The Sword That Cut the Burning Grass

by Dorothy Hoobler

  “As soon as that can be arranged,” Seikei responded.

  “This is most unusual,” said the governor. “Normally, not even I would speak to the emperor. When I have anything to communicate to him, I send a message to the Minister of the Right at the imperial palace.” He tugged at one of the sleeves of his kimono, then smoothed it with his finger. “Or the Minister of the Left,” he added.

  “Is the emperor still at the Golden Pavilion monastery?” asked Seikei.

  “Yes. I have ordered the monks to inform me if he should try to leave.”

  Seikei smiled to himself. He knew that monks of important temples followed the “orders” of government officials only if it suited them. “Could you assign someone to show me the way to the pavilion?” he asked.

  “Perhaps tomorrow afternoon?” suggested the governor. “Or is that too soon?”

  “I would like to go now,” said Seikei.

  The governor was so surprised that he smoothed both of his sleeves. Evidently things did not get done as quickly in Kyoto as they did in Edo. “Right now?” the governor asked.

  “If that can be arranged,” said Seikei.

  It could. Accompanied by a mounted samurai named Kushi, Seikei rode to the northern part of the city. At the foot of a high hill stood a gate surrounded by two stone pillars. “That is the entrance,” Kushi said. “Leave your horse here and walk up the path to the temple.”

  “Aren’t you coming?” asked Seikei.

  “It will be better if I don’t,” said Kushi. “The monks here follow the Zen form of Buddhism. One moment they seem to be meditating, and the next they’re testing their military skills. If I were you, I would leave my swords behind so that no one challenges you.”

  Seikei hesitated. “I cannot give up my swords without good reason.”

  Kushi shrugged. “As you like. Will your errand take some time?”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Seikei.

  Kushi indicated a sake shop on the other side of the street. “I’ll wait there for you,” he said.

  The monastery gate was open and unguarded. Seikei walked up the narrow stone path beyond it and entered a grove of trees. In places, grass and weeds had sprouted between the stones underneath Seikei’s feet. He was surprised no one had tended to them.

  The path followed the base of the hill until suddenly it reached a clearing. Seikei saw a massive three-tiered pagoda with overhanging roofs that gleamed gold in the midafternoon sunlight. The sight was breathtaking until he looked a bit closer. Like the path, the pagoda seemed a bit shabby. Railings on the upper floors were broken, and a few of the roof tiles were missing or out of place.

  No one appeared until Seikei reached the pagoda. Then a monk in an orange robe emerged from a doorway. He looked strong and carried a device that consisted of two iron bars held together at one end by a grip. Seikei recognized it as a jitte. Practicing with Bunzo, he had seen a man with a jitte trap a warrior’s sword and wrench it from his grasp.

  “What is your purpose here?” called the monk.

  “I have come to speak to the emperor,” Seikei replied.

  “We do not use titles here,” the monk told him.

  Seikei thought back to what he’d learned. “Then I wish to speak to Yasuhito,” he said, using the emperor’s personal name, even though it was supposed to be unlucky to do so.

  “He is meditating,” said the monk. “His teacher may not allow you to disturb their session.”

  “I will respect that,” said Seikei. “I can wait.”

  The monk looked at Seikei’s swords. “No one may bring weapons into our sanctuary,” he said.

  Seikei sighed. Kushi had been right. It would have been better to leave his swords outside. Since had had no desire to challenge this monk, who was probably highly skilled, Seikei would have to surrender them here.

  He untied the scabbards from his obi and held them out. The monk stepped back and indicated a wooden sword rack on the porch. As Seikei placed his weapons there, he noticed that some other visitor had left a set as well.

  Seikei walked in the direction the monk pointed out. As he rounded the side of the pagoda, he beheld a scene of such beauty that he stopped to stare at it. Chrysanthemums, hundreds of them, bloomed in the sunlight as if someone had spread bronze and yellow blankets over the ground. In the midst of this blaze of color was a blue pond with oddly shaped gray rocks jutting from its surface. One of the larger rocks, split in two, had two pine trees growing from it. Beyond the pond was a forest of trees, some evergreen, others in full fall splendor, which created the illusion that the Golden Pavilion was in a remote wilderness, instead of the heart of a busy city.

