The Heike Story (4 page)

There was nothing unusual in the ex-Emperor's keeping a mistress; rather was it an established custom among the aristocrats then to court such women as won their fancy, and become their lovers without censure. There was a reason, however, for the monarch's keeping the identity of his mistress unknown, for she was a dancing-girl whose calling prevented her being admitted to the Palace and installed there. No one knew where and when the aging Emperor had first seen her, but there was gossip that she was a daughter of a nobleman, Nakamikado. Only four or five of the courtiers in attendance on the ex-Emperor knew that a house had been built in Gion, in a garden fenced about with cedar boards, and that the unknown beauty, whom they called the "Lady of Gion," had gone to live there; they let it be said, however, that she was the mistress of a retired courtier, and living there for the sake of her health.

The Lady of Gion was she who later became Kiyomori's mother. There was no doubt of her having given birth to him. As for his father, she alone knew the secret and chose to keep it a riddle, causing her son to suffer for it twenty years later.

The night was black and the sough of leaves mingled with the sound of the autumn drizzle, setting up a chill murmur along the miry roads and rivulets and on the wooded hills. On this bleak night the ex-Emperor, accompanied by Tadamori and his retainer Mokunosukй, set out on a visit to Gion.

The drenched leaves suddenly gleamed balefully with a red glow that flashed between the trees, and the ex-Emperor crouched, trembling at what he saw.

"Ha! A demon!"

An apparition with a gigantic head appeared between the trees, baring a row of gleaming teeth.

"Strike, Tadamori! Strike!" came the ex-Emperor's anguished cry. Mokunosukй replied, but Tadamori ran forward silently with his halberd poised. The three were soon convulsed with laughter and resumed their way, for the specter was nothing more than a priest, wearing a hat of bunched straws, who had just lighted his oil-vessel as he made his way down the hill from Gion.

That night's adventure seemed to amuse the ex-Emperor inordinately. He was heard to repeat the tale of that encounter with the priest over and over again to his gentlemen-in-waiting, and at each retelling never failed to praise Tadamori's conduct, for had he been timid, would they not have had a dead priest on their hands? The idling courtiers, who prided themselves on their perspicacity, shook their heads among themselves: it was hard to accept his majesty's tale in its entirety. Had he not since that night ceased altogether in his visits to the Lady of Gion? And what was even more puzzling was his giving the lady to Tadamori for wife soon after. And Tadamori, since his marriage to the lady, lost his zest for living. What was more, Tadamori was never heard to let fall a single word of that night's adventure. Was not all this baffling? There was even more room for speculation when less than nine months from the time Tadamori took the lady to Imadegawa, she gave birth to a son. So his majesty's tale of the priest on that rainy night was somewhat fanciful, a pretext, perhaps. . . .

Even the most curious dared not pursue their conjectures further. To do so was not in good taste among courtiers; moreover, such speculations, they knew, could raise grave issues, best avoided in the interests of self-preservation. The wise merely smiled knowingly.

At that time Mitsuto Endo, Morito's uncle, was a Guard at the Palace. Eighteen years later he told his nephew the story, introducing it with the remark: "Isn't Tadamori's eldest son, Heita Kiyomori, a schoolfellow of yours? I wonder if Tadamori still believes he was honored by the ex-Emperor when given the beloved, the Lady of Gion, for wife, and she soon after gave birth to that Kiyomori? If so, the poor fool! I met a fellow the other day who knew the Lady of Gion intimately. He must now be in his fifties, and lives in one of the temples near Gion, where he's known as the bawdy .priest, Kakunen. He claims to be Kiyomori's real father."

"Eh!—is that the truth?"

Morito's interest was suddenly aroused by this revelation about his friend, for he had heard some loose gossip that Kiyomori was an emperor's son. Morito eagerly asked: "You say that the story comes from this Kakunen, who you believe is telling the truth?"

