The Heike Story (6 page)

Wataru continued half to himself: "I'd give anything to ride him. I know just how it would feel to be astride him. What a beauty—that line from his hoofs to his croup!"

The youths sat under a large cherry tree near the paddock, hugging their knees. Of the two Sato Yoshikiyo was indifferent and did little more than smile faintly in response.

"Doesn't it seem so to you, Yoshikiyo?" Wataru asked.

"How—what do you mean?"

"Think what it would be like to come riding in victorious along this sunlit Kamo, waving your whip to a thunder of applause!"

"Never thought of it."

"Never?"

"I'd be even less interested if I'd picked the winner. What use is there in a good horse if the rider doesn't care?"

"You sound as though you were lying and not merely modest. There's no reason why you couldn't ride him—in fact, either of us can, since we're Guards at the Palace."

Yoshikiyo laughed. "You're talking of something else, Wataru."

"Of what, then?"

"Aren't you thinking of the Kamo races in May—the races?"

Wataru quickly replied: "Naturally, all these colts were picked for that event."

"But"—Yoshikiyo shrugged—"I'm not interested in horseracing. Accompanying his majesty on horseback is entirely another thing."

"Yes, but what of the day you go into battle?"

"I can only pray that that day will not come. There are too many disturbing things these days for us warriors to think about."

"Hmm . . ." mused Wataru, turning troubled eyes on his friend, "I never expected to hear anything like this from the lips of the famous Yoshikiyo of the Guards. What ails you, eh?"

"Nothing at all," replied Yoshikiyo.

"In love?"

"Not that I've not had some affairs—but it's my wife," Yoshikiyo said. "She gives me no reason for complaint, but I must tell you—a few days ago she gave birth to a jewel of a child, and I too have become a father!"

"That's not unusual. When we warriors marry, we start families, have children. . . ."

"Quite right, and what a number! Yet what troubles me most is that we have so little pity or love for those who bear our children."

Wataru laughed aloud at this. "Something's the matter with you!" he said, and lapsed into silence, fixing his gaze on the paddock, where he now saw Heita Kiyomori and Morito sauntering. The two seemed to recognize the couple under the tree. Kiyomori's ruddy face broke into a smile, which displayed his even, white teeth. Wataru raised his hand, and beckoned to them, knowing that Kiyomori would share his enthusiasm.

Quickly leaving his companion, Kiyomori approached with a greeting and soon found a seat between the two, who once had been his schoolmates at the Imperial Academy. Wataru was five years his senior, Yoshikiyo two. Morito, who had not joined them, was also one of this intimate group. Between these youths in their twenties there was a strong bond of friendship which came of an awareness that they held the future in their strong young hands, a consciousness of secret hopes and dreams shared.

The Imperial Academy had been set up exclusively for the education of the nobility and scions of the Fujiwara clan, but, as time went on, the attendance of warriors' sons above the Fifth Rank was permitted. In their studies as well as in the treatment accorded them, discrimination between the offspring of the nobles and the warriors, however, led to constant friction. The young patricians sneered that the barbarous sons of impecunious warriors had little to gain from books, while the warriors' sons quietly fumed with thoughts of future revenge, and their feuding reflected the seething, subterranean conflict now growing between their elders.

Kiyomori was typical of the unpolished, indigent, and unlettered warrior youth, and for that reason despised by the young aristocrats. He was well liked, however, by the young men of his own class. For those who left the academy there was a university, but the sons of warriors were excluded from it on the pretext that their future lay in training as men-at-arms, so Kiyomori and his friends were among those who, on leaving the academy, enrolled with the Department of Military Affairs and eventually were assigned to guard the Cloister Palace.

For Kiyomori, whose father shunned society and whose mother had neglected him, the Guards provided a convenient and easy occupation for indulging his indolent and aimless habits, and his fellow Guards rarely saw him report for duty. Following Yasuko's departure, however, Tadamori was a changed man and made up his mind to start his life anew. To Kiyomori he confided: "I am still in my forties, we must make a new beginning."

And soon after this, Tadamori once more resumed his duties at Court.

"Isn't Morito coming? I thought I saw him with you."

Looking round, Kiyomori replied: "He's somewhere about— shall I call him?"

Wataru quickly interposed: "No, don't bother him. He seems anxious to avoid me these days. But, Heita, have you seen that four-year-old? What do you think of him—splendid, isn't he?"

Kiyomori snorted, drawing down the corners of his full mouth, then slowly shook his head. "That black one? Not that one—he's no good."

"Eh? Why—that fine colt?"

"No matter how fine, those four white fetlocks bring bad luck."

Wataru was taken aback at this reply, which drew his attention to the white markings on the colt. Whether in the stirrup or appraising a horse at sight, Wataru was confident that he was as good a judge of horseflesh as any. Four white fetlocks had always been regarded as a bad omen in even a chestnut or bay, and Wataru had failed to notice this. Though he quickly concealed his chagrin, he was a little nettled to have Kiyomori, who was younger, give him a lesson in the fine points of a horse; he was also aware that Yoshikiyo sat near by, grinning.

Wataru laughed. "So those white fetlocks are no good—and what of warriors who are cross-eyed, pock-marked, and red-nosed, are they, too, no good?"

Kiyomori bristled. "Now, now, why draw comparisons between horses and my father? That's going a bit far—"

But Wataru broke in. "So even you are superstitious like those bloodless aristocrats who live in those sunless Palace rooms, talking of things that 'pollute,' things that are 'unclean,' things that are of 'good omen,' of 'bad omen'—forever preoccupied with silly fears, while we young ones who have sprung from the good sunlit earth would not own to such superstitions! Ill-omened—some aristocrat long ago must have owned such a horse and had his insolent chin bitten, or was pitched off his horse and had his thigh bones cracked! That's where the superstition must have started."

