11. Like Her Brother's Blood
He was wrapped up as tightly and smugly as a roll of sushi, but his pale face and stable eyes were almost immune to the fire. His coat and blanket was covered in a layer of fresh snow; but the snowflakes which fell untouched to his face could only linger there for a moment, before the heat from the fire forced them to merge into the beads of sweat slipping down his face.
The fire was the brightest and the biggest tonight – quite a rarity. The bitter, blasted cold out in the wilderness was not helping. But chiefly, one of Sesuke's retainers, the 'guardsman' of this ill-fated caravan, had told them to keep the fires small, for fear of attracting the attention of imperial samurai out on nighttime patrols. Slouched nearby, he was the only one apart from Hiojo who had a full blanket – for himself.
A scattering of men and women were wandering, or restlessly sitting by their pitiful fires, almost being buried in snow and risking hypothermia without the cover of the caravans to shield them from the wind. The accursed wind. Tonight, it had been blowing persistently without any sign of stopping. Abbot Jigo, who had the ability to tell the weather, told that idiot retainer it meant a possible storm was coming. And these were omens from heaven warning them about the two more days' of journey till Asano's stronghold at Minami.
As for Aiyo, she sat near her brother by the fire, watching him, observing his condition, and sometimes, gently stroking his forehead to ward of the demons in his sleep. His health had deteriorated rapidly over the few days' journey with the caravan. The wound at his shoulder began to fester, would not stop bleeding, and finally caught gangrene. The weather and poor meals worked against his injury. And finally stopping short of amputating his arm, Hiojo, the last male heir of the Eboshi family had fallen into a bloody flux, and had remained in that state for almost a day.
Watching the sweat trickle down her brother's face, Aiyo tried her best not to fall asleep, just in case he would suddenly arouse asking for food or water. The men, on the other side of the fire, were anxious too, but fatigue had overcome them, and many were neglecting their night watch and falling asleep. Then there were the other men: a leper and a novice samurai who could barely yield a sword, whom Daizen had assigned to protect her, after all contributions to this caravan party.
In the dull reflection of the blade she had taken from an imperial samurai days earlier, Aiyo caught the fire dancing joyfully. She tried to clench her hands, only finding a cheerful ache as they crackled, almost like popsicles in this weather. Her mind was in a trance; this weather was as possessive as the terrain they were in. But more than ever, she was forcing herself to keep a straight face after the last six days of fierce fighting and near escapes.
And the dried blood stuck enthusiastically under her fingernails was proof of that ordeal.
"Abbot Jigo!" Aiyo rode up to the head of the caravans, where the Abbot was giving directions. "I heard you need some help!"
Flustered for the first time, the wrinkled man stared at Aiyo for a full moment, as if he had not heard. But a shout brought him back to reality. He drew a machette from his stash of weapons and barked more orders.
"What can you do?"
"I can hold off the samurai," she replied.
"Listen, my Lady," he told her straight in the face." We don't have time for heroes now. I have twenty caravans of women, children, equipment and gunpowder. And two commanders to oversee these klutz samurai. Some of my men have set up a firing line ahead, but without cover they will be cut down as they reload…"
"Yes I see, Abbot. I will see you later."
Aiyo rode off a short distance from the lumbering, over-obvious caravan. The chaos of the fighting was starting to spill over into the hills. Sesuke and his band had departed one way, and Kira's men the other. The imperial samurai had also divided themselves evenly in hot pursuit on horseback, firing missiles as they went. But the trail of caravans, which had hardly covered the first rise, was too easy and clear a target: many of the remaining imperial samurai had sighted the caravan and were giving chase.
Sesuke's two commanders, Daisen and Kaifu, were unable to hold back the attacks. Their motley band of infantry outnumbered their opponents, but was getting defeated by the pure skill and ferocity of their imperial counterparts. Already, the imperial samurai had a wave of mounted infantry, and were firing their way past Daisen and Kaifu's men. Further upwind, at the crest of the hill, the caravan, plagued now by mounted attackers, was still struggling to clear the hill. And just out of sight, a line of gunners with their fire cannons were assembling for a volley.