"It was over our wine, somewhere, when we were bragging about our exploits with women, that this Kakunen, whispering that he had never told any man this secret, let me hear it with these very ears."

"Extraordinary!"

"I was astounded, too. I can hardly believe that even a loose-living priest would go to such lengths to lie. Besides, the story hangs together. . . ."

Kakunen, at great length, had told Morito's uncle this tale: Kakunen had once had a glimpse of the Lady of Gion through a crack in the cedarwood fence and lusted after her. As she was his majesty's favorite, he found no way to approach her, and for some time had hovered about the enclosure, followed her about morning and evening whenever she went out, until one day chance brought about the consummation of his schemes, and he took her by violence.

Since the aging ex-Emperor came rarely, and Kakunen was a handsome novice of thirty, in a temple a stone's throw from her house, the Lady of Gion, after a brief period of indecision, was won over by the young priest's blandishments.

On that night of autumn rain, when it seemed least likely that the ex-Emperor would make a visit, Kakunen stole out to an assignation with the Lady of Gion, very nearly came face to face with his majesty, and was almost killed by his bodyguards. If Kakunen was not to be believed, then whose child was that born later under Tadamori's roof?

Mitsuto exacted a promise from his nephew that the story would not be repeated, and Morito kept it to himself until his chance meeting with the ragged and wretched-looking Kiyomori on the Shiokoji, when the secret became unbearable. Partly from the desire to rouse him, Morito invited Kiyomori to drink with him and imparted the story.

"Old One, I know it all now. There's no use in trying to hide it from me. Your own eyes saw everything that night twenty years ago. Is Morito lying, or does he tell the truth? No, I implore you, tell me whose son I am! Old One, I beseech you, tell me the truth, then I can think of the blood in these veins and of my destiny! I beseech you. ... I beseech you!"

The voice in the shadow of the stable grew still. There was a sound of sobbing. Mokunosukй uttered no word. Above the eaves by the plum tree the eastern clouds were breaking and the winds of dawn struck them chill to the bone.

Mokunosukй sat motionless, his head sunk on his breast, like a figure carved from stone, and Kiyomori, breathing heavily, continued to stare fixedly at the old man. Only the steady pulsing of their hearts seemed to break the agonizing silence that hung over the frozen earth in the dawn.

Mokunosukй groaned deeply at the thought of the revelation he must make.

"I will speak, since you command me to, but first calm yourself." Then he began:

Twenty years ago, the year in which Kiyomori was born, on a black night of rain, Mokunosukй was a witness to an event. He was with his master, Tadamori, accompanying the ex-Emperor, and had seen what took place on the hill near Gion. Yet who would believe the truth about an encounter that had taken place twenty years ago? Even Mokunosukй himself doubted that Kiyomori would believe what he had to tell, for though there was some fact in what that troublesome Morito had said, and in the gossip that circulated —the rainy night, the priest, Tadamori's courage—Mokunosukй's was a different story. He had seen, that night at Gion, a priest make his hurried escape over the fence surrounding the house of the Lady of Gion. That night he was aware that all was not well between the ex-Emperor and his favorite. He had heard the lady weeping; Tadamori had been summoned within; his majesty's voice was heard raised in anger, and the ex-Emperor had returned to the Palace long before daybreak. All this had been quite unusual, beclouding the events of that night. The gossiping of the world at large, even when examined more closely, still threw no light on the truth. That same year the Lady of Gion was given in marriage to Tadamori, and at his home was delivered of a male child, an indisputable fact, which still gave no clue to the child's paternity. Yet when this child demanded so desperately to be told the truth, Mokunosukй stood firm in his belief that no breath of his own speculations should be added to the mystery concerning his master's son. To do so would be an act of disloyalty to his warrior lord.

Like a fretting child that has been soothed, but continues to sob, Kiyomori, locked in the arms of the old man, let himself be led to his room.

