Tale of the Warrior Geisha (12 page)

A bit outside the gates, she saw more men. Not samurai. Monks, with shaven heads and saffron robes. The
yamabushi
, the monks from the mountains who trained in fighting. The Taira had bribed them with food to curry their favor, and now were calling in those favors.

The monks fought with
naginata
, the reach of the swords making it easy for them to mow down the opposition. Where on earth was Yoshinaka? And Kanehira wasn't around, either. Had they picked today to go into town and drink?

She had no time to wonder. She plucked an arrow out of her quiver, her sights set on a bald man below her. The vulnerable point at the back of his neck, where his spinal cord would sever. She let go.

He fell over without a sound.

Quickly, she took another arrow out and pointed it at another monk. And another. And another. Her mind automatically selected the best killing pattern. In less than a minute, thirteen monks lay lifeless on the ground. Finally, one of her men looked up at her. He grinned and waved.

He shouldn't have done that.

A surviving monk saw where she was. He climbed up the log side of the fortress like a monkey. The branch was too high for him.

Or so she had thought.

He leaped up, catching a small branch, using the momentum of his swing to hook his leg over her branch. Her breath caught. These monks had nearly supernatural fighting powers. She scrambled backward. If she swung the sword, she would lose her balance.

She held on to the branch with her hands and kicked her leg out sharply, sweeping under the monk's legs. It knocked him off balance, but he managed to straddle the branch with his whole body.

He sprang at her like an ape, his teeth bared.

She expected to fall out of the tree, but she had backed up all the way into its trunk, grasping it behind her. Ants crawled onto her neck and hands, the sap stuck in her hair. His hands were around her neck, the full weight of his body against hers. She gagged in a panic, her throat crushed. The world went black around her eyeline.

She let go of the tree and wriggled her arms up under his. Her breath came hard and fast, an animal's in a trap. He squeezed her arms together between his own. With one last effort, she balanced on one foot, brought her other one up, and shoved him on the chest with all her force, finally knocking him loose. She gasped for air, coughing, her eyes tearing, but there was no time to stop. Wedged between two branches, she snapped his neck, the grease of his face slippery on her fingers.

She let him fall.

Finally she saw Yoshinaka, riding in on Demon, Kanehira on his horse behind him. They rode fast, using their swords to mow down the samurai. Only a few had horses, and those were doing more damage to their men than the others. Tomoe whistled, the loud liquid sound of a wren, hoping that someone had thought to untie Cherry Blossom, and that she had not run away in flight.

Cherry Blossom raced out from behind a building, searching for her mistress. Tomoe clambered down from the tree, whistling again. Almost without stopping, Tomoe grabbed a hank of mane and pulled herself on the horse. She pulled out her sword and went to help Yoshinaka.

A shout and a cry. Tomoe chased down a samurai on a brown stallion. A beautiful animal. Tomoe wanted to spare it.

The samurai shouted, pointing his sword at her, galloping his horse so close she could feel the breath from its nostrils. Tomoe brought back her sword and swung it forward.

His head fell cleanly onto the ground, its mouth moving in some silent prayer.

Her food stayed in her stomach though it lurched. She dug her heels into Cherry Blossom, slowing to a stop.

The battle sounds ceased. The few samurai who were left had run off. Yoshinaka raised his sword and the men quieted, waiting for what he would say. “The Taira know now, they cannot chase us off!”

The men cheered. So this would be how the war began, Tomoe found herself thinking. She felt numb, then excited.
Let them come!
she thought. She was ready.

“Tomoe?” Kanehira trotted up beside her. His face was filthy, covered in a mixture of brown and red and black splotches whose origins Tomoe didn't want to know. “Where's Yamabuki?”

Yamabuki! She had to check on the girl.
Let her be all right,
Tomoe prayed in her head. She hoped they had been able to keep the intruders away from Yamabuki's house. “Secured.” Tomoe began moving toward the house, her brother following.

Yamabuki's door was open. She knelt in the light, staring out into nothing. She held the bloody dagger, and red covered her front.

Tomoe's breathing stopped. Yamabuki did not move. Tomoe froze in place, watching, waiting for the girl's chest to rise.

Yamabuki was still.

Yamabuki Gozen

M
IYANOKOSHI
F
ORTRESS

S
HINANO
P
R
OVINCE

H
ONSHU
, J
APAN

Summer 1177

W
hen Yamabuki closed her fingers around the dagger, she had but one thought.
This is my chance to end it.
No one would know what happened. They would think she had died to preserve her honor.

How would Yoshinaka react? Would he go back to Tomoe, heart and body? Yamabuki thought this might be for the best. She felt conflicted about him. She had thought that after she became pregnant, he would leave her alone, but he continued to want her in his bed. Sour with drink, sweaty after doing whatever he did all day, he took her from behind when her stomach became too large. “The midwife says it won't harm you,” he said, when Yamabuki tried to protest.

