Tale of the Warrior Geisha

by Margaret Dilloway

  But Yamabuki and her mother and little Aoi needed her. She held their images fast in her head, willing herself on. I’m coming. I’m coming, Tomoe repeated with each step. At last she put on a warmer wrapping and lashed herself to Cherry Blossom’s saddle, so she would not fall off.

  One morning, faithful Cherry Blossom at last reached her limit and began to stagger, her knees buckling. Had they even slept once? Tomoe vaguely remembered her eyes closing, Cherry Blossom stopping to graze at whatever paltry winter grass she could find. Poor Cherry Blossom. The mare was better off alone. Tomoe dismounted and walked. “Go on,” she told the horse, hoping the horse would abandon her; but the horse merely followed at her own slow pace. They must have made a sight, the two of them, like two half-dead ghouls trudging the empty roads. Tomoe saw no one. Perhaps they all hid from her.

  At last, she saw the houses of Shinowara, at the bottom of a hill, among the still-bare trees and the evergreen trees and the blurred January sky. Or what remained of it. It was almost completely burned to the ground. There were perhaps a dozen structures still standing, their roofs blackened. Tomoe paused, listening for any sound of life. Nothing.

  She walked in.

  Not even a dog remained, only a few chickens that continued to peck for bugs and plants as though their world had not just ended. Tomoe knotted her hair back, the silt and grease on it at last registering on her fingers. Perhaps this moment was the dream, she thought. Where had they all gone?

  She looked up and down the streets at the charred buildings. Blackened piles of ash stood lumped here and there in the pathways. What could those be? She went forward to the first one.

  A small white bone stuck out. She blinked, looked again. More bones poked out of the gray.

  Her throat lurched. “Yamabuki?” she said, her voice rising with the winter wind. “Yamabuki! Chizuru! Aoi!” Her voice echoed and reverberated back to her. She staggered on, following the paths to their house.

  It was still standing, part of the roof caved in, the doors broken off and lying askew.

  She went inside. A broken rice bowl lay on the floor, a few grains of rice still stuck inside. Tomoe’s heart stopped. Had there been an ambush? A pot of stew sat on the table, along with their eating utensils, as if they’d left suddenly. Tomoe picked up Aoi’s miniature pair of chopsticks. Yoshinaka had bought these for her. They were black lacquer, inlaid with tiny enameled cherry blossoms on the handles. She closed her hand around them. They had left suddenly. Were their bones somewhere out in the streets?

  She searched the chest for kimonos. Only a few spring robes remained. All of Aoi’s things were missing. Tomoe shut the heavy wooden trunk lid and sat down on it with a sigh of relief. At least Yamabuki had managed to grab most of her clothing. That meant they had had some time. That meant that the Taira had not taken them, or the women had not all killed themselves to avoid capture.

  That meant Yamabuki and her mother and surely Aoi were alive.

  Had Yamabuki gone to reunite with her son? Tomoe had no way to know. She had to believe it.

  Her legs refused to keep moving. She lurched out to the porch and sat heavily. Cherry Blossom drank some rainwater out of a bucket, reminding Tomoe of her own ignored thirst. She drew up some water from the well and drank one cup after another, until her belly protruded painfully and she threw up what she had drunk, again and again, holding on to the side of the well for support.

  Everyone she knew was gone. Her brother and Yoshinaka. Her father. Little Yoshitaka. Now her mother and the closest she had to a sister, Yamabuki, and Aoi. She only hoped they could bring each other comfort. That they were safe.

  “Yamabuki,” she said aloud, as though calling the woman to her. Louder still, “Yamabuki.” If she were a ghost, surely she would appear to show Tomoe she was at peace. But no apparition appeared. She rubbed her bleary eyes with dirty hands.

  She lay down and slept, right there on the porch, in the open, without a mat or blanket, Cherry Blossom close beside her in the yard.

  She awoke when the sun was high. It was bright, but very cold. Wind whistled through the bare trees, shooshed through the evergreens. There was no snow now. Somewhere, a bird sang, and Tomoe wondered why it had not gone south to warmer climes.

  The bird sang again, insistent. She raised her head and squinted, seeing it at last perched on the wooden horse hitch, chattering at her from deep in its throat. A dusky thrush, gray with black markings and small head with a dark, sharp beak.