And where was that idiot brother of hers?
Aiyo took in thwe situation for another moment, and then she was off, riding towards the falling ranks of samurai being led by Dausen and Kaifu.
The wind beating at her face as her horse approached, she steadied her blade. She was not used to holding a blade and riding on horseback; she was actually afraid of accidentally hurting the animal if she struck out at her quarry. All she had trained for was man-to-man combat – on the ground – with almost every weapon she could get her hand on. Now, on horseback, wielding a blade which was too heavy for the full support of her right hand, she felt unsteady, unconfident and ungainly. But she heaved a breath, and screamed as she charged at the nearest samurai in imperial colours.
It was the horse, not the blade that did the most damage. The man, taken aback by the sight of a lady on horseback, could not steer his own steed away, and could merely yell as Aiyo charged. To her dismay, she overestimated the reach of her blade, and missed the man's arm with her mistimed swipe. But before the man could react with a return strike, both horses collided; the man's poor horse was hit in the face. It shied, reared briefly on its hind legs, clearly startled. Aiyo turned fast enough to see it throw the rider off its back; the man fell awkwardly on his left knee and the unsteady horse did the rest, accidentally trampling him.
Still too busy fighting each other, both the ranks of samurai had not realised a woman had joined the battling armies. Aiyo pulled her startled horse under her reins, and without thinking, reeled towards the path of another imperial samurai.
The samurai, however, saw her and without changing course, readied his arrow on a massive longbow he had kept hidden. I missed that, Aiyo's mind shouted at her. If he fires, I'm dead.
This is it.
While he steadied himself, Aiyo could only think of dodging the shot: her horse was going to cut into the path of the archer, and she was closing distance too rapidly to avoid the shot. Heaven help me, she thought aloud.
At the crucial moment, Aiyo swung low in a bid to avoid the archer's shot. And her horse, feeling the tug on the reins, was beside the archer in just two strides. The surprised archer fired his arrow right into the horse's back; Aiyo felt the wind of the arrow and the sickening sound of impact, cutting through flesh to hit bone. The horse let out an awful screech, and Aiyo let go of the reins, almost allowing the wounded animal to slip from under her, and she and the animal smashed into the path of the archer.
"Baca!" she swore, and then the writhing horse let out a series of kicks which sent Aiyo flying back into the snow. There was only one thing in her mind as she herself up, sore from the hit in her chest. Still, better the animal then me.
The archer was still down, pinned under the weight of both animals when Aiyo approached him. She did not feel as guilty or uncomfortable as she thought she would have felt months ago, say during the Kamakura battle, at thought of killing a helpless man. But the man was now completely helpless. With one of his arrows, she took a swipe at her, cutting through her mangled robes at her knees. Aiyo swore again, and then brought the blade down on the archer's face. And when the cut seemed insufficient to be fatal, she thrust it into his exposed neck.
"Hey!"
Aiyo was barely catching her breath, when an arrow fell right beside her. Turning hastily, she sighted more imperial samurai approaching, but this time her own side had spotted her, and several samurai were dispatching the archers in open combat. She quickly got to her feet, got her bearings and ran towards who she thought looked like friendly samurai.
"Where are your commanders?' she said, gasping and panting.
"Over there," he motioned to only one man on horseback. "We are not doing well. Escape, my Lady, while you can."
"The Abbot has a plan," she told them, still taking in huge gasps of air and now conscious of her blood soaked yukata. "Lure the imperial samurai up to that hill. There are men with cannons waiting to fire there as soon as the distance is right."
"Yes, my Lady," went the samurai.
She found it strange why he complied without protest. As the samurai ran off, Aiyo saw the fallen archer's horse was back on its feet again. Casting a sorry look at her own steed kicking and bleeding heavily, she mounted her enemy's horse. It obeyed her; now she needed to get to hill.
