The Curse of Koshiu: A Chronicle of Old Japan

by Lewis Wingfield

  CHAPTER XII.

  THE DAIMIO OF NARA IMITATES THE SPHYNX.

  What a pity it is that in our odd world the wicked should be so muchmore clever than the good,--that the combinations of sinners should soeasily outwit the simply virtuous. But then, were not the good sonaive, they might not possibly submit so quietly to the unhappinesswhich is usually their portion. They might scream, and rail, and waxobstreperous, point out the cases of flagrant injustice too often tobe observed among their ranks, and become unedifying texts andexamples.

  Poor Sampei, being less cunning than the geisha, and not perceivingthe advantage of which he might have availed himself, naturally didnot seize it. It never occurred to him that the appearance of Nara onthe scene might have brought about the salvation of his family,--thathe and Sampei united might have ousted the female marplot. Clearlythis lack of discrimination was due to the interference of the gods.

  Sampei was quite as surprised as the concubine at singular conduct ofNara. He took no umbrage at his sullen reception by the lord of Tsu;seemed not to perceive how little he was welcomed; showed adisposition to be easily pleased, a slowness to take offence, such asill became a daimio. Closeted with his daughter, he refrained fromsearching questions, conversed about the pleasures of Ki[^y]oto, andthe probabilities of a visit in the summer, while she, stony andindifferent, as reticent as her parent, and dreamily gazing intovacancy, replied in monosyllables. With studied ceremony he took leaveof her as though she were a stranger, bade farewell of his sulky hostwith suave courtesy, and, followed by his brilliant retinue, journeyedslowly up into the mountains. So cautious was he, even under theglances of his own people, that it was not until, resigning his horseto a betto, he retired into a litter, and drew the curtains close,that he permitted his thoughts to appear upon his features. "It isvery nearly time," he murmured, "very nearly time, and then shall mychild--ay, and all Japan--be avenged, and signally." With gleefulexultation he rubbed his hands together as he revolved a host oflittle points which had not escaped the eagle ken of his experience. Adrunken dissolute cohort now, the redoubtable warriors of Tsu.

  Arriving unawares by night, he had found no sentries at the gate. Hismen had blown the horn, and hammered with lances, and shouted tilltheir throats were hoarse, ere any one had appeared upon the walls;and what a scurry then! The castle, left unprotected in the silentwatches, would have fallen without a struggle into the hands of askilful foe. And--the cognisance and titles of the father of thechatelaine having been recognised, and the drawbridge lowered--therelaxation of discipline everywhere apparent within did not escape hispractised eye. Before the presence of a stranger was made known, hehad heard sounds of wassail and of quarrelling,--had seen theabandoned concubine of the Hojo toying with the common soldiers.And he was enchanted. What mattered it that his child lookedwretched?--women must suffer for the common good. Patience--a littlepatience--and her burthen would soon be removed.

  The Abbess, proud as she was of considering herself in some sort aHojo, had naturally turned, in her anxiety, to him who had beenselected by her now departed lord as the prime adviser of the family.Unwitting of what she did, it was her finger that first pointed outhow the joints in the harness were loosening; and with a savage laughNara gave her thanks for it.

  The young General, who had never learned the arts of diplomacy,blushed crimson as the eyes of the new arrival took in the situation,and stammered awkward excuses. His brother was ill, had for some timepast been unable to occupy himself with affairs, and was, moreover, sojealous of interference, that for a while he, the elder, had letthings go. But now that my lord had come, his father's friend, thetwain would remonstrate, and arrange together. And then, from underthe white bettle-brows of the old man there shot a meaning leer whichchilled the words upon the lips of the younger, and brought to hismind an earlier interview which had seemed ominous of complications.Was this man a friend, or the worst of enemies, one who wearsdisguise? Buffeting in a sea of knavery, wherein fraud and chicane andstratagem and pitfall boil into a seething broth, what wonder if thetrue and single-minded grow bewildered and confused? Sampei was solittle skilled in double-dealing, that, lulled by specious sentences,mystified, he concluded that he had been wrong, had misunderstood thepurport of lord Nara's talk in the palace. Was he not his father'sally,--the man specially picked out for the guidance of the Hojo'ssons? The old Daimio, ever quick to read thoughts, pressed the hand ofhis young friend with touching affection.

