The Heike Story (57 page)

"That—that is—" she exclaimed, startled, and was beside him in an instant, holding out her hand in appeal.

"Do you object to my reading this?"

"No—not particularly."

"This isn't your writing. Who sent you this message?"

"A man apparently."

Tokiwa was at a loss to reply. She could not very well protest that she had written the verse, since the creases in the paper showed that it had been folded into the form of a letter; the handwriting, too, was obviously a man's.

"It is, as you say—a message. An odd-looking monk on the street handed it to Yomogi, telling her to give it to me, and then went away."

"Who is Yomogi?"

"She was my children's nursemaid. I left her in Yamato, where we went to hide, but she followed us and somehow found where we were. She says she met this monk on her way here and it was he that gave her this."

"Then you know who this monk is, don't you, or how else would he know that this girl is your maid?"

"I know him only slightly, for he was the monk who lived like a beggar in the ruins of the Willow-Spring Palace after the Hogen War."

"His name?"

"Mongaku, I believe."

Kiyomori scrutinized the sheet of paper once more. Sure enough, there it was, scrawled almost illegibly—Mongaku. The rest was in a large, bold hand.

Mongaku. How long was it since Kiyomori had last seen him—Morito of the Imperial Guards? He occasionally heard about him. Shinzei had once told him about the commotion he had created at Shinzei's mansion. This was the same wandering Mongaku—flitting here and there through the capital, sleeping in the open, without a place to call his own. Kiyomori recalled his old schoolmate with deep pity. To remember Mongaku was to link his name with Kesa-Gozen's and that tragic affair in which he had tossed away a brilliant future, all for love of a woman. They had called him a fool then, but—and Kiyomori suddenly reflected that he was no better than Mongaku had been. What would Mongaku say to him now?—"What difference is there between my folly when I was twenty and yours today, you—now in your forties? Which is worse? Who more culpable? You did right in sparing Tokiwa's three children, but what excuse have you to visit Tokiwa?"

Unquestionably, he was queasy, as timid as the Nose had accused him of being. Kiyomori lacked Mongaku's singleness of purpose, his passion. It was most evident in this affair with Tokiwa. Here he was smoldering to possess her and putting on a fine pretense of being noble!

"Mongaku, as he's called now, was once with the Guards. We were classmates at the academy. . . . Why do you think he sent this poem?"

What made him pursue such irrelevancies, Kiyomori reflected wryly as he continued: "What is he trying to tell you?—'The endless road over the mist-covered waste—'"

"I do not know. I have never met Mongaku."

"Hmm. ... I believe I know what he means."

"What is he trying to say?"

"The Genji have been defeated. Yoshitomo's seed has been scattered throughout a hostile world, but there will be an end to that, and the Genji will triumph once more. This was meant to encourage you."

"Oh, what a fearful thing to say!"

"No, it isn't surprising. There are many who feel as Mongaku does. He believes I am Shinzei's successor and has a low opinion of me."

"No, no, my lord, you are mistaken. I find another meaning in this poem."

"What is it?"

"That 'mist-covered waste' is my heart. He is speaking of the sorrows of women. He is telling me to take courage."

"One could, if one wished, take it that way."

"I was so grateful to get this. I have been reading it over many times to myself all day. I have made up my mind to go on living, to make my way along that road through the 'mist-covered waste.'"

"Do you still sometimes think of doing away with yourself?"

"Yes, when my loneliness is too much for me, then even the whispering of these blossoms sounds like an invitation to die."

"Is it because you pine for your children?"

"That would be presumptuous—to you, their savior. I am resigned to my loss."

"Do you still grieve for Yoshitomo?"

"Ah, cruel words those!" Tokiwa cried, turning her brimming eyes on Kiyomori.

". . . Tokiwa!"

Kiyomori took Tokiwa in his arms. Tonight as never before he felt her body grow pliant and yielding. Desire swept over him like a flame, and he savagely sought her lips with kisses.

Terrified by the passion she had unloosed, Tokiwa struggled to escape him, but her half-stifled cries went unheard.

Inert, Tokiwa crouched among the silken folds of her robes, softly weeping, and did not even look up when Kiyomori rose to leave. A shower of white petals drifted in through the window and settled on her dark hair and garments, and still she sobbed on through the spring night.

A dark shape stole out from the gateway and began descending the slope.

"How did it come off, my lord?" whispered Bamboku, who soon joined Kiyomori.

“…”

"My lord, were you successful? You swore that tonight you would surely—"

Kiyomori stalked on in sullen silence. The Nose had never yet seen him in such a mood. Something unusual had happened. The Nose trailed alongside for some time without speaking, then suddenly began sniggering. Kiyomori glared at Bamboku, but the Nose broke into a noisy laugh.

"My lord, you may deceive others, but there's no fooling me. I'm an old hand at this game."

Kiyomori gave Bamboku a wide grin in the dark. "Stop this chattering of yours, you bother me."

"But haven't I been your friend all along in this affair, and didn't I take it to heart as though it were my own? You might at least tell a fellow whether you've had any success or not. I see nothing wrong in that."

"What a noisy fellow you are! This uproar is enough to drown out any tender feelings I may have. Leave me to walk alone quietly. Keep quiet, you!"

The Nose peered knowingly at Kiyomori's averted face and sighed audibly. He had heard enough to take in what had happened. He also detected the faint, clinging scent of perfume.

