The Heike Story (75 page)

"I hope we're not disturbing you, sir," Red-Nose called as he and Giwo paused at the entrance to Tadanori's apartments.

"Is that you, Bamboku?"

"You are busy reading, I see. I apologize. . . ."

"No need for that. I was looking through this collection of poems which I'm told were written by my father, Tadamori, and was pleasantly surprised to find that he had quite a gift for writing verse."

"So I understand," Bamboku remarked, showing no particular interest in the subject.

"You're sure I'm not intruding? As a matter of fact, I've come about that matter I mentioned this morning. Toji at Horikawa sent you a message by one of her pupils, whom I've left waiting in the next room."

"Oh? Yes, to be sure, bring her here," said Tadanori, putting aside his book and turning away from his writing-table. He glanced toward the next room.

Giwo, who had been drinking in the sound of Tadanori's voice, bemused, looked up in confusion as Red-Nose drew aside the screening-curtain.

Tadanori stared at the exquisite vision before him, then turned to say: "But, Bamboku, who is this?"

"This is Giwo, the dancing-girl, a pupil of Toji, to whom you were so kind."

"But her costume is like a man's."

"That is what the dancing-girls in the capital wear when they entertain at banquets."

Tadanori laughed. "I'm only an ignorant bumpkin, I'm afraid."

"Giwo, you want to thank him, don't you?" Bamboku said encouragingly.

"Yes. . . . I—my mistress Toji sent you her respectful greetings and her very deep thanks."

"Is she better now?"

"Thanks to you, she has recovered completely."

Someone was heard calling for Bamboku, then a footman appeared. "Lord Kiyomori wishes to see you at once," he announced.

Bamboku, who knew how impatient Kiyomori could be, began excusing himself immediately. "Sir, if you will allow me—I shall be back as soon as possible," he said, wondering at the same time whether urgent business regarding the construction work at Fukuhara had come up, for Bamboku lately had been spending the greater part of each month there.

Giwo, too, prepared to take leave of Tadanori, who made no attempt to detain her, when Red-Nose, ignoring Tadanori, waved her back. "Come, stay a little longer and chat with the gentleman, who seems to find this something of a treat. I'm sure I shan't be long."

Red-Nose listened to Kiyomori with some impatience. It looked as though he would be kept here much longer than he had expected. Kiyomori rambled on tediously and seemed unconscionably long about coming to a point. He could not very well ask why he had been sent for without giving offense, Bamboku thought.

But finally Kiyomori suggested: "Wine?" and gave orders to the servant to prepare the table.

"I thank you, my lord, I—"

Red-Nose could no longer conceal his impatience. "To tell you the truth, my lord . . ." he began, tapping his forehead.

"What's this, Bamboku, something else you have in mind?"

"Exactly, my lord."

"Fool! Do you expect me to guess what it is? ... What's preventing you from staying?"

"Not quite that, but I left someone waiting with the honorable Tadanori."

"Someone?"

"Yes."

"What exactly do you mean by 'someone'?"

"To tell you the truth, a dancing-girl from Horikawa."

Kiyomori chuckled and then grinned. "A dancing-girl, did you say?"

Red-Nose slapped his forehead. Dense, he was! He should have known that this was why he had been called.

"You may have noticed her, sir, as you passed us?"

"Yes, I saw her," Kiyomori said. "Someone I've never seen before. What's her name?"

"Giwo, sir."

"Why did you bring her to see Tadanori? Has that countrified brother of mine already taken to going out at night?"

"On the contrary—" Bamboku denied it with exaggerated zeal, and then carefully recounted the happenings that led to Giwo's appearance at Rokuhara. He added significantly that she was Toji's most cherished pupil, only seventeen and so precious that she had not yet been presented in public.

By the time wine and trays of food appeared, Bamboku was his usual loquacious self again.

"Red-Nose," Kiyomori began expansively before even touching the wine, "She'll do very well. Bring her here."

"Eh, sir, you mean Giwo?"

"Hmm—" Kiyomori nodded.

One by one lamps were lit under the dark eaves and along the galleries, while Giwo watched them as in a dream. This was fairyland, she thought. The evening sky deepened to indigo and insects began to chirr softly among the grasses of the inner garden. If only this could go on forever, she sighed to herself, until the lamps suddenly reminded her that it was time for her to go back. What had she and Tadanori talked of?—Just a few words in answer to his—nothing of all that she might have said. She sat all the while motionless, staring out at the garden. Never had she known such bliss! No, that was not quite true—there had been another such time long ago, when she lived on the Street of the Ox-Dealers.

She was called Asuka—a mere child then—and she had loved Asatori. She was only thirteen or fourteen at the time, scarcely able to pin up her hair for herself, and she had worshipped him. But another woman had come to live with him and be his wife, and Asuka not long after was sold into bondage in the gay quarters. Even the memory of that love was fast fading from mind, and then she had come upon Asatori quite by chance near Funaoka Hill. She had seen his wife with him, and when Giwo reached home she had wept all that night into her pillow. Then, gradually, Tadanori had crowded out the memories of Asatori, until she knew that she was in love with the handsome young warrior. She never dreamed that she would see him so soon again, like this, and she asked nothing more than to be near him.

Giwo in the midst of her musings looked up and found a lighted lampstand beside her. Tadanori was seated once more at his writing-table, poring over the collection of poems by the fast receding light, oblivious of Giwo.

"You must find it difficult to see," she said, pushing the lamp toward him.

"Oh, are you still here?"

