The Golden Naginata

by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

  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 befo
re. 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.

  As the “lesser” warriors who were neither martial clergy nor of samurai blood packed their gear to leave, they were pitiful to see. Tomoe Gozen had trouble being Yoshinake’s second voice in this matter. Therefore she became more silent still, passing through the tent-camp, pretending hardly to notice the mild but real unrest.

  At the edge of the camp she was overtaken by the shoki devil. He wore the long, black robe of a priest, which surprised Tomoe. A white smile broke his flushed complexion. “Good morning, General Kono,” said Tomoe. They bowed to one another. She had allowed him the unofficial title of General, which everyone would honor for so long as the shoki refrained from drinking saké. It was a terrible concession for him, but worth it for the title. Tomoe asked, “Why are you so gleeful? Everyone in camp looks sad.”

  “Clever shoki that I am,” said General Kono, “I have converted to Buddhism so that I cannot be purged from the army by Lord Kiso’s decree. I am a yamabushi!” The red-haired Kono Kasa thumped his chest with a big fist.

  “I am glad,” said Tomoe. “Please help the troops clean up the city. There is yet much to be done since war has ended.”

  General Kono agreed wholeheartedly and scurried off to useful labor, strong fellow that he was. Tomoe went her way.

  It was yet early morning when she found herself off the main highway, wandering lonely trails upon the hillside. Once, she passed along a clearing, and lingered to peer upon the Imperial City in the low valley. How peaceful it looked; how attractive in every configuration.

  Illusion: a wondrous possession.

  How easily lost.

  Before long she came upon a stream and followed it to a lake. She sat upon a fallen log and gazed over crystal waters. Though burdened with emotion, none of it was visible in her even gaze.

  Pines dominated the high forest, surrounding the lake closely, their tops bowed in obeisance or to see their own images. The seemingly omnipresent rosy streak in heaven—a piece of dawn persisting day and night—reflected on the silver lake, a bolt of sheerest silk unrolled across infinitesimal waves. It was an unusual shade, that streak, unlike anything quite earthly; yet Tomoe Gozen had seen the color once before, and had these many days tried to convince herself it was mere coincidence. She did not like to admit some connection between the rosy light above Kyoto and the mist she had seen over Mount Kiji, coalescing into a holy beast.

  “Kirin,” Tomoe whispered, and her voice carried across the lake weirdly. “Your blood will not protect against Inazuma-hime’s glare beyond today. Will you come to claim the weapon then? If so, I will not pierce you anew. I will not attempt to keep your treasure for another spell. It has already been used for its purpose in the Lands of Roots and Gloom; I should have returned it to you before now. I am sorry.”

  She stood from the log and moved to the edge of the lake, peering not at the rosy streak in heaven, but the one upon the lake. She bowed her head courteously, made several more apologies, held the Golden Naginata in front of her, horizontally in both hands, and cried out: “Oh mighty kirin of Kiji-san! Take your treasure from me now!”

  A wind played over the surface of the lake, making the reflected streak appear to move nearer. Then it went back. Tomoe shattered the serenity of the setting once more, shouting, “I have come to understand your love of Inazuma-hime! If I keep her one more day, to lose her will be as though I lose my own heart!”

  She stood there a long while, unmoving, expecting the fierce kirin to coalesce upon the water, come toward her like a mist, take away the treasure which was the beast’s true love. But the kirin did not appear. The rosy band across the sky did not alter. Tomoe Gozen lowered her arms after some while. She removed the carved wooden sheath of the weapon, doing so slowly, for she was not certain what hour would find Inazuma-hime repossessed of blinding light. It was still rose-gold, shining, but not damaging of eye, rather, it was pleasing, although “pleasing” did injustice to the feelings it invested in its viewer. The beauty of that lightning glaze and temper gifted Tomoe Gozen with a tranquility lost of suspense, a restful peace. Her heart was almost bursting with a sense of ease; and Tomoe Gozen converted this excessive amity into a burst of inspired battle-postures as had never before been tried. Inazuma-hime thrust imagined opponents on the right, then left, and then the fighter twirled about, slashing a full circle, ending in a downward sweep which stopped, suddenly, all of this between one breath and the next. The movements had been more poetic than aggressive and, for the narrowest slot of time, she felt in touch with some harmony of spiritual and material wholeness, sensing Inazuma-hime to be a link, a circuit, connecting Universe to human selfhood. Tomoe then spoke quietly to the weapon. She said:

