"Foolish brother!" Kiyomori finally said. "Why fill your dull brains with such nonsense? . . . There's a paneled screen at the Court, covered with paintings of wise men and the sages; people believe that merely sitting in that room with those images will fill one with wisdom. So you, too, propose to stuff that head of yours with the likenesses of sages? Utter foolishness! We're not aristocrats! They feed us, and when they order us, must we not instantly go out and kill even those who have done us no harm? Are we not completely at their mercy? Leave those books—have done with them!"
Kiyomori was sprawled on his back in the doorway; the upper half of his body lay in the room, and his legs were thrust out over the edge of the veranda. Mosquitoes hummed about him as he lay in the shadows, gazing at Tsunemori absorbed in his books. Kiyomori was annoyed and fumed inwardly; his father had long since gone to bed, all the servants were asleep, and yet Tsunemori insisted on staying up late. He had irritably refused to accompany Kiyomori on one of his nocturnal prowls. He was a nuisance, this young brother of his, so unlike himself in temperament, though they had the same mother. Disturbing thoughts began to trickle through Kiyomori's mind, like the persistent drip of rain through a leaking roof. He wondered if the difference lay in not having had the same father. This thought made him forget his fear of Tadamori and the constraint he felt with his brother, and he yawned deliberately, muttering to himself: "Well, I'll go now. A fine moonlight night, too." He raised himself suddenly from his supine position and let one foot slide down on the dew-soaked sandals under the veranda.
"Where are you going?"
"I am trying to decide," Kiyomori replied.
"But at this hour?"
"Some of us Guards promised to meet Wataru on a moonlight night when he would take his colt out for exercise."
Tsunemori was incredulous. "What? Exercise a horse so late?"
"It's not unusual for riders to try out their horses secretly before the races."
"You're lying!"
"What?" cried Kiyomori angrily, staring at the bright halo around the lamp.
Tsunemori quickly left his desk and came to his brother and whispered: "Greet Mother for me. Will you take this?"
Kiyomori gasped as he felt of the letter that his brother thrust into the breast of his robe.
"You have her permission to visit her, don't you? I long to see her too. She left Father, but she is still our mother. I'll wait until my time comes to see her. Tell her so for me. . . . It's all in that letter."
Tears rolled down Tsunemori's cheeks. Kiyomori saw how each drop caught the glitter of moonlight. Ridiculous! What reason had he to pursue that mother of his? Softened, however, by the sight of his brother's tears, Kiyomori said gently:
"You're wrong, Tsunemori. I'm going to keep my promise to Wataru."
"Don't try to deceive me," Tsunemori insisted, "there are visitors who've told Father they saw you near the Nakamikado mansion."
"No! Who has been telling such fantastic tales?"
"Fujiwara Tokinobu. He is one of the few courtiers whom Father trusts, and I don't doubt his word," Tsunemori replied.
"So that old man has been coming round these days, has he?"
"There are matters that cannot be discussed at the Palace, and that is why he comes here."
Kiyomori scratched his head. "Caught! If so many people know, I might as well confess. I'll take your letter to Mother, Tsunemori. I tell you, however, that Father said I should go to see her if I wished."
"Then let me come with you!" cried Tsunemori.
"You idiot!" Kiyomori burst out, disconcerted. "Have you no consideration for Father? There's no need to tell him about my night escapades, though, and remember—not a word to Mokunosukй!"
Kiyomori made his exit over the wall. His brother's tearful face seemed to float before him, but he soon forgot it. Above him spread the Milky Way. The night winds cooled his feverish limbs. Where was he going? He did not know. What had caused his restlessness tonight? Whatever it was, it made him dreamy, drove him to madness, to tears, left him sleepless, until he felt desperate. He believed in some Supreme Being, as did those Buddhists who preached the virtuous life. He wondered and agonized about the man from whom he had inherited this wild blood of his. Was this a strain of madness which had passed to him from his mother or the late Emperor? If so, was he responsible for his acts? He hadn't the courage to go alone to the brothel on Sixth Avenue, but if Morito were here now, he would go instantly to those women, to any woman, or even to a fox in the shape of a woman in the moonlight. Anything—anyone who could still this thing which raged in him like a wild beast. Any illusion that would quiet it, lay it to rest. . . . To touch some woman ... to meet one now by chance.
Kiyomori walked on in a sort of delirium. He did not know how he got there, but he stood outside the walls of the Nakamikado mansion. No use—he was a coward! The wall here was much higher than the one at home. He knew that his mother's apartments were in the east wing. He recalled her words at the Kamo races— "Come to see me. . . . Ruriko will be good company."— Ruriko, far too pretty and superior for a mere dreamy warrior youth. There was no reason, however, why he should not try to see her on the excuse of visiting his mother. It was not love that made him seek her out, but his dreams.
