The Heike Story (68 page)

"Yes, that's exactly it," Tokiko agreed.

"You might encourage him to be a little more religious. Kiyomori's failing is his habit of belittling people's beliefs—that air of not fearing anything."

The more he touched on her husband's failing, the more did Tokiko come to admire the ex-Emperor. By the time she was ready to leave, Goshirakawa had discovered something about Tokiko's tastes and presented her with a length or fabric, rare and beautiful, and begged her to repeat her visit.

That same evening Bamboku arrived at the rose court and found Kiyomori already there with Michiyoshi, the pirate chief, who a year ago was installed at Rokuhara as Kiyomori's retainer.

"It is finished, my lord," Michiyoshi said, unfolding a large chart and placing it before Kiyomori. Parts of the map—the coastline and ports of China—were purely conjectural; the routes through the Inland Sea were also marked.

Kiyomori bent over the chart eagerly. "This?—Come up closer, Bamboku and examine it for yourself."

"Michiyoshi, which port in China did you trade with?"

"There was no one port. Everything depended on the wind and tide."

"What about the Inland Sea?"

"I've never been there, as it has no good harbors."

Kiyomori indicated four or five points on the map. "What about these?"

"They're barely large enough for fishing-boats and small craft to anchor in."

"Farther out, then?"

"The currents outside the harbors are treacherous. If ships could get into Kumano Bay, there would be good natural harbors among the islands there. In any case, the large sailing vessels of the Chinese wouldn't fit in even there."

"A pity—" Kiyomori sighed, looking up. "Five hundred years ago when our envoys went to the T'ang Court, the treasures of China flowed into our land. Those were glorious days! . . ."

"Better than now?"

"Certainly. You must think it strange if I say so, but I do believe that our country was more flourishing five hundred years ago, our culture more brilliant, our religious teachers wiser, more zealous, and that the people enjoyed more peace. It's strange that we've made no progress. We've stagnated for five hundred years."

"What do you suppose is the reason?"

"We've let ourselves flounder in a mire. The channels for fresh influences are clogged up—have been for centuries, ever since the throne stopped sending embassies to the T'ang Court. What do you think, Red-Nose?" Kiyomori laughed and quickly corrected himself: "Bamboku, I mean. Now, Warden of the Kamo River, don't be content with your title. You're to administer one of the five ports on the Inland Sea and will be sending out ship after ship to China, you know."

"Yes, I'll stake my entire fortune on that."

"When we start—just which port will be the first?" Kiyomori asked.

"What about the port of Kanzaki at the mouth of the river?"

"Not good because of the sandbars."

"Muro?"

"Too narrow."

"Well then, which?"

"Owada (Kobй). I've sailed past it many a time as a boy. My father's fiefs were along the coast there. My own are there, too, and I always pass Owada by ship. . . . And every time we try to land, the high winds and the poor harbor at Owada give us much trouble. Even as a boy I used to wonder what could be done about the harbor there."

Bamboku stared at Kiyomori in surprise. "Eh, you had such thoughts since you were a boy?"

"Hmm . . . since my twenties, because, Bamboku, just think—" Kiyomori addressed Red-Nose with unaccustomed seriousness—"it's only now that I can give you a court rank—something I would never have believed possible a few years back. And who was Kiyomori when he was young? A warrior, despised by the aristocrats! A watch-dog and the miserable offspring of a Heike. . . . How could I have known then what the future held for me? I was young—oppressed, beaten down, though determined to live."

"Yes, I remember those days."

"Yes, you'd remember, Bamboku. You used to be a nobody at Court, too. And there was no chance for youthful hopes or ambitions to grow, except by turning rebel or brigand. . . . That's why, whenever I sailed past Owada with my father, I used to dream of a day when I would slice away part of that hill, and see a whole fleet at anchor in that harbor, and the port a great trading center to which all the ships of China would come. That's what I dreamed of as I stared out at the sea."

Red-Nose, who listened intently, said: "I see I was mistaken. I thought it was a wild plan that you'd hit on lately."

"No, it's been with me for twenty years. Dream dreams while you're young, Bamboku. Mine, as you can see, are beginning to take shape. This is happiness, unbearable happiness for me. ... I suppose the rest of you also thought it was just a wild scheme?"

Kiyomori rarely reminisced at such length; now he was flushed to the ears, intoxicated by his schemes. Bamboku, recalling the Kiyomori of a year ago—his infatuation with Tokiwa —could hardly believe that he was looking at the same man. Kiyomori folded up the chart as servants began carrying in wine and trays of food; other male members of the household soon joined them for the drinking and the entertainment that followed.

Kiyomori drained cup after cup, watching the dancing-girls through a rosy haze; to him the throbbing hand-drums sounded like the pulsing of the sea.

A carriage meanwhile rolled in noiselessly by the gate, and Tokiko staggered from it with Tokuko fast asleep in her arms.

Kiyomori left the dancers and singing behind him as he made his way along a gallery to Tokiko's room. Her husband was in an unusually amiable mood and not only because he had been drinking, Tokiko noted. More sprightly herself than usual, she was eager to recount every detail of the day's happenings.

Kiyomori's first question was: "How was the young Prince?"

"He is thriving, and looks so much like his father."

"Mm. . . . How did you find Shigeko?"

"Her highness was in good health, too." Tokiko corrected, with a disarming smile for Kiyomori.

