The Golden Naginata (34 page)

It was very odd to see these youths of royal families acting as they did. It was possible their emotions had been pent up for so much of their lives, only to see death so near in these past days, that now from sheer relief and reawakening, they were eager to aid in the propagation of the yamabushi sutra, whatever it might be, so long as it had something to do with the way the strong priests cussed as they pleased and swaggered.

But could it be that Tomoe Gozen was blinded by her tolerance? She had learned about the attraction of men like Yoshinake, and like the yamabushi, beside whom she was pleased to fight. Did such feelings for them cause her to look upon their celebration superficially? It was always easiest to see those who dance and laugh and willingly indulge in this or that. But what about the darker corners of the night? Over there behind a tree sat a girl, her obi trailing away from her body, for some cruel man had unwound it. She was weeping. Tomoe Gozen started near to see if she could help, but the girl got up and ran away, dragging her untied obi through the darkness. And what was that bonze keeping in his robe if not a rare piece of lacquer ware? Who else had bags of things? A muffled shout made Tomoe stop and turn around, but she did not hear it again, never knew what it was that happened. Now that she began to look closer into the eyes of those citizens who mixed so well with drunken priests and soldiers … was there not a little madness in their eyes? Weren't these once-coddled folk of Kyoto looking back at Tomoe Gozen with something of desperation?

She passed a temple which the yamabushi had taken over and turned into a saké den. It was the temple of a peaceful god—exactly the sort warrior-monks could not respect. The sound of gambling and lewd songs pulled Tomoe Gozen back toward this place, for she wanted to rush inside and reproach the men she had fought beside. But what use a token gesture? She stood at the bottom of a stairway, gazing up at the closed door to the temple, and there was fury in her mind. Dare she contradict her husband's proclamations? The city is
not
yours!

Before she could decide, the temple door burst apart with hardly any warning. Priest Kakumei himself came out backward, landing on his back at the foot of the steps. “Damn!” said the big wall of a man, as Tomoe Gozen looked down on where he lay, wondering who or what could toss him out like that. She turned her face toward the broken door, saw inside the ravaged temple. An old man with shaven pate had been tied up to the rafters, dangling with the rope about his waist. His eyes were clenched tight, but he could not close his ears to the blasphemies in his temple. What an awful thing to do to him!

Kakumei got up from the ground and brushed himself off, looked at Tomoe whom he had always liked, and said to her in a chagrined fashion, “There's a
shoki
in there!” Then she saw the monster peering out. It was a thing too ugly to be a man, but somehow man it was, or parody of one. His face was flushed the color of peony blossoms. His hair, too, was red, like fire. In a funny way, he looked like a yamabushi, wild and hairy and strong; but certainly that red hair set him apart. Priest Kakumei said, “Those old shoki devils are attracted to two things: defiled churches, and saké. I guess we conjured him ourselves!”

Tomoe Gozen went into the temple and let the old priest down from the rafters. The poor fellow would not open his eyes and, now that he was loose, he quickly put his hands to ears, trembling. The shoki swaggered around the room but the yamabushi pretended to hardly notice. Priest Kakumei was following Tomoe, hovering about her. He was almost as big as the shoki but not quite. He said, “We must ignore the thing. They tend to go away if not noticed. There is only one other way to get rid of one, and I would not like to try it.”

A drunken bonze came up to the resident priest who Tomoe had set free. This bonze tried to force saké into the old man's clamped mouth. Tomoe glowered at the bonze. He shrugged and left off. Meanwhile the shoki was being a nuisance, shaking empty saké bottles and saying things like, “None in this! None in this one either! Hurry-hurry! Give me wine!”

What a stinking den of iniquity she had come across, not one yamabushi sober, nor the wenches they had brought … fancy whores, for plain ones never lasted long in Kyoto, where etiquette so mattered. Hastily indentured servants (usually they farmed) came in and out from the back room of the temple, trying not to see the red-faced red-haired shoki (the yambushi advised them of this). They brought freshly warmed saké to replace the bonzes' empty bottles; and so the saké-loving shoki noticed who they were. “Sister!” cried the shoki, then, “Sir,” but the girl servant and man servant hurried back into the other room. Tomoe Gozen lifted a full saké bottle out of the hand of a bonze. He looked up at her but did not try to get it back.

