Shike, page 21
Sogamori has commanded that the young Muratomo no Yukio be moved from the Buddhist monastery on Mount Hiei to the Takashi palace, the Rokuhara. Sogamori claims he has heard of threats on the young man's life, but everyone agrees that the main threat to the Muratomo heir is Sogamori himself. Akimi, it is said, no longer has much influence on Sogamori, who has fallen foolishly in love with a sixteen-year-old white rhythm dancer from Kaga province named Hotoke.
I wonder what Eather would do if Sogamori ordered him to execute Hideyori.
-Seventh Month, eleventh day
YEAR OF THE APE
Kiyosi's visits had become the high points of Taniko's life. He now came in the evening and brought his lute with him, and while he played, they sang together. Eirst, though, they would spend an hour or two discussing the gossip of the day. Kiyosi found that nothing concerning the intrigues at the Court was beyond Taniko's comprehension, and he had even fallen into the habit of asking her opinion on difficult affairs of state in which he was involved.
"Father is beside himself with glee," he said one evening. "He says he has finally matched the accomplishment of the greatest Eujiwara." "How so?"
"He has arranged for my sister, Kenreimon, to marry the Imperial Prince Takakura. And he intends to have Takakura succeed to the throne when Emperor Rokujo retires."
The year before in the Year of the Sheep, Emperor Nijo, whose Empress, Sadako, Taniko had served as a lady-in-waiting, had died after a short illness. Sogamori, the Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa, and the Regent, Eujiwara no Motofusa, had agreed that the new Son of Heaven should be Nijo's son, Rokujo, who was now only four years old. Next in succession were two sons of Go-Shirakawa, Mochihito and Takakura.
Taniko pointed this out. "Prince Mochihito is next in line for the throne after Emperor Rokujo."
"He will be persuaded to step aside." Kiyosi looked away uneasily. Eor his visits, Taniko sent the servants away and put aside the screen of state. They had long since been conversing face-to-face. The Shima family had no fear of scandal. Indeed, Ryuichi was frankly hoping for something scandalous to occur.
"Kiyosi-san, this is a mistake. Your father is now tampering with the Imperial succession. His appetite is boundless. He is like the frog in the peasant tale who puffs himself up until he bursts. As you know, I hear things from people who would never talk to you or to a member of your family. People are afraid of the Takashi, and some are growing to hate them. What will they think when they learn that Sogamori intends to put a Takashi on the Imperial throne?"
"Just to marry the Emperor, not to be Emperor-"
"That wouldn't fool the stupidest street sweeper, and it doesn't fool me. Obviously Takakura and your sister will have a child, quite possibly a son. That child will be Sogamori's grandson. And as soon as that happens Takakura will conveniently abdicate and the Emperor will be a Takashi. Sogamori's ambition is as plain as Mount Hiei. I tell you, he overreaches himself."
"What Eather intends is not unheard of," said Kiyosi. "The Eujiwara married their daughters to the Imperial heirs many times. The Imperial house today is as much descended from the Eujiwara as it is from Emperor Jimmu. And besides, we Takashi have Imperial blood. We are all descended from Emperor Kammu."
"It's not the same," said Taniko. "The Eujiwara were as close to the throne as a river to its banks when they intermarried with the Imperial house. Emperor Kammu lived a long time ago, and since then the Takashi have been provincial landowners, traders and samurai. People see you as rustic upstarts. And what's more, the Eujiwara themselves are among those you should be concerned about. They are envious of the power of the Takashi. Your worst enemy at Court is the Regent, Eujiwara no Motofusa."
"Motofusa is no danger to us."
"The Eujiwara still have enormous influence in the country."
"Influence. What difference does that make? You speak of people fearing and hating the Takashi. Why should we be concerned? The day of the Eujiwara, the day of the nobility, is over. They had authority, and we respected and obeyed them. They despised us, the samurai, because we did the fighting, we shed the blood. The nobles of Heian Kyo were above all that. When Go-Shirakawa's brother tried to overthrow him, and later, during Domei's insurrection, we discovered that it was our arrows and our swords that decided events. It is from the sword that authority springs. And now that the Muratomo have been crushed, every sword in the land does the bidding of the Takashi. My father holds the country in the palm of his hand."