  Two monks, one young, one old, sat on a wooden platform overlooking the pond. Seikei was sorry to disturb them, for he could imagine how pleasurable it was to rest here. In fact, he thought, he himself would find the natural beauty of the spot too distracting for meditation.

  As Seikei set foot on the platform, the older monk looked up. He got to his feet and walked toward Seikei. The monk’s eyes seemed much younger than the rest of him; they seemed to take in everything about Seikei at a glance. “I see you have come from the shogun,” the monk said. He had noticed the design on Seikei’s kosode.

  “Yes,” said Seikei. “He sent me to talk to the em—to Yasuhito. Is that him?”

  Instead of answering, the monk turned to look at the pond and said, “The scent of chrysanthemums.”

  At first Seikei thought he was commenting on the view. Then he realized that the phrase was the beginning of a well-known poem. “ ‘And in Nara,’ ” Seikei quoted, “ ‘All the ancient Buddhas.’ ”

  The monk gave Seikei a second look, one of reappraisal. Seikei could tell that the poem had been a test and that the monk had not expected him to pass it. The monk could not have known that Basho, the samurai who had written those lines, was Seikei’s favorite poet. As a tea merchant’s son, Seikei had not been able to practice the samurai skills of swordsmanship or archery. But he could read poetry (and even try to write some himself, as samurai did), and Basho had become his inspiration. Now he recalled that Basho had adopted Zen Buddhism, so it shouldn’t have been surprising that his poems had become aids to meditation.

  The monk stood aside as if to invite Seikei to join the emperor. Seikei approached warily. If anything, the emperor looked younger than fourteen. The expression on his face was far from peaceful. He looked annoyed, as if something about the scene made him want to wade out and correct the placement of the rocks in the lake, uproot some of the flowers, or remove a tree or two.

  Seikei sat down an arm’s length away from him, trying to make as little noise as possible.

  “You’ve interrupted my meditation,” said the boy, without looking away from the pond.

  “I’m sorry,” said Seikei.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m no good at it anyway.” The boy finally glanced at Seikei. “Would you like some porridge?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “I would. That’s all I could think about while I was meditating.” He motioned for the older monk to come closer. “Oyuka, bring me some ginkgo-nut porridge. And a bowl for him too,” he said with a nod in Seikei’s direction.

  Wordlessly, the monk departed. Seikei felt a little embarrassed by the way the boy had treated the older man.

  “I really don’t want porridge,” said Seikei.

  “I heard you the first time,” replied the boy. “If Oyuka brings two bowls, I can have twice as much. They’ll give me anything I ask for, but they try to get me to eat less, so the bowls will be small.”

  Seikei nodded. “Why do they do that?”

  “They think it’s better for me spiritually to eat less. There are shrimp in the porridge, and the Buddhists don’t approve of eating animals.”

  “Actually,” said Seikei, “I meant to ask, why do they bring you anything you ask for?”

  The boy started to answer, but stopped. He eyed Seikei coldly. “What’s your name?” he ask
ed.

  “I am Seikei, son of Ooka Tadesuke, samurai and official of the shogun,” Seikei said formally.

  “Hah!” the boy responded with a smirk. “Very proud of it, aren’t you?”

  Seikei took a moment to calm himself, for he didn’t want to begin by pushing the emperor into the pond. “Yes,” he said. “I am proud of who I am. And who are you?”

  “Oyuka calls me Risu, Squirrel, because I like ginkgo nuts so much.”

  “Is that who you are, then? A squirrel?”

  A flicker of annoyance replaced the boy’s mocking look. Then it disappeared. “I have a lot of names. Risu is as good as the others.”

