The Tengu's Game of Go (5 page)

He decided to keep the entertainment he had in mind, the musicians and the acrobats with their monkeys, to himself for the time being. He wanted it to be a complete surprise.

“I will come,” Aritomo said. “I feel a longing for the forest and the open air. It will be an opportunity to reward those loyal to me and to assess my warriors' skills.” He paused for a moment, then gestured to Masachika to come closer. He said quietly, “I am going to deal with the Kakizuki before winter comes. It will coincide nicely with your hunt. We will let their spies think we are fully occupied with sport and entertainment, but I have already dispatched a fleet of ships, carrying hundreds of men, to take them by surprise. Arinori is in command.”

He grinned at Masachika. His breath smelled of his illness. “They think the old badger is finished, but he is still craftier than them.”

So that was Arinori's secret mission!

“It is a brilliant idea, but I should be leading such an attack force,” Masachika said with feigned enthusiasm. “I can delegate the hunt to someone else.”

“If you and I seem otherwise occupied, we will allay suspicions,” Aritomo replied. “Besides, Arinori has skills as a sailor and an admiral. Once the Kakizuki are eliminated, these rumors about Yoshimori will disappear.” He tapped the report with his forefinger. “Rumors arise all the time. Usually there is no substance to them. An emperor with no one to fight for him is hardly an emperor.”

“Indeed,” Masachika agreed.

“Don't be disappointed. You will have your chance in land fighting soon enough. When the Kakizuki are gone, we will take care of Takauji.”

Masachika shuffled backward out of Aritomo's presence, touching his head to the floor once more as attendants slid open the doors behind him. Outside, in the wide corridor, he stood and adjusted his robe. Then, trying not to look as if he was hurrying, he began to walk back to where his grooms waited with the ox carriage.

However, as he left the outer courtyard, passing through the great gates with their carvings of lions, someone approached him. It was a man he knew vaguely, a minor official in the Emperor's household, though he could not recall his name. Masachika suspected he probably wanted to discuss something about money. The Emperor never seemed to have enough and was always asking for more. Then he remembered:
Yoriie
.

Masachika's bodyguards had also been waiting outside and now began to move closer to him, their hands on their swords. Surely they did not suspect old Yoriie of an assassination attempt? He made a sign to them to hold back and greeted the official as curtly as he could, without being downright rude.

Yoriie replied more fulsomely. “If it is not too great an inconvenience, would Lord Masachika accompany me to Ryusonji?”

His manner was obsequious, but his small eyes were sharp and seemed to flicker upward to scrutinize Masachika. The residences at Ryusonji were luxurious and expensive, yet ministers received a stream of complaints about the accommodation. It was too hot or too cold, the roof leaked, the nearby river stank, there was an invasion of biting fleas, owls hooted all night.

Masachika assumed it would be another of these and groaned inwardly, but he reminded himself that no one survived in an official position in the capital without brains, courage, or wealth, preferably all three, and that he should not underestimate Yoriie nor refuse the Emperor. Regretfully he again put aside his desire and agreed to go with Yoriie, inviting him to ride in the ox carriage.

They did not speak much as the ox made its slow, laborious way through the crowded streets toward the river. The Sagigawa had all but dried up and lay in a series of stagnant pools that, Masachika noted, keeping his mouth firmly closed, did indeed smell noxious. The townspeople threw refuse in the river, which normally would be washed away rapidly but which now lay decomposing, picked over by scavenging crows and wild dogs.

Outside Ryusonji's gates, people milled—beggars seeking alms, the sick and crippled praying for healing, amulet sellers, and pilgrims. Since it had become the Emperor's residence, the whole temple had taken on an increased aura of sacredness. Slivers of wood were carved from the gates, pebbles stolen from the paths, leaves gathered from the ginkgo and sakaki trees, all with the hope that they would provide talismans against ill health and misfortune. Partly for this reason, the buildings and gardens had a dilapidated and untended look.

