To Break the Demon Gate

by Richard Parks

  Kenji grinned. “Worse. There’s a sort of single-mindedness that comes on you. I’ve seen it in your daily pursuits and . . . ” he paused to yawn hugely, “in your drinking. Makes me look like a dabbler by comparison.”

  I grunted. “I’ll have to keep that in mind. Now, as long as you are drinking, please drink quietly. I have work to do.”

  “As my lord commands.”

  I ignored that and proceeded to do something, which in hindsight I realized I should have done weeks ago. I moved a pile of old clothes and junk covering a small black lacquered box, one of the few personal items I had kept when I’d left Kyoto intending to follow Princess Teiko into exile. There wasn’t so very much to look through: a comb and mirror that had belonged to my mother, a set of prayer beads I never used and don’t know why I kept, Princess Teiko’s last letter, a few more odds and ends. With such a small haystack it did not take long to locate the needle I was looking for: a small bundle of letters from my disgraced father. As with the prayer beads, I wasn’t sure why I had kept them, save that when one has lost almost everything one tends to cling tighter to whatever odd and useless bits remain.

  My father had traveled a great deal in my early years, usually on minor assignments or postings that greater and better-placed men would shun. Whatever his failures, I could never fault his diligence, even if that meant I seldom saw him. The assignment to Mutsu during that earlier barbarian uprising was of somewhat greater importance than he had been used to; his pride rather came through in the letters he sent, and he wasn’t afraid to name places and people. Even so, most of the letters were little more than lectures: that I prepare for the burdens that would one day be mine, that I be diligent in my studies, that I avoid wild company and do nothing to bring dishonor to the family. The irony of that last one almost made me smile.

  It was my father’s final letter I sought, and after a brief perusal of most other letters in the bundle, I found it. There were no lectures in this one and very little real information. I wasn’t expecting any such; I simply wanted to check my memory of my father’s letter against the copy of the document that Lady Snow had last produced, purportedly from Lord Sentaro. When I read my father’s letter, I found the thing that had been nagging me was not any contradiction between my father’s letter and Lady Snow’s document, but rather something she had said about Lord Sentaro writing a letter to my father just before the . . . incident.

  My father’s letter did not say much at all: a report on a triumphal skirmish, the odd-looking swords and hairy appearance of the barbarians. And one last little snippet I had completely forgotten: “ . . . Lord Sentaro has changed the time and place of my assigned meeting, so I will not be leaving for the capital tomorrow as planned.”

  Now I remembered. The reason for the delay or the nature of my father’s business in the north had been of less than no concern to me at the time. All I could recall feeling was relief—now I had a little more leeway to repair both my studies and my relations with some of the teachers there at the University, before it would be necessary to report my lack of progress to my father.

  Lord Sentaro changed the meeting.

  So Lord Sentaro had known about and had been involved in the meeting from the start, assuming this was the same one at which my father had been seized. I could not know for certain, but rather suspected as much since my father had not exactly been discreet about his assignments, his pride perhaps having overruled his sense. Or he merely was lacking in guile, among other faults. Either way, while my father’s letter was not proof of anything, it did not contradict the one apparently from Lord Sentaro himself, which Lady Snow had produced in copy, and together their implication was very interesting.

  “Kenji-san, exactly how drunk are you?”

  “Not as drunk as I might wish, Lord Yamada. I can still see you.”

  I was a little surprised to be answered immediately; by that point I had honestly expected nothing but a snore. I told Kenji about my audience with “Master Dai-wu” first and the great change that came over the man, and he frowned but confessed himself as baffled as I was.

  “You know Lord Sentaro better than I, but I never believed his conversion was anything more than a way out of making salt on a northern seacoast for the rest of his life,” Kenji said. “Yet I have no idea exactly what you saw in him that day. Perhaps he is a better dissembler than even you believed.”

  “Possible, but there’s more.”

  I told Kenji about the three letters, the one from my father in my own hands, the one I had seen in copy, and the private letter from Lord Sentaro to my father, both of the latter which might not even exist.