“Shoki devil,” said Tomoe. “Here is a full bottle!”

The big fellow was like a fawning horse eager for something sweet. He came over and took the bottle and drank it down. The yamabushi gave a collective groan, for who could get rid of a shoki once it thought it could have what it wanted? Priest Kakumei groaned loudest, pulled his hair, and said to Tomoe Gozen, “What did I tell you? Do you know what you've done?”

“I've made him settle down a bit,” said Tomoe, feigning innocence about the matter. She knew exactly what she had done. It would make the yamabushi think twice before committing more devilish acts, attracting worse devils than themselves, and ones they could not handle. She looked Priest Kakumei in the eye (she craned her neck to do it) and this is what she said: “I have never seen a fiend like this red-haired shoki in my life; but I have heard the best way to get one to go back to his secret haunt is to challenge him to a drinking-match. Is there none among the yamabushi who can hold more than a shoki?”

The shoki had finished off the bottle and began leaping up and down, shaking the entire structure. “More saké! More! More!” A bonze crept forward on his knees and held a bottle up, for it was no good ignoring him now. “Thank you!” the shoki shouted. “Thank you thank you!” He began to guzzle. He looked around the room and said, “Nice house!” between swigs. “Where is the incense pot?” Shoki liked to wear temple incense pots for hats. It was a most sacriligious thing to do. Tomoe Gozen gazed about the room and said,

“If the yamabushi are too cowardly to fight the shoki fairly, it is possible to stack the odds against him!” She looked at the shoki and asked him, “Would you mind?”

“Not me. I don't mind.” He wiggled his red eyebrows and drank again.

“Good. See?” She addressed the yamabushi again. “The shoki is a good sport about it. Boil saké in a big pot until it evaporates a lot. Use the condensed brew for his cup, and ordinary stuff in your own.”

“Good idea!” said the shoki.

“I think so too,” said Tomoe. “Hurry-hurry!” she said to the servants, mimicking the shoki.

As any shoki can drink a lot, it was necessary to send all over Kyoto to get enough. By so doing, it was soon known everywhere that more than fifty yamabushi were trying to outdrink a shoki devil in a temple. Naturally, a crowd collected outside. More yamabushi came to see if they could drink more than a shoki, disregarding his head start. A huge container of stinking brew bubbled over the fireplace. The shoki drank this stronger stuff without waiting for it to cool. Now and then a boastful bonze decided he would try the shoki's brew; but these fellows did not last long. The others thought it good enough to measure ordinary stuff against the shoki's stronger.

Through the night it continued. Tomoe Gozen napped off and on, awakening once to a sad noise. It was not the sloppy, slovenly horde of sots that awakened her, but the soft, pitiful moaning of the defiled temple's priest. The old fellow had pulled himself into a ball, eyes shut tight, hands to ears, and he whimpered. Tomoe stroked his shaven head until he settled down a bit, but now and then he made some more unhappy noises. She understood a few words as he muttered miserably, and gathered that he thought himself to have been murdered in the wars, his temple burnt to the ground, and now the spirit of himself and of the temple were residents of Hell.

Before dawn, every yamabushi except Priest Kakumei lay sprawled upon the floor, out on the porch, or in the yard. The audience had camped around the place, some of them asleep. It looked as though there had been another battle, and here was the aftermath.

Tomoe Gozen, awakened and alert, waited for the final verdict. Priest Kakumei sat on the opposite side of a table from the shoki. The shoki wore an incense pot on his head. First the priest belched. Then the shoki belched. Then the priest emptied a cup of regular saké; then the shoki emptied a cup of condensed saké (or had the poor tired servants gotten things mixed up?). The crowd was thinning until the only ones who stayed were those who had placed wagers on the outcome, and even they were bored. There was only so much amusement to be had from watching yamabushi get sick and fall down. The final yamabushi, and the pet, were not doing anything different from a few hours before. Belch-drink. Drink-belch.

Something new did happen when Priest Kakumei reared up into a wavering posture, almost knocking the table down. Standing, he cried fiercely, “I am now so filled with courage!” Belch. “I am now so filled with courage!” He looked down to where Tomoe Gozen was sitting and he asked, “Where was I?”

“Filled with courage,” she replied.

