Tale of the Warrior Geisha (20 page)

“Is this enough, Yoshinaka?” Kanehira asked calmly.

“Not yet,” Yoshinaka said. “Go to the back and start a fire there as well. We have not gotten our answer yet.”

Alongside Yoshinaka, a tiny figure stood. “Tomoe Gozen. Help me,” the small figure pleaded.

She looked down at him. Beside Yoshinaka stood a shrunken and stooped old man, bald and thin, his back marred by a hump. He was covered in soot and blood and dirt; at first, Tomoe thought he was a beggar.

Joukou. Go-Shirakawa. This little emperor who had abdicated his throne rather than face the Taira. Who had traded his well-being for the well-being of Japan. Always changing his mind according to political winds. At first he supported the Taira, then the Minamoto. Now he would say he was supporting Yoshinaka, but turn around and betray him to Yoritomo. Tomoe was certain of this.

The little man cried, fat tears squeezing out of his ancient eyes. “Help me, Tomoe Gozen.”

Yoshinaka shouted at her. “No, he is not your emperor, Tomoe. You bow to no one! Go-Shirakawa is a faithless traitor!”

Tomoe gasped. Yoshinaka had said the emperor's forbidden name again, in front of him. If the emperor had his guards with him and any real power, Yoshinaka's head would be on the ground. She ran up to him, put her arms around him. “What are you doing?”

“I am destroying the city.” Yoshinaka shrugged off her hands. He spoke as if he had told her he was fishing or going for a walk. He took a swig from a bottle one of the men offered. His dark eyes reflected the flames. “Go-Shirakawa is my prisoner until he makes me shōgun.”

Tomoe took a step back. His face was like the face of one of these stone dragons decorating the garden. Unrecognizable. For the first time in her life, she truly feared Yoshinaka.

She stood her ground anyway. Her lungs ached from the fire. “How can you rule a lost city? What good does it do us to destroy everything? This palace has stood for hundreds of years! Look what you have done to it, to Japan! You might be shōgun, but you're not the emperor.”

Go-Shirakawa's tiny, wizened almond eyes widened. “Allow me to cooperate. You won't let me have a chance to help you!” His voice was soothing.

Yoshinaka glowered at him and shot another burning arrow into the palace. The emperor winced. “Make me shōgun and I'll set you free. I'll order my men to stop destroying the city.”

Go-Shirakawa sank, nearly fainting. Tomoe steadied him. He trembled and felt as dry as a leaf in wind. The old man closed his eyes, another fit of coughing overtaking him. “Very well. I will. You are shōgun.”

Go-Shirakawa, because the child emperor was kidnapped, was now the acting emperor by default and therefore did have the authority to make Yoshinaka the shōgun. Nonetheless, he was merely placating Yoshinaka, the same way little Yoshitaka had pretended he was a tiger and made them all call him Tiger, and she had said, “Of course you are.” Go-Shirakawa would take it back instantly. It wasn't real.

Yoshinaka smiled and pointed to the bronze gong, bigger than two men, standing on top of a platform. “Tomoe, hit the gong.”

“Yoshinaka! You've gone mad,” she cried. She was so in shock, her voice was tiny, an unheard bell clinking in the middle of a battle. She thought of Kaneto, the disappointment he would have in her for letting this happen. “Stop this at once,” she said, her voice loud now, ringing through the courtyard, against the burning building. She wondered how many more times she would have to hear herself say these words. She had been saying them to Yoshinaka since he was a toddler. She had no more words for him, and no more strength. She wanted to weep, and she wanted to be done.

“Do not defy me.” Yoshinaka's eyes bulged out, the whites completely red. He shoved her aside, so hard that she fell to the ground, catching herself with her hands. He ran up the steps, three at time, and hit the gong himself. It clattered through Tomoe's bones like an earthquake. She fell to her knees.

