Emperor of the Eight Islands: Book 1 in the Tale of Shikanoko (The Tale of Shikanoko series) (7 page)

He could find no fault in their upbringing. But how would he feel if their mother was betraying him? He recalled Sesshin’s words.
Your brother will be back in Matsutani and your children will be dead
.

This had become the usual behavior of warlords and warriors. Was it not how he had dealt with Akuzenji? Even now his men were clearing out the mountain fortress as though ridding it of vermin. If Akuzenji had children there none would remain alive. He felt a moment of futile regret, which he tried to put from him. He could not show any weakness, or he would be exploited by those he spared or by the others among whom he strove to be first, most important, most powerful. He would reap the benefit of his victory today and bestow the land and resources he gained as a reward to one or other of his men to bind them closer to him. He wondered as he did from time to time what his life would have been like if his father had agreed to his request to become a monk. He might have known greater peace and fewer regrets, he would have no suspicions of his wife or rage against those who sought to betray him, but he would not taste the incomparable elation of success or the restless anticipation of his next encounter with the new woman.

After they had finished eating, his wife told the maids to prepare the bedding and take the children away. When they were alone she encouraged Kiyoyori to lie down, and he saw that she wanted to lie alongside him and make love to him. But she was not the one he desired, and he felt ashamed of sleeping while his men were still out risking their lives.

“I think I will go to the shrine for a while,” he said. “I cannot come close to you when death and blood lie so heavy on me.”

“Whatever Lord Kiyoyori wishes,” she said, trying to hide her disappointment, but failing.

*   *   *

The priests were chanting, incense burned, and bells rang. Kiyoyori noticed a solitary figure kneeling at some distance from the shrine steps beneath the tall, shadowy cedar trees. He washed his hands and rinsed his mouth at the cistern. An attendant rushed forward with a mat for him to kneel on. After he had prayed for his victims’ souls he asked to have Shikanoko sent to him.

He spoke some words to comfort him. “I made arrangements for prayers to be offered. May their souls have a safe onward journey.”

“I cannot believe they are all dead,” the boy said in a low voice. “They are all dead and I am alive. Though perhaps it is your intention to send me to join them.”

“Tell me who you are and how you came to be with them, and then I will decide what to do with you.”

Shikanoko told him his story briefly, and when he had finished Kiyoyori said, “That is rather inconvenient, as your uncle is one of my chief allies. He swore allegiance to me and I confirmed him in the estate after you were presumed dead.”

“But Kumayama is mine,” Shikanoko replied.

“Nevertheless your uncle, Jiro no Sademasa, has been loyal to me. I cannot simply evict him in your favor.”

“Even though he tried to kill me?” Shikanoko said stubbornly.

“We have only your word for that. Your uncle’s version is you slipped and fell. In his opinion it was a result of your willful and impetuous character, and was an accident that would have happened sooner or later. Furthermore, why should I or anyone else believe you? You could be an imposter, put up to this claim by your bandit master. What proof do you have that you are Kazumaru?”

“People will recognize me. My men will know me.”

“Your men are quite happy with your uncle. Boys change in the year between sixteen and seventeen. The boy who disappeared was a child. I see before me a man with all the appearance of an outlaw.”

“So, you do intend to kill me?”

“I have not yet decided.”

The boy said nothing. He did not plead or argue and Kiyoyori liked him for that. He was disposed to spare him—good bowmen were always useful, and Shikanoko had possibly done him a favor by shooting down the werehawk.

“Was anything revealed in the divination?” he asked.

“They sent me away after the mask showed us the bird’s identity. There was another ritual to perform between Lady Tora and the master.”

Lady Tora.
So that was her name.

“What kind of ritual?” Kiyoyori said.

Shikanoko did not answer for a moment but shot a strange look at the lord as though their roles were reversed and Kiyoyori were the youth whose life hung in the balance.

“And just who is the so-called lady?” Kiyoyori asked.
A bandit’s woman
, he was thinking.
Mine by right of conquest.

“Lord Kiyoyori should be wary. Lady Tora is not what she seems.”

