The Heike Story (76 page)

Ryozen was rarely to be found at home now; he went about constantly in the company of the Serpent, who took him off to gamble, to drinking bouts, and to the gay quarters. The once peaceful home became the scene of violent domestic quarrels, for Ryozen's wife soon found that her husband kept a woman somewhere on Sixth Avenue and reproached him. "Remember," she said, almost in tears, "this fine life of ours isn't because of you, and if you go in for loose living, we'll be the laughing-stock of our neighbors. What's more, how do you think that loving child, Giwo, is going to take it?"

About this time people began to talk about another bewitching dancing-girl called Hotokй in another house in the gay quarters. She was only sixteen, and had come to Kyoto as a child from the province of Kaga, her birthplace. Trained from childhood to her profession, her dancing and singing were reputed to be superior to that of even the most polished performers at the Court, and the dandies of Kyoto who saw her swore that she was the equal of Giwo. As Giwo's fame spread, Hotokй's mistress began to feel that she had cause to be proud of her protйgйe despite all that was said about Giwo, and one day called Hotokй to her.

"There's no doubt that you're the finest dancer in the capital, but only the gay blades of Kyoto have seen you. If you should attract the attention of Lord Kiyomori, your fortunes will be made. Even Giwo was admitted to Rokuhara, and there's no reason why you shouldn't be. Adorn yourself as Giwo did and see whether you can do as well as she."

Hotokй complied eagerly, for she was innocent and proud of her dancing. The thought of what she might gain by it never entered her mind.

Early in the autumn a gay lady's coach drew up at the gate to West Eighth Avenue, where Kiyomori, a State Minister since February, had come to live in his palatial mansion. Many stately residences stood along the wide avenues—here Lady Ariko's, there Tokiko's—and beyond were side-streets and lanes where the warriors lived. All over one saw a blending of the ancient and new styles in architecture, the outward reflection of the changing times.

Hotokй, arrayed in her loveliest, leaned out from her carriage as a guard challenged her at the gate. "I am Hotokй, a dancing-girl—from birth, alas, the plaything of men. I have been sent by my mistress and make so bold as to come without being summoned. Allow me to dance and sing before my lord Kiyomori."

The guard hesitated, curious; then, fearing Kiyomori's displeasure, he burst out in anger:

"What's this? Coming here without being summoned? Get out—go back!"

"No, it is the custom among dancing-girls to pay visits like this, and I do this with all respect to his lordship. I am young and I cannot bear the disgrace of being refused."

Hotokй, dejected, turned to go, when a footman called her back.

"Since you insist, I shall see what can be done," he said, leading the way to the mansion.

To Hotokй's startled eyes, halls and splendid rooms stretched endlessly before her, and then she saw one who appeared to be Kiyomori. He was surrounded by attendants, one of whom approached her and said:

"Are you Hotokй? Count yourself fortunate, for not everyone can expect to be presented to his lordship. You are here only because Giwo begged his lordship to make an exception. . . . You might sing for us in return for this great favor."

Hotokй bowed, then turned to Giwo with a look of deep gratitude, to which Giwo replied with a steady gaze of encouragement, and Hotokй began to sing. It was a simple song repeated thrice. From her artless lips there flowed a clear stream of sound, moving the hearts of her listeners and lingering there in melodious echoes.

Kiyomori suddenly stirred. "Indeed, you sing well. Now you shall dance. Here—bring drums!"

Hotokй inclined her head and rose. Slowly she glided into stately motion, clothed in a dignity that belied her youth.

Kiyomori watched her intently with an ecstatic look, but as his eyes followed her, drinking in her grave beauty, he was seized by a savage impulse to claw at this loveliness and to destroy it.

"Very fine. Better than I thought," he finally said. "A toast to this—Hotokй? We'll finish our wine in the Spring Pavilion and watch Hotokй dance once more."

