Dream of a Spring Night (Hollow Reed series)

In the tempestuous closing years of the twelfth century, the fourteen-year-old Oba Toshiko, daughter of a provincial warlord, enters the women’s quarters of Emperor Go-Shirakawa, her body bartered for favor at court.
 
Toshiko’s talent as a singer of popular songs and her innocence excite the emperor’s lust and the dangerous jealousy of Lady Sanjo. An accidental and forbidden meeting with the noble physician Yamada Sadahira tempts Toshiko’s heart and tests her loyalty to her family. When her enemy strikes, she flees the palace to be with Sadahira.

Impeccably researched, I.J. Parker’s DREAM OF A SPRING NIGHT begins the saga of the Yamada family, of Toshiko and Sadahira, and of the enigmatic adopted son Hachiro.
 
Their fate will play out against the violence and pageantry of the Heike Wars and the fall of the empire.

The Hollow Reed
   
Book One

Dream of a Spring Night

1168-1169

I. J. Parker

Copyright 2010 by I.J. Parker

Even the jeweled throne,

Shining in the morning sun,

Partakes of darkness

When unrequited lust regrets the pleasures of the night.

(Daini TakatM Shk)

At this time, the imperial power in Japan rested in the hands of retired emperor Go-Shirakawa, who conducted the nation’s affairs from his “cloister palace” while a son or grandson sat on the throne.
 
Go-Shirakawa’s rule lasted from his accession in 1155 at age 28 to his death in 1192.
 
He managed the affairs of five successive emperors, two of them his sons and three his grandsons.
 

His tenure was marked by increasingly violent power struggles between the throne and factions among the court and military aristocracies.
 
These disturbances culminated in the Heike Wars and shifted the ruling power permanently from the emperors to military shoguns.

Go-Shirakawa is a shadowy historical figure, considered by some historians too inept to prevent the
catastrophe,
and by others a diplomat and manipulator of complex and powerful interests that were ultimately beyond his control.
 
Whatever the scholarly opinion, Go-Shirakawa appears to have been determined to wrest power from the nobles and return it to the imperial family.

Characters

(* marks a historical character)

Oba no Toshiko
, fourteen-year-old daughter

of
a Taira vassal

Lady Sanjo
, senior lady-in-waiting to Emperor Go-Shirakawa’s Consort

Go-Shirakawa*
, the Retired Emperor

Taira Kiyomori*
, chancellor and clan chief of the Taira

Otomae*
, famous singer and performer of imayo

Lady Shojo-ben
, lady-in-waiting

Oba no Hiramoto
, Toshiko’s father

Oba no Takehira, Yasuhira
, Toshiko’s brothers

Yamada no Sadahira
, physician

Otori
, his housekeeper

Togoro
, his servant

Hachiro, Sadamu
, orphan boys adopted by the physician

Master Soma
, a teacher of swordsmanship

It was spring when the perfumed darkness swallowed her.

From the moment her parents told her that she must serve the Emperor, the palace seemed to her a huge maw to suck her in and consume her entirely.
 
She struggled – weakly, for how do you disobey your parents who have given you birth, raised you, and now depended on you?

Already on the journey to the capital, the darkness embraced her.
 
She was confined inside the elegant palm leaf carriage sent for her, behind reed curtains that were woven with crimson silk threads and securely fastened to all openings.
 
Hemmed in by cushions, curtains, and her many-layered silk gown, she was aware of the outside world only through muffled sounds: the creaking of the carriage, the grinding of gravel under the huge wheels, the shuffling of ox hooves, the driver’s shouts to make way, and the hoof beats and clinking of bridles and stirrups of outriders.
 
Later there were the sounds of the capital, of many people, of tradesmen hawking their wares, of temple bells, of other carriages and horsemen.
 
All belonged to the world of light she had left behind forever.
 
She wanted to peek out, but that was strictly forbidden, and so she entered the maw blindly.
 

They backed the carriage up to a raised veranda, and when they lifted the curtain at its back, she saw a dim tunnel made of draped cloth held by many hands.
 
Other hands reached for her and pulled her up and out, drawing her into a large, dusky room filled with the heavy scent of aloeswood.

A sort of birth – into darkness and whispers.

A woman’s voice: “Let’s have a look at her.”

Blinding light from a candle thrust toward her face made her close her eyes.
 
Indrawn breaths.
 
A giggle.
 
A cough.
 
The first voice: “Well, at least she is young.”

She was fourteen.
 

And her life was over.

But of course she did not die then.
 
The women -- scented shadows in a large room -- took her in hand, removing most of her clothes, washing her face and hands before applying the heavy paste to her face, then painting her nails while the paste dried on her skin; they blackened her teeth, painted her moth eyebrows, outlined her eyes, rouged her lips, and oiled her hair; and finally they dressed her in layer after layer of silk.
 