"Now sleep," said Mokunosukй. "Let me speak with the master in the morning; Mokunosukй will explain matters. Have no fears." As he would have done for his own child, Mokunosukй arranged the pillows and laid the coverlets over Kiyomori. Kneeling by his head, the old retainer said: "Now, now, let all your troubles be forgotten in dreams. Whoever you are, you are a man, after all. Take courage, you're no cripple with those fine limbs. Think of the heavens and the earth as your mother—your father. Doesn't that thought comfort you?"

"Old One, you bother me. Let me sleep and forget." "Ah, well, then, this old heart too is at peace." Turning once more to look at Kiyomori's sleeping face, Mokunosukй bowed, stepped back out of the room between the screening curtains of the doorway, and departed.

Kiyomori had no idea of how long he had slept. Someone was shaking him and calling his name. He struggled to open his sleep-drugged eyes. The shadow cast by the raised shutter of the door showed that it was long past noon. Tsunemori stood by his bed; his nervous, chiseled features looked strained as he bent over him, repeating: "Come . . . you must come. Because of you, Father and Mother . . ."

"What—me? What of me?"

"The quarreling began this morning, and even the noon meal has been forgotten. There seems to be no end to it."

"Another of their quarrels? What's that to me?"

Yawning deliberately, Kiyomori stretched his arms and flexed them, saying defiantly: "Let me be. What have I to do with their quarrel?"

Tsunemori implored: "That won't do, you're the reason for it. Listen to our brothers whimpering and crying with hunger!"

"Where is Mokunosukй?"

"He was called to Father's apartments a short while ago, and Mother seems to be taking him to task."

"Well then, I'll go," Kiyomori replied, springing out of bed and throwing a scornful look at his timid brother. "Give me my robes—my robes."

"You have them on."

"Oh, so I slept in them, did I?" Kiyomori remarked, drawing the remainder of the previous night's money from his sash. Thrusting some money at Tsunemori, he said: "Get the little ones something to eat. Tell young Heiroku to go for you."

Tsunemori drew back. "We can't do that, it will annoy Mother so, and then—"

"Who cares? I'm doing this!"

"But even you—"

"You fool! Am I not the eldest, and haven't I a right to give a few orders?"

Flinging some money into his brother's lap, Kiyomori left the room. His footsteps thudded across the veranda. At the well near the kitchen he gulped down large draughts of freshly drawn water; he next bathed his face, wiping it on the sleeve of his draggled robe, then started slowly across the courtyard.

Tadamori's apartments, in a wing as decayed as the main house itself, were on the other side of the inner court. Kiyomori stepped up onto the rotting veranda, his heart thumping wildly. Gliding from behind the folding shutters, he said: "Forgive me for being late last night. I did what you asked me to."

The instant his shadow fell across the threshold, there was silence, and three pairs of eyes were turned on him. Mokunosukй's eyes fell immediately; Kiyomori too averted his eyes from the old retainer; neither could endure to meet the other's eyes. Forcing himself to appear cool, Kiyomori approached his parents with a defiant air and unceremoniously thrust some money at them.

"Here is the money borrowed from my uncle—not all of it, though. I spent some last night when I met a friend, and I gave Tsunemori a little just now to buy food for the children, who are crying with hunger. This is the rest. . . ."

Before he could finish speaking, an awful change came over Tadamori's face, as though shame, self-pity and consuming rage struggled within him. He glanced at the small handful of money, and the scarred eyelids looked uglier than ever, contorted in an effort to hold back his tears.

"Heita! Take that away! What do you mean by flinging down that money before you have even made your salutations?" hissed Yasuko, sitting erect and severe beside her husband, and with a withering side-glance at Kiyomori. (So this was she who had been called the Lady of Gion, who was given in marriage to Tadamori by the Nakamikado as though she had been their daughter!)

As Kiyomori's eyes came to rest on her profile, something flared up in him and made him tremble. "What did you say, Mother? If you had no need for that money, why did you send me to borrow it as though I were a beggar?"