by I. J. Parker
Toshiko’s heart beat wildly. “N . . . no, Lady Sanjo. I’m too weak and feel very sick again.”
“Ah.” Lady Sanjo nodded. “I shall inform His Majesty. Perhaps he will wish you to return to your family.” She bustled off.
“I think she did it,” said Toshiko, glaring after her. “I shall not eat anything served to me in the future.” She turned to her friend. “Before you leave, would you find me some food, rice cakes or such, something that was meant for the others?”
Shojo-ben looked scandalized. “Oh, you cannot think . . . she would never dare . . . His Majesty would have her exiled. Along with her husband and family.” But she saw Toshiko’s exhausted face and added, “I shall get you food, but I pray that you are wrong about this.” Then she dashed off.
Toshiko did not think she was wrong. The woman hated her, had hated her from the beginning. She did not know why, but everything that had gone wrong for her had been Lady Sanjo’s doing. The woman had failed with her plots in the past, but this was too much. Now she was desperate enough to murder her.
Only a short while ago, Toshiko had longed for a quick death. Now she was perversely determined not only to live but to escape from this life. As His Majesty would not let her go, and her family was not about to intercede for her as Shojo-ben’s had done, she had no choice but to run away.
Outside she could hear the sound of wagon wheels and the bellowing of oxen. The carriages were being backed up to the south veranda to take the others to their new quarters. Soon she would be alone. Shojo-ben slipped in one final time, her sleeve full of rice cakes. Toshiko thanked her, and hid the food under her bedding. They cried a little over their goodbyes, and then Shojo-ben was gone, the noises receded, and all became quiet.
After a while, the maid came to remove the half-empty bowl of gruel. She looked sullen. Toshiko no longer trusted her and pretended to be asleep. She suspected that the woman had been carrying out Lady Sanjo’s orders.
During the long day, she nibbled on a few rice cakes and drank more water. When the maid refilled the flask, she worried that the water might also be poisoned. This time, the woman asked, “Are you feeling better, Lady?” and Toshiko murmured weakly, “No. Go away.”
She knew that she must leave as soon as she was strong enough to walk, but her options were few. She could not go to Takehira who lived with other guard officers in his military quarters in the imperial city. She could not go home without money. In any case, neither her parents nor her brother would make her welcome. She would simply be returned to the palace with apologies.
Perhaps she could seek refuge in a temple. But His Majesty would find her there more quickly than any place else.
There was only Doctor Yamada. She wanted to go to him more than anything, but she was afraid. What if he did not want her? This brought tears to her eyes again. Oh, she thought, this weeping must stop.
She tried to stand and managed a few wobbly steps to relieve herself in a bucket behind a screen. Encouraged, she returned to her bed with her mirror. The light was poor with the shutters closed, but she could see enough to know that she looked pale and unattractive. She cried some more and then slept.
Toward evening, the maid brought another bowl of the warm gruel. When she left, Toshiko smelled the food. She fancied it had an odd odor and was grayer than usual. She put it back untouched and ate another rice cake. Her appetite was coming back quickly. The cake tasted delicious.
During the night, Toshiko considered how to get away. The gate to her small courtyard was barred, so she must leave another way. Fortunately the building was nearly empty, and her maid did not seem to be watchful. She thought about her coach journey to the imperial palace. They had passed through a gate, then traveled northward before turning west to the river. It had not taken very long to reach the river. If she could leave at night while everyone was asleep, she should be able to get out of the building unnoticed. But the gate guards would surely stop her. What to do?
Toward morning she thought of a way. Only one more day.
The Emperor’s Dolls
With his move to the Hojuji Palace, the emperor decided to break with the past. The world of the senses had become too oppressive, too fraught with disappointment and self-recrimination. He was determined to purify himself of all delusions and walked around his new residence in the first flush of pious enthusiasm.
He would take up his cloistered life here, at peace at last. The new palace combined the best of the two worlds he would henceforth inhabit, directing the nation and treading the eightfold path to enlightenment.
There was the new temple hall, the Rengeo-in, with a thirty-bay-long Buddha hall consecrated to the thousand-armed Kannon. He planned to take the tonsure there, bidding farewell to the world of physical passions.
Soon, very soon now.
He even put aside his collection of songs because it reminded him of his sins of the flesh — troublingly fresh and frequent in his thoughts. Otomae had not returned since the incident of the “Little Snail” song. It was as well, for she, too, made him feel vaguely ashamed and foolish these days.
Only Lady Sanjo was left to remind him of his lapse, and she demanded to see him nearly every day, always claiming urgent business. The urgent business, as often as not, concerned Toshiko.
When he returned to his private rooms, she appeared again. He noticed that she had grown amazingly fat. At the rate she was expanding, it would be no time at all before she looked like that unfortunate woman in his Scroll of Diseases, the one who was so obese she had to lean on two maids to support her as she waddled along.
Lady Sanjo collapsed into an obeisance with a grunt and puff of breath. Really, thought the Emperor, eyeing her cherry-blossom-colored gown with distaste, what possessed her to wear such unsuitably youthful colors at her age?