"Oy-y-y—!" The Nose suddenly hallooed in the direction of a pine grove at the foot of the hill where some warriors waited in the dark with Kiyomori's carriage. Some soldiers and the ox-tender brought the vehicle out on the road.

Not even the Nose's voice, however, quite recalled Kiyomori to his senses. He had been like one in a trance, floating in ethereal regions with Tokiwa beside him, and even the present failed to dispel that vision entirely.

"No need to hurry. Let the ox set the pace," Kiyomori ordered through the closed curtains. He intended to enjoy fully the delicious sensation of driving home through the mists of this spring dawn, savoring his honeyed reveries. Did Tokiwa hate him, Kiyomori wondered. How would she greet him when they next met? Physical violence repelled him. He had had his fill of it in the last two wars. He had seen Yoshitomo's head strung up at the gates of the jail and those hundreds of beheadings. . . . The power of life or death over Tokiwa was his, but he had not intended to do violence to her. Her yielding was to take place as naturally as the tender unfolding of a bud, and it had been so. He had only been a suppliant for her love and had not ravished her. He could not have loved her less even if Yoshitomo were alive. . . .

Such thoughts revolved in Kiyomori's mind—exonerating, mitigating, and justifying what he had done that night. There was no denying what Red-Nose had said about him; he lacked daring or else why should he be thinking of Yoshitomo at this moment?

As Kiyomori's carriage left the pine-flanked avenue and swung west, one of the warriors walking behind emitted a hideous yell and fell to the ground with a thud. There was an outcry from the other soldiers, and a shout: "Here, scoundrel!"

A violent scuffling ensued as Kiyomori rose halfway in his seat and reached for a curtain, crying: "Ho, there, what's happened?"

He was about to peer out when a heavy body hurtled against the carriage and an armed figure with wild eyes gazed up at Kiyomori, waving a sword.

"Kiyomori of the Heike, have you forgotten me?—Yoshihira of the Genji, Yoshitomo's son?"

A hand reached up to seize Kiyomori's sleeve, fumbled, lunged again, and wrenched away the silken blinds as Yoshihira was tossed clear of the carriage shafts. The ox suddenly plunged forward as a sword-cut laid open its haunches.

"Wait, Yoshihira!"

Yoshihira regained his feet and hurried to overtake the carriage, but halberds bristled at him from all sides.

Stunned, Red-Nose retreated among the trees along the highway, crying as he ran: "Yoshitomo's son—Yoshihira of the Genji!" He fled up a lane where the foot-soldiers of Rokuhara had their quarters, shouting all the while: "Help, cutthroats! Help, murderers!"

Figures armed with a variety of weapons appeared almost instantly and began milling about the narrow thoroughfare.

"Off to the crossroads, you there! Someone sound the alarm, sound the alarm!"

An armed band arrived at the crossroads, looked in all directions, and, seeing nothing, stared at one another foolishly.

"What imbecile's been shouting round here and rousing us from a good night's rest?"

But they soon discovered a halberd on the road; farther on, a wounded figure was stretched out, groaning, and a few steps farther a body lay still in the dust. The commotion spread; servants were sent out to inquire what had happened and horses were saddled.

The Nose grew apprehensive. Had he been overhasty in giving the alarm? Kiyomori's carriage, moreover, was nowhere to be seen. Was he safe? He could not possibly have made his way back to the rose court.

The fear-crazed bull tore onward with the carriage, and only stopped when it reached the end of a wall. "Where are we?" Kiyomori shouted. His bodyguard and the ox-tender finally came up panting and gasped:

"Lord Hitachi's residence, my lord!"

"Knock on the gates!"

The frenzied note in Kiyomori's voice caused the soldiers to beat on the gates resoundingly. The gates soon opened, and to the gatekeeper's astonishment the carriage was quickly dragged in as far as the main portico without a word of explanation. A servant soon appeared and, on hearing that it was the lord of Rokuhara, ran to tell his master.

Norimori, Kiyomori's younger brother, appeared almost at once. "What's this—at this hour, too?" he asked Kiyomori irritably.

"I was visiting Itogo and was attacked on my way home by some of Yoshitomo's followers."

"Yoshitomo's followers? How many?"

"Actually, just one."

"Just one?"

"Mmm . . ." Kiyomori mumbled in chagrin as he began to take stock of the situation. He had never experienced such panic as he had tonight. Yoshihira alone had terrified him beyond measure and left him completely shaken. What had caused this unreasonable fear, Kiyomori wondered, searching his mind. Yoshitomo's face as it appeared that day when his head hung at the gate to the East Jail kept flickering before his mind's eye as he started on his way home, and at the cry "Yoshitomo's son" the gruesome vision had identified itself with the face that glared between the curtains of the carriage. For an instant Kiyomori believed that he saw Yoshitomo's vengeful ghost. There was still more to explain that harrowing moment: he had come away from Tokiwa gloating lickerishly over his conquest, but under his triumph lurked a deep sense of guilt that had summoned up Yoshitomo's spirit. . . .

Norimori invited his brother to enter the house and soon was questioning him somewhat speculatively.

"Why should Yoshihira alone frighten you? You had an adequate bodyguard, didn't you?" he demanded.

"Something must be the matter with me," Kiyomori admitted.

"Had you been drinking?"

"No, not a drop."

"Where have you been?"

"I was visiting Itogo."

"Visiting Itogo? He's away tonight."

"And so I was turning home when I was attacked."

"Oh—?" Norimori replied, but his mocking eyes added: "You must be lying. I've been hearing of these visits to Tokiwa, you know."