Spirit's Princess (49 page)

Even with home in sight, I realized that I still didn’t know everything that might be waiting for me at my journey’s end. As much as my heart ached for the pain and loss my people had suffered, I knew nothing of how each person had been stricken. There would be wounds I couldn’t heal, but I would try.

When I had walked into the mirror of the spirit world, I was granted a vision of great beauty and great hope. Both had the power to heal. I would follow where my vision led
me, and I would share its magic to bring strength, faith, and comfort to my people. I would teach them what I knew, that all things were mirrored. What was destroyed could be rebuilt, what was broken could be made whole.

I rose with my mirror held to the sky, my wand sweeping back and forth to clear away the presence of any lingering evil.

“Himiko?” Kaya’s voice was faint and trembling. She was standing a respectful distance away, pointing at me with a shaking hand. “Himiko … Himiko, look. Look at your wand, look!”

I turned my head. The dark, dead wood was ruddy. The bumps and nodes along the branch had burst into clusters of pink blossom. I blinked and shook my head, but what I saw remained. The fragrance of a vanished springtime wafted over me, cleansing the air of the stench of destruction.

“Is it real?” Kaya called to me. “We aren’t dreaming this, are we? You see it too?”

“Yes,” I said. “Oh yes, I see it.” I touched the silky petals to my cheek. “It’s real.”
As real as hope
, I thought.
As real as love
.

If anyone should believe in miraculous things …

Holding the sun goddess’s eternal light in my heart, I danced.

L
ADY OF THE
“Q
UEEN’S
C
OUNTRY”

May I have the pleasure of introducing you to Himiko? You might not have known much about her before opening this book, but I hope that you’d like to learn more. If you’ve read my other Princesses of Myth novels, you might be asking yourself whether she belongs to the realm of myth, like Helen of Troy, or to the pages of history, like Nefertiti.

The answer? A little of both.

I don’t know how or when I came to learn about Himiko of Japan. Perhaps I first encountered her in a book about Japanese history, or about great women of the past. It might have happened when I was leafing through the
Early Samurai
volume of Osprey’s illustrated military guides. Hers is the very first image in the plates showing an artist’s rendition of Japanese warriors. But while Himiko was definitely a fighter, her weapon was not the sword or the halberd or the bow and arrow.

Her weapon was magic.

Himiko and her people, the Yayoi, lived in an age before Japan was united and ruled by emperors who claimed descent from the sun goddess, Amaterasu. Her clan was one of many, and the different clans often went to war with each other. There is much discussion about the identity of the Yayoi, where they came from, and whether they completely displaced earlier inhabitants of Japan (the Jomon, who might well have been the ancestors of Japan’s Ainu population) or assimilated them through intermarriage. They were the first to bring paddy cultivation of rice to Japan.

The Yayoi were farmers, hunters, and merchants. They traded with the mainland through Chinese outposts in Korea. It is thanks to this international trade that Himiko’s name enters history.

The
Chronicles of Wei
comes from third-century China and describes a journey to the land of the Wa people (the Chinese name for the Yayoi). It contains extremely detailed information about their appearance, dress, and customs, and the plants, animals, and minerals found in their country. Around AD 238, Queen Himiko of Wa sent an envoy with valuable gifts as tribute for the ruler of the kingdom of Wei, in northern China. This diplomatic gesture was intended to foster friendly relations between the two realms, and it succeeded. The ruler of Wei responded in kind, sending Queen Himiko many rich presents and issuing an imperial edict that said, “Himiko, queen of Wa, is designated a friend of Wei.” It is most likely because of Himiko that the Chinese referred to Japan as the Queen’s Country.

A delegation of royal representatives from Wei was dispatched to Himiko’s court, and it is their description of the
journey and what they found on arrival that provides nearly all our information about this astonishingly powerful woman and her people (outside of archaeological discoveries, of course).

