by I. J. Parker
Ribata’s being another member of the imperial family was no complete surprise to Akitada. After all, Kumo’s grandmother, the senile Lady Saisho, had addressed her as Naka no Kimi, Princess. But if anything, Ribata’s imperial blood made her presence on this island of exiles an even greater mystery.
Okisada leaned forward to embrace Ribata. “Dearest cousin. It is not a happy occasion, I am afraid. Is it true that Kumo is dead?”
Ribata’s face lost some of its joy. “Yes. His body is outside. The soldiers said you wished to pay your last respects.”
With her help, Okisada struggled to his feet. Together they walked to the front of the hall, followed by Akitada, Taira, and Tora.
Kumo had been dropped carelessly on the wooden planks, one arm flung over his face and a leg bent awkwardly at the knee. Ribata knelt and gently rearranged the body. Dark blood disfigured his brilliant armor, but he was handsome in death.
Okisada made a face, then bent to peer at him. When he straightened, he said, “A pity. He was a great man. And he could have been an even greater one under my rule.” Taira also took a long look and nodded. They stood for a moment in silence. Then Okisada reached into his fine robe and handed Akitada something before turning to take Taira’s arm. Together they went back to the room they had left.
Akitada looked down at what he had been given and saw that the prince had returned his imperial mandate. It had been done without explanation or apology for the theft. Of course, as the present emperor’s brother and, in his own opinion, the rightful emperor himself, he probably felt that he had a right to the documents. But Okisada’s voluntary surrender of the papers meant that he had accepted defeat. He had allowed Akitada to complete his assignment. He heaved a deep breath and turned to Tora. “Stay with them. They are to see or speak to no one without my permission.”
Ribata still knelt beside Kumo’s corpse. She was praying, her beads moving through her thin fingers with soft clicks. Akitada waited. When she finished and rose, he said, “Forgive me for troubling you, but I gather that you, too, are a member of the imperial family.”
She bowed her head. After a moment, she said, “Only a handful of people know why I am here. I ask that you keep my secret.”
Akitada hesitated. “It may become relevant to the case against your cousin.”
“No. I swear to you, it has nothing to do with poor Okisada’s case. It is my story alone. Nothing but tragedy will come to innocent people if it becomes known in the capital that I am here.”
“Very well. If what you say is true, I promise to keep your secret.”
“Thank you.” She sighed. “I am . . . was the third daughter of Emperor Kazan. He died when I was only eight. Okisada’s mother and mine were sisters, married to different emperors. My cousin and I grew up together until my marriage to a high court noble was being arranged. But I was sixteen and in love with a low-ranking officer of the guards. We were found out, and he was sent here into exile. I followed him, disguised as a nun.” She fell silent, as if that explained all.
Perhaps it did, but Akitada was not content. After a moment’s silence, he said, “You must both have loved very deeply to give up so much. And Toshito?”
Now she smiled. “How very perceptive of you, my lord. I suppose you saw the resemblance?”
“Yes. And your . . . husband?”
The sadness returned. “There was no future for us. They would have killed him if I had become his wife. After my son’s birth, I shaved my head and took the nun’s habit for good. Toshito was formally adopted by Mutobe.”
So Mutobe had been the lover? It explained his permanent appointment. No doubt the emperor who had sent him to Sadoshima had made him its governor on condition he stay there. And she had become a nun rather than bring down the wrath of the emperor on the man she loved. Young Toshito probably knew or suspected that she was his mother. No wonder his bearing was haughty. The imperial lineage was in his blood, though it would hardly make him welcome at court.
“Thank you, Princess. Your confidence honors me,” said Akitada, bowing deeply. And, even though he still had his doubts about her, he added, “I ask your pardon for having suspected you of supporting Kumo.”