Riding steadily with arrows criss-crossing behind her, she rode up to where the last two carts of the caravan where clearing the rise. The caravan was leaking men, having been shot down by archers raiding them on both sides. She paused long enough to see an arrow rip through the covering tarp, and hit the back of one of the Abbot's men who was manning the horses.
I have to do something! If I just head straight up to the hill, these poor souls are going to die.
Her mind racing, she brought her horse into a fierce, speeding gallop towards the last cart, already punctured with so many arrows it resembled a clumsy porcupine. Two imperial samurai on horseback were in the process if fighting the last two men, who were trying to steady and calm the tired horses. All four did not see her ride straight up to them –
Her blade as firm as ever in her right hand, she took a quick estimate of its reach, then flung the entire effort of her arm out at the nearest samurai, with metal smashing against the samurai's armour. Reeling up and riding back, the samurai did not seem to even feel the force of the blow. But as his horse lurched forward, he slumped and fell from his saddle and ontothe snow, the gnash in his arnour instantly visible.
She brought her horse around again. The last samurai suddenly saw that he was outnumbered, but he did not realise the man on horseback was not a warrior, but a woman. Uttering a curse, she flung a half-hearted swipe at the nearest man and departed back down the rise for reinforcements.
Aiyo rode to the two men. They appeared exhausted, and bleeding.
"The heavens bless you, my Lady, for rescuing us!" one of them told her, gratefulness spreading across his tired face.
"They attacked us, and killed the women and children before we could stop them. But only we survived."
At a closer look, she saw the bandages around the first man's arm and face was not for wounds. The hand carrying his blade was missing a finger. What was this man doing out here? He even looked vaguely familiar...
"My lady, don't worry about us, we'll manage," he assured her. Aiyo caught a glimpse, but she did not want to peer any further into the cart's interior. "Retreat to where Abbot Jigo has organised his line."
Remembering her original motive, she acknowledged the men's efforts, and took the reins, ordering the horse up the steep incline to the crest of the hill. Here, she was free from arrows creeping up from behind, but the mutilated bodies of men, women and children from the caravans lay scattered on the snow like debris from an earthquake. A cart lay abandoned, its horses dying, and its occupants overrun by imperial samurai, who in turn had been brought down by the Abbot's men.
At the crest of hill, men had already lined up in neat ranks with their fire-cannons, and with most of the caravan safely behind this line of men, Jigo was busy supervising them. Approaching them as such speed, some of the men raised their weapons.
"It's me! Lady Eboshi!" she called out, and at once their fears were eased. She quickly dismounted and raced to the Abbot's side. "What's happening?"
The Abbot had regained his serene, almost aloof composure, as he replied: "Daizen and Hiojo are retreating in this direction. The imperial samurai have overpowered them. There are about eighty men spread across the crest of this hill with the cannons, waiting for my order to fire."
Before she could respond, an abrupt sense of weariness took her, and she closed her eyes shut to steady herself. Fighting samurai was tougher than I thought, but I must still hold my ground in front of this man.
"My lady?" Jigo turned his attention to her.
"Where's my brother?" she answered back.
Jigo squinted at the mass of figures several hundred metres down the hill. "I think he went to assist the commanders to fight off those imperial dogs. Judging by the fighting, there are still almost a hundred of them down there. I cannot tell who is friend or foe. But when they advance up the slope, my men will fire upon anything that does not bear Asano's colours."
Aiyo saw that some men scurrying up the hill still had red and white flags. But Jigo was right: their objective was just to stop their enemy's advance.
She saw men hauling the fire-cannons out of a caravan. "Give me one of that," she ordered the porter. "And some flint too. Now!"
"My lady?" Jigo looked on, although he felt he already knew what she was going to say.
"Abbot, I will take charge on those to the east," she gestured to the extreme right of the line, where men were still scrambling to take up positions. "We must make sure no imperial samurai gets past our line."
