by Kara Dalkey
The New Capital
This is madness,” thought Munemori, as he rode down the main street, if it could be called such, of Fukuhara. Drizzling rain pattered against his wide brocade sleeves. The mud sucked at his horse’s hooves and passing oxcarts splashed dirty water onto his hunting jacket and breeches. No one bothered to dress formally in Fukuhara; there was no point. Finery did not remain fine in this place for long.
It had been a week since the arrival of the Imperial family in the new capital, and it had rained nearly every day. Munemori glanced up at the overhanging clouds and thought he saw a gray dragon’s head leering down at him. He shook his head, and the illusion was gone.
“Munemori-san,” said someone riding up beside him. It was a young man, a Fifth Rank bureaucrat who was still trying to balance a high silk hat on his head despite the winds from the sea. “They are asking for you at the meeting of City Planning Ministers.”
Munemori let out an explosive sigh. “What am I to do? I am the Palace Minister, not a geomancer. When they have the proper Nine Zones mapped out, then I will help lay out the Palace Compound. But the last I had heard they had only measured five.” Munemori saw a poor family being rousted out of a thatched house that was being commandeered for a nobleman’s household. The poor man and wife, their possessions in baskets on their backs, glared at Munemori as Taira warriors hurried them down the road. Munemori turned his face away.
“That is so, my lord. There is so little level ground in this place that zones have proven nearly impossible to measure.”
“Hmmm.” Munemori’s horse stopped and nearly reared up as a pile of enormous house beams rolled into the street just ahead. “What is this?” Munemori cried. “Why is this here?”
The workers apologized with many humble bows as they hurried to get the beams rolled out of Taira Munemori’s way. Munemori watched as they returned the beams to a pile of waterlogged lumber, muddy tiles, and soggy shōji beside the road.
The young bureaucrat clicked his tongue and shook his head. “It is the rains, my lord. These hillsides are so unsteady, once they are cleared of trees and brush so that construction may begin, the mud slides down to erase all the work of leveling. No one can put up the houses they rafted all the way here from Heian Kyō because there is no safe place to put them.”
“Madness,” Munemori muttered again.
“My lord,” the young bureaucrat said hesitantly, “the city planners are beginning to think, well, that some other site should be considered for the new capital.”
“Hah. What does my father say to that?”
“They have not yet brought it up to him.”
“Of course not.”
“They were hoping they could ask you to do it.”
Munemori whirled around in his saddle. “Me?”
“You are his son and Chief of the Taira, my lord. If Kiyomori-sama was to listen to anyone, we assumed it would be you.”
“By now you should be aware that Kiyomori listens to no one but himself. I told him not to bribe my uncle Yorimori with Senior Second rank so that we could commandeer his mansion for the temporary palace. I told him not to use provincial taxes to pay for the new palace. I told him people would talk. Did he listen? No! And now there is more grumbling against the Taira. I told him we should not cancel the Great Purification Ritual. But he did. And now it is claimed the Taira wish to remain impure so that we may commit more sins. And the council thinks he will listen to me?”
The young bureaucrat coughed lightly with embarrassment. “Will you at least consider bringing the matter before him, my lord?”
Munemori sighed again. “I will consider it.” But do no more than that. “Now begone. I have work to do.” He nudged his horse forward.
The bureaucrat rode off to be a nuisance to someone else, and Munemori urged his horse up the steep hillside track that led to the construction site of the new palace. To his surprised disappointment, when he arrived, he saw that no progress had been made from days before. Wooden lintels and beams still lay at the edges of the muddy clearing, and piles of floorboards were still heaped amid puddles.
The foreman of construction noticed Munemori arrive, grimaced fearfully, and came running over. “Good day to you, Munemori-sama,” he said, bowing many times.
“It is not a good day,” growled Munemori. “Why is the building no further along than this? Are you all a bunch of layabouts? My father will be most displeased.”
