"When we start—just which port will be the first?" Kiyomori asked.
"What about the port of Kanzaki at the mouth of the river?"
"Not good because of the sandbars."
"Muro?"
"Too narrow."
"Well then, which?"
"Owada (Kobй). I've sailed past it many a time as a boy. My father's fiefs were along the coast there. My own are there, too, and I always pass Owada by ship. . . . And every time we try to land, the high winds and the poor harbor at Owada give us much trouble. Even as a boy I used to wonder what could be done about the harbor there."
Bamboku stared at Kiyomori in surprise. "Eh, you had such thoughts since you were a boy?"
"Hmm . . . since my twenties, because, Bamboku, just think—" Kiyomori addressed Red-Nose with unaccustomed seriousness—"it's only now that I can give you a court rank—something I would never have believed possible a few years back. And who was Kiyomori when he was young? A warrior, despised by the aristocrats! A watch-dog and the miserable offspring of a Heike. . . . How could I have known then what the future held for me? I was young—oppressed, beaten down, though determined to live."
"Yes, I remember those days."
"Yes, you'd remember, Bamboku. You used to be a nobody at Court, too. And there was no chance for youthful hopes or ambitions to grow, except by turning rebel or brigand. . . . That's why, whenever I sailed past Owada with my father, I used to dream of a day when I would slice away part of that hill, and see a whole fleet at anchor in that harbor, and the port a great trading center to which all the ships of China would come. That's what I dreamed of as I stared out at the sea."
Red-Nose, who listened intently, said: "I see I was mistaken. I thought it was a wild plan that you'd hit on lately."
"No, it's been with me for twenty years. Dream dreams while you're young, Bamboku. Mine, as you can see, are beginning to take shape. This is happiness, unbearable happiness for me. ... I suppose the rest of you also thought it was just a wild scheme?"
Kiyomori rarely reminisced at such length; now he was flushed to the ears, intoxicated by his schemes. Bamboku, recalling the Kiyomori of a year ago—his infatuation with Tokiwa —could hardly believe that he was looking at the same man. Kiyomori folded up the chart as servants began carrying in wine and trays of food; other male members of the household soon joined them for the drinking and the entertainment that followed.
Kiyomori drained cup after cup, watching the dancing-girls through a rosy haze; to him the throbbing hand-drums sounded like the pulsing of the sea.
A carriage meanwhile rolled in noiselessly by the gate, and Tokiko staggered from it with Tokuko fast asleep in her arms.
Kiyomori left the dancers and singing behind him as he made his way along a gallery to Tokiko's room. Her husband was in an unusually amiable mood and not only because he had been drinking, Tokiko noted. More sprightly herself than usual, she was eager to recount every detail of the day's happenings.
Kiyomori's first question was: "How was the young Prince?"
"He is thriving, and looks so much like his father."
"Mm. . . . How did you find Shigeko?"
"Her highness was in good health, too." Tokiko corrected, with a disarming smile for Kiyomori.
"Did you speak long with his majesty? Did he say anything?" Kiyomori next asked.
"Yes, he was most gracious and I felt deeply honored by the concern with which he inquired after our family and talked about you."
“…”
Kiyomori studied the expression on Tokiko's face as she talked. He realized that the abdicated monarch was doing his utmost to win over Kiyomori and all the Heike in the way of military support. Tokiko, however, chattered on endlessly about his majesty's charm, his gentleness, his kindness.
Kiyomori finally suppressed a yawn. "I'm glad you enjoyed your day," he said, "it does you good to get out. A court conference tomorrow, too, so I'll have to leave early," he said, and rose to go.
"Oh, stay and talk a little longer," Tokiko begged.
"Still more to tell me?"
"Yes, I was dozing in the carriage on my way home and had a most extraordinary dream."
"Dream?"
"It may not have been a dream. . . ."
"What nonsense!"
"Dream or not, it was most extraordinary. It happened just as we were coming to Gojo Bridge. Tokuko was asleep in my lap and I must have fallen asleep watching her, for suddenly it seemed as though the carriage were rolling through the clouds; there was no sound whatever of wheels, but instead I heard the pounding of waves. ... I looked and all about me was the sea, over which I seemed to be flying. I wondered where I was being taken and cried out in my sleep, and what do you think?—instead of oxen, I saw a pair of foxes trotting before the carriage! And then the outlines of an island, beautiful as the peaks of paradise took shape before my eyes; a great rainbow spanned the skies and a voice sounded about me—'Itsuku-shima—Itsuku-shima,' it said. Then the foxes vanished, and the roaring of waves and the strains of a harp woke me."
"You woke up?"