"But – "
She was off already, lugging the heavy cannon behind her. It was so heavy it sunk into the snow at times, and when she was fully bearing its weight, she felt she was sinking into the snow. Nevertheless, she reached her position in time and, propping the weapon on the rise and taking aim at the men running up the hill, she grasped the piece of flint tightly, hoping the weather would not stop her from starting a spark.
"Aim high," she ordered those nearest to her, "we don't want to hit our own warriors when they have fought so bravely for us." Then, noticing the Abbot's men rushing women to safely, she called out after them: "You there! Give the women cannons! We need as much firepower here as possible!"
The men were all attuned to follow Jigo's orders to fire, so she would do him a favour and not usurp him at this critical command. As several of the women set their cannons on the rise beside her, Aiyo watched as the figures coming closer started to bear the succinct colours of friend and enemy: those in tattered red-and-white, being hounded by horsemen with fresher colours of gold and the unmistakable imperial symbol.
Jigo's call to take aim echoed off the hilltop. The piece of flint still in her hands, she struck it twice, but it failed to light. Frustrated, she struck the flint again, and it glowed a dying red.
"Fire!"
Aiming past the first bunch of men to those still on horseback, she brought the glowing flint into shaft… she remembered she had to keep it steady before it – BANG! To her consolation, Aiyo did not feel the shaft throw her back. She knew how to cushion the impact of the recoil after the practices with Jigo and his men.
A volley of shots shook the ground, and the acrid stench of gunpowder and iron engulfed Aiyo momentarily. Smoke was still streaming freely from her fire-cannon.
As the smoke cleared, a cheer went out from the men assembled on the hill. Down below, peering through the smoke which refused to clear, the last few of their defenders were climbing towards them. Behind them, in dark splashes of charred snow and earth, and horribly disfigured bodies, the imperial samurai had in one second suffered huge losses. Hardly more than a handful were left standing; those remaining were already on the retreat – at last.
They were in a greater dilemma than before. They may have defeated almost three hundred of the best trained imperial samurai, but their almost half their fighting men were wounded or dying. One of the commanders, Kaifu, was killed accidentally in the volley of cannon fire, as were two-thirds of his men, the stragglers behind. The caravan had just seven carts remaining, the bulk of them carrying the equipment and ammunition for the cannons, rather than food for the men.
Jigo and the samurai commander Daizen, a retainer and loyal subject of Sesuke, found themselves the two unlikely leaders, in charge of a mixture of families, women whose husbands were among the dead and burdensome, wounded samurai.
While the two settled their differences in how to reach Lord Kira's stronghold at Minami, Aiyo sought out her brother from among the wounded. Dozens of samurai were being treated by a bunch of monks, also followers of Jigo, and they appeared to be the ones most at ease with the situation, diligently attending to the needs of the injured.
She found her brother on horseback, held stable by two of his men. He had escaped being hit by friendly fire, but he looked seriously injured.
"Get down from there," Aiyo ordered him. "You're in no condition to ride."
His two men helped him down, where he gave her one of his sarcastic smiles: "To what do I owe such care and love from my younger sister?" he asked her. "Haven't you seen enough suffering with me around?"
A stray thought entered Aiyo's head, but she shook it away immediately, focusing instead on helping her brother to the ground. He winched as she pressed on his left shoulder – the wound from the spear was still fresh, and bleeding.
"Get him to that monk," he told the two men who had come to his aid. Hiojo could walk, but only barely, and even then he stumbled with the pain of his wound written across his face. Right now, the thought skipped around her head again, but she had no more blade in her hand and she was not entirely sure about him now that she was clearly in control.
Over the next few days, the group plodded through the wilderness, with the samurai commander Daizen in charge. They were told they were heading straight for Minami to the east, but they were taking several detours through the wilderness to lose any imperial samurai who might be in pursuit. Wounded samurai were packed in the carts, and tended to by the few women and children left. Those fit enough, walked, and Aiyo, accompanying her limping brother, rotated between the two.
