Tomoe had never been afraid of hard work.

She surveyed the trees scattered amid the ruins, the thicker forest around the perimeter. No hint of the boys revealed itself, no shattered vegetation, no visible footprints. Her mouth tasted acrid brush smoke, but she saw none rising. The day was overcast, the light dim, just west of overhead. The boys were better at these games now, she had to admit.

At sixteen, Tomoe was taller than her mother, taller than her younger brother, Kanehira, who at fifteen still had a high voice and slight frame. Yoshinaka had done his growing this past winter, shooting up during a time when everything else went dormant. Always, he had to be contrary, even in growing.

“Go to the right,” Yoshimori Wada said, trotting up next to her and swinging himself to the ground. She still liked to call him Wada, because it both irritated and amused him. He hadn't been coming around much for the past year, as his father needed more help on his farm. Tomoe missed him. Wada was her regular teammate. Kaneto felt it was important for Yoshinaka and Kanehira to stick together, as they would forever.

And now Wada was Tomoe's suitor, of a sort. For who else would be her suitor? There was no other young man of suitable age, or rank. Only farmers—and Yoshinaka, her foster brother. She was fonder of him than she was of her blood brother, but still—in her imagination, he remained the little boy she'd chased. Though, as her parents had reminded her since childhood, he was not her little brother, but her charge—and she was to treat him like the lord he would grow up to be.

“That Wada idiot follows you like a motherless puppy,” Yoshinaka remarked. It embarrassed Tomoe, how Wada was always willing to fetch her food or drinks or help her onto her horse, when she was capable of doing these things herself. She did not want to be beholden to him.

Today Wada was not supposed to be here at all, but he had run over in mid-morning, asking if he could help. “We don't need any extra people,” Yoshinaka had said. But Wada said he would carry Tomoe's
naginata
, since she had no proper retainer to carry it for her. Someday she would, Kaneto promised. Someday, when Yoshinaka was a general.

Yoshinaka had become more serious about his training. Last summer, the Taira had begun sending soldiers out to quench small alliances around Japan. It happened when they visited the swordmaker to get a sword for Yoshinaka.

The swordmaker had a permanent hunch in his back from bending over his irons, smashing the blazing-hot metal into
tachi
, the short samurai sword curving about thirty inches long. Despite the hunch and his white hair, the man swung his hammer effortlessly as he squatted over the anvil. Tomoe stood back from the sparks and glanced around his dark shop, lit only by the forge fire. There were no swords hanging on the plain stone walls; he made each to order. He hung many of his tools from the maze of exposed ceiling rafters. Only his workspace was cluttered with metal ingots, troughs of water, buckets of clay.

“This is for young Lord Yoshinaka,” the swordmaker said. He took the metal stamp with his signature on it and tamped it down on the blade, near the handle. Then with the metal still white-hot, he applied a wet clay mixture to the back of the blade and smoothed it with a stick. Tomoe caught a glimpse of feather and bone sticking out from the mud, but knew better than to ask what was in it. The clay was a secret recipe for each swordmaker.

The swordmaker smiled at them toothlessly. “Now you witness the birth of your most important friend, Yoshinaka.” He plunged the sword into water, where it sizzled and steamed. “The front will be extremely sharp, and the clay makes the back flexible. You can strike anything and this sword will not break.”

Kaneto stood with his hands tucked into his obi. “He is the best swordmaker in all of Japan,” he said.

Yoshinaka's face, lit by the fire, glowed. “I cannot wait to try it.”

“The handle is already done. The whole sword will be ready tomorrow,” the old man promised. “Polished and waiting.”

But when they returned the next day, the swordmaker's shop was empty. The forge fire was unlit. All his materials were gone. There was no sign of Yoshinaka's sword.

“Where did he go?” Yoshinaka asked, getting an angry look. “Did he take the money and skip town?” He opened a shuttered window, flooding the gloom with light.

Kaneto shook his head. He gestured to the dirt floor under the remaining bench, to the dark stain puddled there. Tomoe peered at it. Blood. She glanced at her father, alarmed. “It seems the Taira do have some capacity for action,” he said. He turned to Tomoe, squatting down before her. “Climb up on my back, to the rafters. There is a storage platform in the back. Perhaps it is hidden there.”

Yoshinaka watched silently as Tomoe clambered onto her father and reached up to a rafter. She hoisted herself up, swung a leg over, crawled to the platform. The dust made her nose itch. Her father stood calmly below. “Do you think the Taira will come back? Will they get us?”

“They won't bother us, Tomoe,” her father said. “Do you see anything?”

Barrels and sacks were strewn around the shallow platform, filled with the swordmaker's supplies, Tomoe supposed. She saw nothing out of place but made sure she looked in every last crevice. At the far corner, a dull gleam stuck out from under a sack, behind two barrels. “Aha,” she breathed. She pulled the sword from its hiding place.

The sword was beautiful, light and sturdy. The Minamoto crest—a gentian flower set atop a fan of bamboo leaves—was carved into the ivory hilt. Glints of red lacquer embellished the white. Tomoe wished she had one for herself.

