Dream of a Spring Night (Hollow Reed series) (2 page)

The Emperor watched her run away across the glossy surface, sleeves billowing and skirts hissing along the floor.
 
She burst through the door to the gallery and disappeared.

He was disappointed, even a little angry.
 
Her flight reminded him again of the soaring geese and the white-robed girl skimming across the night-darkened fields on the back of her horse, but the gorgeously robed and painted creature
who
had crept in and fearfully ascended the dais to sit stiffly beside him was nothing like that memory.
 
Except for her reluctance, she was like all the rest, those young women who had been brought to him through the years, as indistinguishable from each other as dolls or as the hundred representations of the Kannon in the Sanjusangendo temple.
 

He bedded many palace women, some more than once, in case he might after all discover some hidden talent, some unique trait.
 
Most could play an instrument, or talk amusingly, or tell stories, or compose little poems.
 
That sort of thing was common enough among noblewomen.
 

None of his carefully selected wives and concubines had proved to have special gifts either.
 
And yet, from the time he had been a mere boy, he had hoped to find a soul mate -- a talented musician or a poet -- as his companion, a woman whose passion matched his.
 

It struck him that not one of the ungifted had been a very passionate lover either.
 
Mostly, they had lain beneath him, rigid, their eyes squeezed shut, biting their painted lips -- and when he had left them,
he
had never felt more than the mild distaste that follows a mediocre meal.
 

He sighed and called, “Otomae, you can come out now.”

A soft
rustle,
and a small gray nun’s figure appeared, mouselike, from behind one of the painted screens.
 
She sat down beside him where the girl had been.
 
He regarded her fondly.
 
“Well?”

Her wrinkled face broke into a smile.
 
“Bravo,
Your
Majesty.”
  

Otomae’s voice was still the most beautiful of voices to him and filled his heart with pleasure.
 
Her narrow face, framed by short white hair, was almost equally dear.
 
He shook his head.
 
“Ah, Otomae, how can you say that?
 
I have been grossly duped.
 
She knows nothing of imayo.”
 

His beloved Otomae was no nun.
 
Far from it.
 
In her younger days she had been a street entertainer, one of the singing and dancing shirabyoshi, and at times a prostitute.
 
When her fame had reached his ears, he had still been a young man and she already middle-aged.
 
She never became his lover, but she was his teacher and the closest thing to a soul mate he had ever found.
 

“She is very young and frightened,” said Otomae.
 
“I think you shocked her when you asked if she knew imayo.”

He sighed.
 
“It is far more likely that Kiyomori and her father lied.”
 

Reaching for a narrow box made of black lacquer painted with golden reeds, he took out a flute – an ordinary bamboo flute, old but with an incomparable sound.
 
It was the only one of the imperial treasures he had kept after his abdication.

He fingered the flute.
 
They had meant to try out a new melody, but he had lost his desire.
 
“There must be women who satisfy a man’s desire.
 
The poet Narihira poured out his passion in matchless verse.
 
Prince Genji loved many women deeply, including his imperial father’s favorite.
 
My own father was so besotted with one of his wives that he allowed her to decide the succession.”

The Fujiwaras used to train their girl children to seduce and bewitch young emperors so they could produce imperial heirs.
 
And now, Taira Kiyomori was following the pattern.
 
He had already matched him with a Taira consort.

Otomae broke into his glum musings: “Shall we continue our work?”

“No.”

Their work was the collection of the songs performed by shirabyoshi in markets and on streets, those haunting words and melodies that would otherwise cease to exist.
   

This passion for imayo had almost cost him the throne when his august father, urged on by his Consort, refused to make him crown prince, saying that his obsession made him unfit to rule.
  

Still upset, the Emperor put away the flute.
 
“Kiyomori is behind this,” he said.
 
“He hopes to distract me from the nation’s business with this girl.
 
He called her an artist of uncommon talent.
 
Like a fool, I believed him.”
 

He did not mention his tantalizing glimpse of the girl astride her horse, flying along the moon-lit valley with a flock of geese, her long hair streaming behind.
 
His utter enchantment and sudden physical desire had shaken him to the point of dizziness.
 
Light-headed with wine, moon light, and the thought of a girl on horseback, he had burst out with the offer.
 

Otomae said softly, “There is something about her.
 
Don’t judge her too quickly.”

“She is a child, the daughter of a minor noble.
 
What could she know of the art?”

Otomae chuckled.
 
“You mean she is not a streetwalker?”

 
He was not amused, though the image was fitting.
 
“I mean that I bought the girl because of extravagant promises made by her seller, and the merchandise is not as represented.
 
I have been cheated. The girl’s father is richer by ten shoen of good rice fields and his son by a lucrative post in the outer palace guards.”

The door at the end of the room opened and Lady Sanjo peered in.

Otomae hissed softly, then said, “Please excuse me now, sire.”
 
She bowed, murmuring, “You may yet find some use for your purchase,” and rose to leave.

The Emperor watched the frail gray figure disappear through another door before turning his attention to Lady Sanjo, who tiptoed in and knelt.

“What?” he demanded impatiently, eyeing her with
distaste.
 
She looked worn in this light.
 
What possessed some women to paint their faces and drag their thinning hair behind them like young girls?
 
Women ought to become nuns when they lost their beauty.

“I wondered if the young woman had offended Your Majesty,” Lady Sanjo lisped in the girlish voice she reserved for him alone.
 
Her expression was hopeful.
 

He knew that this woman felt some perverse lust for him.
 
Her efforts at seduction amused him in the way that grotesque scroll paintings of diseased people or of hungry ghosts amused him.
 

Now he saw the hunger in her eyes as she simpered, fluttering a bony hand before her thin lips, and he suppressed a laugh.
 
He considered her question.
 
There had been offense, yes, but one could not quite blame the girl.
 
She had obeyed her
father, that
was all.
 
In this deception, she alone had been honest, making it clear that she had no wish to be near him.
 

“Not at all,” he said, and added spitefully, “She is quite charming and only needs some time to feel at home.”

He watched Lady Sanjo’s face fall.
 
She touched her forehead to the floor and prepared to withdraw.
 

“You will take charge of her and report to me when she is ready,” he said.
 
“And I particularly wish to know if she has any talents.”

“Talents?”
 
Lady Sanjo was so crushed she could barely speak.

“Yes.
 
She is said to have a charming voice.
 
As you know, I have a great desire to hear charming voices about me.”

“I have been told I have an attractive voice,” Lady Sanjo cried and flushed unattractively.
 
“I would not wish to sound boastful but—”

He interrupted quickly, “Ah, you are a woman of many talents.”
 
He laughed, but when she
crept
a little closer, he said quite coldly, “Thank you.
 
That is all.”

She bowed again and backed out on her knees.
 

He watched her creep away, pushing her full skirts out of the way.
 
The girl in her graceful flight had forgotten that you do not turn your back on an emperor, not even a retired one.

Alone again, the Emperor contemplated his retirement.
 

 
His father had been only twenty-one when he had turned over the throne to the five-year-old Sutoko.
 
At that age, a man had his life before him and enjoys all the benefits of wealth and power without any of the chores and restrictions of actually occupying the throne.

His own fate had been a darker one.
 
Poor, foolish Prince Masahito, a poet and a dreamer, had had a short and troubled reign.
 
Bloodshed and rebellion had marked it.
 
An
since then, he had rarely been at peace from those near him.
 
Sometimes he found it convenient to play the fool around Kiyomori.
 
There was safety in foolishness.
 
People rarely regarded you as a serious obstacle in their path to power.
 

No, there was little pleasure in his life.
 
His consorts wanted his embraces only to conceive.
 
They were brief and loveless couplings.
 
Sometimes he doubted his children’s paternity.
 
The galleries of the palace teemed with male attendants, and even a consort’s curtained dais might be invaded stealthily at night while her ladies-in-waiting slept with their robes thrown over their faces.
 

He had done it himself in his younger days.
 
Perhaps, like the cuckoo, he left his sons and daughters in other men’s nests.
 
The thought cheered him a little.
 
He hummed:

“None rests her head on my arm anymore

Where long ago my sweetheart’s lay;

We two made love hungrily,

Knowing that happiness is short.”

Too bad the girl did not know imayo.
 
They could have spent such pleasant evenings together, he and the girl and Otomae.
 
Under those layers of shimmering silk gauze had been a young body.
 
Why not forget for the span of a few moments of hot lust that he was no longer Prince Masahito, no longer an Emperor, and soon perhaps a priest?
 
Why not teach someone so young the ways of the bedchamber?

With a smile he opened a document box and took out a sheet of fine paper.
 
Reaching for his ink stone and the water bottle carved from a piece of translucent jade, he rubbed fresh ink, dipped his brush, and wrote quickly:

My head grows white as snow,

But my heart still follows the white goose in flight,

Across the mountains to the distant sea.

Wherever it roams, wherever it nests,
 

In time it will return to me.

Today the new girl arrived -- a rustic from a military family.
 
Need one say more?
 
We worked for hours to make her presentable, and throughout the fool had not a word to say for herself.
 
I was secretly pleased.
 

I suppose if His Majesty had not graciously sent a palm leaf carriage for her, she would have arrived in a sedan chair.
 
Or worse: on a horse!
 
Apparently provincial warriors bring up their daughters much the same as their sons.
 
I overheard His Majesty telling the imperial adviser of the third rank – amazing how military men rise in this world – that He was charmed when He saw her ride a horse.
 
I thought He was joking.
 
But alas – He sent for her.

They had her togged out in silk, but the colors were all wrong and the silk so wrinkled from travel that I let one of the maids have everything she wore.
 
There was no time to unpack her single trunk (!), but fortunately His Majesty had sent some gowns for her.
 
I had instructions that I was to make a selection.
 
This proves how highly He regards me, but I must confess it put me in a quandary.
 
I meant to have her appear as uncouth as possible to open His eyes to her unsuitability.
 
As it was, I was forced to demonstrate my good taste instead.
 
Her youth and the season required the colors of blossoming:
 
a three-layered dress of varying shades of plum-red beaten silk and a pale green over robe.
 
Her costume, in any case, was charming.

As for the girl herself:
 
a heavy application of lead-white on her face, neck, and those rough red hands – honestly, they must have had her cutting reeds -- pretty well hid those dark features more commonly seen in peasant women.
 
Her hair is thick and long enough, but crimped around her temples.
 
We had to apply hot oil and stretch it.
 
No doubt that hurt – a true warrior’s daughter, she did not flinch once.
 
With a great deal of effort and some discreet pinning of the more unmanageable portions, her hair looked passable.
 

It is very strange that His Majesty should have chosen so poorly.
 
He is in every other way a man of such exquisite taste.
 
One can only assume that he did not get a good look at her.
 

The other ladies laughed.
 
Very improper, of course, but the young fool was too stupid to know.
 
I held the mirror for her when we were done, but she barely looked in it.

Reminder:
 
My own mirror must be replaced.
 
It has warped so badly that my cheeks look sunken, which adds a very unattractive sharpness to my features.
 
When I first noticed it, I became so concerned that I placed a pickled plum in each cheek before presenting myself before His Majesty.
 
To my surprise this gave my speech a rather attractive, youthful lilt.
 
He looked at me very attentively and smiled.
 
The dear man.
 
I am convinced he is secretly captivated and only maintains his reserve out of respect for my husband.
 
Perhaps in time he will come to see that a woman whose husband has been stationed in distant provinces for more than a decade is free to take a lover.
 
To paraphrase a poetic line: “Though my pain is cruel, I cannot put him from my mind.”

There was that night two months ago when I thought he had decided to visit me under cover of darkness.
 
I was lying awake, wishing for just such a thing to happen when I recognized his step approaching my door.
 
My heart beat so I thought he must hear it through the shutters.
 
But Lady Dainagon’s miserable cat had taken to sleeping there and he must have stepped on the creature’s tail.
 
There was a great deal of noise, which woke up the other ladies and, when I opened the door to pull him inside, He had fled.
 

The next morning I paid one of the groundskeepers to take care of the cat, but His Majesty did not come back, though I often wonder if he is waiting somewhere in the corridor, wishing he could hold me in his arms.
 

Sadly I have been “waiting in vain night after night.”

Lady Dainagon wailed for weeks for her lost pet, and we all went on rather amusing searches, crying, “Here, kitty.
 
Here, kitty,” to the great entertainment of the young gentlemen, until Her Majesty forbade it.

And I, after “waiting in vain” for a whole month, went to see His Majesty.
 
Plums in place, I presented him with a poem and whispered, “I am entirely at your Majesty’s service.”

He looked surprised and
very
moved at my fervor.
 
I thought I saw tears of gratitude in his eyes, but matters of state interfered with our happiness once again — as in those terrible days when
both Their
Majesties, father and son were attacked.
 
The sacrilege of that!
 
I was never so frightened.
 
Soldiers everywhere.
 
Ladies screaming.
 
No doubt they were being raped, though none would admit to it later.
 
And His Majesty kidnapped from our midst, along with his son, who was only seventeen then.
 
Of course, they did this while our protector Kiyomori was on a pilgrimage.
 
I’ll give him this: he rushed back and rescued their majesties.

And now, just when we are settling down after Her Majesty’s departure, His Majesty has brought this young girl into the palace and instructed me to keep an eye on her and report to him.
 
I must think what to do.