The Heike Story (77 page)

Then a voice—Shigemori's—saying: "Father, what is it?"

Kiyomori's other sons had gathered round him and were shaking him awake.

"Was I saying anything strange in my dreams?" Kiyomori asked.

"You were delirious, Father."

"They were beautiful dreams. It pains me to be awake once more."

"The Chinese physician from Kyushu has just arrived, Father. You want him to come here, don't you?"

"What! From the country of Sung? Yes, bring him."

The physician soon appeared in his traveling robes, his white hair flowing about his shoulders, ascetic-looking, and lean as a crane. He carefully examined Kiyomori; inclined his head to one side from time to time, muttering, and then withdrew to one side of Kiyomori's bed.

Kiyomori turned toward the physician to ask: "Will I recover?"

A smile accompanied the reply: "I believe you will be over this in two or three days."

Kiyomori could hardly believe his ears, but after the physician left, took the powders that had been left him. On the following morning Kiyomori felt much improved and continued to drink the potions as he had been directed, and that night he fell into a deep and invigorating sleep.

Kiyomori's illness had been caused by intestinal parasites. Once they were removed with drugs and purgatives, Kiyomori began to recover rapidly, and the news spread about the capital that his life had been saved by a miracle. Medicine, still in its elementary stages, linked the presence of parasites in the human body with supernatural causes, and necromancers and astrologists were usually called in to effect a cure.

At the mansion on West Eighth Avenue and in Rokuhara, life resumed its customary briskness; there was feasting and rejoicing everywhere, and music was heard once more in the great houses of the Heike.

Soon after his recovery Kiyomori, to the amazement of those who knew him, took the tonsure and withdrew from public life. For Kiyomori there was nothing more he could desire; his position was secure, his reputation established; the highest he could seek in the way of government honors was also his. Despite all this, two ambitions were unfulfilled—the harbor at Owada, and trade with China. He still clung to his dream of making Fukuhara a great center of commerce, and Itsuku-shima the jewel of the Inland Sea, linking Japan with the land of the Sung. To what strange and glorious flowering might this yet lead!

Shortly after handing back his portfolio, Kiyomori settled at Fukuhara to devote all his time to the last stages of the work on the harbor, and it happened while he was there that the Emperor Rokujo was dethroned in favor of Goshirakawa's nine-year-old son. It was asserted and believed everywhere that this was the work of Kiyomori. The most damaging accusations came from the Fujiwara courtiers, the emperor-makers for centuries, without whose knowledge this change was made. This unheard-of usurping of their prerogatives struck at the roots of their authority. A warrior had done this—Kiyomori of the Heike. Nevertheless, though the gravest of charges were leveled against Kiyomori, it was pointed out that Tokitada, Kiyomori's brother-in-law, was the prepotent figure behind the scenes. Kyoto suddenly found itself under the shadow of fear as the wildest of rumors spread. It was said that Tokitada had agents planted everywhere to report those who criticized the Heike.

In July 1170 a fracas, long remembered, took place between the retainers of the Fujiwara Regent and those of Shigemori of the Heike.

By all accounts it was a momentous month. An eclipse of the sun had been predicted and seven platforms were erected at the Imperial Palace for viewing the phenomenon, though toward noon the sky clouded, and the rain soon after fell in a deluge. The summer, to begin with, had started out unpropitiously. There were great fears of a drought, and special prayers for rain were offered at the Great Shrine as well as all the lesser shrines; then followed a downpour whose like had not been seen in a decade. Rivers flooded their banks, and the capital itself was inundated. On the 3rd of July, the day after the eclipse, many members of the Court—the princes and princesses and the Regent—attended High Mass at the temple near Shirakawa, north of Rokuhara.

It was a day of torrid heat. The Regent, in his heavy court robes, was driving away from the service. He was tempted to turn home and rid himself of his cumbersome garments. But no, the sun was still high, he decided. He would return to the Court, attend to some business, and then drive home in the cool of the evening. Ordering his driver to take him back to the Imperial Palace, the young Regent settled himself once more to the slow swaying of his carriage.

The fierce sun beating against the blinds lighted up the white-robed figure. The Regent was still in his mid-twenties. Elegant and correct in his court robes, he sat erect, with streams of perspiration pouring down his cheeks from under the ponderous headdress that he wore. But his retinue of runners, ox-drivers, and grooms suffered even more from the merciless sun. Bathed in dust, they switched at the flies with gestures of complete exhaustion.

The oxen were left to set the pace, and the long procession crept along the highway. As they neared a crossroad, they saw far away and coming toward them another carriage, surrounded by numerous attendants. As it drew nearer, it resolved itself into a gay lady's coach. The Regent's carriage, distinguishable by the insignia emblazoned on it, proceeded up the center of the highway. Etiquette demanded that even a court lady give the Regent precedence, but the oncoming coach showed no sign of turning aside. Nearer it came: forty yards—fifteen, ten, then seven. It was almost on top of the Regent, and still came on boldly. The lady's runners were gesticulating wildly to the Regent's carriage to pull to the side, when the Regent's attendants darted forward, waving the coach to stop. But the lady's coach continued to approach. Wild cries, shouts, and imprecations failed to stop it.

"Are you deaf? Can't you see whose carriage this is?"

"Use your eyes! This is the Regent himself!"

"Who are you, anyway?"

The coach came on steadily, cutting a swathe through the Regent's attendants, and scattering the men to either side of the road.

"Pull up, there! Pull up!"

An attendant suddenly ran forward with a shout. "Insolent fellows!" he yelled, knocking down the ox-driver and snatching the reins from his hands as he dragged the coach to one side.

