Tameyoshi paused to look back, saying: "My sons, we are now near the capital. It is time for us to part—there must be an end to our farewells."
And Tameyoshi's sons lifted up their voices and wept.
A litter waited for Tameyoshi at the edge of the wood by the Kamo, and that evening he was carried to Yoshitomo's mansion, where three serving-women received him and saw to it that he bathed, brought him fresh garments and medicaments and all manner of foods, so that he wanted nothing.
That night he slept soundly, untroubled by insects and the fear of wild beasts.
Tameyoshi's first thought on awaking was that he was safe under his son's roof. It was not until noon, however, that he saw Yoshitomo, who came to him secretly. Less than three weeks had elapsed since they last met, but to them it seemed as though many years had gone by in that time. Tameyoshi and Yoshitomo wept quietly when they came face to face.
". . . My father, forgive me for the pain I have given you."
"Forgive? Yoshitomo, your father is guilty of high treason. I have no right to be here. Treat me as you would a criminal."
"My heart breaks to have you say this."
"No, no, Yoshitomo, I am an old man and resigned to my fate. This only I beg of you—to spare your brothers, the guiltless women, and the children. Let me be punished in their stead."
"It is for me to give up all I have to save you, my father."
"But, remember, there are many at Court who think differently. Take no rash step that will endanger your life. I only ask that you, my eldest, succeed to the chieftainship and preserve our name," Tameyoshi pleaded.
That night Yoshitomo, concealed in his ox-carriage, drove to Shinzei's residence. Shinzei was not at home. He had for some time been extremely busy and was not expected to return from the Court that night, his servants said. The next night Yoshitomo went again and was fortunate in having Shinzei receive him.
When Yoshitomo had finished speaking, Shinzei replied coldly:
"What! You ask that Tameyoshi's life be spared? Even I can do nothing for you. It is, moreover, most indiscreet of you to come to me on this matter. It would be more to the point if you presented your appeal in person to the courtiers."
Yoshitomo, however, did not lose heart. A general, Masasada, a former Minister of the Right, he knew was a man of wide sympathies, trusted in higher circles of the Court, and in the confidence of the Emperor. To him Yoshitomo went one night and was received with kindness. None the less, the general was not inclined to optimism.
". . . Yes, I feel that I understand what you are going through. But in these troubled times I can give you no assurances that the Court will even consider your appeal, though I shall see what can be done by adding a few words myself," Masasada said warmly.
At the next meeting of the Court councilors, Masasada himself presented Yoshitomo's appeal. Not only did he plead that Tameyoshi's life be spared in exchange for Yoshitomo's recently acquired honors, but he went on to say: ". . . The taking of one life will lead to the taking of another, and another, until even a hundred will not suffice, says an ancient adage. Tameyoshi sided with our enemies from a sense of loyalty. He is an old man and past sixty, an old soldier racked by infirmities. His grandfather was a warrior of great valor who subdued the enemies of the imperial house in the farthest marches, and there are many who still remember his exploits. To condemn Tameyoshi to death will surely kindle the hatred of those who remember his grandfather. As we judge, so also shall we be judged. It grieves and alarms me to think that harsh measures carried out in the name of the throne will only add to those barbarities we already see around us. Are not mercy and an all-embracing love the substance of the imperial prerogative?"
Someone laughed. It was Shinzei.
"What's over is over. Today is today. The task of government is to deal with the present. Sir, you give us fair words, but are you not aware of what is happening around us today?" he asked.
"If we spare Tameyoshi, how then are we to deal with the pretender to the throne—Sutoku? If instead of sentencing him to death we banish Tameyoshi, who can say that he will not marshal an army in the far provinces and once more march against us? Did Kiyomori hesitate to put his uncle to the sword? Is it just to make an exception of Tameyoshi and his sons?"
A malicious smile played over Shinzei's features all the while he spoke and watched Masasada.
"The Police Commissioner tells me that Lord Yoshitomo has given Tameyoshi asylum. Strange and improbable as this sounds, if proved true, this would be a flagrant violation of an imperial decree. Indeed, the honorable gentleman proposes that we be lenient when I already consider him deserving of the death penalty."
Shinzei flung out his last words savagely. Since the end of the war his authority had increasingly come to the fore, and the general realized that he had no chance of winning out against Shinzei.
Masasada later summoned Yoshitomo and told him of what had taken place at the council. "I advise you to act with great discretion, otherwise you may expect the other captains to attack you in your own house."
Tortured by remorse, Yoshitomo reproached himself for not casting his lot with his father's. His trusted retainers Masakiyo and Jiro soon saw what was going on in their master's mind. Not only they but the other retainers who had shared Yoshitomo's triumphs grew fearful at the thought of what might happen to him. It was likely that he would not only be ordered to behead his own father, but be stripped of all his honors and outlawed.