Himiko’s status as queen of Wa was established years before this exchange of tribute and the arrival of the Chinese envoys at her capital of Yamatai. The
Chronicles of Wei
says that until she came to rule, the land of Wa suffered “chaos as they fought each other.” How was Himiko able to put an end to this time of war between the Yayoi clans? To find the answer, we have to trust the Chinese records, because the people of Wa did not yet have a written language. And what do those records say?

“She was skilled in the Way of Demons, keeping all under her spell.”

“The Way of Demons” makes Himiko sound dreadfully sinister, but we should remember that the person writing about her was a foreign visitor who probably lacked a complete understanding of the Yayoi. From his description, it would be easy to picture the queen of Wa as an evil sorceress when she was actually a shaman.

We all tend to fear the unknown, especially when disaster strikes, and seek to deal with our fears by finding ways to explain what happened. If we can find a reason for floods, droughts, storms, famines, and epidemics—
whether or not it’s the right reason
—we might feel less overwhelmed and terrified. We can even tell ourselves that since we know
why
these catastrophes happen, we’re one step closer to being able to control and prevent them. The shaman’s function is part of this very understandable human desire to make the
world a little more manageable and a little less wild and frightening.

Shamans have existed in many cultures and in many times, including the present day. They perform a number of important roles to help and comfort their people. Some human societies believe that the world is filled with spirits. Plants and animals, earth and sky, fields and forests, anything can harbor them. Some are good spirits who help mankind and receive thanks, but some can be evil, bringing sickness or other harm, and are greatly feared. Among these are the spirits of the dead. Even today, when most people declare that they don’t believe in ghosts, many others still do and are afraid of them.

The shaman helps people to deal with their fears about the spirits by acting as a go-between. Shamans are supposed to be able to speak to the spirits, to find out what offerings they want in exchange for their goodwill, to heal people and protect them from malicious spirits, and even to leave their own bodies and enter the spirit world. Some cultures believe that shamans also have the ability to control and command both good and evil spirits, and some shamans may take advantage of this belief because it gives them great authority and influence.

It is possible that this is what Himiko did, although her reasons for doing so were unselfish: she wanted her land to be at peace and used her sway as a spiritual leader to make it so. How did she do this? There’s no way we can know for sure, since the Chinese chronicles don’t go into detail about it, but we can guess. My own theory is that she reminded the warring clans about her powers over the
spirits—especially the spirits of the dead—and warned them that if they didn’t stop fighting, she would call up an army of ghosts to make them settle their differences. How could anyone hope to win a battle against the dead? Who would even want to
try
facing something so terrifying?

Whether or not this was what Himiko did to secure peace, something worked, and she went on to rule the land of Wa for many tranquil, prosperous years. Not bad for a young woman who never had to raise sword or spear to establish and hold her throne!

There is more to Himiko’s story—in both my own version of her unknown girlhood and the Chinese records. I hope you’ll enjoy discovering it all.

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

Nebula Award winner E
STHER
F
RIESNER
is the author of 31 novels and over 150 short stories, including “Thunderbolt” in Random House’s
Young Warriors
anthology, which led to her novels about Helen of Troy,
Nobody’s Princess
and
Nobody’s Prize
. She is also the editor of seven popular anthologies. Her work has been published in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Russia, France, Poland, and Italy. She is also a published poet and a playwright, and once wrote an advice column, “Ask Auntie Esther.” Her articles on fiction writing have appeared in
Writer’s Market
and Writer’s Digest Books.

Besides winning two Nebula Awards in succession for Best Short Story (1995 and 1996), she was a Nebula finalist three times and a Hugo finalist once. She received the Skylark Award from the New England Science Fiction Association and the award for Most Promising New Fantasy Writer of 1986 from
Romantic Times
.

Ms. Friesner’s latest publications include the novel
Temping Fate
; a short story collection,
Death and the Librarian and Other Stories;
and
Turn the Other Chick
, fifth in the popular Chicks in Chainmail series that she created and edits.

Educated at Vassar College, receiving a BA in both Spanish and drama, she went on to receive her MA and PhD in Spanish from Yale University, where she taught for a number of years. She is married and the mother of two, harbors cats, and lives in Connecticut.