TAIKO: AN EPIC NOVEL OF WAR AND GLORY IN FEUDAL JAPAN

by Eiji Yoshikawa

  Mitsuharu, who had come out to welcome his cousin, now stepped out a few paces from the line of soldiers and bowed respectfully.

  “We've been waiting for you since dawn," he said, leading Mitsuhide through the entrance. The ten or so principal retainers attached to Mitsuhide washed their muddy hands and feet, stacked their wet straw raincoats in a pile, and went into the citadel.

  The other retainers stayed outside the moat, washing the horses and taking care of the baggage, while waiting to be told where their lodgings would be. The neighing of horses and the din of human voices could be heard far off in the distance.

  Mitsuhide had changed out of his traveling clothes. He felt so relaxed in Mitsuharu's quarters that they could have been his own. He had a view of the lake and Mount Hiei from every room. The inner citadel was situated in an area that had once had the most picturesque scenery, but no one could appreciate that scenery now. Since Nobunaga had given the command for Mount Hiei to be destroyed by fire, the monasteries and temples had become mounds of ashes. The village houses at the foot of the mountain had only recently begun to be rebuilt.

  The ruins of the castle at Mount Usa, where Mori Ranmaru's father had met his end, were also close by, as was the battlefield where the soldiers of the Asai and Asakura clans had grappled with the Oda, only to have their corpses piled high. When one thought about these ruins and past battles, one realized that the beauty of the scenery echoed with the wailing of ghosts. Mitsuhide sat listening to the sound of the early summer rains and remembering.

  Meanwhile, Mitsuharu was in a small tearoom, watching the fire in the hearth and listening to the genial sound of the water boiling in a teakettle made by the master caster Yojiro. At that moment he was completely immersed in the art of tea.

  From the time of Mitsuharu's adolescence, he and Mitsuhide had been brought up as brothers, sharing the suffering of the battlefield and the happiness of home life. And, rather than becoming estranged, as brothers tend to do after they grow up, their relationship continued to be a close one.

  Their characters, however, would never be the same. So on this morning the two men quickly went to separate quarters in the castle, each assuming the lifestyle that his own heart dictated.

  Well, I imagine he's already changed his clothes, Mitsuharu said to himself. He stood up from his place before the teakettle. Crossing the wet veranda, he went over the bridged corridor into the suite of rooms assigned to his cousin. He could hear Mitsuhide's close attendants in another room, but Mitsuhide was alone, sitting bolt upright and staring out over the lake.

  "I'd like to offer you some tea," Mitsuharu said.

  Mitsuhide turned toward his cousin and murmured, "Tea…" as though he were waking from a dream.

  "A piece I had ordered from Yojiro in Kyoto has recently been delivered. It doesn't have the elegant patterns of an Ashiya kettle, but it has a rustic charm that pleases the eye. They say that new teakettles are no good, but as you'd expect of Yojiro, the water that comes from his kettles tastes just as good as the water that comes from the old ones. I had intended to serve you tea with it the next time you were here, and when I was informed this morning that you were suddenly returning from Azuchi, I immediately lit a fire in the hearth."

  "That was kind of you, Mitsuharu, but I don't want any tea."

  "Well, what about after your bath?"

  "You won't need to prepare a bath either. Please just let me sleep a little. That's all I want"

  Mitsuharu had heard a great many stories recently, so he was not completely blind to Mitsuhide's thoughts. Nevertheless, he did have some particular doubts about why his cousin had returned to Sakamoto so suddenly. It was hardly a secret that Mitsuhide had

  been given the responsibility of organizing the banquet Nobunaga was holding to welcome Ieyasu. Why had Mitsuhide been so suddenly dismissed just before the banquet? Ieyasu was certainly in Azuchi. Nevertheless, Mitsuhide's post had been given to someone else, and Mitsuhide himself had been ordered to leave.

  Mitsuharu had not yet heard any details, but from the time he had been told of the events in Azuchi to the moment he saw Mitsuhide's face, he had come to understand that something had happened to upset Lord Nobunaga. Mitsuharu secretly grieved for his cousin.

