The Heike Story

by Eiji Yoshikawa

  "Ruriko, what lovely little breasts—like small cherries!"

  "You embarrass me, aunt, don't stare at me so."

  "I couldn't help thinking of the days when my skin was fair like yours," Yasuko mused.

  "But you're so lovely even now."

  "Yes?—" said Yasuko, looking long at her own breasts.

  Ruriko's words were not all flattery, but Yasuko, cupping her breasts in her hands, felt that they had lost their firmness. The tips were stained dark like the seeds of an apricot. She had borne four sons and realized that the springs of her youthfulness were running dry. She stared at the small white scars on one breast where Kiyomori in a fit of temper had bitten her when he was two or three years old.

  Anger suddenly welled up in her at the thought of Kiyomori, who had struck her so cruelly—and with a retainer there! Had he not once nursed at these breasts? Was this how sons treated their mother? Were this so, then how unrewarding to be a mother! He seemed to think that he had grown to manhood without her care! Resentment filled Yasuko as she sat there motionless, her fingers curled round her breasts.

  Ruriko soon left the bathhouse. She was the niece of the mistress of the mansion. It was customary for young girls to be given in marriage by the time they were thirteen or fourteen, but Ruriko, who looked more than her sixteen years, was not even affianced. Rumors were that her father, Fujiwara Tamenari, a governor in one of the provinces, was too occupied with his duties to arrange a match. It was also said, however, that he had often disobeyed the orders of the central government, and at the request of the Minister of the Left, a relative who considered his dissident cousin dangerous, had been assigned to a distant post.

  Ruriko herself seemed unconcerned about her unmarried state and found that the days passed pleasantly enough. Ever since Yasuko arrived and took possession of the apartments of the east wing, Ruriko spent most of her time there, leaving her own rooms in the west wing unoccupied. She often spent the night in the east wing or took her baths with Yasuko, who passed her time gossiping with the young girl, initiating her in the use of cosmetics, airing her views on love affairs, or instructing her in the secrets of appraising men. Ruriko soon came to admire the older woman and became warmly attached to her.

  The master of this mansion was one Iyenari, a good-natured nobleman in his fifties, who, on retiring from a government post, indulged a passion for cockfighting. Being childless, he had considered adopting his wife's niece, Ruriko, but a most disconcerting situation had arisen in February—Yasuko's unexpected arrival. He sounded her out on her plans for departure, but Yasuko expressed no intention of returning to Imadegawa. He appealed to her maternal feelings by reminding her of her four children, but Yasuko appeared quite indifferent to them. To shake her self-confidence he hinted that though she was still enchanting at thirty-eight, she could hardly expect to remarry. But Yasuko was deaf to such insinuations and behaved as though she had returned to the parental roof permanently. She took possession of the best rooms in the house, ordered baths in the morning, spent long hours over her toilette in the evening, and proceeded to realize for herself her notions of a high-born lady's life.

  She never hesitated to use the carriages whenever she wished, ordered the servants about at her whim, while they gossiped slyly in the servants' quarters about the strange men who visited her apartments at night. If Iyenari was so tactless as to express his displeasure at her conduct, Yasuko flew into a rage, forcing him to take back his words, and assumed the haughty airs of a royal mistress, never letting Iyenari forget that she had once been the late Emperor's favorite and arrogantly telling him to hold his tongue.

  Iyenari had had his fill of such reminders. He ceased to remind Yasuko of the past, when she was Ruriko's age and he had arranged the liaison between her and the amorous Emperor, for she remembered too well that the monarch in return had seen to Iyenari's promotion at Court, had rewarded him generously with additional acres to his manor, and lavished many other gifts on him. Yasuko had long looked upon Iyenari's wealth as in part her own, and even after her marriage to Tadamori often came to the Nakamikado to demand whatever she wished.

  A misfortune of his own making had returned to plague Iyenari. Lately his palate for pleasure had become dulled. Yasuko, on the other hand, was full of gaiety as an unending stream of visitors came to call on her in the east wing, stayed to play dice-games, burned incense, and practiced on various musical instruments. Even Iyenari's old friend at cockfights deserted him for Yasuko and was now one of her intimates.

  Iyenari's mansion, like the fashionable dwellings of other aristocrats, was a spacious building with an east and a west wing. A long, covered gallery, running the entire length of the main house, connected the two wings, from which roofed passages projected at right angles to form the sides of an inner court. Elegant enclosed pavilions at the end of the passages commanded a full view of the court, its miniature landscape of island, lake, and flowing stream.

  Yasuko's influence over Ruriko troubled Iyenari, for the young girl was now a complete captive to the older woman's charms and spent all her time in the east wing—some distance from the family apartments on the opposite side of the court. Iyenari ceaselessly cautioned Ruriko not to spend so much time there, warning her that nothing good would come of these visits. But his authority in his own house had collapsed. He ordered the servants to keep a watch on Ruriko, but in vain, for they now went about in fear of Yasuko.

