Genpei

by Kara Dalkey

  Yoshitomo paused. Was this man sent by Shinzei to test his loyalty? Had he grumbled too often to the wrong people? “What can I say, my lord?” he replied at last. “The Senior Council of Nobles saw fit to give me this post, in which I will serve to the best of my ability. A man may always hope for more, of course, but such dreams should properly be kept to oneself.”

  “Oh, not at all, not at all, my good general. Such dreams should be proclaimed to the world so that those in a position to make them come true will hear it. That has worked well for me, I have found. It may work for you, too. Fate is like the shifting sea, tides coming in and going out. A clam beneath the waves today may be high on the shore tomorrow. Be patient.” He tapped Yoshitomo on the shoulder with his fan. “Remember there are those of us who would support you.” With that, the odd nobleman turned and hurried away back toward the Hall of Abundant Pleasures.

  Yoshitomo stared after him, not knowing what to think. Since the groomsmen of the Imperial stables were constant gossips, he turned to one of them. “Do you know that man?”

  The groomsman stared at the bouncily retreating nobleman’s back. “That is Fujiwara Nobuyori, my lord. My father says he’s a good-for-nothing, boorish office seeker. Even Nobuyori’s family doesn’t like him. Er, please don’t let anyone know I said that. But Nobuyori keeps getting titles that are not properly deserved. My father suspects that Nobuyori, because of his family’s Third Rank position, can learn bad things about other people and uses it to gain favors. If this lowly one may offer advice, my lord, beware of him. As my father always says, ‘To be noticed by the Fujiwara is both a blessing and a curse.’ Besides, Nobuyori rather looks like a frog, doesn’t he?”

  “I will not repeat to anyone that you have implied any such thing,” Yoshitomo said with a slight smile.

  “Thank you, my lord,” said the groomsman with a rushed, embarrassed bow. “I will go find a proper stall for this animal now, if I may.”

  “Do so.” As the grooms led their snorting, stamping charges away, Yoshitomo turned and watched Nobuyori. The Fujiwara lord obsequiously greeted other nobles at the stairway leading up to the Hall of Abundant Pleasures. The ones he greeted averted their faces with the barest hint of acknowledging him and hurried away on their business.

  Yoshitomo considered this, and thought, He is repulsive. But if he is sincere, he is at least one high-ranked nobleman who acknowledges my plight, and might be willing to help change it. To a horsefly, even a frog’s gaze is regard from On High….

  Scrolls Thrown into the Sea

  The summer air was heavy with an imminent storm. The Shin-In plucked at his light silk kimono, which was sticking to his skin. He walked aimlessly along a beach, on the northern shore of Shikoku, but even the breeze from the sea did not ease his discomfort. He felt much older than his thirty-nine years.

  “How many days has it been?” the Shin-In asked the much put-upon servant who puffed along behind him.

  “Days since what, Majesty? Days that you have been in exile or days since you sent the letter to Ninna-Ji?”

  The Shin-In stopped and stared out across the gray, tossing water. “Either. I don’t care.”

  “Two years, four months you have lived here in Sanuki Province, Majesty. Four months for the letter to Ninna-Ji.”

  The Shin-In slowly turned to face the servant. “I believe I asked for days.”

  “Y-your pardon, Majesty,” said the servant, ducking his head. “Let me think…”

  “Never mind,” the Shin-In said with a sigh, and he continued walking. “Why didn’t they simply execute me?” he muttered to himself.

  “Because you are… were Emperor, Majesty! Such a thing would be unthinkable!”

  The Shin-In closed his eyes. “Yes, I know. But it would have been kinder.” At the end of the Hōgen Disturbance, the Shin-In had been found hiding at the Temple of Ninna-ji by Lord Kiyomori’s men. He was brought back to the Imperial Compound to face justice and sentenced to far exile, to Sanuki Province on the Island of Shikoku, to the south and west of Heian Kyō.