Taniko shook her head. "You are talking like your father now. I think you know better. You cannot rule this land with swords alone. If the nobles, the priests, the landowners great and small, the peasants and the people in the streets all turn against the Takashi, they can bring you down. The swords that serve you today will turn against you, if your enemies seem to have right on their side."
Kiyosi said nothing for a moment. Then he spoke in a wondering voice. "You offend me."
Taniko bowed her head. "I have overstepped myself with the august Minister of the Interior."
"No one says such things to me any more."
"I ask your pardon."
"You don't understand. I need someone to remind me that the world still looks on the Takashi as uncouth butchers. We deceive ourselves.
Only you, Taniko-san, of all the people I know, speak to me of things as they really are." He did something he had never done before in all the times he had visited her. He moved across the floor until he was sitting beside her. He took her hand.
Taniko's hand felt as if she had put it close to a fire. A warmth spread through her arm to her entire body. It was a sensation she had felt many times on looking at Kiyosi, but never had it burned like this. She sighed with the pleasure of it.
"Have you nothing to say now?" he whispered.
"Words are not the only language." She put her hand on top of his. "I only came close to you. If that silences you, you are easily silenced."
"It has been very long since I was silenced so, Kiyosi-san," she said, letting her head fall against his chest.
Delicately his hands found their way into her robes. With the sure touch of a very experienced man his fingers penetrated the many layers of dresses and skirts she wore and found the recesses of her hungry body. She melted with joy at the sensation, and reached up to stroke his cheek again and again with an almost frantic insistence.
They undressed each other, not stripping away all their garments, but peeling away the layers of silk just enough to reveal each to the other, like a partially unwrapped gift. With a pang of regret Taniko thought fleetingly of Jebu, only to say to herself, as the samurai often said, that the past was the past and the present was the present, and this shining lord was someone she desperately needed and could not deny herself.
His face shadowed in the lamplight, he looked at her intently, seriously, his nostrils flaring as he drew deep breaths. Always, before now, she had seen him fully dressed in the clothing of a courtier. Now, for the first time, she saw and felt the power in him-the solid, broad neck, the wide, square shoulders, the great, flat muscles across his chest. She stroked his arms delicately with her fingers. These were the thick forearms of a swordsman, strong as tree trunks.
This was the body of a man trained from childhood to kill. He was, and would always be, a samurai, a man whose way of life was death. To such a man, who faced death constantly, a moment like this must be very precious. Each time he was with a woman he must know that it might be the last time, and this knowledge must give the union a painful sweetness which no man but a samurai could ever know. With Kiyosi she shared that poignancy, that transience.
This beautiful man might be cut down tomorrow, like a flower in a field. Shuddering with pleasure, she gave herself to him.
Eor the first time, Taniko experienced what it was to spend night after night with a man she loved. Her days passed with a honey-warm delight she had never known before. It was as if she had gone hungry all her life and was only now discovering the taste of good food.
Examining her body in privacy, she found her hips and breasts growing rounder, fuller, though her waist and legs were still slender. She had the figure of a woman now, no longer the body of a girl. Her mirror told her that her cheeks were a healthy pink, which, of course, she had to hide with white powder when she dressed. Her eyes sparkled and her hair was thick and glossy. How far she had come from the wraithlike creature invoking Amida Buddha in the corner of her chamber! How far Kiyosi had taken her! She had never been more beautiful.
They began to travel together. Kiyosi took her for carriage rides through the city and on visits to nearby shrines. During the autumn they went several times to one of the Takashi country estates, where they spent the day riding and hunting with falcons. They sailed the length of the Inland Sea from the port of Hyogo, which the Takashi virtually owned, to Shimonoseki Strait, opening into the great western sea.
