by Kara Dalkey
The following morning, Go-Shirakawa quietly conferred with Middle Counselor Narichika.
“Yes, Majesty, I also had a strange dream. Someone claiming to be Akugenda Yoshihira, the brave young Minomoto leader who was executed near here, whispered in my ear. He told me to beware the Taira,” said Narichika. “I was shown visions of a future world, where Heian Kyō is fallen into ruins, where the Empire is ruled from some other city, and the men in power are not courtiers and scholars but rough warriors. The land is split with constant civil war and those of the best families, even the Emperor himself, are mere puppets of the generals.”
“We often rehearse our worst fears in dreams,” Go-Shirakawa said. “Perhaps your vision was only this.”
“No, Majesty,” said Narichika. “I think perhaps this was a true vision of what will come if the Taira continue to rise in power.”
Someone else in the room said, “It is said Heaven speaks through men, as it has no voice of its own.”
“Who is that?” Go-Shirakawa demanded. “Who is there?” A small, elderly monk in gray robes shuffled out from behind a screen and knelt, bowing, before them. Go-Shirakawa vaguely remembered him. “Saikō, isn’t it?”
“You have it exactly, Majesty. I arrived during the night while you were sleeping and did not wish you disturbed on my account.” The old monk’s eyes were very bright, as if he had taken opium. “This is a most interesting place, I found. Very … inspiring.”
Go-Shirakawa could not recall how long ago Saikō had attached himself to the Retired Emperor’s court. Go-Shirakawa did remember that his brother, the Shin-In, had had a monk advisor very similar to Saikō when he was Retired Emperor as well. Why do I know this? Go-Shirakawa wondered.
“Someone could have informed me of your arrival,” said Narichika. The Middle Counselor did not entirely trust Saikō, Go-Shirakawa knew. Many of the nobility who were hangers-on at ToSanjō did not.
“Perhaps it was merely an oversight that you were not told,” said Saikō. “Then again, the Taira do not seem entirely comfortable with your presence here, and they may have thought the courtesy unnecessary.”
“What are you saying?” asked Go-Shirakawa, narrowing his eyes at the monk.
“There is a rumor, you understand, that you deliberately stirred up the monks in hopes that they might march against the Taira.”
“That is foolishness!” said Go-Shirakawa. “Why would I be here if I had wanted such a thing? The Taira have served me well. Even my latest concubine is a Taira girl.”
The old monk waggled his hand from side to side. “Forgive me, Majesty. I said it was only rumor. But perhaps all this talk, and your dreams, are to a purpose, Majesty. Perhaps the gods and bosatsu are sending you a message in the only way they can. Perhaps the Taira have become too arrogant for the gods, and they wish to see the Taira punished.”
“Hush! Talk no more of this. We are their guests, and the walls have ears.” But Go-Shirakawa made arrangements to return to his own residence that same day, in order to stay among the Taira as short a time as possible. But as he rode back to ToSanjō Palace, drowsing with the rocking of the ox-carriage, he pondered Saikō’s words and found them strangely sensible.
Dried Iris Balls
After the hasty departure of Go-Shirakawa and his entourage, Tokiko convinced two of her handmaidens to escort her through the Southwest Wing of Rokuhara.
Poor Munemori, she thought as she fingered a slightly torn paper panel on the shōji leading into the guest wing. No one would believe him, so at last he came to me. If I had known sooner, I might have done … something. Now Go-Shirakawa has departed without saying what frightened him away. The Retired Emperor had claimed pressing business, but pressing business tended to come to the court, not the other way around. Something had driven him out of Rokuhara.
The air was heavy with sandalwood incense, masking other smells. The smoke from Kiyomizudera was still in the air as well. But there was something else, underneath. Tokiko moved from room to room with as much calm dignity as she could. But the servants could sense her unease. Tokiko examined the hastily repaired sliding doors, the frayed reed mats. There was a tiny piece of paper in one corner. It was part of someone’s writing exercise, perhaps a sutra, but it had been torn to bits. The scrap held only two characters—“no peace.” Tokiko placed the paper in her sleeve and walked on.
