Shike, p.68
Shike, page 68
I am seeking music, poetry and calligraphy masters for my grandson. There was a time when it would have been impossible to find a first-rate teacher of any art in Kamakura, but now that the centre of power is here, accomplished men are drawn to the north as bees to a flower. My cousin Munetoki has agreed to teach Sametono the martial arts. And, of course, the most important part of his education is that which he receives from Eisen.
Another friend we often see is Moko. He has two children now, a thirteen-year-old son named Sakagura, who was born the year we all left for China, and a new baby girl. He is on the way to the five-or was it six?-children he claimed when Jebu and I first met him. His shipbuilding trade, he says, is prospering. Whenever he comes to call, the first question we ask each other is, "Do you have any news of Jebu?" Neither one of us ever does, and we shake our heads together in disappointment. If Jebu is still alive he is surely with Yukio, sharing his fate.
-Fifth Month, twenty-first day
YEAR OF THE SHEEP
At the beginning of summer, to celebrate the destruction of Yukio and his acquisition of new powers, Hideyori gave a great feast at the Shogunal castle in Kamakura. Over three hundred kenin, the highest ranking samurai, filled the reception hall of the castle. Most of the guests sat at low individual tables enjoying the delicacies Hideyori had selected for the occasion. While their costumes were less elaborate and confining than the dress of the Imperial Court, these new masters of the Sunrise Land wore equally fine materials, no less handsomely adorned. The treasures that had gradually been accumulating in Hideyori's castle, gold and silver drinking vessels, T'ang dynasty porcelain, ebony and rosewood tables, statuettes and vases of jade and ivory, ancient scrolls on which Buddhist verses were painted in gold leaf, all were brought out to decorate the hall. Eive groups of musicians from aristocratic families played in turn, so that there was continuous music.
Hideyori's most important vassals sat with him on a dais at the north end of the hall under a canopy of plum-coloured silk. Among them were the heads of the powerful Shima clan, the brothers Bokuden and Ryuichi, as well as Ryuichi's son, the strapping young Munetoki. With them sat the chieftains of the Ashikaga, the Hiraga, the Wada and the Miura clans. Taniko knelt just behind Hideyori, silently pouring sake and serving morsels of vegetable and fish and rice to the Shogun.
Hideyori's eyes tonight were bright and beady, like those of a crow that has just captured a tender bit of meat. He wore a black ceremonial robe and a tall black cap of lacquered silk. Midway through the banquet he clapped his hands for attention, and the hum of conversation and the clatter of eating and drinking in the hall died away. The musicians fell silent.
"I have a special treat for all my guests now," Hideyori announced to the hall at large. "Here is a woman reputed to be the greatest dancer in the Sunrise Land. She comes to us from the Court at Heian Kyo, where she gave much delight to our new Son of Heaven, Emperor Kamayama, as well as to His Imperial Majesty's most honoured grandfather, the Retired Emperor. As well as others who were recently at the Court."
There were a few chuckles in the hall from those who realized who the lady was and what Hideyori meant by "others at the Court." Taniko sensed what was about to happen, but somehow she had not thought Hideyori would stage this kind of public spectacle.
"In return for our hospitality this lady has agreed to entertain us," said Hideyori, pleased with himself. "Noble lords of the Bakufu, I present the Lady Shizumi."
The doors at one end of the hall slid back and a tiny figure was revealed in the gallery leading from the women's house of Hideyori's castle. Taniko's first sight of Shizumi wrung her heart. Yukio's mistress was a beautiful young woman with huge dark eyes and red lips. Her long black hair hung unbound past her shoulders, black locks spreading protectively over her small breasts. She held herself very straight in a trailing robe of pure white silk, tied by a white sash. She is far more lovely than I was at her age, Taniko thought admiringly.
She had heard Yukio's mistress was pregnant. There was no sign of it, but it was still cruel to put her through this ordeal.
Taking small steps, her eyes cast down, Shizumi moved into an open space in the centre of the hall.
"Why are you wearing the colour of mourning?" Hideyori demanded. "I told you to put on your finest gown."
"Please forgive me, my lord," Shizumi said. "This is my best gown." She spoke softly, respectfully, but there was a strength in her voice that was surprising, coming from such a fragile-looking body.