  “Hmmm,” was all Kenji said at first.

  “There’s an obvious conclusion. Will you draw it or shall I?”

  Kenji yawned. “Your father was not a traitor. Lord Sentaro himself set up the meeting with the renegade barbarian prince on one pretext or another, and ordered your father to undertake the negotiation. He then seized and executed your father when he did exactly as commanded. It would have been simple enough to confiscate any incriminating documents seized in the name of ‘investigating’ and remove them as necessary. It would not have been either just or fair, but Lord Sentaro has no reputation for either virtue.”

  For all I knew, events unfolded exactly as Kenji described. His summary fit the facts as known. Of course, so did the possibility that my father actually was a traitor. Of the two explanations, the latter was simplest; that didn’t necessarily mean it was correct.

  “I have considered this possibility since my first meeting with Lady Snow, but still it makes no sense to me. Why? What purpose did betraying my father serve? He was no threat.”

  Kenji shrugged and scratched a delicate area. “Why would it be necessary that he should have been so? If you assume Lady Snow’s information is correct, then clearly the betrayal of your father must have served Lord Sentaro’s purpose. What purpose? One would need access to the deepest reaches of Lord Sentaro’s twisted mind for the answer to that. I’d rather not explore that particular bog.”

  “Nor does it matter at the present moment. What matters is that Lady Snow’s document is not in Lord Sentaro’s hand, nor under his seal. Now, if I had both Lady Snow’s letter and the alleged ‘missing’ letter in the original . . . ”

  Kenji grunted. “Rubbish. Assuming there was such a letter bearing his personal seal, Lord Sentaro would have been a fool not to destroy it once it was back in his hands,” Kenji interrupted himself with another yawn, “and a bigger fool if he had trusted your father to do so, as the letter doubtless requested. If I were you, I would not trust in letters. They seldom are about what they seem to be. You should not need me to point out these things.”

  It wasn’t the first time he’d hinted that he knew more of the affair of Princess Teiko’s stolen letter than I’d ever told him. How much? I did not care so long as he kept the matter to himself. I smiled.

  “Agreed. What I need you for is to accompany myself and Lady Snow to Nara.”

  Kenji frowned. “Nara? Whatever for?”

  “You can read. Three pairs of eyes are better than two, and we will almost certainly be in a hurry. Or would you rather remain here in the capital and wait for the monks to drag you off to Enryaku-ji? There’s no wine there, my friend. After my meeting with Master Dai-wu, I looked.”

  “Well, that being the case . . . ”

  “We leave at dawn tomorrow,” I said.

  “Hmmm.”

  “Do you need anything?”

  Apparently not, since this time the only answer was indeed a gentle snore; the priest was fast asleep. I put my father’s letters back in the chest and carefully removed the saké jar from Kenji’s slack fingers.

  I wanted to follow Kenji’s example and get some rest, but the puzzle of it all would not let my thoughts be quiet. While I had no doubt that Lord Sentaro was capable of doing all Lady Snow had said and more, I kept stumbling over the reason. I had known people of the sort who would crush
a life for the sheer pleasure of it, but even I had never counted Lord Sentaro among that number. No, he would kill, but only for a purpose; and there simply did not appear to be one.

  One would need access to the deepest reaches of Lord Sentaro’s twisted mind . . .

  Or perhaps not. Maybe one should consider the results and work backward. Yet what had been the result of Kiyoshi’s death and my father’s disgrace and execution? So far as I could see, it was only that the northern provinces remained in a state of unrest, drawing the resources and the attention of the military families away from the capital. Who did that benefit? Certainly not the Minamoto and Taira, nor even the Emperor, whose own purse was strained and whose attention was thus preoccupied. The answer, when it finally came to me, was both simple and diabolical.

  The Fujiwara.

  As before, I still had no proof. But now, at least, I did have a reason. After a little while I blew out the lantern and followed Kenji’s example.