  And just as Mitsuharu had feared, ever since he had welcomed him at the castle that morning, Mitsuhide's appearance had not been encouraging. Seeing a grave shadow on his cousin's brow, however, was not such a surprise for Mitsuharu. He believed that there was no one who understood Mitsuhide's character as well as he did, because of their shared past.

  "Yes, that makes sense. You spent the entire night coming from Azuchi on horseback. We're now in our fifties, and can't treat our bodies the way we could when we were young. Well, you should sleep for a while. Everything is prepared."

  Mitsuharu did not force the issue or try to oppose his cousin's will. Mitsuhide got up and went inside the mosquito netting while the morning light still played across its threads.

  * * *

  Amano Genemon, Fujita Dengo, and Yomoda Masataka were waiting for Mitsuharu as he left Mitsuhide's room. The three men bowed.

  "Excuse me, my lord," Dengo said. "We're very sorry to disturb you, but we wondered if we might have a word with you. It's a matter of some importance." Dengo was not speaking in his ordinary tone of voice.

  Mitsuharu himself responded as though he had been expecting them. "Why don't we all go to the teahouse? Lord Mitsuhide has gone to sleep, and I was just thinking it would be a shame to waste the fire under the kettle."

  "If we go to the teahouse, we won't have to keep people at a distance. That's an excellent idea."

  "Let me show you the way."

  "I'm afraid the three of us are provincials, so we don't understand much about tea and we certainly weren't prepared to receive such an honor from you today."

  "Don't think of it that way. I understand a little of what you are worried about, and for that reason alone the teahouse should be a good place to talk."

  They sat down in the thin light coming through the translucent paper doors of the small teahouse. The water in the kettle had been boiling for some time, and now it bub­bled with an even more congenial sound than before. Mitsuharu had shown his martial spirit on the battlefield many times, but here, in front of the hearth, he seemed to be a completely different person.

  "Well, let's not bother with tea. What's on your minds?"

  Thus encouraged, the three men looked resolutely back and forth at each other.

  Finally Dengo, the man among them who seemed to have the most courage, said, "Lord Mitsuharu, this is mortifying…I can hardly bring myself to speak of it…." He raised his right sleeve to hide his tears.

  The other two didn't cry, but they could not hide their swollen eyelids.

  "Has something happened?" Mitsuharu was completely calm, and the three men quickly recovered. It was as though they had expected to be confronting fire but were seeing only water. Mitsuharu noticed their swollen eyes, but he himself was unmoved.

  "The fact is," Mitsuharu continued, "I, too, am worried that this unexpected return means that Lord Nobunaga has been somehow offended. Why was Lord Mitsuhide dismissed from his duties at the banquet?"

  The first to answer was Dengo. "Lord Mitsuhide is our master, but we are not blind to crime and our reasoning is not prejudiced, so we are not just going to rattle on with resentment about Lord Nobunaga without cause. We took great care to try to understand Lord Nobunaga's motives this time, both in terms of the circumstances of Lord Mitsuhide's dismissal, and why he was blamed. The case is exceedingly strange."

  Dengo's throat was so dry that he could not go on. Yomoda Masataka came to his rescue and continued the story.

  "We even tried to find relief by speculating there was some political motive, but no matter how we look at it, there is nothing we can really put together. The overall plan should have been clear in Lord Nobunaga's mind for some time now. So why would he dismiss the man to whom he had given the r
esponsibility of organizing the banquet and grant the honor to someone else on the very day of the banquet? It almost seems to be a display of disunity intentionally put on for his guest, Lord Ieyasu."

  Genemon went on, "When I look at the situation as my companions have already described it, I can only think of one reason for it, which is really no reason at all. For the last several years Lord Nobunaga's persistent enmity has caused him to view with hostility everything that Lord Mitsuhide does. His dislike has finally become frank and undisguised, and things have come to this point."

  The three men stopped talking. There was a mountain of incidents they would have yet liked to describe. For example, at the camp in Suwa during the invasion of Kai, Nobunaga had pushed Mitsuhide's face down on the wooden floor of the corridor, calling him “Kumquat Head," and ordering him to leave. Thus he had been insulted in front of everyone, and there had been numerous times that he had been embarrassed in the same way at Azuchi. These incidents, each of which would take forever to recount, demonstrated Nobunaga's hostility toward Mitsuhide and had become the subject of gossip among the retainers of other clans. Mitsuharu was of the same flesh and blood as Mitsuhide, and because of his close kinship, he was naturally aware that those events that had occurred.

