A Tale of False Fortunes (15 page)

What a stroke of good fortune that he had been able to hold the empress in his arms and walk through the flames, thereby thwarting the plans of a villain who had very nearly succeeded in robbing her of her life. Her lissome form was visible beneath layered robes so heavily scented as to make one swoon; she was breathing deeply, and the sensation of her robust, pulsating life almost made Yukikuni forget his own fear of death. Even if he had fallen into the flames as he carried the empress, his dying thoughts would have been ones of ecstasy, like the bliss of being greeted into paradise by a bodhisattva.

It was only after Yukikuni had accompanied the empress’ cart to the mansion of her maternal uncle, Takashina no Akinobu, and returned later in the evening that he learned Kureha was alive and safe. As soon as he finally had time to breathe, remorse for having abandoned Kureha began to weigh on him
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heavily. He stood at the bottom of the stairs to the main building, eyes bloodshot from soot, staring reproachfully at the first rays of the early morning sky.

The ladies-in-waiting were being sent off in carts one after another. They were disheveled, their hair pulled back behind their ears, and they were walking with the hems of their divided skirts pulled up. Yukikuni lacked the courage to look for Kureha among the sooty, unrecognizable figures descending the stairs.

“Yukikuni!” At that voice, he turned his vacant stare to the top of the stairs. There stood Kureha, the left shoulder of her robe singed to a yellowish brown, her hair in specter-like disarray, looking down on him as silently as a spider.

“Oh, Kureha! Thank goodness you’re alive!” Yukikuni shouted out, and was about to ascend the stairs, but he was repelled by her stillness and the forbidding look in her eyes.

“Yukikuni, I know very well what your feelings are. Please consider our relationship ended as of this moment.” So saying, she turned her back and disappeared quietly within the bamboo blinds. Never had the view of Kureha with her back turned to him projected such a majestic air. With one foot on the stairs, as if pinned in place, Yukikuni looked at her retreating figure, which was brimming with a steady anger.

That day, Yukikuni was summoned to Michinaga’s mansion, where he was praised highly for taking expedient measures to save the empress. “If anything had happened to the empress, especially following Korechika’s and Takaie’s exile, I wouldn’t have been able to face his majesty.” Michinaga ordered Yukikuni thereafter to continue maintaining a keen watch over the safety and welfare of the empress.

Kureha continued to serve at the empress’ side as before. In spite of Yukikuni’s having saved the empress at the moment when life and death hung in the balance, the sorrow and bitterness of his having paid no heed to her own desperate screams hardened into something that lay coiled in her heart like a black serpent.

Yukikuni himself was deeply ashamed of his callous behavior toward Kureha and made no attempt to approach her again.

Since the day he had set eyes on the empress, Kureha seemed
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like a faint star next to the moon, and as long as she was safe and sound, he did not experience such unbearable grief at breaking relations with her. For Kureha, however, Yukikuni was the first man with whom she had been intimate, and she had believed unquestioningly in his devotion. The shock that night was thus all the more cruel. She tried to reconsider, thinking that she ought actually to be able to feel a selfless joy in the fact that her lover risked his life to save her beloved mistress. And yet her bitterness toward Yukikuni only deepened. A side effect of those feelings was an occasional irrational envy toward the empress whom she had attended with such care. It was the envy toward a woman who had stolen her man’s heart.

The empress was not in the least aware of the fierce flame of malice that was growing daily within Kureha and continued to lavish affection on her and to trust her implicitly.

Even the adversity of having been forcibly separated from her blood relations, of her house burning down, and of losing her mother to illness in the tenth month of that year did not in the least diminish the empress’ grace and refinement. On the sixteenth day of the twelfth month of that year, Princess Shûshi was safely brought into the world.

The one most disappointed that the child was not a prince was the empress’ grandfather, Naritada, but there is no doubt that the one most relieved was Michinaga. He had been fervently praying that Empress Teishi would not give birth to a son before his own eldest daughter, Shòshi, could be presented at court as a lady-in-waiting.

A Tale of Flowering Fortunes
gives the following description: She gave birth to a Princess. At first she thought that, had the choice been hers, it would have been so promising and joyous to have borne a son, yet when she reflected further on the unpleasant situation at court, she realized how pleased she was. At the orders of His Majesty, Ukon no Naishi went to assist in the bathing ceremonies. The situation being what it was, she was nervous and apprehensive, but she honored the imperial command and went.

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From the description of the dread of Ukon no Naishi, lady-in-waiting in attendance to the emperor himself, to go to the empress and assist in the bathing ceremonies of the new princess because “the situation being what it was, she was nervous and apprehensive,” one can see how the influence of Regent Michinaga extended even to those close to his majesty. This passage betrays the real intentions of its author to try to present the household of the Buddha-Hall lord (Michinaga) as the epitome of all virtues. From the fact that even a description written by an insider loyal to Michinaga did not gloss over the matter, it would appear that the court did not bother itself much with expenses related to the birth of the first princess.

Nevertheless, with the birth of the princess, the emperor’s feelings of love for the empress grew even stronger. In spite of her having cut her hair as a gesture of renouncing the world, in the sixth month of the following year she returned to court with the princess and renewed her intimacy with the emperor.

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The description in
A Tale of Flowering Fortunes
implies that it was at the urging of her grandfather, Takashina no Naritada, that Empress Teishi resolved to take the little princess and return to the imperial palace.

