Book Read Free

Genpei

Page 39

by Kara Dalkey


  “You told me so when I was a boy.”

  “As you are my son, his grandson, that offer is certainly yours to take. You would be welcome to sit among the great heroes at Ryujin’s hall and live in the elegance of days long past forever.”

  Shigemori smiled at her and shook his head.

  “Why not?” asked Nii no Ama as tears welled in her eyes.

  “Because I do not wish to live as noblemen do for eternity. I have experienced that life and found it … unsatsifying. I wish to travel to the Pure Land and sit upon the lotus at the hand of the Amida Buddha.”

  “But you do not know for certain that is where you will go.”

  “Then I will await another turn at the Wheel, for a chance to prove myself worthy in another life. I do not fear leaving this world, Mother. I look forward to this journey. To the fact that I will see amazing things and know amazing truths no matter what happens.”

  A sob escaped Nii no Ama’s lips, and she covered her mouth with her sleeve.

  “Please do not weep, Mother. I see now that I was not meant for this world. I did my best to behave honorably to all men, to live with dignity and compassion, and pursue wisdom. But I was born to a family that honors war and ambition. I had no place here. I am pleased to leave it behind. I worry most for Koremori and my other children. You will see that they are treated well?”

  Nii no Ama nodded.

  “And will you see that my father does not behave irresponsibly once I am gone?”

  “You know I have no control over him. I never did.”

  “Ah, well. I expect that Munemori will become Chief of the Taira until Koremori is of age. Though so much may change. Will you tell Munemori that … I was pleased by his efforts, and I regret that we cannot grow old together as brothers?”

  “I will tell him. I was pleased to see you two reconciled. I had the impression there was some project that had brought you together, though I could not discern what it was.”

  Shigemori shook his head. “We had hoped to present you with a pleasant surprise. But, now, it appears that is not to be. Fate was not with us. There is no point in explaining further. It would only dishearten you.”

  Nii no Ama looked down. A single tear dropped from her cheek onto the gray silk of his sleeve, making a spot dark as an ink blot. She said, “It is not right, that you should leave before your parents. It is unnatural. I should never have been here to endure this.”

  “Is it not better, Mother, that you see me this way, rather than see my head on a pike or the prisoner’s tree, the victim of a terrible war? My death is but the passing of a breeze compared to some I have … foreseen. Forgive me, I should not speak of such things.”

  “I understand,” said Nii no Ama. “I have had such dreams myself.”

  “Well, then. I need not tell you to take care. Ahead truly lies the mappo. The End of the Law.”

  “I know.”

  It was clear his mother was going to lose control of her emotions at any moment. Shigemori put his hand on her shoulder. “Mother, is it not time for the midday prayers? There are many who are in need of them, are there not?”

  “Yes, yes you are right, my son.” Nii no Ama took up his hand and briefly pressed it against her aging cheek. Then she stood and walked swiftly to the shōji, sliding it shut behind her.

  Shigemori sighed deeply and lay down on the floor. Dear gods, if you would take this burden of life from me, I pray you do it soon. Do not force me to watch my family suffer on my behalf.

  And so it came to pass that, on the First Day of the Eighth Month, in answer to his prayers, Shigemori’s spirit left this world.

  The Roaring Sea

  The sky was a gray wall in the distance where an offshore storm lashed the sea. The rocks on the shore were rimed with white ice from frozen salt spray. The waves broke in gray curls like dragons’ talons upon the stony beach of Fukuhara, where Kiyomori stood. The foamy tops of the waves were carved by the wind into white dragons’ heads that gaped, mouths full of fangs, at Kiyomori.

  “So!” Kiyomori shouted at the surf. “You think to bring me down by allowing the gods to take my son? You think I will destroy myself from guilt because I was tricked by the Shin-In?

  You think, perhaps, I will bring you Kusanagi out of shame? Think again, Ryujin-sama! As ever, I defy you! I defy all the gods and all the demons who beset me! I am Kiyomori, Lord of the Taira! My grandson will be Emperor, and the sword will give him right to rule, and there is nothing you can do about that!”