  Cherry Blossom nudged with her nose. Tomoe put her hand on the horse’s head. The skin was white as a pearl. She was getting frostbite. Her skin was still soft, but she knew she did not have much time before it hardened and turned black.

  Come on, Tomoe willed herself. Get moving. I must get warm.

  She was so tired. She needed to sleep for a thousand years. Perhaps someone in the future, a child playing in these ruins, would find her sleeping, an old woman with snow-white hair long enough to reach to the moon and back. She shut her eyes, still upright, and felt her body slump. At least she was warm, she thought drowsily. Her body relaxed into a pose she knew she would never get out of.

  Get up!

  The voice wasn’t hers, not that voice in her head. She looked around. “Yamabuki?” she called.

  No answer. She put her hands on Cherry Blossom’s head and raised herself up. She was so stiff. Fresh pain seared her with every breath. She needed a fire.

  The bird trilled at her. She automatically trilled back. Standing at last, she thought of what to do. The bird trilled again. “Shush!” she said. “I’m moving.” So, she thought. I am alive. Now what?

  Tomoe rubbed her bleary eyes with dirty hands. She needed a fire. She found some hay for Cherry Blossom among their stores and looked around for firewood near the porch, where they’d kept it. But she was too tired and dizzy, and she lay down on the porch, and slept, Cherry Blossom standing close beside her.

  When she heard a horse clomping into the fort, she was not alarmed. Enemy or friend, she had no idea. She considered a fight, but her hands were still too frigid from their near-miss with frostbite.

  Tomoe blinked but looked up only as far as the horse’s legs. The horse halted, its chestnut skin glistening. Cherry Blossom remained calm, a good sign. The rider spoke in a baritone. “Tomoe Gozen. We meet again.”

  “Who are you?” She didn’t bother to get up or look for her sword. Let him kill her if that was meant to be.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me so soon. I’d never forget you.” The voice was warm, with a hint of laughter in it. Tomoe did not think she would ever laugh again, and she resented this voice’s good humor.

  She stood slowly. The courtyard spun lazily around her, the walls bowing out in her vision. She blinked. “No games. Tell me your name, or I shall have your head.”

  The man swung a leg off his horse. “I have been writing poetry to you all these years. Practicing. Of course, nobody’s seen it but me. It’s still terrible.”

  She tried to pick up her sword and stumbled. The man caught her in his arms. A flash of white teeth. At last she recognized him. Yoshimori Wada. The man from her childhood. Wada-chan.

  The man she used to know, back in another life.

  “Wada-chan,” she said, and he laughed.

  “You’re weak.” He stated the obvious. Wada half dragged, half helped her into the house. He put a blanket over her and started a fire and then lay down next to her, his body heat warming her, and put another blanket over the both of them. His arms cradled her and she thought of Yoshinaka riding with her to the cherry orchards. “I thought I would find you here. They told me you hadn’t died alongside Yoshinaka and Kanehira.”

  “Yoshinaka didn’t want me to stay,” she said. “Neither did I.”

  “You are a liar,” Wada said. “You would have stayed and probably fought off the rest of the battalion alone.”r />
  “Untrue,” she murmured.

  “He didn’t want you to see him like that,” Wada said, and Tomoe knew this was the truth.

  She slipped into unconsciousness. When she awoke some time later, she realized her head rested in Wada’s lap.

  “Tomoe.” Her name settled toward her lips like a snowflake. He was rubbing her hand between his and had built up the fire again.

  Clearheaded, she struggled to sit up. “Tell me what happened. Everything.”

  He hesitated.

  “Do you really think I am too genteel to hear it?” she demanded.

  Wada put his hand on her forehead. “It won’t change anything. They are still gone.”

  “Don’t leave anything out,” she said. “I have imagined it all and worse.”

  Wada inhaled, his eyes sorrowful, and began his story.

  After she left, Yoshinaka fled, Kanehira with him, intending to outrun the army with their strong horses. They escaped by running into a forest, where at last they thought were safe.

