"A strange strategy for a general intent on conquest," Old One mused. "What can she have in mind?" Rising from her seat, she motioned for Snow Moon to approach. "Pack food and clothing and the apparatus of my profession. We will visit this Empress Jingo."
So it was that Old One, Snow Moon, and Matsumoto Yoshi soon left the village behind, retracing the path by which he had first reached them. The young soldier was in a foul mood, one which became fouler by the footstep.
"I don't know why I'm doing this," he grumbled as he led them along.
"You are doing this because you don't want to die," said Old One.
Matsumoto Yoshi gave a short, bitter laugh. "A true warrior does not fear death."
"A mad warrior does not fear death," Old One corrected him. "A true warrior fears death but faces it anyway. As for you, I see you are an idiot warrior, so I couldn't say what your attitude toward death would be."
"Oh! Grandmother!" Snow Moon gasped at such rudeness to one so young and strong and handsome. "How can you speak to him so? Isn't he doing your bidding willingly? Isn't he guiding us where we want to go?"
"Willingly," Old One repeated. "As long as you and I hold his weapons." Her hand closed comfortably around the hilt of his captive sword and she nodded at the great spear now in Snow Moon's keeping.
The girl seemed eager to take the handsome young man's part against her ancestress. "You know as well as I that if he tried to escape, he would easily outdistance you and that sword. As for me, I am intimidated by this powerful shaft; it's much too big for me to handle skillfully."
"You'll learn," Old One said. She turned to their guide and added: "I ask your pardon, Matsumoto Yoshi. By taking us to meet your Empress, you are indeed performing a great service for us, but a greater one for your own people, for I mean to put an end to this endless war."
"I don't see how you'll do that," he said sullenly. "When we reach the Empress' encampment, you will be taken prisoner. As for me, I can't even enter the precincts, for if I'm seen, I'll be arrested for desertion and my fate will be a dishonorable death."
"Oh, I don't think so," Old One said. "But if you do make good your escape a second time, take a miserable old woman's advice: Become a recluse and live alone. On no account make your presence known in any village or town in all Korea for, if you do, the women will get you, and then you will surely die."
"Ha!" Scorn contorted Matsumoto Yoshi's face. "I don't think any of you women knows what to do with a spear any more than this sweet maiden does."
Snow Moon blushed at the compliment, but Old One herself said, "You would not die by spear or sword. We women have a secret weapon. Like your precious Empress, we know that victory does not always go to the side that can command sharp, sudden sorties and incursions, but to the side with the most staying power. In other words, in a land where so many men are gone from home, you would be sucked drier than an old persimmon rind in a fortnight. Do you follow me, boy?"
Matsumoto Yoshi did. At first he leered, but the leer soon dwindled to a weak smile which quickly faded to a look of badly controlled panic. "You-you think that if I rejoin my troops, the Empress won't call for my death?"
"I promise it," said Old One. "For behold, have you not brought her a precious gift?"
"I have? What?"
"Me."
The Empress Jingo sat in her hilltop pavillion, contemplating hertanko, its iron shell adorned with a riveted skirt, every rivet on skirt and cuirass capped with gold. It had been made to her exact measurements, which gave her both comfort and protection, but absolutely no leeway when it came to gaining weight. It hung from a lacquered rack, attended by her bow and quiver. Beneath these, in a green box with a gold pattern of sea waves, resided the Tide Ebbing and Tide Flowing Jewels, Amaterasu's gracious gifts.
Twoof Amaterasu's gracious gifts. Despite the awesome power contained within the small green box, there was still a third gift which the goddess had bestowed upon the Empress that left the mastery of wave and water looking dreadfully pathetic by comparison.
She rose and crossed the pavilion to where a polished bronze mirror on a wooden stand awaited her pleasure. She was not a vain woman, though her beauty gave her every right to be, and while her royal husband lived she had spent scarcely any time at all studying her own image.
"Three years changes much," she murmured to her reflection. "And nothing." She stood sideways and ran her hands down the front of her tightly cinched robe, over the perfect flatness of her belly. Incredible. The marvel of it all never ceased to astonish her.
She was thus wrapped up in her own thoughts when they brought her the news: Matsumoto Yoshi had returned with prisoners of war. For love of his Empress he had taken it upon himself to scout the land in hopes of finding something that might help the war effort. The gods had blessed him and he had found such a thing. He begged the Empress to honor his miserable efforts on behalf of the imperial house of Yamato by deigning to view his offerings.
The Empress Jingo sighed and called for her servants. They dressed her in her warrior's garb-a serviceable tunic and wide-legged trousers tied below the knee, both with the gorgeous embellishments proper to her rank-helped her don hertanko for effect, and laced on her leather arm-guards. Only then did she step outside.
"Women?" she exclaimed when she saw Matsumoto Yoshi's "offering." Old One and Snow Moon stood one to either side of their supposed captor, each with a small bundle of possessions at her feet. "You have capturedwomen? Forthis I put on armor?"
"Most excellent lady, this is no ordinary woman," the young soldier said quickly, pushing Old One to the fore. "She is a great power among her people, a seer of inestimable talent. She is also terribly, awfully, extremely and acutely old."
"How old is she?" the Empress asked, raising one mothlike eyebrow.
"I am so old that there are rocks who call me grandmother," Old One spoke up. "I am so old that the name my parents gave me at my birth got tired of waiting for me to die and preceeded me to the grave so that now I am known simply as Old One. I am so old that I remember when dragons were plentiful enough for housewives to have to use brooms to chase the smaller ones out of their gardens. I am so old that I recall the days when Japan was not the only land which the men of China called the Queen Country." She stared meaningfully at the Empress.
"That's old," the Empress Jingo admitted.
"She is a treasure," Matsumoto Yoshi went on. "If word reaches the Korean troops that we have her, they will at last accede to a peace parley. Your excellency will be able to set your own terms and acheive your goal of hegemony over the Three Kingdoms. The war will be won, the gods will be satisfied, and we can all go home!"
The longer he spoke, the more Matsumoto Yoshi began to believe his own words and the greater his enthusiasm grew until he was joyfully prophesying a swift and immediate victory. The Japanese troops, all massed in their ranks before the Empress' pavilion, took fire from him and began to cheer in a most raucous manner.