by VIKING ADULT
With great respect Yoshitsune replied, “Yoshinaka’s rebellion so shocked Yoritomo that he dispatched Noriyori and myself, with thirty senior officers, at the head of an army exceeding sixty thousand horse. Noriyori marched via Seta and has not yet arrived. I took the river crossing at Uji and came straight here to protect Your Majesty. Yoshinaka fled up the river, and I sent men after him. They must have killed him by now.” He spoke with perfect equanimity.
His Cloistered Eminence was impressed. “Excellent!” he said. “Stragglers from Kiso’s men may easily turn up here and cause trouble. I want this house well guarded.”
Yoshitsune respectfully assented. He had all four gates secured and waited. Warriors raced to join him, until soon they numbered ten thousand.
Kiso had meant, should things go awry,
to seize the sovereign, flee westward with him, and join the Heike.
He had kept twenty sturdy menials ready for just this purpose,
but news that Yoshitsune now had the sovereign under his protection
put an end to that plan. It was all over, and he knew it.
With a great cry, he charged into a force of several tens of thousands of men.
Time and again he seemed sure to be killed, but he always broke through.
“Had I known it would come to this,”
Kiso declared, shedding bitter tears,
“I would not have sent Imai to Seta.
As boys we played with bamboo horses.
We swore that should we ever face death,
the two of us would die together,
and now we are to be killed apart.
How I wish that this were not so!
I must know what has happened to him,”
he went on, and started off up the river.
On the bank between Sanj and Rokuj,
an enemy force swept down on him.
Again and again he whirled to face them.
Half a dozen times, his tiny band
repulsed a foe as overwhelming
as clouds or mists. Abruptly he crossed
toward Awataguchi and Matsuzaka.
Only last year he had left Shinano
leading an army of fifty thousand;
now, passing the brook at Shinomiya,
he had only six riders with him,
and how many of these would he keep
beneath the skies of the bardo world?
The thought is exceedingly painful.
4. The Death of Kiso
Lord Kiso had brought with him from Shinano two beauties:
Tomoe and Yamabuki.
Yamabuki was unwell and stayed in the capital.
With her lovely white skin and long hair, Tomoe had enchanting looks.
An archer of rare strength, a powerful warrior,
and on foot or on horseback a swordsman to face any demon or god,
she was a fighter to stand alone against a thousand.
She could ride the wildest horse down the steepest slope.
In battle, Kiso clad her in the finest armor,
equipped her with a great sword and a mighty bow,
and charged her with the attack on the opposing commander.
She won such repeated glory that none could stand beside her.
And that is why, when so many had already been cut down in their flight,
Tomoe remained among the last seven.
Word spread that, via Nagasaka,
Kiso was now heading for Tanba,
or that he was crossing Ryūge Pass,
aiming at last to reach the north.
Actually, desperate to know
what had become of Kanehira,
he was in full flight toward Seta.
Meanwhile Imai Kanehira,
who with a force of eight hundred
had done his best to hold that crossing,
now was reduced to fifty men.
Banner furled, he was heading back
toward the city, anxious to know
what fate had overtaken his lord,
when the two men found each other
in tsu, along the Uchide shore.
Each knew the other a hundred yards off.
They urged their mounts forward and met.
Kiso took Kanehira’s hands.
“It seemed all over for me,” he said,
“on the riverbank at Rokuj,
but I so longed to know about you
that I broke through swarms of enemies
and managed to reach you after all.”
Imai replied, “You do me too much honor.
I had meant to die in battle at Seta, but concern for you led me here.”
And Lord Kiso: “Then the bond between us still holds.
The enemy has scattered my men and driven them into the woods.
They must be somewhere nearby.
Raise that furled banner of yours!” Imai did so.
Had these men fled the city or Seta? There was no knowing, but the sight of Imai’s banner brought three hundred racing to join him.
Lord Kiso was very pleased. “With this many,” he said, “we can at least fight our last battle. Whose men are those, swarming over there?”
“I gather that their commander is Ichij no Jir, from Kai.”
“And how many with him?”
“Six thousand horse.”
“A fine opponent, then. If I must die anyway, I might as well get myself cut down by someone worthy, among a superior force.” With these words he moved straight ahead.
Lord Kiso wore that day Chinese damask-laced armor over a red brocade hitatare,
a helmet with kuwagata horns, and a dauntingly long sword.
At his back the few arrows left to him after the day’s battles projected above his head,
fletched with eagle feathers. He carried a black, rattan-wrapped bow,
and his exceptionally powerful steed,
famous under the name Demon Roan, bore a gilt-edged saddle.