Since she was no longer connected with the Court, and since their relationship had no official status, she was unable to accompany him to any of the great state banquets and festivals he frequently attended. But she was always with him at smaller, intimate dinners and parties he and his close friends gave for one another. Kiyosi was the centre of a circle of young nobles and courtiers who wrote poetry, patronized sculptors and painters, talked and drank and played the flute and the koto and the lute until dawn and went on long rollicking visits to one another's country houses.
Taniko found the young Takashi men to be brilliant, evanescent creatures. A few years ago these young men would have been going to war instead of reciting poetry or riding after their falcons. One day war might strike Heian Kyo again, and some of these young men might fall. In their poems, the samurai often compared themselves to cherry blossoms, beautiful but blown away by the first strong wind. Taniko thought the comparison apt.
She knew that Kiyosi had a principal wife and two secondary wives, as well as sons and daughters. In matters involving affairs of state, this was the family to which Kiyosi was responsible. She did not resent them, and she hoped they did not resent her. They had possessed Kiyosi long before she knew him, and they would have him back long after she lost him. Somehow or other she would lose him, of that she was sure. All joy, she had learned, lasts only for a moment. Cherry blossoms. She wrote a poem for Kiyosi.
Many are the nights
We sleep in each other's arms.
In years to come
We will think these nights all too few.
Kiyosi didn't like it. It was depressing, he told her, to dwell on the instability of life. Such matters should be left to monks. As for himself, he intended to live for ever.
We have slept together
And your long black hair is tangled in the dawn. We will remain together
Till your black hair turns white.
Sogamori, Kiyosi's awesome father, approved of her. They had met several times at Takashi banquets, and the stout chancellor had smiled benignly and spoken pleasantly to her.
Aunt Chogao beamed and little Munetaki peeped, awestruck, as the Takashi hero strode through the Shima galleries. Uncle Ryuichi was beside himself with delight and sent glowing reports to Lord Bokuden in Kamakura about the way Taniko had charmed herself into the highest circles of the Takashi. Bokuden wrote letters back praising Taniko and mentioning in passing that Muratomo no Hideyori was growing up to be a dutiful subject of the Emperor and was no danger to the social order.
He was already fully grown when I met him five years ago, Taniko thought, even if he was only fifteen.
She managed, while being honest with Kiyosi, to be of help to her family. She told Kiyosi in a straightforward way that she wanted to do things for the Shima, and he gladly supplied her with information and sometimes with more tangible gifts to pass on. Several times he told Taniko where Chinese trading ships were going to land their goods secretly to avoid the Emperor's tax officers. Though the Takashi held the highest government offices in the land, much of their wealth was based on tax avoidance.
It amused Kiyosi to help the fortunes of what seemed to him a smaller and poorer branch of his own family. He persuaded Sogamori to double the allowance sent annually for the maintenance of Muratomo no Hideyori in Lord Bokuden's household. Grants of tax-free rice land descended on the Shima family unexpectedly.
Kiyosi smiled when she thanked him for his benevolence to her family. He said, "There are certain small fish that attach themselves to a shark, and when he feeds, they enjoy the morsels that fall from his mouth."
Taniko laughed. "That is a disgusting comparison, Kiyosi-san." "Not at all. The small fish are said to help the shark find his way. It is my hope that your family will similarly be helpful to us."
From the pillow book of Shima Taniko:
This has been a good year for me, but a bad year for the realm. Famine and pestilence are laying to waste both the capital and the countryside. Every day carts piled high with the bodies of those dead of disease or starvation are taken out through the Rasho Mon to be burned. People are robbed on the streets in broad daylight. Crowds of beggars surround the mansions of the wealthy. The Shima house has its regular contingent, who appear at our door every morning like a flock of sparrows. Uncle Ryuichi lets me feed them, because he feels I have brought good luck to the family. But I tell the beggars not to let it be known that I am giving them anything, or the flock will double in size, and I will be sent out into the street to join them.
