The Pillow Book of the Flower Samurai (28 page)

Hitomi named me
ch
ō
ja
before my eighteenth birth anniversary. I garnered a tenth of everyone’s earnings, which swelled my resources. My stories and services intertwined business advice, military strategy, political advice and customers’ needs as the threads of a heavily patterned brocade. My clients became wealthier, more powerful, higher-ranking, and able to help me learn even more.

I translated what they told me into tools to fool them into kindness and gentleness, the only means to honour my Tashiko’s memory. Many men were transformed at Hitomi’s Village.

More learning: writing

Politics, noble people

Chinese poetry

My dear one’s memories still

Fill my heart as moonlight, my eyes

BOOK 8

I. One In Particular

‘My dear Kozaishō, why do you tell me this story?’ A new client, a well-dressed Taira samurai captain, Kunda Takiguchi no Tokikazu, stopped me in the middle of ‘The Flying Jars’.

His words shone like gold and silver lettering on indigo paper. It took me a few moments to absorb what he was saying. No one had ever asked me such a question. I lowered my head and knelt in front of him. Would he hurt me? Complain to Hitomi, so that I would lose my fee?

He took my hands in his. ‘Men usually come to women, such as yourself, to play out their desire for power and control. I believe you know that much.’

I controlled my temper and concentrated on his melodic speech. Its smoothness quelled my panic. After all, Taira samurai from Rokuhara, familiar with the capital and all the high-ranking people, should know more than the customers from a local
sh
ō
en
.

‘Most men would not wish to pretend to be an inexperienced, arrogant priest. They would not agree to play the role of a conceited priest humbled to learn from an older one. I would not.’ His eyes gazed straight into mine, and I saw his spirit. ‘So, I ask again, why do you tell this story?’

I thanked him for his honesty. I could not tell him the truth and remained silent. What would he do?

His warm brown eyes beamed kindly at me. ‘Sing for me. I have heard rumours that your voice and songs are enchanting.’

I reached for the
biwa
, relieved, yet troubled by the rumours. Who had spread them?

He put his hand on my forearm before I could play and lowered his voice. ‘I have also heard that you practise to be a samurai.’

With effort my face remained blank but it grew hot.

‘After our transactions here, may I have permission to train with you?’

His courtesy and calm of his voice caused my body toquiver. He was a powerful man. I nodded. ‘Yes, honourable Kunda Takiguchi no Tokikazu.’ Where had he heard about me? From whom? And how?

Tokikazu and I marched on to the practice field. The rising summer moon was almost hidden by swollen clouds, foretelling of a coming storm.

On the practice field, Akio’s pupils enlarged and his eyes grew black. He made a small bow. I made a large one to Tokikazu, wondering at Akio’s agitation.

Akio and Tokikazu glared at each other, like two cocks ready to fight. Fireflies swirled about them. The cicadas rumbled, while the
hototogisu
sang to announce the summer.

Tokikazu asked Akio for a
bokken
session with me.

Permission was granted.

We began.

Every ploy Akio had taught me to take advantage of my height succeeded. I was confident because Tokikazu was lean and only a little taller than I. But my second time with each gambit failed – altogether.

‘Here.’ Tokikazu put up his hand to stop after I lay on the ground for the fourth or fifth time in succession. He pivoted his wiry body to Akio and nodded. ‘Akio! Please, let us demonstrate for Kozaishō.’

Akio walked over, his shoulders hunched defensively, his fingers pale around his
bokken
.

They performed. Akio sliced at Tokikazu, who deflected. Next Tokikazu countered with his
bokken’s
edge. He rolled backwards on to the ground, righted himself and thrust up into Akio. With another stroke Tokikazu ‘sliced’ from neck to belly.

Akio fell backwards, roaring with laughter. ‘Well done, Tokikazu.’ Akio stood up, brushed himself down, and made a little bow.

The rest of the evening we practised together, two at a time. Akio and I ran through the tactic later until we were comfortable and familiar with it.

I wondered, for several years, why Tokikazu never returned to visit me, and why his memory persisted in my thoughts.

Most clients relinquished their old ways as I worked my stories on them. For example, another direct subordinate of the Taira governor, a lieutenant, had developed a fondness for food and grew larger at each subsequent visit. Completion no longer satisfied him unless he was eating at the same time. He preferred feasting to almost any other activity, including my singing, which had earlier pleased him.

I found three stories that served. In the first, an
oni
decided to eat his wife, but instead was consumed by a lion and a tiger. In the second, ‘The Woman Who Ate Nothing’, a female
oni
covered her true mouth on top of her head with hair. She ate her husband’s friend, but her husband saved himself by hiding in a forest. For the third, I altered ‘The Handless Maiden’, whose hands were chopped off while she ate. My alternative was that an evil brother cut off a prince’s hands; and the prince wandered until he performed a kindness for a peasant woman and the Goddess of Mercy restored his hands.

These stories instilled changes in the Taira lieutenant. He shrank with each visit until he was of normal size. My log showed that the process continued for more than a year. When I had finished with him, he was gentler, kinder, slimmer and grateful.