  "All will be well by-and-by," he murmured. His dear young General, ofwhom he and Japan were so justly proud, must sit quiet, and hope forthe best. He too, then, was preaching patience. Sure, the venerableAbbess and the hoary statesman must be right--of course they were. Theloyal Sampei blamed himself accordingly, and put his suspicions fromhim.

  Although no open confidences passed between the pair, Nara wassatisfied, for he could detect a change in the young man. His easyconfidence in the direction of the straight and honest course wasgone, had given place to a pained perplexity which boded well for thefuture. The arrow which the astute kuge had planted during theinterview at the palace, was festering. He seemed to perceive thatmuch. Sampei's sense of right and wrong had been disturbed. He wasuncomfortable, and half-suspecting he knew not what, held his peacemoodily, while his brain groped in darksome byways. Yes, he wasmistaken when he deemed Nara to be a foe. Yet how was it possible hecould be really friendly, perceiving as he must how bad was hisdaughter's treatment, how outrageous on every count were theproceedings of her spouse? Could any one who loved Japan be Hojo'sfriend? Alack, even he, Sampei, his only brother, was but too wellaware that he was his country's scourge--that one who should removethe incubus would earn his country's gratitude.

  The old Daimio, guessing what knotty problem it was that so vexed theyoung soldier's mind, evolved a stroke of genius. Suave and sweet inmanner, with an engaging air of candour, he communed with himselfaloud, "What a sad thing it is," he mused abstractedly, "that thehistory and the literature of our country should so teem with theenmity of brothers! And yet, in the main, a happy land, moreprivileged than the dim fog-bound realms of the west." Again, howbewildering was this to one who was groping so anxiously for light.

  Looking in the wrinkled face, Sampei could see no meaning there--nospecial meaning--addressed to himself especially. And then, as the twostrolled about the precincts of the castle, Sampei became morebewildered yet and more uneasy, for in some unaccountable way it hadcome about, without his knowing how, that old Nara concealed no longerthat he was No-Kami's enemy, that he was aware of the ill-treatment ofhis child, and grateful for the sympathy of his companion. He even, asa matter of course, affected to look on him as a willing accomplice;gave him no chance of disavowal. And then, tacit consent to this beinggiven, he dropped mysterious hints. Verily the future was growingstrangely dark, the skein of the race more tangled hourly. Withhelpless resignation Sampei was fain to allow that the fiat had goneforth, that the days of the Hojos were numbered. If, as was growingevery moment plainer, the prophecy of the farmer was to be fulfilledto the minutest detail, what was to be gained by struggling?

  Patience was in very truth the only virtue which it became the doomedto cultivate. Humbled, therefore, and filled with murky presage, theyoung man bowed his neck and folded his hands, resolved to float withthe stream, obedient to the whim of destiny.

  Thus Nara--kuge and devoted servant of the Holy Mikado--having beenwarned by the Abbess of Tsu of the tottering condition of her house,came and spied out the land, and returned home delighted; while she,hearing in due course how he had come and gone, smiling anddangerously courteous, fell a prey to vague misgivings, and betookherself to prayer and abstinence. Vainly she cross-examined O'Tei,grown stonier and whiter. Since her father's unsatisfactory visit, theunhappy lady appeared to wake from a frozen trance to a sense offeverish existence, only when prostrate on the temple floor prayingfor the untying of her bonds. The words of Koshiu were seared as by aniron on her heart;
sleeping or waking, she saw them burning on thewall.