Sticking close to her brother, she began to understand many things: she understood he was some kind of retainer as well, with some kind of rank which allowed him to exercise a measure of control over his few men. Hiojo, despite his bad limp, still had the respect of the remaining samurai there, and when talking to Daizen, he did not offer him any title, but simply addressed their in-charge as "Daizen" or "There's something I need to tell you". Aiyo supposed that he was also some kind of samurai commander, who had yet to be given full powers by Sesuke.
But if there was one thing she understood well, her brother's condition was not too good.
And if it was not the lack of treatment (the monks said they required herbs, and were always scavenging the dead, lifeless shrubs for any), it was the ghastly weather. Travelling through the night and resting only at noon, they endured icy winds and frequent bursts of sleet and storm. The samurai in-charge said winds and storms would cover their tracks with fresh snow. It was easy for them to say; they had horses.
After four days of rigourous travel, their group had dwindled by a third. Many of the wounded samurai had passed, succumbing to their injuries. Several children starved. Others froze. Food had become a problem; now every time they stopped for rest, the only cart carrying food would be swamped with people. Aiyo stuck close to two other people: Jigo, who was almost self-sufficient in finding food, and her leper friend from their flight from Nara, who was always guaranteed of food from the other monks – because he was a leper.
Then there was the wilderness.
From the start, Aiyo kept away from the trees; as she could see a sky not interrupted by dead, mirthless branches, she knew she was safe. The forest of skeletal, disquieted trees was strange and mysterious. Certainly, she was not too afraid of wild animals, but she had seen – things. Just like the tengu on the night before the attack on the Kamakura fort, spirits plagued her dreams, and sometimes when she was awake.
Aiyo could remember once, huddled with her brother in the bitterest cold of the night, being jolted awake by a certain wave of feeling – a certain untimely shiver made her feel like she was being observed. Snapping open her eyes, and feeling the full force of the winter night, her vision came into focus just in time: something, with its eyes blazing yellow and walking upright. Upon seeing it was being watched too, the dark shadow took off back into the trees.
From that night onwards, Aiyo never slept facing the deep darkness of the forest.
The wilderness held its own power, and she knew it had something to do with their pathetic state. The sense that these spirits and ghouls and beasts were hovering so close, following their gang of sickly samurai, only because they had a slim chance of reaching their destination?
Yet there were still worse things to come. And she was going to find out how bad things could be.
It would be quite hard to forget, even though Aiyo had almost lost count of how many days they had been traversing the wilderness. In the midst of the desolate landscape of leafless trees bordered by the greater pale green shadow of deeper, wilder forests, there came a point when Hiojo could hardly walk. His limp had become so pronounced and so bad that it seemed his crutches were giving him more support than his feet. He leaned heavily against a tree, fumbled with his crutches and collapsed.
"Hiojo!" Aiyo immediately went forward to catch him. The heat from him almost burnt her. Setting him up on his crutches again, her leper friend set him up with his bandaged hands.
"He is getting very sick," he told her. With his un-bandaged hand he pushed aside the robe and took a look at the violent red and yellow crust forming on Hiojo's shoulder. "This accursed wound is not healing. We have to put him in the caravan, or he will not have enough energy to make it to Minami."
The two of them ordered the cart nearest cart to stop, and making space among the feet and bodies of men and women also too weak to walk, they sat Hiojo down, upright in the corner.
"Hiojo, brother. Stay here and you will be well," she told him, wiping his forehead with her sleeve. It was only then she realised she was calling him by his name.
"We will be in Minami in no time."
But later in the day, when the snow had stopped falling and the sun squeezed some of its light through the furiously overcast sky, the caravan crossed a huge clearing. The road led through there, and in the fresh snow, Aiyo noticed the footprints, tracks and impressions of what seemed to be an army, scattered and very recent, across the entire clearing. Like her, the other travelers were unnerved, but Daizen insisted that this was the pathway which they needed to travel.
"They are just tracks!" he argued with Jigo. "Let's get moving."