She tried to calm her anger … and fear. An evil presence had been here. In her own home. Gone now, but who knew how much damage it had done while it was here. Or whether it would return. Munemori had claimed it was the Shin-In. If that were true, then her husband Kiyomori faced a greater and more uncertain threat than she had expected. Her father had warned her there would be opposition, but Tokiko expected it would come from mortal warriors and nobles. Naturally the kami chose sides, giving aid here and there to mortals, just as Ryujin had done for the Taira. All the kami observe certain limits, so as to avoid returning the world to utter chaos, but a rogue demon, beholden to no one but himself, of Imperial blood and therefore descended from the most ancient of kami, might not recognize any limits at all.
Tokiko had been sent up into the mortal realm only to teach and advise. She had little magic of her own. What could she do to battle a great demon?
There would be no point in trying to discuss it with Kiyomori. He would only think she was being alarmist and too strident for a woman. He was spending more and more time away from Rokuhara, either at the Imperial palace or at his harbor by the sea. He hardly spoke with her at all these days. Tokiko knew she would have to act without consulting him.
Finally, she turned to the nearest servant. “Do we still have the decorations from New Years? The iris balls in particular?”
“I think we may, my lady, though they will not be in the best repair. The revelers that night …” The servant fluttered her hands to indicate that some of the decorations might have been trod upon by drunken guests.
“No matter.”
“And they are doubtless dry and shriveled, my lady. I fear they will look shabby. A dreary sight for future guests.”
“It is my hope we will have no future guests for a while. Of any sort,” said Tokiko. “Put them up where they will be least conspicuous. Then summon two monks from Ninna-ji to purify these rooms. Discreetly, you understand. My lord Kiyomori has many matters on his mind, and I do not wish him unduly distracted.”
“Of course, my lady. As you wish.”
Tokiko acknowledged the servant’s bow, then hurried off to the garden. She needed to speak to the turtles in the pond to send a message to her father, the Dragon King.
The Taira Ascendant
Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa did not act upon his fears immediately. As he had heard the wise Minomoto general Yoshitomo once say, “To know a horse, you must give him free rein. Note his behavior when there is neither heel to the flank nor tug on the bit. Then you may truly judge his spirit.”
So it had been with Nobuyori. His evil did not become fully apparent until great power was given him. So it might be, thought Go-Shirakawa, with Kiyomori.
Therefore, Go-Shirakawa waited some three years, slowly building up a second government in Heian Kyō consisting of those nobles who preferred the leadership of a mature Retired Emperor to that of a child and his Fujiwara Regent. With exquisite patience, through gifts, bribes, and promises of advancement, Go-Shirakawa saw to it that no important appointments or decisions were made by the Senior Counsel of Nobles without first consulting him.
Thus, when the time seemed auspicious, in the third year of the era Nin’an, Go-Shirakawa and his own carefully appointed Counselors removed the young Emperor Rokujō, at the ripe age of five, from the throne. It was said to be the first time in the Empire’s history that an Emperor retired before his coming-of-age ceremony.
In Rokujō’s place, Go-Shirakawa named his own son, Crown Prince Takakura, who was seven. Determined to keep Takakura from going the way of the unfortunate and sinful Nijō, Go-Shirakawa removed the med
dlesome Fujiwara nobles from their posts in the palace and named a Taira, Tokitada, to be Regent. And for good measure, he betrothed Emperor Takakura to Kiyomori’s fifteen-year-old daughter.
As a last slap in the face to the Fujiwara, Go-Shirakawa elevated Kiyomori himself to Chancellor, the most powerful post in Heian Kyō, short of the Emperor and Retired Emperor themselves.
All in the Taira clan were ecstatic, of course, with this elevation in status. They strutted about the capital in their new black robes with overweening pride. It was said at Rokuhara and all over Heian Kyō, “If one is not a Taira, one is simply not a human being.”
This done, Go-Shirakawa settled back at ToSanjō Palace and waited to see how events would play themselves out.
Itsukushima
Chancellor Kiyomori stood near the prow of his boat as it sped across the Seto Inland Sea. Sunlight sparkled on the water, and the great square sail behind him billowed on the wind. It was hereabouts, he reflected, that he had met the dragon boat bearing Benzaiten and her sisters so long ago. There was no dragon boat now, but off in the distance, he could see the green island of Miyajima. And at its base, where the hillside met the sea, a glimmer of red and gold where the Shrine of Itsukushima, now finished after ten years of labor and Taira treasure, stood awaiting his arrival and final approval.