  A large wave rose out of the sea and rolled toward Kiyomori. But it broke upon the stones a few yards from where Kiyomori stood, merely splashing him with briny water. The foam surged beneath the uprights of his high clogs, but did not submerge his feet. “Hah!” cried Kiyomori, and he shook his fist at the ocean.

  Another wave rose, higher this time, black as lava stone, and it rushed toward him. It broke at his feet, knocking Kiyomori down, soaking him to the skin instantly with cold, cold water. Kiyomori felt the weight of it atop him as if a dragon had landed and sat itself upon his chest. He could not move. His mouth filled with salt water, and he wondered for a moment if he would drown. Then the wave receded, leaving him sprawled out on his back on the beach. Kiyomori spit the water out. Behind him, he heard voices approaching.

  “My lord! My lord!”

  “There he is! He has fallen down.”

  Two servants grabbed his upper arms and shoulders and hauled Kiyomori to his feet.

  “Dear me, he is soaked through!”

  “My lord, why are you out here? A storm is coming, and it is dreadfully chill. I pray you, come inside with us at once!”

  Kiyomori wanted to shout at them, to fight them off, but his teeth chattered so that he could not speak. His muscles cramped, so intensely did he shiver in the cold. He could do nothing but allow his servants to pull him back up the hillside to his mansion.

  I will not be this helpless, thought Kiyomori, enraged. Though I am old, I am still a warrior of the Taira. So long as there is breath in me, no one shall bring me down. No one! Not until I see my grandson seated upon the Jeweled Throne.

  A Servant’s Request

  Munemori stood and walked slowly toward the shōji, the letter from his father still in his hand. Sorrow and loss had emptied Munemori of his will, leaving him as hollow as a clay statue. He felt as though someone else moved his mouth, his hands, his feet, while he, himself, moved in some featureless land of fog and mist. He slid the shōji open and stopped, startled. Three of his eldest servants knelt there, two men and a woman who had been with him ever since he had left Rokuhara as a youth. The eyes in their wrinkled faces were wide with concern.

  “What is it?” Munemori asked.

  The three pressed their foreheads to the floorboards. “My lord,” said one, whose name was Gamanshō, “we could not help but overhear your conversation with the messenger.”

  “We could not help but hear,” said the old woman, whose name was Ogiko, “that you are considering turning down the Taira chieftanship. That you are thinking of becoming a monk.”

  “This is so,” said Munemori. “What of it?”

  The three bowed low again. “Please, my lord, hear us.”

  “We understand,” said Ogiko, “that you have been visited with great sorrows. First your wife and child, and now your brother.”

  “Surely no one has cause to mourn more than you,” added Gamanshō. “But there are other things to be considered in this matter.”

  “What other things?” asked Munemori, becoming impatient.

  “Think how disheartening it would be for your clan, my lord,” said Ogiko, “if you were to abandon them at this hour. Your younger brother Tomomori is far less ready to accept leadership than you are. How could you force this responsibility on his shoulders when it is rightfully yours?”

  “Tomomori is thirty-three, he is certainly mature enough,” sighed Munemori.

  “Then, if you will,” pleaded Ogiko, “think of us.”


  “We may be only lowly servants, my lord,” said Gamanshō, “but we have tended you and your family for many years, our loyalty unswerving. If you were to take the robes of a monk, giving up all your worldly possessions, what would become of us? We are too old to be welcomed into a new household. Very likely we would have to end our lives rather than face the poverty and misery to come.”

  “But if you accept the position of Chief of the Taira,” said Ogiko, “we could continue to spend our last years in service to you, in a household we have come to love.”

  Munemori felt his mood turning sour. He could hear the hopeful ambition in her voice, and it sickened him. If he chose to become a monk, he could very easily find another Taira household for them—the Taira valued loyalty and rewarded it. But the elderly servants wished to spend their last years serving the Lord of the Taira. It was ambition, not fear, that drove them to this request.