Then Kanehira yanked Go-Shirakawa to his feet, propelling him roughly up the steps, collaring him to a standing position aside Yoshinaka. “Attention!” Go-Shirakawa shouted weakly. “Attention, Miyako.” Yoshinaka hit the gong again. No citizens came running into the courtyard. There were no witnesses. Nobody cared. Only their own people. The little man nodded. “Yoshinaka, I make you shōgun.” Kanehira let go of the emperor to drop into a bow, and the little man stumbled to his bottom.

Yoshinaka raised his arms in a victorious salute. “At last. Officially. I am the shōgun.”

One of their soldiers ran into the courtyard. “The warrior monks are here! They fight with your cousin.” He looked up at Yoshinaka, waiting.

Yoshinaka grinned. “Well, then we shall go meet them. Let them know who their new leader is.”

This was beyond insane. Go-Shirakawa would simply rescind the shōgun order as soon as he was safe. “Yoshi.” Tomoe held her arms out. Sobs wrenched from her chest. “Stop. Please, stop.”

He looked at her, cocking his head, examining her face as if she were a stranger. Finally, after a few moments, he seemed to know her. “Tomoe Gozen,” he said in a low voice.

Yoshinaka clattered down the steps to her. She took a breath. He bent, and he was at once the little boy she had rescued from the ice, the boy who defended her from the mean girls, the teenage boy she had kissed in the orchard, the young man who had held her beloved father as he died, the father of the children she loved as her own. The man she was bound to over all things, forever. He set down his bow and arrow and clasped her hands with his. She glanced down, at how they covered her own, at the blood and soot underneath his fingernails. “You must understand. Yoritomo will kill me either way. No matter if I stayed out of Miyako or took it over or found the child emperor Antoku or killed off Munemori Taira. This way”—he put his forehead against hers—“this way, I had a chance. Even if it was not a good chance. It was more than nothing.”

Tomoe's eyes filled. She hadn't wanted to admit it, had fought against the idea for days, but he was correct. Yoshinaka had been necessary only for military victory, not for the ruling of a country. In that, Yoshinaka was nothing but a detriment. Yoritomo would kill Yoshinaka, just as his father had killed Yoshinaka's. Yoshinaka could not run forever. He could not stand against his cousin and win.

Tomoe rested her head, just for a moment, on Yoshinaka's shoulder, trying to breathe in his smell once more. But the smoke was too strong. There was none of him left.
Oh, Yoshi,
she thought.
Where did you go?

“You must leave, Tomoe.” He spoke into her hair, his arms heavy around her. “Take Cherry Blossom and go; return to our family and protect Yamabuki.” He kissed the top of her head softly and embraced her more tightly, pressing her face against the roughness of his woven bamboo armor.

She felt as she had when her father died.
This cannot be real,
she thought again. Her blood seemed to slow in her veins. She would part without recriminations or sorrow. She would allow him this final grace.

Tomoe's tears streaked clean lines down the front of his dirty armor as she choked back an escaping sob. She nodded numbly. “Yes. I will go back to Yamabuki and await you there.” She felt the warmth of his body for the final time, then stepped away.

“Tomoe.” Yoshinaka spoke tenderly. She gazed up at him, her Yoshi, waiting. A faint smile played on his lips. “You were always first.” He raised her chin and kissed her deeply on the mouth, the heat of him entering her body. She could taste, still, the sweet cherries through the soot.

Tomoe Gozen

S
HINOWARA
T
OWN

K
AGA
P
ROVINCE

H
ONSHU
, J
APAN

Winter 1184

W
ithout battles to fight, or men to wait for, alone, Tomoe made the weeklong journey back to Shinowara as though in a dream. Sun and darkness passed without her notice. Frosty rain pummeled her, soaking her to the skin, and she did not take cover. The kimono hung in tatters, the mud hardening like stone, and she did not bother to change. She ate only enough to sustain her and could not remember what she had eaten.

Yoshinaka and her brother were dead. She was as sure of this as she was sure of her horse's loyalty. Something had died inside Tomoe, too, some spark she didn't know she'd had until it was gone.

