The Heike Story (74 page)

"Ah, then the Buddha has at last come down among you! Believe me!"

"Enough of that! We want no such empty comfort!"

"You are right. You speak the truth. . . . But even though the holy image is gone from the sanctuary—reduced to ashes, the Kannon is still here."

"Where—where do you see the Kannon?"

"In the ashes themselves, about it."

"Aren't ashes only ashes?"

"Yes."

"What is there to see?"

"The divine presence cannot be seen."

"Show it to us. ... No, you're still too young for that. Is there no true priest who can show us the unseen while we still live?"

"There is. There's no reason to think that he does not exist."

"Where is he? Where is this priest?" clamored the people eagerly as they closed in about the monk.

"Ah—let me go, please," the monk pleaded, waving his hat and pushing his way through the crowd. "I have said too much. I cannot tell you that yet, but I am sure that there is such a man. He will come, among you soon. If he does not, then indeed are the teachings of the Buddha false, and paradise a lie— man's true destiny and all the precepts of Buddha but empty mouthing. Then, and then alone, will you have reason to despair. No, the vision and the light of truth have not vanished altogether from Mount Hiei."

His face hidden under his wide hat, the monk fled, crying out as he went: "Do not despair or lose faith in each other! Live on in courage until he comes!"

The crowd dispersed rapidly as many tried to pursue the monk; some followed him with yells of derision. Then the cloud of ashes settled down once more on the ruins.

A lay priest who appeared just then turned to stare at the flying figure.

"Who was that, Yasunori? I'm sure I've seen him before," remarked Saiko, a Fujiwara courtier and current favorite at the Cloister Palace, turning to a member of the Police Commission who accompanied him. "Do you recognize him?"

The officer, Yasunori, quickly replied: "Did you not meet him, sir, through the Abbot of Ninna-ji Temple?"

"Ah, that's it. I hear that the Tendai sect has none more learned than he. I do recall the Abbot telling me about him. A monk—what's his name?—who lives in Kurodani on Mount Hiei."

"That must be Honen."

"Honen—that's it, I was sure it was he. He never leaves his hermitage in Kurodani. ... I wonder what brought him down here."

"The destruction of the temple caused so much talk that curiosity probably got the better of him and he couldn't resist coming to see the ruins for himself."

"It must have been that," Saiko said, looking round him cautiously to make sure that no one had recognized him.

After viewing the ruins carefully, Saiko motioned to a retainer to bring him his horse, and shortly after was riding back to the Cloister Palace.

The Cloister Palace blazed with lights every night, for it was now Goshirakawa's custom to invite four or five of his favorites to dine with him in the evening. Saiko had just finished speaking. Goshirakawa, who listened closely to the priest's account of his visit to Kiyomizu Temple that afternoon, turned to Saiko, saying:

"So people are coming in great numbers to the ruins and praying to the ashes, you say? Comic and yet touching—something will have to be done soon to placate the Kofukuji monks so we can rebuild the temple. . . . Isn't that so, Toshitsunй?"

"Yes, your majesty," the courtier Toshitsunй replied, looking down, at a loss how he should continue, for he had returned in great distress a few days before from Nara. The Kofukuji monks had been obdurate, spurned all his overtures for a truce, and demanded that there should be no delay in punishing the authorities of Mount Hiei. Goshirakawa had received the news with a bare nod and gave no indication of what he thought. Toshitsunй, however, had seen that the monks of Kofukuji were preparing for a war. It also stood to reason that Goshirakawa knew that the monks would soon enter the capital with their sacred emblems to plunder and burn the temples in Mount Hiei's jurisdiction, and that Mount Hiei would retaliate in kind. Nor was there anything, short of a powerful army, to keep the monks from marching on the Cloister Palace and intimidating Goshirakawa himself. Until now it would have been a matter of course to call upon the Heike for support. Yet no one knew how Goshirakawa stood in relation to Kiyomori, for though the ex-Emperor's visit to Rokuhara had apparently dispelled Kiyomori's distrust of Goshirakawa, there was still some doubt as to what went on in Kiyomori's mind. Without him, however, there was no way to send the warriors out to repulse the monks.

Goshirakawa then turned to the priest: "Saiko, what are people in the capital saying nowadays about that recent affair?"

A shrewd look of comprehension entered Saiko's eyes as he inclined his head. "What is it that your majesty wishes to know?"

Goshirakawa turned his eyes full on Saiko. "There was a rumor all over the capital on the night Kiyomizu Temple burned down that I gave out secret orders to attack the Heike."

"It was so."

"But that is preposterous, Saiko; what do you think of this?"

The other guests listened intently for Saiko's reply. What they had just heard was a complete reversal of all that Goshirakawa had been urging until now. But the answer came without a moment's hesitation:

"Your majesty, the gods speak through the lips of men. Though your majesty may hesitate to say it, the people see how arrogant the Heike have grown and they have spoken for the gods, have they not?"

Goshirakawa nodded his agreement, then suddenly laughed aloud. "Enough, Saiko! You have said enough!"

No sooner did he realize that he could not dispense with Kiyomori, than Goshirakawa lost no time in courting his good will; his brother, Yorimori, and his brother-in-law, Tokitada, who had been banished from Kyoto, were quickly recalled. Goshirakawa soon saw Kiyomori's popularity increase at the Court and all over the capital.