The entourage attending him was not as splendid as Kiyomori had hoped for this grand occasion. Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa had refused to allow his son, little Emperor Takakura, to accompany Kiyomori. “It would be terrible if His Young Majesty were lost at sea,” Go-Shirakawa had said. True enough, but Kiyomori understood the message that, despite all the honors showered upon the Taira, Kiyomori was still not entirely trusted.
A shame indeed, for there had been the possibility that with the Emperor would come the Imperial Regalia, including the sword Kusanagi. Kiyomori might finally have been able to appease the Dragon King, and have their bargain settled and done with. Then again, Kiyomori thought, it might be a disguised blessing. For Ryujin had fulfilled all parts of his bargain but one.
To Kiyomori’s utter bafflement, his wife Tokiko had also declined to accompany him to Miyajima. At first he thought it was grief for their second son, Motomori, who had finally succumbed to his illness and died six months ago. “Don’t you want to pray for his soul, wife? Don’t you want to see the temple I built for your sister?”
Tokiko had shrugged and said, “I can pray for Motomori here, and the temple was Benzaiten’s request, not mine. I am too old for a journey at sea. Go and enjoy your new shrine.”
Kiyomori accepted that perhaps it was best she stay home. Tokiko would doubtless have been poor company.
His eldest son, Shigemori, also remained behind. Shigemori reminded Kiyomori of what had happened the last time they had gone off on a pilgrimage together. “One of us should stay behind, to rally the Taira warriors should it be necessary.”
Kiyomori could not argue with such logic. And so he set off for Miyajima with only Munemori and other lesser sons, and those nobles who wished to ingratiate themselves with the Taira, as his entourage. Nonetheless, as the boat sped across the waters toward Miyajima, Kiyomori felt a great surge of pride and accomplishment, that the great shrine he had imagined and designed ten years before had finally become a reality.
As the boat came to the island, instead of the tiny dock that had been there years before, there was now a long pier that easily allowed Kiyomori’s boat and the five other ships behind it to tie up with ease and safety. As Kiyomori and his sons disembarked, they were met by dozens of shrine priests dressed in white robes and black hats, blowing on horns and banging on little gongs. With deep, sweeping bows, the priests guided Kiyomori’s entourage on an inspection tour of the shrine.
Despite his other disappointments, the new Itsukushima Shrine was as lavish and beautiful as Kiyomori had imagined it. The main shrine and treasure-house had elegant swooping roofs of tile. The long corridors between them were hung with the finest cast-iron lanterns. A tall red-and-gold pagoda stood upon a nearby hillside. Large platforms on which sacred dances and dramas would be performed jutted out onto the sea. A great torii stood out in the waters beyond the platforms, framing the distant hills of Aki Province across the Inland Sea.
Everyone, including Kiyomori, exclaimed delightedly over the beautiful tapestries, brocade hangings, painted screens, and carved images. When the tour was finished, some of the shrine maidens did a sacred dance on the raised platforms, while others served the visitors a meal of fish and pickled vegetables. Many of the noblemen had brought their own casks of sake, and, to the consternation of the priests, soon the drink was flowing liberally as well.
Now that there was so much more to watch over and protect, the shrine priests were no longer required to leave the island at sunset. It was expected that noble pilgrims would also wish to spend more than one day at the shrine, and so visitors’ lodging had been built as well to accommodate them. Chancellor Kiyomori and his entourage were the first such visitors not to follow the ancient custom, and they remained through the day.
As the sun was setting, Chancellor Kiyomori distanced himself from his celebrating sons and nobles, choosing to walk down the painted-wood colonnades alone. He watched as the shrine priests diligently lit every iron lantern until the shrine glowed with light. The lights reflected off the water of the sea that surrounded much of the shrine, as if in imitation of the dragon lights that Kiyomori remembered from long ago.
Truly, he thought, this place must rival the palace of Ryujin, the Dragon King, himself for splendor. He and Benzaiten cannot possibly think me remiss any longer.
