"Yomogi, did Asuka do something to hurt your feelings?"
"No, nothing at all," Yomogi replied curtly, adding: "I even thought she was a mute because she hardly said a word when she first saw me."
"She doesn't see many people other than those in this slum. She's poor and I'm sure she felt very shy."
"No, I don't think it was that."
"Then what was it?"
"She glared at me as though she wanted me to leave. I suppose you're going to marry her? Aren't you, Asatori?"
Asatori was startled. Yomogi's eyes searched his with such a determined look that his glance wavered. He grew hot about the ears as it dawned on him that he was the reason for those jealous looks. It startled him, however, to think that one as young as Asuka could also feel jealous. He wondered whether Yomogi had already felt this way about him last autumn when he treated her as though she were still a child.
"Has some errand brought you this way?" Asatori asked, changing the subject.
"No, I wanted your advice about something."
"Oh? . . ." Asatori squirmed; his breath seemed to come in gasps.
"Asatori, I'm thinking of leaving my mistress and coming to live here. What do you say to that?"
"You mean you're leaving Lady Tokiwa?"
"I'm not happy at the thought of leaving her alone there, but—"
"But you were with her ever since her children were born, weren't you? I'm afraid she's going to miss you."
"Yes, I've thought about that a great deal, too."
"What makes you think that you want to come and live here?"
"Haven't you always told me that the life of the grand and the rich is all show? That there's no comparison between them and the poor, among whom you find real goodness and kindness? I've been thinking about that and I believe you're right."
"But, Yomogi, that's no reason for you to choose the miserable life here when people here are trying to get away from all this!"
"I'm sick of the life of luxury. When I found that you gave up being a court musician because you felt as I do now, I knew that I also wanted to come and live here."
"No, you won't be able to stand this life very long after those years of ease. You must speak to your mistress and ask her how she feels about letting you go."
"Of course she would stop me. To tell you the truth, I don't feel about her as I used to. Not after what happened between her and Lord Kiyomori, and then her marrying again. And though she's beautiful, it's so shameful. . . ."
Yomogi had grown up, Asatori mused; she was a woman standing in judgment over another. She had grown skeptical of her own mistress and was anxious about her own future. It distressed him, however, to realize that Yomogi was asking him to share that future with her. How was he to dissuade her? Asatori's heart sank at the thought of the task before him. But Yomogi seemed content just to be there, chattering to him and ignoring the passing of time. When evening came she helped him prepare his meager supper and stayed to share it with him.
"You had better leave now, Yomogi."
"Yes, but as soon as my mistress can spare me, you'll let me come here, won't you, Asatori?"
But Asatori put her off, saying: "Well, next time Mongaku comes to the capital, you must ask him what he thinks. Don't do anything rash before then."
He went with her as far as the crossroad, then turned back to his house, where he found a smudge fire going. The light from a small lamp fluttered in the night breeze; picking up the lamp, he placed it by his desk and began loosening the cords of his medical books, then he heard a splashing at the rear of the house; a bamboo pole rattled. Craning out across the narrow veranda, he saw a drying-pole slung between the branches of a tree; a small figure was reaching up to hang out some wash. "Is that you, Asuka, out there? Don't try to do any more washing in the dark. Come in here where it's cool."
"But if I do these now, you'll have something clean for tomorrow."
"Oh, you've been so good as to wash out my soiled clothes?"
"I started to do them this afternoon, when that visitor arrived, and so—" Asuka said, approaching the veranda shyly. She finally sat down beside Asatori, tenderly nursing a finger.
"A splinter?"
"From that pole."
"Here, let me look at it." Asatori reached for her hand and drew it close to his eyes. "It's too dark here, come up to the light." He picked up some tweezers and began probing. Asuka surrendered her hand and seemed not to mind the pain.
"Ah, here it is—out! It must hurt, it's bleeding."
"No, not much."
"The bleeding will stop soon," Asatori comforted her, placing the finger in his mouth and sucking it. Asuka suddenly burst into tears. Asatori quickly took her in his arms and cuddled her as though she were a young child.
"What are you crying about, Asuka?" he asked.
"Because I'm happy—so happy," Asuka sniffled.
"Stop crying, then."
"I'm crying because I won't be able to come here any more."
"What makes you say that?"
Asuka, however, refused to reply and Asatori continued to rock her in his arms. Poor child, he thought, so starved for affection, this child of the slums.