Six musicians in Court dress with drums, bells, woodwinds and lutes glided from the gallery and seated themselves near the dais. Shizumi looked questioningly at Hideyori, and he nodded brusquely. She bowed to the musicians, drew an ivory fan from her sleeve and spread it open. Hideyori sat back with a smile, his hands resting on his knees. To force Yukio's mistress to entertain him and his guests made his triumph complete.
The first notes the musicians struck were slow, solemn, booming, like the tolling of a temple bell. Taniko realized at once that Shizumi's choice of white robes was no accident. Her dance was as mournful as her white raiment. Her measured steps, the bending of her body like bamboo in the wind, the horizontal rippling of her arms and the droop of her fan said that all things pass, happiness turns to sadness, each of us is alone at last. This was not what these leaders of samurai wanted to hear tonight, but it was a measure of Shizumi's talent as a dancer that she changed the mood of the gathering. Every head was still, every eye fixed on the flowing white figure in the centre of the hall. In the eye of many a scarred old eastern warrior there stood a tear. The woman in white was a cherry blossom, blown from the bough by the wind, fluttering to the ground. White, those watching recalled, was the colour of the Muratomo. One day, the dance whispered, even the victorious banner of the White Dragon must fall. The music ended with the same slow, ringing notes that began it. When Shizumi was done, she sank gracefully to the floor. There was no cheering, no applause, only a sigh that rustled around the hall like the wind in autumn leaves. A far greater tribute, Taniko thought.
Hideyori alone was displeased. He gnawed at his moustache, frowning angrily.
"That dance was not suitable for this occasion," he growled. "Nevertheless, it was exquisite," Shima Ryuichi said gently. Tani ko's respect and love for her uncle rose. He had indeed grown braver since the days when he trembled before Sogamori in Heian Kyo. Hi deyori threw an irritated glance at him, then turned back to Shizumi. "Sing something for us now. Something more cheerful." "I will sing of love, my lord."
"Proceed." Hideyori smiled thinly.
Shizumi nodded to the musicians. She sang in a voice that was rich and sad and husky, her red lips forming a circle on certain words, as if she were offering kisses to one who was not there.
The memories of love settle like snow
That drifts down from the mist on Hiei's crest, As I sit alone and the day grows dark. Ah, how I grieve for the beauty we lost.
In the cloudland under a distant sky
He lays his head beneath a snow-capped pine. That strange land is an ill place for my love. Ah, how I grieve for the beauty we lost.
Amazing, thought Taniko. What courage this young woman has. Hideyori tries to use her to celebrate his victory over Yukio, and she seizes the moment to proclaim that she still loves Yukio and mourns for him.
In his mansion our pillows still remain Side by side, though we are a world apart, And I will not see him before I die.
Ah, how I grieve for the beauty we lost.
"Enough!" Hideyori shouted. He sprang up, his face suffused with anger. The musicians faltered to a stop. The hall was utterly silent as the guests stared, amazed, at the Shogun. Yukio, Taniko thought, you have triumphed over your brother even now.
"How dare you sing such a song here in my home," Hideyori raged. "How dare you sing of your illicit love for a rebel and a traitor." His fingers twitched on the dragon-adorned hilt of the heirloom sword Higekiri that hung in a jewelled scabbard at his belt.
"My lord, it is the only love I know," Shizumi said quietly. She stood with bowed head, hands folded before her. She is ready to accept anything, Taniko thought. If he kills her, she will die happily.
Taniko was on her feet. "My lord." She gripped Hideyori's sword arm with all her strength. He whirled on her, his eyes so wild with fury that he seemed not to see her.
"Take a moment to think," Taniko whispered insistently. "Remember who you are and where you are. You would disgrace yourself if you ruined your feast by murdering this child. Everyone would say that you made her the victim of anger because you could not find Yukio." They stood, eyes locked, while Taniko asked herself, what am I doing, why am I standing here? I have forgotten myself as much as he has.
The rage faded from Hideyori's eyes, and a look of sullen anger replaced it. "She will be punished."