The evening dwindled to twilight, and the priests diplomatically herded the tipsy noblemen to their visitors’ quarters. Some of the nobles, including Munemori, took some no-longer-to-be-shrine-maidens in with them. Kiyomori stood apart from them, and when he was approached by a priest asking whether he would like to be shown to his rooms, Kiyomori declined, saying he would like to walk and meditate a while longer.
Now that the main part of the shrine was deserted, Kiyomori strolled out to the edge of the farthest platform that stood out on the Inland Sea waters. The Evening Star was framed between the uprights of the great torii, and the clouds above the western horizon still glowed with the last remnants of sunset. Leaning on the railing of the platform, Kiyomori addressed the waters lapping against the pier posts below. “Well, Lady Benzaiten. Are you pleased with my gift?”
Dragon lights, pale blue, green, and yellow, appeared in the waters, sparkling and glimmering. They filled the small bay of Itsukushima. Something moved in the waters below, and a giant clamshell rose above the water. Benzaiten herself knelt in the shell as if she were a pearl, her shimmering green kimonos spread out around her. Indeed, her unimaginably beautiful face glowed in the remaining twilight with an iridescent sheen. “Greetings, Chancellor Kiyomori. Yes, I am very pleased with your shrine. I will see that it lasts through the centuries as testimony to your good faith.”
Kiyomori bowed to her. “I am most gratified. May I assume, then, that all is settled between the Taira and your family?”
Benzaiten looked away. “Alas, as you know, there is another matter. If you will but remain here, my father would speak with you.”
Kiyomori gripped the railing but fought to show no other signs of fear. “Of course. Let your father come. I have nothing to … I will gladly speak with him.”
Benzaiten inclined her head, and her clamshell slowly sank again beneath the surface of the water.
Kiyomori waited as the sky darkened and a chill wind blew across the sea from the west. The water before him began to roil and billow as something enormous and serpentine moved beneath the surface. Suddenly a dark form breached the waters with a gust of water like a whale spouting. A great reptilian head rose on an enormous column of scaled neck. Its eyes glowed golden as if there were fires within, and seaweed hung from the long whiskers on its jaw. Seawater ran out of its enormous, gaping maw, through it
s serrated teeth, dripping past its scythe-like fangs. It stared down at Kiyomori and snorted a blast of briny mist through its cavernous nostrils. In a voice that boomed and hissed like the surf in a storm, Ryujin said, “So. At last we meet, Kiyomori-san.”
Kiyomori held fast to the railing. He understood why Ryujin had chosen his most fearsome guise in which to appear. He wishes to frighten me into submission. But if I am to bargain with a god, I must not show fear. “It is an honor to be in your presence, Ryujin-sama,” Kiyomori said, bowing.
“This is no time for pleasantries,” hissed the Dragon King. “What of the sword? What of Kusanagi?”
“You shall have it, of course,” Kiyomori said. “In time.”
The dark shape rolled in the waters, churning up green phosphorescence. “Time for mortals grows short. I must have it returned.”
“It will be,” said Kiyomori, “when my grandson is Emperor.”
The water was churned faster. “No. Soon. You do not know the danger you face. Already forces of evil strive to destroy your kingdom. The demons have a new soverign, over whom I have no power. If he gains control of the sword, he will cause utter disaster. You must bring me Kusanagi.”
Firmly, Kiyomori said, “When my grandson is Emperor, according to your daughter’s promise. Then you may have Kusanagi.”
“You fool! Is your ambition greater than your wish for survival? It will be years before your daughter, the Empress, will bear a son. By that time, it may be too late!”
“It is too risky to release the sword now,” Kiyomori argued. “Takakura is but a child. He needs all the symbols and trappings of legitimate rule. Already, we in Heian Kyō are beset by alarms and false rumors of conflict. If the sword should go missing now, it might plunge the country into war. You cannot have Kusanagi until I decide the time is appropriate.”
The dragon lights went out. A gust of the Dragon King’s breath reeking of brine and seaweed smote Kiyomori in the face, and fish, “You dare to tell me what I can have and when, I who am older than your precious clan, your precious Heian Kyō? You dare to try to bargain with a kami? You who have insulted my daughter? Did you learn nothing of my wrath when I destroyed your paltry little island at Fukuhara?”