The Nightingale

by Kara Dalkey

  “But what has this to do with me.”

  “Prince Nagaya was my son, Uguisu, and your distant ancestor. Yes, little one, your mother’s family is of royal blood.”

  Uguisu’s eyes opened wide, first with surprise, then anger. “Why wasn’t I told this before? Didn’t my father know? Why have we suffered from the obscurity of my mother’s family, when it would have helped my father’s ambitions and I could have served at Court much sooner?”

  “Patience, child! You rant from ignorance, and there is more to tell. Because sorcery was our family’s area of learning, we were banished from the capital and sent to a faraway province. We were forbidden to return, or else the entire family would be put to the sword. So, far in the mountains we stayed, honing our sorcerous skills while concealing our identity. And we taught our daughters poetry, music and other gentle arts to give them prospects of noble marriage. In this way, we hoped to return to Heian Kyo, for vengeance still burned in our hearts. Though my body long ago passed into ashes, my soul has chosen to remain tied to this world, to guide Nagaya’s daughters toward our goal.”

  “Vengeance?” Uguisu asked, hoping she had misunderstood.

  The ghost ignored her and continued. “Our progress was difficult and we met with no success, our clan dwindling until only your mother was left. Then your father, Netsubo, became governor of our province. Your mother had no trouble beguiling him into marriage, and when he was called back to the capital, we had the highest hopes. Alas, your mother did not take the journey well, and she died before much could be accomplished.”

  “I remember,” Uguisu murmured, seeing in her mind her beautiful mother dying in the elegant ox-cart meant for their triumphal entry into the capital.

  “But your mother did give us you. And she provided for you even as she parted from this world. Her death curse was that your father would be filled with ambition. In this way, you would still have noble prospects of marriage, and your father would be too busy to burden you with an unkind stepmother. And so it has come to pass.”

  Uguisu was silent a moment as she absorbed what had been said. “So, when I become Empress, my mother’s family can be known and returned to its rightful place of nobility. In this way, Prince Nagaya shall be avenged against the Fujiwara who thought they had destroyed us. Is this what you are saying?”

  The spirit erupted into a hissing, cackling laughter that made Uguisu jump in fear. “Ah, the simple minds of children. An elegant revenge that would be indeed, were position enough to forgive all. The Fujiwara have not forgotten Prince Nagaya. What makes you think that being Empress will save you from the executioner’s sword, once your mother’s family is identified? By returning our family to the Nine-Fold Enclosure, you will become a criminal, Uguisu.”

  Uguisu felt her mouth drop open. “But … but—”

  “Fear not. I did not guide you all this way to suffer meaningless humiliation and death. Did I not say you would bear the Emperor a son? Well, this shall be no ordinary infant. The babe will not have a spirit of its own. When it is conceived the child will be possessed by the spirit of Prince Nagaya himself. It is he, my own son, who shall issue forth from you and become the next Emperor, though his way be paved with the blood of the Fujiwara, and the puppet Emperor they now support. This will be our revenge, Uguisu—the destruction of the Fujiwara family, as they would have destroyed us, and the gaining of the imperial throne for Prince Nagaya, just as they had feared seven generations ago. He and I will be satisfied with nothing less.”

  “But … I … I cannot kill—”

  “That is not your task, Uguisu. You are the fire in which our sword of vengeance will be forged. Though Nagaya will have the body of a babe, yet he will retain the knowledge of his past life. And he shall also have the sorcerous skills he has learned during his sojourn in the Underworld. It is he who will do these things.”

  Uguisu saw in her mind the Emperor’s face, the beautiful tear on his cheek. “But … must His Majesty …”

  “It is true he is no friend of the Fujiwara. But he would not stand for a demon-child inheriting his throne in place of a real son of his own. He would interfere. No, Uguisu. The Emperor must die.”

  Ceremony of the Blue Horses

  Plum blossoms shone magenta against the bright blue spring morning sky. As if to dim their early glory, artificial cherry blossoms of pale pink and white were draped along the eaves of the palace buildings, along the main route into the Nine-Fold Enclosure. The full contingent of palace guards lined this route, their lacquered armor glistening in the sunlight. Lieutenant Kuma stood among them, breathing the crisp morning air, pleased to be a part of his favorite festival of the year.