Each color had a name, but she was too dazed to pay attention.
 
She was thinking of the maw, of being dressed like a dead pheasant or
duck
her father or brothers tossed at the cook to be plucked, drawn, and prepared for consumption.

And then it was time.
 
One of the shadows took a candle and motioned her to follow.
 
There were sighs and whispers from the others.
 
The flame threw shadows on screens, grotesque distortions of female forms with elongated bodies and misshapen heads, thin, clawlike hands gesturing, reaching.

“Hurry!”
 

She obeyed and began to walk, her own shadow gliding along beside her, a companion until it, too, was swallowed by the darkness.

She followed the flickering light along a corridor with floors so highly polished that they looked like black ice.
 
The flame of the candle split in two, dancing both above and below the black ice until she no longer knew which light she followed.
 
The cold crept up through the silk socks on her feet.
 
She shrank away from it, shrank into herself trying to vanish into insubstantiality.

Someone was singing – a male voice – the tune strangely familiar but dreamlike.
 
She floated toward it like a petal on a stream.

When she had almost achieved the state of not-being, two wide doors parted before her and she came into a large room.
 
On a raised platform in front of painted screens, a man sat at a desk.
 
He was the one singing.
 
Between snatches of song, he made notations on a scroll.

“The girl, Your Majesty,” said her guide and knelt.

With that simple announcement, Oba no Toshiko, fourteen years old, rematerialized and became “the girl.”

The singing stopped.

Oba no Toshiko’s knees turned to water.
 
She collapsed in a rustle of silks and lay face down on the black ice, wishing it would melt and swallow her.
   

“Ah, Lady Sanjo!” said the male voice.
 
And then, “Yes.
 
The wild goose.
 
So she is here.
 
It is good.
 
You may leave.”

Leave?
 
A wild hope kindled and was instantly extinguished when he said, “Come here, little goose.
 
Let me look at you.”

For a moment, she toyed with a foolish thought: What if she pretended a fainting spell?
 
Or better yet, death?
 
From an excess of awe.

But she remembered that she was Oba no Toshiko, daughter of warriors, and got to her knees to look up at him.

For a Son of Heaven he looked quite ordinary.
 
Not handsome at all.
 
A broad face and small eyes that studied her.
 
He smiled, and she saw that he was her father’s age and had bad teeth.

“Come closer,” he said again, waving a hand, and she got to her feet.
 
Somehow the fact that he looked so ordinary gave her knees the strength to support her as she crept up to the dais.
 
He made room beside himself, and she sat down on the high, thick grass matting.
 

“Do you know any imayo?” he asked.

She was startled.
 
Imayo were popular songs sung by women of questionable virtue.
 
Of course she knew them, but a lady could not admit to such knowledge.
 
She shook her head.

“Ha, I thought so.”
 
He sighed, rinsed his brush in the water container, and laid it aside.
 
“I had hoped,” he said, “but it doesn’t matter.
 
Do you know why I called you the wild goose?”

“No, sire.”
 
He, too, smelled of aloeswood, and of something else, masculine and not unpleasant.

“On my recent visit to your father’s home, I saw you riding with your brothers.
 
You reminded me of a famous poem.

As they lift their wings

Against starry skies.

The moon is counting each

Of the wild geese flying

On this autumn night.”

She looked at him in wonder, remembering.
 
Her father had been entertaining visitors from the capital.
 
Her oldest brother, proud owner of a new horse, had wanted to try him out, and so they had all got on their horses and raced through the valley.
 

“You were there and saw me?” she asked, her eyes wide and her voice breathless at the memory of that perfect night of galloping hooves, of flying free on the wind that lifted her long hair and her horse’s mane and molded her clothes to her body.
 
Yes, there had been geese that evening.
 
They had raced the geese and each other, she and her brothers.

He smiled, nodding.
 
“We watched the moon from the veranda.
 
The geese passed over, flying south, and there you were, following them.
 
You wore something white and looked like a ghostly bird skimming the earth.”

She chuckled.

“I have never seen a woman ride like that,” he said softly.
 

She heard admiration in his voice and suddenly felt warm.
 
“It was not very ladylike,” she said with a small gasp.
 
Then she remembered where she was and why, and suddenly the fear was back and the grief.
 
Tears welled up and she turned her head away.
 

He reached out to touch her cheek.
 
Cupping her chin, he turned her face to him.
 
“Are you unhappy about the arrangement, little one?”

She looked at him fearfully.
 
“I . . . don’t know what to think.
 
I don’t belong here . . . I . . .” and to her horror, she burst into violent weeping.

He took his hand away and said nothing for a long time.
 
When she had calmed down a little, he pressed a paper tissue into her hand.
 
“You are tired from your journey,” he said.
 
“Go and rest, little wild goose.
 
We shall talk again.”