  Oyuka returned with a tray that held two steaming bowls of soup. After setting them down, he waited for more instructions. “Go away,” Risu told him. “I feel like talking to Seikei some more. He amuses me.”

  The porridge smelled good, rich and nutty. As Risu sipped from his bowl, Seikei reached for the second one. He hand was slapped away before he could touch it.

  “You didn’t want any, remember?” said Risu.

  Seikei’s face felt hot. He saw now that it had been a good idea to leave his swords behind. After he had calmed down, he said, “Some people say that if the emperor strikes them, they will die.”

  “Sounds stupid to me,” commented Risu between sips. “I’ve struck lots of people and only a few of them died, and those not right away.” Risu suddenly thought about what he’d said. He put his bowl down on the tray, a bit too hard, making a clatter. Risu glared at Seikei, and then picked up the second bowl as if daring him to object.

  “So you are the emperor?” Seikei asked quietly.

  “People think I am,” admitted Risu. “But they’re wrong.”

  5

  THE MINISTERS DO NOT AGREE

  True, Seikei thought to himself, Risu did not fit his idea of what the emperor would be like. But he had never met an emperor before, so perhaps his idea was incorrect.

  “Why would people think you are the emperor, if you aren’t?” Seikei asked him.

  Risu shrugged. “Who knows? They need to believe that someone is the emperor. I was only a child, and they chose me.”

  “Didn’t you . . . like being the emperor?”

  “You don’t hear things well, do you? I already told you I’m not the emperor.”

  “Yes, but I mean, didn’t you like the things you have to do if . . . people think you’re the emperor? Like planting rice seeds in the spring. You’ve done that before, haven’t you?”

  Risu looked around as if wondering where Oyuka had gone. Seikei could tell he didn’t find the conversation so amusing now. Seikei had to find a way to get Risu’s attention.

  “If you don’t plant those seeds this year, they won’t bring you that ginkgo porridge any more,” said Seikei. “What will you do then?”

  Risu’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Seikei. “Oyuka will still—” he began, then said, “I’ll become a monk. That’s what I’m here to do.”

  “Do all the monks eat that porridge? Or just you?”

  Risu did not answer.

  “Look,” said Seikei. “Why don’t you just plant the rice seeds again this spring? I don’t know if you’d be such a good monk. You know, everyone has a place in life . . . a duty to fulfill, and yours—”

  “How can you say that?” interrupted Risu. He seemed truly upset. “I’m supposed to act like the emperor even if I know I’m not? Why don’t you pretend you’re the emperor and plant the seeds?”

  I wish I could, thought Seikei. “Well, in the first place,” he said, “people know I’m not the emperor. What made you think you weren’t? You did plant the rice seeds before, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Risu said, very quietly.

  “Did you think you weren’t the emperor then?”

  “I wasn’t sure,” Risu replied. “Anyway, Uino made me do it. He was the high priest, but he’s dead now. He could make you do anything.”

  “Is that why you decided you weren’t the emperor? Because he died?”

  “No, no,” Risu said, waving his hands. “When I became emperor and was waiting for Amaterasu . . . well, I’m not going to tell you about that. But this year, after Uino died, I read a scroll in the palace library, and I learned why . . . why . . . ” He wasn’t sure how to finish.

  “Why you weren’t the emperor?” Seikei prompted.

  “Why Amaterasu didn’t come to see me!” Risu said. He was angrier than ever, almost on the point of tears.

  Seikei was confused, but he felt as if he’d found out something important. “Where is this scroll now?” he asked.

  Risu had turned his back. “Go away,” he said. “I’m meditating.”

  “Look, just tell me—” Seikei stopped because he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see that Oyuka had appeared out of nowhere.

  “Perhaps you could return some other time,” the monk said. His voice was calm, but something about it made Seikei feel he had to obey.

  Seikei got to his feet. He looked down at Risu, trying to think of something else he could say.