Kiyomori, at the head of his warriors, went out to parley with the Kofukuji monks as they marched on Kyoto. In a day or two he succeeded in arranging a meeting between the heads of Mount Hiei and Kofukuji, with the result that the latter withdrew their forces to Nara. The swiftness of the amicable settlement that followed astounded the frightened populace and mystified Goshirakawa's followers. And even when Saiko learned the names of the three powerful leaders of Mount Hiei, proverbially hostile to the Heike, with whom Kiyomori had exchanged letters on several occasions, there was nothing to explain how Kiyomori had come to know them. Long since forgotten was that summer's day, eighteen years before, when Kiyomori defied the monks of Mount Hiei at Gion, and no one knew that he won a few friends among them by his daring.

In the following year, 1166, State Councilor Fujiwara Motozanй, to whom Kiyomori's second daughter was married, died suddenly at the early age of twenty-four. A year later Kiyomori was appointed a State Minister, with all the authority and prestige attached to this high post. He had just turned fifty; the new mansion at West Eighth Avenue had been completed; his labors, it seemed, had received their final reward. But new vistas continued to unfold before him, peak after challenging peak, for the triumph of the Heike was only beginning. His brothers and sons, still in their thirties or forties, all were high-ranking officials at the Court and in the government. Yet power and renown had come to Kiyomori without resort to force or to intrigues; his connections with the aristocracy had come without his seeking: both his daughter and his wife's sister Shigeko, had been sought after in marriage, the one by the former Regent for his son, the latter by the ex-Emperor Goshirakawa.

TWO DANCING-GIRLS

The Heike had now entered into a period of great influence, and in the popular mind nothing counted so much as even the slightest connection with the Heike. And it was about this time that the gossips of the capital delighted to tell the story of Giwo.

Giwo, from the gay quarters of Kyoto, was one of the dancing-girls who accompanied their mistress to the Emperor Nijo's funeral at Funaoka Hill. That day when Toji fell ill, prostrated by the heat, a young Heike warrior had taken pity on her and lent Toji an ox-cart to carry her back to her home in the capital. Toji recovered within a day or two, and one hot afternoon as she ate chilled melons she chatted about the events of that day with the girls in her establishment.

"Yes, he was most kind. I don't know what we would have done if he had driven us from that temple gate."

"Yes, Mother, we were frantic. There you were, stretched out in pain, and the rain coming down, when the soldiers came to drive us away."

"If that young warrior hadn't been there and taken pity on me, it would have gone badly for us all."

"We should have had to carry you all that way home. I'm sure you would never have been sitting up so soon like this. . . . And to have lent us an ox-cart to bring us all the way home! . . . We really must do something about calling on the gentleman and thanking him, Mother."

Toji had been turning this over in her mind for some time. The young warrior, she soon found out, was Kiyomori's younger brother, Tadanori. Had he not been a Heike, she would not have hesitated so long, but her good sense told her that whatever form her gratitude took, it must also serve to establish some connection with the Heike. She waited until autumn and then called her favorite pupil, Giwo, to her and said: "You are most suited to go to Rokuhara as my messenger to thank the honorable Tadanori for me."

Giwo suddenly colored, and complied willingly, but the anxious look in her face led Toji to add: "You needn't be afraid; I've talked to Master Bamboku about this, and he's promised to meet you inside the main gate at Rokuhara. He'll see to it that you meet the honorable Tadanori. ... All you need do is take a carriage and go there."

Giwo was ready to leave at once, but Toji called her back: "No, no, it won't do for you to go like that! Remember, you're going to Rokuhara. This may be the first and the last time and you're to go in your best. . . . Now I'll help you get dressed."

Toji herself attended to Giwo's toilette, applying cosmetics with great care, until she was satisfied with her handiwork. Arrayed in a pale-blue costume, a headdress of gold-colored gauze and a silver sword at her waist, Giwo quickly stepped into the lady's carriage that awaited her. Kowaka, the manservant, in a new suit of clothes suitable to the occasion, accompanied her, walking beside the carriage.

As her carriage crossed Gojo Bridge and entered Rokuhara, Giwo's heart fluttered wildly with her joy; she was like one in a trance. From the day she had met the young warrior she had never ceased to dream of him. That figure, his voice, and his face had been with her constantly. At the thought that she would be seeing him soon, her cheeks flushed and grew feverish. What was she to say? How would she reply?

Giwo's carriage soon drew up at one of several gates.

"Please—" Kowaka asked of the soldier at the entrance, "has Master Bamboku come?"

"Ah, you mean Red-Nose, don't you?" the soldier corrected. "If it's Red-Nose, go in by the gate over there and ask at the lodge on your right. I saw him there just awhile ago."

Kowaka bowed his thanks and started away, when a shout made him turn.

"No, no! Not that way! Bring your carriage this way!" Bamboku directed, waving.

The carriage finally drew up at a portico and Giwo stepped down. She approached a footman uncertainly to say:

"I am called Giwo and was sent by my mistress Toji at Horikawa to thank the honorable Tadanori."

Other footmen soon collected at the entrance and stared at Giwo for some moments in silent amazement, until one came to himself and started away with her message.

"Here, you, wait!" Bamboku suddenly called after the footman. "Your master is expecting us. You needn't go. I'll take the lady in myself." Bamboku was already ascending the stairs. "Come, Giwo, this way," he said.

Giwo rustled past the staring menials. She followed Red-Nose through long hallways, past several inner gardens. As they came to a connecting bridge between two apartments, she heard rapid footsteps approaching them. Two or three attendants appeared and quickly warned them back: "Lord Kiyomori—step back, please."

Bamboku and Giwo instantly withdrew to one side and waited deferentially. The sound of a clear laugh reached their ears from beyond; then Kiyomori appeared, engrossed in conversation with some courtiers. He cast an interested glance at Giwo as he went past and looked back at her over his shoulder once more, with a whispered question to one of his companions.