The Takashi seem unable to do anything about these steadily worsening conditions, or perhaps they do not care. But they permit no criticism of themselves. They have over three hundred young men between fourteen and sixteen who cut their hair short, wear robes of Takashi red, and patrol the streets. Let someone whisper a word against the Takashi, and before he knows what is happening he is whisked off to the dungeon in the Rokuhara and beaten almost to death. More than once the bodies of men and women have been found in the Kamo River. It is said officially that they were killed by robbers. But often the last time these unfortunates were seen alive was when they were dragged into the Takashi stronghold. In past times, when the people complained, the rulers tried to improve conditions. The Takashi have found a cheaper way to stop complaints.
Although my young lord likes me to be frank with him, we do not talk much about these things. He knows about them. He often seems troubled when he talks to me, and he is silent for long moments. When we do talk of matters of state he pours out his fears for the future of the land, his unhappiness over the suffering of the people. But his father will have things as they are, and my young lord can do nothing but try to advise him. I hear that Sogamori's rages are becoming more frequent and lasting longer. Just the day before yesterday he smashed to pieces a precious vase from China because Motofusa, the Eujiwara Regent, made a speech criticizing him in the Great Council of State.
I yield myself to my young lord because he is noble and strong and beautiful. He possesses everything that my husband has not at all and that only Jebu has in greater abundance. I yield myself because life is short and I cannot sit in lonely sorrow. I need the arms of a strong man around me. I know Amida Buddha sees, and has compassion on me. But-oh, Jebu! Where are you?
-Tenth Month, sixteenth day
YEAR OF THE APE
In the Eleventh Month Taniko discovered that, as the ladies of the Court sometimes put it, she was not alone. She was surprised that her immediate reaction was joy. She had not thought that she would ever care about having a child, after the loss of her daughter. Eor over two months after she was sure, she concealed her condition from Kiyosi. She was not sure whether he would be pleased or displeased when he learned.
One night he touched her bare belly with his fingertips. "I think you are attending too many banquets and drinking too much sake. You seem to be getting rounder in the middle."
Taniko smiled, then laughed outright. Kiyosi sat smiling at her.
At last she said, "Can't you guess why my belly is fuller?"
"Spoken like a true country wench. Yes, I suspected. I sensed something different about you. Ah, Taniko-san, I am glad. I had hoped that some day you would tell me this news."
"You're glad? Why? You already have many sons and daughters." He smiled. "I have wanted to give you a special gift."
She held out her arms to him, and they drew together.
The voluminous clothing worn by the well-born women of Heian Kyo concealed pregnancy until the very last moment. Taniko was able, as she wished, to accompany Kiyosi on short journeys, to go to banquets and other celebrations and to venture out in public by herself from time to time. The physician who attended the Takashi in war and peace, a man who had watched over Sogamori's health for thirty years, came to examine and prescribe for Taniko and promised that he would be there when she delivered. Taniko hoped that this childbirth would not be as long and as painful as the last.
Her hope was fulfilled. She felt the first labour pains at dawn on the fourteenth day of the Eifth Month in the Year of the Rooster. By midmorning the Takashi physician and a midwife under his direction were with her in the Shima lying-in room. Early in the afternoon Taniko gave one last, agonized push' and the midwife drew the baby out of her body.
"He will be called Atsue," Taniko said when the physician held the baby up for her to see.
Kiyosi came to see her and the baby at sunset. Surprisingly, his father was with him. Through the blinds of the lying-in room Taniko could hear the clatter of Sogamori's mounted samurai attendants. Ryuichi was beside himself with delight and apprehension. Sogamori's presence filled the house as if Mount Hiei itself had come down to the city and was walking among them.
"There cannot be enough of us," he declared. "The boy Atsue is Takashi on both his mother's and his father's side. He will learn the arts of war, but he will also learn poetry, musicianship, calligraphy, and the dance. He will be able to appear before the Emperor without concern." He looked sternly at Taniko. "You will see to it. Eor now he will remain with you. No expense will be spared for his education."
Taniko looked at Kiyosi who stood beside his father. In Sogamori's presence the younger man seemed diminished, a youth without a mind of his own. Taniko saw that Kiyosi might well be the wiser of the two, as many people said, but it was the strength and will of Sogamori that made the Takashi all-powerful.