But Yamabuki and her mother and little Aoi needed her. She held their images fast in her head, willing herself on.
I'm coming. I'm coming,
Tomoe repeated with each step. At last she put on a warmer wrapping and lashed herself to Cherry Blossom's saddle, so she would not fall off.

One morning, faithful Cherry Blossom at last reached her limit and began to stagger, her knees buckling. Had they even slept once? Tomoe vaguely remembered her eyes closing, Cherry Blossom stopping to graze at whatever paltry winter grass she could find. Poor Cherry Blossom. The mare was better off alone. Tomoe dismounted and walked. “Go on,” she told the horse, hoping the horse would abandon her; but the horse merely followed at her own slow pace. They must have made a sight, the two of them, like two half-dead ghouls trudging the empty roads. Tomoe saw no one. Perhaps they all hid from her.

At last, she saw the houses of Shinowara, at the bottom of a hill, among the still-bare trees and the evergreen trees and the blurred January sky. Or what remained of it. It was almost completely burned to the ground. There were perhaps a dozen structures still standing, their roofs blackened. Tomoe paused, listening for any sound of life. Nothing.

She walked in.

Not even a dog remained, only a few chickens that continued to peck for bugs and plants as though their world had not just ended. Tomoe knotted her hair back, the silt and grease on it at last registering on her fingers. Perhaps this moment was the dream, she thought. Where had they all gone?

She looked up and down the streets at the charred buildings. Blackened piles of ash stood lumped here and there in the pathways. What could those be? She went forward to the first one.

A small white bone stuck out. She blinked, looked again. More bones poked out of the gray.

Her throat lurched. “Yamabuki?” she said, her voice rising with the winter wind. “Yamabuki! Chizuru! Aoi!” Her voice echoed and reverberated back to her. She staggered on, following the paths to their house.

It was still standing, part of the roof caved in, the doors broken off and lying askew.

She went inside. A broken rice bowl lay on the floor, a few grains of rice still stuck inside. Tomoe's heart stopped. Had there been an ambush? A pot of stew sat on the table, along with their eating utensils, as if they'd left suddenly. Tomoe picked up Aoi's miniature pair of chopsticks. Yoshinaka had bought these for her. They were black lacquer, inlaid with tiny enameled cherry blossoms on the handles. She closed her hand around them. They had left suddenly. Were their bones somewhere out in the streets?

She searched the chest for kimonos. Only a few spring robes remained. All of Aoi's things were missing. Tomoe shut the heavy wooden trunk lid and sat down on it with a sigh of relief. At least Yamabuki had managed to grab most of her clothing. That meant they had had some time. That meant that the Taira had not taken them, or the women had not all killed themselves to avoid capture.

That meant Yamabuki and her mother and surely Aoi were alive.

Had Yamabuki gone to reunite with her son? Tomoe had no way to know. She had to believe it.

Her legs refused to keep moving. She lurched out to the porch and sat heavily. Cherry Blossom drank some rainwater out of a bucket, reminding Tomoe of her own ignored thirst. She drew up some water from the well and drank one cup after another, until her belly protruded painfully and she threw up what she had drunk, again and again, holding on to the side of the well for support.

Everyone she knew was gone. Her brother and Yoshinaka. Her father. Little Yoshitaka. Now her mother and the closest she had to a sister, Yamabuki, and Aoi. She only hoped they could bring each other comfort. That they were safe.

“Yamabuki,” she said aloud, as though calling the woman to her. Louder still, “Yamabuki.” If she were a ghost, surely she would appear to show Tomoe she was at peace. But no apparition appeared. She rubbed her bleary eyes with dirty hands.

She lay down and slept, right there on the porch, in the open, without a mat or blanket, Cherry Blossom close beside her in the yard.

She awoke when the sun was high. It was bright, but very cold. Wind whistled through the bare trees,
shoosh
ed through the evergreens. There was no snow now. Somewhere, a bird sang, and Tomoe wondered why it had not gone south to warmer climes.