  Mitsuharu had listened to everything without the least change of expression. "Well then, Lord Mitsuhide was dismissed for no particular reason? I'm relieved to hear that. Other clans have earned Lord Nobunaga's favor or disfavor, depending on his mood."

  The expressions on the three men's faces suddenly changed. The muscles around Dengo's lips twitched, and he abruptly drew up closer to Mitsuharu.

  “What do you mean, you're relieved?"

  "Do I have to repeat myself? The blame is not with Lord Mitsuhide, so if this has happened because Lord Nobunaga was out of sorts, Lord Mitsuhide should be able to re­pair the unhappy situation when Lord Nobunaga is in a better mood."

  Dengo was speaking more and more excitedly. "Aren't you viewing Lord Mitsuhide as an entertainer who has to ingratiate himself for the sake of his lord's mood? Is this the way one should think of Lord Akechi Mitsuhide? Don't you think he's been humiliated, insulted, and pressed to the brink of self-destruction?"

  "Dengo, the veins in your temples are getting a little swollen. Calm down."

  "I haven't been able to sleep for two nights. I can't just remain calm like you, my lord. My master and his retainers have been scorched in a boiling pot of injustice, ridicule, insults, and every kind of vexation."

  "That's why I've asked you to calm yourself and try to get some sleep for two or three nights."

  "That's absurd!" Dengo exclaimed. "It's said of samurai that the shame of once being covered with mud is difficult to wipe away. How many times have my lord and his re­tainers endured such shame on account of this vicious lord in Azuchi? And yesterday it wasn't just a matter of Lord Mitsuhide's role in the banquet being taken away. The order that came right after that made the entire Akechi clan look like dogs chasing wild boar or deer. Perhaps you've heard that we are to mobilize immediately for a departure to the west. We're supposed to attack the Mori's provinces in the Sanin to protect Lord Hideyoshi's flank. How can we go to the battlefield feeling the way we do? This situation is an­other example of the scheming of that vicious dog of a lord!"

  "Restrain yourself! Whom are you referring to as a vicious dog?"

  "Lord Nobunaga, the same man who constantly calls our lord 'Kumquat Head' in front of others. Look at men like Hayashi Sado, or Sakuma Nobumori and his son. For years they helped make Nobunaga as great as he is today. Then, almost immediately after they were rewarded with status and a castle, they were arrested for some trivial crime and either condemned to death or driven into exile. The final act of that vicious lord is always to chase someone away."

  "Silence! You are not to speak so disrespectfully of Lord Nobunaga! Get out! Now!"

  As Mitsuharu finally became angry and reprimanded the man, something could be faintly heard in the garden. It was difficult to tell whether it was a man approaching, or only the falling of autumn leaves.

  Extreme care was taken day and night against the possibility of espionage, even in places where the enemy's presence was highly improbable. Thus even in the teahouse gar­den, there were samurai standing guard. Now one of the guards had come up to the teahouse and was bowing in front of the door. After handing a letter to Mitsuharu, he drew back a little and waited as motionless as a stone.

  Soon Mitsuharu's voice could be heard from inside. "This will require an answer, and I will write one later. Have the monk wait."

  The guard bowed politely toward the entrance and walked back to his post. His straw sandals made almost no sound on the path in the manner of someone slinking away.

  For a while, Mitsuharu and the other three men sat in complete silence, enveloped in an excruciatingly icy atmosphere. From time to time, a ripe plum fell to the ground with a sound like a wooden hammer striking the earth. That sound was the only thing that relieved the silence. Suddenly a bright ray of sunlight struck the paper panels of the sliding door.

  "Well, we should take our leave. You have some urgent business to attend to," Masataka said, taking the opportunity to withdraw, but Mitsuharu, who had unrolled the letter and read it in front of the three men, now rolled the letter up.

  "Why don't you stay awhile?" he asked, smiling.

  "No, we'll take our leave. We don't want to intrude any further."

