The Golden Naginata

by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

  Her guilty feelings for killing Taro faded from memory. She climbed the tendrils from the Land of Roots until she reached the crack in the ground above. There, she clung to an earthen wall while it shook with Jishin-uwo’s annoyance; but she could not be made to fall back into the Hollow Land.

  She clung also to a thought, one which the Baku could not have: There would be a funeral tablet for brave Taro, and he would have the death-services of a samurai.

  She struggled onto the shaking surface of Naipon, saw that she was in a mapled valley, the trees of high autumn all around her. The limbs of the trees vibrated as the ground heaved and buckled. There were gorgeous leaves upon those branches, many of them falling because they were so shaken; and their falling was like a weird, colorful snow upon Tomoe’s body. She knew it was nearly time to lead the yamabushi unto Kyoto, to reinforce whatever claims Kiso Yoshinake had been making. She was uncertain exactly how much time had passed, days being measured differently underneath the world. Haste might be necessary. But for the moment, she could only lie gasping air, while the crack she’d scaled from Hell partially closed itself. Everything ceased to toss about. Jishin-uwo invariably thrashed a few lighter times, once he’d been awakened, but for now the catfish rested in its new position.

  As she lay, looking up through the red and yellow snow of leaves, through the dark sky-cracks of branches, she beheld the cloudy, bright sky, and her brow knit into a puzzled expression. She was certain she had just this moment escaped from Hell. Some of it was clear in her mind, but most of it had faded. She would almost be willing to swear by her very honor that she had fought the Naruka and talked to Koshi’s spirit and given Ushii a sword and pleaded with Okio to forgive Lord Kiso’s rashness … but thinking more carefully, these things began to sound most improbable. The specifics of each event were jumbled in her memory. The harder she tried to draw these actions into focus, the more hazy and unlikely they became. The Baku, the horse-spirit of Taro, the meetings with the King of Hell, and other important events, were forgotten entirely. Without these missing pieces, the parts she did recall refused to adhere into a logical, consistent picture.

  In time, she rose from her weary posture and went in search of a lake or spring. A purification rite was of absolute necessity, considering where she had been. If she could find salt, she would rub herself until parts of her were raw! Afterward, she would proceed with haste to her rendezvous with the yamabushi, and her rendezvous with fate.

  The following day found Tomoe Gozen going toward the pre-arranged meeting-place by means of palanquin, her Golden Naginata strapped to the vehicle’s outside. The men carrying the braces on their shoulders jogged to a steady cant, going swiftly as Tomoe had directed. She lifted the bamboo curtain of the palanquin to see people swarming the other way, coming from two roads which met on this third. They fled the war in the Imperial City and the ruin by earthquake of their own small villages. The quakes had mainly ended yesterday, but presently, Jishin-uwo decided to give one final thrash before settling down entirely. At first she did not feel it, due to the bouncing motion of the palanquin. But directly the bearers were so tossed about that they dropped the box which held Tomoe, jarring her suddenly.

  The peasants scurrying along the roads were thrown off their feet. Tomoe’s palanquin bearers went down on their faces not only because of the shaking ground, but because they feared Tomoe’s anger at being dropped so abruptly. She ignored their pleas to be forgiven, tossed the bamboo curtain over the roof of the palanquin, and sat inside watching the countryside convulse. Her expression was one of utter detachment.

  A crack appeared in the middle of a rice field. It began stretching toward the palanquin. The bearers, seeing it, rose from the ground and staggered swiftly away, abandoning their occupation. Tomoe sat calmly, watching the crack approach her. It stopped short of the road, never quite threatening to devour her or anyone else. When this last complaint of Jishin-uwo was finished, the people began to rise from the dirt and gravel, dusting themselves, their faces nearly as calm as Tomoe’s. Even peasants were resigned to such occurrences in Naipon, though occasionally bewildered to think a country divinely created and divinely ruled could yet so easily convulse with abundant disaster.