Each time he came here, his courage evaporated. He blamed his timidity and grew discouraged at the sorry figure he made. Standing there in his old robes and worn sandals, there passed through his heated imagination those many tales he heard daily about the courtiers—the aristocrat who could lightly abduct a princess, bear her away to the open fields where the tall grass waved and the hagi flower bloomed, while away the night with her until the moon grew pale in the dawn, and dew jeweled her eyelids, then steal back with her unseen. Kiyomori thought of the courtiers who casually dropped love-letters in the halls of the Palace where ladies-in-waiting passed, and waited for night to bring the touch of sinuous tresses and hot lips. ... He wondered why fate had not decreed such things for him. ... He was a coward! If only he could put away that cringing thing in him!
Tonight he was determined to go through with it. He now stood on top of the wall, but again grew irresolute. Wild visions rioted through his heated brain. Wait! A cool wind blew on his sweating body. Through his mad fancying he remembered Mokunosukй's words: "Whoever you are, you are a man after all. You are no cripple with those fine limbs." Whether he was the son of an emperor or the child of an intrigue, was he not a child of the heavens and the earth? What he wrestled with now were his own lusts!
He suddenly wanted to laugh at himself on his high perch. He gazed up at the Milky Way flung across the heavens. Not bad—not bad at all to be alone like this under that vast autumn sky!
What was that? Again!
In the distance a tongue of flame licked at the sky. He stared in the direction of a roof that lay inside the city walls. Nothing unusual—just another fire. Fires were no longer rare these days. As the red glow spread, he thought of the numberless common folk, huddled in miserable sleep while the frivolous aristocrats ruled in pampered luxury; the two governments plotted against each other, and the ruthless armed clergy rioted. Those flames, leaping so hungrily at the sky, were the tongues of the starving masses, the common people for whom there was no redress and whose only means of protest lay in firing the objects of their hate. He recalled the more recent conflagrations: the Bifuku Gate, the West Quarter, the High Chancellor's villa. How the downtrodden and the criminals, whose very existence depended upon the prosperity of the Fujiwara, had gloated under a rain of ashes and sparks at the sight of the destruction!
Kiyomori jumped down from the wall—on the outer side— and started off at a run in the direction of the confused noises that now filled the streets.
The long, uninterrupted autumn rains caused a great deal of grumbling, but this year neither the Kamo nor the Katsura River flooded its banks. The foliage on the Northern Hills was already beginning to turn.
The pilgrimage to the Ninna-ji Temple was only t
en days away, and the Guards at the Palace were busy with preparations for that event. Though still unsure of himself, Kiyomori was pleased by his new duties. The Sixth Rank had been conferred on him; he was now a Guard officer, an outrider for the imperial carriage, and determined to perform his duties faultlessly. He stayed late at the Palace and returned home nightly, too hungry and weary for idle dreaming.
On the 14th of September, shortly before midnight, there was a sound of feet hurrying toward Kiyomori's room. It was Heiroku, the steward, who called out that a messenger had arrived on horseback from the Palace. The young master was to put on his armor and report immediately.
What was this sudden summons? Kiyomori leaped out of bed. He was not, however, unduly surprised. Tsunemori's teeth chattered with excitement, and the words came tumbling out of his mouth: "What is it—war?"
"I don't know. Anything can happen these days."
"Could the monks of Mount Hiei or Kofukuji have marched on the capital with their mercenaries to petition the authorities again?"
Kiyomori opened his armor chest and pulled out his corselet, greaves, and armor tassets. As he started putting them on, he called to Tsunemori:
"Go to Father's apartments. With Mother gone, there's no one to help him with his armor."
"Mokunosukй is there with him. Shall I get mine?"
Kiyomori smiled in spite of himself. "You stay here and keep the little ones from crying."
There was a great clatter and angry shouts all round the house. The retainers were bringing the horses from the stable, bearing arms and pine torches from the storehouses, and frenziedly cursing at each other. In the open yard where the retainers usually assembled, Tadamori sat astride his horse. When Kiyomori appeared, he ordered Mokunosukй to open the gates, put spur to his horse, and was gone. Sixteen or seventeen retainers, carrying halberds, filed out at a run, hurrying to overtake Tadamori.
Nothing disturbed the sleeping streets, and Tadamori ordered his men to keep a watch out for fires. The gates on all sides of the Palace wall were barred, an anticlimax to all this feverish arming, and they went on to the Guard Office, where the gates stood open. Between the trees they saw lights in the main building of the Palace and sensed that something unusual had happened. There was a message for Tadamori: his majesty's aide wished to have a word with him. Tadamori rode through the inner gate and then disappeared into the Palace.