  The next morning Kenji’s condition was no more or less than what one would expect after such a binge. He did manage to crawl out into the courtyard before becoming spectacularly ill. Yet, once that bit of drama was over, he was relatively mobile and alert. I concluded, and not for the first time, that Kenji had the constitution of a much younger man. He was indeed fortunate, else he would have been dead long before now. He even managed to eat a little of the breakfast the Widow Tamahara provided while I finished preparing my travel bundle. After he was finished I tossed two bundles of brown cloth at his feet.

  “What’s this?”

  “A hakama and over jacket. Put those on over your robes and keep your hat on otherwise. Once we’re out of the city, you can revert to your normal threadbare robes.”

  “If you think it wise, but I shall feel naked.”

  Kenji carefully removed the brass cap of jingling rings that marked his priestly staff and converted it into a plain traveler’s staff. While no one would mistake him for a prince or even a nobleman in my old clothes, with his priest’s robes covered and a straw boshi shielding his shaved head, Kenji would pass for a normal traveler easily enough to let us slip past any monks we met before joining Lady Snow at Rashamon, which was all that concerned me on that part of the journey. There would be plenty of other things to be concerned about later.

  The disguise turned out to be a very good idea, as we passed several of the monks on Sanjo-dori before we could turn south to the areas of the city where they patrolled less frequently.

  “You’ll note they do not stray too far from the Demon Gate,” I said.

  Kenji grunted. “You mean they don’t stray too far from the Imperial Compound. Frankly, I trust the Tendai sect as far as I can toss a horse.”

  I vaguely knew that Enryaku-ji was a different Buddhist discipline than the one Kenji was trained by, though all such fine distinctions were lost on me.

  “If one wanted to improve the condition of the city, surely one would start with the area nearest the Palace and work one’s way down.”

  “So why haven’t they? I was at the Rasha Gate for the better part of a month without seeing one of the city’s ‘protectors.’ Frankly the entirety of the itinerant brotherhood could have hidden with me in plain sight.”

  Kenji was right of course, but I didn’t know the answer to that any more than Kenji did. There were several possibilities and all, to my way of thinking, very alarming. I tried to stop thinking about it as we approached the Rasha Gate. Lady Snow and Nidai were there, waiting patiently. Nidai was coping manfully with a large travel bundle and Lady Snow carried a smaller one. She wore simple and practical traveling clothes of dark blue with a hat and veil; there was no hint of the asobi’s normal garb, meant to attract attention rather than, as now, avoid it. No one was there to challenge us as we passed through Rashamon and set out on the southeastern road.

  “I was beginning to think you had changed your mind,” she said. “I am grateful you have not.”

  “My associate needed some time to, shall we say, compose himself. Lady Snow, this is Adachi no Kenji.”

  Lady Snow bowed and Kenji managed to return the courtesy with something at least approaching the correct decorum. “My friend is too kind. I was fighting off the effects of saké.”

  Lady Snow covered her smile with a fan. “I have seen the condition before, Lord Kenji.”

  “Just ‘Kenji,’ ” the disguised priest said. “ ‘Lord’ belongs to Yamada-san here. Considering the luck he’s had with the title, he’s welcome to it.”

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or hit him, but there didn’t seem much advantage in either. I just walked in silence, as did everyone else until the city was well out of sight. Then we all, I think, breathed a little easier.

  “I think you can remove those clothes now,” Lady Snow said when the crest of a small hill finally shielded us from sight of the city gate. She was speaking to Kenji.

  Kenji and I both just frowned for a moment, and Lady Snow blushed. “I meant Kenji-san’s disguise, of course. I assume he does not mean to travel all the way to Nara like that.”

  Kenji and I glanced at each other, then I simply shrugged. It was the Enryaku-ji monks we meant to deceive, though obviously Lady Snow was more observant. There was no harm in her knowing that she traveled with a mendicant. It might avoid certain misunderstandings, at least on her side, when Kenji attempted what he was almost certainly going to attempt, somewhere along the road.