  It wasn’t long before Yoshinaka realized they had gone the wrong way. Demon’s hoof sank through a layer of ice with a crack, and the horse fell with a terrified whinny. “The bog!” he shouted. “We are in the bog.” He flailed, trying to get Demon to free himself, but the horse only sank deeper, all of his hooves stuck. It sucked the horse down like quicksand.

  Kanehira stopped his horse from following. “Abandon Demon and I’ll pull you out!”

  Yoshinaka tried to dismount, but now his own feet at the sides of the horse were stuck, too, the pressure of the mud pushing in on him. “Get away!” Yoshinaka shouted to Kanehira.

  Kanehira urged his own horse into the mud and tried to dig at Yoshinaka’s legs. Now Kanehira’s horse cried out and sank, too.

  Yoshitsune, of the rival Minamoto forces, approached. “It is no use, Yoshinaka,” called Yoshitsune, dismounting and climbing onto a fallen log only a few yards away. He began walking out, but stumbled and caught himself.

  Yoshinaka cast one last desperate look at Kanehira and nodded. Kanehira readied his sword, knowing what was about to happen. Yoshinaka threw his armor into the mud, and without hesitation, plunged his sword into his abdomen, white organs spilling out into the bog.

  Kanehira screamed, a mix of anguish and determination. He swung at Yoshinaka’s neck, ending his best friend’s suffering. Then he applied the sword to his own abdomen. Only no one was there to help Kanehira, his last brave act, his life leaving him before the somber eyes of his enemies.

  Wada stopped talking and both were silent. He held Tomoe’s hand somberly. “I am sorry it had to be this way, Tomoe.”

  It was no worse than she had imagined, somewhere deep inside. At least her brother had been with Yoshinaka in his last moments. She hadn’t known that Kanehira could be so brave. How he must have suffered. Tomoe covered her face with her hands. “Have you heard about the others? Little Yoshitaka?” It hurt to say the name.

  Yoshimori held water up to her mouth. “Who?”

  “The son of Yoshinaka. Yoritomo took him.” She rolled her head, avoiding his touch.

  Wada frowned and looked at the fire. He drew his hand over his eyes. “Do you remember how we spoke about the Taira leader who spared the lives of the boys, only to have them grow up to challenge him?”

  Tomoe nodded. Her heart jumped into her throat and temples. “We thought he was foolish,” she said, very faintly.

  Wada pursed his lips, his eyes distant. “I’m afraid Yoritomo is not so foolish.”

  The boy, too. Little Yoshitaka. Tomoe’s eyes hurt. She put her fingertips on her temples and pressed in, her breathing fast and shallow, until she regained control. She swallowed hard. “And what of Yamabuki and my mother and the little girl?”

  “There were a few who arrived at the Kantō from this village. I heard of an older woman with a girl child. I don’t know their names, but I think it must be they.” Wada shifted his weight.

  Tomoe closed her eyes and breathed. Aoi and her mother were alive. Not Yamabuki. She felt an unexpected flash of relief. Yamabuki was no longer in pain. That would be worse, to come home and discover her still suffering, after all these weeks, still trapped in a body unable to move.

  “I must get Aoi,” she whispered. Retrieve the girl and raise her. Tomoe wasn’t sure how. Her head swam with sorrow. What could she do, here alone? She closed her eyes. Her mouth tasted metallic, like blood. “And why are you here?”

  He leaned toward her and took her face in his hands gently. “I wanted to find you.”

  Tomoe laughed in spite of herself, but when she opened her eyes she saw his face was earnest. “Are you insane? I am an old warrior woman, no longer a great beauty.”

  He blushed, as he had when he was a boy. “Tomoe. First of all, you are still beautiful. And second, I too am older and wiser.”

  “Wada-chan, don’t be silly.” She sat upright. He tried to help her, but she pushed him away.

  “It is Lord Wada now. Will you come with me?” He looked at her pleadingly, then bowed his head. “I will not keep you from your sword or hide you away. I swear it.”

  “I never want to see a sword again.” Her vehemence surprised her. “But do you not have a wife? Am I to be your concubine?”

  He inclined his head in affirmation. “But other women are pale imitations of you, Tomoe.”

  She closed her eyes again. “You would let me get my mother and Aoi? That’s three more mouths to feed, Wada. Be practical.”