Two large black birds perched on the roof and peered down at Masachika with golden eyes. One of them made a derisive cackle and the other echoed it. They sounded uncannily human. Their excrement had whitened the gate and the ground below.

The luxury of the inner rooms tried to compensate for the external decay, but nothing could remove the stench from the river. The great shutters were all closed, presumably to keep it out, and the dim interior was lit by oil lamps, the smoke making the rooms even hotter.

There was a large hall within his residence, where usually the Emperor received visitors, sitting on a raised dais behind a thin, gilded bamboo screen, his courtiers ranked on the steps beneath him, but this time Yoriie indicated Masachika should follow him to the other side of the temple, where he had never been before.

The official stepped up on the veranda of another beautiful residence and called softly. “Lord Masachika is here.”

The door slid sideways, opened by unseen hands. Masachika dropped to his knees on the threshold and bowed his head to the ground.

There was a rich scent that he could not quite identify, and for a moment he thought with a surge of emotion that it must be the Emperor himself, kneeling on an embroidered silk cushion, not five paces from him. Then the figure removed the covering from its face and spoke. It was a woman.

“Lord Masachika, thank you for coming. I presume you know who I am?”

He could only guess, never having seen her before. “Our sovereign's noble mother,” he said, raising his head briefly and then lowering it again. Natsue, the Emperor's mother, sister to the Prince Abbot. “In what way can I serve you, Your Majesty?”

“Can I trust you to keep this conversation secret? Will you swear to me that you will speak of it to no one?”

He hesitated, aware of Yoriie just behind him, of the courtiers, the servants in the background, any one of whom might be a spy. Was it some kind of trap, some test of his loyalty? “I can have no secrets from Lord Aritomo,” he said guardedly.

“How is our dear lord and protector?” she said. “We have heard his recovery is slow.”

“Alas, slower than we all desire, but he does not allow his illness to impede him in any way. No man has a stronger will.”

“A strong will means nothing if Heaven is against you,” Lady Natsue replied. “My son and I are deeply concerned for the welfare of the country and the people. Is it possible that Lord Aritomo's illness is a punishment of some sort?”

“I cannot speak for Heaven, Your Majesty. Let your priests do that.”

“But they have, Lord Masachika. Oh yes, indeed they have. We have heard rumors that Yoshimori might still be alive. People have the audacity to say he has greater legitimacy than my son.”

“We are doing our best to stamp out such treason,” Masachika murmured.

“Yet the drought continues, and with it the unrest. But Yoshimori's death, if it were confirmed or, better still, publicly witnessed, would make my son the rightful emperor. Why has Lord Aritomo not achieved this?”

When Masachika did not reply she went on, “I believe his illness is making him less than capable.”

He dared to raise his eyes and stare at her. She held his gaze for a moment, smiling slightly. “I had thought … but you are a loyal man, Masachika. I will not trouble you further.”

Now he was intrigued. He very much wanted to know what she had thought. “Lord Aritomo does not need extra burdens,” he heard himself say. “I will keep whatever you want to confide in me to myself.”

“My son and I admire you,” Lady Natsue said. “We wonder if Lord Aritomo fully appreciates you. It is wrong that he should not trust you. The Emperor would like you to be closer to him. We are both worried about Lord Aritomo's health. That is the only reason, you understand…”

That you are choosing me to replace him?
The idea was preposterous, yet he was sure it was what she was hinting at. The heavy scent, the stifling room were making Masachika light-headed.

“It is a shame Lord Aritomo has no sons,” Lady Natsue said. “Were he to pass away there would be grave danger that the realm would once more be torn apart by war. We must make the succession clear.”

It was exactly what Masachika hoped for, but he did not trust himself to speak.

“My son is not happy with his circumstances. He is bored. He is intelligent, you know, and thinks deeply. He does not want to be someone else's figurehead. He wants to feel he is truly the ruler of this great country, like the warrior emperors of ancient Shin. He needs loyal men like yourself to serve him, in positions of influence and power.” She spoke obliquely, leaving essential things unsaid. Masachika had to fill in the gaps himself—but was it truly her meaning or was he allowing his own desires to interpret her words?

