VIII
Ashitaka: Eboshi and the Tatara Ba
Later that night, I meet with Eboshi-sama in her hall. She knocks on a piece of iron with a mallet. "Ashitaka, or whatever your name is, sorry to keep you waiting." She hands the iron back to Gonza, the guard. "That's good iron. The preparation for the morning shipment takes time. Let's have a break. Please tell everyone."
She turns to me. "There are people who suspect you of being a spy of the samurai or the wolves. There are many who want our iron. May I ask what the reason of your journey is?"
I reach into my shirt and unlace the sleeve, revealing the scar on my arm. Eboshi narrows her eyes. I show her the iron bullet. "I'm sure you know this. It shattered the bones of the giant boar and rotted his flesh, making him a Tatari-gami. I received this scar when I dealt with it; it is a curse leading to death."
"Where is your land? You ride a strange beast," she inquires.
"Between the east and the north. That is all I will say."
"Answer her questions or I'll cut you in two!" Gonza shouts, his hand on the hilt of his long sword.
"What do you plan to do?" Eboshi asks coolly.
"See with eyes unclouded," I reply, recalling the words of old Hii-sama.
She raises her eyebrow. "'Eyes unclouded'? Ha ha ha!" She laughs, as if I've made a jest. Gonza stares at her, bewildered. "I understand. Come, I'll show you my secret!"
"Eboshi-sama!" the guard protests.
"Take over, Gonza." She leaves the hall, and I follow.
Outside, the town is bustling with workers, clanging on metal and heaving shipments. We walk past a huge building containing a steel-making furnace, and the famous tatara foot bellows, where Toki and the women are working. I pause for a moment to watch, then walk on. We enter a fenced garden.
"My garden, where none dare come," Eboshi tells me. "Come, if you wish to know my secret." I descend the steps and enter a small hut on the other side, bordering the palisade.
Pushing aside the straw door covering, I tense and look around cautiously. Lepers. Their bodies are fully wrapped in white linen. They are working on guns, like the ones used to fire the iron balls. Eboshi weighs a newly made gun in her hands. "It's still a bit heavy…"
"But if we make it too light, the metal clasp springs apart," one leper tells her.
"They are not for me. They are for the other women here," Eboshi says to him. She mounts it on her shoulder effortlessly and turns to me. "This is the new gun my people have designed. The ones from China are too heavy. This will kill monsters and armor-clad samurai."
"Beware! Eboshi-sama wants to rule the world!" One man smiles at his own joke.
She thanks them for their hard work and promises sake, or rice wine, to be sent later.
I stare at her, this mad woman intent on killing. "You plundered the forest and turned the god into a Tatari-gami. Now you will breed more hatred with that new gun!"
She replies, "I'm sorry you suffer. I fired that shot. It is me that pig should've cursed."
I glare, enraged. Eboshi will stop at nothing to get what she wants, even if that means annihilating the entire forest and killing all the creatures, innocent or not. My arm tightens and starts moving, as if it has a life of its own. It grips the sword, but I restrain it, forcing it back. The workers jump back, stunned.
Eboshi is unfazed. "Does your right hand wish to kill me?"
"If it would lift the curse, I would do so. But it won't stop there."
"Must it kill everyone here to be at peace?" she challenges.
"Eboshi-sama… Osa speaks," a man in the back speaks up quietly.
An old leper, under straw covers in the corner, talks in a raspy, ancient voice. "Eboshi-sama, please do not make light of this young man's strength. Young man, I am cursed as well. I understand well your anger and sorrow. I know this, but please do not kill this lady. She is the only one who saw us as humans.
"She doesn't fear our illness. She washed our rotting flesh, bandaged us with cloth…" His body racks with coughs, but he continues. "Life is hard, it is suffering. The world is cursed, the people are cursed, yet we wish to live. Forgive my foolish ravings…" His words are a strange reprise of those of the monk. I know I will never forget them.
Later Eboshi and I stand on top of the hut of the gun makers, on the edge of the palisades. The cry of a wolf pierces the quiet night. The moon is a small coin of light in the sky. We look out over the barren mountains, land stripped of its vegetation. Dark figures hidden in the shadows mill around, and what they are doing I cannot see.
Eboshi loads the new gun, hefts it onto her shoulder, and fires. The bullet flies into the mountains, exploding with a distant boom. The dark figures in that area scatter.
"They've come again," she mutters, reloading. "At night the apes come back to plant trees and take back the mountains." She says to me, "Ashitaka, will you stay here and work with me?"
"Do you want even the woods of the Shishi-gami?" I am appalled, but at the same time awed at her ambition.
"Without the gods, the animals are mere beasts. With this forest and the wolves gone, this will become a bountiful land. Even the Princess Mononoke will become human," she replies casually. The event of my cursed arm just moments ago seems to be forgotten.
"Princess Mononoke?" She has captured my full attention.
"She is a girl whose heart the wolves have stolen. Now she lives to kill me."
My mind flashes to the giant wolves by the river this morning, and the girl who seems to be part of their family, sucking out the poison in the wolf god's chest. Princess Mononoke.
"It is said that the blood of the Shishi-gami will cure any disease. It can heal those people, and maybe even lift your curse," Eboshi continues.
"Eboshi-sama!" one of the lepers calls up to her. "What do you think?"
"It is good work; just right to conquer the world. But still a bit heavy…" she says. I turn and walk back into the town, having had enough of my share of "conquering the world".
I pass buildings full of ironsmiths and metal workers, all still laboring hard into the night. Stopping again in front of the largest building, the one with the tatara foot bellows, I remember my promise to the women. Beneath the roar of the furnace, I can hear their rhythmic work song, in time to the rocking of the huge foot bellow.
One, two, even babies can push
Three, four, even an ogre would cry
The golden love of a Tatara woman,
Melts and flows,
And changes into a blade
I enter the building and walk to the bellows, shrugging out of my hood and outer tunic. "Toki, please let me push as well."
She looks baffled and says, "Hey, wait!" The women workers, startled at my sudden approach, arrange their robes and look shyly away. I ask one of the women if I can take her place for a while, but she hesitates.
Toki tells her, "He went through the trouble coming here; give him a try!" The woman lets go of the rope, and I take hold of it, pulling down and forcing my foot down on the bellow. The women laugh at my show of strength, and chitter and blush.
Toki considers how I work and says to me, "You'll never keep that pace."
"This is hard work," I reply. I fall back into the regular beat of the tatara, as did the other women. We push the bellow back and forth like a giant seesaw.
"Yep. We work four days and five nights straight," she informs me.
"Is life hard here?" I ask.
"Yeah, but compared to the places we were before, it's a lot better, right?" She calls to the crowd of women. They agree.
"We get to eat our fill, and the men know their places," another woman crows.
"I see…"
