The Golden Naginata by Jessica Amanda Salmonson Read Free Book Online

house. Your brother is even angrier. But as your father is the family patriarch, none can question his authority to do these things. You are no longer Tomoe of Heida. You must take another name.”
    â€œI’ll keep my name!” said Tomoe. “My father has died for me as well. He can take another name!”
    â€œYou speak tough! But tears are in your eyes. Will you fight me, then, Tomoe Gozen? Without filial piety, what good is life anyway?”
    Tomoe drew her sword and raised it above her head. Azo stepped back, smiling, pleased, hand to hilt. The beggars and other people in the street scurried away to watch from safe distances. “Too many people try my patience today!” shouted Tomoe. She untied her straw hat with one hand and let it fall from her back to the ground. “Did you search for me to give me troubling news? If you are that eager to die, we will begin!”
    The sound of a larger fracas interrupted the intended duel. A laughing, howling ronin was running down the street, pursued by four large men. Tomoe’s eyes narrowed at the sight. She whispered the ronin’s name as though it were a curse:
    â€œIch ’yama.”
    The ronin hadn’t bathed at all. He’d gotten drunk and evidently gambled. No doubt he lacked the funds to pay his losses. His pursuers were tattooed men: professional underworld gamblers. They had bared their shoulders to boastfully reveal their fierce tattoos. Although Ich ’yama fled their murderous rage, he did not seem worried. He laughed uproariously, heading straight toward Tomoe Gozen and Azo Hono-o.
    â€œI’ve been running all over looking for you, Tomoe!” he shouted. “I wanted you to see this!”
    He reeled about and drew his sword in the direction of the gamblers. The four men were surprised by the action, but prepared themselves quickly. As they raised their swords to kill the delinquent ronin, Ich ’yama was already sheathing his sword. The four men were gutted. One by one they realized they’d been mortally cut, and fell to the ground.
    Tomoe’s evil mood lessened with the sight. She never expected to feel admiration for the dirty ronin. She picked her hat off the ground, dusted it, and said to Ich ’yama, “That was excellent.”
    â€œI know!” said Ich ’yama, eyes sparkling.
    Azo Hono-o inspected the clean, killing wounds approvingly. She started to slip away, for what reason Tomoe wasn’t certain. “Where do you go?” asked Tomoe; but Azo Hono-o withdrew into an alley and vanished.
    â€œWho was she?” asked Ich ’yama.
    â€œA friend who wants to duel,” said Tomoe. “I expect someday we will … but I wonder why she ran away. It’s been a day of strange meetings! As I don’t believe in coincidences, I suspect occult intervention.”
    She and Ich ’yama left the corpses for others to clear away. Since samurai could lawfully slay anyone equal to or below their own station, an investigation was unlikely, especially in the case of gamblers.
    â€œDid you learn anything?” asked Ich ’yama. “No? Me either. I went to the most despicable places searching!” He jokingly feigned disgust for the necessity. “The bathhouse was overcrowded, so I didn’t get a chance to bathe … but … I did do something!” He blushed like a lovestruck boy as he removed a rectangle of paper and a piece of yarn from his sleeve. He had written on the paper. Seeing a rather scraggly bamboo bush nearby, he hurried toward it and began to tie the paper to a branch. “I wrote it myself!” he said. “Please read it!”
    Despite herself, she was curious. If anyone had ever written a poem for her before, they had not had the nerve to show it to her. Ich ’yama’s poem read:
    Women are inconstant
    as streaks of golden sunset
    under clouds.
    She was immediately incensed. Doubtless it was intended to convey his