“I am forever his servant as I am yours,” he said. “But what will you have me do? I have only a few men at my command…” There was no way he could mount a full-scale rebellion and he was not such a fool, or so ambitious, that he would hint at such an act, even if only to deny it.

“Do nothing for the time being,” Lady Natsue said. “Simply make sure Lord Aritomo's sickness is well managed.”

Does not improve
, he translated silently.

“And be ready for our instruction. That is all.”

He bowed again to her and prepared to leave, but she made a sign to her attendants. Two women shuffled forward silently and helped her stand. One of them took the shawl, the other adjusted her many-layered robe, pink lapped over green, green over red, and so on through twelve or more different colored layers. She was a tiny woman, made all the more tiny by the mass of clothes. Her hair reached to the ground, adding even more weight to bow her down. She had grown thin, but her skin was still white, her lips red. He remembered that in her youth she had been a beautiful woman who had won the deceased emperor's heart.

“Follow me,” she said. “My son wishes to let his eyes rest on you.”

She moved smoothly and swiftly, as though not walking at all but carried by unseen beings. As she passed him, Masachika, still prostrate, smelled her perfume even more strongly. It seemed to suggest infinite possibilities.

He walked at a respectful distance behind her down the long corridor. It was open on one side, giving out onto a courtyard. In the center was a large fishpond fringed with reeds and lotus leaves.
I must discuss all this with Tama
, he thought, as he followed Lady Natsue into the private chambers of the Emperor.

After a short, enigmatic interview in which the Emperor spoke obliquely of poetry and the weather, Yoriie accompanied Masachika to the gate, where the birds again looked down at him and seemed to jeer. He even thought he heard one speak his name.

“What are those birds?” he asked. “Where did they come from?”

“The priests tell us they are werehawks,” Yoriie replied. “The eggs hatched recently. The deceased Prince Abbot used to own several, and they flew far and wide at his bidding, but none remained after his death and now no one knows how to train them.”

“What about Master Sesshin? He would know.”

“He is in his dotage and useless,” Yoriie said, his mouth curling in irritation. “He found their antics amusing and spoiled them, giving them food. I suppose he might have been able to command them, but he is no longer here.”

“I thought I had not heard him playing. Where is he?”

“Her Majesty disliked him and wanted him removed. Lord Aritomo's men took him away.”

Masachika frowned. His intuition told him there was something strange going on, that he should look into it further, but then he thought of Asagao, longed to be with her, and could not bear any further delay.

 

5

MU

Take was a quick learner. It was as if the knowledge lay hidden within him and all Mu had to do was bring it to the surface. Mu was as fierce and as strict as the tengu had been with him, but Take accepted his discipline without question. He seemed to soak up everything; no challenge was too great. If he could not master some technique with the sword, or some practice of meditation, he worked obsessively at it, until he understood what Mu was asking of him and could achieve it.

Mu admired his pupil and had become fond of him. Ima liked him, and the animals, fake and real, came to accept him. Take in return treated them all with respect and kindness.

“Everything's going fine,” Mu told Tadashii on one of the tengu's visits. Take had not yet met him, as the tengu always came after the boy had fallen into one of the short sleeps of exhaustion Mu allowed him. “Except I am worried about my daughter. She likes him too much. What will I do if she falls in love with him? We share the same father—the relationship is too close. He is a young warrior and she is the daughter of a fox woman. I don't want her to be hurt.”

“I told you, I am no expert in these matters,” Tadashii said. “It's easy enough to separate them. I'll take Shikanoko's son away with me for a while. And, since you will be visiting your brother soon, you can take Kinpoge with you. If she wants a man, let her marry one of her cousins.”

“I will be visiting my brother?” Mu repeated. “I can tell you, that's not going to happen.”

“I believe it is,” Tadashii replied. “Where is Shikanoko's son?”

“Asleep by the stream. You're not taking him now?”

“No time like the present,” Tadashii said, unfurling his wings and flexing them. “He must be ready for us.”