The Disfavored Hero (47 page)

In the hills around Isso and around the temples of the city, many bells began to devise a simultaneous resonance denoting the Hour of the Ox. Kiso Yoshinake scooted forward so that he could reach the seppuku table, since Tomoe would not execute him after all. He took the knife and set it in his lap, placed the seppuku table behind himself so that he would not fall backward, opened his white kimono to expose his belly, then unsheathed the blade. When he held the blade toward himself, Tomoe exclaimed,

“Wait!”

The bells throughout Isso released a second sonorous note. For a moment Tomoe saw her father standing near her side, looking failed and forlorn. When the tolling died away, the specter of her father was also gone. Tomoe knew that Nakahara Kaneto's soul was gone from its body in Heida; but it was not the time to mourn.

Yoshinake's knife pricked the skin of his stomach.

“I will marry you!” Tomoe shouted. At that moment, a ninja dropped through a loosened ceiling panel. Yoshinake's seppuku blade caught the spy before he had landed on the floor. The ninja's shortsword shot through the air and stuck harmlessly in a beam of the house. At the same moment of the ninja's attack, a big half-caste man of the distant, continental kingdoms of Ho charged into the room at Tomoe. She knew him to be Fudo Kuji, the eighth of the ten men she had to kill. His girth was no advantage. Tomoe evaded his onslaught and left him instantly slain. Yoshinake stood while looking at his own quick handiwork; then he looked at Tomoe's like product as he asked, “We are engaged?”

“You heard me correctly,” said Tomoe. “I am weary of fighting traditions old as the reign of the Mikados. A moment ago my father's ghost stood here. The Hour of the Ox took him from the world of the living, but he lingered to see me one last time. I should have been at his side and eased his worries about me. Also I should have agreed to my betrothal long ago, for much nuisance could have been avoided if I had. To make amends to my father, and to secure vengeance for Okio by keeping you alive, I will marry you.”

“What of love?” asked Yoshinake, sounding absurd even to himself, but feeling sincere. “Is there none of that?”

“Marriages are more commonly arranged by families and go-betweens than by the parties involved,” said Tomoe. “Many ‘lovers' have met each other no more than twice before their wedding. What then has marriage to do with love? It has to do with necessity. I will marry you from a sense of duty. I will be an untroublesome wife.”

“Your words already trouble me,” said the man in white.

Tomoe removed her sheath and sword from her obi and got down on her knees. She set the sword at her side then bowed with her face to the mat. When she looked up she said, “Test my faith in any way you choose. I will be dutiful.” This promise was no more and no less than required of her. It eased the guilt she had felt the many weeks since running away from Heida, away from the marriage-meeting with a man who in the end would not be avoided. It by no means eased her bitterness and resentment. How could she confess that she had twice thought Yoshinake appealing: when she saw him slay four rough gamblers in the streets of Isso, and when she fought him herself in the gardens. Nor could she bring herself to say that he was beautiful to her now, for she doubted the soul of him was as handsome as his body.

Hidemi Hirota had stated that only half a dozen swordfighters in Naipon were Tomoe's match. There were others who thought her totally without peer. Until she met this ronin-who-was-a-general, she herself feared that her equal lived nowhere in the world. How could she help but admire a man who was genuinely as proficient a fencer as herself? Yet she could not find it in herself to tell him sentiments of this sort. It seemed that he had extorted the agreement of marriage from her. He did so by threatening the entire mission which had thrown them together in the first place. She refused to have kind words extorted as well, no matter how sad his expression might be. She would forgive him in time, but not immediately.

“Don't bow before me,” Yoshinake said peevishly. “You are my equal; and after we are wed you will lead armies for me. My destiny is to be a great one and you will share it. In the mountainous county of my birth, wives do not guard castles because we do not build them. Wives fight beside their husbands and, as our whole lives are devoted to conquest, we live in tent-camps. It is not a bad fate for you. Yet we have begun our romance ill-omened; and as you have asked to be tested it may be that you will be tested more cruelly than you imagine. I hope this isn't so, but lives weave eerie tapestries and it is presently the Autumn season overseen by the Lady of Brocade, who understands the ironies of the cloth.”

