Shike, page 65
Now he wanted nothing more than to plunge into the midst of Horigawa's samurai, whirling his naginata to knock the guards aside. and lop the prince's head off. He realized that, as had happened so many years before at Daidoji, he could not kill Horigawa and accomplish his purpose. The instant he left his post at the bridge, the samurai would seize Kazuko and her son, Sametono.
"When I heard that you had visited the Rokuhara I knew some evil was in the air," said Horigawa. "We were not able to move quickly enough to stop this renegade daughter of the Imperial house and her tainted offspring from escaping. Her corrupt servant has paid with her death for her part in this escapade, though. Now that the princess has admitted her guilt by fleeing, she shall stand trial at once. Aside, monk, or you die on the spot."
"If the princess is a renegade and the child is tainted, what of a prince who served the Takashi cause for a quarter of a century, to switch sides only yesterday, as it were, to the Muratomo?" Jebu could see approval in the eyes of the samurai who faced him. They would obey the prince's orders as a matter of duty, but they would do it with reluctance.
"I do not need to justify myself to a bandit masquerading in monk's robes," Horigawa said with a sneer. "Step aside."
Eor answer Jebu took a firm grip on his naginata and set his feet wide apart in the stance called the Bear at Bay.
"Kill him," Horigawa said.
"But, Your Highness, this monk has fought beside Lord Yukio in all the great battles of this war," said the scarred samurai officer, Captain Ikyu, who had let Jebu enter the Rokuhara a few hours earlier.
"That war is over," Horigawa rasped. "It will soon be shown that our honoured Shogun's half-brother and all who are close to him are traitors to his family and the Sunrise Land. Kill him, I say."
A samurai drew his tall bow and let an arrow fly at Jebu. With a quick, easy swing of his naginata Jebu cut the arrow in half, and it fell, harmless, at his feet. Arrow cutting with the naginata was a daily exercise for every Zinja from the age of eight. At first the arrows used were tipped with leather balls that left a painful bruise but did not pierce the body. Later the arrows had pointed metal tips and the young monks were expected to pick off as many as twelve of them fired simultaneously at close range. Now Jebu went to work with utter concentration and instantaneous reflexes. His naginata became a blur as he chopped arrows out of the air as fast as they could be fired at him. Even as they tried to kill him, the samurai cried out with admiration at his virtuosity. Horigawa's wrinkled face was red with rage.
"Shoot at the chair," he called suddenly. "It is the princess we must stop, not this worthless monk."
"No," Jebu cried as a flight of arrows whistled over his head. They rained upon the green-curtained chair and its bearers. The two servants died without a sound. There was a choking scream from within the chair. Jebu felt rage surge like lava through his body.
"Now I will kill you as I have always wanted to," Jebu growled, striding forward into a storm of arrows, his naginata at the ready. Arrows struck his armour and wounded him, but failed to penetrate deeply, and he ignored them. Horigawa muttered a command to the brawny man on whose back he rode, and the servant turned and ran full speed down the avenue towards the Rokuhara's eastern gate. Jebu started to pursue them, but the samurai barred his way with a fence of swords.
"We don't want to kill you, Master Jebu," panted Ikyu. "We've done our duty, that's all."
"That woman and her child harmed no one," Jebu grated.
"Most of the tens of thousands who fell in the late war were innocent of wrongdoing, too," the scarred officer answered. "Let this end here, shike. We do not wish to shed your blood and you do not wish to shed ours."
"Some day I will kill Horigawa," said Jebu. He was ashamed of the words as soon as they left his lips, but they expressed his true feelings.
"Such a desire is not worthy of you, shike," said the samurai leader. "Horigawa's death at your hands would honour him, but it would do you nothing but dishonour to kill that feeble old stick of a man."
"That feeble man has been the cause of more spilt blood in the last thirty years than the fiercest warrior who ever lived in these islands," Jebu said. "Still, I accept your correction." He recalled how, years ago, he had thought of the samurai as foolish and destructive, like cruel boys. Either they had learned much in the interim, or he had, and was now seeing them differently. He bowed to the samurai leader to show his respect.
