The Empress Jingo made a small mouth and gave Old One a sideways look that as good as said: Men! Old One shrugged and both women smiled.
"Honored guest in my land," Old One said when she could at last be heard above the soldiers' clamor. "If my age commands any respect at all from you, I beg you to grant me a private audience."
It was a simple request, innocent, and readily granted. Old One picked up her bundle and carried it into the imperial pavilion while the Empress commended the care of Snow Moon to Matsumoto Yoshi. Only when Jingo had been relieved of her armor, refreshments had been brought, and the last servant had been dismissed did the women speak.
"You're not his prisoner, are you," the Empress stated.
Old One chuckled. "And you are not going to have him put to death for saying I was."
"I should. His whole story is riddled with lies like a block of rotten wood with wormholes. More likely he was your prisoner-though how that came to pass I can not say-and bringing you to me was your idea alone. He didn't undertake an expedition to help us win the war; he ran away."
"True. But he has come back, and with me, and I am in fact the treasure that he paints me. You will not call for his death, O Empress."
"You sound sure of that."
"A war that drags on for three years with not a single casualty, all thanks to those Jewels of yours, and you want me to believe you'd be capable of ordering an execution?"
Jingo's brow darkened. "Don't underestimate me. If it is necessary, I will command that a life be taken. If needful I will take that life myself."
"You are not a coward, O Empress," Old One said, calmly raising a teacup to her lips and slurping contentedly. "You don't fear death, but like all good housewives you despise wastefulness."
"You dare to call me a housewife?" Jingo sprang from her seat, bristling. "I am the Empress of all Japan!"
"Same job, bigger house." Old One drank more tea. "You see to it that everyone under your roof is properly fed and clothed, you look to the future and provide for it, and you do your best to keep your beloved children from harming themselves or others."
Jingo held onto her anger for a few heartbeats longer, then slowly sank back onto her stool. "I see your point."
"Now if only I could see yours." Old One helped herself to some of the little leaf-shaped cakes that the Empress' servants had left behind on a tray. "A war without deaths-very admirable, but to what end?"
"The same end as all wars: Victory."
"Yes, but victory to be acheived by what means? We chase you, you chase us, we all get ready for a fight, and before anyone can draw his sword-whoosh! — an uninvited river. Nothing is decided and the chase resumes. This is a war with neither gain nor loss for either side. Let it go. Pack up your quarrelsome children and go home."
"I can't," the Empress replied. "Such is not the will of the gods."
"We have other gods in these lands. I have brought my tripod so that I may invoke our divinities. When they appear I'll ask them to pay a social call upon your gods and settle the whole thing amongst themselves."
"That would be futile. This is the Month Without Gods, the yearly time when the greatkami gather at Izumo. But even if our gods were here, your offer would be rejected. This war is the will of Amaterasu, benevolent ancestress of the imperial house. She first entrusted it to my beloved husband-"
"— the Emperor Chuai, yes. That nice young man told me. Is that the only reason why you pursue this war? Because you fear that if you disobey, the benevolent goddess will kill you, too?"
All that Jingo replied to this was: "Bah."
"You are so certain of her good will?"
"Naturally. She did not order this war for herself-what need does the greatkami of the sun have for mere mortal kingdoms? — but for the enrichment and advancement of her beloved descendants, the imperial house of Japan."
Old One's wrinkled face twisted into an expression compounded of disbelief, surprise, and unconditional rejection of every word she had just heard. "O wise Empress, with all due respect and every honor due to your position, I ask you: Are you out of your mind?What descendants? Your husband is dead, and you may correct me if I err but as I understand ithe was Amaterasu's descendant, not you."
"I will not correct where there is no error," Jingo said. "He was in fact then the last of her line."
"And he died three years ago." Old One felt uneasy in her bones. Surely the Empress did not need to have such things spelled out for her? Shelooked sane enough.
"I know it well. I mourn him to this day and will forever honor his memory. All the more reason to win these kingdoms for our son."
Old One's mouth opened. No sound came out. She closed it again, then made another stab at expressing herself, but this one likewise came a cropper. Closing both her mouth and her eyes she took a deep breath, mentally rattled through the names of her eleven husbands to center herself, and finally was able to say, "Your husband diedthree yearsago. Do they handle these mattersthat differently in Japan?" She pointed definitely at the Empress' flat belly.
Jingo laughed and placed her hands over her abdomen. "In the natural course of things, we women of Japan handle these matters much as do you women of Korea. I know I don't look like a woman with child, but-"
"Threeyears," Old One insisted. "He's been dead for threeyears not threemonths. You, a woman with child? By this time, you should look like a woman with water buffalo!"
"All thanks to Amaterasu. I fulfill her wishes and she permits me thus to carry her descendant, the Emperor-to-be, until this war is over."
Old One looked skeptical. She had had many years' practice at it. "Now let me see if I have this right," she said. "You are enduring a pregnancy of three years' duration, so far, that will not come to its natural end until you win a war that you are waging without bloodshed?"
Jingo graciously acknowledged that this was so.
"In that case, O Empress, I don't need to set up my tripod to read your future: You're going to be pregnant a long, long,long time."
"I disagree. In fact-" the Empress flashed Old One a playful smile "-the war is almost won. You see, I have within my power a weapon of such devastating strength, such awesome might, such-"
"I know, I know: The Tide Ebbing and Tide Flowing Jewels."
Jingo lightly waved away Old One's mention of Amaterasu's miraculous gifts. "Besidethis, they are nothing. For this is a weapon that slowly but surely devours from within, and against which there is neither protection nor remedy."
"Poison?"
"Boredom."
The Empress stood up and began to pace the rice-straw mats that floored the imperial pavilion. "You have lived long, Old One; you know the way of things. A man begins a war with his head befogged by dreams of winning everlasting glory in battle. Soon enough he learns the truth, that every battle is an island of rousing terror surrounded by a sea of spirit-drowning tedium. I have found the way to sink those islands and cover all the land with a war so dull, so inert, so uneventful, that it is only a matter of time beforeeveryone deserts just to escape the monotony!"
"If everyone deserts, how can anyone win?" Old One demanded.
"By the old rule of the last man standing. Only in this case, he will be commanded by a woman."