  “I never thought to care for any blade as much as my retired Sword of Okio. My present sword is jealous! But it, not you, must still possess my soul; the soul of another rests in you: the soul of the kirin. Why will the monster not claim you? Must I keep you near myself until I suffer greatly to be parted from your presence? Is that my punishment for taking you away?” She sighed, but not unhappily, for Inazuma-hime eased her feelings. “Last night,” she said, “I dreamed. I was asleep upon my knees, leaning on some sad old frightened priest in a debauched temple; and the dream was just a voice which said, ‘Mount Kiji is a temple also, the altar of which has been robbed, defiled, even as this old man’s temple is.’ The voice was sweet and feminine and courteous to me, but also very stern. I awoke knowing the monster kirin was near, would not rest or be happy until its altar was restored. I am very sorry for your true master, Inazuma-hime! I am very disappointed in myself!”

  Then she sheathed the Golden Naginata and began to walk back to the city. She was surprised to be returning with Inazuma-hime still in her possession, convinced as she had been that it would be taken from her hands. Desire made her happy it was still hers to hold. Guilt, and knowledge that it would soon become a dangerous light, made her uneasy that the kirin ignored the call.

  Yoshinake’s entourage waited by the back gate of the military palace, preparing themselves emotionally for the parade to the other palace, the one at the far end of the long lane. They were never so nervous in preparation for war! They stood in awkward-looking bundles, posturing absurdly, trying to be comfortable in their heavy, gaudy robes. They each wore an eboshi: tall, narrow black hats with ties that went under the chin. They wore excessively high clogs or geta which went “clatter-clatter” as they milled about. They wore stiff, colorful, excessively flared hakama over several layers of equally uncomfortable garments. Atop everything they wore big overcoats of elaborately brocaded silk, long enough to drag the ground.

  The shi-tenno tried to retain their dignity, and did not do too badly, but were less impressed with themselves than when sporting armor. Lord Kiso himself strutted about as though he felt perfectly at home in such finery, unaware that he appeared more the buffoon than any. Tomoe Gozen looked as though she was suffering most bravely. Two dozen other men, some with their martial wives, were fidgeting and worrying that something was on crooked (they were right). Everyone was overheated, as the afternoon was unexpectedly humid.

  “Don’t we look handsome!” exclaimed Lord Kiso. He was serious. Higuchi Mitsu laughed, but went quickly silent, realizing no one else thought the remark funny. Tomoe Gozen, standing at her husband’s side, bowed to him with a reasonable degree of grace, then answered: “We certainly do look dressed up.”

  Lord Kiso turned, stumbling on the hem of his costume. An ox-cart was coming down the lane to
fetch the one most honored among the guests. The others were to walk behind the cart in a stately procession. Such was the plan. A servant from the Imperial palace had previously instructed them in the etiquette of the situation; but he had done so tersely and not remained to see if it went well. Nobody looked as though they quite remembered anything, each looking to someone else and hoping to follow their lead.

  The ox lowed on seeing this group. It looked at them in a startled way, and they looked back. The ox-keeper was having trouble convincing the beast to turn around, for it seemed intent on staring at these dressed-up warriors. It had spent its life giving rides to similar persons and had never stared like this before. Honored Ryowa warriors were always learned in manners of court, and were quite unastounding in their costumes which were worn with ease and grace. But in the present case, even a dumb animal could see something was amiss; it was apparently planning to stand there until it figured out more precisely what the problem was.

  The ox’s groom was an older fellow. He smote the animal’s rump until it decided to pay attention. It turned about, revealing the rear end of the cart which had fold-down steps. Servants unfolded the steps and helped Lord Kiso enter the cart. It bounced and, as he had again stepped on the hem of his costume, he tumbled onto the floor of the transport in a clumsy heap. Everyone pretended not to notice while Lord Kiso struggled to discover some means of sitting on his knees within the cart’s confines. There was room for no one but himself. The rest began to line up behind the ox-cart. Tomoe Gozen was supposed to be the first in line, but something happened which caused her to be last. That thing was this: