The Heike Story (28 page)

He was now thirty-nine and in his prime—a toughened, experienced warrior—and the future was still before him. What it held he could not guess. It was not clear to him yet just what part he would play in it. What fired him now was a consuming desire to act. The despised warrior was now ready to gamble on this one chance. He knew well what this meant—life, wife, children, and home. And he was unwilling to act impulsively on a single summons from the throne. He had acknowledged the order by sending Motomori with two hundred soldiers, but still showed no sign that he himself was ready to go. This was the 10th of July, and he watched the sun slowly slope to its setting.

To many the question of whether to take up arms for the Emperor Goshirakawa or to support Sutoku presented a dilemma, but to Kiyomori the issue was clear. He had never intended to side with Sutoku. He had seen from its start that the movement to support the ex-Emperor was no more than a conspiracy with Yorinaga behind it. Yorinaga expected no aid of him any more than Kiyomori expected to gain anything by taking sides with Yorinaga. They were long-declared foes. Kiyomori also had heard that his uncle Tadamasa was among the first to join the conspirators, but this had not moved Kiyomori to throw in his lot with the Emperor. By declaring himself on Goshirakawa's side, Kiyomori knew he would be risking the lives not only of his family at Rokuhara, but of Heike all over the country. A false step at this moment would cast unnumbered women, children, and the aged into an inferno. This thought alone made him hesitate. By sending Motomori he could consider his duty done and bide his time. But the clamor of a powerful inner voice insisted that the moment had arrived and tempted him to throw all caution aside. Another such chance he was sure would not come to him. This chance was the key to his future.

And while he hesitated the memory of a curious incident kept recurring to him. It took place in the year following his father Tadamori's death, when Kiyomori was on his way to Kumano Shrine. On the trip by water from Isй to Kishu, a large sea-bass had floundered on board and caused the boatmen to exclaim excitedly that the fish was an augury of good fortune for the Heike. Kiyomori was told that the deity of Kumano Shrine had sent this sign because of his piety. Kiyomori, though he scoffed at superstitions, was not quite willing to disbelieve what was told him. It pleased him to think that this had happened when he was on his way to offer prayers for his father, though what followed was scarcely a fulfilment of the prophecy, for Yorinaga soon after came into power.

But Kiyomori now asked himself whether the Emperor's summons was after all the chance augured by the god at Kumano Shrine. It was apparent that the conflict between the Emperor and Sutoku was no more than the plotting of court factions against each other, the clashing of overweening ambitions, a base struggle for power. Who was he to cast in his lot beside theirs in a struggle of evils? Ambitions he had, a goal, a dream. As the chief of the Heike he had to see that the thriving clan grew and prospered further, and that the warrior class ended the rule of the Fujiwara barons.

Toward dusk Tokitada received word that Yorimori, Kiyomori's step-brother, was arriving with sixty soldiers. He hastened to tell Kiyomori, who he knew had been anxiously awaiting this news since the previous day. Kiyomori was beginning his evening meal, but he quickly finished it, directing Tokitada meanwhile to send Yorimori to him. Kiyomori had doubted that his stepmother, Lady Ariko, would send her son to join him, for he was barely twenty and under no obligation to come to Kiyomori's assistance. Had she urged Yorimori to support the ex-Emperor Sutoku, Kiyomori would have had to look on her and his half-brother as enemies, and the thought had pained him.

"Oh, here you are, Yorimori!" Kiyomori's brows cleared; his face lighted up with relief and unconcealed pleasure.

Yorimori, who seemed to fear that he had incurred Kiyomori's displeasure by his tardiness, made elaborate obeisance. "Though I have arrived much later than the others, I beg you not to put it down to cowardice."

"Nonsense! As you can see for yourself, I haven't even started. . . . Our good mother's feelings aside, I have been anxiously waiting for you to appear. Tell me what she said to you."

"She gave me no instructions, she only said that I was to obey you implicitly."

"Did she say which side would come out victorious?"

"She wept, and said that she believed that the ex-Emperor had not intended matters to come to this."

"Good!" In that instant Kiyomori made up his mind. His stepmother, who had once been a member of the ex-Emperor's household, believed there was little hope for Sutoku's cause. Kiyomori was inclined to rely on her judgment.

"Tokitada, see that the soldiers are fed and get plenty of sleep. We leave in the morning between two and three."

Kiyomori was soon asleep, but toward midnight he was up and calling his three brothers and his son Shigemori to take part in drinking the ceremonial wine that Tokiko poured for them. Tokiko helped Kiyomori with his armor. The sword that Tadamori had given him hung at his side. Yorimori wore another of the prized Heike swords.

The story now reverts to the time of Tadamori's death, the 15th of January 1153, three years earlier. Tadamori, fifty-eight at the time, was survived by six sons—Kiyomori, Tsunemori, Norimori and Iyemori, by his first wife, the Lady of Gion, and Yorimori and Tadashigй by his second wife, Ariko. He was chief of the Justice Department then and enjoyed a measure of prosperity he had never before known. The years of grinding poverty during which he had reared his sons made him take thought of how he might insure the fortunes of his house, and it was an open secret that he had amassed considerable wealth by shrewd trading with the pirates and smugglers who brought quantities of precious merchandise from China into the port of Bingo, one of his southern feudatories.

When Tadamori's slight cold turned for the worse and there seemed to be little hope for his recovery, Tsunemori came to Kiyomori with tears in his eyes, entreating him: "Let me bring Mother here to see Father for the last time."

"Mother? What do you mean by 'Mother'?"

Kiyomori pretended not to understand. Ariko, their stepmother, had constantly been at Tadamori's bedside nursing him. It was not she of whom Tsunemori spoke, but the Lady of Gion. Tsunemori, Kiyomori thought impatiently, had not changed much from that softhearted brother of his youth, though he was now a court official, a married man with a family. This reminder of his mother sent an angry surge of blood through Kiyomori.

"Even if we felt that that was the right thing to do, we've no idea of how Father, feels. Forget about her, forget her, Tsunemori!"

Tears flowed down Tsunemori's cheeks. "I cannot. . . . Father has never forgotten her. When our stepmother was not there, he asked me several times what could have happened to her."

"Is this true, Tsunemori?"

"It couldn't be otherwise, for she was after all the mother of his four sons."

"That being so, it would be awkward with our stepmother here."

"She goes out every morning while it is dark to the temple to pray for Father's recovery. We could have her come then."

"Do you know where she is now and what she is doing? I've heard nothing of her since she left us—whether she's alive or dead."

"If you won't be angry with me, I shall bring her in the morning very quietly before it is light."

"So you know where she is, and you've seen her from time to time?"

Tsunemori was silent.

"Here, why don't you answer me? How can I tell whether she lives near here or at a distance?"

Kiyomori's voice rose to a shout. The thought that Tsunemori sometimes saw the mother whom he refused to acknowledge gave him a jealous pang. He had an impulse to strike Tsunemori in the face with his clenched fist.

Tsunemori, prostrating himself, implored: "This is all I shall ever ask of you!"

Kiyomori spat out his answer: "Do as you please! I'll have nothing to do with this. It all depends on Father."

Ever since Tadamori's condition had seemed to grow worse, Ariko went in her litter daily before dawn to Kiyomizu Temple, undaunted by snow or rain. This morning Tsunemori saw her litter start out on the frosted road, and when Ariko was safely out of sight, Tsunemori held out his hand to someone hiding in the shadow of one of the doors and led the figure to his father's sickroom. Kiyomori, who slept in the next room, was awakened by voices and the sound of stifled weeping.

". . . It makes me happy to see you once more. You, too, have had much unhappiness. Our sons are now grown. I have no anxieties for them, but I am troubled for you. I have not fulfilled my promise to his late majesty, if I have neglected you. That has troubled me all these years. If only I could be sure that you will find happiness and contentment in the years to come . . ."

Kiyomori, who caught fragments of what his father was saying, was infuriated. He also felt hurt at being ignored. Though he did not doubt his dying father's sincerity, he wondered if it was possible for his father to have grieved all those years for his mother–that vain, heartless woman who had given Tadamori nothing but trouble, and had abandoned her children.

It was soon time for Ariko to be back, and Tsunemori, his arm about his mother's shoulders, led the weeping Lady of Gion away by a rear gate. Kiyomori heard her leave and leaped from his bed. He sped down the passage to get a glimpse of her through a hedge, then burst into tears at what met his eyes. His once beautiful mother was now like flowers that frost has touched. Her face was heavily powdered, but he noticed that her cheeks sagged; her hair had lost its brightness. He rapidly counted up in his mind— fifty. She was now fifty! A woman at fifty—and he wondered what she did for a living. Recalling his sick father's words, he suddenly felt grateful for Tsunemori's solicitude for their mother.

"Come, put on your cloak. You must not grieve like this, for it will make you ill. I shall go with you as far as your gate. Wrap your cloak around you and conceal your face so people will not notice us."

When the two were out of sight, Kiyomori went to his father's bedside and sat down. For a while he watched his father's face, and then with a great effort whispered: "Father, are you satisfied now?"

A silence intervened; then Tadamori's eyelids slowly quivered open. "You, Kiyomori?"

He settled back into silence once more. "That box—over there . . ." he said at last. His fingers fumbled in the box and he finally brought out a fan, which he handed to Kiyomori without a word. After a time he spoke again: "Have no doubt. You are the son of the late Emperor. He gave me this fan on the last trip on which I accompanied him. It is by right yours."

That day Tadamori, feeling that his end had come, called his sons to him and gave each a memento. To Kiyomori he left a suit of leather armor, an heirloom, and one of the famous swords of the Heike. To Yorimori, the eldest of his sons by Ariko, he presented one other prized blade of the Heike. And this he did out of his regard for Ariko.

Some time after Tadamori's death, when Kiyomori was alone, he unfolded the fan and found a poem inscribed on it. The opening lines were in his father's hand, but the closing stanza was in a script Kiyomori did not recognize, but which Mokunosukй later assured him was the Emperor Shirakawa's. It ran: "Tadamori shall care for it until it becomes a great sheltering tree." The meaning was clear to Kiyomori. He was the Emperor Shirakawa's son given to Tadamori to rear as his own. The riddle of his birth was now answered, but Kiyomori felt nothing beyond a piercing regret that he was not Tadamori's real son. Never again did he look at the fan, which was laid away in a box and forgotten.

On the 11th of July, Kiyomori and his troops left Rokuhara before dawn for the Takamatsu Palace and arrived there at sunrise. After registering they went to their several posts. Kiyomori, running his eyes along the list of names in the register, found that Yoshitomo of the Genji had also been assigned here.

The red banner of the Heike now waved beside the white standard of the Genji, and by nightfall the scorching flames of war reached the capital.

THE WHITE BANNER OF THE GENJI

Every man in his lifetime seems fated to meet at least one or two misfortunes of devastating proportions, or so it appeared to Tameyoshi of the Genji, who for several days did nothing but sigh heavily. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair seemed to have turned whiter. He was sixty and faced with a decision more momentous than any he had ever encountered. Yorinaga, to whom Tameyoshi owed many favors, had sent a message ordering Tameyoshi to ride at once to assist the ex-Emperor Sutoku, and from Tadazanй, Yorinaga's father, had come similar urgings. Tameyoshi knew that Yorinaga's rash attempt to restore Sutoku to the throne rested solely on Yorinaga's confidence in the Genji. Yorinaga counted on Tameyoshi's warriors as the core around which he would gather the fighting monks of Nara and men-at-arms from his feudatories. At the time Yorinaga sent for him, Tameyoshi had also received a summons from the Emperor, ordering him to report at once with his son Yoshitomo to stamp out the revolt.