"I will guard the bodies of the princess and her son until you can send servants to take them back to the Rokuhara," Jebu said.
"Very good, shike," said Captain Ikyu. "We will also post guards at the approach to the bridge, but you may say your farewell to her in private." The samurai marched away, and Jebu walked to the middle of the bridge, murmuring a prayer for the dead. The bearers lay sprawled in awkward positions, arrows protruding from their backs. Jebu gently drew the chair's curtain aside. A woman dressed in a plum-coloured robe sat slumped forward, her long black hair hanging down like a veil. He could see at once, from her absolute stillness, that she was dead. Two arrows had gone into her back, and her skirts were soaked with blood. He took hold of her shoulders with both hands and raised the lifeless weight. Her face, which as an Imperial princess she had hidden from the world, was round and pretty, with small features. Her mouth hung open, revealing teeth dyed in the Court fashion, like rows of tiny black pearls. She had been brave. She might have been allowed to live if she had surrendered her son to the executioner. She chose instead to lose her life trying to get the child out of the Rokuhara. Under the Princess's inert body Jebu saw a small black head and two hands clinging to her skirt. The hands moved slightly. He drew in a breath.
"I know you're alive," he whispered. "Are you hurt?"
"No," the boy said softly.
"We must move quickly. I'm going to pull you out of the chair and put you on my horse. Get ready." Jebu reached into the sedan chair with both hands, dragged the boy out from under his mother's body, and straightened up. Clutching Sametono to his chest, Jebu ran across the bridge to his tethered horse. The guards at the other end of the bridge were only beginning to react, shouting at Jebu to halt as he leaped into the saddle and set the boy in front of him. As they galloped off, arrows flew past them. Two struck Jebu in the back, but they were not strong enough to pierce his armour, though they lodged in its plates. Sametono was silent. Jebu could feel that the boy's body was rigid with fear. The horse plunged through the twilight along a pine-shaded path that wound up the side of Mount Higashi. The guards at the bridge had no horses, and it would be a long time before they could bring help from the Rokuhara. By that time Sametono would be safely with Moko and his men. Twenty years ago, Jebu thought, Horigawa killed our daughter. Now I have saved this boy from him. He exulted in the thought. It was far more satisfying to save a life from Horigawa than to have killed Horigawa himself.
"Where are you taking me?" Sametono asked. His small body had relaxed somewhat against Jebu's chest.
"To your grandmother." Jebu knew that Hideyori might yet insist on the boy's death. And even if the gift of Sametono changed Taniko's feelings toward Jebu, that wouldn't matter if she needed her closeness to Hideyori to save the boy's life. The horse breathed hard as it climbed the steep path. A three-quarter moon, rising over the mountains east of Heian Kyo, provided Jebu and his mount just enough light to see by. It had been a full moon, Jebu recalled, the night he and Taniko had pledged to love each other for ever on this same mountain. He heard a jingling of harness and a stamping of horses' hooves ahead. Moko.
Moko and Sametono both looked woeful when Jebu said he would not make the journey to Kamakura. "I must go to Lord Yukio at once," Jebu explained. "Something Horigawa said just now warned me that he is up to his old trick of setting samurai against samurai. Yukio must be warned, or he may not have long to live. Meanwhile, Horigawa and Bokuden will have the Tokaido searched for me, thinking I have the boy. By the time they realize I'm still in Heian Kyo I'll be under Yukio's protection. You and your men have a better chance of getting through, hiding Sametono among yourselves. Remember that you are to take him directly to the Lady Taniko and no one else."
"Thank you for rescuing me, big monk," said Sametono, looking at Jebu with that calm, intelligent gaze he remembered so well in Taniko.
"You kept still until I could reach you while your mother lay dead on top of you," said Jebu. "You are a young man of great mental power, if you know what that means."
"I hope I grow up to be as tall as you."
Jebu thought, I doubt whether any of us will live to see you grow up, little boy.
Chapter Eighteen
Hideyori pressed his hand against her breast. Taniko allowed it to remain there. A flicker of surprise crossed his stony features. "Are you starting to find me more attractive?"