Kiyomori, meanwhile, arrived at the Guard Office. Leaving his horse with a retainer, he shouldered his way through the dense crowd of Guards and armed men who surrounded the building, hoping to catch in the babble of voices some explanation for the summons.
"You never can tell about people. It was only last month that we Guards met at Wataru's house in Iris Lane."
Faces—faces—faces. Nothing but excited faces and excited talk.
"Yes, I was there that night. We were quite drunk and badgered Wataru into letting us see the moon in his kitchen instead of the moon in his garden. . . ."
"It was just like Wataru to introduce his wife in the graceful way he did."
"Even the light of the moon seemed too harsh for her as she turned her unsmiling face toward us."
"She was all elegance, like a white peony, though she had just come from her kitchen. . . ."
"Like a spray of pear blossoms in spring!"
"Ah, how pitiful! How pitiful, indeed!"
With more show of feeling than was usual among the Guards, one of them lamented: "Though she was another man's wife, I do say she was lovely beyond words. And that Kesa-Gozen murdered. . . ."
Kiyomori could not believe his ears. Kesa-Gozen dead? Murdered? Her image in his heart was so real that he refused to believe she was dead. The unspeakable worst had happened to her. He felt he had more words in praise of her beauty than any man there. But she was another man's wife and he had believed he did wrong in even thinking of her. Now that everyone spoke of her, he no longer was afraid of admitting to himself that he had adored her. Roughly he pushed his way through the crowd as though bent on business that concerned him alone.
"Is it true? Is there no mistake about it? The murderer—who is the murderer?" Kiyomori demanded.
Someone spoke to him. "The master calls you."
Kiyomori turned and hurried toward the inner gate, where his father waited. He did not recognize his father in the man who spoke.
"Post yourself at the foot of Kurama Road, near First Avenue," Tadamori commanded; "watch out for every man that passes. Consider every man suspect. Leave no one unsearched. Don't let the murderer escape. He may be disguised, but there's no mistaking him."
Kiyomori could not wait further. "Who is this man I am to capture?" he interrupted breathlessly.
"A warrior, Endo Morito."
"What! Morito killed Kesa-Gozen?"
"Yes, he," Tadamori replied heavily. "He has disgraced the name of the Imperial Guards—and of all things, because of an infatuation for another man's wife."
At that moment Morito's uncle, Endo Mitsuto, came rapidly through the inner gate, his eyes averted and his face sickly. He slipped by quickly as if eager to escape, but every eye scrutinized him as though he were the murderer's accomplice.
Armed retainers, other than his own, now gathered round Tadamori. He had conferred with his majesty's aide and was now prepared to give the men an account of the events of that night.
Kesa-Gozen had been murdered early that night of the 14th, about the Dog Hour (eight o'clock). The place: her own home in Iris Lane. Her husband was away at that time.
Morito, who had had a nodding acquaintance with Kesa-Gozen's mother, either before her daughter left the Court to be married or soon after her marriage to Wataru, it was never known exactly when, fell wildly in love with Kesa-Gozen.
People believed that Morito's exceptional gifts as a scholar, widely recognized, would win him an imperial grant and enable him to enter the university, where he would attain to the highest honors conferred there. Lately, however, his fellow students and friends in the Guards had begun to look askance at him and avoid him, for Morito had for some time been acting strangely.
Ardent and persevering by nature, Morito was not only a scholar, but an eloquent speaker, daring, and confident to the point of condescending to all his acquaintances. In matters pertaining to amours, he was more than self-assured, and when carried away by his passions, he was a formidable man with his magnificent physique—a madman, deaf to all reason.
His one-sided love affair with Kesa-Gozen, the headlong infatuation of a man not to be turned from his purpose, was her doom. He passionately importuned her, until she grew afraid; intimidated her by insinuating that Wataru would pay the price for her resistance, until his threats finally determined the course she would take. She secretly made up her mind that she would meet his challenge with one of her own.
Morito, desperate and on the brink of losing his mind, demanded a final answer from her, and Kesa-Gozen was prepared to give it. She lucidly considered the consequences of the promise she would give him, and this is what she said:
"There is no choice for me now. Hide yourself, on the night of the 14th, in my husband's bedroom, at the Dog Hour. Earlier in the evening I shall see that he bathes and washes his hair, ply him with wine, and then see him to bed. While he lives, there is no way in which I can meet your wishes. I shall wait for you in another part of the house while you go through with it. My husband is deadly with a sword; therefore, creep quietly to his pillow, feel for his wet hair, and then with one blow strike off his head. Be sure you strike clean."
The Heike Story Page 8