“Forgive us, Munemori-sama!” said the foreman, bowing many times again. “We have tried. Every day we have the posts planted and the string laid out to precise measure. The boards are cut and carefully stacked ready to be assembled. We leave at the end of each day ready to raise up the first wing. And then the next morning, we return to find the posts pulled out, the string entangled in the trees, the board piles pushed over, the roof beams rolled into the woods, and the roof tiles scattered everywhere. Each day we must start all over again!”
“Have you not requested guards to watch over the materials?”
“We have, my lord. For the past three nights, Imperial archers have kept watch.” The foreman crept closer to Munemori’s stirrup and ducked his head. “And my lord, each morning the archers report that they hear the laughter of tengu in the trees. The archers fire whistling arrows into the woods and give chase to any creatures that they see. But by the time they return,” he gestured out at the mess, “it is the same. All is undone.”
“Tengu,” Munemori said, sneering.
“So the archers claim, my lord.”
“It is more likely the natives who were thrown out of their homes getting their revenge,” grumbled Munemori. “I shall have the guard doubled on this site. See that there is progress from now on, or I will have the lot of you fired and punished for your failure.”
“Yes, Great Lord. It shall be so, Great Lord.” The foreman backed away, bowing as though his spine were a reed in a storm wind.
Munemori turned his horse and headed back toward the rude, rustic hovel he had been given as his lodging. The rain was soaking through his thick silk hunting jacket, chilling his skin.
Smoke in Moonlight
Two months later, on a clear, moonlit autumn night, Minomoto Yoritomo stood on the verandah of his residence in Izu, watching anxiously to the west. He thought he heard, carried on the wind, the sound of a whistling arrow, signifying an attack. Yoritomo sighed. Now it begins.
The movement of the capital had not changed Yoritomo’s plans, nor had the defeat of Prince Mochihito at Uji Bridge. In fact, he paid these things little heed. The Shin-In had advised him that the signs were clear—the time had come to reunite the Minomoto. The Taira would be defeated.
Yoritomo had spent the last two months slowly gathering those forces still loyal to the Minomoto and learning through espionage which forces were not.
Yoritomo was determined not to repeat the bad fortune of his father, attacking with too small an army. He did not wish to risk the total annihilation of his clan. Yoritomo had no illusions about the power of the Taira. If he was to have any hope of success against them, he would have to amass a great and powerful force.
The key to having such a force lay in the Kantō, the Five Provinces that lay to the north and east of Heian Kyō. It was there that the remnants of the Minomoto survived, along with the families of their hereditary retainers. Yoritomo knew that if he could conquer and unify those five provinces, the Taira could not possibly stand up to him.
But that lay in the future. Tonight was the first foray, an attack against the Governor of Izu Province, Izumi Hangan Kanetaka, a member of the Taira clan. Yoritomo had carefully arranged for maps to be made of the governor’s mansion, and although he had originally planned an attack by day, the delay of arrival of some of his warriors moved the battle to nightfall. Yoritomo had told his trusted warriors to burn the Kanetaka mansion, so that the column of smoke would inform Yoritomo that they had been victorious.
But the hour grew later and later, and there was
no fire. Yoritomo became more anxious and asked a servant to climb a nearby tree. “Do you see any smoke?” he called up to him.
“I am sorry, my lord, I do not.”
Yoritomo paced the verandah, as the hours of night turned toward the hours of dawn. The pale light that heralds the coming of the sun began to glow in the eastern sky.
Yoritomo vowed that the next battle he would face in person. The chosen of Hachiman should not hide in his residence. No more playing general at a distance, sending others to do his bidding, no matter how trusted. A commander belongs with his warriors. Even though Yoritomo had not worn armor or ridden into battle since he was a boy of thirteen, surely his very presence would help spur his men’s courage. As well as give him a better view of how the battle was going.
“My lord, I see it! A column of smoke!”
Yoritomo stared intently toward the moonlit hills where the Yamaki Mansion lay. And then he saw it, too, a thin wisp of rising gray that grew thicker and darker. He almost imagined he could see the golden light from the flames as they consumed the governor’s house.