  Tomoe went the last small way on foot. She smelled smoke before she actually saw the village, and knew the quake had caused fires the day before, and some of these still smouldered. The people swarming along the roads could do no better than forget their ruined homes, leaving valuables at shrines as offerings, dressing statues in finery, offering millions of prayers, and fleeing to the mountains or off to another province. What they carried in big squares of cloth upon their backs was the extent of their salvaged past.

  As she strode against the tide of this exodus, many hands were extended, peasants trying to convince her to give them some coin. She had nothing to offer, so ignored them. Another samurai might have acknowledged them with the sharp edge of steel. The peasants may have hoped for exactly such an end to strife; but Tomoe Gozen did not draw her shortsword nor unsheath the blade of her naginata.

  The naginata was a worry. The kirin’s blood would wear away in one more week’s time. Then there would be no protection from the blinding light of the weapon’s supernatural temper. She recalled that it had taken her a year to perform the errand for bonze Shindo, to return the head of his pilgrim’s staff to the monastery. It might be equally difficult to return Inazuma-hime to her place in the crater of Mount Kiji, with Tomoe’s other responsibilities so numerous and so pressing. When the holy monster kirin was healed of its injuries, it might come stalking for Tomoe Gozen, and create trouble. She must be prepared, whether with apologies or strength to fight the beast again.

  When she arrived in the village, she saw that hundreds had been crushed by their falling homes. There were few attempting to dig the bodies out. There were already evil odors rising from the bodies, so disease would soon come to scourge the survivors. The quake had not been severe in Kyoto, one refugee from that direction remarked; but the war itself was awful and it was considered a bad idea to flee the villages in the direction of the capital.

  People wandered about on aimless journeys through the rubble. One staggering, bloodied fellow crossed Tomoe’s path, staring blindly though nothing was wrong with his eyes. He dropped down dead at her feet. She stepped over him. In the distance, a religious maniac howled a Shinto prayer. Buddhists jangled rattles, sitting amidst destruction. Tomoe spied a child attached to the breast of its dead mother, suckling pointlessly. Above them, a poem was scribed in blood upon a fragment of a wall. It was the mother’s final consideration: “The city falls in pieces. How serene the clouds.”

  There was surprisingly little looting, but one sad-looking woman upturned splintered floorboards and bent tatami mats as though in search of something in particular, something precious; but she looked confused, as though her quest was an unknown one even to herself. Her tattered clothing were grey from dirt. It was clear she had been a beggar even before the quake delivered instant poverty to an entire town. Her face was smudged with soot. Her arms were blistered, indicating that she had barely escaped one of the fires of the day before. He eyes were deepset and dark beneath. Even in such a condition, Tomoe recognized who this was.

  “Oshina!” she cried. “Oshina! Why are you here?”

  The woman looked up stupidly, then shouted back at the samurai, “Give me money, samurai! Give me food!” She came hopping through the rubble toward Tomoe Gozen, her hand reaching out, beseeching.

  “Oshina, don’t you remember me? Why have you left Lost Shrine? Did it fall in the earthquake also?”

  “The shrine?” She looked more stupid than before, but then seemed to remember. “I left Lost Shrine several days ago. I don’t know if the earthquake hurt it.”

  “Where is your son? Why is he not strapped onto your back?”

  Her deepset, dark eyes pondered this question, for she scarcely remembered anything at all. “My son,” she said carefully, then it flo
oded back into her consciousness. “Koshi! Koshi!”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Koshi-koshi!”

  Tomoe grabbed the hysterical mother by the shoulders and squeezed hard. “Don’t act so funny, Oshina! I am your friend Tomoe Gozen! Don’t you know? Have you abandoned Koshi at Lost Shrine?”

  Oshina settled down and nodded vaguely.

  “How could you do it! Oshina!”

  Oshina looked into Tomoe’s eyes and the look was so eerie and intense that Tomoe let go and stepped back. Oshina said in a low, whispering voice, “Koshi’s spirit unexpectedly came back into his body. I wanted to rejoice. But the first thing he said, as soon as he sat up, was ‘Iye-iye-iye,’ I-don’t-like-I-don’t-like-I-don’t-like. Then he fell back dead completely. I left, forgetting even to bury him.”