Tomoe stood from kneeling as she had been directed. Yoshinake went to one side of the room where his sword was mounted on a rack. He took the weapon and put it in his white obi. The seppuku blade he put inside his kimono. He did not tie back his sleeves but only straightened the lines of his kimono and pulled his arms inside, looking more prepared for relaxation than battle.

“As token of my feeling of our equality,” said Yoshinake, “and to indicate your marriage to me does not mean subservience, it is my wish that you lead me from the house into the gardens rather than walk behind me. I have eight more men to kill. I am impatient to kill them so that bonze Shindo can say the necessary prayers as we sip the nuptial cups. Remember: No one must know I am the Knight of Kiso. In this fight, I am the ronin Ich 'yama.”

As commanded, Tomoe led the way from the mansion. Though she walked in front, already she felt the easy power of the Rising Sun General. He walked behind her but no one would have mistook Tomoe for the master, not with Yoshinake's cocksure gait and his arms in his sleeves. Tomoe felt like the road-clearer for some rich lord's procession. She had served lords before and had been glad to do so; so she was not certain what it was she resented. A samurai was meant to serve. Should she complain to serve a husband? At least he valued her warrior assistance. Yet inside, she was seething. She wished it were otherwise, but it was not.

They went out through a lightless corridor. At the doorway she paused and slipped her feet into her sandals. When she stepped outside, the ninth of the ten men alloted Tomoe stood as though awaiting her appearance. The duel consisted of two strokes. The man—Kajutoshi Saitoh—who had been only a face and name imprinted upon her mind, lay dead. There was something other than calm justice in Tomoe's death-dealing. It was as though she struck at things besides mere men.

The mists had cleared from the sky. Yoshinake stepped over the corpse Tomoe had made and emerged into moonlight. He strolled into a clearing of the garden, his arms still inside his sleeves, and he looked up at the Guardian of the Night, the brother of Amaterasu the Shining Goddess. He said, “It is a good night for killing.” He said this but did not move.

The strange, hellish magic of the gaki had influenced the members of Mukade Group, eight of whom were drawn from hiding in order to take up positions surrounding Kiso Yoshinake. He was a magnet to them; they could not resist. Yet they did not look frightened, for eight against one seemed to be in their favor. Four of them crouched, dressed in black. They were sly ninja who might try anything. The other four stood tall, the sleeves of their kimonos tied back. They were samurai who undoubtedly considered themselves honorable men, regardless of the ruthless occupation given them by their slain master, Matsu Emura.

From four directions, shurikens shot toward Yoshinake. He seemed hardly to move and did not draw his arms from their resting place inside his sleeves; but the four metal stars missed him. The four ninja slunk in and out of the darkness, shadows against shadows, wolfish. The four samurai drew their swords but preferred not to attack until their adversary showed some readiness.

Bonze Shindo, Prince Shuzo Tahara and the vassal Hidemi Hirota gathered near Tomoe Gozen on the porch of the mansion. They had slain their alotted number. They had learned, during the long night of killing, that it would do no good to try to help the supposed ronin with the remaining eight; they were his and his alone. So they only watched the grim spectacle unfolding.

Yoshinake's arms remained inside his kimono, the sleeves swinging gracefully when he turned slowly. His attention was captured once more by the moon. His breath was white as his clothing on that unusually cold night.

Two samurai wearied of waiting for their opponent to draw steel. They charged as one, but Yoshinake evaded them with easy steps. They withdrew to take new stances. Yoshinake had moved almost carelessly in the direction of two waiting ninja. They drew their shortswords instantly. Yoshinake's right arm appeared from its sleeve holding a seppuku blade. It cut through one ninja's windpipe before he could fight; then the white-clad warrior sank the knife into the other ninja's heart. He left it there, turning to face the rest. They eased backward, then forced themselves not to retreat.