A messenger on horseback galloped into the courtyard. “My Lord, lord Hōjō and Moritsuna are returning with Kanetaka’s head. They should be here by sunrise.”
Yoritomo sighed with relief. “Good. Our first victory. By the sword of Hachiman, may it not be our last.”
On the Shore
Nii no Ama strolled along the rocky beach, letting the incessant ocean wind whip her gray nun’s robes about her. In the scent of the salt sea air, in the roar of the waves, in the sighing of the sand, she could feel her father’s presence. She could see the white dragons’ heads in the seafoam atop the curling breakers, though others could not. They always seemed to be laughing at her, crying, “Come home, Tokiko! Come home!”
But now was not the time. She had an Imperial grandson to look after.
Two months she had lived in Fukuhara now, watching the pitiful efforts of the Heian Kyō nobility trying to make a home here. But it seemed her father was doing all he could, with the waves and the weather, to make the port inhospitable. There had never been a more miserable autumn for Those Who Live Above The Clouds. Illness and melancholy were rampant. Every poem written sang of homesickness. Ryujin was proving that even the highest of rank, no matter what they called themselves, lived beneath the clouds.
Every day Nii no Ama came down to the shore, to pray to her father to be merciful. She knew he was listening. She knew he would not acquiesce. She knew what he wanted.
She had thought about snatching Kusanagi herself, now that they were so close to the sea, but she did not know precisely where the sword was being kept. And she had heard that Munemori had ordered the regalia to be held under very heavy guard, ever since the earthquake. The one time she had mentioned Kusanagi to him, shortly after their arrival in Fukuhara, he had become anxious and suspicious and had quickly changed the subject.
As for her husband, Kiyomori had not wished to be in her presence at all since the move, except for occasions of state, of which there had been few. For nearly all purposes, Kiyomori had become Regent, Chancellor, and Emperor all in one. No one dared contradict him. No one dared disobey him. No one dared speak against him. Only the tengu in the hills laughed at him, in the night.
Nii no Ama had heard them in the treetops, near the temporary palace, jeering the Taira archers sent to hunt them. She did not know what it meant, but she feared it did not bode well. Usually the tengu involved themselves little in human affairs, except to play tricks and taunt the holy. That they should be so bold was disturbing.
A wave broke particularly close and flowed up the sand to Nii no Ama’s feet. The cold water swirled around her sandals and sucked at her legs as it withdrew. It felt like cold fingers grasping at her ankles, and she staggered a couple of steps closer to the sea.
“No, Father, no,” she protested, almost laughing. “I am not ready to come home. Not yet, not yet.” She saw a large swell starting to rise out on the water. She turned and ran up the beach. Despite her aged legs, she managed to just outrun the rushing seafoam as it broke upon the shore.
Ishibashiyama
Minomoto Yoritomo was beginning to regret his decision to lead an army himself. The miserable autumn rain spattered against his armor, soaking the cords that held the metal plates together, making it twice as heavy. His scalp itched beneath his helmet, where he had tied an ivory image of Kwannon, the goddess of mercy, into his topknot. He wondered at the wisdom of his gesture of faith, for Kwannon was choosing not to be merciful at this moment.
Yoritomo had led three hundred mounted warriors here to Mount Ishibashi in response to the news that the local Taira were sending horsemen eastward toward Izu. They had had to leave suddenly, in the middle of the night, in order to gain the advantage of surprise. He had arrayed his forces just south of the great road, Tōkkaidō, along which the Taira would have to ride. If his men, few as they were, could draw the Taira off the road, into the rugged terrain of the Hakone Mountains, there was a chance of taking them by ambush and thus achieving victory over a much larger force.
But he hadn’t expected the rain. The clouds completely obscured the moon, which should have lit their way. It had been difficult to keep torches alight. Even whenever faint flames could be coaxed from them, it was hard for Yoritomo to see his surroundings. The raindrops glittered in the firelight like curtains of topaz gems, demurely hiding the hills around them. Once off the Tōkkaidō, it became very difficult to find the way, and nearly impossible to determine the best position for observing the approach of the Taira forces. At last, the rain had softened to a drizzle as dawn approached, and Yoritomo was able to align his forces along the ridge of Ishibashiyama, facing west, to await the arrival of the enemy.