“What is it now?” he snapped.
She sat up on her knees. “Am I being a bother, sire?” she asked with a simper, blinking her eyes at him over her fan.
“I am busy, as always.”
“Oh.” She turned her head a little and blinked some more. “I can come back later, when it is more convenient, Your Majesty.”
“No,” he said quickly. The infernal woman would just continue to pester him the rest of the day. “Is something the matter with your eyes?”
She bowed again with that odd little grunt. “Oh, Your Majesty is always excessively kind. I am afraid I am blinded by the sun whenever I set eyes on you, sire.”
Irritating female! It was this sort of adulation that made getting rid of her awkward when he was tempted to do so.
Most recently there had been that unpleasantness of the regent complaining of her rudeness to his son. The young man had been drunk and stumbled into the women’s quarters by accident, not an unusual occurrence during the many festivities of the New Year. Lady Sanjo apparently had accused him of trying to rape one of the women. Naturally, the young man and the regent had been offended. But she could hardly be dismissed for being watchful. Frowning, he said sharply, “Make it brief.”
She blinked again. “It is about Lady Toshiko.”
He sighed. “It is always about Lady Toshiko. What is it now?”
“As Your Majesty may recall, the foolish girl indulged in too much rich food over the holidays and was too ill to be moved with the other ladies.” Lady Sanjo paused to wait for his reaction.
He compressed his lips. “I remember. I trust she is better and has joined you?”
“No, Your Majesty. We have tried everything, but she seems worse. Apparently the food here does not agree with her. I suggest that she be allowed to return to her family.” She blinked and fluttered her fan nervously.
The emperor stared at her, wondering how sick Toshiko was. In his efforts to cleanse his mind and body from earthly attachments, he had avoided her. But if she was really ill, he should go and express his concern. The image of her, lying amid tangled bedding, her long hair spread around her young body, troubled him. “Hmm,” he said. “I did
not know it was so serious. What are her symptoms?”
Lady Sanjo twisted her fan in indecision. “Oh, dear,” she murmured. “It is not nice to talk of such things in Your Majesty’s presence.”
“Nonsense. I take an interest in medicine and have seen sickness before,” he snapped.
“Yes, sire. She still cannot keep any food down, sire, and earlier she suffered from the flux. I do beg your pardon for mentioning such a dirty thing.”
He frowned. “She’s not with child?”
“Oh no, sire.”
Relieved, he pursed his lips. “Hmm. I should pay her a visit, but at the moment I am very busy. Perhaps my physician can have a look at her.”
“Sire, it is not permitted to send a man to the women’s quarters,” cried Lady Sanjo.
The emperor snorted at such old-fashioned ways. “The man is old enough to be her grandfather, Lady Sanjo,” he said. And so he was, for this was his personal physician and not that clever and handsome young Doctor Yamada who was entirely too knowledgeable about sexual matters to be dispatched to Toshiko. “If she has not been able to eat anything for the past two weeks or more, she is far more seriously ill than you have given me to understand. Or are you exaggerating again just to see me?”
This plain speaking cast Lady Sanjo into such agitation that she forgot to flutter her eyes. “Oh, no, Your Majesty. I would never dream of such a thing. I am merely doing my duty. My report is based on what her maid tells me. Of course, the woman may say things to make herself seem more indispensable as a nurse. I shall go myself and make certain of the facts, and then return to report again to Your Majesty.”
The emperor lost his temper. “You should have done this in the first place, Lady Sanjo,” he said with a scowl. “It is your duty. In the future you will not trouble me again with unverified reports. When you have investigated, leave a message with my secretary.” He saw with satisfaction that he had finally shocked her into comprehension. She gave him a pitiful look, sniffled a little as she prostrated herself, and retreated.
His contentment was gone. He regretted the brief affair with Toshiko – not just for spiritual reasons or because it had brought him little joy, but because it had brought her even less. At least she had not conceived. As soon as she was better, he would let her go. Naturally, in view of their relationship, he would reward her. She would return to her family a rich woman, endowed with a suitable gift of rice lands, or, if she preferred, she would be married to some provincial official. If neither of those options was to her taste, she could join his daughter’s household as one of her attendants. This struck him as excessively generous, considering how her family had tried to manipulate him.
He was saddened by the fact that he had never found a woman who had loved him for himself. There had been so many of them in his life. His childhood was spent in the company of women. To be served by so many women can be a cruel thing for a small boy. To be forever handled, petted, dressed, undressed, bathed, dandled, and made much of may suit a dog but it makes a boy very irritable.
There had been the matter of his dolls. Long before he was old enough to have any understanding, he was given an amagatsu doll to protect him. It was made of two crossed pieces of bamboo with a ball of silk for a head and a simple suit of clothes draped over the sticks. It stood at his head when he slept, arms extended protectively over him, and it stayed with him until he reached manhood at age fifteen.
