The Disfavored Hero (14 page)

“The last chief died in agonizing slowness, but managed to say, ‘Lady, you are special! I would feel your cheek to mine before I die!'

“And granting this final wish, Yamato-dake placed his cheek against that of the dying man, and let him part this life with a lover's passion in his heart.”

When this story was done, the young samurai were aroused, for they were yet pretty boys themselves, with dreams of valor, and more attached to one another than to any girl. They were full of praises for the old kodan teller, and begged him for another tale. He was flattered, a little bit inflated, and in an even greater ribald mood.

“Now I will tell you a story not unlike the first,” he said, “the story of Tomoe Gozen, who—akin to Prince Yamato who played a woman—became a warrior so that she might play the man and conquer all the geisha houses of Naipon.”

The young samurai hooted uproariously, but suddenly it ended. A samurai stood among them fierce and strong. Even had she not turned her jacket right-side out, revealing her crest; even had they not already speculated as to the identity of the mysterious samurai who earlier slew four ninja; even then, by her anger, they would have known who she must be.

The storyteller grew palest, for he was not a youth to be excused for prankish insults.

Favor was a fickle goddess, and the favored hero of last year's tales became unfavored in the next. Ever since the death of eight thousand samurai at Shigeno Valley—many slain by Tomoe who served a foreign lord—Tomoe had become the brunt of disrespectful humors which poorly disguised underlying hostilities. But a samurai's pride is strong, and even these youths knew they had erred in applauding the old man's joke. They were not surprised that her sword should dash among them before they could take a breath—they were only surprised that they had not been killed by the many swift strokes which kissed their beardless faces with a breeze.

It took them a moment to realize, looking amongst themselves, that they had all been deprived of their proud queues of hair, lost to Tomoe's strokes.

The storyteller's hair was too thin to merit shaving, but she said to him, “Grandfather, you have a spider on your shoulder.” He looked quickly at his shoulder and saw lying there not a spider, but his own ear, cut so quick and clean that he had not seen her blow or felt its effect. He gasped and grabbed the bleeding side of his head, stanching the flow with his shirt sleeve.

Tomoe Gozen walked out into the street, which seemed even gloomier than before.

In the morning, she found Yabushi.

Shortly after leaving the kodan house, Tomoe had discovered a camp of four retainers to some lord whose crest she did not recognize, and who they would not name, though it seemed he must be rich for he clad his samurai well. Tomoe's own crest was more famous and, now that she wore her shirt properly, the samurai whispered among themselves and avoided her.

Oddly, they all bore an ancient kind of double-edged sword, and carried them across their backs in heavy sheaths. It was so unusual that Tomoe could only suppose these men followed the man with whom she had had a brief exchange yesterday. He had not been a lord, but perhaps some lord's favorite; and he too carried his sword across his back. If it too were two-edged, she had not seen.

These four were staying in the village primarily to display their abilities in an exhibition for the festival. Tomoe would have liked to see two-edged swords in use (the legended Yamato-dake used such a sword, though they were centuries outmoded since his day); but the bearers were so unfriendly she made no note to witness their exhibition.

With minimal words exchanged, they had let her spend the night at their camp; but with her identity known, she received only those cordialities which were absolutely expected, none extra. She might have shared their breakfast, as that also was minimal between samurai, but she chose not to impose herself further. Their entire manner had been less than inviting.

Rising earlier than the others, Tomoe exercised in darkness, upon a street which had been busy the day before and soon would be again. Banners flapped unseen in the darkness, while she stretched and forced her muscles, and practiced graceful assaults that none could see beneath the fading starlight. Near the time of sunrise, she smelled fresh fires in hibachis and fireplaces, and over them, pots of stews and rice; but hunger she put from her mind.

After exercises, having stressed her body an extra bit, she walked slowly to the village edge, letting her body cool. She stood apart from the festival gear and the transiently quiet town, and watched Amaterasu grow out of distant mountains and low clouds, as Naipon had grown out of the primeval ooze at the beginning of time.