"Did you speak long with his majesty? Did he say anything?" Kiyomori next asked.

"Yes, he was most gracious and I felt deeply honored by the concern with which he inquired after our family and talked about you."

“…”

Kiyomori studied the expression on Tokiko's face as she talked. He realized that the abdicated monarch was doing his utmost to win over Kiyomori and all the Heike in the way of military support. Tokiko, however, chattered on endlessly about his majesty's charm, his gentleness, his kindness.

Kiyomori finally suppressed a yawn. "I'm glad you enjoyed your day," he said, "it does you good to get out. A court conference tomorrow, too, so I'll have to leave early," he said, and rose to go.

"Oh, stay and talk a little longer," Tokiko begged.

"Still more to tell me?"

"Yes, I was dozing in the carriage on my way home and had a most extraordinary dream."

"Dream?"

"It may not have been a dream. . . ."

"What nonsense!"

"Dream or not, it was most extraordinary. It happened just as we were coming to Gojo Bridge. Tokuko was asleep in my lap and I must have fallen asleep watching her, for suddenly it seemed as though the carriage were rolling through the clouds; there was no sound whatever of wheels, but instead I heard the pounding of waves. ... I looked and all about me was the sea, over which I seemed to be flying. I wondered where I was being taken and cried out in my sleep, and what do you think?—instead of oxen, I saw a pair of foxes trotting before the carriage! And then the outlines of an island, beautiful as the peaks of paradise took shape before my eyes; a great rainbow spanned the skies and a voice sounded about me—'Itsuku-shima—Itsuku-shima,' it said. Then the foxes vanished, and the roaring of waves and the strains of a harp woke me."

"You woke up?"

"And even when I was fully awake, I could still hear music and a voice in the clouds saying: 'Itsuku-shima.' I can hear it even now! It was like that in the carriage coming home."

"Can you explain the dream?"

"Do you remember that time—you were thirty then, I think —you needed foxskins for your armor and went hunting? It was that year after the Shrine affair and you had to stay away from Court."

"Oh, yes, I do remember that."

"Remember how you took pity on those foxes and wouldn't shoot them and came home empty-handed?"

"How well you've remembered all that!"

"I never told you this, but ever since that time I've kept the lute Shinzei sent you in our shrine to the Goddess of Music, because her messengers are foxes and the lute her favorite instrument."

"That was an excellent idea of yours. It's not pleasant to remember Shinzei, though I'm sure that his spirit is pleased by your offering to the goddess."

". . . So my dream is, I think, a sign that the foxes you spared are watching over our house. Don't you think that the goddess's messengers came to remind us that we should sometimes pay our respects to the clan god of the Heike at Itsuku-shima?"

"Is our clan god enshrined at Itsuku-shima?"

"So your stepmother says. Your grandfather as well as your father, whose fiefs were there, went several times in their lifetime to worship at Itsuku-shima."

"Yes, you're quite right. That was so."

"In spite of two wars, we've had no misfortunes to speak of—in fact, not only has everything gone well, but Shigeko is now the mother of a prince, and I can't believe that this is pure chance. I wish you would show some reverence for the gods and, like your father, occasionally make a pilgrimage to our clan shrine."

"Hmm. . . . You mean Itsuku-shima?"

"Yes, Itsuku-shima."

"Yes, I'll try to get down there this year.'

Kiyomori, who usually became truculent whenever his stepmother reproved him for his lack of piety, surprised Tokiko by his quick acquiescence.

"You really mean it?" Tokiko asked skeptically.

Kiyomori could not help laughing at the expression on Tokiko's face. He saw through her completely, but he was willing at times to play at being the obtuse husband by agreeing to whatever she said. Yes, he believed her about the dream; he would do whatsoever the ex-Emperor wished; he would try to be a loyal subject and a good husband. Everything was to be as she said.

"No, I won't make fun of religious beliefs, and I promise to go on a pilgrimage to Itsuku-shima this year without fail. I promise it—no, I'll swear to it here."

ASATORI THE PHYSICIAN

Asatori left Momokawa's house and cheerfully made his way down the hill. It was a year since he had taken Mongaku's letter to the physician Momokawa and been accepted as a disciple. There were several others studying under Momokawa, but Asatori's zeal and the experience he gained from tending the many sick he found in the slums had helped him in his studies—dissection, physiology, herbal knowledge, and the other rudiments of medicine introduced from China. Had Asatori gone back to being a court musician, his calling would have given him honor and security, but in the life he had chosen, the life of poverty among the destitute, he found a satisfaction unknown to him at the Court. Half starved most of the time, something in his new life gave color to his thin cheeks.

All over the capital the paulownia trees once more were in bloom, and Asatori sighed as he looked up at them. From the time the paulownias shook down their purple flowers until autumn, epidemics swept through the districts of the poor. In some years they raged more fiercely than in others; he had just been reading of the dreaded dysentery, for which no remedy had yet been found, though its ravages were all too well known. Rich and poor alike were struck down by it, and the afflicted could do nothing but die until the plague spent itself. Thousands in the capital had died of it last year, until the first frosts came. Asatori prayed that the same would not happen again this year, for a third of the dwellers on the Street of the Ox-Dealers had been carried off by the last epidemic.

"Asuka, what are you doing here?" Asatori asked in astonishment as he came to Sixth Avenue. A paulownia was in full bloom by the pasture fence near the Street of the Ox-Dealers. A young girl waited for him under the tree.