  Although Sanuki was no farther than some of the eastern provinces from the capital, it might have been the other side of the world as far as the Shin-In was concerned. He was permitted no visitors, other than the servants who brought his meals and the few ladies-in-waiting who attended him. He received no letters, not even from his wife and children, who had remained in Heian Kyō, forbidden to accompany him into exile. The warm, humid, windy shores of Sanuki were nothing like the cool, green hills of Heian Kyō. This new land was alien to him, friendless and inhospitable.

  The Shin-In stopped walking again and stared out across the water, toward the north.

  “Majesty?”

  “It is too cloudy, of course. That is why I cannot see the coast of Honshuū.”

  “Undoubtedly, Majesty.”

  “There is nothing in this day to bring me comfort. It is truly as though my life has ended. I feel suspended between two worlds, my past gone but no future existence beginning. I am a ghost.”

  “Please, Majesty, it saddens this lowly one to hear you speak so. Surely it cannot be so hopeless. You have spent your time here usefully, have you not?”

  “I spend my time in dreams.” In the two years that he had been in exile, the Shin-In often daydreamed of Heian Kyō, and the East Sanjō Palace, which he had nicknamed The Fairy Cave, after a Chinese legend. He missed the days he had spent languidly in the Dragon Pavilion and nights spent writing poems to the moon. He missed his family. But his homesick dreams would always be interrupted by the cries of unfamiliar birds, the moaning of the wind in the southern pines, and the pounding of the waves on the seashore, reminding the Shin-In that he was far, far away from anyone or anything that mattered.

  “Why?” he whispered to the wind.

  “Majesty?”

  “Why was I even punished? I was merely being ambitious, as many men have been through the ages. Those who succeed are known as great and mighty and their names live on in legend. They become kami when they die.”

  “That is true, Majesty.”

  “My father was ambitious. He did not give up power when he left the throne. That is a usurpation of a sort, neh? And yet he was allowed to scheme and manipulate politics and live out his life with no interference. And he was mourned by all when he died. Yet I, merely because I had gathered some warriors to protect me in my endeavors, am sent into deepest exile, to a death that is not death.”

  “Though it is not my place to say so, Majesty, I beg you to try not to think on these things. You have already made good progress toward finding a better life to come. Surely the copy you have made of The Five Sutras Of The Greater Vehicle will be good karma for your next existence.”

  “Perhaps. If they find a worthy home.” To ease his sorrow and homesickness, the Shin-In had copied in his own hand the lengthy Five Sutras Of The Greater Vehicle. The task had taken two years. To be of value, the sutras needed to be stored in a holy place. But there were no Buddhist temples in Sanuki Province. As the temple of Ninna-Ji had given him brief sanctuary after his defeat, the Shin-In had sent a letter to his half brother, who was abbot there. In the letter, he asked that his sutras be installed in a humble corner of the library of Ninna-Ji. It had been four months, and as yet the Shin-In had received no reply.

  “Majesty, someone comes!”

  The Shin-In turned around. A man was running along the shore after them, wearing the plain silk jacket and broad trousers of a clerical government functionary. The Shin-In waited for the man to catch up to them. He saw no weapons on the man, and was not sure if he felt relieved or disappointed. He sometimes dreamed that the Emperor would change his mind and send an executioner after all.

  The man came up to them, gasping, and flung himself down onto the sand at the Shin-In’s feet. “Former Majesty,” the man said when he had caught his breath. “I bring you word from the capital, in regard to the letter you had sent to the Abbot of Ninna-ji.”

  The Shin-In’s hea
rt did not quite lift, but he felt some hope. “Tell me his reply, at once! Are my sutra scrolls to be accepted?”

  The messenger swallowed hard before continuing. “Majesty, I must tell you, the abbot wished very much for it to be so. Often I was sent from the Chancellor’s Office to the temple and back. The Chancellor even sent your appeal on to the Emperor.”

  “And?”

  Softly, the messenger replied, “I regret that I must tell you that it is not to be, Majesty. Emperor Go-Shirakawa … still harbors great anger toward you. He … he has decreed that even your handwriting is not to be brought near the capital. It is exiled as well as you. Therefore, I have brought your letter back to you.” The messenger held up the folded piece of paper, now much worn and a bit tattered.