  Beneath the paper cherry blossoms, on the veranda of the Seriyō Den, sat the assembled palace nobility—chamberlains, ministers, the highest of the Gentlemen Who Dwell Among The Clouds. And in their center sat the Emperor himself, smiling and passing a small bottle of sake. There will be much of that flowing today, thought Kuma with an anticipatory smile.

  Behind and to either side of the group of seated gentlemen were gaily painted bamboo blinds, beneath which could be seen the trailing edges of elegant kimono sleeves, indicating where the ladies were seated. Kuma wondered if any of those colorful garments belonged to his Katte, so newly made a Lady.

  Somewhere a gong sounded and there came the sound of clopping hooves and nervous snorts from down the broad pathway. A cheer rose from the guards and noblemen as a parade of twenty-one horses was brought down the pathway, led by the stablemasters in stiff ceremonial costume. Sunlight flickered off the steel blue coats of the horses. Some of the guardsmen twanged their bowstrings to make the horses prance and toss their manes.

  From the veranda, the Emperor shouted words of encouragement, wishing the stablemen, guards and assembled nobility long life and good health through the coming year. The guardsmen cheered and chanted the Emperor’s name.

  Kuma joined in the shouting throng, thinking about the archery competitions and horse races to come later that day. Suddenly he felt a tugging at his elbow. Looking behind him, he saw a blue-robed clerk with a worried expression.

  “Lieutenant Kuma-san, you are wanted in the Captain General’s office immediately.”

  Kuma felt his stomach knot. The Captain General is that young son of the Chancellor … the one who saw me in the Fujiwara Palace! Kuma had hoped to avoid encountering the new Captain General since Korimizu’s promotion. Now he had no choice. Today of all days. With a regretful glance back at the horses, Kuma trudged to the Palace of Administration.

  Kuma stepped briskly into the building and let himself be guided by a page boy down a dark wooden corridor. He presently came to a spacious room, half of which was lined with cabinets and drawers stuffed to overflowing with papers.

  On the other side of the room was a low dais, on which sat the new Captain General and beside him the new Household Minister Netsubo. The Fujiwara boy seemed nearly lost in his voluminous green robes of office, and the eboshi cap sat too far back on his head.

  Kuma entered and bowed, wishing he could hide his face. “You sent for me, My Lord General?”

  The boy looked up and raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You are Lieutenant Kuma of the Inner Guard?” His voice was a pleasant tenor.

  Hm. I am recognized, yet unexpected. Perhaps it is not as I fear. “Yes, my lord.”

  “I have called you before me on a serious matter that has come to my attention.”

  “My Lord?” Kuma had to admit it was a tribute to Fujiwara training that the boy managed to carry himself with dignity.

  Korimizu looked at Netsubo. “You are certain this is the one?”

  The Household Minister nodded. “Hai, Korimizu-san. That one.”

  The boy-general looked back at Kuma and continued, “It has come to our attention that you knew the current Mistress of Imperial Kitchens, the Lady Katte, before she brought Netsubo’s daughter Uguisu to the attention of the court.”

  Now what is the significa
nce of this? Sudden suspicion shot through Kuma’s heart. Do the Fujiwara seek to punish me by humiliating Katte? Do the court snobs find her common past so unacceptable that they now wish to harass her with scandal? Well they shall get no help from me! “I was aware of her existence, yes.”

  Netsubo blatantly stifled a snort.

  The boy frowned. “We have heard, Kuma-san, that your knowledge of the lady was somewhat more … intimate.”

  Kuma wondered nastily if the boy knew what the word meant. “What makes the acquaintances of my past a ‘serious matter,’ My Lord?”

  Korimizu looked at Netsubo again, who gestured for him to continue. “When Netsubo was conducting his search for the flute player, you were asked to assist, were you not?”

  Now what has that to do with anything? “Yes, My Lord.”