  Kenji at least had the delicacy to slip behind some trees. When he re-emerged, he was back in his tatty but familiar robes. He presented the loaned clothes to me, neatly arranged, but I made him stuff them into his own small bundle.

  “You’ll need them when we return,” I said.

  Kenji grunted. “No doubt. One cannot be too cautious with the monks of Enryaku Temple swarming like ants over the capital.”

  I frowned. “For my curiosity, Lady Snow, how did you know Kenji was a priest?”

  “He walks like a priest,” she said immediately. “Left elbow carried high at his side as if the fold of a robe was draped over his arm.”

  Kenji grinned. “Old habits,” he said. “My more proper ordained name is Daisho, but hardly anyone uses it, and I prefer ‘Kenji’ in any case. That was very observant of you, Lady Snow.”

  She brushed the compliment aside demurely. “Simple necessity. A woman, and especially one so disreputable as to travel alone from time to time, must be aware of her surroundings. Not all men are as . . . constrained as your noble selves.”

  I barely suppressed a laugh, and Kenji shot me a hard look, but said nothing. Nidai glowered.

  “You are not alone now, Lady Snow. I will protect you,” he said, and he shook his travel staff at some invisible aggressor. “I will break the future generations of any man who dares threaten you!”

  I almost smiled. I had been thinking of Nidai as a child, but realized he was well into the age when young boys started to become young men and could barely wait for the transformation, with all the confusion and unreliable certainties this entailed. A grown woman not his mother had shown him kindness, and now he was in love with her. Lady Snow. I could not blame him but hoped his inevitable disappointment would be gentler than my own.

  Lady Snow simply bowed to her young servant and said, quite politely, “I am grateful for your concern, Nidai-kun, but please do not place yourself in danger on my account.”

  “It is my duty,” Nidai said sternly, or as sternly as one could say anything while also looking extraordinarily happy and pleased with one’s self.

  Lady Snow simply bowed again, though this time I saw her smile. There was a touch of sadness in that smile I think I understood. At least, I hoped I did.

  While the way going south was somewhat easier than the mountain roads further north, our progress was still slow, and we did not quite reach the village of Uji on that first day. While I would not have been averse to finding some lodging that did not involve using grass for a pillow, I was a bit relieved. The area around t
he river bridge south of Uji was notorious for its bandits. After each incident the Imperial government always made a fresh attempt at restoring order, but the fact was the less-used southern road to the old capital simply was not a high priority, and for the most part policing the road was left to local officials and the provincial governor, with only limited interest and success. My own suspicion was that at least some of the villagers at Uji were complicit, and the less we did to bring attention to ourselves, the better.

  We found a small cleared field just out of sight of the main road. There were the ruins of a home, but clearly no one had lived in the area for some time. We put down our burdens some distance from the abandoned building, and the three male members of the party gathered some wood for a fire. We avoided touching the rotting remains of the house, partially because the wood was wet and of little use, partly to avoid disturbing any sleeping demons or spirits.

  “Keep your eyes open,” Kenji said to Nidai. “Ghosts favor such places.”

  “And demons,” I added.

  Nidai tried to grunt, though it came out as more of a hum. “I once slept rough on the streets of Kyoto. You think a provincial ghost is going to frighten me?”

  “Well, then, you gentlemen may consider yourselves properly answered,” Lady Snow said, smiling demurely. “Though being alert is always good advice for any traveler. Now then, we have a fire. Nidai-kun, will you fetch me some fresh water? There’s a spring on the other side of the field.”

  I started to ask how she knew, but realized she had been this way before. Kenji and I made ourselves comfortable while Lady Snow started to prepare a meal. When Nidai returned with a full jar of water he was moving a little faster than the situation seemed to warrant.

  “There’s a ghost,” he said, apparently trying to keep his voice level and matter of fact. “It’s a girl.”

  “What did you see?” I asked.

  “A girl,” he repeated, as if I hadn’t been paying attention. “I saw her very plainly.”

  “I think Lord Yamada means you should be more specific, Nidai-kun,” Kenji said. “What did she look like?”