The two remaining ninja tossed darts. Yoshinake turned his left hip toward them and the darts seemed to have struck him through the obi and into the flesh. Actually he had caught the poisonous darts on the lacquered wood of his undrawn sword's scabbard. His left hand came out of its sleeve, removed the darts from where they were stuck, and flung them both at once, taking one ninja in the left eye and the other in the right eye. They shouted and ran forward, half-blind, knowing they were dying of their own poisons, brandishing their swords for the last, most desperate onslaught. Yoshinake did not move; he did not draw his sword. The two ninja fell just short of him, stopped by the poison which had rushed from their pierced eyes directly to their brains. Kiso Yoshinake said,

“I judged it beneath the dignity of Okio's tempered steel to slay mere ninja. It is more than they deserve to die by any sword whatsoever. That is why I made them die without the need of this:” He drew his sword at last, to show his four opponents. They understood him, and bowed to him in unison; and he bowed to them in turn. Then he said, “Will you watch the moon with me a while? It will be setting soon, and is beautiful to see change color as it lowers.”

The four men looked to each other in surprise, then back to Yoshinake. They nodded with uncertainty, then walked with their mysterious enemy on a garden path to the edge of the pond, sitting casually in a grassy place.

Hidemi Hirota, seeing this from his vantage-point on the porch, asked irritably,

“What is that about?”

“He honors them,” said Prince Tahara.

Hidemi scowled and blew air. “He honors them too much.”

The five men watched the moon until it was no longer visible in the gardens. The coldness of the night pressed angrily upon them, as though to remind them of their task. They stood, swords once again in their hands, and moved to an open area. One of the four men of Mukade Group stepped closest to Yoshinake and said, “You must tell us your name.”

“Ich 'yama,” he said. “A ronin.”

The speaker for the group frowned. “You mock us? You are some lord!”

“They have a point,” said the bonze to Prince Tahara. “That man is no ronin.”

The prince looked at Tomoe and said, “You convinced him to come out to fight. You must know who he is.”

She was about to say that she did know but could not tell. At that moment, however, a raging samurai leapt upon the porch to make a lunge for Tomoe. He screamed, “For Lord Emura!” He was Kozo Ono, last of the men Tomoe had been commissioned to kill. She dodged his attack, drew her own sword, and said, “Don't annoy us now!” killing him before he could turn to strike again. Then, in reply to the curiosity of prince, bonze and vassal, she said with unexpected bellingerence, “He is Ich 'yama, who I will marry!”

They couldn't have looked more surprised had she slapped them.

In the garden clearing, the speaker for the four men said, “I think we are destined to die by your sword, so tell us your real name. Otherwise the moments we shared with Amaterasu's moon-brother mean nothing.”

Kiso Yoshinake looked toward the porch, where his co-conspirators in the vengeance-taking stood in hearing distance. Indeed, he had heard them, too, talking about him and wondering. Suddenly, without warning, his sword of Okio scored the darkness and the four men around him fell as stems of rice, having no chance to fight although their swords were already prepared. Yoshinake's white garment had not even caught a spatter of blood, and he stood like a ghostly warrior in the dark, the ultimate symbol of Okio's final revenge.

The leader of the four, clinging to spilled intestines steaming in the cold atmosphere, looked up from where he knelt. He forced these final words: “I was misled! I thought you an honest man,” then died.

Dawn broke on the horizon. As the first warming rays of Amaterasu threatened the garden, the preternatural chill vanished, Okio's unseen spirit with it, doubtlessly satisfied that vengeance had been done.

Although none of them had slept for a day, there was too much excitement for anyone to desire rest. “Marry us!” Yoshinake brashly demanded of the bonze; and Shindo looked sideways at Tomoe, his grin almost too large for his face. Even Hidemi Hirota was affected by this, putting aside his dislike for the supposed ronin and begging to give the man a hug. He hugged Tomoe as well. Prince Tahara had momentarily vanished. He reappeared from within the mansion, carrying a beautiful pair of saké cups from which wedding vows might be sipped. These cups he had placed upon a lacquered tray; and between the cups was a small bottle of rice wine, enough for two.

The five of them paraded about the gardens, searching for a place at once beautiful enough for a wedding and unlittered by the slain. Tomoe and Yoshinake decided on a spot atop a small knoll, and sat there upon their knees, facing one another. Of the two, the man was most beautiful, dressed as he was in long white kimono with the yellow bird embroidered on the back. The woman was more dour in dark hakama and the back of her short kimono cut by a ninja's weapon during the late encounters.