"I'm afraid I'm in the way. ... I wonder what is keeping Master Bamboku."

"Yes, he did say something about coming to fetch you."

"My mistress will be worried, so I had better leave now."

"Going? You might lose your way; let me see you to the carriage porch."

Tadanori was leading the way down the corridors when the two suddenly came on Bamboku. With a look of relief, Tadanori left Giwo to Bamboku and made his way back to his rooms.

"This way, Giwo, come this way."

"It's growing dark, so I had really better be leaving."

"Lord Kiyomori wishes to see you. Come in here."

Giwo suddenly drew back. "But—" she protested, clinging to a pillar and refusing to go farther. A light was burning at the far end of the room, and as footmen hurried by, she suddenly saw that this was not the way by which she had come from the carriage entry.

"You needn't be so anxious. If you're late, the soldiers will escort you home. If you think Toji will be worried, a runner can be sent right off to tell her where you are. In any case, you must not offend Lord Kiyomori by refusing."

Coaxing, scolding, and reproving her in turn, Red-Nose finally led her to Kiyomori.

Kiyomori began pouring himself some wine. From where he sat, the headdress of gauze and the pale-blue tunic gleamed unreal in the lamplight. "Red-Nose, remove the headdress and sword; they look uncomfortable," he said.

"Giwo—is that your name? Come up closer—here. . . . Come and talk to me for a while. What is the latest gossip in the capital?"

Red-Nose sniggered to himself at Kiyomori's clumsiness, his foolish speech and the sheepish look that came over his face— the awkwardness that always characterized his encounters with women. Kiyomori, susceptible to beauty, and vulnerable, had never learned to conceal his feelings. This was not new to Bamboku, for he had seen Kiyomori with Tokiwa and after that with a number of other women, and it had always been the same. But it still puzzled the Nose, as he thought of himself, that this powerful patron of his, so magnificently placed, should be so meek when faced with a woman.

Kiyomori had once confessed, while in his cups, that no matter how old he grew, he could not get over the agitation and shyness of a woman who had captured his fancy. He had said of himself scornfully that the virginal shrinking of a young girl only made him shy and awkward himself. Bamboku had finally arrived at the conclusion that this was only Kiyomori's way of boasting, for what else explained Kiyomori's behavior toward Tokiwa? Wounded already, what reason had Kiyomori to wound her further? If it were true, as Kiyomori had said, that he was timid with a young woman, then it followed that he shrank equally from doing her injury, though his actions belied his words. As Bamboku explained it to himself, there was a strain of cruelty in Kiyomori which he sought to conceal even from himself in his relations with women.

"Red-Nose, you know where Giwo lives, don't you? You know her mistress, too?"

"I do, but—"

"One of your favorite haunts?"

"Not altogether that."

"There's no need to conceal anything. You'll go there for me?"

"Where, sir?"

"To Toji and tell her that Giwo is to stay here. Assure Toji that she shall have whatever compensation she wants in gold or silver."

To this Bamboku replied dubiously: "You wish me tell her that, sir?"

"Yes, go now," Kiyomori ordered, his eyes turned in fascination upon the frightened Giwo. Without her headdress she seemed even more pathetically young and frightened, and she wept softly, murmuring incoherently, into the folds of her pale-blue tunic.

Bamboku hesitated. "It's quite late now, so what do you wish me to do about the answer?"

"Tomorrow will do—any time," Kiyomori replied.

Bamboku bowed and withdrew, carefully closing the double doors after him. He took the lady's carriage, which still waited, and had Kowaka, the manservant, drive him to Toji's address.

The story of Giwo soon became the sensation of the capital. To have gone to Rokuhara uninvited, to have twisted Kiyomori around her little finger, and then to have been installed in state in the rose court! And the gossips speculated interestedly in all that this must mean to her parents, who were so badly off.

Giwo, on her first short visit to her parents, who now had a new home, arrived in a splendid lacquered coach, shining with trimmings of silver and gold, and with an impressive escort of warriors. Never had such a dazzling sight been seen on Juzenji Road, where a great crowd soon gathered to gape at Giwo and to wait patiently until she departed. When Giwo reappeared, accompanied to the gate by her father and mother, the inquisitive spectators surged toward her to examine her carefully from head to foot. Lifting a sleeve to conceal her face, Giwo quickly entered her coach, but the few who stood close to her caught a glimpse of her pale, mournful face and wondered why one so successful should be so sad.

Ryozen, Giwo's father, his health restored, fat and sleek in his fine clothes, soon had a stream of visitors making for his door. They made much of him and his wife, admiring the rich furnishings and costly clothes they saw everywhere, and speculated among themselves how much this was costing Kiyomori every month. Among these visitors was the Serpent, who came often to drink with Ryozen.

"Well, Ryozen," the Serpent unfailingly said, "don't you find that I've brought you good luck?"

Ryozen enjoyed the Serpent's flatteries and in an expansive mood was heard to say: "No, this is not bad at all. And if Giwo has a child by Lord Kiyomori, even I will be counted among his relatives. I am sure to get a post of some kind at Rokuhara then."

Good-natured Ryozen, however, was. no match for the sly Serpent, or his bullying.

"Yes, Ryozen," the Serpent said, "if it weren't for me, where would you be? Wasn't it I that got you out of the Street of the Ox-Dealers, when you were starving, looked out for your daughter, saw that she became a dancing-girl? We're so well acquainted that we might consider each other relatives, eh? Yes, I might lose my temper with you now and then, but that's because I always have your good in mind."