  “You know poets are never practical.” Wada bent his head toward her, his breath warm on her ear. “Tomoe. Come with me. We will remake ourselves.”

  She thought of Yoshinaka. The homeless orphan. How he had hit her with that stick, knocking into motion the beginning of her warrior journey. Like a tremendous landslide begun by moving the smallest rock. His last act was a generous one, saving her.

  A convent would provide a peaceful life. She would not have to fight or think or be concerned about anyone or anything except prayer. Shut away from the world. Wouldn’t it be nice? Perhaps. But it was wrong for her.

  Tomoe opened her eyes. She picked up a piece of the broken rice bowl. All of them had used it, she remembered. It was greenish-brown earthenware, made by a ceramist in the capital, brought here by Yamabuki.

  Wada took it from her hands and put the pieces back together. Only one small chip of a hole was missing. “I know of a man who can repair this with gold. It will be more beautiful and stronger than it was before.”

  Tomoe bent her head. “Can he repair me as well?”

  “Only you can do that,” Wada said.

  Sister of heart, a familiar voice said in her head. Live enough for all of us.

  “Yamabuki,” Tomoe whispered for the final time, her voice so faint only her mind heard it.

  She wanted to go with Wada.

  Wada sat still, his head bent over hers, his eyes shut. “Take as long as you like to answer,” he said.

  She reached for him.

  EPILOGUE

  Tomoe Gozen

  SURUGA BAY

  IZU PROVINCE

  HONSHU, JAPAN

  Summer 1194

  Tomoe wiggled the fishing line in the clear blue water of the bay. “You must not give up,” she said to the young boy sitting beside her in the light brown sand. Beyond, the imposing mass of Mount Fuji rose out of the waters, always snowcapped, even when it was so warm they wore little more than their cotton yukata.

  The boy scowled, drawing his grubby knees up to his face, picking at a scab until Tomoe caught his hand. “It’s no use,” he said. “We’ve been at this all day.” He skipped a rock across the water.

  “That will really scare the fish.” Tomoe knew there was only one remedy for her son’s grouchiness.

  Yoshihide had been born two years after Wada found her at Shin
owara. The boy was the miracle she and Yoshinaka could never achieve. Sometimes, Chizuru said, such things occurred. Just because they were rare didn’t mean they never happened.

  Now Tomoe lived here with her family, in this small fishing village near the bay. Their little house was just up off the beach. Wada had offered to keep her in a finer home up in the capital, separate from his wife, but she refused. She was happier here, far from the crowds and Yoritomo, who was now shōgun.

  Instead, this turned into Wada’s weekend home, with Wada visiting when he could. It had become more frequent of late, with Wada coming often to see Yoshihide, his only child, and staying for longer and longer stretches.

  She reached over and tickled Yoshihide. He tried to resist, holding his body stiff, but before long his mouth wiggled and he began to giggle helplessly. “I’ll teach you to scare the fish,” Tomoe said. He laughed and tried to scramble away, clawing at the sand and throwing it about dramatically, but she held on to his ankles. “You will not escape me!” Yoshihide broke away. At eight, he was almost stronger than she was. “Come back!” Tomoe said, leaping on him again, her belly landing in the sand across his legs. She growled like a monster. Yoshihide laughed so hard he stopped making noise, which amused Tomoe all the more. She went for his belly, his most ticklish spot.

  “Ai, Tomoe, stop. You’ll make him wet himself,” Aoi called from where she hung up the laundry. Tomoe paused. It was an echo of the past, this scene. Yoshihide got up and skipped off. Once Tomoe had tickled another little boy, just a bit younger than this one was now. Her eyes welled with unexpected joy and sorrow. Two sides of one coin, she thought.

  Aoi’s black hair blew in the breeze. She pulled a strand away from her smiling mouth. Her black eyebrows curved up, nearly as thick as her father’s. Now thirteen, Aoi looked just like her mother, the same pale complexion and lustrous black hair. But Tomoe was determined to help Aoi weather life better than her mother had. Already Aoi was used to hard work, was smart and practical. She could fish, cook, and fight as well as anyone.

  Next to Aoi, Tomoe’s mother, Chizuru, now a stooped and completely white-haired old woman, sniffed the wind. “I smell rain coming, Tomoe. Perhaps we should stop.”