The Golden Naginata (17 page)

“How will you stop me?”

“I would not try. But the Mothers are fighters; and the priests would come along the back trail from the temple if their help were needed.”

“A child threatens a samurai?” Tomoe was almost amused. The girl, however, was terrified, but brave enought to adhere stoutly to the policies of the nun-mothers. Tomoe said,

“The blind woman was a hero when the mainland invaded Naipon sixty years ago. She was a warrior like myself.” Tomoe tried to sound as polite as possible, considering what she intended to say. “You cannot deny one samurai the right to see another. The military makes the laws, not the Buddhists.”

The young novice looked back over her shoulder, desiring aid; but if anyone watched and listened from the austere-looking nunnery, none came out. The girl argued, “This is her home since losing her vision. It upsets her too much to remember her life before retirement. It would be cruel to annoy her with reminders.”

“Either you know too little,” Tomoe complained, “or your Mothers lie to you, for that woman held inside did not retire due to blindness. She fought in three more important battles before she was forced to retire because of politics, not invalidism. A blind warrior is useful in darkness and in other ways, but powerful adversaries did not want her in their ranks. The resultant rule of seclusion was made too long ago for it to matter anymore. Others rule Naipon today; the convent will not be punished if she is allowed to speak. If you cannot let me enter on your own authority, when run and tell your Mothers that a nervous samurai in peasant clothing has threatened to kill everyone in her way to save Okumi from her prison!”

The novice's eyes bulged frightfully before she turned and ran away. Tomoe followed at leisure, dawdling to look at a stark arrangement of rocks and raked gravel around them. Before she reached the door of the convent, three nun-mothers came out. They carried staffs in case of trouble, but in fact there was none. They had listened to Tomoe and the girl arguing at the gate, and made a quick decision. They led Tomoe through the convent's interior, along bleak corridors, to the smallest of rooms in which there was no light. Incense was heavy in the atmosphere. Sutras were quietly sung by someone with a brittle voice. One of the three nuns lit a small, square lantern inside the room. It was not much light. The three nuns backed away, turned, and left without comment. Tomoe listened to be sure they did not linger close enough to hear any conversation. When she was certain they were gone, she lowered herself to her knees in the tiny, dark room and whispered,

“Okumi?”

The sutras were left off. An old, heavily built woman was sitting on her knees before a reliquary; Tomoe had not seen her at first. The old one seemed to detach from the shadows as she pivotted to face her visitor. Her eyes were shut so tightly, and for so long, that they seemed only two more wrinkles in an elderly face.

The blind nun was large of girth, almost fat, like a lucky, pleasant grandmother-goddess.

“I am Tomoe Gozen, wife of Kiso Yoshinake, Lord of Kiso, field marshal for the Kamakura military regime.”

That old face leaned nearer, shaking slightly with palsy. Dim candlelight played over her features in an odd way, making her look young a moment, then older than old. Okumi asked, “Should I know you? I do not.”

“You have lived in seclusion a long time,” said Tomoe. “You would not know me in such a case, nor the Rising Sun General. But we are famous, yes; and you are famous, too, although no one has known where you retired.”

“Okumi is famous?” The lips parted in a toothless smile.

“You are,” said Tomoe. “You were the fiercest on the shores of an alien invasion; you helped repulse the foe most admirably, with a weapon charged by magic. That is what they say in the
kodan
houses; the minstrels and puppeteers say it, too. Your deeds are told throughout Naipon.”

Okumi seemed to think this over very carefully. Then she said, “I did not know that. I was asked to retire by enemies of my husband, or else submit to concubinage … that was long ago. I have lived here since then, and prayed for the well-being of my husband's spirit.”

“If anyone had known where you were,” said Tomoe, “they would have set you free. The world has changed a little, Okumi. You have outlived your antagonists. Now you can walk from this place into the world anytime you desire.”

“There have never been locks on my room,” said Okumi. “I am held here only by my own promise, given sixty years ago. I cannot break the promise even now; ‘the word of the samurai' was given. My whole world is like this anyway …” She indicated the shadowed perimeter of the room. “Everything is darkness. I have been treated well. I have been resigned.”

