The Heike Story (17 page)

Winter rolled round once more. On a morning in November after a heavy fall of snow, when the lying-in room lay deep in drifts, the cry of a newborn infant was heard. Tokiko's attendants hurried to the young father and congratulated him on the son born to him. Exulting, Kiyomori could only pace the hall between the lying-in room and his own.

"Old One—get out my horse, my horse!"

Mokunosukй, who with a number of other housemen from Imadegawa had accompanied Kiyomori to his new home, appeared. "My young master, how happy you must be!"

"Relieved—merely relieved!"

"Are you going to the shrine now to offer thanks?"

"No, I must see my father at Imadegawa before anything else. Old One, the snow is deep . . . you must stay here."

Kiyomori rode out through the gateway. As he approached the bamboo grove, he heard loud shouts from behind. It was his wife's brother, Tokitada, calling: "I'll go part of the way with you; the bamboos block the road," as he overtook Kiyomori's horse. Weighted with snow, the bamboos leaned over heavily to the ground and blotted out the road. Tokitada whipped out his dagger, slashed at the snow-laden branches one by one, leaping ahead like a hare, and looking back now and again with a look of triumph.

"Thank you, that will do," Kiyomori cried, watching the nimble, quick-witted lad with awe. His thoughts suddenly returned to the child born that morning and a warmth, the awakening of a father's love, flooded over him. That son—there was no doubt of it—was his very own by Tokiko!

As far as he could see, the roofs of Kyoto and the Eastern and Western Hills girdling the capital lay deep in snow. The solitary figure, galloping over the roads, startled occasional passers-by to curiosity and alarm. Kiyomori reached the gates of Imadegawa and soon was face to face with his father, to whom he announced breathlessly: "Born at last—a son!"

"So he's come . . ." Tadamori replied, his eyes filling as he spoke.

Kiyomori could scarcely hold back his own tears as he gazed at the man whom he honored more than a father. Some strange fate had brought them together. They faced an uncertain future, for the portents of trouble were now unmistakable. In the past three years alone numerous mansions had been burned to the ground. The powerful monasteries fought among themselves with increasing violence, destroying temples and pagodas, and marched on the capital with their mercenaries to underline their demands of the authorities. And, in the meantime, the birth of Emperor Sutoku's son, the Heir Apparent, fanned the hostility between the Court and the Cloister Government, for the abdicated Toba had proclaimed his infant son by Lady Bifukumon the Crown Prince and successor to the throne.

Mounting disturbances throughout the country and general unrest caused the cloistered Toba to send for Tadamori, imploring him to take a post at the Palace once more. And Tadamori, at the time his grandson was born, finally consented, accepting the Fifth Rank and a position in the Justice Department. Kiyomori was also promoted at the ex-Emperor's wish, and the star of the Heike seemed to be rising.

Though the jealous courtiers did not oppose Tadamori's reinstatement, they soon intrigued to bring charges of treason against him. There had been gossip that Tadamori was secretly paying court to the daughter of a Fujiwara nobleman, Ariko, a lady-in-waiting at the Palace, who later became wet-nurse to the Heir Apparent. Tadamori's enemies were certain that his affair with one who served Toba's rival would bring a sentence of death against him. But the ex-Emperor had known for some time of the affair, and, unknown to the courtiers, encouraged and sanctioned the marriage by which Tadamori already had two sons.

Toba Sojo, who had spent a lifetime laughing at the world through his drawings, died in the autumn of 1140, full of years. As he lay dying, he said: "Though I am a monk, let there be no monkish rites for me when I am dead. I have lived too long mocking at abbots, bishops, and priests with tails peeping from under their vestments. To bury me with solemn chants and prayers would indeed be the supreme jest."

Under the thatched roof of the hermitage the Abbot now lay deaf to the sound of the falling leaves and the subdued murmurs of mourners, exchanging tales of his past and his oddities. His chief mourner, a high-ranking courtier, saw that the simplest rites were performed at the funeral, to which both the Emperor and the ex-Emperor sent their deputies; courtiers, arriving in their carriages, threaded their way on foot with the humble folk from the hamlet of Toba to the hermitage in the hills.

"The honorable Yoshitomo—this is most unexpected!"

Sato Yoshikiyo left his companion to address Tameyoshi's eldest son, Yoshitomo of the Genji, who quickly stepped to the side of the road and greeted Yoshikiyo with great courtesy: "I was not quite sure whether it was you or not, since I met you only once that night . . ." he began.

"I fear it was an intrusion to have come so late that night on the matter of my retainer. I have not seen your father since then, but I renew my apologies to him," Yoshikiyo replied.

"No, the fault lay with us, I am ashamed to confess. Have you come to pay your last respects to the Abbot?"

"Ours was a slight acquaintance, but if it were possible to see him again, I would gladly go in pursuit of him," said Yoshikiyo. Recalling his companion, he quickly introduced him. "This is Kiyomori of the Heike. Have you never met before?"

"Ah? Possibly we have."

Yoshikiyo watched the unconcealed pleasure with which the two young warriors greeted each other, and it suddenly occurred to him that this chance encounter was somehow significant. A Heike soldier and an officer of the Police Commission—a Heike and a Genji!

"I shall soon be on my way east to settle in Kamakura—to my fiefs, where so many of my clansmen are. You must not fail to visit me if ever you are in those parts," Yoshitomo said on parting.

Yoshikiyo, ever reticent, seemed more silent than usual today. Such taciturn natures did not attract Kiyomori. They walked on in silence until they reached a crossroad, where Kiyomori took his leave. Yoshikiyo then asked: "Are you on your way home?"

"Yes, the roads in that district are deserted at night and my wife and son anxiously await my return. My greatest joy these days is to see my son."

"How old is he?"

"Just two."