Hotokй was ordered to remain at Kiyomori's mansion on West Eighth Avenue, and all over the capital, wherever people met, there was talk that Lord Kiyomori had acquired a new mistress. But it was not so, for Hotokй, out of gratitude to Giwo, would not bend to Kiyomori's wishes, and begged piteously day after day for leave to go home.

"Tell Giwo she is to go," Kiyomori ordered. "I have done everything to make her happy. She has all that she needs to spend the rest of her days in ease."

Giwo received the news of her dismissal with relief, though she wept when she thought of Tadanori, Kiyomori's half-brother; for she was a woman who had been made the pawn and plaything of one man when her heart was secretly given to another.

No sooner was it known in the capital that Giwo had received her dismissal than the men about town importuned her with messages to appear at their banquets and sent her gifts daily, but Giwo hid herself at home and refused to see anyone.

Yet Giwo grew heartsick when she found how her father, Ryozen, had changed completely. He was now a quarrelsome, household tyrant, a drunkard and loaded with debts. Her mother, whom Giwo believed she had made happy through her own unhappiness, was in despair. Not long after that, Ryozen vanished with the Serpent and was heard of no more.

In late spring of the following year, 1168, Giwo, her sister, and her mother cut off their long hair and went to live as recluses in the hills at Saga, near a temple north of the city gates. They had not been long there when the dancing-girl Hotokй escaped from the mansion on West Eighth Avenue and carne to Saga, begging to be taken into their midst. She too, like them, had seen enough of the evils of wealth and rank and grown weary of the life of pleasure.

A FRACAS

Kiyomori's trips to Fukuhara became more and more frequent, and travelers between the capital and western Japan were astonished by the changes they saw there in the space of five or six years, for the fishermen's settlements and the open country had become a flourishing colony of villas with Kiyomori's palatial residence as its center. Not only were the roads good, but the many shops strung along the shoreline already lent Owada the aspects of a port.

Although Kiyomori's mansion was completed and a host of similar Heike dwellings had sprung up round it, Kiyomori made little progress on the vast harbor of which he still dreamed. Though boats specially constructed to carry stones emptied load after load into the sea for the breakwater, it was as steadily demolished by the strong southwesterly wind and heavy seas. And whenever the mole began to take shape, the autumn typhoons destroyed every trace of it. But Kiyomori refused to abandon the work. Undaunted, he appealed:

"Is there no one with the skill and the confidence to accomplish this? I would give much to secure such a man. Find me such a one, send him to me."

After searching far and wide, a man was found to continue with the construction, and thousands of men and boats labored at it. Day after day the work went on, week after week went by, and then months, with Kiyomori financing the work singlehanded. And whenever Kiyomori visited Fukuhara, it was not to beguile his leisure with the elegant pastimes of courtly life in a villa, but to follow the progress of the harbor, giving himself body and soul over to considering its many problems.

During one of his visits to Fukuhara, Kiyomori ignored the symptoms of a cold, and not until the night he was on his way back to the capital did he finally succumb to a high fever. There was consternation in the capital when the news of Kiyomori's illness leaked out from the mansion on West Eighth Avenue. The Emperor sent his chief physician to Kiyomori's bedside. All day long the carriages of courtiers and high officials drew up at the gates of the mansion to inquire after his condition. No one—not even Kiyomori's relatives—was admitted to the sickroom, and all anyone knew was what Kiyomori's physician told them. But Kiyomori grew worse. He had taken no nourishment for several days. The fever did not leave him, and even his own physician seemed unable to put a finger on what ailed him.

Very soon the news went round that Kiyomori was sinking fast. A Heike official in northern Kyushu, hearing of this, set out at once for Kyoto with a Chinese physician who had recently come from China.

Kiyomori's stepmother, Lady Ariko, and his eldest son, Shigemori, visited the chief temples and shrines in the Eastern Hills and on Mount Hiei to offer prayers for his recovery.