Naritada mourned the loss of his daughter, Kishi, and the grandsons on whom he had so counted, Korechika and Takaie, were in exile. Though he was experiencing disappointment as only an old man can, he nevertheless remained resolute in his prayers for the revival of his family’s fortunes. He was disappointed that Empress Teishi’s first child was a princess, but took comfort in the fact that no other child had been born to the emperor by any of his ladies-in-waiting and that, as long as the emperor and empress had an intimate relationship, a prince was certain to be born eventually. He spurred on the reluctant empress, insisting that the incantations and prayers he had been offering were already showing signs of efficacy. Of course, Naritada’s urging did not seem entirely unreasonable, but the empress’ decision to return to the palace and present herself to the emperor after more than a year’s absence—and in spite of having renounced the world by cutting her hair—was not solely the result of her grandfather’s advice; the account in
A Tale of
False Fortunes
suggests that her love for the emperor helped her to bury her shame. There it is recorded:
His Majesty was extremely vexed that the Empress showed
no interest in returning to court. He no longer had the
ladies then serving in the Shòkòden and Kokiden Palaces
attend him in the evenings, nor did he join them in any of
their splendid diversions. When it grew dark, he would
quickly retreat to his evening quarters, where he would
spend the night writing letters to the Empress and pining
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for her. When the Lord Regent saw this, he found it disturbing and reported it to the Empress Dowager.

Michinaga’s real intention was to use the empress’ renunciation of the world as an excellent opportunity to prevent the revival of her intimacy with the emperor. No matter how much the emperor yearned for his consort and recommended that she return to court, Michinaga erected a barrier, insisting that it would be an affront to the gods and the buddhas for anyone who had once become a nun to resume her former status as empress. There was no one at court who would venture to carry out the emperor’s wishes in the face of Michinaga’s then solid authority.

Even compared with other emperors, he was not at all
lacking. Beginning with his features and his disposition,
he was in all things felicitously endowed, and therefore
people served him with devotion, saying that a degenerate
age did not deserve to have such a ruler.

As this description in
A Tale of False Fortunes
indicates, Emperor Ichijò was second only to Emperor Murakami as a young aristocrat of upright character. Moreover, since he was the favorite son of the Higashisanjò empress dowager, Michinaga’s benefactress, even the regent was unable to manipulate the position of the throne. What Michinaga desired was that Empress Teishi not give birth to a male heir before his eldest daughter reached the appropriate age to be introduced at court as an imperial consort and bear the emperor’s son.

The empress dowager also sensed what Michinaga’s intentions were, and for a time likewise recommended that Empress Teishi not return to court with the new princess. One day, however, she was surprised to see how emaciated the emperor looked.

After the emperor’s briefing on affairs of state, the empress dowager met with him in the upper quarters of the Kokiden Palace. She looked with pity on his face, on his downcast eyes set above wan, gaunt cheeks. “I have been relieved to hear that
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you were not ill, but you do not seem to be in good spirits.

What is wrong? It saddens me to see you like this; I have no one to rely on but your majesty.”

Upon hearing this, the emperor cast his eyes down even further, then raised them brimming with tears. “Mother, I did not want to say this as long as you are alive, but . . . somehow I feel depressed, and I can’t be certain that I won’t precede you in death. . . . I’m thinking that perhaps the time has come that I should abdicate the throne to my cousin, the crown prince.” Even as he was speaking, he wiped with his sleeve the tears that were trickling down his face.

“Well, now, what nonsense you speak! Surely no one will agree to the abdication of someone in the prime of his life, like you. But, if something is not to your liking, why hesitate to confide in your mother? If you just talk about it, I shall see to it that your mind is put at ease. . . .” As the empress dowager spoke, she became aware that something pensive and listless at the depths of the emperor’s heart was projecting itself onto her.

“What you really wish to talk about is the empress, isn’t it? I shall see to it that the empress is reinstated at court, along with the little princess, so you mustn’t speak of such things as abdication.”

Having thus remonstrated with the emperor, the empress dowager summoned Michinaga and explained that if they did not now install the empress at court the emperor might decide to abdicate, and that even if he did not go that far, it would be a matter of grave concern if he should ruin his health. She urged him therefore to reinstate the empress at court.

Michinaga began to take positive steps to reinstate the empress, though he was secretly reluctant to do so. At the urging both of the empress dowager and Michinaga—and particularly moved by a letter from the emperor declaring his love for her—the empress finally resolved to return.

The empress had been absent from court for rather a long time, and she had to arrange for things in a manner that would not invite derision: suitable apparel for her ladies-in-waiting, and the rites for the new princess’ presentation. The empress had lost any influential backing; there was, in fact, no one to
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collect for her the income that ought to be due an imperial consort—income that would enable her to provide such necessities.

Things did not proceed to her satisfaction. She had silk and figured cloth brought in from the manors and tried to make do with it.

When the day arrived, Michinaga summoned all of the court officials and ordered them to arrange themselves in a procession suitable to receive the empress. A person close to the regent remarked, “It is unbecoming for one who has renounced the world to be reinstated at court. Certainly there is no need for you to show such solicitousness in these matters. . . .” But Michinaga replied, “No, we mustn’t try his majesty’s feelings further.” He received Teishi with all the solemnity he had formerly shown her. People praised his handling of things, saying,

“What a broad-minded, generous man he is!” It was only Imperial Police Yukikuni, following the procession as the one chosen to guard the empress, who saw through to Michinaga’s inward displeasure and sensed the danger that lay ahead for her highness.

The evening of the empress’ return to court are described in
A Tale of False Fortunes
in roughly the following manner.

Upon their arrival at court, it was the empress dowager who came to meet them first of all. “At last, we are able to meet,” she said as she took the little princess into her arms. She saw how very charming and chubby the little child was and smiled with pity, thinking, “If only the times were better.” The little princess was not at all shy of the unfamiliar woman, and babbled endearingly. The empress dowager was convinced that even this infant recognized blood relationship.

In view of all that had happened since the previous year, the empress maintained a certain reserve. As the empress dowager addressed her and looked on her countenance for the first time in a long time, she did not wonder that his majesty should consider her quite without equal.