"She must not be punished," said Taniko firmly, wondering at her own temerity. "She has suffered enough and deserves no punishment. What is she but a helpless prize of war? You dragged her before your guests and forced her to sing, and she had the bravery to sing of her love. If you punish bravery, my lord, what kind of samurai are you? What this girl has done tonight will be remembered. When the tale is told, will you be spoken of as the cruel lord who rewarded her fidelity with death?" They both turned and looked down at Shizumi. The young woman had thrown her head back and was staring, face flushed and eyes burning with a pure fire, directly at Hideyori.
"Get her out of my sight," Hideyori choked.
"I will, my lord." Hiding her hands in her sleeves to conceal their trembling, Taniko stepped down from the dais and went to Shizumi. Taking the young dancer's arm, she led her through the silent crowd towards the gallery entrance. What have I done? Taniko thought. Why did I risk Hideyori's rage when I have been so careful with him all these years? I must be mad.
Her body went ice-cold as she realized the full enormity of her action-publicly thwarting Hideyori's wrath-but she also felt a satisfaction with herself that she had rarely known before. The feeling swelled, as they came to the doorway, to an exaltation almost like satori. She had acted immediately, impulsively, without a moment's consideration. It was Zen that had inspired her to do this. Those hours of meditation followed by gruelling sessions with Eisen in which he demanded an instant response to the absurd questions he asked her-this training made it possible for her to act as she had tonight. The consequences, for herself, for Sametono, for this girl, for everyone close to her, might be dreadful, but she could hear Eisen's voice saying, "When you do what you know you should do, the results do not matter."
But it was not just Eisen's influence. She remembered that long ago she had intervened to help a woman threatened by a tyrant. The woman had been the Lady Akimi, Yukio's mother. Now Shizumi was carrying Yukio's child. Strange are the meshings of karma, she thought.
Tonight I, a helpless woman, stood before the most powerful man in the land and defied his wrath to protect this girl beside me. Helpless? I am not so helpless, after all. As the two women walked together into the silence outside Hideyori's hall, Taniko's flesh tingled with excitement and the blood pulsed in her head, a pounding rhythm, like the beating of a taiko drum.
Chapter Twenty-One
Six severed heads impaled on tall poles stood out dark against the cloudy sky. At first, climbing a hill, Jebu and the men with him saw only the heads, small black ovals far away. Then, when they reached the top of the hill, they saw the fort with its brown palisade, on a ridge still half a day's walking and climbing from where they were. They could see birds swooping and darting around the heads and hear their distant cries as they picked away the remaining morsels of flesh.
Yesterday, in the foothills of these mountains on the north-west coast of Honshu, Jebu and Yukio and their men had met a party of traders coming down from Oshu, Yukio's destination. The traders told them that the soldiers in the fort at Ataka had executed six monks travelling north on suspicion that they were followers of Muratomo no Yukio attempting to escape from the Shogun's wrath.
"The Shogun is turning the country upside down to find his fugitive brother," said the leader of the trading party. "I advise you, holy ones, to postpone your journey and turn back here, rather than try to get past the barrier forts just now. The soldiers would rather lop off a few innocent heads than let any of the Shogun's enemies through by accident. Of course, you may have business in the north that is worth the risk of your lives." The trader's narrowed eyes roved shrewdly over Yukio and Jebu and the eleven men with them. What he saw, Jebu hoped, was a party of yamabushi, Buddhist mountain monks. All of them had shaved heads and wore saffron robes and torn quilted coats to keep out the cold of the Tenth Month, whose teeth grew sharper than a wolf's as they worked their way north.
"Buddha will watch over us," Jebu replied piously to the trader. With his moustache and hair shaved off, only his height and his grey eyes might give him away. "If our time comes, we are not afraid to die as long as we are fulfilling our duty."
"Buddha did not watch over the six monks who died this morning, and they were afraid to die," said the trader. "All their prayers availed them not. They begged for their lives. You seem braver. More like a samurai than a monk." Again he cast that thoughtful look at Jebu and his men.
Jebu laughed. "I am no samurai, honoured sir, I assure you."
The trader shrugged. "Who you are is no business of mine. I wish Lord Yukio no harm. On the other hand, it will be safer to travel when the Shogun's will prevails everywhere. Lord Hideyori is bringing us peace."
Now Yukio and Jebu studied the fort that blocked their road to Oshu. It stood at the high point of a pass between two purple-black crags dusted with snow that towered like pagodas built by giants.