It was only inevitable that people should speculate on what would happen if Kiyomori died. The Heike were not strong enough yet to keep power from passing into the hands of the ex-Emperor Goshirakawa, and no one doubted that his first step would be to crush the Heike—and with them the warrior class. The Cloister Palace, in the meantime, was daily besieged with visitors from the Court, and on one such day Goshirakawa ordered his carriage and drove to Kiyomori's mansion.

On hearing that the ex-Emperor had arrived, Kiyomori appeared terrified. He ordered his room to be swept and incense burned. As he prostrated himself before the royal visitor. Goshirakawa noticed how emaciated Kiyomori had become, and said gently:

"It is better for you to lie down."

"No, your majesty, I can still sit up."

Erect in his night-clothes of white silk, and looking more punctilious than he had ever appeared, Kiyomori replied to the ex-Emperor's solicitous questions.

There were some other matters of a deeply important nature which Goshirakawa discussed at Kiyomori's bedside. As it later became known, they concerned the dethroning of the boy-Emperor Rokujo in favor of Goshirakawa's own son, Takakura. It was apparent that the ex-Emperor had for some time had this in mind as a means of ultimately securing the reins of power. He believed that Kiyomori would fall in with his plans, since Takakura was Kiyomori's nephew. He had no assurance, however, that he would succeed in coaxing Kiyomori to agree with him, and there was the possibility that Kiyomori might even turn the tables on him.

On the day after his visit the ex-Emperor dispatched his own physician to the mansion on West Eighth Avenue, and upon his return drew him aside to question him.

"How did you find him? Is there any hope that Kiyomori will live?"

To this the physician replied: "Your majesty, I find it difficult to say. There was no way in which I could tell what was ailing him. The peculiar symptoms of his feigned illness make it difficult for me to name his malady."

Feigned illness? Goshirakawa listened thoughtfully. Whether Kiyomori lived or not made little difference to him; his own schemes would in any case go through.

Kiyomori, ill, was helpless. His robust health had always made him contemptuous of physical weakness, though it was quite another matter when Kiyomori had something wrong with him. His wife, Tokiko, often used to laugh and say: "I've never seen anyone quite so timid and fussy as you when you're ill!"

This time the sick man, strangely enough, did not fuss or fume; he took no interest in food; the fever showed no sign of abating. From time to time there were moans from the sickroom and the incoherent mutterings of delirium. Kiyomori's physician grew alarmed. Tokiko, Lady Ariko, and Kiyomori's eldest son, Shigemori, spent many hours in their private chapel. Soothsayers were called in, and messengers, sent to the great centers of worship, ordered special services to be said for Kiyomori's recovery. It looked altogether as though the angry deities were taking their revenge on the unbeliever who had blasphemed and defied them too long.

But Kiyomori's delirium held no terrors for him. Whenever the fever left him, he was aware only of the pain in his distended abdomen; attacks of strangling nausea returned and made him long for the fever to dissolve the nightmare of pain once more into that blissful state in which he floated disembodied on a rosy cloud. In his semiconscious state he was aware of himself saying: "So this is the boundary between life and death. . . ." Then he would see angels and cherubs weaving between the clouds to the sound of music, and among that host spy a child—himself at the age of eight. He was on the dancing-stage at Gion, and what seemed to be clouds were cherry blossoms. There she stood under the trees, his exquisite mother, smiling as she watched him dance. There was his father beside her.—Mother! Father! Watch me dance!—And Kiyomori danced on and on until he fell exhausted. Suddenly his father was gone, and his mother. Then the wailing of children pierced his ears. Listen! that was the Old One, singing lullabies. There was the stable at home and the horses staring at him out of their lean, hungry faces. And beneath the moon in an indigo sky was Imadegawa—the decaying house where he had once lived— rising before his eyes. The sound of his young brothers crying with hunger drove him to wander about as if crazed. His mother had abandoned these children. . . . His father—where was he? And Kiyomori would come upon the Squint-Eyed One leaning against a post and staring up silently at the eaves. ... I am no man's son, but you are my real father—and in his delirium Kiyomori called over and over again: "Father!—my father!"