"Dare you lay hands on our master's coach?"

The guards and soldiers to the rear of the coach ran forward in a body, threateningly. "You've insulted us, have you? What's meant by this?"

The Regent's attendants replied in kind.

"Shut up! Anyone but country oafs would know that this is the Regent himself!—Get back, there! Out of the way, you ruffians!"

" 'Country oafs,' did you say?"

"No more sense than cats or dogs! 'Country oafs' is too good for you!"

"Ready for a fight, are you!"

"You started this and we're ready!"

Four or five of the Regent's armed guards stalked forward.

"What are you up to?"

A wild battle ensued as the Regent's men threw themselves at the lady's attendants.

"Give it to them!"

"You dogs of Rokuhara!"

A tumult of angry shouts arose. Sticks and stones rattled on the Regent's carriage. The dust rose in yellow clouds, enveloping the combatants until friend and foe were indistinguishable in the savage fighting that followed. The Regent's retinue consisted of some eighty men, including the warriors, while the other numbered barely forty. But the Rokuhara soldiers were muscular, hardbitten fighters, coarse of speech and rude of manner.

The occupant of the coach seemed to have been entirely forgotten. It was not a lady, but Kiyomorj's grandchild, Shigemori's ten-year-old son, on his way home from his flute lessons. The coach swayed wildly from side to side and then spun round. Pandemonium reigned, while the terrified child cowered inside, trembling at the sight of bleeding faces, gashed heads, and bloody figures grappling with one another. A stray missile ripped through a blind, and suddenly he broke into a piercing wail.

In spite of their mettle, the Heike attendants were forced to take to their heels with their wounded and a badly damaged coach. But they had given as good as they had taken, and retreated vowing revenge.

Dusk deepened and even the cicadas of the tree-flanked avenue in Rokuhara were silent. News of the brawl had already reached Rokuhara, and a procession of lighted torches came out to meet the coach. There were cautious calls:

"Is that you, Shiro? Is the young master safe?"

"All's well, but the Regent's men shamed us outrageously. . . . They outnumbered us."

"Tell that to the master, but what of the young master—no injuries?"

"Safe and sound, though he cried a little.''

"Hurry up, there! Don't you realize how worried they are at the house?"

No sooner did the coach draw up at a carriage porch than Shigemori appeared, calling anxiously to his son.

Shigemori listened to an account of the skirmish by one of his captains. The fault had not been theirs but the Regent's, the captain insisted. The Regent's attendants had not only challenged them, but laid violent hands on the coach. No, they would have given way respectfully to the Regent had his men not been the first to insult them. There was no choice but to defend the honor of the Heike . ...

As the captain ended his story, the usually dispassionate Shigemori was flushed with anger. "Had it been dark, I could understand their not recognizing my son, but there's no reason why they should not have known in broad daylight. Clearly, the Regent is at fault, and I shall see that we get redress."

On the following day, July 5, Shigemori started for the Court with a larger retinue of armed warriors than usual, determined to slight the Regent if they met.

The Regent, in the meantime, learned that it was Shigemori's son whom his attendants had insulted and for several days did not dare to appear at the Court. In private the Regent raged at his captains and attendants.

"Couldn't you see who it was before you attacked them? Of all persons to insult—Kiyomori's grandson! Blockheads—fools! See what you've brought on me!"

But, for all his outbursts, the Regent felt helpless to mend matters, until one of his friends, a councilor, suggested that the Regent send his guilty attendants as hostages to Rokuhara. This, he assured the Regent, would without doubt soften Shigemori's anger. Two captains, and several soldiers and ox-tenders forthwith were led bound to Rokuhara. The Councilor, acting as the Regent's deputy, soon returned with the men, saying that he had not been able to talk with Shigemori.

"I was told that Lord Shigemori was indisposed and would see no one. I gathered, however, that he is unwilling to discuss the matter with anyone but you."

On the 16th of July, when the Regent was to appear at the temple at Shirakawa, he sent out his men to reconnoiter, and on being told that Heike warriors were posted along the route he was to take, canceled all his plans for going out that day.

Several months later, on the 21st of October, the day on which the Regent was to preside over a state council at which the final arrangements for the child-Emperor's coming-of-age were to be made, a message reached the Imperial Palace saying that the Regent had been ambushed on his way to the Court and was unable to attend the Council. The entire Court overflowed with alarm. A new date was set for the State Council, and the ministers and court officials dispersed in confusion. People soon learned that the attack had taken place not far from one of the Palace gates; the Regent had escaped without harm; some two hundred warriors had suddenly appeared on the highway and surrounded his carriage; the six mounted guards who preceded it had been dragged from their horses and badly mauled, and as the crowning insult had their topknots shorn off by their unknown assailants. Other members of the retinue, less than a score, who failed to escape, met a like fate.

People looked round for an explanation, and it was soon whispered that Kiyomori had revenged himself on the Regent for the insult to his favorite grandson. Actually, however, Kiyomori all the while was in Fukuhara, where news of the incident in which his grandson had been involved did not reach him until very much later.

As public excitement subsided, the truth emerged out of the wild tangle of rumors and denials that prevailed in the capital: Shigemori himself had ordered the assault on the Regent.

THE BUILDING OF A HARBOR

The year 1170 was a year of floods and natural calamities, which robbed thousands of peasants of homes and crops, and the saying was: "No one starves at Fukuhara. There is work there for all," as the destitute poured into Fukuhara to work on the construction of the harbor. Nine years had already gone by since Kiyomori embarked on the gigantic task, and the outlines of a breakwater were beginning to appear, jutting out like a cape into the sea. But in September of that year a typhoon swept away the labor of almost a decade.