As if foreshadowing something, the threadbare woods were absolutely silent and still.
Daizen led the small group, with just thirty samurai standing and less than ten of them on horses, back through the woods. This time the ground was descending, but a sharp rise cut off their view from the east. The woods here were also dead, but the shrub cover was thick and dense. Following the samurai's lead, the company quietly tread through these woods. Aiyo did not like these woods; she felt the place was both empty and crowded at the same time.
But from then on things happened so fast: a muffled shout, the sound of a horse screeching, and the mounted samurai just several metres in front of Aiyo fell off his horse, an arrow protruding cleanly from his jaw. And before Aiyo knew it arrows were whistling through the woods.
Ambush!
"Imperial samurai!" she could easily recognise Jigo's voice.
"Protect the women and children!"
"Eeeahhh!"
As the shouting grew louder, an arrow whizzed past her and struck the thin cloth covering of the caravan. The driver had been hit and he was writhing in pain on the ground. But the worse thing was: where were the archers?
Aiyo could see nobody. Nobody.
Another samurai fell, and from the direction of the arrow, she could deduce they were coming from the east, from above the rise. Quickly, she ran towards it; she had no weapon, but at least knew that if the archers were firing from above, she would be more difficult to hit under their noses.
Her leper friend was running towards her with a fire-cannon. "My lady, take this," he threw it into her arms hastily. "Follow me!"
Another volley of arrows was flying from above, and everyone not covered by the shadow of the rise or the carts was hit. Even the women and children within the caravans were cut through. Curses! Curses! Heaven curse them! She was breathing heavily now, and almost knee deep in snow as she trailed her leper friend towards the source of the arrows. Even when he turned sharply to scale the small slope of the rise, she followed without complaint. My life's at stake here.
"There!" he pointed to a set of archers firing from the cover of the trees. They had scaled half the rise. There were hardly more than ten of them, bearing imperial colours, and were now distracted by Daizen and his men, who were coming from the other end of the rise.
Automatically, she requested flint from her leper friend. And once she had the lighted stump in her hands, she lit the ammunition and felt the cannon go off with a blast of iron and smoke and fire. Her leper friend fired once more. Her first shot took one of the archers in the chest; igniting the flint again, she fired once more time before the archers caught aim of them. It struck right in the centre of them, scattering them and causing the thin but dense scrub to catch fire.
"One more," her leper friend let loose his third shot, and it fell with an explosion behind the archers, causing several to get thrown forward. He lowered his cannon once he saw that Daizen and Jigo had begun to engage the archers in melee.
But as they were set to climb down the rise and celebrate their marksmanship, they saw that more imperial samurai were pouring out from the opposite side of the woods, taking those below by surprise.
"Up there!" one of them shouted and shot an arrow which split through the centre of them.
"The girl is mine!"
"Now until you kill me, idiot!" Aiyo shouted back.
Her leper friend let loose his fourth round at the samurai scaling the rise to get up to them, and sent two of them tumbling down. Aiyo took aim at the nearest one and stuck her flint to into the firing hole, but to her horror, her gun failed to fire. The flint was not burning or –
"I'll have your head, you wretch!"
His first swipe was too fast for Aiyo to withdraw from, and as she pulled away, an immediate pain forced her to clap her hand to her forehead. The blade had sliced a straight cut there. The next swipe as aimed at cutting her in two, but with the solid shaft of the fire-cannon she parried the attack, and struck the samurai square in his chest with the blunt edge.
No effect. Baca. His armour was much stronger than the one she fought the last time without a weapon. As the samurai advanced, she blocked the next strike as hard as she could with her cannon, her mind still racing for an alternative…
"Give up! You'll die here anyway!" the samurai leered at her. They had now squared off together, oblivious to the fighting in the background.
"Pigheaded dog," she retorted.