After two wakeful nights Yoshitomo called Masakiyo and Jiro to him and spoke with them.
Toward evening of that same day Masakiyo and Jiro brought a litter outside Tameyoshi's room and said: "There has been very disturbing talk about you, and our master is troubled for your safety. He has neither slept nor taken food these several days in his anxiety. There are some unbelievably malevolent persons at the Court. Because of them it seems advisable for you to go into hiding somewhere in the Eastern Hills, and we are to accompany you."
Tameyoshi rose to go with them, and turning in the direction of Yoshitomo's room, he raised his clasped hands. "Truly, it has been said that there are no treasures more precious than one's children. Only my son would go to such lengths in his solicitude for me. Such magnanimity cannot be forgotten. I shall remember this to the end of my days," Tameyoshi repeated again and again with tears.
Toward dusk Tameyoshi's litter was carried out by a rear gate and borne through the oncoming night. The bearers seemed to follow a road other than that leading to the Eastern Hills; and when they finally were outside the capital in an open field, Tameyoshi found that several of Yoshitomo's housemen had arrived and were waiting with an ox-carriage.
Masakiyo nudged Jiro, who frowned and waved him off, muttering:
". . . You do it. I cannot."
Masakiyo shrank away irresolute and called to the litter-bearers: "Aah—you there, set down the litter. . . . Sir, we are now outside the city and still have some distance to go; will you not take the carriage now?" And he came close to the litter. He drew back to give Tameyoshi room to step out, tightening his grip on his sword as he waited. Jiro suddenly spoke from behind and nudged the hand on the hilt.
"Masakiyo, a word with you. . . ." As he spoke, Jiro walked a few paces ahead of the litter and turned to Masakiyo, who joined him. "Here—not by trickery, I tell you. He is, after all, the master's father and it does not seem right."
"Well then, what?"
"Why not tell him everything? Let him then say his prayers. Even though he meets his end out in this desolate waste, he is after all Tameyoshi of the Genji and deserves to die as a fine warrior should."
"You are right, quite right. But that makes it all the harder. You do it."
"Not for anything! That is beyond me. You are the one for it."
After this whispered colloquy, Masakiyo turned back to Tameyoshi and told him why he had been brought here.
Tameyoshi received the disclosure quietly. "So." As he seated himself on the ground, he said wit
h deep feeling: "Why did not my son tell me this himself? I can understand his reluctance, but a father's love encompasses much." Tameyoshi's tears fell as he continued: "Did—did he not know that a father's love can rise even above this? All those many years since he left his mother's breast and played at my knees, did he not even then come to know every corner of this heart?—Ah, Yoshitomo, that alone grieves me. Our lives are like foam on the stream, yet are we not father and son, linked to each other by ties from another life? Why could you not open your heart to me? I have fallen, indeed, yet not so low as to seek anything for myself when I came to you. Since this was fated by the gods, why could we not have spent a last evening together, lamenting this and opening our hearts to each other before parting?"
When he ended, Tameyoshi settled himself more firmly on the ground and wept no more, as though the tears of a lifetime had been spent. Composing himself further, he clasped his hands and recited a prayer. Then he turned to Masakiyo and whispered in tones as gentle as the rustling of his monk's robe: "Masakiyo, strike."
Yoshitomo soon after presented his father's head to the authorities at the Court. Though Tameyoshi's head was not dishonored by exposure in public, the common people cursed Yoshitomo more bitterly than they did Kiyomori. With the exception of the youngest, Tameyoshi's other sons were soon after captured and executed. Tametomo, who escaped to Kyushu, was later brought back a prisoner to the capital. There the tendons of his arms were severed before his banishment to the island of Oshima in the east.
CHAPTER XVIII
SONG ON A FLUTE
Offerings of incense, flowers, and small piles of stones began to mark the roadside and bridges where so many warriors had-lately fallen in battle. They were left there by pious common folk who took no part in the conflict. Crones with infants strapped on their backs, housewives returning from market, potters on their way to the city once more to hawk their wares, peddlers of rush mats, nuns, and even an occasional ox-tender paused to offer prayers for the nameless dead.
"Ah, you pitiful dead, and more pitiful discord! Can these, indeed, be tokens of the goodness at the heart of men? Good, good!"
A hulking figure in a wide hat of plaited bamboo and tattered monk's robes stood at a crossroad muttering to himself as he stared round him at the flowers and incense near some charred ruins. He appeared to be in his early forties and shouldered a pack such as itinerant priests carry; he leaned on a pilgrim's staff; a rosary was wound round a hairy wrist. His head was not shaven and his hair hung in unkempt profusion about his travel-stained face; his worn straw sandals were caked with mud. The stern look on his face made him seem more terrible than any monk from Mount Hiei. As he moved away, striding rapidly through the streets of the capital, the sight of the ruins he passed seemed to move him deeply and he prayed aloud lustily: "Namu Amida-butsu, namu Amida-butsu. . . ."