He rose in his stirrups and announced in a great voice,
“You will have long heard tell of me:
the man from Kiso. Now with your eyes
behold the chief left equerry
and also the governor of Iyo,
famed as the Asahi Shogun,
Minamoto no Yoshinaka!
They say you are Ichij no Jir, from Kai.
Then hear me! We are worthy opponents, you and I!
Take my head and show it off to Yoritomo!”
With that he charged.
Ichij cried, “The man who just now
shouted his name is their great commander!
See that he does not slip away! Get him,
young men of mine, strike him down!”
Surrounding Kiso with a mass of men,
Ichij went for his life and his head.
Kiso’s three hundred, amid six thousand,
slashed left, right, up, down, everywhere,
meanwhile retreating till they broke out,
just fifty now, cutting through all comers
until they met a force of two thousand
under Doi no Jir Sanehira.
They broke through that, too, and, farther on,
through four or five hundred, through two or three,
through a hundred and forty or fifty,
then a hundred, each time at a cost,
until Kiso had only four left.
This last remnant band of five
still included Tomoe.
Lord Kiso said to her, “Go, woman, go quickly, anywhere, far away. For myself, I shall die in battle or, if wounded, take my own life, and it must not be said that at the end I had a woman with me.”
She still did not go, but he kept pressing her until at last she replied, “All I want is a worthy opponent, so that you can watch me fight my last fight.”
And while she waited,
Onda no Hachir Moroshige, a man from Musashi famed for his strength,
rode up with thirty men. Tom
oe charged, caught him in an iron grip,
forced his head down to her pommel, kept it pinned there, twisted it around,
cut it off, and tossed it away.
Then she abandoned her arms and armor and fled toward the east.
Tezuka no Tar was killed.
Tezuka no Bett fled.
Imai and Kiso were alone.
Kiso said, “This armor of mine—
I never gave it much thought before,
but it feels heavy today!”
Imai Kanehira replied, “There is still life in you, and your horse is not yet winded.
Why should mere armor weigh heavily on you?
Perhaps because losing all your men has made you a coward.
There is only one of me, I know, but think of me as a thousand.
I have seven or eight arrows left. I will cover you for a while.
Look: Over there is the pinewood of Awazu.
Go in among the pines and take your life.”
They were urging their horses that way when a new band of fifty appeared.
“Go in among the pines, my lord,” said Imai. “I will keep them off.”
“I should have faced my fate in the capital itself,” Kiso replied, “but I fled all the way here to die with you. I want us to die together, not apart.” He brought his horse up beside Imai’s and prepared to charge.
Imai dismounted in haste and took his lord’s bridle.
“A man who wields the bow,” he said,
“may have won great and lasting fame,
but a misjudgment at the end
may tarnish that fame forever.
Yes, you are exhausted, I know.
You have lost every one of your men.
It would be a very great shame
if the enemy were to cut you off
and some nobody’s follower
drag you down and manage to kill you.
‘Ah, Lord Kiso,’ people would say—
‘everyone in Japan knew of him,
but then some nobody did him in.’
Please, just go into those pines over there.”
“Very well,” Lord Kiso replied,
and at a gallop he set off
for the pinewood of Awazu.
Imai Kanehira, all on his own, charged in among the fifty men,
rose in his stirrups, and in a great voice announced his name:
“You will have heard of me long ago.
Now, see me. I am before you:
Imai no Shir Kanehira,
foster brother of Lord Kiso,
in my thirty-third year.
Yoritomo, too, must know of me.
Kill Kanehira and show him my head!”
The eight arrows remaining to him
he shot in merciless succession,
and eight men fell, dead or alive.
Then he drew his sword and attacked,
slashing until not one dared face him.
Oh, he took his full share of trophies!
Crying, “Shoot him! Finish him off!”
they rained arrows from all around him,
but his armor was good—it stopped them,
and since none hit any chink or joint,
not one of them wounded him.
Lord Kiso galloped off, alone,
toward the pines of Awazu.
It was the first month, the twenty-first day.
The light was failing, and thin ice
spread across the surrounding paddies.
Never knowing the depth of the mud,
he rode his mount straight into one.
The horse sank in over its head.
No stirrup, no whip could move it.
Lord Kiso glanced back, worried about Imai,
so that his tilted helmet offered an opening.
Ishida no Jir Tamehisa, close behind him, drew to the full, and his arrow sped through.
The wound was mortal. Kiso slumped forward onto his horse’s neck.
Two of Ishida’s men fell on him and took his head.
Ishida impaled it on his sword, held it aloft, and shouted,
“Lord Kiso, so famous lately throughout Japan, has fallen to Ishida no Jir Tamehisa!”
The death of Kanehira (right). Small in background: Yoshinaka (left) and Ishida no Jir Tamehisa (right), with drawn bow.
Imai Kanehira, still fighting, heard.