"And even when I was fully awake, I could still hear music and a voice in the clouds saying: 'Itsuku-shima.' I can hear it even now! It was like that in the carriage coming home."
"Can you explain the dream?"
"Do you remember that time—you were thirty then, I think —you needed foxskins for your armor and went hunting? It was that year after the Shrine affair and you had to stay away from Court."
"Oh, yes, I do remember that."
"Remember how you took pity on those foxes and wouldn't shoot them and came home empty-handed?"
"How well you've remembered all that!"
"I never told you this, but ever since that time I've kept the lute Shinzei sent you in our shrine to the Goddess of Music, because her messengers are foxes and the lute her favorite instrument."
"That was an excellent idea of yours. It's not pleasant to remember Shinzei, though I'm sure that his spirit is pleased by your offering to the goddess."
". . . So my dream is, I think, a sign that the foxes you spared are watching over our house. Don't you think that the goddess's messengers came to remind us that we should sometimes pay our respects to the clan god of the Heike at Itsuku-shima?"
"Is our clan god enshrined at Itsuku-shima?"
"So your stepmother says. Your grandfather as well as your father, whose fiefs were there, went several times in their lifetime to worship at Itsuku-shima."
"Yes, you're quite right. That was so."
"In spite of two wars, we've had no misfortunes to speak of—in fact, not only has everything gone well, but Shigeko is now the mother of a prince, and I can't believe that this is pure chance. I wish you would show some reverence for the gods and, like your father, occasionally make a pilgrimage to our clan shrine."
"Hmm. . . . You mean Itsuku-shima?"
"Yes, Itsuku-shima."
"Yes, I'll try to get down there this year.'
Kiyomori, who usually became truculent whenever his stepmother reproved him for his lack of piety, surprised Tokiko by his quick acquiescence.
"You really mean it?" Tokiko asked skeptically.
Kiyomori could not help laughing at the expression on Tokiko's face. He saw through her completely, but he was willing at times to play at being the obtuse husband by agreeing to whatever she said. Yes, he believed her about the dream; he would do whatsoever the ex-Emperor wished; he would try to be a loyal subject and a good husband. Everything was to be as she said.
"No, I won't make fun of religious beliefs, and I promise to go on a pilgrimage to Itsuku-shima this year without fail. I promise it—no, I'll swear to it here."
CHAPTER XXXIX
ASATORI THE PHYSICIAN
Asatori left Momokawa's house and cheerfully made his way down the hill. It was a year since he had taken Mongaku's letter to the physician Momokawa and been accepted as a disciple. There were several others studying under Momokawa, but Asatori's zeal and
the experience he gained from tending the many sick he found in the slums had helped him in his studies—dissection, physiology, herbal knowledge, and the other rudiments of medicine introduced from China. Had Asatori gone back to being a court musician, his calling would have given him honor and security, but in the life he had chosen, the life of poverty among the destitute, he found a satisfaction unknown to him at the Court. Half starved most of the time, something in his new life gave color to his thin cheeks.
All over the capital the paulownia trees once more were in bloom, and Asatori sighed as he looked up at them. From the time the paulownias shook down their purple flowers until autumn, epidemics swept through the districts of the poor. In some years they raged more fiercely than in others; he had just been reading of the dreaded dysentery, for which no remedy had yet been found, though its ravages were all too well known. Rich and poor alike were struck down by it, and the afflicted could do nothing but die until the plague spent itself. Thousands in the capital had died of it last year, until the first frosts came. Asatori prayed that the same would not happen again this year, for a third of the dwellers on the Street of the Ox-Dealers had been carried off by the last epidemic.
"Asuka, what are you doing here?" Asatori asked in astonishment as he came to Sixth Avenue. A paulownia was in full bloom by the pasture fence near the Street of the Ox-Dealers. A young girl waited for him under the tree.
"At last, Asatori!" Asuka cried, running up to him and bursting into tears as she seized his outstretched hand.
"What's the matter, Asuka? Were you waiting for me to come home?"
"Yes—"
"Has the Serpent been coming again?"
"He came again today and shouted at us, saying he would take me away this time for sure. That's why I ran away and came here."
"You don't have to be afraid," Asatori assured her. "I'll repay him. Let me talk to him, and I'm sure he won't force you."
At each turning that brought them closer to the Street of the Ox-Dealers, the lanes and alleys grew increasingly squalid. When they came to the wheelwright's clay hut the Serpent was still there, threatening the terrified couple. The Serpent was accompanied by an elderly woman, floridly dressed, who explained with feigned kindness: "You don't want to spend the rest of your life in this miserable slum, do you? I'm here to give you some advice—and you with that ravishing creature for a daughter! Haven't you ever thought of her future?"