But it seemed wrong, somehow, that Tomoe was the first to handle this almost sacred object, instead of Yoshinaka. She hoped it didn't bring bad luck. She hoped he didn't feel the same.

She handed the sword down.

Yoshinaka struck a dramatic pose, pointing the sword aloft. “I will not let the swordmaker's sacrifice go in vain.”

Ever since then, Yoshinaka had been training daily. First he ran, usually with Kanehira, sometimes with Tomoe or Wada, running back and forth around the farm's perimeter. To Tomoe's knowledge, nobody else did this; he looked quite crazy to others who saw him. But Kaneto approved, saying it improved the heart and lungs, and gave the mind time to rest. Then Yoshinaka practiced with his sword, sparring with Kaneto, with Tomoe, with anyone who would let him; and if no one was available, he used a rice sack filled with dirt, spilling its guts all over the yard.

They all practiced
daitō-ryū jūjutsu
, a secret pressure-point martial art that Yoshinaka's uncle Yoshimitsu Minamoto had developed. “Yoshimitsu took apart the corpses of the fallen enemy,” Kaneto told them, “and found out how the human joints worked.” This technique was taught only to the Minamoto clan. Each afternoon, Kaneto had them work on
jūjutsu
drills until Tomoe thought she could dislocate the shoulder of a charging man in her sleep. “Repetition,” her father said, “is the key to success.”

Nights Yoshinaka sat up with Kaneto, going over old battles, discussing what had worked and what hadn't, their deep voices lulling Tomoe into slumber.

“Remember,” Kaneto warned him every evening, “we are sowing the seeds for our future. For now, we make our living as farmers.” That was the most Kaneto discouraged Yoshinaka's dreaming. All of them knew none of them considered themselves to be real farmers.

They were samurai. Warriors. If they stopped thinking of themselves as samurai, they would truly have nothing.

These ruins, with all their hiding places, was a good place for them to practice. Wada pointed to where the woods got thinner, near the bank of a stream, where Tomoe saw no trodden grass, nothing indicating any path at all. Only the fact it was near a stream made it passable, but just barely—the path was perhaps two feet wide. She wiped her forehead; it was unseasonably warm for spring.

“Our horses might slip.” Tomoe thought for a moment. “Go back out. We'll go around.”

“They're in the woods.” Wada sniffed the air showily. “Smoke.”

She did not point out she'd already smelled it. Wada thought she was a useless girl. Tomoe had to prove herself to these boys all over again with each new day.

Tomoe looked up to the treetops. Yes, she saw a smoke trail now, coming from the center of the woods bordering the eastern edge of the ruins. Something nagged at her. Why would they build a fire in the day, when the boys knew she was looking for them?

“Or shall we take a break? Have a picnic?” Wada indicated his knapsack, full of the food his mother had packed. He reached over and caught hold of Tomoe's hand, turning it to meet her palm with his lips. Tomoe giggled in spite of herself. Yuki neighed and moved away. “I memorized a poem for you. It's from the
Man'yōshū
. Lady Otomo wrote it.

“Painful is the love

That remains unknown to the beloved”

Tomoe stifled her sigh. How Wada longed for a life outside the farm. But she wanted to battle, not read boring poetry. She tried to let him down gently. “You're making Yuki nervous.”

“Come on, Tomoe. I've hardly gotten to see you at all this season.” Wada leaned toward her. “Haven't you missed me?” His face was handsome in the noble way, full as a moon. There had been times when they had gone into town with their families, and upper-crust ladies, the ones with the white faces, had taken notice of him. Tomoe knew what his dreams were—to help the Minamoto cousins take over the capital and secure himself a lordship at the court. He was practicing his charms on her. Only practice. She kept him at a distance.

Yet she couldn't help remembering all the childhood times when Wada had sided with her against Yoshinaka and Kanehira. Once when Kaneto was going to take them on a long overnight hike, he wanted to leave the thirteen-year-old Tomoe at home. “It's too rigorous,” he had said. Wada had stood up for her, insisted that she be allowed to come.

His face was now very close to hers. His lips brushed hers, not unpleasantly. Tomoe blushed, fighting the sudden urge to kiss him back. “Wada. This is not the time.”

Wada sighed. “Meet me in the plum grove at sunset?”

Tomoe swallowed. Wada was hard to say no to. She had heard Chizuru musing that Yoshimori Wada could be a good husband, if only he wasn't going to the capital. Kaneto had merely grunted, whether in agreement or disagreement, Tomoe could not say. “How very romantic. Wada, are you planning to visit tonight and write me a poem tomorrow morning?” She was teasing. This was the custom of the nobles, not of them. For a noble to be married, all he had to do was visit his prospective wife three nights in a row, writing a poem after the first night to signify his intent. They, on the other hand, were farmers, no matter what their noble ancestry was. Kaneto and Wada's father would strike a deal, and that would be that, a feast following.