"Not far from here is Tonamiyama, where we first led the Mongols into battle against the Takashi," Yukio said.
"We could try to avoid this fort," said Jebu, his mind fully in the present as he followed the winding of the thread-like path through pines and boulders up to the entrance of the fort. "We could climb over the peaks or work our way around them to the east or the west."
"It would take too long," said Yukio. "We do not have enough provisions, and there is no food in the mountains. Besides, there are other forts to the east and the west."
The Yukio who had led the attack at Ichinotani would leap over these mountains like a deer, Jebu thought. "Better to go hungry for a few days than lose our heads," he suggested.
"Remember what the trader told us yesterday," Yukio said. "If I die it will bring peace to the realm. Even if it does not, my sufferings will be over."
The despair that had come over Yukio in Heian Kyo when he first realized that his brother had turned against him had grown deeper with each downward turn of his fortunes. Increasingly, Jebu was making plans and decisions for him. It was Jebu who found a Zinja monastery for them to hide in after the shipwreck in Shimonoseki Strait. The Zinja were willing to help Yukio. Though they had supported the Muratomo in the War of the Dragons, Hideyori had begun to harass and threaten them of late. While at the monastery Yukio had learned, to his great anguish, that the samurai to whom he had entrusted Shizumi had betrayed him at the first opportunity and had delivered her to Hideyori's men. The thought had driven Yukio into a fit of wild weeping.
With only a few followers remaining, Yukio had no alternative but to go into hiding. Though few would risk open resistance to Hideyori, there was widespread "sympathy for the lieutenant," as people phrased it, remembering the title Hideyori had begrudged Yukio. Eor two years Yukio and his men had managed to move in disguise from one refuge to another, finding shelter in temples, the castles of friendly samurai, and the homes of commoners. Hideyori launched the greatest manhunt in the history of the Sacred Islands, sending the armies of the Bakufu into every accessible corner of the realm, conducting a house-to-house search of the capital, and even threatening old Go-Shirakawa and young Kameyama with "certain untoward eventualities" if they did not co-operate wholeheartedly. Hideyori used the supposed threat of rebellion as a pretext for stamping out all potential resistance to the new government he was establishing. Yukio's well-wishers were becoming increasingly reluctant to help him. The only place left for him was the far northern land of Oshu, so remote and powerful as to be almost a kingdom in its own right.
Now Jebu and Yukio stood on a mountain-top in Kaga province facing a barrier fort which blocked the pass through the mountains north of them. Their men, unarmed and shaven-headed, sat down along the narrow path, part of the Hokurikudo Road, to rest. Young Shenzo Totomi, who was dressed as their porter, knelt and untied the gilt chest, a portable Buddhist altar, which he had been carrying on his back. Despite Yukio's declining of his offer of help, General Shenzo's son had not hesitated to join those rallying around Yukio when he broke openly with Hideyori. Now he set the altar on its four legs beside Yukio.
"Only with my death will this unnecessary killing stop," said Yukio, looking at the six heads on the distant poles.
Shenzo Totomi's eyes gleamed like a young tiger's. "Any man who dies because of you, my lord, dies well."
Jebu said, "Do you really believe, Yukio, that your death, or any man's death, will put an end to this kind of killing? You, like thousands of others, are deceived by Hideyori's protestations that just one more death is needed for peace. If you were dead, Hideyori would find other necessary murders. In time other warriors will arise to challenge him. When he dies, new contenders will struggle for the power he has built. Stop imagining that you could sacrifice your life to bring peace. Your duty is to try and save yourself."
Eor the first time in months a merry light appeared in Yukio's eye. "Disguise you as a Buddhist monk and at once you begin to prate like one. What must we do, then, 0 holy one?"
"Since you insist on it, we will go through the fort rather than around it," said Jebu. "Perhaps the very innocence of that unfortunate group of monks who preceded us aroused suspicion, and we will be more convincing because we are more careful." He turned and addressed the group. "If any of you have weapons, rid yourselves of them now. They would give us away if we are searched, and they would be useless to us in that fort. We will be greatly outnumbered." Reluctantly, some of the men drew daggers from under their saffron robes and tossed them into the cedars that grew thickly down the hillside. Jebu turned back to Yukio. "Yukio-san, I want you to trade places and clothes with Shenzo Totomi."