  So this was why even the stout-hearted warrior Tadamori had withered in his youth, Iyenari reflected wryly. This was why Tadamori had been called eccentric; and this was the doubtful legacy that the late Emperor had bequeathed him. Iyenari saw his hair turning gray in the brief space of two months, and marveled at Tadamori, who had endured this burden for twenty years.

  Ruriko had spent another night in the east wing, and Iyenari was beside himself this morning with helpless rage. He had just finished arranging some irises in a vase, placed a helmet adorned with wistarias on a helmet-stand, prepared the sweet-flag wine and set out the cups with which to toast the May Festival, and then sent a servant to fetch Ruriko, only to be told that she and Yasuko were in the bathhouse—had been there for some time.

  He turned accusingly to his wife and complained: "Now you shall see what happens to her one of these days! We shall have another Yasuko on our hands, mark my words!" But the sight of the azure skies and the brilliant sunlight quickly made him regret his petulance. "Ah, let us forget all this, for today is the Fifth of May!" he exclaimed. "Bring me my court robes; it's about time for me to go," he said, though he rose listlessly as he spoke.

  Today was the day of the Kamo races. By now the paddocks were surely boiling over with the surging throngs. Iyenari, as in previous years, was a member of the committee in charge of the festivities following the races. He toyed with the idea of a feigned illness, thought better of it, put on his ceremonial robes, and placed the flower-decked helmet on his head. While his wife secured its cords under his lifted chin, he gave some orders to a servant.

  "Bring out the carriage—the new one, mind you!"

  The messenger hurried off to the servants' quarters, but soon was back with the news that the ladies only awhile ago had driven off in the elegant new carriage!

  "The imbeciles!" Iyenari roared at the messenger. What ever made them take the new carriage? Not a word to him! Ruriko should have known better! Even that young woman seemed to have lost all respect for her uncle and aunt! Was it possible that even she had been ensnared by the feigned love of that mere tenant?

  Iyenari was both angry and sorry for himself. There was nothing he could do now but take the old carriage. He concealed his unhappy countenance behind its shutters as it rolled through the main gate.

  Soon, in the distance, beneath the clouds of dust, he glimpsed the massed crowds thronging the Kamo course. Between the verdant young foliage he caught the flash of red and white bunting, the rippling of colored pennants, the clusters of the "sacred tree" tied to the starting-post; t
hen gradually the entrance to the racecourse came into view, milling with jostling humanity.

  His carriage was now caught in a tangle of vehicles. Who could believe there were so many carriages? He had never realized that such a variety existed in the capital. Amazing! Suddenly he sat up, cursing roundly to himself. There was his very own, his new carriage just crossing his path with a fine flourish of whips! Curses on that mare—that old female whom no one could saddle!

  The ceremony announcing the day's entries had just ended. From the royal box, the nineteen-year-old Emperor Sutoku, his Fujiwara consort at his side, glanced round him smiling. The ex-Emperor Toba was also there, surrounded by court ladies and other attendants, who stood throughout for the opening ritual. When they took their seats, an excited hum rose as the company exchanged lively comments on the jockeys and horses.

  The grounds were dotted with numerous tents for the grooms, the musicians in the band, and physicians dispatched to care for the usual casualties.

  Each leaf on the trees of the near-by Kamo Shrine scintillated in the breeze. The music of the orchestra drifted on the wind over the heads of the crowds. On the green turf near the paddock gate, where a pennant waved, impatient racehorses threw the grooms into a frenzy. Now and again a long roar of mirth swept the stands as a spirited steed, the bit between its teeth, sent a groom sprawling, Or a colt, being tried for its pace, stood with its feet planted, relieving itself in front of the imperial pavilion. In the royal box the Emperor and ex-Emperor smiled with amusement, while waves of laughter passed over the flower-bedecked rows of patricians. Here, rank on rank, the ostentation and elegance of the Court and Palace were displayed in the many-shaped headdresses and the rainbow-colored robes. The younger courtiers affected the fashion of lightly powdered faces, painted eyebrows, and rouged cheeks and exhaled the scent of the rare perfumes they carried in their sleeves. In one of the pavilions courtiers in helmets decked with wistaria made a wide splash of purple, scenting the air with the fragrance of flowers.

  This was the day of the Kamo races; no less was it a tournament of fashion and extravagance in which the Court and the Palace sought to outdo each other. And all unseen to the beholder, this was the tilting-field in the rivalry between the Emperor and the abdicated monarch. Though occupying the same box, son and father rarely spoke to each other. Theirs was an estrangement of many years, and the gulf between them had only widened with the passing of time. Behind their estrangement lay a grotesque history.

  Emperor Sutoku was the ex-Emperor Toba's first-born son by his consort, Fujiwara Shoko, who had been a maid-in-waiting at the Cloister Palace at the time Shirakawa had abdicated and taken the tonsure. The ex-Emperor Shirakawa's attentions to young Shoko were so ardent that the courtiers whispered among themselves that the notoriously amorous monarch's devotion was more than paternal. Shoko, chosen after a few years to be the Emperor Toba's concubine, was soon elevated to be his consort, the Empress. Reluctant to sever his relations with Shoko even after she had become his son's wife, the ex-Emperor Shirakawa continued to visit her in secret. The young Emperor Toba was ignorant of the intrigue until his Empress gave birth to the Crown Prince. It was then swiftly rumored at Court that the Emperor had been quite indifferent to the first cries of the newborn infant, convinced that the child was not his own but his father's.

