by Ben Stevens
‘In the end, Takeda and I came to the end of our conversation, there on that dark, lonely mountainside. He’d coughed repeatedly during our conversation, holding a bloody rag to his mouth. This was the disease he’d contracted during his years of imprisonment in the castle dungeon; we both knew he has but little time left in this world.
‘But even in the short time we’d spoken, a liking had grown between us. For all he has suffered he is decent, honest… He’d had one consuming desire these past eight years and this he had – he now believes – finally achieved. He could rest at last.
‘I managed to persuade him to take some money from me, along with some food and drink, and pointed him in the direction of the opposite side of the mountain. He will be able to make it that far, I think. There is a town there that has a quiet inn in which he can rest, and – well, die. At least he can now do so in relative comfort, for he’d spent all that money he’d hidden, and so would otherwise have had to remain out in the open, like an animal.’
I felt a quiet admiration for my master. For his goodness; his basic humanity.
‘And you, master,’ I said then. ‘This case has cost you dearly…’
‘Not at all. For when I returned to Utagawa’s home after showing you to your hiding place, I ensured that he gave me everything I was owed in expenses, plus my standard fee. He tried quibbling with me over certain costs, of course, but I was firm.’
That reminded me.
‘Why did you show me to that hiding place, master?’ I queried. ‘And have me stay at the moneylender’s home while you travelled to his former town?’
‘I am aware that you have recently begun writing about some of our cases,’ returned my master. It was kind of him to say ‘our cases’, I thought – for he alone solved them, after all.
He continued –
‘So, I reasoned you would rather have some ‘first-hand’ experience of this case, as it were, rather than just have to hear about it all from me directly. As it is, I have already had to provide a certain amount of explanation.’
‘You must be exhausted, master,’ I said sympathetically. ‘Perhaps it is time we retired for the night.’
‘The sake flask is empty, Kukai, so I believe you’re right,’ agreed my master. ‘We will leave here tomorrow morning.’
I wondered in which direction we would be heading. Soon enough we would be staying at another inn – and then, perhaps, another stranger would appear. They would first make their bowed introduction; and then declare that they had a certain matter about which they might, perhaps, inform the famous Ennin-sensei…?
The Empress and the Monk
…I sat frozen with horror. In the gloom of the large dining hall my dead master’s face seemed to shine whitely. His kimono dripped water, and was covered with weeds and leaves from where his body had lain in the river. Yet I could still clearly see the huge blood stain, from where he’d cut open his own belly with a knife. Indeed, his hands were covering his abdomen as he approached, crouched over, as though having to hold in his insides…
The other guests around me were crying out with terror, staggering backwards as this foul ghoul that had once been my master approached.
‘You,’ rasped my master, holding up one quivering hand to point his finger at the man who was sat at the head table, next to the Empress. ‘I have been sent… sent from the world that is beyond this one… to give you a message…’
‘Get away from me – get away!’ cried the man, as my master continued to approach in that awful, hunched-over manner.
‘Listen to me… and listen well,’ said my master then, in a voice that made my flesh crawl. ‘Lest you find yourself taken to the place from where I have just come, so that I might give you this warning…’
1
‘…Sesshu the monk intends to become Emperor of Japan – of that I am certain,’ whispered Noami, one of the courtiers at the Imperial Palace. ‘Of course, such a thing would have seemed impossible before. But now…
My master nodded. The three of us (my master, Noami and I) were sat in a private room at a luxurious inn within the Imperial City, where my master and I had been staying these past five days. In fact, we’d been making ready to leave when Noami had arrived and requested an audience with my master.
‘You’ll understand, Noami-san, that until now I have heard only rumors and hearsay concerning the Empress and this mysterious monk named Sesshu,’ returned my master. ‘But it is my understanding that he cured some illness from which the Empress was suffering, several months before…?’
‘Well, yes,’ nodded Noami-san, wearing a splendid purple kimono. ‘Sesshu had, however, become rather… Well, acquainted with the Empress, even before she became so gravely ill…’
‘Indeed?’ murmured my master, his voice sounding strangely distant and the pupils of his eyes like pinpricks. This, as I well knew, signified that my master had realized something…
But what?
‘I understand that in all matters concerning the Empress one must, of course, exercise total discretion,’ said my master then. ‘And yet…’
‘You wish to know what the nature of the Empress’s illness was,’ declared the thin, almost frail-looking courtier.
‘Yes,’ said my master. ‘That is exactly what I want to know.’
Noami gave a slight shrug.
‘I can hardly give you a detailed explanation, even if I wished to,’ he began. ‘It was a stomach ailment, I believe, which quickly caused the Empress to become bedbound – and which caused the Royal Physician himself to finally declare that the malady was incurable.’
‘And then Sesshu suggested that he might be of assistance?’ suggested my master in a musing tone.
‘Exactly,’ nodded Noami, looking keenly at my master. ‘He caused the Royal Physician to be dismissed, and insisted on treating the Empress in private. And within a week, she was well enough to leave her chambers, and to walk around the Imperial Palace and its grounds.