Enraged, the samurai charged at her, but she was not fooled. Aiyo quickly dodged the charge, and with the metal head of the cannon, hit his exposed fingers. A brief sound of bones cracking, and the samurai was doubling up in pain. Yet before Aiyo could find something to light her flint with, he came at her again. The attack too quick to avoids, she was thrown to the ground.
Her mind was screaming and fighting her weariness. Get up get up get up!
But then there it was – a eroded rock protruding out from the ground. Like lightning, she struck the flint on the rock, and it responded with a red glow. Come on come on come on. Flipping over, she turned as she lighted her cannon – her attacker was bringing the blade down on her back when it fired.
"Eeeeeaaahhh!"
It missed, but grazed his face so badly that it appeared as if his right half of his face had been mauled by a wolf. His hands went straight to his charred, burning face, dropping the blade – and Aiyo knew there was only one thing left to do: she seized the blade and lobbed off the man's head.
Her leper friend was nowhere to be seen, but the rain of arrows had ceased, and gunfire was bouncing off the trees. She quickly recovered her fire-cannon and raced back to the caravan.
Just in time too. To the noise of gunfire from her leper friend and other women, the imperial samurai were retreating from where they came, dropping like flies along the way.
She could almost see the samurai falling in the fiery glow of the fire. The fierce blade which she had seized from the samurai was still at her side, the remnant of dried blood scarcely present along its edge. Her leper friend, was asleep, but clutching his fire-cannon tightly. Daizen, whom Aiyo wished had died in the ambush for his stupidity, was blocked from her vision by whatever men he had left.
And Hiojo was still just within reach. Eyes shut, breathing irregularly, his face flushed with pain.
Sometimes, staring into space like this, Aiyo would think she was mediating. Not because she believed heaven would be merciful enough to heal her brother; she had crossed another threshold of pain – first having borne the physical torture of her past and now, with that era over, the emotional agony of losing her last surviving family member and her only connection through to Sesuke's thick-headedness. But for tonight, when it seemed Hiojo was passing into the other world, she felt utterly blank, wiped so clean that not even grief could reach her.
When the moon was high in the night sky, Jigo and one of his monks came over to Hiojo. At first they thought she was sleeping, being so still, but she motioned to them, and they quietly spoke a few words as the monk attended to her brother.
Jigo made it very brief. "Your brother may not make it through tonight," he spoke slowly, like to a little child. Even at the great temple, Aiyo never heard him speak so gently before. "Maru will stay with him, but you must also try to help him get through the night. If he survives tonight, he will live. But if not…"
The man left her with his brow furrowed. Hiojo and him had not been close, but when he was still capable of leading, Jigo certainly preferred him to Daizen's overbearing but confusing orders.
She leaned in close to her brother. Maru the monk was massaging his hands, and with a Buddhist amulet also chanting prayers.
"There's no need for supplication. If this is his time, then let him," Aiyo said. She had Hiojo's fifteen years of learning to be a samurai under the Asanos in mind.
"Brother," she whispered to him. "Can you hear me?"
He was so still it was as if he was already dead. Only his fever was strong.
"Hiojo, my brother, I'll let you know its fine. Your taunts are fine. And I forgive you for the way you treated me from the start, for selling me to become a tayu, and for all your insults," she said, plainly but keeping her head and eyes clear. The monk was listening, and he continued to mouth his chants. She caught sight of her blade again, and the way the fire, now much smaller, was reflecting and flying off it.
"And if you die tonight, I promise I will avenge everyone who has looked down on our family, including the Asanos if I must."
Her voice was dead calm and completely level. But strangely her conscience was not overweighed with guilt. She did not know how to react, but she felt she was doing the right thing.
As the moon continued to waste the night away, Hiojo's breathing became almost soundless, and eventually his pulse became too faint to feel. With each hour that passed, Maru the monk shook his head, and kept up his chanting, this time with a small copy of the sutras in his hands. Even with both of them watching him, it was hard to tell when Hiojo actually passed into the other realm. But just before dawn, he was completely still. Maru the monk placed his prayer beads over him and as Aiyo sat, with a completely serene look in her face, thinking on all the fights, ambushes and deaths within the last seven or so days, there was nothing much she could say or do. Hiojo did not need an eulogy from her, only from the monks and their mantras.