II. Premonitions

In my eighth summer at the Village of Outcasts I awoke remembering a dream, inspiring me like a winter full moon. Tashiko came in an immense ring of fire, and through the smoke I heard the thrush’s call. It announced, ‘Someone’s coming! Someone’s coming!’ Arising, I shared this with Misuki and my serving women.

Misuki closed one eye, and half smiled with the other. ‘This morning spiders’ webs decorated a corner of my hut . . . Remember the old poem – “Where spiders’ webs show, a woman’s lover will arrive”?’ Lifting her eyes to mine, she lowered her voice: ‘Two signs together . . . are auspicious.’

Rare as such dreams were, my serving women nodded because I had shared the signs with them.

‘Perhaps it will be a new and wealthy client.’ One woman tittered. ‘He will give you many coins.’

‘A baby. Yes, it is an omen of a baby for you.’ The second grinned, putting up her sleeve to hide her glaring white teeth. I knew my morning tea prevented conception.

Uncomfortable, I dressed early and went to the practice field, thinking of the white pheasant and the dragon-like cloud, the signs for which Master Isamu had allowed me on to the practice field at Chiba’s. While I was practising my archery on horseback, a visiting samurai arrived almost undetected because of my disquiet. Since he and I had done so before, we drilled with the sword.

‘You have improved, in our short time together. Indeed, you display great aptitude for the sword.’ He gave a small bow.

Afterwards, I walked back to my hut, gratified at the compliment but still discomfited by the dream and Misuki’s premonition. Since it was not a day when a tutor visited, I collected my servants for the bathhouse. Emi prepared the scrubbing mixture while Misuki and I reviewed clients, songs, costumes, makeup and dances. Misuki tracked costumes in the order required. Since her brush was still far better than mine, she wrote the lists.

With Misuki’s direction, Emi prepared the room with all my requirements. She oversaw my hair ornaments and was a meticulous hair arranger, whose attention to detail had carried over from her love of flowers. In the coldest winter I had painted flowers.

For ‘Grave of the Chopstick’ Emi painted the one red petal on each white flower for those who did not keep their promises. Her flowers matched the stories’ seasons and complemented my face and costume. She also compounded the correct incense – under Misuki’s guidance – so the scent was appropriate to the story. My clients delighted in what I did and how I looked, but especially in the fragrances of my hair and body. The flower must hold the passer-by not only with its shape and colour but with its scent.

In the middle of our morning discussions, Madam Hitomi, wearing a vast array of seasonally inappropriate kimonos, burst into the bathhouse. She had neglected to gather her skirts and her hems trailed in a muddy sweep. She stood at the door with the morning light behind her.

The corners of her mouth turned down. Strands of hair jutted out, and she chattered like a screeching bird. Startled, Emi bowed, covering her open mouth with her hands. Madam Hitomi had never arrived in such a manner. Indeed, she never visited the bathhouse when the Women-for-Play were there. Perspiration poured down her face in the steamy air, removing her painted eyebrows. It soaked her rouged and wrinkled cheeks. Drops rolled off her rounded chins, wetting her coat, which gave off a rancid smell. She had put on weight lately and now looked like one of my clients, especially the Taira governor’s lieutenant before he had shrunk. Hitomi glistened and dissolved in the late-morning sun like a rotting vegetable.

‘Kozaishō!’ She cocked her head.

Misuki and Emi’s mouths were agape, eyes large with anticipation. Madam Hitomi had never bowed to me, ever. I had received at most a heavy eyebrow movement when I performed so magnificently that someone overpaid her.

Through the steam, she strode directly to me. ‘Do not make plans for your regular customers. An emissary has arrived. An honoured personage is coming and has reserved you for the day – all day. He wants no other to attend him.’

Gulping, I tried to pay attention to her words, rather than her hair, which was dripping around her creased neck. I succeeded in not smiling – for the honoured personage, surely a high-ranking man, was for me. Half scrubbed by Emi, I bowed quite low. ‘Thank you for the honour, Madam Hitomi, and for your confidence in me.’

She snapped, ‘You must do your best today. Ask for whatever you need. It will be given.’

‘Thank you for your generosity,’ I said, bowing low again. ‘I have a small request. May I know something of the identity of this lord who is to honour the Village today?’ I could barely keep my voice soft. Still bowing, I did all I could not to raise an eyebrow. I had rehearsed giving her the illusion that the control was hers.

‘It is an emissary from the governor of Echizen province, Taira no Michimori, third rank junior grade. He arrived this morning. Word of my house and my well-trained women has spread to Echizen Governor Michimori himself. He is travelling with his troops, but because of an ominous Divergent Directions for him today, the commander must stay here. Naturally, this great lord would never invite evil from the Gods of Directions.

‘You are to entertain him. Many of his lieutenants and other high-ranking officers will be with the others.’

‘Madam Hitomi, I am overcome with the great honour you give me. I will attempt to bring honour to you and to your house.’