  The Shin-In took the letter. And then he crushed the paper in his hand as cold rage filled him. “Can he be so heartless, my half brother who sits upon the throne? Can he not see my sutras were an act of contrition, a striving for redemption? Hah?”

  The messenger bowed his head and did not speak.

  “Go.”

  The messenger swiftly departed.

  The Shin-In closed his eyes and sucked the humid summer air between his teeth. He listened to the blood pounding in his ears and came to a decision.

  “You,” the Shin-In said to the servant. “Go to my residence at once and fetch the sutra scrolls. Bring them back to me here. Also bring one of my old vermilion robes but smear it with last night’s ashes from the brazier in the great room. Also bring a scarf and a writing brush.”

  The servant had no choice but to obey. He ran to the Shin-In’s forlorn house and found the long, black-lacquered box containing the sutras. One of the serving girls brought him the vermilion robe and, with great regret, he smeared the fine silk with the brazier ash. He also gathered the scarf and the writing brush and returned with them all to the beach as fast as he could.

  By the time he returned, thunder was rolling across the sky, and the clouds had darkened to iron gray. Farther down the beach, an old fisherman was dragging his small boat onto the sand to wait out the oncoming storm.

  “Here they are, Majesty. Now, if you please, Majesty, the weather is becoming dangerous. Will you not please take shelter?” But when he looked up into the Shin-In’s eyes, he was astonished to see the change in the Former Emperor’s face. The Shin-In’s eyes were as hard and dark as chips of obsidian, and his brow was as threatening as the clouds above.

  The Shin-In put on the ash-stained vermilion robe. Its wide sleeves flapped about him in the wind like great wings. “I have no thoughts of seeking shelter.” He wrapped the scarf around his head. Then the servant watched in horror as the Shin-In knelt on the sand, bit his own tongue, and touched the writing brush to the blood beading on his lip. With this as ink, the Shin-In wrote something on the top of the scroll box. Then he stood, and said, “Come.”

  “M-Majesty?”

  The Shin-In strode down the beach toward the fisherman, and the servant hurried to follow. “During the rebellion,” the Shin-In called back over his shoulder, “I met a man, Minomoto Tametomo by name, who chose to become a demon. He told me the secret of how it is done. At the time, I thought he was mad. Now I see that he was very wise.”

  “Majesty, surely you cannot be considering such a thing!”

  “They already think me a devil in Heian Kyō. Very well. A devil I shall become. The world of devils can have my sutras, and my soul as well.”

  The old fisherman looked up in astonishment as they approached him. “This is bad weather coming, my lord. Not good for a man to be out in.”

  “I am the Former Emperor, the Shin-In, and I want your boat.”

  “You … you can’t go out on the water with this storm coming!”

  “I command it!”

  The old fisherman stared at the servant, who nodded regretfully. The fisherman bowed. “Very well, Majesty, the boat is yours. And may Ryujin and all his dragons be merciful to you.”

  “I shall require no mercy.” To the servant the Shin-In said, “You will row.” The Shin-In stepped into the little boat and sat down.

  The fisherman and the servant pushed the boat out into the foaming water, and the servant rowed with all his might against the tide and the pounding waves. Once past the surf, the rowing became easier, but the little boat was tossed about by water and wind. The first hard rain began to fall, mingling with the tears streaming down the servant’s cheeks.

  At last, the Shin-In shouted against the wind, “Here! Stop here!”

  The servant gratefully stopped rowing, and the Shin-In stood up in the boat. The servant was amazed that the Former Emperor was able to keep his footing.

  The Shin-In held the box containing the sutras up over his head. Into the wind and the thunder, he roared, “I hereby give the power of these, The Five Sutras Of The Greater Vehicle, to the Three Evil Worlds of Hell! I, who am descended from the Great Goddess Amaterasu, have placed the power of my blood, my hand, and my vow upon these scrolls. In return, I ask to be made the Great Demon of Nihon, the Imperial Demon. Let my the rage of my spirit bring ruin and sorrow to the realm! Let it be witnessed by all the Buddhas of Heaven, the kami of the Earth, and the demons of Hell that I hereby lay bare the evil of my heart!”