  Risu sensed that he hadn’t left. “It’s the Kusanagi scroll,” he said over his shoulder. “But you’d never understand it.”

  Seikei didn’t need Oyuka to escort him out. He walked up the path to the pagoda, stopping there for a last look at the scene. This time, he noticed another person seated in a meditative position across the pond. His hair was white, and he was wearing a dark blue kimono. Seikei supposed he must be the person who had left the other set of swords on the porch of the pagoda. He was probably there just to meditate, but the thought crossed Seikei’s mind that he might have overheard his conversation with Risu. If so, it didn’t seem to have broken the man’s concentration.

  Across the street from the temple, Kushi was still waiting for Seikei. “I have to go to the imperial palace,” Seikei told him.

  The samurai snorted. He seemed to have had a few cups of sake in the meantime. “You’re wasting your time,” he told Seikei, “if you expect to accomplish anything there.”

  “Why do you think so?”

  “I’ve been there before on errands for the governor. The emperor has two chief ministers—one of the Right, one of the Left. You have to obtain the consent of both of them just to deliver a message to the emperor.”

  “What’s so difficult about that?” Seikei asked.

  “The two ministers never agree. That’s their function. The idea is to give the emperor more than one opinion, but now it stops him from hearing anything at all, so he never has to make a decision.”

  Evidently Kushi didn’t know the emperor was no longer in the palace. “I’ll try anyway,” Seikei said. “My request is a simple one.”

  But nothing, he found, was simple where the Ministers of the Right and Left were concerned. They sat side by side on two raised platforms in a hall larger than the one the shogun used for major official meetings. Both ministers were dressed alike—in crimson kimonos decorated with the imperial chrysanthemum. The gatekeeper who brought Seikei into the room instructed him to sit on a mat in front of the two ministers and wait for one to speak.

  Both were reading scrolls and sipping tea. They paid no attention whatsoever to Seikei. If he had been treated this way in any other place, Seikei would have taken it as a great insult to the shogun. Since in theory the emperor was superior to the shogun, Seikei knew that this was only a demonstration of the ministers’ high rank.

  At last the Minister of the Right—or at least the one who sat on the right, from their point of view—rolled up his scroll and acted as if he had noticed Seikei for the first time. Instead of addressing him, however, he turned to the other minister.

  “Are you occupied?” he asked.

  “I’m quite busy,” the Minister of the Left replied.

  “Shall I handle this task myself?” the Right one asked.

  The Left one lowered his scroll and glared at Seikei. The hollyhock design on Seikei’s jacket seemed to influ
ence his response. “No. It might be important,” he said, adding, “and you might make a mistake.”

  “State your business,” the first minister said to Seikei.

  “I wish to read a scroll in the palace library,” said Seikei.

  “No,” the Minister of the Left responded at once.

  “I disagree,” said the other minister. “We should at least find out what scroll he wishes to read.”

  “The Kusanagi scroll,” said Seikei.

  “No,” replied the Minister of the Right. Seikei’s heart sank.

  “Your request is an interesting one,” said the Minister of the Left, raising Seikei’s hopes again. “How did you learn of the Kusanagi scroll?”

  Seikei took a deep breath. He thought of something the judge had once said: “Unless it is obvious that revealing the truth will cause harm, it is always better to tell the truth than to lie. For to lie is to begin creating a world that does not exist, and then you must create the rest of that false world too.”

  “The emperor told me about it,” Seikei said.

  The effect of this was startling. Neither of the two ministers seemed to be able to reply. First they stared at Seikei, and then at each other. One of them picked up his scroll again, as if thinking to find an answer there. The other took a writing brush from his sleeve, but did nothing except wave it in the air.

  Finally the Minister of the Right recovered enough to ask, “Did . . . did the emperor indicate why he was interested in that scroll?”

  Seikei considered this.

  “Not that this scroll has any real interest,” said the Minister of the Left.

  Seikei decided that again, the truth was best. “He said it would help me understand why he isn’t the emperor,” said Seikei.