The bird sang again, insistent. She raised her head and squinted, seeing it at last perched on the wooden horse hitch, chattering at her from deep in its throat. A dusky thrush, gray with black markings and small head with a dark, sharp beak.

Cherry Blossom nudged with her nose. Tomoe put her hand on the horse's head. The skin was white as a pearl. She was getting frostbite. Her skin was still soft, but she knew she did not have much time before it hardened and turned black.

Come on, Tomoe willed herself. Get moving.
I must get warm.

She was so tired. She needed to sleep for a thousand years. Perhaps someone in the future, a child playing in these ruins, would find her sleeping, an old woman with snow-white hair long enough to reach to the moon and back. She shut her eyes, still upright, and felt her body slump. At least she was warm, she thought drowsily. Her body relaxed into a pose she knew she would never get out of.

Get up!

The voice wasn't hers, not that voice in her head. She looked around. “Yamabuki?” she called.

No answer. She put her hands on Cherry Blossom's head and raised herself up. She was so stiff. Fresh pain seared her with every breath. She needed a fire.

The bird trilled at her. She automatically trilled back. Standing at last, she thought of what to do. The bird trilled again. “Shush!” she said. “I'm moving.”
So,
she thought.
I am alive. Now what?

Tomoe rubbed her bleary eyes with dirty hands. She needed a fire. She found some hay for Cherry Blossom among their stores and looked around for firewood near the porch, where they'd kept it. But she was too tired and dizzy, and she lay down on the porch, and slept, Cherry Blossom standing close beside her.

When she heard a horse clomping into the fort, she was not alarmed. Enemy or friend, she had no idea. She considered a fight, but her hands were still too frigid from their near-miss with frostbite.

Tomoe blinked but looked up only as far as the horse's legs. The horse halted, its chestnut skin glistening. Cherry Blossom remained calm, a good sign. The rider spoke in a baritone. “Tomoe Gozen. We meet again.”

“Who are you?” She didn't bother to get up or look for her sword. Let him kill her if that was meant to be.

“Don't tell me you've forgotten me so soon. I'd never forget you.” The voice was warm, with a hint of laughter in it. Tomoe did not think she would ever laugh again, and she resented this voice's good humor.

She stood slowly. The courtyard spun lazily around her, the walls bowing out in her vision. She blinked. “No games. Tell me your name, or I shall have your head.”

The man swung a leg off his horse. “I have been writing poetry to you all these years. Practicing. Of course, nobody's seen it but me. It's still terrible.”

She tried to pick up her sword and stumbled. The man caught her in his arms. A flash of white teeth. At last she recognized him. Yoshimori Wada. The man from her childhood. Wada-chan.

The man she used to know, back in another life.

“Wada-chan,” she said, and he laughed.

“You're weak.” He stated the obvious. Wada half dragged, half helped her into the house. He put a blanket over her and started a fire and then lay down next to her, his body heat warming her, and put another blanket over the both of them. His arms cradled her and she thought of Yoshinaka riding with her to the cherry orchards. “I thought I would find you here. They told me you hadn't died alongside Yoshinaka and Kanehira.”

“Yoshinaka didn't want me to stay,” she said. “Neither did I.”

“You are a liar,” Wada said. “You would have stayed and probably fought off the rest of the battalion alone.”

“Untrue,” she murmured.

“He didn't want you to see him like that,” Wada said, and Tomoe knew this was the truth.

She slipped into unconsciousness. When she awoke some time later, she realized her head rested in Wada's lap.

“Tomoe.” Her name settled toward her lips like a snowflake. He was rubbing her hand between his and had built up the fire again.

Clearheaded, she struggled to sit up. “Tell me what happened. Everything.”

He hesitated.

“Do you really think I am too genteel to hear it?” she demanded.

Wada put his hand on her forehead. “It won't change anything. They are still gone.”

“Don't leave anything out,” she said. “I have imagined it all and worse.”

Wada inhaled, his eyes sorrowful, and began his story.