  The scene within the grey circle of weird trees was never absent fromher vision. What had she done to deserve the ban? The full horror ofthe anathema ate into her being slowly. In succeeding cycles she wasdestined to be accursed. Little by little she realised her doom; forher there was to be no rest, no peace, no change for the better. Why?Because, obedient to her father's commands, she had bestowed her handupon a tyrant. For blind obedience, punished for all time; for morethan time--for ever!

  There was no justice, then, in this life, or in the realms beyond thegrave. She was created for misfortune and misery, specially picked outfor all the worst evils that beset mortality. If accursed in futurecycles, she might never rise,--never win Nirvana,--never hope foroblivion. The unflecked blackness of the despair that settled downlike a foldless sable curtain upon O'Tei, caused the heart of Masagoto bleed for her. The gentlest, noblest, most patient, as well as themost innocent of ladies! Truly the ways of the Eternal areinscrutable. The austere Abbess strove to instil comfort into thenumbed soul--without avail. Her arguments, after all, were shallowestplatitudes, to be tossed aside by O'Tei with easy scorn. What to herwere the puny arts of O'Kiku the second wife? Shielded by the bucklerof such suffering as hers, the tiny pins of the geisha fell harmless.Pity that 'twas so, for wholesome indignation might have wakened herfrom the stupor which, unless broken, must shortly end in dissolution.

  Pondering as she paced the silent groves, the Abbess sought for a cluein vain. If the family was doomed to be smitten root and branch, itwas doomed. But what a store of faith is needed humbly to acquiescein the monstrous belief that the innocent must suffer for theguilty,--that generations yet unborn are to come into the worldfor the express purpose of bearing on their backs the guilt oftheir ancestors. With terror Masago felt that she was growingrebellious,--that her faith was trembling,--that she could no longergaze with trustful veneration upon Buddha, the expressionless and theimpassible, reposing cross-legged on his lotus. Herself, O'Tei, thedearly-loved Sampei, were all to suffer for No-Kami. Sure Tomoye mustbe writhing on some other sphere for being the mother of such acockatrice! And so it naturally came about that Masago, as well asothers, looked forward to the sacrificing of Hojo--the chief to whomthey owed allegiance,--of the head of the family of which she wasproud to be one,--that she even prayed for the death of No-Kami as theonly possible solution of the problem.

  O'Kiku was not above profiting by the lesson which had been taught byNara's visit. Instead of being permitted to subside into hopelessimbecility, her lord must be aroused,--must be exhorted to tighten thecords of his nervous system, in preparation for a sudden strain.Accordingly, after a period of wonder at Nara's visit and its apparentabortiveness, she began to suspect that, courteous as his manner was,and suavely ceremonious his departure, they had not yet heard the lastof the kuge's irruption; and that it behoved her, as the guidingspirit of the castle, to practise caution. That snake, Sampei, waswriggling in the grass in inconvenient proximity, darting glances ofadoration at the chatelaine. For the dignity of her dear lord's name(and her own future comfort), she must accentuate and renew herexposure of the villain and his paramour, now that the coast wasclear. To this end, in order that vengeance might be tempered with_sang froid_, their deluded victim must be taught to mingle vigilancewith circumspection, which would require a measure of sobriety. Itwould be vexatious to have to resign a modicum of personal liberty,but the sacking of the castle by a watchful enemy, who knew of itsmaster's sottishness, would be a worse evil. It behoved her for herown sake to protect my lord from the enemy within the citadel. Arguingfrom her own ways of thought, it was a logical deduction that, in lovewith No-Kami's wife, Sampei must desire his death.

  The geisha, adapting herself to the circumstances of the moment,became outwardly more circumspect in her behaviour; watched over herlord with affectionate care; exhorted and chid him with tenderpatience till his paroxysms of fear were past; made herself soabsolutely needful to his existence, that he could not but fondly markthe contrast betwixt her and his legitimate consort. And she was notslow in administering the deadly drops when occasion served. Whatshould the lady O'Tei care? she would babble artlessly, that her lordwas well or ill, since her affections were engrossed by another, whoall along had possessed her heart. The silent twilight of cryptomeriagroves is conducive to holy meditation, but is also vastly convenientfor mundane dallying. But no! he must not excite himself. Why shouldmy lord exercise his shattered nerves, and pace like a caged bear?What mattered it what they did, or how frequently they met? Forher part, his faithful O'Kiku thought it very diverting that anywarm-blooded man should elect to fall in love with an icicle.