Tomoe held back tears. This, she knew, was the fate of many women warriors, if they were unfortunate enough to survive a losing husband.

“You are unhappy for me?” asked Okumi, sensitive to what others felt although she could not see their faces.

“I am more selfish than that,” said Tomoe. “I am thinking that someday I may be sitting in a room like yours.”

“You would rather be a ‘Yamato hero'?” Okumi asked, being ironic; for Yamato referred not only to Naipon's chief race, but also to a famous hero of the most ancient times, who died young. There had been many like him since.

“I would rather be a Yamato hero,” Tomoe easily admitted.

Okumi laughed very gently. “Either you will have your wish,” she said, “or you will change your mind. It is no trouble being old. There is time to thank the ancestors and the Buddhas. There is time for peaceful sensations and meditation.”

“I rarely talk to Buddhas,” said Tomoe. “The sutras are unknown to me.”

“Then you will have time to thank the Billions of Myriads,” the old woman said. “There are even more of them than Buddhas! But you did not come to find out what it is like to live secluded. Someone told you where I was.”

“It was Shan On of Shigeno Valley Cemetery. You would not know the place, for it was recently made on the site of a terrible war.”

“But I do know the place,” said Okumi. “Although I do not have much news of the outside world, Shan On happens to be my daughter.”

Tomoe was surprised. “I could not guess her age. I did not think she was so old as sixty.”

“She is not my husband's child, but was born three years after he was killed; Shan On is not quite sixty. For a time I had a lover who was a man of the Celestial Kingdoms, a renegade who loved Naipon better. He was executed under false charges of being a spy. As a result of my affair, or because it made a good excuse, my husband's old enemies ‘asked' that I retire. I complied to save my daughter. We were separated by force, and Shan On was raised by a Shinto priestess so that even the nuns could not get word to me through Buddhist routes. I knew nothing of her for many years, except that she was alive. After the Shinto priestess died, Shan On visited me here; it was a happy reunion. She took a Buddhist habit to add to her Shinto robes, this to honor my own sutras. I have word from her now and then, although I have been denied other contacts.”

“The reason she has sent me,” said Tomoe, “is for your aid. I bear a sword haunted by a vengeful ghost, as does my husband.” Tomoe unwrapped her bundle which contained her better clothing and a sword. She set the sword on the floor between herself and the large, old woman. Thick-fingered hands reached for the weapon, touched the handle, drew away. “An evil thing!” she exclaimed. Tomoe said, “I feared it.” The blind nun said,

“You must leave the sword with the priests of Yuwe-ji. I would keep it myself, but I may not live as long as it will take to appease the angry spirit. The sword will require regular services, perhaps for many years if not for generations; only then can it be made pure. The priests can do that, although you will have to make some other donation as well.”

“I will do as you advise,” said Tomoe. “But my husband is stubborn and may not agree to do the same with his.”

“If he fails to retire the sword,” said Okumi, “it will undo him in the end.”

“Shan On has told me the same thing,” said Tomoe. “But she informed me that it might be possible to meet with the ghost in his own country under the earth, and to beseech him to forgive my husband.”

The old woman nodded slowly, pulled her face back into the shadows. “It would be a dangerous journey, without guarantees. The yamahoshi are responsible for guarding the gate to hell; you can enter only by their permission, and escape only by their aid. You will also need a better weapon than this sword would be, unhaunted. The weapon must be as capable of slaying creatures of the supernatural realm as of slaying mortal samurai.”

“There is such a weapon?” urged Tomoe, who already knew the answer from the stories told in the
kodan
houses. Okumi had borne a magic weapon during the Wars with Ho. It had been a halberd-like
naginata,
a sword mounted on a pole. What became of it was part of Okumi's mystery.