She gave him a very sweet smile. “Call me Ribata. I am an old woman now and a nun. And you were wise to be suspicious.” She turned to look down at Kumo’s corpse. “I knew him when he was a mere boy. In those days I could not visit my own son, and Sanetomo became like my own. We used to talk about his love for the Buddha’s teachings and for all who suffered injustice in this life. I loved him dearly, but even then I feared and distrusted him. He was . . . too passionate. I often wonder if this place makes some men pursue grand schemes because their world has become as small as a grain of sand.” She turned back to Akitada. “You are a good man and a man of honor. May you find happiness in the small things.”
Akitada bowed deeply. As he left the hall and the temple compound to walk back to the farmhouse, he thought about Okisada, Kumo, and even Mutobe. All three were weak men, and all three had become obsessed with dreams of power. Even little Jisei had bargained his life for an impossible dream. Akitada suddenly felt a great need to be with Haseo, who had been his friend and protector. Without him he would not have survived. He remembered his face again, shining with the happiness of being free—for too short a time. Haseo had fought joyfully against their enemies and been a better man than any Akitada had met on Sadoshima.
The sky was clouding up a little, and the brightness of the afternoon sun had become like light shining through gossamer silk. The sea, instead of brilliant silver and blue, now stretched before him faintly green, pale celadon fading to the color of wisteria. He looked at the softened greens of the mountains, themselves turning to a bluish lavender, and at the russet houses below, and found the world both sadder and more beautiful than before.
EPILOGUE
The return voyage was swift and unexpectedly pleasant. Neither storms nor seasickness spoiled Akitada’s homecoming. The skies were as clear as they sometimes are in autumn, a limpid blue which swept from Sawata Bay past the headlands of Sadoshima all the way to the shore of Echigo. A brisk wind carried them smoothly toward the mainland.
Akitada stood at the bow, watching the approach of the long rugged coastline that protected a green plain and distant snow-covered mountains, and was filled with an astonishing affection for the place. He resolved to make the best of his future there, for he was going home to his family, the firm center of his turbulent life.
His deep joy in being alive was increased by Tora’s cheerful presence and, to a lesser extent, by the exuberant spirits of Turtle, who had decided to follow his new master. Killing Wada, a man who had tormented him repeatedly in Mano, had given Turtle self-confidence and an altogether more optimistic outlook on life. Even his limp seemed less noticeable, perhaps because it was modified by a distinct swagger. Turtle had become “somebody” in his own eyes by ridding his fellow drudges of a cruel and petty tyrant. Turtle was now a man to be respected, even feared, by other men, and so he had offered his talents and services to Tora and Akitada.
But the ship carried far more important travelers. Okisada was returning to the capital under heavy guard. Akitada had twice visited the prince in his cabin and doubted that Okisada would survive the overland journey to Heian-kyo. Soft living and repeated doses of fugu poison had undermined his health to such a degree that he was in constant pain and frequently vomited the little food he consumed.
Akitada had not escaped unscathed, either. He still limped, and his knee ached when he walked too much or the weather changed. Spending long hours sitting cross-legged on the dais during the court hearings in Mano had not helped.
Three officials had been present for the hearing which had cleared young Mutobe of the murder charge. The judge, a frightened rabbit of a man, expected ignominious dismissal for having ordered the governor’s son jailed in the first place. He kept looking to the governor and Akitada for approval.
The thir
d man on the dais was so far above the judge that he did not dare look at him. He was the imperial advisor who had sent Akitada to Sadoshima. It was widely assumed that he was there to protect Prince Okisada’s interests, but this was not quite true. He had come to take the prince back to Heian-kyo to face the punishment chosen by the emperor. Unlike his shorter, more irascible assistant, he had not returned to the capital, but remained in Echigo to await the results of Akitada’s mission. He had taken ship when the news of Kumo’s death and Okisada’s arrest had reached the mainland.