‘And this was when Sesshu really began to make his presence felt, within the Imperial Court. Several of my fellow, senior courtiers found themselves being dismissed, for various trivial reasons.
‘And one…’
Noami looked down at the low table around which we were seated, and shook his head.
‘One was found dead in his room, having apparently committed suicide by poison,’ declared my master. ‘He left a note declaring that he’d shamed himself in some way – although the actual source of this shame was curiously vague.’
Noami started.
‘You know all this already, Ennin-sensei?’ he questioned, his voice rising slightly in his surprise.
My master raised a calming hand.
‘Noami-san,’ he replied. ‘I have my own ways of acquiring information which may prove to be of importance. As it has done on this occasion. I would hardly be the person you are, perhaps, requiring now, if this was not the case.’
Noami nodded at the wisdom of my master’s words.
‘That is true, Ennin-sensei,’ said Noami. ‘And do I need to tell you that – ’
‘Among the other courtiers – those who remain at the palace – foul play is suspected in the death of this courtier who was called Okubo,’ interjected my master, as Noami’s eyebrows rose again. ‘Out of all the senior courtiers (yourself included), Okubo was deemed to have the most influence on the Empress. And he had quickly made himself a vocal opponent of this mysterious monk named Sesshu, recognizing as he did Sesshu’s own, malign influence upon the Empress.’
Again, Noami was looking keenly at my master.
‘Yes,’ said the courtier. ‘That is absolutely correct. Following Okubo’s untimely death, there were immediately dark rumors that he’d been silenced by Sesshu himself. Something which meant that Sesshu now had no other ‘rival’, as it may plainly be put, for the Empress’s ear.’
‘And you say that now he has the very chance to become Emperor,’ declared my master. ‘That Japan’s royal lineage stretc
hing back millennia and more may be broken by his actions. That is why you came here to see me, just as I and my servant were preparing to leave this splendid inn, and the Imperial City itself.’
‘I took the chance to do so, out of sheer desperation,’ declared the courtier. ‘But that is not the reason I came.’
My master almost started with surprise.
‘Well,’ he said then, a little curtly – ‘what is the reason you came?’
‘To request that you come for a banquet later today,’ returned Noami. ‘A banquet to be held at the Imperial Palace in the company of the Empress herself, Sesshu and various high-ranking members of the Imperial Court. I will be there, only sitting at one of the… lower tables…’
Noami gave a short, humorless laugh.
‘Who –’
My master’s voice failed him. He coughed, cleared his throat, and said again –
‘Who has invited us?’
Noami looked almost despairingly at my master, as he replied –
‘Ostensibly the Empress herself; but I know that it was actually at the request of Sesshu, after he’d somehow learned that you were lodged here at this inn. For he told me so, before ordering me to come here and request that you return to the Imperial Palace with me. There is a palanquin waiting outside.’
Noami spared me the briefest of glances.
‘Your servant may come too, of course, if you so wish,’ he finished.
For several long moments, my master’s eyes left the courtier’s face to stare at the wooden wall behind. His gaze was fixed, and yet at the same time curiously unfocused. It showed just how deep in thought he was, already trying to unravel the strands of this fast-developing mystery.
Noami, obviously recognizing this, did not speak. It was my master, finally, who instructed me in a soft voice –
‘Kukai, kindly return to our room and finish packing our belongings. I will pay the bill; and then we will travel with Noami-san, by palanquin, to the Imperial Palace.’
2
The room given to my master and me at the Imperial Palace was even more opulent than the one we had occupied for several days at the inn in the city. It was spacious, with fresh-smelling tatami mats and sliding doors made of yellow wood and white paper.
The room was located somewhere on the fourth floor of the huge palace. The wide window looked across the beautiful palace grounds, outer moat and the city beyond, its many crisscrossing roads, houses, shops, warehouses and temples stretching away towards the misty mountains.
A low table was covered with food and drink, provided solely for my master and me. There were also adjoining facilities in which we could bath and freshen up. Two futon had been provided, in case we wanted to rest.
Now my master sat cross-legged on one futon, his chin cupped in his right hand, his eyes staring at the sliding doors. He was deep in thought and so I also kept quiet, for fear of disturbing him.
We had recently returned from an audience with the Empress herself and the monk named Sesshu. Two samurai belonging to the Empress’s elite personal guard had come to the room to fetch us, an hour or so after we had first come with Noami to the palace and been escorted to this room.
Much to my surprise, my master had insisted that I come with him to meet the Empress. We had then followed the two members of the royal bodyguard along long corridors, a multitude of closed sliding doors and such on either side, and up various staircases, until we were at last told to stop outside of a room hidden by a pair of large, closed doors that were covered in beautiful designs of blue-tinged mountains and Chinese gardens.
‘The Empress and Sesshu-sama are waiting for you in here,’ said one of the samurai bodyguard.
My master and I immediately dropped to our knees and lowered our gaze, as protocol demanded. The two bodyguards each opened one door, partially exposing a room that (so far as I could tell with my eyes lowered) was rather dark and slightly stifling.
