The Disfavored Hero (21 page)

“To what port must I go?” asked Tomoe, quick in her resolve.

“If you are swift, you may reach Hojikai Harbor before she is gone, and join her as is proper for her last retainer. The shoes will speed your course. But if you go, you may return to the main isles of Naipon only on penalty of death. You will be exile-by-association, and the Shogun would have you challenged if you ever returned.”

“The Shogun has no champion who can slay me,” said Tomoe, not meaning it as a boast. The rokubu's ill-words were fondly heard, for she would rather be challenged openly than be hunted anymore by ninja. Even if she were defeated in the contest, it would at least not be a dog's death without notice. Yet it remained that to the knowledge of Tomoe, the Shogun had no champion good enough. Therefore Tomoe might return to Naipon anytime she wished, be challenged honorably, win honorably, and cause the Shogun immeasurable dishonor if he harried her longer.

The rokubu lowered his face, closed his eyes, his hands still folded as in prayer. He said in a barely audible voice, “The Shogun has a champion,” and when Tomoe did not ask, he volunteered: “Ugo Mohri.”

Tomoe Gozen started. She had learned much on the road, but she was not at all certain she could yet defeat Naipon's best disciple of bushido.

Ugo Mohri was her nemesis, not because they disliked each other, but because they would want to meet again and test one another, this time each with proper swords. He had toyed with her before, but she had used a foreign style of fighting unfit, she learned, for samurai. It must eat at him to wonder if he could beat her still. It ate at Tomoe Gozen.

If Ugo Mohri had remained with the Mikado, the duel could never be, for the Mikado would not desire it. But Ugo was faithless—had managed to preserve his position when the Mikado fell. No doubt it had taken the full year to arrange this good grace, which was why Tomoe had not heard of it before.

“You will hesitate to sail?” asked the rokubu, knowing she would not.

“I will serve Toshima always. But I will not fear returning to Naipon. When I face Ugo Mohri, he will know that we are equals; in anticipation of that meeting, I will train to make it certain. And on that day, I will stand as reminder of his unfaith with the Mikado, a graver weakness than he may yet believe. He himself named me the Mikado's samurai. I may become the Mikado's vengeance!”

Blood had rushed to her face when she said this, but it quickly drained away, and Tomoe added without the ostentation, “But Toshima did not send you, priest. It may be that she does not wish my service anymore. If my unfortunate slaying of Shigeno ruined Goro Maki, so might it have ruined Toshima's love for me.”

“You need not think it. By her intrigue, and because of her kinship with the Mikado, she learned in advance that the Battle of Shigeno Valley was inevitable. If I am not mistaken, she tried to convince you to run away with her in some fashion? She would have kept you from it all. You thought it a childish crush, but Toshima was wiser. It was at her bequest that the Mikado sent two magician-ninja to guard her father; and she personally directed the jono-priestess to protect you also. What she had not foreseen was that you and Shigeno would meet on the battlefield. The jono could not protect you both, so it was left to fate. She blamed herself more than others.”

“You know a lot,” said Tomoe with a hint of antipathy. She had long believed the culprit of Shigeno's downfall was the Mikado—but the Mikado had granted immunity. Certainly the sorcerer of Ho who brought the war could not be blamed, manipulated as he had been from the Imperial City. And though Toshima might blame herself, she could hardly be held to fault for wishing those she loved protected.

There was only one felon in the end, and that the hand which slew—the hand of Tomoe Gozen. What wonder Goro Maki would wish a grudge match against her. Goro's honor and dedication to his bushido would have dictated he seek out Tomoe regardless of friendships, and fight even loving her. But again, Toshima would have intervened. Since Goro had been directed to obedience to Shigeno's daughter, there would have been only one way out of the dilemma: seppuku. Toshima would have guarded against suicide as well, directing her protector to a mountain retreat instead, denying him his pride and his status, forcing him into retirement more cruel than honored death.

Toshima had inherited the Mikado's manipulative prowess. And like the Mikado, it had lost her much when every tile was played. She was no betrayer; she played the game for the game's sake, not for spoils.

“Your intent?” asked the filthy robuku, interrupting her reverie.