"How winsome he must be! There's no way to explain the tenderness one feels for a child. . . . You must hurry to him now."

And they parted in the dusk.

A month later, on the 15th of October, Yoshikiyo vanished.

Kiyomori, incredulous, made inquiries among his friends and acquaintances about what had happened and was told that on the day before his disappearance, Yoshikiyo had left the Guard Office with a cousin slightly older than he. The two had gone home, discussing the emptiness of human existence, and had parted with promises to meet the following morning. That night the cousin suddenly fell ill and died, and Yoshikiyo, who went to meet his cousin the following morning, stood outside his cousin's house and heard the sorrowing cries of the young wife, the aging mother, and the young children. There and then he discovered he could not grieve with them, for it came to him that death, the inescapable fate of all men, was after all a daily occurrence, a platitude repeated once more before his own eyes. Yoshikiyo thereupon left his cousin's house for the Palace, where he handed in his resignation and without a word to his fellow Guards went home. His abrupt departure puzzled Palace circles; there seemed to be no explanation for his strange behavior, for Yoshikiyo stood high in the ex-Emperor's regard as a gifted poet, and there had ever been talk that Yoshikiyo would soon be promoted to the Police Commission.

Later, when he arrived home, Yoshikiyo appeared distraught, and the servants listened anxiously to his young wife's weeping in an inner room where Yoshikiyo was closeted with her for some time. When he reappeared, it was with an air of forced calm, but when his much-petted four-year-old daughter ran and clung to him, Yoshikiyo savagely thrust her from him, telling himself as he did so that he must forget all human ties if he were to take leave of the world and enter holy orders. He then drew out his dagger, sheared off his topknot, and flung it at the ancestral tablets in the family oratory before fleeing from the imploring cries of his household.

Ten days later it became known that Yoshikiyo had taken the vows of priesthood and assumed the Buddhist name of Saigyo. There were some who had even seen him near the temples of the Eastern Hills.

Kiyomori listened perplexed to his father-in-law's remark: "It is difficult to believe that one so young, so gifted, could have made this decision on mere impulse. It is possible that Yoshikiyo has chosen to follow a more positive and higher way of life." Kiyomori thought of obtaining a more satisfactory explanation from his father, but soon forgot even this, for more disturbing than the disappearance of his friends were those events which marched on him one by one; he now felt the quickening of a powerful vision within him.

COMET OVER THE CAPITAL

In December 1141, though it surprised no one, the twenty-two-year-old Emperor Sutoku was suddenly dethroned, and the three-year-old-son of the ex-Emperor Toba and Lady Bifukumon was declared ruler and duly installed.

In mid-January, less than a month later, a young monk walked alone through the leafless woods of the Eastern Hills, gathering twigs broken off by the heavy fall of snow. Few would have recognized him as Yoshikiyo of the Guards, though his monk's robes sat ill on him.

"Ah, is it you?"

Saigyo stopped at the sound of someone hailing him. "You — Gengo?"

"You were not at your hermitage, nor could they tell me at the temple where you were. I thought you might have gone down to the capital and was on my way there to look for you. What are you doing?"

Saigyo smiled brightly. "I came out to gather fagots, but this silent valley and my thoughts kept me so occupied that I find the sun going down."

"Fagots? — Alas, gathering fagots!" With this Gengo quickly seized the bundle of sticks from his former master, inquiring as he did so whether Saigyo was on his way back to his hermitage.

"Has something urgent brought you?" Saigyo asked.

Gengo quickly replied: "All is well with your family. I have disposed of the house, the waiting-women and the horses. The titles to your manors have been relinquished."

"I am indeed grateful. I cannot tell you how thankful I am that this has been done."

"Your relatives, too, seem to have given up hope that you will ever change your mind, and the mistress will very soon go with your daughter to live with her parents."

"So — they have finally given me up? That makes me deeply happy."

Yoshikiyo's brows cleared as he spoke. His last anxious thoughts had been for his wife and child.

They had now reached Saigyo's frail shelter, a comfortless hut behind the main temple. Saigyo gathered together some poems that lay scattered on a small table, put away his inkstone, and set about whittling kindling with a dagger, while Gengo washed at a near-by stream the provisions he had brought and set a pot of gruel to cook on the hearth.

In spite of Saigyo's repeated prohibitions, Gengo, his former retainer, visited him from time to time, insisting that he would come even on pain of death.

Their supper ready, Saigyo and Gengo, like fellow monks and equals, sat down beside the hearth. Even when they were through eating, they talked on.

Soon after his master's departure, Gengo had formally announced his intention of becoming a monk, and though he had not yet taken the tonsure, he had chosen the Buddhist name Saiju and looked forward to joining Saigyo in his retreat. Yoshikiyo, however, would not consent to Gengo's taking the vows and, to test him further, advised him to wait another year or two.

"I had almost forgotten this," Gengo said, placing a letter before Saigyo.

The letter, delivered by a messenger from Lady Taikenmon, was written in a lady's flowing hand and difficult to read because of the many messages and poems that crowded the page. Saigyo held it up to the fire, wrinkling his brows in an effort to decipher it. When he had read the letter through, he said nothing, but stared at the flickering flames on the hearth.

Several of his poetess friends who waited on Lady Taikenmon had written to him with news of themselves and their mistress. Lady Taikenmon, one wrote, was lonely and had on several occasions expressed her ardent desire to enter a nunnery. This was understandable, Saigyo reflected. The step now appeared inevitable. Her son, Sutoku, had been dethroned and her future too had become uncertain. Saigyo reflected that she, who had been acclaimed one of the famous beauties of her day, was now in her early forties. Deeply as he pitied her, he wondered what would become of his friends who served her. If they did not follow their mistress to a nunnery, where would they find safety from the upheavals he foresaw?