  The ex-Emperor's unnatural conduct and treachery poisoned Toba's youth, leaving a wound that refused to heal, and his bitter disavowals of his son Sutoku, who now reigned, created rancors and recriminations which threatened to set off a holocaust between the heads of the two governments. Yet how urbanely was it concealed today in the perfumed elegance of the Kamo races! Who could believe that these flower-embowered ranks, these powdered, effeminate figures, absorbed in the pursuit of pleasure, were fuel for the terrible conflagration lying in store for them?

  "See how his majesty smiles!"

  "The Emperor now stands. He watches with such interest!"

  Such were the remarks exchanged between the courtiers whose eyes were on the racecourse, but whose inward vision hovered around the two rulers, constantly aware of the bitter hatred coiled in the hearts of those two.

  Event followed event until noon. Dust rose high over the parched racecourse.

  "You seem dazed, Wataru. What's the matter?" Kiyomori inquired of his friend, whom he found standing idly at one side of the warriors' pavilion.

  The black four-year-old with the white fetlocks, in which Wataru had placed so much hope, was not on the list. Puzzled by this omission, Kiyomori had waited since the start of the races for a chance to speak to Wataru, who shrank from his questions and replied dejectedly:

  "This morning, while it was still dark, I made the mistake of taking the black colt from the stables here and giving him a run. ... It was fate—just bad luck."

  "What happened?"

  "The carpenters who were here yesterday setting up the stands must have left some nails about, for the colt stepped on one and got it in his right hind hoof. I wish it had been I that was spiked!"

  "Hmm—" was Kiyomori's only reply as the jockeys' superstition flashed across his mind. Wataru would only jeer at it again. But Kiyomori's next words were immeasurably comforting to Wataru.

  "Don't lost heart, Wataru. There will be other races in which he can compete. There's Ninna-ji this autumn. He's good enough to win anywhere. Why hurry him?"

  "Umm. . . . I'll enter him this autumn!" Wataru exclaimed.

  Kiyomori began to chuckle. "Why such regret? Have you bet heavily on this colt?"

  "No, sheer obstinacy. They've all been telling me that this colt would bring bad luck."

  "Did you go through the 'whip ritual'?" Kiyomori inquired.

  "The 'whip ritual'? I'll have none of that! Pure superstition! Why should these riders who have priests mumble incantations over their whips expect to win? I thought I would open their eyes."

  While Wataru spoke, Kiyomori's eyes wandered. To the roll of drums, two horses and their riders streaked away from the starting-post in a curl of dust, but he was not looking at them. His eyes swept over the massed heads in the main pavilion. Between the throngs of men and women he caught a glimpse of his mother. Among all those elegantly dressed women, his mother stood out breathtakingly lovely in her gorgeous robes.

  The eyes of the crowd were fixed hard on the course, but his mother's glance was turned toward him. Their eyes met. She beckoned to him with her eyes, but Kiyomori stared back at her coldly. She continued to smile, cajoling and pleading, as though amused by a sulking child, then turned to speak to Ruriko, who stood beside her. At the same moment a thunder of applause shook the air. A flourish of drums rolled at the goal post, where a crimson flag waved to signal that the Palace horses had won the day. A chorus of voices burst into a victory song, which rose and swelled around the ex-Emperor's pavilion.

  Wataru muttered a few words and left. Kiyomori also turned to go. He pushed his way through the crowds in the direction of the main stand. Yasuko's eyes, like an angler's line, seemed to draw him in closer and closer to her. As he drew near her, her eyes asked: "And did you come, after all?"

  Kiyomori, making his way toward his mother, felt only hatred for her. All his hate and rage were in the look that he gave her as he approached the pavilion where she sat. As he became conscious of the many women around him, he suddenly felt awkward and shy, and waves of red dyed his cheeks and large ears.

  "You amusing child!" Yasuko laughed as she studied her son's discomfiture. "What makes you so shy? Am I not after all your mother? Come here to me."

  In her voice were all those accents of love which only a mother knows how to employ. But it was not his mother who had caused him to blush. To him she was not a woman, but the embodiment of beauty—a beauty that he hated and yet prized above everything. With a sensation of hurling himself over an invisible barrier, Kiyomori came close to her. It was neither strange nor unnatural to be close beside her like this, he thought, but his glance wandered vaguely as if seeking ref
uge from the eyes turned on him.

  Yasuko observed his uneasiness and quickly concluded that Ruriko was the cause of his discomfiture. She stole a side look at one and then at the other and, turning to Ruriko, whispered: "This is my son, Heita Kiyomori, of whom I spoke one day."

  To Kiyomori she then said: "When you were three or four years old, you visited the Nakamikado with whom Ruriko is now staying."