"I have always found you attractive, my lord. I only wonder what you see in such a pathetic old woman." Gently, Taniko drew away from him and began to pour ch'ai from a three-hundred-year-old T'ang bowl. "Is my lord aware that I am a grandmother?"
"You have never mentioned it before." That was not a direct answer. She was sure he knew nearly everything about her. Hideyori seated himself cross-legged, arranging the dark robe over his knees, and sipped the foaming green ch'ai from a delicate, glazed cup that matched the bowl. He kept his bedchamber austere as ever, but the objects he used now were precious and beautiful enough for an Emperor.
"My grandson arrived in Kamakura only yesterday," said Taniko, folding her hands in her lap and looking sedately down at them. This matter had to be handled with exquisite care. Perhaps it did not matter how it was handled, perhaps Sametono was doomed in any case. Taniko thought she had a proposal that would persuade Hideyori to spare Sametono, though, by appealing to the Shogun's desire to stabilize the realm. She had talked it over with Eisen the night before, after Sametono arrived. The monk agreed that her idea might work.
"But it means you must sacrifice the rest of your life," the Zen master pointed out.
"There is no one to make the sacrifice and no future to be sacrificed," Taniko rejoined.
"Your words stink of Zen," Eisen shot back. Taniko knew that this was a grudging compliment to her deepening understanding. Eisen hardly ever encouraged her, believing, as he put it, that praise is poison. She did not need him to tell her that she was making progress. She knew now that you could not acquire true understanding from anyone else, and no one could give you enlightenment. All you could do was increase your awareness that you already were a Buddha, an Awakened One. Only you could do that for yourself. As she moved through each day in a state of awareness maintained, enhanced and deepened by sitting in zazen meditation, she found that her decisions were right for each situation, and their consequences more beneficial to all. At the same time, she cared less about results. She did what she felt an enlightened person would do and refused to concern herself about whether things turned out as she wished.
Now, rage threatened to break through her philosophical calm. The wound left by Horigawa's murder of her baby at Daidoji had never healed. Nothing could rouse her to a more consuming anger than the thought of a child being killed. That children were being drowned and buried alive at Heian Kyo was hateful enough. That Horigawa was supervising the executions-with her own father helping him-tore that old wound open to bleed afresh. That her grandson, Atsue's son, had nearly been one of the victims left her speechless with fury when Moko told her the tale and presented the wide-eyed, travel-weary child to her.
At first her rage was directed against Hideyori himself. He, after all, had given the command for the slaughter. After a time of meditation she realized that it was useless to hate Hideyori. He had lived with fear and death since his boyhood, and nothing could change him. Now that he had achieved supreme power he felt more vulnerable and more fearful than ever. How different he was from Kublai Khan, who easily assumed that the world was his by right of birth.
"I have heard news that distresses me sorely," she told Hideyori. "Perhaps it would not move you, since you are a man and a warrior. I know what it is to have the child I bore torn from my arms and murdered. They are killing babies in Heian Kyo."
Eor a moment Hideyori's face was blank. Then it rearranged itself into a mask of shock and sympathy. "Who is killing babies, Tanikosan? By what authority?"
"My father and Prince Horigawa. By your orders, they say." Taniko did not for a moment believe his air of surprise. These days, nothing went on in the Sunrise Land without his knowledge and permission.
"I have ordered the death penalty for all Takashi who threaten our peace," said Hideyori. "That is why I signed the warrant of execution for Notaro. I have never intended that children be killed."
"I am happy to hear that," said Taniko quickly. "My grandson is a Takashi, but he is only four years old, and I am sure he has no desire to raise a rebellion against you."
Hideyori looked away from her and was silent for a long time. This is the moment, she thought, that will decide whether Sametono lives or dies. Hideyori knows what I'm going to ask him. He will have to admit that he wants the child killed, or he will have to let the boy live with me. At last Hideyori turned to her, and she saw indecision in the dark eyes. Her hold over him was still strong.
"The blood of Sogamori and Kiyosi flows in his veins." No more pretence that Hideyori was unaware of the boy's existence.
"The blood of Amaterasu Omi Kami flows in his veins as well," said Taniko. "Surely he is to be treasured for that."