Night was falling and it had grown much colder. The wind had swung around to the north and dark rain clouds were slowly covering the sky. A sudden gust sent dead leaves swirling beneath the trees.

Kiyoyori stood. “Let us go and learn the results of the divination.”

He was seized by impatience and alarm that the “ritual” might be a euphemism for something unbearable—and so it was. When he strode into the room and saw the woman and Sesshin lying in disarray and realized what they had been doing, his rage was so great, he felt like killing them both. But Lady Tora smiled and said, “And now, lord, I am yours,” and prostrated herself before him as she had done before. The same lust erupted within him. He grabbed her hand and led her through the garden, where she seemed to fly behind him, so light was her hold on his. He took her to a building on the lakeshore, the summer pavilion.

Rain drove against the shutters. Drops fell through the flimsy roof, making the charcoal in the brazier smoke and hiss. Beneath the bearskin rugs Kiyoyori and Tora were remote in their own world. He had not lain with a woman for months; his wife no longer attracted him and he had been too preoccupied to seek pleasure elsewhere. Now he was possessed by the mindless lust of adolescence, the inexhaustible desire, yet it was more than lust; it was a passionate yearning to be completely absorbed by this woman, to surrender to her and let her take him to unimaginable destinations.

He had thought her the bandit’s woman, a prostitute, and when he had walked into the scholar’s room and saw that Sesshin, the old fox, had been making love to her, he had been angry but also strangely relieved. So she was a whore; he desired her, he would take her, and when he was tired of her, he would have her executed along with the boy. But when the night was beginning to fade into dawn and his desire was finally sated, she stroked his hair and sang quietly, one of the songs that were popular in the capital, and he felt he had found the other half of himself, that he would tire of his own body before he tired of her. He lay making plans for the future; he would build her a house and install her there as his second wife.

He foolishly did not consider that she might have her own plans.

8

AKIHIME

The eldest daughter of the Nishimi family was traditionally dedicated to the shrine of the All-Merciful Kannon at Rinrakuji to become a shrine maiden. The family was among the highest rank of the nobility, related to the Emperor. The current head of the household, Hidetake, was a close friend of the Crown Prince, Momozono, and his wife was wet nurse to the Crown Prince’s son, Yoshimori.

Hidetake had had two daughters born some ten years apart. The older one was called Akihime, the Autumn Princess, because she had been born in the autumn, the same month as now, when the maples were turning scarlet and the ginkgo tree by the gate dropped swathes of golden leaves. The younger one, born in winter, had died at birth. It was because of this that her mother had been able to nurse the young prince, the Emperor’s grandson.

Aki was fifteen years old, not particularly beautiful but lively and full of high spirits. In that autumn of her sixteenth year, suitors had begun to hover outside the house, wooing with poetry and music. Her mother both feared and hoped that one might find his way in. It was the custom of that time: if a man came three nights in a row and made love to the girl, it was considered a marriage. Aki had already made her vows of purity and she recoiled from the idea yet was drawn to it at the same time. Were the men invited inside or did they force their way in? Did the girl have any choice in the matter or did she simply submit?

“I won’t let anyone touch me,” she declared one morning when her mother was voicing her concerns. “You know my father has taught me how to defend myself.”

“You can hardly fight off a young nobleman with a sword,” her mother exclaimed. “That would be a terrible scandal.” Then she added with a sigh, “Sometimes we don’t want to defend ourselves. Men can be very persistent. But at least if that happened we could keep you at home.”

Aki could see her mother was close to tears. “You will still have Yoshimori, and Kai, who is like a daughter to you.”

They both looked over to the veranda, where Kai was playing with Yoshimori. They had been born on the same day and were inseparable friends. Yoshimori was in his seventh year. He was an intelligent child, popular with everyone, adored by his father. When he was two years old a physiognomist had pronounced that he would reign as emperor. It had made a deep impression on him.

“Yoshimori will soon be lost to me,” her mother said. “But I suppose I will never lose Kai, as no one will ever marry her.”

“You can’t see her ears when her hair covers them. I think they are charming, like a little bird or a gecko.”