It was shortly after dawn when one of his outriders returned, urging a laboring horse up the ridge toward them. “My lord, they are coming!” the outrider cried, his face pale.
“How many are they?” asked Yoritomo.
“I cannot count so high, my lord. They are thousands, while we are but a few hundred.”
“What of Lord Miura’s men, who were to reinforce us?”
“They have not yet arrived, my lord.”
Yoritomo swallowed his fear. He took heart that the men he had brought with him had sworn fealty with great intensity. They would be loyal. They would not falter.
As the sky began to lighten, Yoritomo could see horsemen appearing at the top of the ridge opposite them, warriors bearing the red banners of the Taira. But these warriors did not shout out announcements of name and region, sought no challenges to other worthy warriors. They did not loose a flight of whistling arrows, or declare a charge with drums and gongs. They did not even stop to form a line. Instead, they began pouring down the hillside, pressing the attack without formal preamble. Indeed, there appeared to be thousands of them, their torches and red banners held aloft. It seemed as though a flood of fire was racing toward the Minomoto. As the Taira thundered up the ridge toward them, one of Yoritomo’s aides asked, “My lord, what shall we do?”
It was only the second battle of his rebellion. For the sake of his reputation, Yoritomo did not dare flee. But he did not know how victory could be achieved in this situation. He felt the acute absence of experience, the many years spent as a scholar instead of a warrior. He wondered if bearing the blood of Yoshiie and Yoshitomo was enough. Has Hachiman led me into this as a test? He glanced around at his men, who were staring back at him expectantly.
“It is time for the battle to begin,” he said to them, calmly. “Forward!”
With a mighty shout, the Minomoto line surged ahead, flowing down the hillside to meet the approaching tide of Taira. As Yoritomo watched from the height of the ridge, his men hit the Taira line with all their strength. The rain began to fall again, and raindrops spattered off the halberds and helmets, sode and sword blades. Soon red drops flew and fell as heavily as the rain, running in rivulets down the hillside. Yoritomo watched in horror as hi
s men were reduced from three hundred to one hundred, to fifty, to ten.
His aides beside him said, “My lord, we must flee.”
Yoritomo remembered Rokuhara, the moment that his father had to be prevented from charging the Taira stronghold back in the Heiji Uprising. He marveled that his fate might so resemble that of Yoshitomo, but did not wish the failure of his father. He pulled out his own bow and began to fire arrow after arrow into the approaching mass of warriors. He scarcely paused to take note whether many of his arrows hit their mark. It did not matter, for the Taira kept coming, closer and closer.
“My lord!” The aide grabbed Yoritomo’s horse’s bridle and turned the horse roughly. At last, seeing no other course, Yoritomo threw down his bow and rode east, deeper into the Hakone Mountains. The Taira pursued, firing arrows and throwing stones as they jeered him.
Praying desperately to Kwannon and Hachiman in his shame, Yoritomo wondered if, like his father, he now faced a flight into death and ignominy.
Rolling Skulls
That very night, in the middle of the Eighth Month, in the fourth year of the era Jishō, Taira Kiyomori awoke to a hollow rattling and clacking from the garden beside his sleeping chamber. he could no longer hear the sea. Kiyomori sat up and slid open the shōji, allowing the damp night air to blow in.
In the moonlight, in the garden, over a bed of fallen leaves and pine needles, hundreds of skulls were rolling around and around, like balls chased by children. As he watched, the skulls began to organize their movement, rolling closer and closer together, then beginning to pile up upon each other. Now and then, Kiyomori could see a ghostly face superimposed upon the skulls—and he recognized them. One was the Minomoto general Yoritomo, another his son Akugenda Yoshihira. Narichika was among them, as well.