  After the three men had shut the sliding door tightly behind them, their footsteps disappeared in the direction of the bridged corridor, and they sounded as if they were walking across thin ice.

  A few moments later Mitsuharu left as well. He called into the samurai quarters as he walked down the corridor. Mitsuharu immediately asked for writing paper and a brush, and fluidly set the brush to the paper as though he already had in mind what he was going to write.

  "Take this to the Abbot of Yokawa's messenger and send him back."

  He handed the letter to one of his attendants and, appearing to have no further in­terest in the matter, asked a page, "Is Lord Mitsuhide still sleeping?"

  "When I checked, his room was very quiet," the page replied.

  When he heard this, Mitsuharu's eyes brightened as though he too were really at peace for the first time that day.

  The days passed. Mitsuhide spent the time in Sakamoto Castle, doing nothing. He had already received Nobunaga's command to depart for the western provinces, and should have returned as quickly as possible to his own castle to mobilize his retainers. Mitsuharu would have liked to tell him that spending such a long time in idleness was not going to be good for his reputation in Azuchi. When he thought about Mitsuhide's feelings, however, he was unable to speak out. The discontent that Dengo and Masataka had expressed so bitterly would naturally be in Mitsuhide's heart as well.

  If that was so, Mitsuharu thought, a few days of peace and quiet would be the best preparation for the forthcoming campaign. Mitsuharu had complete faith in his cousin's intelligence and common sense. Wondering how Mitsuhide was passing the time, Mitsuharu visited his room. Mitsuhide was painting, copying from an open book.

  "Well, what are you doing?" Mitsuharu stood at his side and watched, pleased at Mitsuhide's composure and happy that they could share something.

  "Mitsuharu? Don't look. I still can't paint in front of others."

  Mitsuhide put down the brush and displayed a bashfulness not often seen in men over fifty. He was so embarrassed that he hid the sketches he had discarded.

  "Am I disturbing you?" Mitsuharu laughed. "Who painted the book you're using as a model?"

  "It's one of Yusho's."

  "Yusho? What's that fellow doing these days? We don't hear anything at all about him around here."

  "He unexpectedly visited my camp one evening in Kai. He left the following morning before dawn."

  "He's a strange fellow."

  "No, I don't think he can be summed up simply as strange. He's a loyal m
an, and his heart is as upright as bamboo. He may have given up being a samurai, but he still seems like a warrior to me."

  "I've heard he was a retainer of Saito Tatsuoki. Are you praising him because he remains faithful to his former lord even today?"

  "During the construction of Azuchi, he was the only one who refused to participate, even though he was invited to do so by Lord Nobunaga himself. He won't bend for either fame or power. It seems that he had more self-respect than to paint for the enemy of his former lord."

  Just then, one of Mitsuharu's retainers came in and knelt behind them, and the two men stopped talking. Mitsuharu turned and asked the man what his business was.

  The samurai looked embarrassed. In his hand was a letter and what seemed to be a petition written on thick paper. As he spoke, he was obviously worried about Mitsuharu's reaction. "Another messenger from the Abbot of Yokawa has come to the castle gate, and he pressed me to deliver this letter once more to the lord of the castle. I refused, but he said he had come on orders and would not go away. What should I do?"

  "What? Again?" Mitsuharu lightly clicked his tongue. "I sent a letter to the Abbot of Yokawa some time ago, carefully explaining to him that I could not possibly agree to the contents of his petition, so that it was useless for him to ask. Still he persisted, sending me letters two or three times after that. He's certainly headstrong. Just refuse to take it and sent him off."

  "Yes, my lord."

  With that, the messenger hurried off with the petition still in his hand. He looked as though he himself had been reprimanded.

  As soon as the man had left, Mitsuhide spoke to his cousin.

  "Would that be the Abbot of Yokawa from Mount Hiei?"

  "That's right."

  "Years ago, I was ordered to take part in the burning of Mount Hiei. We then made war not only on the warrior-monks, but also on the holy men, and on women and children—without distinction—cutting them down and tossing their bodies into the flames. We so utterly destroyed that mountain that trees could not have been expected to thrive there again, much less men. And now it seems that the priests who survived the massacre have gone back and are trying to make the place live again."