And no matter how gentle he tried to be, she felt nothing for him. The worst part was seeing Tomoe, the jealous and hurt expression on her face unmistakable when Yoshinaka and Yamabuki emerged from his house in the morning. Yoshinaka never seemed to notice, always going off to drum up his armies or oversee the land. He paid not a bit of attention to Tomoe, the one person on this earth who loved him with all her heart and soul. He was indeed Kiso.

She knelt in the corner, listening to the sounds of fighting outside. It was still some distance away. She hoped.

She shifted into a more comfortable position, one hand on her round stomach, the other holding the dagger. Her heart pounded in a wild and unnatural rhythm, a
thumpity-thump-thump-pause
.
Jigai.
Her fingertips found where her blood pulsed in her throat and she rested the blade against the spot. How quick it would be. She pressed the blade lightly, and the pain jarred her alert. “Obāchan, where are you now?” Yamabuki said aloud.

Her unborn baby kicked her bladder so sharply she hunched over, this pain worse than the dagger.

She was alive.

“Little one, you want to survive.” She felt a strong and unexpected surge of love. Oh, she would do anything for him. Even continue to live here.

She pulled a futon over herself.

Shouting and clanging and horses neighing in fright got louder. Women crying. Perhaps some men. Yamabuki hoped the children were safe. Someone crashed into the wall, shaking the whole house. Then a man burst through the door, knocking it off the sliders.

From here she smelled his stink. Worse than Yoshinaka. Worse than a thousand pigs. The baby pushed her stomach. She tightened her hand around the dagger, but she was afraid. She was so weak. She wanted to run out past him, run and hide behind Tomoe. He would surely catch her, and then both she and her baby would be dead. She did not want to die.

Think of Tomoe. Be like her. Save your baby.

It was Obāchan-obake, but she couldn't see her. The man's breathing approached. She shifted the knife in her grip.
Wait one more minute, then strike.

Suddenly the Taira man was right beside her. She shoved the futon off and stood. His mouth was slack. She saw the large pores of his face, the rotted stumps of teeth. She glared right into his eyes, close to hers, and then she plunged the dagger all the way into the egg-white softness of them, into the sponginess of his brain.

He fell over, the only sound the life gushing from his face and all over Yamabuki. Wet and hot and thick. She yanked the knife free.

She did it. Yamabuki dropped into a kneeling position and embraced her belly, still holding the dagger.

Tomoe Gozen

M
IYANOKOSHI
F
ORTRESS

S
HINANO
P
ROVIN
CE

H
ONSHU
, J
APAN

Summer 1177

N
o.”
The syllable shouted from Tomoe's throat. She couldn't be dead. “Yamabuki Gozen!”
The baby. Not the baby,
she thought.

More than this, she was surprised to find just how much she wanted Yamabuki to live. She had grown fond of the girl from the south. Yamabuki stared straight ahead, unblinking. Tomoe touched her face. Warm. “Yamabuki,” she said, and finally Yamabuki's eyes focused and she awakened from her stupor.

Yamabuki looked up at her. “You're hurt,” she said, touching Tomoe's bruised throat. She had trouble swallowing, Tomoe felt now.

“Don't worry about me. Are you hurt?” Tomoe knelt beside her. She should have stayed and defended the poor city girl.

She saw the dead man behind Yamabuki, in the shadows. The blood ran from his head and into the flooring cracks. Tomoe put her arm around Yamabuki. “You did it,” she said softly. “You are as brave as I thought.”

Yamabuki calmly wiped the dagger clean on a cloth and handed it to Tomoe. “I was lucky. Nothing more.” Their fingertips touched briefly. Now Yamabuki was bone-cold.

She grasped Yamabuki's hand and looked into the younger girl's eyes. “Every woman is a tiger when she defends her child,” she said. “And you are a mother now, so you must be a tiger always.” She had to make Yamabuki, and Yoshinaka's son, healthy. Strong. They could be as strong as Tomoe herself. As strong as Yoshinaka.

Yoshinaka's frame filled the doorway. “Tomoe?”

She wanted to embrace him. The adrenaline from the fighting left. Her entire body shook and her throat ached. She had come closer to death than she thought. “Yoshi.”

He dropped to the floor in front of the women, gripping Tomoe's shoulder with one hand. He smelled of fresh coppery blood, sweat, and smoke. She moved back out of the way. She couldn't see his expression, the sun too strong behind him. “Yamabuki? My son? Are they all right?”

“I am all right.” Yamabuki raised her head. “The baby is fine.” And she moved back away from Yoshinaka, too. Her breathing sounded heavy. “Tomoe,” she whispered urgently. “Tomoe, I want you to know.”

Tomoe leaned her head next to Yamabuki's. Yamabuki gripped Tomoe's arm so hard it hurt. Tomoe was surprised the slight woman had such strength in her hand.