“I will go with the Lady into exile. Mischief you may bring, but I thank you for it, for much of this I did not know before, although it makes good sense, and good sense to know. Tell me, am I bound to you in some way—I would return to you the favor.”

“I require nothing,” said the rokubu. “For news and mischief, you need do one thing: resolve to play the game well, and use the pieces given. That you would do anyway, unto death, even without me. But you surprise me Tomoe! I thought you would ask me about the jono priestess, for it is true as you say, I know much.”

Tomoe's heart leapt. “Tell me of her.”

“Of who?” he asked, acting innocent.

She did not like to be teased. She said hotly, “The jono priestess, whom you mentioned.”

“There are many priestesses in that strange sect. Which one do you mean?”

Tomoe stood abruptly, angered. She said, “So! The conniving rokubu does not know everything! If I told you her name, it would be the biggest treachery of my life.” This said, Tomoe Gozen drew forth her sword, slashed, and sheathed it again, in one quick motion. The rokubu never blinked. The Buddha, hanging from the tree, fell to the ground, free of its noose. Tomoe said, “A Buddhist friend of mine, gone from this life, would not have liked him hanging there.”

She bowed to the rokubu, then went away.

PART III

The Invisible Path

An enormous bronze Buddha hovered in the air, held by winch and pulley. The wharf creaked and bent beneath the relic's bulk. Forty laborers strained to center it off the end of the dock, to lower it gently onto the junk. It was the Mikado's own Buddha, so they were careful. Slowly, it lighted on the thick, wooden pallet in the center of the junk's deck. Laborers crawled over it like ants, removing ropes, placing the moving apparatus into the hold, for it would be needed at the voyage's end.

The junk's hull sank low in the water, to the very limit of its endurance, held down by the heavy bronze.

Toshima's mother oversaw the project. Old beyond her actual years, her hair was already greying, and once-stately Madame Shigeno was losing the straightness of her spine. She was strong nonetheless, and hurried along the dock with lively step, squawking orders like a raven. Toshima herself walked along the beach, potentially her last walk upon any of Naipon's major isles, which was sad to think. Beside her strode the samurai, recently arrived, to Toshima's delight and surprise. She peered from behind her fan with undisguised happiness, in spite of the sorrow of the voyage, and stepped with a more girlish bounce than she had affected in a while.

They stopped between the two big rocks, out of sight of the wharf, leaned against the smaller of the rocks, side by side. A crab scuttled sideways, digging its way out of sight. The women looked at one another, and Tomoe thought without saying:
Toshima, you have changed, as have I
. The last month, if not the whole year, had obviously worn on the Lady. She was tired, and more somber than before, but also matured, for all her girlish act.

It had been a long time since Tomoe had true commerce with Naipon's nobility, and Toshima seemed almost alien. On the road, the samurai had grown used to seeing peasant women hardened by toil, or fellow travelers weathered by adventure; and women such as these had given Tomoe an untraditional concept of beauty. Yet Toshima remained beautiful too, it could not be denied. For the first time, Tomoe wondered what the Lady would look like without cosmetics. It could be arranged to find out. Unlike most samurai, Tomoe might share a bath with the Lady.

But that assumed luxuries. The small island to which they were being sent would have few of those. Baths would be swift, cold experiences in rushing streams—not calm exercises in warm, enclosed chambers with maidens to stroke, cleanse, and loosen muscles.

“You have acquired a scar,” said Toshima, and reached out to touch the smooth, white marks on the samurai's dark forehead.

“A good scar, as they go,” said Tomoe.

“That is so. It looks like two waves of the sea. Surely you are luck for the voyage.”

Tomoe turned her face away from Toshima's touch, could not see the junk or workers or wharf from where she leaned upon the rock. She said, “It is not a good season for seafaring.”

“The Shogun knows,” said Toshima, and smiled a sardonic rather than seductive smile. Indeed, thought Tomoe, the Shogun might welcome the loss of these voyagers. The junk provided was in horrendous disrepair, an insult to Lady Toshima, and dangerous. It was hardly suited to transport under best circumstances, and might threaten to crumble into flotsam by the weight of the gargantuan Buddha which the disenthroned Mikado had commissioned sent.