Ryozen and his wife showed no sign of yielding, but the Serpent persisted in his threats. "Well, in that case, I'll have you pay me right now for the loan I made you last year. If it weren't for that, Asuka wouldn't be here now—would have been sold to someone up in the northeast. Don't tell me you've forgotten that! Why do you suppose I gave you some money again this spring? Because you said it was too cruel to take her away so young. And here's this woman, promising to set her up as a dancing-girl. What are you complaining about anyway? This is more than you deserve!"
Asatori and Asuka pushed their way through the crowd of inquisitive neighbors who craned in at the door. The Serpent and his companion seemed to grow uneasy at the sight of the mob surrounding the hut.
"We'll be back again. Think it over, you two," the Serpent said menacingly as he left.
"He's a persistent fellow—the Serpent. You'd better look out for Asuka. The devil himself is after you now," remarked Asatori examining the sick Ryozen as usual. "Have you any medicine left? As soon as you run out of it, send someone to me for more," he said kindly, and with a few more words of advice to the invalid, departed.
On the following day Asuka appeared at Asatori's house: "Good Asatori, here's a hair ornament that that man told us to return to you. Is it yours?" she said, handing it to Asatori. The pin, intricately worked of silver and gold, almost too valuable for even a court musician to own, was one that Asatori's mother had given him at his coming-of-age. It had been used to secure the headdress worn by court musicians on formal occasions. His mother had had the pin made for him by selling her few belongings to pay for it, and it was one of Asatori's most treasured possessions. After promising to repay the Serpent for the loan made to Ryozen, Asatori had induced the Serpent to accept the only valuable thing he owned.
". . . Do you really mean that that grasping fellow returned it?"
"Yes," Asuka replied.
"I wonder why."
"I don't know."
"But I can't believe he would do this, unless he intended to come again. You'd better keep this, Asuka, in case he does. . . . I have no use for it any more."
Asuka accepted the pin reluctantly, and it was only after she left that Asatori found it placed carefully on the box holding his books. She had often come to visit him after that day he had rescued her from the Serpent. Lately, however, she was spending more time with him than she did with her parents, and Asatori, who had grown fond of her, helped her with her reading and writing and took pride in her talents, for not only was she a promising calligraphist, but she could already compose verse. Though reared among the poor, Asuka's father, formerly a retainer to a nobleman executed after the Hogen War, had given his daughter some training in the accomplishments of a court lady.
There seemed to be no signs of an epidemic this year, but the unseasonally cool weather rotted and shriveled the rice and wheat seedlings. People talked anxiously of poor crops and of a famine that would follow in the winter.
Asatori was on his way home one day from his lectures in medicine. As he approached his door, he called out to Asuka, expecting to find her there, putting his house in order. There was no reply, however, and as he crossed the threshold he discovered that he had a visitor—Yomogi, staring at him with hostile eyes. He looked around for Asuka and found her sitting defiantly in the small kitchen. Neither of the two girls said anything. A long silence intervened, until Asatori began: "Dear me, what's this?" The sight of the two on the verge of tears puzzled him.
"Ah, Yomogi, here you are! We haven't seen each other for some time, have we?"
"How do you do, Asatori?" Yomogi replied with a stiff nod.
"You may already know that my mistress married last autumn rather suddenly."
"Yes, I did hear of that."
"I haven't been able to get away much since then, because she's surrounded by strange servants and likes to have me with her as much as possible, you know."
"Aren't you fortunate! But this is no place for you to come, though I'd be happy if we could see each other from time to time."
"I'm sure you're quite pleased that I can't come to see you often."
"Oh, that's not so!" Asatori denied, laughing.
"But—I quite understand how it is. I see that for myself."
"What's this? What do you mean?"
"Nothing—nothing at all."
Yomogi turned away and burst into tears. Asuka, who had been quietly watching them, stood up suddenly and ran from the house in her bare feet.
"Asuka! Here, Asuka, where are you off to? What's the matter?"
Asatori leaned from a window and called after her with all his might, but Asuka would not come back. Asatori, still mystified, began to wonder whether Yomogi and Asuka had been quarreling in his absence. One of those little tiffs, he thought, smiling, and went back to Yomogi. He noticed with surprise that she was no longer the child he had known six months or more ago.
Everything about her seemed to have changed—the way in which she wore her hair and bore herself proclaimed her a young woman. Was it possible, Asatori asked himself, that the consciousness of womanhood at seventeen could transform her so completely into this tremulous being? Then he concluded that this was only natural and reproached himself for his blindness. He tried again:
The Heike Story Page 54