“A gecko! Don’t say such things!”

Kai’s mother, one of the women of the household of whom Aki’s mother had been particularly fond, had died in childbirth. Her baby girl had tiny ears like the whorl of a shell. When the midwives saw her they had exclaimed in fear, and the baby had been wrapped in a cloth and left in a corner. It had been a terrible day, with the deaths of a mother and a child and the birth, earlier than expected, of the young prince. Kai’s mother was buried the same day as Aki’s little sister, while the baby prince was given to Aki’s mother to nurse. Everyone forgot the other baby, but she clung to life until Aki’s mother heard her whimpers and demanded to see her. She was moved to pity and insisted that she would bring up both children together.

They were afraid she might be deaf, but she could hear perfectly well though she had a way of frowning and looking intently at people’s mouths when they spoke to her. She was prettier than Aki, with a sweet, plump face and delicate limbs, and the women of the household often bewailed the fact that she might have made a wonderful marriage or other alliance, maybe even with Yoshimori himself, but for her ears.

No one knew what the future would bring for her, but Yoshimori adored her, insisted that she be with him at all times, and often would be calmed and consoled by only her. She had a lively imagination and made up stories and games, keeping him entertained in what was otherwise a tedious existence for a young child. He was not allowed outside—the veranda was as far as he went—and he was carried everywhere within the palace. He saw his own parents rarely and then had to be carefully trained in the correct etiquette and elaborate language of the court. Already he was expected to take part in the long, complicated rituals that were part of life in the Imperial Household and, though he was not yet seven years old, sometimes Aki saw on his face an expression of resignation and world-weariness that moved her to pity. Only with Kai did he behave like an ordinary child. He ordered her around, squabbled with her, threatened to scream if he was separated from her, but they ate from the same bowl and slept side by side.

Aki knew his father, Crown Prince Momozono, a little, though she was not allowed to speak of how. Her father had taken her to Rinrakuji several times. She had made her preliminary vows there and begun to learn her duties and the many rituals in the service of Kannon. She was taught self-defense, how to ride a horse, and how to use a bow. Her father practiced sword fighting and studied the art of war with an old monk who had once been a famous warrior. Sometimes Prince Momozono was there, too, in disguise. Rinrakuji’s monks had the reputation of being bold and belligerent, and Aki knew without being told that her father and the Prince were preparing for war.

The Emperor, Momozono’s father, was ailing. He had designated his oldest son as his heir, but the Prince Abbot, the powerful priest at the temple of Ryusonji, favored the second son, Daigen, whose mother was the Prince Abbot’s sister. He had formed an implacable dislike to the Crown Prince, taking every opportunity to undermine him, trying to persuade the Emperor to disinherit him. Aki knew that Prince Momozono was preparing to fight for the throne if necessary, but that no one must reveal this, for if it came to the Prince Abbot’s ears it would be called rebellion.

“Look!” Yoshi called, pointing into the garden. “Look at that strange bird.”

Aki stared out and saw a large black bird that had landed clumsily in one of the maple trees, scattering leaves and twigs. It gave a curious call, both compelling and repulsive, and swung its head toward Yoshimori as if studying his features with its hard golden eyes. It seemed to recognize him, for it bowed its head three times in a way that was both respectful and mocking.

Aki’s mother and her attendants were seized by horror, for it seemed a terrible omen, but Kai, unafraid, cried, “Let’s give it something to eat.”

“Yes, bring food!” Yoshimori commanded.

One of the ladies-in-waiting went inside, pale-faced and trembling, and came back with a bowl of rice cakes. Kai took one and went slowly into the garden. Yoshimori tried to follow her, but at least three pairs of hands restrained him.

Kai held the rice cake on her open palm. The bird peered down. When it did not descend she placed the cake on the ground and took a few steps back. The bird hopped from the tree, picked up the rice cake in its claws, inspected it carefully, then swallowed it in a gulp. It fluttered to the pond and drank. Then it flew back to the maple, preened its breast feathers, and continued to watch balefully, occasionally uttering a loud shriek.

“I don’t like it,” Yoshi said. “Make it go away.”