Hideyori shook his head. "That only makes him more dangerous." "Besides all those illustrious ancestors, this little boy is the grandson of Shima Taniko," Taniko said softly, "if that means anything to you." "If it did not, he would be dead already."
"If my lord could find a place in his heart for Sametono, my gratitude would know no bounds."
Hideyori was silent. Each time she spoke, he weighed and digested her words, carefully calculating his reply. At last he gave a short, barking laugh.
"How ironic. Was this not precisely Sogamori's undoing? Was it not his lust for my father's mistress, the Lady Akimi, that persuaded him to spare Yukio's life-and incidentally mine? Shall I, for your sake, nurture a hatchling of the Red Dragon so that it may grow to devour my clan in turn?"
Now was the time to try him with her proposal. "You have the power to change the hatchling's colour from red to white, my lord. Adopt him as your own son." Hideyori looked amazed and angry. He opened his mouth to speak, but she hurried on. "Forgive me for mentioning it, but it has been your karma not to have children of your own. You have no son to inherit the Shogunate, this great title you have created for yourself. If you choose a successor from among your allies, you will make one family too powerful and all the others envious and rebellious. This boy's close kin are all dead, except for me. Make Sametono your son, and his cause becomes your cause. You never need fear that he will lead a rebellion against you. True, he is descended from Sogamori and Kiyosi, but what better way to heal the wounds of these years of civil war than by uniting the Red Dragon and the White in one family? If you do not have sons of your own blood, which is the worthiest in the land, you can at least choose your heir from the next best lineage-that of the greatest of the Takashi."
Hideyori's frown deepened. "Why should I concern myself with who succeeds as Shogun after I am gone?"
Taniko shrugged. "True, you need not. If you don't, the samurai will undoubtedly turn to your younger brother, Yukio, who has a son of his own. Perhaps that would please you just as well."
Hideyori's eyes glittered with rage, the reaction she had expected. "Neither my half-brother nor any offspring of his shall ever succeed me." He paused for a moment. "Perhaps you are right. I must select my successor, and this boy may have been sent by the kami for that purpose. If I'm to adopt a son, he'll need a mother, won't he? I'll need a wife. I have desired you ever since I met you." Hideyori clenched his hands in his lap. She knew that he burnt to reach for her but was restraining himself. "Will you sleep with me and even marry me, when the obstacle of Prince Horigawa is eliminated? What about the vow you told me of?"
"Eisen Roshi assures me that I may set aside my vow for a good enough reason. He says that the past cannot bind the present, because the present is all there is." Actually, since there had never been any vow, she had never discussed it with Eisen, but the remark about past and present was one he had made to her once.
Hideyori shook his head. "I do not like these teachings of the monk Eisen. I have talked with him, and he seems strange and irreligious to me. I suspect that the views of this Zen sect are not religion but a mockery of religion."
"I have benefited profoundly from my study of Zen, my lord."
"Your grandson is alive only because he is your grandson. Eisen has been allowed to settle here and gather disciples around him only because he is your teacher. Otherwise, I would have had him driven out long ago. I mean to bring order and discipline to that vast rabble of unruly monks that infest the Sacred Islands-as soon as I have dealt with other dangerous elements."
Taniko knew that "dangerous elements" meant Yukio. Ever since she had learned that Yukio had killed Atsue, she had given up pleading his cause to Hideyori. She could not believe that Yukio was as Hideyori believed him to be, a dangerous rival plotting to use his victories as stepping stones to supreme power, but it was also hard to imagine Yukio striking down a helpless, innocent boy. If he had done the one, perhaps he was capable of the other.
"Regardless of what Eisen says, I believe that your vow is binding, and I will not lie with you." Hideyori smiled faintly. "As you doubtless know, I do not lack for companions to share my bedchamber, even though, as you said, it is my karma to be childless. I want you because you are more beautiful and wiser than any woman I have ever known. When we are properly married, I will lie with you, not just for the pleasure of it, but to possess you utterly." His pupils seemed to expand until they were huge black pools into which she felt herself falling. She ignored the fear that rippled through her. She was saving Sametono's life, she reminded herself.