“Yes! I am now so filled with courage that I will fight the red-faced shoki with my fists!” He swung at the shoki across the table and the beast went cross-eyed when thus smitten. The pot fell from his head with a clatter and a crash. He reared up angrily, his face even redder than before. He grabbed Priest Kakumei by the shoulders, lifted him over the table, and threw him out the broken door as he had done many hours earlier.

“This is too much!” said Priest Kakumei, lifting himself to hands and knees. Then he fell down again quite silent.

Tomoe Gozen stood up and said, “Have you another name than shoki?”

“Kono Kasa,” said the shoki. “You may call me Kono.”

“Well, Mister Kono, you are too strong for the yamabushi to exorcise. That being so, how would you like to join my army? You will be good for humbling these men when they are too sure of themselves, or wicked.”

“Will there be saké?” asked the shoki.

“Not very much,” said Tomoe.

“Can I camp out in a temple?” he asked.

“I think a tent.”

“Then I decline!”

“Very well,” she said, drawing forth her sword. “I will take your head.”

“I will join your army,” the shoki reconsidered. “I hear the war is over anyway.”

After so whimsical an adventure, by which she gained a strong member for her troops, it might have been presumed Tomoe Gozen's mood began to glisten. It did not. She returned to the military palace gloomy as the day before, as liable as ever to register some firm complaint, in a manner to injure sensitivities … this being so, she chose to remain silent, bearing in mind that, on occasion, when nothing gentle could be spoken, nothing should be said at all.

There was a slow bustling about the headquarters, while breakfasts were prepared and samurai rose and primped at leisure. Few but the Four Great Men had been up for very long, and they were tucked away with Lord Kiso, their meetings securely guarded. Tomoe Gozen pretended to have forgotten the council meetings. She bathed, groomed, put on fresh clothing. She dressed in plain black hakama and white kosode blouse, over which she wore a black haori waist coat subtly patterned with waves. She found a straw hat she liked, and it was lacquered black. She carried it about, indicating her intent to be heading off somewhere soon. Several other samurai noticed she was planning to leave, no doubt to the tent-camp to check on troops. Yet they must have wondered why she was not with her husband and the shi-tenno, for those meetings were important. When she tied on her hat and went into the garden and toward the gate, she took not only her two swords, cast through the straps of her hakama and her obi, but also she had Inazuma-hime. This made witnesses more curious still, for there was no need of the naginata today. Celebration, not battle, was in the offing.

Before she had passed completely through the garden, she was accosted by a tailor. Lord Kiso had ordered special garments be readied for the afternoon ceremony; and this meant a dozen pairs of women's hands would be sore and aching by noon, hastily completing the necessary alterations of fancy court vestments. Tomoe suffered the apologetic tailor until she had the measurements she needed and was gone. Tomoe did not particularly look forward to parading gaudily along the lane between the palaces, in suits hindering easy motion; although she was mildly amused by the prospect of her husband in
eboshi
high-hat, sleeves dangling to the ground, and powder on his face. It would hardly fit his swaggering image; yet, perhaps, nothing less was quite polite in the company of court.

Tomoe Gozen proceeded to the Place of Tents, the tents being tarp enclosures devoid of roofs. Although she had not attended the pre-dawn meetings in the headquarters, nor peered into the council chamber to see what present decisions were being made without her restraining hand, she was nonetheless soon cognizant of new policy.

As she went among the troops in the tent-camp, she saw that all were at odds among themselves. Kiso Yoshinake had ordered a kind of purging of the troops. Fencing peasants were to return at once to their farms, under penalty of death if they refused. Wanderers were to hasten to their districts, the threat of execution encouraging them to do so. The wives of generals could remain; old precedents existed for this. But those small groups of martial nuns or others who were unmarried must either fall back among the camp-followers and whores, or else get themselves to their convents and other places. There had been no recognition of the value of these auxiliaries up until the day before. Nor was there an explanation of this sudden policy. But Tomoe Gozen knew her husband was sprouting nasty pretensions, master of Imperial Kyoto that he was, and would no longer suffer the motley nature of his army. Even samurai and yamabushi were not to mix, but were restricted to their own company, for this would lend a more orderly appearance to things. Yamabushi and samurai had mixed only to a small degree in any case; but this small degree must cease, and this official segregation was not good, in Tomoe's opinion, for the maintenance of a united force.