  “Lord Netsubo himself asked you to search for someone who had heard of the flute player, did he not?”

  “Yes, My Lord.”

  “Yet, all this time, you were ‘acquainted’ with the one person who did know the whereabouts and identity of the flute player. But you did not tell Lord Netsubo about her, did you?”

  “But My Lord—”

  “Did you?”

  “My Lord, I could not—”

  “Did you?”

  Kuma sighed heavily. “No, My Lord.” He glared at Netsubo. And am I to take the blame because you did not know it was your own daughter?

  The boy nodded in grave satisfaction, as if he had finally heard the answer he expected.

  Kuma quickly added, “Katte-san never told me about the flute player. I had no way of knowing she knew.”

  “You expect us to believe this, when you have been … intimate with her?”

  Kuma decided the boy definitely did not know what the word meant. “It is truth, my lord. Honto des’.”

  “Hmm.” Korimizu took a scroll from Netsubo’s hand. “I have here a decree from Chancellor Daimigi, urging all departments to rid themselves of untrustworthy elements. Because we find your testimony suspect, you are no longer Guards Lieutenant Kuma. You are now simply Guardsman Kuma. And if any more suspicion falls on you, you will no longer be even that. This meeting is at an end. Return to your duties.”

  Kuma bowed, his face hot with anger and humiliation. He tried to think of a scathing reply, but knew such words would only bring further punishment.

  “Go now.”

  In one swift motion, Kuma rose and rushed from the room, storming out of the Palace of Administration. It could have been worse, he tried to convince himself. But fortunately the Fujiwara themselves could not admit that they had been tricked. Their revenge must be subtle. But why in the name of all the aspects of holy Buddha did they have to drag Katte into it?

  Too angry to think clearly, Kuma did not return to his post. Instead, his feet led him towards the one who could ease his mind.

  As he strode into the women’s quarters, two ladies-in-waiting valiantly tried to block his way.

  “Really, sir, you cannot just come barging in like this!”

  “This is most irregular! Please, consider your actions, sir!”

  “I want to see the Lady Katte-san. At once!”

  “Myobu Katte-san is not prepared to receive visitors, sir.”

  “Really,” put in the other lady, “do you think she is some common criminal or prisoner that you can make demands of her?”

  Barely controlling his anger, Kuma said, “Tell her it is Kuma-san who has come to see her. She will speak to me!”

  The ladies began to protest further when Katte’s voice came from a room down the corridor. “What is happening? Kuma-san?”

  “One moment,” the ladies said to Kuma, and they hurried down the corridor, whispering loudly to one another. “Really, and in broad daylight!”

  “I suppose it is what comes of making a commoner a lady.”

  “Well, I hope we do not have to suffer much of this. There will be too much talk.”

  They had disappeared behind a shoji. Kuma crossed his arms and leaned back against a cypress pillar, listening to their muffled voices and the sounds of shifting furniture.

  After a minute, the ladies-in-waiting returned and beckoned to him. Kuma was led into a dark, well-furnished room, containing a large, teak wardrobe, a low table, lacquered boxes of many drawers, and a beautiful, silk-paneled kicho. Kuma was led to a cushion before the screen. He sat, noting an elegant perfume wafting from behind the silk panels. Kuma imagined what Katte must look like in fine robes and was certain she would be beautiful indeed. “Katte-san?”

  “Kuma-chan,” her voice was soft, and a little frightened. “You should not have come here like this. There will be gossip.”

  “There is always gossip,” Kuma said. He looked at the kicho with irritation. “Do we need this screen, Katte-san? It is not as if I am a stranger to you. Can I not see you? We have been face to face before—”

  The ladies-in-waiting, kneeling at either side of the kicho, sucked in their breaths and clicked their tongues. Kuma glared at them.

  “You must not speak like this, Kuma-san,” said Katte. “I am a Myobu, now. A Lady of the Fifth Rank must behave with dignity. We cannot be as … familiar as before.”

