Free Tale of the Warrior Geisha by Margaret Dilloway Page A

blunt statement. He had the grace to blush. She knew what he wanted—a quick tryst. Something to occupy him while he was home. It would only be trouble for her.
    Yet this same thought had not stopped her with Yoshinaka.
    â€œYou wouldn’t like life in the capital anyway. You would be like a dog tied to a tree, pacing back and forth all day until you went mad.” He started back along the path, his feet crunching.
    â€œThat wasn’t very poetic. Surely you can do better than to compare me to a dog.” She caught up to him and punched him lightly on the arm. Wada was right. She would go mad there, not allowed to fight or ride horses or all the things she could do while under her father’s roof.
    â€œBut the real reason you refuse me is because you are in love with Yoshinaka.”
    She stopped moving and stared. Wada looked at her face from under his lashes.
No,
she almost said, but she did not. The crickets played their lonesome song.
    â€œHe will never marry you. You cannot increase his rank, either.” Wada’s tone was brisk. “You will be only a novelty in his army. Like a dancing monkey who can fight with a sword. Something to entertain the men, give him a name beyond this region. Take your pick: be his concubine, or mine.”
    She turned away so he could not see her face, gazing up at the moon as if it was a talisman that would tell her what her future held. “I never knew you to be cruel, Wada.” She tried to keep her voice calm, but she wanted to shove him. He was correct, of course. Her choices were limited. But she knew her place was with her family. In Yoshinaka’s army as an
onnamusha
. This was the life she had, and she could choose no other. “I would rather be a warrior in his army than a kept woman in the capital,” she said.
    He touched her arm. “We are friends, and friends are honest. Like you are with me.”
    The thrushes and crickets went quiet all at once. Tomoe stopped moving. The hairs on her arms rose. Something was wrong.
    Screams rose up from the wedding party and people ran away from the pavilion like ants from boiling water. Smoke filled the air. She exchanged a glance with Wada and both broke into a full run. She did not have her sword—her mother would not hear of her having a sword at a celebration like this.
    The main temple’s roof was on fire, the banquet table kicked aside, their dishes strewn all over. Shadowy figures fought with swords.
It looks like a shadow puppet show,
Tomoe thought.
Who is who?
Yoshinaka. Kanehira. Kaneto. She picked them out of the crowd. Who was attacking?
    She ran to the scene. As she arrived, one of the unfamiliar men swung his sword at Tomoe, and without thinking she leaped forward past the steel, looped her arm around his neck and twisted, feeling the vertebrae snap under her flesh. She threw him to the ground. She kicked his arm and picked up his sword.
    But then she heard a cry, a grunt combined with an airless scream. Kaneto!
    She reached her father as he fell. Blood seeped out from under him onto the gravel. He clutched both hands to his stomach. “Tomoe,” he whispered. “You did a fine job with your
jūjutsu
, little one.”
    â€œI learned from the best.” She put her hands over his wound. Liquid soaked them both. The wound, she realized, went all the way through her father. Nearby, Wada cut down another man with a shout.
    Kaneto coughed. “It is the Taira Search and Punish crew.”
    â€œFind Mother!” Tomoe shouted to Wada. She tore off her outer kimono and used it to stanch her father’s wound. “You’ll be fine,” she said, more to herself than to him. “You are all right.”
    â€œ
Ichi-go, ichi-e.
My one chance is gone.” Kaneto put his head back. His face had gone white. “Where’s your mother?”
    â€œI don’t know.” The blood kept pumping out, like a mountain spring. What else could she do?