“The Golden Naginata,” said Okumi, “rests in the crater of Kiji-san, a mountain in the north.” Tomoe knew the mountain, one of a pair of twins: Kijiyama on the right and Kujiyama on the left (from the southern approach), the latter being the abode of the yamahoshi monks, the former being the place where the yamabushi built their monastery. “The yamabushi make prayers to Kiji-san so that the peak will not explode, for it appears always on the verge of overflow. But they are misled. The mountain is at rest, and only the naginata inside its summit causes the terrifying glow. Unless the metal is coated with the blood of the monster
kirin
who guards it, to gaze upon the nagainata's light means instant blindness!” Saying this, the old nun opened her eyes for the first time. They were shiny, black and vacant. She raised a fist and said, “But, oh!, it is a fine thing to have as one's final vision! It etches itself onto the mind and stands forever in the darkness like a beacon!” Okumi's breasts heaved excitedly, but slowly she calmed herself, lowered her quivering fist, and shut her unseeing eyes. “Until the blade is drenched in the kirin's blood, you can only use it with eyes bound shut. Samurai practice many blind styles for the sake of nightfighting and for stalking the lightless corridors of castles; but the kirin will set an unusual test of blind battle which you may not survive.”

“I do not fear it.”

“You will need a certain sheath. The golden naginata is so sharp that no common sheath can hold it without being cut in two. I have kept the magic sheath these years as a memento; but as Shan On thinks it important, I will part with my keepsake for you, if you will make one promise.”

“I will do any favor.”

“The Golden Naginata cannot be held too long in mortal hands; for one thing, the blood of the kirin filters away the blinding brightness for the space of a single month, and it is difficult to fight such a monster on a monthly basis. You will have to return the weapon to Kiji-san by then, or the mountain might not rest longer. The sheath, however, is yours to keep … until some other hero comes to you and needs it for Naipon's sake. That is how it has always been, and how it must always be.”

“But if I become a Yamato hero,” said Tomoe, “how will I keep such a promise?”

“In that case, the sheath will take care of itself; death will free you of the promise.”

“Very well,” said Tomoe. “If I do not become a Yamato hero, I will do as you say without fail.”

The old woman stood and went through the dark of her room to a side wall, sliding a small door aside. Inside was her bedding, and hidden among the futons and blankets was the sheath. It was not an extraordinary sheath, seeming to be made of common wood, nicely carved but not lacquered, not gilded, no special attachments of any kind. Okumi said, “No doubt it looks plain to you. But to these old hands which know the feel of magic, this sheath is spectacular. It has pleased me to touch it lo these many years, so you must love it, too.”

Tomoe held the plain sheath, letting her fingers trace the mystic carvings in the wood. “It has
aji
,” she said, aji being a special trait of simple things, a word applied to things which should be used and are not so nice if they look unworn. The word also implied much handling, as by Okumi's loving hands throughout these sixty years.

Okumi bowed slightly to Tomoe's praise, and said, most simply, “Thank you.”

Tomoe called to her brother: “Imai!” She hurried along a narrow hall in the castle. The word “castle” was barely apropos. Yuwe Castle was a fortified position surrounded by palisades; it had proven pitifully easy to win and scarcely worth having, except for its strategic location near Kyoto. Yet to Yoshinake, who began his career as a “tent general,” it was almost too fancy for comfort.

Tomoe had changed into good clothing: hakama trousers and kosode blouse, her personal comma-pattern crest printed at the front of each shoulder and in the middle of her back. She said to Imai, catching up to him in the hall, “Sorry if you worried about my being late. After visiting with a nun, I was with the priests of Yuwe-ji longer than expected. Is my husband sleeping?”

Imai said, “He is in a bad mood, Tomoe, Whatever you said in your letter makes him unhappy—with me, too, for delivering it. He says you walk about the country like an unlanded peasant, or a perverse lord who enjoys sneaking among the common people in disguise. He says you are troublesome and annoying, that …”

“Good,” said Tomoe. “If he is upset, he must believe what I have told him.”

“I don't understand,” her brother said, screwing up his handsome face in a look of consternation.

“Don't worry about it. He is in his quarters?”

He nodded. “Yes.” Tomoe started to hurry away and, as she did, her brother flicked a secreted pebble toward the crest printed on her back. She turned swiftly and caught the stone in her hand, grinning at the fellow who threw it. He said, “You are too quick for me, Tomoe.”