  He was answered by a blinding bolt of lightning, followed by a roar of thunder that sounded like the end of the world. The Shin-In threw the scroll box into the water, and the sea turned black. A dark whirlpool formed around the floating box, and the sutras were sucked down into the roiling water.

  As the box vanished beneath the surface, a sudden calm passed over the water and the air. But it did not soothe the servant’s terror. The calm was as frightening as the wind and thunder had been, the silence of deafness, the emptiness of death.

  The Shin-In sat down again. “It is done. Now row us back to shore.”

  But the servant could not move, so shocked was he by the changes on the Shin-In’s face. The Former Emperor’s eyes and cheeks had become sunken and sallow. His hair stood out wildly from under his scarf. His nose and fingers had become long and crooked. Hate glowed from him, light from a very dark sun.

  “I said ROW!”

  The servant’s arms jumped to the command, and he grabbed the oars. He pulled with all his might, rowing back toward the shore as if all the dragons of the sea were pursuing him.

  Go Stones

  Lord Kiyomori stared idly out at the side garden beyond the open shōji, waiting for his son Shigemori to make a move in their game of go. The leaves of the maples were just beginning to show hints of scarlet and gold, and the chrysanthemums were starting to blossom. It had been an audacious thing, planting chrysanthemums, the Imperial flower, in the gardens of Rokuhara. But Kiyomori had asked permission from the Office of the Imperial Household and it had been granted, just as so many other favors had been. In addition to being Governor of Aki and Harima, Kiyomori was now Deputy Governor-General of Daifazu, and there were intimations of more promotions and titles to come, just as Tokiko and the Dragon King had promised.

  But like finding pulled threads in a costly gift kimono, all was not perfection this third year of the era of Hōgen. There were stirrings of trouble again in Heian Kyō.

  “Father, I have moved.”

  He heard a clack on the go table, and Kiyomori turned his head. For a moment, he was unable to discern what move Shigemori had made. When at last he saw the new white stone, Kiyomori could not find the pattern in his son’s moves. Perhaps there was none. The young man was not yet skilled in the game.

  “Have you a move ready?” asked Shigemori, perhaps a bit bored.

  “Give me time, my son. There is a time for swift action, and there is a time for studying the field.”

  Shigemori sighed. “About this matter of Go-Shirakawa retiring from the throne. What do you make of it?”

  Kiyomori idly waved a hand. “It is no different from what his father tried to do before him. The Emperor is tired of ceremony and Fujiwara pressure.
He wants to truly rule. An odd contradiction that he must leave the Jeweled Throne to do so, but that is the way of things these days.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. But why now?”

  “Perhaps Heian Kyō has been at peace long enough. Perhaps Go-Shirakawa has enough faith in Taira strength to protect him. Perhaps we should take it as a compliment to our clan. Yet…”

  Kiyomori sucked air through his teeth pensively.

  “Yet?”

  “Somehow I do not think Go-Shirakawa has the skill of his late father. I do not think he will be entirely … successful.” Kiyomori leaned over the board and placed a black stone. Its position would not gain him much, but Shigemori’s response might give a clue as to his son’s thinking, if any.

  “You are speaking of Fujiwara Nobuyori, who is making such a nuisance of himself these days, neh?” asked Shigemori as he swiftly placed a white stone that allowed him to take one of his father’s black ones. “May I ask you something?”

  “Of course, my son.”

  “If Nobuyori is truly the good-for-nothing people say he is, why was he given the post of Great Commander?”

  Kiyomori sighed and set a black stone that had no purpose but to build his position on the board. “Nobuyori has campaigned for that position for a long time now. Perhaps the In felt that if he consented, Nobuyori would at last be content and cause no more trouble.”

  “Do you think that is what will happen?”

  Kiyomori scratched his chin. “Men like Nobuyori… to them, ambition is like being drunk on sake. It makes them do things that to everyone else appear absurd. No, I do not think Nobuyori will be satisfied. He will find some other foolish consuming desire to strive for. What I do not understand is why our new young Emperor, Nijō, supports him so.”

  “Well, as to that…” Shigemori began.

  “You have heard something?”

  “Well, it is said that Nijō-sama has quite an eye for ladies.”