  “Poor Oshina!” exclaimed Tomoe, frowning in an exaggerated but honest manner. “I tried to help but only made things worse! Old Uncle Tengu made an error thinking I could be useful. Oshina! Let me help you in some way! How can I make amends?”

  “Money, samurai. Food.” She put her hands out. “Or ₊”

  “What else would you have, Oshina? I will get it!”

  The woman did not answer at first. Then she threw herself at Tomoe’s feet, looking up and clinging to the samurai’s jacket, screaming at her, “Kill me, samurai! Kill me at once! Then I will find my son!”

  Tomoe pulled Oshina’s fingers loose from the hem of the jacket and stepped away. She looked upset, but replied, “As you desire it, I will.” She withdrew the shortsword and placed the point against Oshina’s neck. She asked, “You are certain?” Oshina’s madness seemed to vanish from her dark, sad eyes and in that moment her mind was clear. She held her lips firmly together, and nodded for Tomoe to continue. The shortsword punctured throat and vein.

  Oshina’s expression was one of gratitude.

  At dusk, those peasants who had no place to flee, or were too despondent to try, gathered up gold- and silver-leafed parts of houses, using them as firewood against the cold. Tomoe had been side-tracked trying to help these wretched people, but they were so afraid of her that it was hard to be useful. There existed a rift between castes so wide that even the gravest emergency could not bridge it for a while. Eventually she was approached by a black-clad yamabushi who, though a priest, did not respond to the peoples’ pleading for religious services. He bowed to Tomoe Gozen, led her beyond the village by a narrow path, to a huge clearing where tents were scattered and banners flapped. Three thousand yamabushi camped there. There were more, she was told, waiting in the hills around Kyoto, and some who had already joined the first assaults on the city and surrounding points.

  “The Knight of Kiso sent this,” said the priest who brought her to the camp. He indicated a large armor-box which had the comma-pattern of Tomoe’s personal crest printed on the outside. Within, bamboo armor lacquered shiny black with red silk lacing was neatly arranged. A newly forged shortsword and longsword were encased separate from the armor, the hilt ornaments made of gold. There was also a fan marked with Yoshinake’s crest. That fan symbolized the field marshal, and she would use it to direct and signal events on the battlefield. The priest said, “There is a horse as well. The white one over there.”

  “We march tonight,” said Tomoe. “We will be in our positions outside Kyoto as Amaterasu rises.”

  PART THREE

  The Audacious Treason

  Beneath Amaterasu the Shining Goddess there are many worlds, say the oracles, this one which we see, and others; and these worlds are varied one from the next in remarkable ways, while in other things they are remarkable for their similarity. Naipon, a divine nation, rises from the jade seas of each of these worlds, though many other nations cannot be found one world to the next; and the Yamato people, a divine race, are mighty in each of these places, though many other peoples are noteworthy only upon occasion. The fact of the matter, according to the oracles, is this: The fabric of the universe, and the universes within and without, would completely come undone, sometimes imploding upon itself, elsewhere dissolving into mists, other places bursting outward into tiny fragments … except that the anchor of everything is Naipon, which alone, among things known and unknown, holds all else together by its reliable and significant existence.

  And in this country which lies like scattered jewels drifting on the ocean, there is one place more holy even than the rest.

  This place, of course, is the Imperial City, where dwells the living flesh of Naipon, the august descendant of Amaterasu Herself; whose name in this generation is Go-Temmu, who has been kept in unpardonable seclusion by a clan once favored to be his guard but who became, by slow stages, his turnkeys. Who is to blame for this? The oracles ponder and speculate. Surely the Buddhas had nothing to do with it; positively the thousands of myriads of Shinto deities took no part. Gods do not smite gods as men smite men, so the felons must be mortal. Go-Temmu was a living god, mistreated by undeserving servants; an insult to Him blights humanity in the eyes of other gods as well. Who perpetrated such sin? The oracles venture cautiously: It was true the Shogun in that other capital had once exiled the Mikado, but that was long corrected; it need not be discussed. Furthermore, did the Shogun command the Imperial Guards? They were not of his clan and he did not necessarily favor them; indeed, he had often sought to chastise them in small ways, but they thought themselves too mighty to notice.