After she left, Yoshinaka fled, Kanehira with him, intending to outrun the army with their strong horses. They escaped by running into a forest, where at last they thought were safe.

It wasn't long before Yoshinaka realized they had gone the wrong way. Demon's hoof sank through a layer of ice with a crack, and the horse fell with a terrified whinny. “The bog!” he shouted. “We are in the bog.” He flailed, trying to get Demon to free himself, but the horse only sank deeper, all of his hooves stuck. It sucked the horse down like quicksand.

Kanehira stopped his horse from following. “Abandon Demon and I'll pull you out!”

Yoshinaka tried to dismount, but now his own feet at the sides of the horse were stuck, too, the pressure of the mud pushing in on him. “Get away!” Yoshinaka shouted to Kanehira.

Kanehira urged his own horse into the mud and tried to dig at Yoshinaka's legs. Now Kanehira's horse cried out and sank, too.

Yoshitsune, of the rival Minamoto forces, approached. “It is no use, Yoshinaka,” called Yoshitsune, dismounting and climbing onto a fallen log only a few yards away. He began walking out, but stumbled and caught himself.

Yoshinaka cast one last desperate look at Kanehira and nodded. Kanehira readied his sword, knowing what was about to happen. Yoshinaka threw his armor into the mud, and without hesitation, plunged his sword into his abdomen, white organs spilling out into the bog.

Kanehira screamed, a mix of anguish and determination. He swung at Yoshinaka's neck, ending his best friend's suffering. Then he applied the sword to his own abdomen. Only no one was there to help Kanehira, his last brave act, his life leaving him before the somber eyes of his enemies.

Wada stopped talking and both were silent. He held Tomoe's hand somberly. “I am sorry it had to be this way, Tomoe.”

It was no worse than she had imagined, somewhere deep inside. At least her brother had been with Yoshinaka in his last moments. She hadn't known that Kanehira could be so brave. How he must have suffered. Tomoe covered her face with her hands. “Have you heard about the others? Little Yoshitaka?” It hurt to say the name.

Yoshimori held water up to her mouth. “Who?”

“The son of Yoshinaka. Yoritomo took him.” She rolled her head, avoiding his touch.

Wada frowned and looked at the fire. He drew his hand over his eyes. “Do you remember how we spoke about the Taira leader who spared the lives of the boys, only to have them grow up to challenge him?”

Tomoe nodded. Her heart jumped into her throat and temples. “We thought he was foolish,” she said, very faintly.

Wada pursed his lips, his eyes distant. “I'm afraid Yoritomo is not so foolish.”

The boy, too. Little Yoshitaka. Tomoe's eyes hurt. She put her fingertips on her temples and pressed in, her breathing fast and shallow, until she regained control. She swallowed hard. “And what of Yamabuki and my mother and the little girl?”

“There were a few who arrived at the Kantō from this village. I heard of an older woman with a girl child. I don't know their names, but I think it must be they.” Wada shifted his weight.

Tomoe closed her eyes and breathed. Aoi and her mother were alive. Not Yamabuki. She felt an unexpected flash of relief. Yamabuki was no longer in pain. That would be worse, to come home and discover her still suffering, after all these weeks, still trapped in a body unable to move.

“I must get Aoi,” she whispered. Retrieve the girl and raise her. Tomoe wasn't sure how. Her head swam with sorrow. What could she do, here alone? She closed her eyes. Her mouth tasted metallic, like blood. “And why are you here?”

He leaned toward her and took her face in his hands gently. “I wanted to find you.”

Tomoe laughed in spite of herself, but when she opened her eyes she saw his face was earnest. “Are you insane? I am an old warrior woman, no longer a great beauty.”

He blushed, as he had when he was a boy. “Tomoe. First of all, you are still beautiful. And second, I too am older and wiser.”

“Wada-chan, don't be silly.” She sat upright. He tried to help her, but she pushed him away.

“It is Lord Wada now. Will you come with me?” He looked at her pleadingly, then bowed his head. “I will not keep you from your sword or hide you away. I swear it.”