  Kuma supressed an urge to fling the kicho aside. Now that he was near Katte, he could not think of what to say. He knew he should warn her. But he could not bring himself to discuss his humiliation. Instead, he said, “Your rise in position is good fortune for us, Katte-san. My family will no longer have any objections to our marriage, if you are willing.”

  More disapproving noises came from the ladies, and Katte said, “You should not speak so boldly, Kuma-san. Though I may be willing, my family will now have objections. Now that I am in the palace, they hope I will catch a bigger fish. They have heard that the Household Minister, Netsubo, has been a widower a long time. They say it is unnatural that a man should be so long without a wife.”

  “Netsubo?” Kuma growled, gripping his knees tightly. Is this why he was overseer at my demotion?

  “I do not know if I can deny my family’s wishes, Kuma-san. I do not know … what will happen.”

  Kuma felt at a loss for words. Taking paper, brush and inkstone from the low table, he wrote:

  “My caterpillar has become a butterfly. See!

  How beautiful her wings,

  with which she flies beyond my reach.”

  Kuma slipped the paper beneath a panel of the kicho, and silently rose to leave. As he reached the doorway, he heard the ladies discussing his poem’s lack of literary merit, and quiet sobbing from behind the silk kicho.

  Uguisu Comes To Court

  The ceremonial procession was magnificent indeed as it slowly made its way down the broad Suzaku Oji toward the Imperial Palace. Nearly a hundred outriders in elaborate court costume rode at the head of the parade. Behind them came carriages of silk, palm leaves, and split bamboo—some were gilded and some had carved wooden eaves. The oxen that drew them wore garlands of plum and cherry blossoms, and the ox-drivers wore their finest homespuns. To those who watched, it seemed even the willow trees that lined the great avenue bowed in honor of the opulence passing by them.

  But to Uguisu, seated within a curtained carriage at the center of the procession, the lavish display brought only shame. I am a mother tiger, being brought into a forest of deer where my cub shall feast upon their blood. She felt lost in the twelve layers of unlined silk robes she wore. Her cheeks felt clammy from the white face powder. Her scalp itched where her hair was bound with golden combs and pins. Netsubo had spared no expense for Uguisu’s ceremony, and she wondered if he resented the outlay of so much wealth. She almost wished he hadn’t bothered.

  “You should let your sleeves drape outside the curtains,” said her maid Tetsuda, who sat across from her in the carriage. “That way others can imagine and admire your beauty.”

  Uguisu allowed the maid to slip the edges of her sleeves beneath the curtains. She found it ironic that now that she was made up as a ma
gnificent lady, it was all the more important that no man see her. All that could be safely displayed were her sleeves.

  Uguisu heard a bump-bump from the carriages ahead and her heart went cold. They were crossing the ground beam of the Taiken Mon, the Central Gate into the Greater Imperial Palace. As her own cart jolted through the gate, Uguisu felt she had crossed a bridge into a new, terrifying period in her life—a bridge she could never recross.

  Presently her carriage was pulled alongside one wing of one of the palaces—she had no idea which—and she was helped out by several ladies-in-waiting. For only a few seconds she was exposed to view, and then she was led down a dim corridor to a large, central chamber. There Uguisu was installed behind a magnificent kicho whose frame was carved cypress and whose panels were deep purple silk, embroidered with gold and scarlet thread. Yet it did not please Uguisu, and she found herself missing her plain, faded kicho at home.

  Dishes of rice, fish and vegetables were brought to her. But despite her hunger, Uguisu could only take small samples of each, for ladies were not supposed to enjoy eating.

  For interminable hours Uguisu sat, as visitors approached her screen. Monks came and chanted sutras of blessing. Noblemen whom Uguisu had never heard of came and left lavish gifts of silver and silk, perhaps hoping she would speak well of them to the Emperor. Uguisu felt distant from it all, as if it were happening to someone else. Surely I, daughter of witches, do not deserve any of this.

  When the Emperor himself came by to pay his respects, Uguisu froze in fear. But all he said was, “We look forward to your song this evening, little nightingale,” and he was gone. Uguisu felt guilt settle heavily on her heart, for she wished she could again see his face. Yet she knew it was best that she did not.