  But Munemori had no will to argue anymore. It hardly mattered. “Very well. You may send someone to catch up to the messenger, and tell him I will accept the chieftanship.”

  Their faces beamed with joy. The old servants stood and bowed. “A most wise decision, my lord, very wise. We knew we could rely upon your kind heart.” They hurried off to spread the good news throughout the household.

  Munemori stepped out into the corridor, the south side of which was open to a garden. The last leaves on the maple trees were falling, tossed about by the wind. On the ground they lay blood-red against a white dusting of snow.

  In his mind, Munemori composed the poem:

  How the leaves dance!

  Do they not see?

  It is the cold wind of winter

  That blows them so and brings the snow

  That soon will bury them.

  The Earthquake

  Three months later, on the Seventh Day of the Eleventh Month of the third year in the era of Jishō, the Empress Kenreimon’in was taking a late-night walk through the inner compound of the Imperial palace. She could not sleep. She had slept only fitfully since the death of her brother Shigemori. Her many layers of winter-weight kimonos hissed and whispered around her like the wind through winter snow as she walked. Her mind seized upon thoughts just as the Crown Prince would seize upon a favorite toy and not let it go. Is it my fault? she wondered, as always. Did Shigemori die because I wielded Kusanagi?

  She did not care where her feet led her. She paid no attention to the grumbled whispers of the two ladies-in-waiting who followed her. Kenreimon’in walked down every corridor of the Inner Ward searching for a peace she could not find.

  As she padded down an interior corridor of the Dairi Compound, she heard a low, distant rumble. “Thunder?” she murmured. “In winter?”

  Then it hit. The floor seemed to leap up beneath her, tossing her back into the arms of her ladies-in-waiting. The boards at her feet shuddered, and the walls beside them swayed. Ahead down the corridor, shōji opened and shut like the jaws of snapping turtles. The roof beams overhead groaned, and dust rained down upon them.

  “Jishin! Earthquake!” cried the ladies-in-waiting. “We must get outside!”

  But the rolling ground beneath them would not let the Empress and her ladies keep their balance. They fell to the floor, and she fell atop them in a mass of silk. Desperately Kenreimon’in clung to the ladies in a huddle against one of the stouter walls. She could hear frightened screams from every direction.

  My child. Is my son safe? I must find him. She prayed to the Amida to spare the Crown Prince, to spare her, or to make her death swift if that was to be her fate.

  At last, the rolling stopped. The walls shuddered, then remained at rest. A momentary silence descended on the palace.

  “There will be more,” one of the ladies-in-waiting said. “It is the baby serpents after the mother serpent, as they say.”

  “Then we should do our best to get out while we can,” said the other lady. “Majesty, are you all right? Can you stand up?”

  With effort, Kenreimon’in managed to disentangle her sleeves from those of her ladies pull herself upright. “I seem to be unhurt. Where was the Crown Prince nursing tonight?”

  The two ladies stood and shook out their robes. “He was in the Nishi Ga’in, Majesty.”

  “I must find him.” Disoriented and vaguely ill, Kenreimon reached over and opened the shōji nearest her. She stumbled into that room and saw two young girls pulling on their underrobes. They had been nearly naked. The room was a mess—kimonos all over, chests overturned. And then Kenreimon’in saw the rack on which Kusanagi was usually kept. It was lying on the floor and the sword was not on it.

  “What has happened here?” she asked in horrified wonder.

  The girls looked as though they were about to cry. They flung themselves to the floor at her feet. “Majesty! Please forgive us!”

  “What have I to forgive? What have you done?”

  “Someone … we, we had a visitor. We were discussing poetry.”

  By the way the girl said “visitor,” Kenreimon could assume she meant a lover. “Here? While you are supposed to be guarding the Imperial Regalia?”

  “It’s all right, Majesty, he’s—” And the other girl slapped her hand across the first girl’s mouth and shook her head.

  Kenreimon’in sighed. This would have to be dealt with later. “Put the sword back on the rack and then get outside for your safety.”

  “Yes, Majesty!” The girls searched through the sea of silk.

  “I’ve found it!” cried one.