After the prayer rites ended, it was already dawn, and Jigo stood beside her as his monks lowered the body into a shallow grave which they had dug. The elder man, who was almost her second mentor, was chanting too; was he actually that religious? Daizen, who was ready with his horse to leave, watched from a distance; she knew he was too scared to disturb the ceremony.
Was this how her father died, so far away from home and his wife and son and daughters? Covering him with a blanket she lined pine needles along the grave, so it did not look like an empty ditch. The monks were still chanting; her leper friend stood on her other side, and as they bowed to the body in the grave, a sword at his side and this was the only burial throughout their journey where there was weeping. But it did not come from Aiyo. Her face was fixed at a point beyond her brother's fallen body, somewhere beyond, as if in a dream, serenely stone-faced and fighting against her remaining emotions not to shed tears.
Because she did not shed tears at her mother and sisters' seppuku.
While the monks covered the grave with earth and marked it with the sheath of Hiojo's sword, she kept the Eboshi family sword – the short blade which Hiojo so enjoyed playing with during their first trip to Nara as a child – tightly at her waist. How were her ancestors looking at her now? Hiojo had joined their ranks, and how would they see her since there was no more Eboshi to pass down the family line? These thoughts only entered her head for a moment: as soon as the grave was filled, she sat there, beside her brother, for a long time, neither sobbing nor speaking, but with her head in her hands.
And no one dared to interrupt her.
When she did rise and start walking, only her leper friend was there. He was talking to several samurai, men she had seen earlier, wearing Asano's emblem and colours very visibly. The group of six men stopped speaking and went silent as she approached.
Then one of them bowed and held out his blade to her, sheathed in its case.
"My lady, you were Hiojo Eboshi's only surviving relative," he said, his tone as a servant would talk to his master. "As we have served under his charge and leadership as samurai for many years, so we would continue in service to you, Lady Eboshi."
The others followed suit, and when she nodded they stood at attention. It was as if she had closed her eyes in grief and then when she opened them, the world had become new again. Walking with the blade that gave her new power, she walked towards the caravans that were already saddled and leaving, her men fanning out, following in every step as if she was royalty.
A small smile caught her face. The single-minded duty of these men. And in the process she caught her leper friend's eye:
"Samurai," he sighed.
But such things needed to be observed – for now.
Notes: I'll be in Malaysia with my church youth group for the whole of next week, running some youth and children programmes with another church in a village in Melaka state, so I thought I should get this chapter out before I disappear and lose thought of what I want to write. It's my longest chapter so far, and I think the last few paragraphs were especially difficult to write. I've not killed off a lot characters in my previous stories – I think this story raises the standard one level higher.
To Soapfiction: If you haven't read the message I addressed to you on my blog, let me summarise what happened last week. After reviewing your story, my parents (who are also Miyazaki fans) came back with the entire collection of his works. Apparently they were having some grand opening discounts at a new shopping centre. So now, believe it or not, I'm the owner of Mononoke-Hime, on DVD, and yes, I have already watched it once to try and get ideas and inspiration, and it worked. I finished this chapter in 3 days.
I watched the movie (this is my third time) with a particular eye to details surrounding the Lady Eboshi character. It struck me that, while I'm writing here about a hero, Miyazaki original interpretation makes her come across as both sinister and ambitious. I can finally – after one bloody year – understand why a lot of writers in this fanfic community portray her character as negative: they follow what's already given to them in the movie. However, if you are reading this and you are a big fan of maybe San or Ashitaka, I'm not trying to sugar-coat the Eboshi character, I'm just attempting to tell how she became like that. Watching the movie again has given me a direction to work towards. And of course, credit to Mr. Miyazaki for his great characterization.
, thanks for the review too. Please keep them coming.