The idea was for roaming evil spirits to mistake the doll for him and possess it instead.
From time to time, other dolls appeared. The paper ones he breathed on and then they were rubbed over his body before being burned to rid him of sins. The hoko dolls were mostly toys. They had soft silk bodies stuffed with floss silk and painted faces and black silk hair. They wore fine clothes resembling his own. He played with the hoko dolls much the same way the court ladies played with him. He dressed and undressed them, made them walk here and there, made them sit or stand, made them eat and dance, and sometimes he got angry and threw them at one of his ladies-in-waiting.
Now and then, an unstuffed hoko would make its appearance. The limp doll was used to exorcise his quarters in the palace. Being hollow, it gathered invisible ghosts and spirits inside it. These evil and jealous phantoms were attracted by his imperial presence. After the priest declared the premises free of them, the doll was ceremoniously drowned in the lake of the imperial gardens after being set afloat in a paper boat. He remembered enjoying this particular exorcism greatly – unlike that other one a few years later.
On the whole, he had regarded his dolls with mixed feelings. He was not sure if they were loving companions and protectors or hollow vessels which hid the very evil he must fear. Once he asked his nurse, Lady Kii, why the hoko doll was hollow and why it had to be drowned.
Lady Kii showed him that the amagatsu doll also had this “hollowness” because its frame was made of two crossed sections of bamboo. “Bamboo is hollow,” she said. “Evil spirits can slip inside. Better inside the doll than inside Your Highness.”
Afterwards, he had spent many days watching for the evil spirits and finally he had taken the amagatsu apart without finding anything. For his researches he had armed himself with his ceremonial sword to slay any apparitions that might approach.
When his Fujiwara grandfather heard about it, he had laughed. The story had got around. Prince Masahito threatening his amagatsu with his sword became an amusing topic for the courtiers and ladies-in-waiting. They came and peered at him as he stood watch, and ran away laughing. One day he crept behind a screen and cried.
Lady Kii found him there. She was a kind-hearted woman and took the trouble to explain the matter further. “You cannot see the evil spirits, Highness,” she said. “They are invisible manifestations of the evil in other people. If someone bears you a grudge, that evil intention slips into the doll. If someone is jealous of you, that, too, is trapped inside the doll. In this way, resentment which might turn murderous and kill you, either by poison, or sickness, or possession, cannot harm you. There is no need to watch. The doll does all the watching, you see.”
But the next day his brother, the emperor, heard the tale and stopped by to tease him. His Majesty’s attendants dutifully laughed as Sutoku, himself only thirteen at the time, made fun of his little brother. This had so enraged him that he had turned his sword against Sutoku. Only the presence of Lady Kii had saved His Majesty from receiving a serious wound.
The incident had painful repercussions. For a subject to raise a sword against the emperor was the ultimate sacrilege. Only the fact that he was a small child saved him. The question of exile was raised and rejected. In the end, it was decided that Prince Masahito must be possessed and would undergo formal exorcism.
Four ladies-in-waiting pinned him to the floor by kneeling on his arms and legs, while the abbot of the Ninna Temple and various celebrated clerics prayed over him.
They reported later that the spirit had spoken through the prince’s lips. It had said, “I hate all of you. I hate my brothers and sisters. I hate the emperor,” and uttered many dreadful threats. Eventually, the abbot had managed to subdue the demon.
The incident was not forgotten, but things returned more or less to normal afterward. Lady Kii wisely locked the ceremonial sword away, the brothers saw each other only rarely, and then only in the presence of others. But he was not made Crown Prince. His mother found the incident irritating but trivial, but his father expressed his first serious worries about Prince Masahito’s intelligence.
He had learned from all this that evil spirits emanated from people, who were as hollow as the dolls, and he believed that he would be safe only as long as he controlled them. Experience had proven him right.
Blaming Lady Sanjo for his glum mood, he rose and walked to his office. His secretary, Tameyazu, jumped up and prostrated himself. The emperor gave him the barest nod and sat down behind his desk. He looked at the arrangement of the furnishings, and wondered where Shinzei would fit in. Then h
e decided he did not want Shinzei here, not yet, maybe never again. Shinzei had counseled him to bed the girl, as had Otomae. And Kiyomori. He would never be anyone’s puppet again.
Flight
The maid snored.
Toshiko had been aware of the irritating habit for weeks. It was probably the reason why this woman, of all the servants, had been left behind to look after her.
Tonight she greeted the rasping sound with relief. As long as she heard it, she was safe. She began by applying her make-up, making it thicker and more garish than usual because she wanted to be taken for one of the professional entertainers. Then she dressed in her shirabyoshi costume, adding the small drum, the sword, and the hat. Because she had no one to help her, she was soon out of breath and weak-kneed and had to sit down to rest.
Blessedly, the snoring in the distance continued unabated. Faintly, from outside, came the muffled twanging of the bowstrings of the guards. The sound, meant to scare away criminals and evil spirits, was followed by the calling out of the hour: the hour of the rat. A moment later the temple bell rang, too.