  “No, I have it,” said the other.

  They both stood up, holding identical swords.

  “There are two of them,” said one in awed wonder.

  “What miracle is this?” Kenreimon’in felt faint and leaned against the wall.

  “Majesty, are you all right?” asked one of her ladies-in-waiting.

  “But which one is the real Kusanagi?” said one of the girls holding a sword.

  Kenreimon’in knew she could tell. If she dared touch the hilts of both of them, she would know which one was real. Perhaps they were both real, and the gods were playing a terrible trick on her. But she had sinned enough. She dared not touch either sword. “Choose one,” Kenreimon’in said, irritably, “and put it in the sheath on the rack. We will sort it out later.” Kenreimon’in staggered toward the raised blinds at the far side of the room. She had to get outside, get air, get away from the thing that seemed to be the bane of her life.

  At the verandah, she nearly bumped into someone climbing over the railing to get in, and she staggered back. In the moonlight, she recognized him. “Munemori?”

  “Sis—Majesty! Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I appear to be. Are you?”

  “Yes. I leapt outside as soon as I felt the first shake.”

  “Why are you at the palace so late?”

  “Business to attend to. Please, let me help you to the ground. You must get to safety in case there are aftershocks.” Munemori helped her get over the railing of the verandah and eased her down onto the snowy courtyard below.

  Kenreimon’in turned to thank him and saw Munemori disappear into the room she had just come out of. She heard the girls squeal his name and ask him what to do about the swords. And what have you to do with Kusanagi, brother?

  Servants grasped her shoulders and guided Kenreimon’in to the safety of the central courtyard. There, a whining Crown Prince was placed in her arms, and they spent a long, cold night huddled together, to await the next aftershock.

  Many Thousand Warriors

  Munemori shifted uncomfortably on the cold saddle beneath him. His horse stamped and tossed its head, its breath steaming in the chill winter air. Munemori was grateful for the padded jacket beneath his armor, but it still did not keep him warm enough, and he had grown unused to the weight and balance of the laced metal plates on his chest and arms. We have had so many years of peace, Munemori thought. Why this, why now? Shigemori why did you have to die so soon?

  He could he
ar the laughter and wry comments of the thieves and prostitutes who inhabited the enormous southern gate to Heian Kyō, the Rashō Mon, behind him. His two lieutenants turned around to scowl at them. “Should we deal with the ruffians, Lord Munemori?”

  “Their laughter will cease soon enough,” said Munemori. He could hear the low rumble already, a sound not unlike the earthquake of seven days before. And no doubt its source is as destructive in its power, thought Munemori, feeling a small shiver of fear.

  The rumble became louder and then the first of the horsemen rounded the curve in the Tōkkaidō. At their head rode Lord Kiyomori himself, sunlight glinting off the bronze butterfly on his helmet. The horsemen behind him all bore the red banner of the Taira, snapping in the chill breeze. Though the warriors approached at a sedate, slow pace, the inexorable numbers of them—Munemori estimated there must be thousands—was enough to drive dread into the heart of anyone watching. Indeed, Munemori heard the thieves and prostitutes gasp and scatter to whatever places they considered safe. It is no use, Munemori thought. In these times, there will he nowhere that is safe.

  As he came to a few yards from Munemori, Lord Kiyomori raised his arm in signal for his horsemen to halt. In silence and perfect order, the Taira warriors did so.

  Taking a deep breath of chill air, Munemori nudged his horse forward until he came alongside Kiyomori. “Father.”

  “Did you bring your forces?” Kiyomori growled without preamble. His mustache and skin were gray, and the creases in his skin made the old Taira appear to have been chiseled out of stone, his eyes cold and dark as flecks of obsidian.

  “They await on the other side of the gate, Father.”

  “Good. Let us proceed, then.”

  Munemori turned his horse to ride alongside Kiyomori. Softly, he asked, “Father, your messenger did not tell me, what enemy do we face with such a massive force?”

  “All of them. All enemies of the Taira.” Kiyomori raised his arm and flicked his hand forward.

 

‹ Prev