"Asuka, why didn't you take this pin I gave you the other day? You're to take it with you tonight . . . you mustn't be shy."
"Is it really for me?"
"You could sell it, you know. Get a dress, perhaps?"
"No—" Asuka shook her head. Clutching the pin to her, she smiled at last. "I shall keep this forever—for the rest of my life."
Her spirits restored, Asuka finally went home and Asatori settled once more to his books. Tonight, however, the difficult text seemed hopelessly confusing and he could make nothing of it.
A week or so later Asatori, who had not seen Asuka for two or three days, was on his way home and stopped at Ryozen's house. He was dumbfounded at finding that a hunchbacked child and a cripple had moved in with their few belongings—a cooking pan and a wooden pail.
The cripple said enviously: "Did you want Ryozen? He moved away the day before yesterday to a fine house off yonder— nothing at all like this clay hut. Someone from the gay quarters came for his daughter, I heard. I've only this hunchback; no one'd want her even if I gave her away. You're a doctor, aren't you? You could do something for her, couldn't you?"
That night Asatori applied himself as usual to his books, but he hardly understood what he read, for the Serpent's face and that of an elderly woman kept appearing between him and his open book. He was hurt, too, at Ryozen's not having come to say good-by. Casual acquaintances were a commonplace in the slums, where people arrived in the morning and were gone by night; it happened all the time, he told himself; he had no real reason to feel as he did. He continued to think about Asuka. She was not his child. What could he have done for her anyway? What made him take such an interest in her? Moths and small insects lay scattered on his desk and all over his books, lured to their death by the flame. There were a few fragile, lovely shapes among them—like Asuka; others—horrid creatures—reminded him of the Serpent. What could he do after all but physic the sick? Make Asuka happy? Presumptuous! Why should he believe he could help others? Had he grown so conceited as to think that he was capable of such a superhuman task? He was not able even to heal the sick!
Asatori stepped out to the rear of the house and splashed himself with bucketfuls of water from the well, partly to shake off his drowsiness.
As he dried himself and drew on his cotton robe, he saw people on their roofs, shouting to each other: "Where's the fire?"
"Toward Horikawa."
"In the gay quarters or thereabouts."
Asatori looked up at the red glow in the sky. On hearing that the fire was somewhere near the gay quarters, he was suddenly tempted to follow the sound of clattering feet. But he went back into his house instead, closed the shutters, and fumbled his way to bed. Now and then he heard the thump and roll of an unripe persimmon as it dropped on the thin roof over his hea
d.
CHAPTER XL
THE JEWEL OF THE INLAND SEA
A small fleet of river-boats was preparing to leave for the estuary at Yodo, and a noisy crowd thronged the shore. With summer here and his court duties less pressing, Kiyomori was at last on his way to Itsuku-shima and the ancestral shrine. Vessels of every size and description were there: cabin-boats, boats for carrying horses and arms, craft loaded with foodstuffs, all ruffling the waters and crowding the river.
"Hasn't Tokitada come yet?" Kiyomori inquired impatiently.
"He should be here soon," Norimori replied, to pacify his impatient brother.
Norimori and two of his captains as well as Michiyoshi, the former pirate, were accompanying Kiyomori on the trip through the Inland Sea, which he knew well. Carpenters, masons, builders, and other workmen also were in the party of close to thirty men.
Kiyomori turned to Red-Nose, who stood behind. "Bamboku," he said, "Tokitada hasn't come after all. Hadn't we better start?"
"Well, we might wait a little longer. He's late, but he's sure to come."
"What do you think is keeping him?"
"Not anything at the Court, but something about one of his retainers. There was a fire in the gay quarters last night."
"Why should that delay him?"
"I heard that one of his retainers had a falling out with a retainer to some lord, and that that started the fire."
"Another of those clashes between soldiers?"
"There seem to be more and more of them lately. The Guards at the Palace and the Court go about insulting each other and picking quarrels."
"Rivalry at the top filtering down to them? A nuisance—"
"The soldiers don't seem to have cooled down yet since the slaughter of the last two wars. I don't like to say it—but the warriors are growing rather highhanded these days."
"We'll have to overlook that just now. They've been oppressed for so long and are just beginning to hold up their heads. . . . But I wonder what happened last night."
"The retainer had just a little too much to drink and slandered his majesty's second consort. . . . The other fellow overheard him and started an argument. That's how it all began."
"Was that the cause of the fire?"
"Something of the kind."
"We can overlook the swaggering, but fires and turning politics into a private quarrel mustn't be tolerated."
"It looks very much as though these soldiers are turning the enmity between their majesties into a quarrel of their own."
"It's what the soldiers might do that worries me. I wanted Tokitada to keep an eye on them while I was away."
"Oh, there he is—just in time!"
Kiyomori's face cleared as he scanned the shore and perceived Tokitada dismounting among a tangle of vehicles. He seemed to be in great haste; pushing his way through the crowds, he soon boarded Kiyomori's boat.
Behind lowered blinds, Kiyomori and Tokitada were engaged for some time in talk. Kiyomori looked on Tokitada as his right arm and depended on him even more than he did on his own brothers.
". . . Very well, then, I leave you in charge," Kiyomori ended, and Tokitada quickly made his way to the shore to join the throng of men and women from Rokuhara who had come to see Kiyomori off.
In this season of drought the Yodo River was low. Even where it was deepest the boats scraped bottom, forcing the boatmen and soldiers to pull or pole the craft over the shallows. The heat on the windless river was almost intolerable.
Kiyomori's plan was to sail down a tributary of the Kanzaki River to the bay and there board seagoing vessels for the port of Owada (Kobй), but the shallowness of the river obliged the party to take horse the next day and continue the journey across the burning dunes along the sea. From Mikagй they continued westward; behind them was a backdrop of mountains and before them level land that curved to the contours of the coast. Rarely did they come across any signs of human habitation; southwesterly winds unceasingly sprayed the pines on the beach, and from time to time they saw Chinese junks drifting helplessly before the wind and tide. But the weather was fine and the party in good spirits.
This region through which they were passing and which they named Fukuhara—the Plain of Good Fortune—awoke many memories for Kiyomori.
". . . This is where we landed in 1135, when I was with my father. Putting down that revolt in the west, we landed here. ... Those fishing settlements and the twisted pines haven't changed in the least. Only the times have changed—and I."
All the Heike lands—Isй, Bingo, Higo, Aki, Harima—bordered on the sea. All his youthful memories of his father, the achievements of the Heike, were inseparable from the sea, and Fukuhara was the link between that eventful past and Kiyomori's dreams of the future.
For nearly three weeks Kiyomori stayed over at the post-stage in Fukuhara. In that time he often took Bamboku with him to explore the surrounding hills and mountains, or spent whole days crossing the plains under a scorching sun. At other times he had his chief engineer make soundings around Cape Owada and the river mouth. When rain kept them indoors, Kiyomori ordered charts of the surrounding country to be made, then spent the night pouring over them alone, lost in reverie.
Tireless himself, Kiyomori exhausted his men by consulting with them late into the night, and even after everyone was asleep would suddenly sit up in his bed, light a lamp, and continue to study the maps until dawn.
"I wonder if it's quite wise to stay here much longer. How will people in the capital take it when they hear of this, I wonder," Bamboku asked one day.
Kiyomori shook his head. "I can't say. Supposedly, we're on a pilgrimage to Itsuku-shima."
"In that case, sir, let me remain behind to finish the work. I'll follow your plans for surveying the land around here, look into the water-supply and the possibilities of road-building."
Kiyomori fell in with Bamboku's suggestions and, leaving a few of his technicians with him, resumed the journey to Itsuku-shima by water. Day after day he filled his lungs with the air blowing off the endless blue ocean. And as numberless islands floated past them on the Inland Sea, Kiyomori's vision ranged far and free and he exulted: "Ah, how cramped is the capital! What a great to-do people make over that dreary little hollow! My future home will be built in sight of this sea. You shall see what great things I shall accomplish beyond the sea!"
The outlines of Itsuku-shima finally appeared one day, floating on the crest of the waves.
The priests on the island and the shrine virgins soon appeared on the beach to welcome Kiyomori. On landing, he soon found that the shrines and temple were almost in ruins; the winds from the sea had done their worst; the white sands and the wind-twisted pines along the shore alone were beautiful.
Kiyomori and his party lodged in an inn near the beach, and on the following day he began his week's retreat.
During the remainder of his stay, numerous visitors from the mainland rowed to the island to pay their respects to Kiyomori, whose fame had spread to all parts of the country. Aging warriors who had served under Kiyomori's grandfather appeared; others who remembered his father Tadamori also came; while soldiers who had served with Kiyomori in the past flocked to see him once more.
The Heike Story Page 55