“I do not love Yoshinaka,” Yamabuki whispered. She indicated Yoshinaka. “Truly, I never did. He was always yours. He only tries so hard with me because I do not love him.”

Tomoe put her warm cheek against Yamabuki's cold one. “You have but one task now. To bear this child.”

Yamabuki gulped and glanced at Yoshinaka. “Will you . . . distract him from me?”

Tomoe wrinkled her forehead. It took her a moment to figure out what Yamabuki meant. “Of course. With all my power.”

“Will you two hens stop whispering?” Yoshinaka said with mock annoyance. Kanehira came in, and so did Chizuru. Yamabuki went silent.

“I must make tea to calm our nerves,” Chizuru exclaimed, and she helped Yamabuki sit down.

Tomoe bowed to Yamabuki. After a moment, as the family watched in puzzlement, Yamabuki bowed back.

—

Later, Yoshinaka sent
everyone except Tomoe and Yamabuki away. “Sake?” he asked, and Tomoe poured both of them servings in the small earthenware cups.

She offered one to Yamabuki. “It makes me ill,” the woman said, holding her belly.

“She has been through so much today. Perhaps she should go to bed,” Tomoe told Yoshinaka, but he bolted back another measure of sake.

“Not yet,” he said. “Let me tell you what has happened.”

Yamabuki shifted uncomfortably. “Put your head in my lap,” Tomoe said. Yamabuki did, stretching out on the futon. Tomoe stroked her hair, the girl's warm forehead. She sipped her sake. It went to her head, relaxing her, even putting out of her mind the image of the body released from its head. She had another, enjoying the warmth coursing down to her stomach.

Yoshinaka explained where they had been. He and a group of Minamoto supporters had tried to kill the Taira leader, Kiyomori. But before they could carry out the mission, before Yoshinaka even arrived, in fact, Kiyomori had the assassins killed. Only Yoshinaka and his men had escaped.

“Now they know we are serious, and will try to take us out,” Yoshinaka told Tomoe, lying down opposite Yamabuki. “Do you see why it was important for you to be here with Yamabuki? If it weren't for you, Yamabuki and my heir would be dead. No, we are much better off without you in my army.”

She thought of Yamabuki and the dagger. “It's only because of Yamabuki's bravery.”

“You make it possible for me to be in two places at once.” Yoshinaka kissed her hand, then kissed Yamabuki's drowsy lips.

“Let her rest, Yoshinaka,” Tomoe said, as his tongue parted Yamabuki's lips. “She has been through too much today.”

“I will help her relax. Look at how tense her muscles are.” He kissed Yamabuki again. Yamabuki stirred, moving backward toward Tomoe. Tomoe placed Yamabuki's head gently down on the futon and stood. “Then let me leave the two of you alone.” Her voice broke. She was dizzy from the drink.

“Tomoe.” Yamabuki reached her hand up toward Tomoe. The woman was fully awake now. Yoshinaka already had her kimono open to her swollen breasts, his bearded face between them. “Please. Do not leave me.”

“Stay, Tomoe,” Yoshinaka said.

Tomoe remembered her promise from earlier. She nodded.

She thought of only one thing to do. She lay down on Yoshinaka's other side and, catching Yoshinaka's hand, put it to her own breast. “Yoshi,” she murmured, and forced him to turn onto his back.

He had one arm around each of them, squeezing each toward his warm form. “I am the only man who has both the sun and the moon shining on him at once.”

Tomoe propped herself up on her elbow to kiss his eager face. “You are a poet after all, Yoshinaka.”

“Perhaps, if you are lucky, I will make you some more mochi. I promise, I will not use rancid beans.” They both laughed at this.

“He made me mochi once,” Tomoe explained to Yamabuki.

Yamabuki's eyes widened in surprise. “I do not believe such a thing.”

“You will, and you must,” Yoshinaka said. “I will prove it.”

“Please, do. I must see it for myself.” Yamabuki's voice was merry. Tomoe was glad. It was a welcome change for Yamabuki to giggle about anything.

Yoshinaka sat up to pour another cup of sake. Yamabuki leaned over and placed her hand on the back of Tomoe's head. “Thank you, Tomoe Gozen.” Her breath was sweet, her face close to Tomoe's. She put her mild mouth on Tomoe's. Tomoe hesitated, but Yamabuki's lips were full and plush, different from Yoshinaka's, her face soft instead of whiskery. It was a pleasant change. She returned the kiss. Yamabuki's hand tightened in Tomoe's hair. Tomoe caressed Yamabuki's tender back, feeling the woman relax in her arms, the swelling of her belly against her own.

“Tomoe.” Yamabuki drew her head back and looked at her in the dim light. “Stay with me.” Her eyes were dark and pleading, reflecting the lantern.

“I will.” Tomoe closed her eyes as Yoshinaka lay back down in between them.