Wataru continued doggedly: "Let me tell you about Tameyoshi of the Genji, who was chief of the Police Commission in 1130, when the monks of Mount Hiei rioted. He went to suppress that uprising on a chestnut with four white fetlocks, and everyone knew it was his favorite horse. Then again, the year before last, I swear it was a bay with white fetlocks that came off victorious in the race between the Palace horses and those of Lady Taikenmon."

"Yes, yes, I know. I was casting no slurs at that fine colt by being superstitious," Kiyomori replied.

"I had hoped to get a name for myself by riding that horse at the Kamo races," Wataru explained.

"So that was what made you lose your temper?"

"I wasn't angry, I only wanted to make fun of superstitions. I can see how a superstition might even be in my favor. It's possible they'll not find anyone willing to ride him."

Kiyomori made no reply. For one so sanguine, he was at times curiously sensitive about trifles. Perceiving that he was in no mood for further talk, Wataru turned to Yoshikiyo, only to find him completely oblivious of the conversation and absorbed in watching an occasional white petal come fluttering and floating to earth.

"Ah, there's the imperial carriage!"

"Oh, his majesty looks this way!" All three instinctively leaped to their feet and started running in the direction of the paddock, where crowds thronged to meet the arriving carriage.

Like no other epoch that preceded it, this age gave itself up entirely to pleasure and gambling, poetry tournaments, the blending of perfumes and incense, pageants, miming, dice-games, outings at the four seasons to view the beauties of nature, cockfighting and archery matches. Earlier, court circles regarded seasonal excursions and poetry parties as the natural complement to living; yet never had men at large regarded all things as its playthings as during this new age which sought to transmute even its religion and politics into exquisite pastimes—all, with the exception of war. At the word "war," both high and low trembled, for the seeds of conflict were now sown far and wide: among the powerful armed clergy; to the east; to the west, where the pirates of the Inland Sea periodically made their forays; and close at hand in the very capital itself, where the Court and the Palace were at odds with each other. Lately it was openly rumored that the Genji and Heike in distant provinces were mobilizing their soldiers, and that a storm was brewing.

People were uneasy. Something ominous permeated the air itself. Still, in the midst of that foreboding and effeteness, a feverish hunger for pleasure seemed to consume everyone, and the crowded Kamo racecourse was one sign of it. According to the old chronicles, horseracing became a royal sport about the year 701, indulged in by Guards on the grounds of the Imperial Palace during the May Festival. In these troubled times, however, horse-racing was no longer confined to the course at Kamo in May, but took place in shrine compounds, on the estates of the courtiers and noblemen who entertained the Emperor or the ex-Emperor and their ladies, on the broad stretch of Second Avenue, or were even improvised at imperial picnics. As races were held on straight courses, wide enough for ten horses to run abreast, it was even possible to have contests on any of the main avenues of Kyoto.

One sovereign, it was also written, was so carried away by his fever for horseracing that he set aside twenty of his manors in the provinces for the breeding of racehorses, and in the capital itself ordered the building of lavish stables requiring an army of grooms and attendants to maintain them. The late monarch as well as his son, the present ex-Emperor, were no less addicted to this sport, and the royal visit today to Kamo was to select a horse, in anticipation of the races in May, from all the thoroughbreds sent from numerous stud farms in the provinces.

"Is Tadamori here?" the ex-Emperor inquired, ignoring the courtiers around him. "I see no exceptional ones today. What do you think?"

Tadamori, who stood modestly apart, merely raised his head to reply: "Your majesty, there is just one."

"Just one—that black colt from the manor at Shimotsukй?"

"Yes, your majesty."

"The one I have been watching for some time—the colt tethered to that post? Yet these gentlemen and horse-fanciers all warn me against him; they say those four white fetlocks bring bad luck."

"A common saying, your majesty, but not worth considering—" Tadamori began, regretting his habit of plain speaking. "Of all these horses, I see none equal to that colt; that fine head, that eye and the sweep of the tail."

The monarch hesitated. He was anxious to have the black colt taken to his stables and trained for the May races, at which he hoped to win against the Emperor's horses. But, like his courtiers, he also was superstitious.

"If your majesty wishes, I will take the colt to my stable and keep him until the day of the races," Tadamori ventured, recalling his own impulsive words and the effect they had had on the assembled noblemen.

"That should do no harm. Take him and be sure of his training until the races," Toba replied.

The story of the black colt spread throughout the Cloister Palace, where many of the courtiers were ill-disposed toward Tadamori. Though a mere warrior, he was permitted near the imperial dais, the only warrior singled out for such honor, and the jealous courtiers resented him. They feared that the Squint-Eyed One would usurp their privileges, and distrusted him, believing that Tadamori knew the secret of ingratiating himself with the ex-Emperor. In spite of the years that Tadamori had held aloof from the Palace and refused invitations to the seasonal entertainments and observances, the ex-Emperor's regard for him had not diminished. Not only did Tadamori continue to receive tokens of the abdicated monarch's attachment, but further honor was shown him by Toba's eagerness to accept Tadamori's opinions as final. Tadamori's reinstatement at the Palace once more roused the suspicions and distrust of the courtiers.

On returning home, Tadamori stood by the black colt stroking its nose, saying: "Ah, what pettiness! Nothing has changed in that old pond where those courtiers croak."