‘Ennin-sensei,’ said a female voice from within – a voice so soft as to be almost a whisper. ‘I have wanted to meet you for some time. All Japan, it seems, now knows your name. I am glad you could come today.’
My master bowed so deeply that his nose was almost touching the tatami, before replying –
‘Empress, my sincerest gratitude for your most generous invitation.’
‘And beside you – your servant, Kukai, who has written up several of your adventures. Copies of which are, I believe, highly-prized as entertainment in certain quarters.’
My heart was beating so fast that I thought it might stop altogether. When the Empress then said, ‘You are welcome too, Kukai,’ it was all I could do to murmur in reply –
‘Empress, thank you.’
Thankfully, it was up to my master rather than me to provide the sort of flowery speech that is expected at the Imperial Court. I could have no more conversed with the Empress than I could have spoken Korean – but of course, I wasn’t expected to. The very fact that I was kneeling here, a humble servant beside his master, was surely something of an oddity. But then, if I am to be truthful (and as had just been pointed out by the Empress herself), I was already aware that my accounts of some of my master’s adventures had recently become slightly ‘popular’, as it were – and thus my name was also becoming known.
‘Advance forward several paces, Ennin-sensei – you and your servant. You may also look up.’
We did as told, placing our hands flat on our thighs after we had crawled into this ill-lit room. I barely dared glance at the Empress, whose startlingly white face was illuminated by flickering candlelight, although it was a bright spring day outside. She seemed so thin, so delicate, as though she might shatter if so much as touched… She was dressed in an absolutely splendid silk kimono of green and gold.
Kneeling in formal seiza position beside her was a man wearing a kimono almost of the same design as the Empress’s. He had a handsome, yet strikingly haughty and arrogant face. His snake-like eyes conveyed the impression of enormous intelligence, although of course the moment they met mine I looked down at the ground.
When Sesshu spoke, his soft, slightly lisping voice had a strangely chilling effect. And I noted that the Empress had not actually given him permission to speak before he’d opened his mouth.
‘Ennin-sensei,’ he began. ‘It is a pleasure to finally meet a man of whom I have heard so much…’
I sensed rather than saw my master incline his head in slight acknowledgement. This monk was not yet Emperor; and my master wished him to know as much. This I recognized as though my master had told me so himself.
‘I fear you flatter me too greatly,’ said my master. ‘But you are Sesshu-san, I believe? Forgive me – I had not heard of your name until today…’
Straight away, my master was playing a very dangerous game. His tone was polite; yet his very words conveyed an evident disrespect for the Empress’s favorite. His use of the standard honorific san as opposed to the extremely polite sama – as had been used by the two samurai of the royal bodyguard to refer to Sesshu, for example…
I failed to understand what my master was doing. Already, he was as good as declaring war against this strange monk of evil repute named Sesshu. And if the rumors concerning how the courtier named Okubo had met his end were true, my master could thus be placing himself in deadly danger…
Also, of course, my master was lying. For he’d already informed the courtier named Noami that he’d been aware of Sesshu for some time now…
Now, Sesshu emitted a gentle burst of laughter.
‘I choose to keep a lower profile than… some, Ennin-sensei,’ he declared – something which proved he could return, as well as receive, the veiled insults.
‘The Empress and I,’ continued Sesshu then, ‘hope you may join us for dinner at seven p.m.’
‘Naturally,’ returned my master, the single word managing to contain the flash of confusion I’d felt myself – why was the Empress herself not extending this invitation? A humble monk, sat b
eside and speaking on behalf of the supreme, divine ruler of all of the Land of the Rising Sun? Never would I have believed such a thing possible! The moon might just as well glow orange – and yet there was the monk named Sesshu, sat beside the Empress and speaking on her behalf.
As I say, the room in which my master and I had been received was near-stifling. Two large candles lit; thick, Chinese-style drapes drawn across the windows… And when I dared glance – if only momentarily – in her direction, the Empress looking so pale; so sick…
Yes, I realized. She was still sick. This monk sat by her side may have cured the mysterious disease that had seemed likely to kill her – yet still she was in wretched health. Recently, I doubted whether she ventured outside much if at all…
She was fully in the power of this monk named Sesshu.
I fully recognized this fact in an instant.
But still… Where exactly was the proof for what the courtier named Noami had claimed – that Sesshu intended to become the next Emperor of Japan…?
Preposterous!
…And yet if anyone could usurp the legitimate line to the throne that stretched back for ‘millennia and more’ (to quote my master), I had no doubt that it was Sesshu…
‘We look forward to seeing you this evening, Ennin-sensei,’ stated the Empress then, in a voice that put me in mind of delicate china vases about to be struck with a hammer.
‘Again, Empress, my deepest gratitude upon receiving your most generous invitation,’ returned my master, once more touching his forehead virtually to the floor. I thought it best if I did the same.
‘Thank you, Ennin-sensei,’ said Sesshu then. ‘We look forward to seeing you – later…’
This was insanity. That a humble monk might speak for an Empress. As the samurai bodyguard proceeded to politely usher my master and I out of that dark, ill-ventilated room, I sincerely hoped that my master could give me some answers concerning this developing mystery, very shortly…