After lengthy deliberations and many nervous recitations from his legal codes, the judge had found Taira and Nakatomi guilty of laying false charges against the governor’s son. He was not, of course, competent to deal with Okisada’s treasonable intentions. That would be judged by a higher court in the capital. However, the sovereign’s advisor, along with the governor and Akitada, had extracted private confessions from all three conspirators. Afterward Taira had requested a sword. When this was naturally refused, he had broken a sharp sliver of bamboo from a writing table in his cell, forced this into the large vein in his throat, and died during the night. The physician Nakatomi, on hearing the news, hanged himself the next night by his silk sash from the bars in his cell door. Only Okisada, protected by his imperial blood from public execution, seemed apathetic to his fate.
That left Sakamoto. Akitada had long since decided that the poor and elderly professor had been duped by Taira and Kumo. They had not trusted him with their real plans or the details of the plot but had played on his adulation of Okisada to use his home for their meetings and his good name to cover their activities. Not unlike Shunsei, though the relationship had been different, Sakamoto had been the victim of his own foolish sentiment. The thin gentleman from the emperor’s office had, once he had spoken to Sakamoto, agreed. Sakamoto was left with a warning that he faced arrest if he returned to the capital. It amounted to unofficial exile, much like that imposed on Mutobe many years earlier, but since Sakamoto had no wish to leave, he expressed tearful gratitude.
Kumo’s mines were confiscated and closed, and their workers were dispersed among other public projects. Osawa, newly wed and in rotund health, had provided useful testimony that the mines had not produced enough silver to justify their continued operation. Akitada wrestled with his conscience about the gold. Gold was vitally important to the nation, but more intensive mining and abuse of prisoners were sure to follow if the government heard of the gold deposits. Eventually he told the emperor’s advisor. The thin man asked some searching questions and had Kita, Kumo’s bird-faced mine supervisor, brought in. Kita saved his life by making a full report, which caused the thin gentleman to remark that the distance from the capital and the difficulty of transport made it highly unlikely that His Majesty would be interested.
And so Akitada was returning home, a man so changed that he felt like a stranger to his former self. As he strained his eyes for the shore, he was seized by a dizzying sense of unreality. For a man who had lived like a common criminal, subjected to vicious beatings and backbreaking labor, who had been buried alive and barely survived against all odds a battle to the death, this uneventful and untroubled homecoming seemed more dream-like than the nightmares that had plagued his feverish brain underground.
To steady himself, he searched for his wife and son among the people waiting on shore. The shoreline began to swim before his eyes, and the snow-covered peaks fractured into green and white patches floating against the blue of the sky. As he reached up to brush the tears from his eyes, the thin gentleman interposed his tall frame between Akitada and the view.
“Not long now,” the emperor’s advisor said in his dry voice, averting his eyes quickly from Akitada’s face. “You will wish to be with your family after we land, so I shall make my farewells here.”
“Thank you, Excellency.” Akitada managed to choke out the words. To cover the awkwardness of the moment, he asked, “You have been to see His Highness? How is he?”
“Not well. He may survive the journey, but his mind is weakening rapidly. I doubt that he will be able to say much in his defense. He seems to be under the impression that he is to assume the throne.”
Akitada said, “I am sorry.” It was the strongest expression of sympathy he could find. He thought of the dying Haseo and found difficulty in adjudging proper levels of regret to the tragic lives of the men he had met. What, for example, of the little thief Jisei? Would his soul rest more happily knowing that the two pirates who had beaten him to death had been captured on Okisada’s ship? Akitada had identified them in the provincial jail and brought murder charges against them, based on Haseo’s account. Ironically, they, like Akitada, had been in the stockade under false pretenses. They were there to deal with Jisei if he decided to make trouble about the gold. And, of course, he had done just that, hoping to buy himself freedom with his knowledge.
“I wished to thank you,” the thin man continued more cordially, “for your help and your loyalty. Without your brilliant exposure of the prince’s clever sham, all of our efforts would have been in vain. You have certainly confirmed the high opinion your friends have of you. If it had not been for your determination and courage, we would be involved in a major war by now.”