"There he goes, the priest with the loud voice!"
"Shaggy-headed one, O shaggy-headed demon!"
"Priest-man, priest-man, where are you going?" chanted the street urchins who recognized him.
The ragged figure turned and grinned good-naturedly, exposing a red mouth through his shaggy beard.
"Shaggy one, give us some cakes!"
"Rice cakes, please!"
"Pennies will do!" the children continued to shout, running after him.
"Nothing now. Next time, next time." The figure waved, turning a corner with long strides.
In a short while he was standing before the gates of Councilor Shinzei's mansion, where he stopped to rub his beads and pray. Then striding boldly in by the gateway, he hurried past the carriage-house, planted himself at the entrance porch, and hallooed loudly.
"This is I—Mongaku—from the Togano-o Hills, north of the capital. I came here yesterday and the day before. I must have speech today with the honorable Councilor; I have somewhat to tell him. Someone go tell him I am here."
Mongaku's thundering voice seemed to have penetrated to the inner rooms of the spacious residence; some frightened servants hurried off toward the master's apartments, and others came out of the servants' quarters. Then three young warriors and the chief steward appeared. They greeted Mongaku with great courtesy. Then one of them said: "I regret to tell you that the master is detained at the Court and has not yet returned. We have no idea when he will be back, for he is so busy with matters of state."
"Oh?—On my way here I stopped at the Guard Office, and the register showed that he left the Court last night at the Hour of the Cock (six p.m.). He should be at home.—Why does he shun me? Is he not busy with restoring public peace and setting the minds of the people at rest? I have not come for any idle chatting, but to share some anxious thoughts and to give him advice. I therefore ask that my message be carried to him."
"Yes, yes. I shall see that he is told another day."
"Not some other day! I beg to see him now. Enough of these transparent lies! Go tell him now." '
"But today—"
"Now—today! It shall not be tomorrow, for every day means so many more lives lost. In the name of peace—this is most urgent. If you refuse, I shall bellow to him from here."
Mongaku showed no sign of budging even an inch. Removing his pilgrim's pack, he sat down on the ground.
Councilor Shinzei and his wife, Lady Kii, were entertaining a friend in the Spring Pavilion, where the cook had been called to prepare a special dish before them as they sipped their wine.
"Teh—a nuisance!" Shinzei remarked testily with a quick glance at his guest's litter.
"Let me see what it is," said his son, Naganori, rising.
Shinzei whispered in his son's ear: "If it is that troublesome priest Mongaku, who has been sending written protests to the Court, tell him some tale and send him packing."
Naganori, nodding that he understood, went out to the carriage entry and stood on the porch, looking down at Mongaku. "Are you not the priest Mongaku? My father is at home, but he has an important visitor. He has seen your protests. Is that not enough?"
"And who are you?"
"The Councilor's third son."
"You must pardon me—but you will not do. Tell the Councilor himself to come."
"Indeed, you lack proper respect for the Councilor by demanding that he come here."
"Not so. I have come here three days in succession, and it surely cannot be any great trouble to show himself. Moreover, it is not private business that brings me here; he can hardly grudge me his time when I come to tell him about my anxieties for the public."
"Visitors such as you are far from rare, and I have no doubt that my father has had enough of such advice."
"Silence! Mongaku does not come to call at grand houses out of any elegant madness. Day and night scores of prisoners are dragged from jail and beheaded by the river!"
"Softly, please! You disturb our guests."
"I do? Then Shinzei can hear me in his apartments. Very well, I shall speak to him from here. If he has visitors, then let them also listen to what I have to say."
Mongaku suddenly came to his feet and drew a deep breath. The voice that had been heard above the thundering of the Nachi Falls for more than ten years now seemed to shake the very rafters of Shinzei's mansion:
"Here, you, master of this house! This is a warning from heaven itself, not the idle gossip of the market-place. By your wanton executions you have created the six rounds of hell on earth. You made a nephew put his uncle to the sword; brother turn against brother; a young father behead his own father. Not even the dumb beasts are so ruthless to each other!"
“…”
"Listen further: every day that you speak in the high councils means just so many more are condemned to death. You forced Yoshitomo to bring in his father's head, to behead his brothers, and, still unsatisfied, you saw to it that Tameyoshi's aged wife was drowned and the children and others of his house lined up along the road and stabbed to death in cold blood. Do you think that no one hates you for your malevolence and savagery?"
The Heike Story Page 28