“Well then, I have no one left to protect!
Watch me now, gentlemen from the east!
Learn from the greatest brave in Japan
how a warrior ends his life!”
He took the point of his sword in his mouth,
hurled himself headlong from his horse,
and died transfixed. So it came to pass
that no battle took place at Awazu.
5. The Execution of Higuchi
Imai’s older brother, Higuchi no Jir Kanemitsu,
had crossed over into Kawachi province, to the fortress of Nagano,
meaning to dispose of Yukiie, but Yukiie was gone.
Word placed him instead at Nagusa in Kii.
Higuchi started straight off after him,
but news of fighting in the capital drew him there in haste.
At the bridge over the river at Yodo, he ran into one of Imai’s servants.
“Oh, no!” the man cried. “Where are you going?
Lord Kiso is dead, and Lord Imai has killed himself.”
Higuchi wept bitter tears.
“Hear me now, gentlemen!” he called.
“All of you loyal to Lord Kiso:
Go henceforth wherever you wish—
leave the world, enter religion—
live in mendicant poverty,
and pray for him in the life to come!
I myself shall go to the city,
die there in battle, and once more
in the afterlife see my lord
and my brother, Imai Kanehira!”
His five hundred men withdrew here and there as he went,
and only twenty still rode beside him
by the time he reached the south gate of the Toba Mansion.
News that Higuchi Kanemitsu would enter the capital that day
brought provincial warriors high and low
racing down Shichij and Suzaku, toward Yotsuzuka, to face him.
Now, among his band there was one Chino no Tar.
This Chino burst in among the host gathered at Yotsuzuka and shouted,
“Does anyone among you, tell me,
belong to the men commanded
by Ichij no Jir of Kai?”
“So you refuse to fight anyone else?” they replied with hoots of laughter.
“Come on, try any of us!” Chino therefore announced who he was:
“I am Chino no Tar Mitsuhiro,
son of Chino no Tayū Mitsuie,
from Suwa no Kami-no-miya
in the province of Shinano!
No, I certainly do not insist
on fighting one of Lord Ichij’s men,
but, you see, Chino Shichir,
my younger brother, is among them.
Back in Shinano I have two sons,
who in their grief will wish to know
how their father died, well or ill.
Were I now to die in combat
before my brother Shichir’s eyes,
he could bear witness to my children.
I am ready to fight any man.”
This way and that he lunged, and three men
fell before him. He closed with a fourth,
and both men crashed to the ground,
where they stabbed each other to death.
Higuchi no Jir had long been close to the Kodama League. The Kodama men therefore gathered to discuss his plight. “A warrior mingles widely with others in the hope of gaining a moment’s relief under threat, and so of living a little longer,” they reflected. “No doubt that is why Higuchi no Jir allied himself with us. Let our merit now serve to win us his life.
”
They sent him this message: “Once Imai and Higuchi were famed beyond all of Lord Kiso’s men, but now Lord Kiso is dead. So surrender to us. Nothing prevents you from doing so. We will claim your life in reward for our merit.” Despite Higuchi’s martial renown, his days of glory were clearly over. He surrendered to the Kodama League.
The league put their request to Yoshitsune, who informed the cloistered emperor.
Higuchi’s life was spared, but not without protest
from those close to the sovereign, from the senior nobles, and from the gentlewomen.
“Kiso attacked your Hjūji residence,” they complained,
“and his men’s battle cries troubled His Majesty.
He set fire to the buildings, he killed a great many people,
and everywhere one heard the voices of Imai and Higuchi.
It would be quite wrong to spare the life of either.”
Higuchi’s death sentence was therefore reinstated.
The twenty-second of the month
brought the new regent’s dismissal.214
The old one returned to his post
after a space of just sixty days,
thus breaking off the new one’s dream.
Just so, once, the Awata Regent215
offered thanks for his appointment
and seven days later was gone.
Short though they were, those sixty days
still included the new-year banquet
and the appointments-list announcement,
thus leaving the dismissed gentleman
precious memories after all.
On the twenty-fourth of the month,
the heads of Kiso and his last four
were paraded down the avenues.
Higuchi had surrendered, yes,
but he begged nonetheless to join them
and did so, in a tall eboshi hat
and an indigo-patterned suikan robe.
They killed him on the twenty-fifth.
Noriyori and Yoshitsune pleaded for him in every way,
but no: “Imai, Higuchi, Tate, Nenoi—
those were Kiso’s Four Heavenly Kings, and this man was one of them.
To spare him would be to court grief, as does one who nurtures a tiger.”
This, they say, was the sovereign’s considered verdict.
It sealed Higuchi’s execution.
As history tells the tale,
when the Wolf-Tiger’s216 empire failed