Akitada bowed. “I have done nothing,” he murmured. It was the polite response to a compliment, but he knew it was painfully true. There was little to be proud of in the way he had handled his assignment, and he had almost paid with his life for his careless mistakes.
The thin gentleman said, “I do not need to tell you that you have made enemies in the capital. Your requests to return to your former position in the ministry have been blocked by your superior, for example.”
Akitada glanced at the other man’s profile. Soga’s dislike was no news to him, but he had not known that the minister hated him so much that he would condemn him and his young family to permanent misery in Echigo. He turned his eyes back to the approaching land. Green and golden, the shoreline stretched before him until it faded into a misty horizon. Those waiting on shore were waving now. And there, in front, he now saw a slender figure of a young woman holding a child. Tamako and Yori. He raised his arm to wave, and saw Tamako lift up Yori in response. Warm, joyous gratitude flooded over him. Whatever the hardship, he still had his work and his small family. Injustice flourished everywhere, in Sadoshima, Echigo, the capital, and also in the place where Haseo had lived. Akitada had survived, and that was all that mattered.
But his companion still waited for a comment. “Thank you for telling me,” Akitada said. “I shall have to be patient and work harder to win the regard of my superiors, that’s all.”
The thin man smiled and put his hand on Akitada’s shoulder. “Courage! You may have enemies in the capital,” he said, “but you also have a new friend.”
HISTORICAL NOTE
During the Heian Period (794 - 1185) the Japanese government loosely followed the Tang China pattern of an elaborate and powerful bureaucracy. The junior official Sugawara Akitada is a fictional character, but his ancestor, Sugawara Michizane (845 - 903), was very real. His life exemplified the dangers faced by even the most brilliant and dedicated officials who made enemies at court. Michizane, a superb administrator and great poet, rose to preside over the sovereign’s private office but ended his life in miserable exile.
By the time of the present novel, two hundred years after Michizane, the administrative power is almost exclusively in the hands of the Fujiwara family, whose daughters had consistently been empresses. The Fujiwara women had borne emperors who tried to rule briefly before resigning under pressure from their in-laws in favor of sons who were often too young to interfere in Fujiwara policy. The tale of the Second Prince illustrates the political uncertainties inherent in the imperial succession and the numerous incidents of rebellion by claimants to the throne or to the position of prime minister. The real power, the prime minister, was almost always a senior Fujiwara and he headed, assisted by brothers, cousins, and
uncles, an enormous central government located in Heian-kyo (Kyoto). They controlled more or less successfully the rest of the country through provincial governors, men of rank and birth with university training and Fujiwara support. A governor’s duties encompassed overseeing tax collection, law enforcement, and civic improvements in his province. He normally served four years but might choose to serve longer or absent himself altogether while his duties were carried out by a junior official. Akitada is such a substitute, while Mutobe has taken permanent residence. Their provinces, Echigo and Sadoshima, are so remote from the capital, and life there is so dangerous for officials that more favored individuals considered such assignments not only undesirable but punitive.
Sadoshima, or Sado Island, is located in the Sea of Japan, about thirty-five kilometers from Echigo (modern Niigata) Province. In the eleventh century, it was an independent province with provincial headquarters, several towns, and Buddhist temples. It was also a place where people were sent into exile for serious offenses, and where gold was discovered fairly early. Though there was no government mining of gold until 1601, panning for gold in rivers and streams had been known for centuries. Kumo’s secret mining operation described in the novel is fictional. The descriptions are based on other early gold mining practices and on the pictures of the Sado mine in a contemporary scroll (Sado Kozan Emaki). According to the scroll, both silver and gold were taken from the same mine. In the absence of Japanese historical sources, I am indebted to Angus Waycott’s Sado: Japan’s Island in Exile, a charming journal of his eight-day hike around the island, in which he describes the local geography, flora, and fauna, and gives brief accounts of the island’s history.