When she started back along the street, early risers were about, preparing their exhibits and stalls, opening their businesses' doors and shutters, carrying feed to horses, speeding here and there upon errands of unspecified urgency. Unwealthy comers who had camped outside the village in discomfort straggled back onto the festival street, theirs joints stiff, looking discouraged that nothing yet was happening on this the final day. It was not a busy street, but enough so that the seclusion Tomoe had savored before the sun arose was entirely dispelled.

And then she saw Yabushi, where he did not belong.

In an isolated yard, the samurai child was surrounded by six unwholesome men who were laughing. They looked to be themselves of samurai caste, but dirty and uncouth. They were
sanzoku
, well below ronin—bandits lost of their bushido. Such as these were bound to one another by their own misfortune and vileness. They soiled the name of samurai.

Little Bushi had his shortsword held high, threatening them to keep back. His eyes watched his field. His feet moved with swift, even ease. Always, he kept his back to a tree. His guard was perfect.

“Come now,” said one of the sanzoku, sounding coarse and wicked, leaning on his sword. “We heard you at the geisha house. You said you had gold to buy a girl. Hand it to us. You are too young to need a geisha, and we will put your money to better use.”

For answer, Yabushi dashed forward and then back to his tree. One of the six whooped and clutched his groin, for the small fencer's overhead swing had reached as high as the crotch and unmanned the despised sanzoku. He fell on the ground and rolled about in pain, lamenting his best part.

The other five were swift to ready their swords, curses of vengeance on their lips and in their eyes, angered to learn the baby rooster had spurs.

At that moment Tomoe shouted some blasphemy, reviling those who ganged up on one small person. Suspecting a rear attack, the five sanzoku were unsettled long enough for Yabushi to escape from between them and run to Tomoe.

The five sanzoku left standing were less willing to attack, being cowards from the start and not liking the sword and face of Tomoe added to the child's. But the sixth sanzoku, lying on his side and curled partly in a ball, looked up from his agony and cried, “One and a half to five! The odds are very good!”

Thus the ruthless brutes were encouraged to continue. Tomoe and Yabushi stood back to back. Doubtless, in this case two could handle five, for samurai did not become sanzoku because of their immense skill and courage. But Yabushi and Tomoe never had the chance to prove this.

A strolling nun, who Tomoe had never seen before, dashed into the fray with her staff. She wore a tabard inscribed with prayers over her kimono, yellow upon red, and went barefooted. Her staff served as
bo
, a fighting stick held horizontally in both hands. She smashed two of the sanzoku in the back of their heads before they knew someone came from behind, and they fell as one, unconscious. Two others turned on her at once, but the ends of her pole smote left and smote right, and the two sanzoku staggered back and ran away, their front teeth broken out. The fifth had fled to the side of the sanzoku Yabushi had previously cut, and helped him escape the Buddhist with her stick.

This done, the woman swelled with enormous pride in her work, stood with bare feet placed wide, and sported an almost foolish grin of good humor on her tough, tan, beautiful face. Her bo was once again only a walking staff, its tip upon the ground, and she looked innocent of violence.

Yabushi complained, “We did not need your help! We could have defeated them ourselves!” He kicked at one of the two unconscious sanzoku abandoned by their friends.

“I believe you,” said the nun, smiling more broadly at the boy. “But your swords would have killed the louts. My stick only punishes a little.”

Tomoe put a hand on Yabushi's shoulder, for he was storming with anger. This intervention insulted his strength and the strength of his friend, Tomoe. It hurt his samurai pride. Children and women, he had noted, were often thought to be in need. But Tomoe said, “She did not help us, Little Bushi. She helped them.”

Yabushi was appeased.

Hereafter, it was difficult to be rid of the nun, whose name she gave unasked: Tsuki Izutsu. She followed after Tomoe and Yabushi, asking pointed questions about faith, thereby discovering that Yabushi's instructor taught both Shintoism and Buddhism and kept a reliquary for both within the dojo. This struck the nun as adequate if not perfect. Tomoe, however, was averse to Buddhism, and Tsuki Izutsu seemed to put it in her mind as her duty to straighten Tomoe's path.

“Zen is popular among the more influential samurai,” said Tsuki, sounding like some tempting devil.

“So is rich food,” said Tomoe. “It makes them fat and slow.”

Tsuki enjoyed Tomoe's response immeasurably, but added pointedly, “The Mikado himself is a student of Buddhism.”

“And in exile,” said Tomoe, then caught herself lest she sound blasphemous for judging Amaterasu's descendant. She said, “The Mikado demonstrates
ryobu-shinto
, the Two Ways of the Gods. It has nothing to do with Zen.”

Tomoe wished Tsuki would simply go away, so that the two samurai would be left to speak in private. Tomoe wanted to know how Yabushi had come to be in this village, when Ikiki was where his sister had been sold; it was not a topic for uninvited ears. Tsuki, unfortunately, could not be rebuked by subtle methods, and her strides were too vast to be outpaced.

“What do you know of Zen?” asked Tsuki.

Tomoe stopped—Yabushi too. The bigger samurai looked at the strolling nun harshly, and replied, “Not much and enough! Buddhists preach of a hierarchy of souls, with human next to the top. Shintoism means that all things bear an equal soul, every tree and rock and fish and fox and farmer and samurai and god. Material wealth, strength, power—these may fluctuate; but souls are absolute, and every soul has the same worth.”

“There is only one soul,” said Tsuki, eyes glinting as by some private joke. “And that One is ubiquitous.”

Tomoe had not asked to argue theology. She said, “Not all Buddhists say that.”

“Not all Buddhism is Zen.”

“I will tell you this:” Tomoe began, in a tone as lecturing as Tsuki's, “Shinto is a religion not of tracts, but awe. Everything has importance. We do not bow down. We dance.”

“When have you danced?”

“Mine is the dance of the warrior.”

Tsuki liked this answer, too. Tomoe continued, “Buddhists say it is wrong to kill. How can a samurai believe that? Are we the greatest sinners?”

“We are all wretched in the world,” said Tsuki, looking for a brief moment less than happy. “To tread the very grass kills insects, to have eaten a piece of fish—and who is to say a grain of rice has less feeling than some animal, than you or I. We cannot help but sin! The air we breathe has life which we soil. But Buddha has shown a way to flee the endless cycle of painful lives and deaths, to gain union with the Whole.”

“Shinto is less cynical,” countered Tomoe. “Life and death are inspiring gifts, not sufferings to escape.”

Yabushi stood beside these women, half ignored, watching and hearing their exchange with a bemused expression too mature for his years. Maybe he was thinking ironically: They fight like children.

“Zen, too, is against scripture, is not a faith of tracts,” Tsuki explained. “Knowledge exists naturally, not in a Buddhist text, or in any other. When you lose yourself in your sword, when you are one with your bushido—that is Zen.” Tsuki thought this brilliant. “Zen
is;
it cannot be taught.”

“Then teach me nothing,” said Tomoe as she took Yabushi's hand, intending to leave the woman standing.

But the pest endured, walked beside them, asked, “You are perhaps both hungry?” She beamed annoying pleasantness, while stern-faced Tomoe looked forward and refused reply. For one thing, Tomoe did not wish to be beholden to the nun for a meal, and thereby saddled with her longer. For another, she did not wish to be cornered in a discussion of the religious significance of digestion.

Yabushi, however, was done with anger, and had warmed to the gentle nature and humor of the strolling nun. Also, he was extremely hungry, having saved his two-hundred ryo exclusively to redeem his sister, spending none of it on food or other personal requirements.

“If you have food to share,” said Little Bushi, “we would be honored and grateful to accept.”

Tomoe made no contradiction.

Tsuki had no food, but she did have means.

The festival was beginning to gather pace. The strolling nun, in her long strides, approached a rich-appearing booth by herself, and said to the man selling cakes, “Most beneficent food-vendor! I can see by your necklace that you love Buddha. Can it be that you are generous to Buddha's poorest questers?”

The man was fat, probably from his own cooking. He might be less rich than he had made himself appear for the festival, yet it could not be entirely that he was less than well-to-do. What success he had achieved was very likely due in part to his refusal to feed beggars, who otherwise and gladly would eat him poor. But the nun was very beautiful, and to the fat man this made a difference. He bowed to her and returned to her her winning grin, while handing her a cake.