  No-Kami hearkened, and although his reason rejected the geisha'shints, they set him pondering. Of O'Tei's character he had never seenany side, after the first few days, but the cold, repellent one, mademore obnoxious sometimes by that lack of proper pride, which to hisnostrils was as an evil savour. His brother was also a riddle; as asoldier brave to a fault, in other concerns hesitating, even timid,beset with petty scruples incomprehensible to the broader views of hisfeudal master. At the bottom of his heart he was afraid of his firstwife, and disliked his brother, who, instinct whispered, was moreworthy than himself. But to suspect those two of love passages!O'Kiku, unable to read correctly the characters of either, was ledastray by over anxiety on his behalf. And yet, what if she were right?

  That dreadful curse that was ringing ever in his ears. Was this one ofthe ways in which he was to be stricken? Was he to be held up by wifeand brother as a laughing-stock in the eyes of his assembled warriors?He had been weak, unnerved; had groaned and grovelled, forgetting hisname and lineage; had all but been lured to submit to degradation thatnight among the enchanted trees. He would battle with the phantomsnow, like a true son of his father and Tomoye--would conquer, by forceof indomitable will, even the goblins that pursued him. Rising up, andgirding his loins, thankful that the samurai had never beheld histhroes of terror, he appeared once more in the hall, overbearing andstern and firm of step--as fierce and harsh as heretofore, if haggardand ashen of hue.

  Sampei marked the change with approval; for the idea that the head ofthe house was to turn coward seemed the most grievous of possibilitiesin connection with the martyr's curse. At this juncture an eventoccurred which added yet further to his relief. The lord of Tsu wassummoned, by sudden mandate of the Mikado, and was ordered to presenthimself in the sacred precincts of Ki[^y]oto without delay,accompanied by a small following. This order, publicly given, he mustperforce obey, and, removed from the bad influence of the favourite,there was no knowing what happy turn might follow. Though polygamy wasa recognised institution, it was not etiquette for any other than thefirst wife to hold communion with the ladies of the imperial court.

  The peremptory nature of the summons surprised and offended the lordof Tsu. Old Nara, doubtless, had perceived how unstrung he was, hadwhispered to the silly babbling kuges and their infatuated head thatthe lion was toothless, that the poison-bag of the serpent wasremoved. A sense of their mistake, and the speedy discomfiture of thefeeble gang, acted on the system of the despot like a dash of freshsalt brine. He laughed aloud, as, detaching the clinging arm of thesiren from about his neck, he leapt lightly on Typhoon, his war-horse.The day was crisp and brightly cold--exhilarating--the sky cloudless,as he galloped towards the hills. In the frosty reviving air of themountains the vengeful shades were exorcised; Koshiu and Kennui andtheir baleful family lingered behind in the plains, and stretch forthin vain their talons. The ghosts faded into thin vapour--nightmare wasshaken off--No-Kami felt ten years younger than yesterday. A fig forthe farmer and his curse! The tyrant of Japan must have been sickindeed to have shivered under a peasant's puling!

  Of a surety a signal change had come over my lord. Peradventure therewas to be an alteration in the mind as well as the body--greatermiracles have come to pass. So mused Sampei--strangely relieved--whilehe watched the knot of horsemen as they woun
d upwards and over thesky-line. The gods grant it! O'Kiku also mused as she stood watching.My lord was better--that was a comfort,--would prove to the tremblingcourtiers that they had reckoned wrongly. She had a secret for him onhis return which should bind him yet closer to her. Meanwhile shecould enjoy a time of absolute freedom, give vent to her proclivities,whilst narrowly watching the young General and his love, and weavingthe web of her intrigues.