  Surely we are beginning to resolve the riddle (the oracles expressions approximated those of Bodhisattvas at the moment of enlightenment) of who the culprit is! The only ones to fault are the turnkeys themselves! (Or the guards, the oracles amended, begging the listeners’ pardon, and looking most respectful.)

  The offending clan was named Ryowa, which means circle of dragons. In other worlds they had other names, but their faces were the same, and their loss of faces too. Let it be known, then, that the Shogun sent a fierce general named Kiso Yoshinake to punish the Ryowa! (It took no oracular ability to see this.) Let it further be known that the Rising Sun General had never known defeat and did not expect to know it!

  So said the oracles. They grew bolder as war approached and heightened. “See that comet,” they shouted, more belligerent than pious, though they lived in temples. “It heralds the Ryowa downfall!” They also cried out, “See that red streak in the sky, persisting from dawn to dusk! It is Ryowa blood, about to splash the ground!”

  That many of the oracles were men in torikabuto or monks’ hoods may have had something to do with their rude prognostications. Some were yamabushi. As became widely known, yamabushi strode the highways along with the invading samurai, and many sects sympathized.

  Most of the army was on foot, but there were generals on horses; and a sizable cavalry was obviously expected, since the first infantries were eager to control certain fields which were useless but for grass.

  There were twelve famous generals under Kiso Yoshinake, one of them his wife, and four of them shi-tenno which meant “four great men.” And great they were, and beautiful. These four rode steeds of shining jet and, when going side by side, they were themselves a horde.

  The city which awaited terror sat in a quiet valley surrounded by temples and gardens and gently winding highways and brooks; there were placid lakes and slender waterfalls; and this city was inhabited by courtly aristocrats who were gentle and powdered and scented and innocent of fearful things, protected as they were by those veritable turnkeys, their guards, who themselves learned courtly manners so as never to offend fragile dispositions. The roofs of the city were tiled and the tiles were gilt with precious metal which reflected the sunlight and rivalled the dawn.

  The recent quakes had done the city small damage. A single temple was thrown down, that was all, and it was the Temple of the Goddess Kwannon—an omen, that, for She presided over mercy. Gilt tiles were shaken into the gardens and streets here and there, it was true, but golden leaves and ruddy ones and leaves of somber brown had fallen from the peach trees and plum, ch
erry trees and maple, hiding the quake-made rubble. Kyoto looked serene in this leaf-covered state; it looked as though it rested on a softly brocaded quilt.

  The war was already in progress when six unarmed yamabushi brought an oversized palanquin to the headquarters of the Ryowa. The headquarters was a place better than the one the Mikado lived in. The yamabushi announced that the occupant of the large palanquin was their heavenly patron. Inside was a statue of the warrior-monks’ god, Ida-ten. They sat the transport outside the gate of the Ryowa clan’s palace, a nuisance to those who came and went. A devoutly religious clan, no Ryowa would dare touch the holy thing outside their gate, nor attack the unarmed monks who brought it. Presently the six monks made camp in eyesight of the gate, the palanquin, and Ida-ten; whether they guarded their relic or wished to see who came and went from the military palace, this is not what mattered. The monks made this declaration: “Ida-ten is angry that the Ryowa have failed to live spartan lives as befit true warriors! He will sit here by the gate until the chief-generals beg his pardon!” The Ryowa leaders were incensed beyond reply. They repaired to secret meetings to discuss the situation. They suspected, but were not sure, that this was only a ploy to weaken their hearts, that Ida-ten was only a piece of wood and his transport merely a big fancy box. It might not be a religious matter at all, they argued, and began to convince themselves. Furthermore, the monks were frankly rude. They ought to be cut into pieces, whether or not it made some god angry. “There are other gods!” said the Ryowa council in their palace. The council was mostly men whose prime had left them, but left them wealthy. “Ida-ten is no one we need fear!” they agreed finally, deciding the best course would be to arrest the monks and set the wooden god afire. However, while this meeting was going on, a sentry had kept an eye on the six yamabushi, and on the fearful palanquin in front of the gate. The Ryowa sentry saw a peculiar thing, which was this: