The Disfavored Hero (2 page)

Ushii was still in his playful mood. He grinned sidelong at Tomoe, saying, “A good day, hey, Tomoe? We are Lord Shigeno's finest samurai! Our retainership might have expired tonight, but we have been asked to pledge ourselves afresh. With the sorcerer Huan exiled from his own country and living in this valley, there is need for strong defense. We are a good four! Together, none of us will ever die, even in the face of foreign magic. Apart,
hai
!, we would not be half so strong.”

“Speak of your own strength,” said Madoka Kawayama, interrupting his talkative friend. “Tomoe and Goro are stronger than you or me!”

“
Hai
!, but we have saved their lives as often as they have saved ours! Is it not true, Tomoe?”

“It's true, Ushii. Together, the four of us are invincible. We have proven it many times.”

“Then—,” Ushii had tied his last piece of armor in place and scooted on his knees toward Tomoe Gozen and Goro Maki. He looked less mischievous than a moment before. He said very seriously, “Then, let us swear fealty to one another. When we come before Shojiro Shigeno tonight, let us do so as a single samurai, not four!”

Tomoe looked pensive. This was not a matter for hasty decision. “It has been done before,” she said.

By then, Madoka Kawayama had also finished attaching his armor and scooted near. He said, “Ushii and I swore ourselves to be brothers when we were children. Never since that time have either of us made similar vows to others. But the four of us are unique! I agree with Ushii. We should swear lifelong fealty to Lord Shigeno and always be together.”

Goro Maki's face was long. His arms remained folded across his chest.

“You are silent, Goro,” said Tomoe. “Would you disagree with our friends' proposition?”

For a long time he did not speak, which trait they had all grown accustomed to. Ushii was more anxious than usual, however, and lent encouragement, “Lord Shigeno would be glad to give permission, and bind us officially by his insignia. Even were the sorcerer Huan no threat to the clan, still would Shojiro Shigeno be glad to keep us. He is a great warlord, and we are great samurai.”

Goro Maki placed both hands on the floor before himself and bowed until his forehead touched the
tatami
mat upon which he knelt. When he rose, he said in his deepest, most serious tone, “As you know, I am last of my family. If I die without heirs, there will be none to hold the tablets of my ancestors. Because I am an orphan, I have valued all of you as my only family, though you may think I seldom show it. Also, being last of my line, I appreciate the invulnerability we provide each other, so that I may live long enough to sire many brats, if some girl will ever have me.”

Ushii began to bow before Goro many times, as might an excited peasant. Madoka took up this adamant occupation as well. Madoka said, “Never an orphan, Goro! You have us! We will honor your family's tablets as being our family too!”

“The word of the samurai!” promised Ushii.

Tomoe Gozen was moved by all this, although she felt a little bit apart from it. As her swords were different from theirs, so was her way of thinking. She recognized something excessively sentimental in the nature of her friends' exchanges; yet she knew these men to be entirely sincere, and she loved them.

Goro Maki, never one to register much emotion, was for once profoundly affected. He could not speak easily. His eyes glistening with moisture, he managed to say,

“Thank you! Thank you very much! I will happily swear myself to Lord Shojiro Shigeno, not for a standard term of retainership, but for as long as I live, and in the same breath bind my life to yours!”

The three men flung themselves into each others' embraces and wailed a happy lament. Ushii opened the circle of arms to invite Tomoe Gozen:

“Will you, too, Tomoe? Will you be our only sister?”

Their mutual love drew her like a magnet. Tomoe started to scoot toward her friends, but a paper door slid aside and a servant interrupted. It was a maid. She came into the room on her knees, carrying a folded letter. Shyly, she set it on the floor and pushed it toward Tomoe Gozen. “From my mistress, the warlord's daughter,” the girl said quietly, then slipped backward from the room, gone as fast as she had come.

When Tomoe took up the folded letter, Ushii, mischievous again, dared to say, “She likes you, Tomoe! Lady Toshima likes you very much!” But Tomoe Gozen looked disturbed and Ushii shut his mouth.

Madoka Kawayama leaned forward to say to Tomoe, “You live your life unexpectedly for a woman. A girl's crush is a natural thing. You should always expect it.”

Tomoe Gozen bowed as quickly and curtly as she could and, touching the letter to her forehead, she stood to go in haste. Ushii and Madoka were grinning more boyishly than ever, but Goro Maki spoiled the mood. He had regained his greatest severity of expression as he said in a low, guttural voice, “She did not say she would be our sister. She did not say so.”

His two friends were instantly drained of gaiety, knowing Goro Maki so well that they could see beyond his scowlings to the sorrow underneath.

Tomoe's white stallion Raski had been groomed and armored as fully as the samurai. Because of the horse's fighting spirit, he too would be sworn a vassal. Tomoe walked to a small, narrow exercise yard. It was yet more than an hour before darkness or the oaths made to the warlord. Tomoe hoped to take Raski once more through his movements before that time. Or, perhaps, she only wanted an excuse for leave-taking prepared in advance, should the meeting with Toshima be uncomfortable.

An array of weapons hung from the steed's saddle and three sharp horns had been fitted to his forehead. For all that, he seemed gentle. Tomoe patted his muzzle and whispered kindnesses to him. To hear him snuffle and see him dote on the woman who had raised him from a colt, it was difficult to comprehend how he had acquired the nickname “man-eater.” In battle, he was a different animal, ferocious as a tiger from the Celestial Kingdoms.

Raski bolted away from Tomoe for a moment, circled a corner of the exercise yard, then came back with his eyes peeled back in a strange way. “Are you nervous, brave boy?” asked Tomoe, finding her stout animal's behavior out of the ordinary. “Are you, too, anxious to see our Lord?”

The animal stiffened. Thunder rolled over the valley, down from the clear sky.

“This is unlike you!” Tomoe exclaimed. “Thunder is your element!”

The ominous rumbling died away. Raski lowered his head, as though ashamed of his inexplicable fright. Because she knew her alert beast too well to believe he had quaked without reason, Tomoe was unsettled, but could detect nothing untoward about the yard.

“There is something to which I must tend,” said Tomoe. “I'll return for you soon.” She left the stallion and strode along a path's flat stones toward the warlord's garden. She put Raski's momentary discomfort from her mind. Entering the tea gardens, she absorbed the illusion of peace and breathed the flowery fragrances.

An ornate, highly arched footbridge crossed a pebble-bedded brook. Tomoe lingered on this bridge to peer across the valley. In the distance a misty waterfall could be seen, its crashing roar barely audible. Beyond the cultivated fields and over the hills, a storm was gathering swiftly. But on the warlord's tea gardens, Amaterasu continued to smile.

The woman warrior stood in harsh contrast to the genteel grounds. Each segment of her armor was made from strips of bamboo laced together with twine and hardened with many layers of dark brown lacquer. The segments were joined with red cord and held closed around her torso by a cloth belt. A metal
kabuto
or war helmet fanned down behind her head and bore a sickle moon on the top. Her hair was straight and cut at shoulder length. Her curved butterfly-longswords swung back from each hip.

As she looked over the valley, it took a moment for Tomoe to realize what was disturbing about the otherwise familiar and appealing landscape: no one tilled or planted in the fields. The absence of
heimin
was disconcerting; but Tomoe was of another class, ignorant of their ways. Perhaps there was a peasant holiday of which she was unaware.

The warlord's mansion stretched like a lazy animal among the gardens—not a tall structure, but spread out, with many terraces and windows and carved frames. The columns bracing the porches were made of lengths of thick bamboo tortured into unusual shapes.

Against a rice-paper window Tomoe saw the regal silhouette of Toshima, daughter of Lord Shojiro Shigeno, moving about her rooms with ethereal grace. An unobtrusive handmaiden slid a door open, and there stood splendid Toshima, gazing into the early evening's sun. Her layers of flowing kimonos were colorful, rich, and tasteful, made of silk brocade. Her hands were perfectly tiny. The beauty's languid eyes scanned the cool, moist gardens as she took each short step along a mossy path. Her gaze came to rest on Tomoe standing on the bridge, and Lady Toshima smiled narrowly, reminding Tomoe of peach blossoms about to open in sunlight. She beckoned Tomoe with her fan, and watched with sideways glance as the warrior approached.

“You are dressed for war, samurai?”

“No, Lady. Today my comrades and I renew oaths of loyalty to your father. Otherwise, our services would expire on tonight's moon. I am clad for the ritual.”

“Then it is true you are staying?”

“How could I not, Lady Toshima? A Lord exiled from his own nation has been treatied to reside on Naiponese land, and bears strange magic from the Celestial Kingdoms. The Mikado is all-wise, I know, but this treaty does threaten native prosperity, and your father needs vigilant hands.”

“Richer warlords than Shigeno have as great a need.”

“Your father is the most worthy master,” said Tomoe, a little puzzled.

“But you are a famous samurai. Many look for you to seek greater conquests. You have esteemed yourself in past exploits and even the Mikado knows of your name. By right, you should be a warlord yourself.”

“A samurai's destiny is to serve,” said Tomoe.

“You could serve all of Naipon if you achieved high position within the shogunate.”

“It has never happened, Lady, that a woman was made Lord.”

“You are wrong, Tomoe Gozen. Women have served under the shogunate and in the powerful office of
shikken
. Not so long ago the widow Masa Hojo made herself virtual Shogun. Six times in our history, even the Mikado was a woman.”

“Ah, you are clever,” said Tomoe. Toshima's eyes slanted demurely, seeming innocent. Courtly women were the best educated and most literate personages of the land. Toshima herself was a novelist of much renown. Sometimes, also, she indulged in intrigue. Tomoe asked, “Do you try to convince me not to serve your father? Or is my loyalty so in question that you are brought forth to test me?”

“Tomoe Gozen! You injure me with accusation!” She gave a wounded look. “And I had thought to include you in one of my fictions.”

“I humbly petition Lady Toshima's forgiveness.” Tomoe bowed subserviently, wondering if the dexterous Lady were not already testing some scene.

“Given,” she said, without hesitation, and her mood instantly bettered. She peered suggestively from behind her opened fan, a shoulder turned to Tomoe, and added: “I will tell you why I urge you to greater success. You are samurai, and I am kin to the Mikado himself, through my mother's blood. Our classes may not mingle openly … unless … unless Tomoe Gozen achieves high office. Then her station would be equal to mine, and if she deigned, could see me often.”

“Lady, please.” Tomoe was disconcerted. “I am in love with war.” She considered the excuse already prepared with Raski, but something kept her near Toshima.

Toshima looked down, the epitome of elegant ladyhood, at once modest and supreme. Her expression revealed nothing of displeasure at mild rebuff, but her cool words held a little of sorrow: “You have two souls, samurai. It makes you unique. Surely one of your souls has room to care for me.”

“Both of them serve you always, Lady!” said Tomoe, anxious to soothe wounded pride. “Whoever else I serve in my life—your father or another—remember that Tomoe Gozen has promised to serve you also.”

Toshima bowed graciously, as if Gozen were the greater lady; and it occurred to Tomoe that this very oath might be the only thing Lady Toshima had truly sought! If so, Tomoe did not regret the trap.

A bell rang from inside the mansion. Toshima said, “You must not be late to my father's court; but we have time to make an offering to the
kami
of this valley.”

Toshima took a flat object from between the folds of her obi. It was a small raft made from dry, yellow reeds. “Come with me to the stream, samurai.”

Tomoe followed Toshima to the bank of the winding brook. They knelt together before the water. Toshima set the raft near the brook's edge, then took flat pieces of colored paper from her sleeve's pocket.

“What will you make the kami?” Toshima asked, handing the samurai a square sheet of paper.

“What will you?” asked Tomoe, accepting the sheet and beginning immediately to fold it.

Toshima did not reply. Her quick fingers folded a red paper into an
origami
fox. When it was complete, she said, “I will give this valley my cleverness.” She stood the fox on the raft. Tomoe had folded a blue crane and stuck its one leg in between the reeds of the little raft so that the bird would stand. She said,

“I will give the kami my courage.”

“You are generous,” the Lady stated, bowing to Tomoe. Then she placed a square, multi-colored sail on the miniscule raft. A breeze carried it down the stream. The two women bowed to the water as their offerings went away. The fox and crane stood face to face, and vanished where the water turned.

The sun was unexpectedly blocked on the horizon. Tomoe lifted her head to view the sudden clouds. The breeze became a gale.