The danger of the trip should have been enough to satisfy the Shogun, but Tomoe quickly suspected other measures were made as well. She heard the sound of someone slinking near; only a ninja could have been more still. Apparently the Shogun was not so certain the voyage would prove sufficiently fatal.

Tomoe caught Toshima's eyes. The Lady had heard the movement too. When Tomoe reached for her sword, Toshima touched the swordwoman's hand to stay the draw, and whispered, “I cannot believe they dare.”

Four samurai stepped out from amidst the rocks upon the beach, two on each side of the narrow space between boulders where the Lady and her samurai rested and talked. These four men bowed low, grandly respectful. They were bigger than most samurai, dressed well but not richly. Toshima stepped away from the rock, chin raised, and demanded, “Is the honor of samurai preserved by killing me?”

“Not you, Lady,” said the nearest. “But you must take no retainers with you into exile. We come for Tomoe Gozen.”

One of the samurai grabbed Toshima from behind, held her with arm around her throat, pulled her from the path of promised battle. The other three drew their swords. Tomoe had not drawn her own, but said coolly,

“The Shogun must despise you also.” She drew her sword at last, and added, “For he sends you to your doom.”

While Tomoe guarded against three swords, Toshima was not idle. She reached into her hair and withdrew a long steel pin. A moment later, it was lodged in the spleen of the man who held her. He let go, staggered back, trying to remove the needle. Toshima turned to face him with her fan wide open. He was not prepared for her attack, was directed not to kill her anyway, and least expected that her fan would be razor tipped around its edge. She slid the fan along the samurai's neck before he realized. Blood pumped forth in gushes from the big vein.

In the same moment, Tomoe had slain her foremost attacker, and was left with only one murderous emissary before, and one behind. Trapped between unyielding boulders, it was difficult to move and to guard both front and back. Lady Toshima threw her fan at the back of Tomoe's rear attacker. The fan spun through air, struck deep enough into the samurai's shoulder to stick there, weakening him, but not stopping him.

Tomoe met the forward blow with one that countered, then slid her sword smoothly behind and broke the attack of the injured man at her back. With dizzying speed, the sword came forward again, before her attacker could complete a new maneuver; and again, she slashed backward in time to keep the other man from pricking her kidney.

It was difficult to do more than this defensive action, in her confined space. Few could protect their own front and back while simultaneously launching an assault.

The rear attacker was losing strength as blood flowed down his back from the sharp edge of the fan. Toshima brought forth another pin from her hair, threw it like a dagger. It sped past Tomoe's shoulder, took the front attacker through the eye. The man squealed, dropped his sword, then fell to the ground when Tomoe's sword cleaved through his shoulder. She whisked about, broke the attack of the other instantaneously.

Toshima retrieved her fan and the second pin, knelt to a tidepool to remove the blood. Tomoe cleaned her sword on the jacket of the last to fall. Only one of the four still lived, the one losing blood from his jugular and with Toshima's other hairpin in his spleen. Already he was pale from blood loss, too weak even to plead a more honored death by the sword. But Tomoe understood his eyes, and her sword licked down to where he sat, cutting through the bones of his chest and exposing the heart.

The women walked away, did not look back, told no one of the encounter. On the wharf, Toshima looked at the great Buddha sitting in the decrepit junk, and reminded, “A dangerous voyage ahead. It would be best to wait a month.”

“If we could,” said Tomoe, and smiled for the first time that day. She added, “But we would have to kill too many if we stayed.”

Three days at sea and no untoward incidents, Tomoe Gozen almost found relaxation, despite the serene, impudent face of the Buddha which watched her every motion. Or so it felt to be. No matter where she walked in front of it, the eyes seemed always on her, though she could not properly say she had seen them move.

The junk glided smoothly over calm waters, the wind a gentle nudge against the slatted sails. Tomoe stood aft, to avoid the Buddha's eyes, and looked into the clear, green waters. The sun was at a good angle to see deep into the sea, and Tomoe thought she beheld a white highway and a temple. When she looked harder, she saw less. A patch of cloud passed before the sun, and when the cloud moved on, there remained nothing of Tomoe's illusion of a seafloor road.