Yamada Monogatari: The War God's Son

by Richard Parks

  “I gather you’ve never seen a dead man before,” I said.

  “My grandfather,” he said, “but not . . . ”

  “Not like this?”

  He barely had time to mouth the word “no” before he was bent over again, retching. Apparently the boy had already lost what little was in his stomach, since nothing came out, but I waited until he was finished. “There’s no shame in being sickened. It’s an appropriate response, but best to get it out now. Since we’re going to war, you’re likely to see death again, and probably not as tidily as Lord Yoshiie’s justice.”

  He finally straightened again. He still looked a bit greenish in the waning moonlight, but his voice was steady. “Forgive my weakness. I will go see to the horses.”

  “Yes, since you can be certain I will not. Besides, I’ve found if there’s something I don’t want to think about, doing something entirely different tends to help. Or drinking . . . but I don’t advise the latter.”

  Kenji arrived just as Taro was leaving. He went up to the poles where the heads were mounted and took out his prayer beads. I would have joked about his poor choice of clients, unable to pay for his services as they were, but I didn’t have the energy to goad him. I felt tired, suddenly, and more inclined to silence. When Kenji’s prayers were finished, he walked over to where I was standing.

  “I suppose we will see many more like them before this journey is done,” he said.

  “It was kind of you to pray for them,” I said.

  “Even though they cannot pay me?” Kenji asked mildly.

  “I was thinking that. You have known me too long to doubt it,” I said. “And yet here you are, undoing all the good of my restraint.”

  “Fate has decreed in this life I am to be a priest,” Kenji said. “As for what sort of priest I may be, well, fate is silent on the subject. It may be I do not always remember what the point of being a priest is. Yet I can assure you, Lord Yamada, there are those in some of the richest temples in Kyoto who never do remember. That’s assuming they ever knew.”

  “I need not be persuaded on the point, since I daresay I’ve met more than a few of them myself,” I said dryly. “So why did you pray for those men, Kenji-san? I admit I am curious.”

  “Because, judging from their ragged and half-starved appearance in life, it was a safe wager no one else would. I make that reason enough.”

  Now and then Kenji did surprise me. It was part of the reason we’d been able to remain friends. Whenever I was feeling judgmental toward him, I usually managed to remember those times and turn my attention back to my own faults, which, it must be said, were abundant. For example, the reason I’d given for not visiting my sister was it was for her own protection, which was true as far as it went. That did not mean I wasn’t afraid to face her.

  “I’m not suited for this,” he said after a long pause.

  “Surely you don’t mean travel. You’ve visited more famous places in the country than I have, including the sea shore at Echigo.”

  “No. I mean this,” he said and waved an arm back to where the army was camped. Their fires were like stars scattered across the mountainside. “So many souls about to be released back to the wheel of rebirth and death, thus to begin all over. And what can I do for them? I suspect the answer is—nothing.”

  “They’re not why you’re here,” I pointed out. “Lord Yoshiie is our primary concern, and we must assure Lord Yasuna’s well-being so Lady Kuzunoha doesn’t feel compelled to destroy the Minamoto . . . and trying not to get young Taro killed so we can return him to his rightful master. I would think they are more than enough to worry about.”

  Kenji grunted. “Far more than enough to worry about, considering our Lord Yoshiie has to defeat an entire army which can call on supernatural allies, but all the Abe Clan has to do is kill Lord Yoshiie. But none of this alters my other obligations as a priest.”

  I had no argument worth posing. While Kenji’s piety was a sporadic thing at best and usually quite selective as to which tenets it observed, I knew it to be genuine, if often ill-timed and inconvenient. Kenji was what he was, and you might as well argue with a mountain.

  During the night I dreamed I was keeping watch on the mountain road. The heads of the executed thieves kept me company.

  “You don’t suppose you could fetch my body from the ravine?” the leftmost asked. “I was rather fond of it.”

  “I can’t leave my post, and it wouldn’t do you any good even if I found the missing parts. Your body is broken beyond repair,” I said. “The crows will be along soon, and that will be the end of it.”

  “Is this what death feels like?” asked the one in the middle.

  “Having never died—at least that I can recall—I’m ill-equipped to advise you,” I said.

  “You two should quit complaining,” said the one on the right. “We all knew this could happen.”

  “It’s not a subject on which I’m prepared to be dispassionate,” said the first.

  “Prepared or not, dispassionate or not, you’re all still dead,” I pointed out.

  The middle thief begged to differ. “The dead don’t speak.”

  “Ghosts often do, but you are not ghosts. You are three severed heads on poles. I would think in your place being dead would be an advantage. I would not want to be in your situation and still live.”

  “Probably not possible,” admitted the third.

  “Probably for the best,” agreed the second.

  “You should go see Lady Kuzunoha,” said the first. “She’s waiting right up there.”

  The three heads then fell as silent as the graves they had been denied. I glanced up toward the mountainside and saw the white fox-demon sitting demurely on a boulder not too far from the road. I made my way up to greet her.

  “It seems the talking heads were correct,” I said.

  “As a fox-demon I move between the worlds at need,” Lady Kuzunoha said, showing her sharp teeth in something resembling a smile. “Since I grew my third tail, it’s even gotten easy to do. The dead thieves could see me clearly. I am curious to know how you could hear them.”

  “They were speaking to me,” I said.

  “Yes, Lord Yamada, but how? What breath did they have for speech?”

  “I hadn’t considered the matter,” I said. “It just seemed a natural thing.”

  “It shouldn’t seem so. When great powers are invoked, the veils between the living and the spirit world can become easily torn. Even in your present situation, you should realize this.”

  “My present situation?”

  She sighed. “Dreaming. Only now you won’t be able to hold on to the dream. This is the way of things.”

  She was right. Already she, the severed heads, the road, and even the mountains were growing less distinct.

  “Before you go . . . ” Lady Kuzunoha dipped her muzzle to the stone and picked up a small object in her teeth. This she tossed at my feet. It was the remains of a shikigami.

  “Lord Yoshiie’s scouts might miss one or two, as I expected, but you really should be more careful,” she said, and then the dream dissolved. I woke up, lying on my sleeping mat. Next to me was a battered slip of paper covered in teeth marks.

  When I related the story to Kenji over the morning meal, he just shook his head.

  “Such creatures were put into this world to trick and mislead the righteous,” he said piously. “However . . . if she must be here, I’m glad she’s working for us and not against.”

  “She’s working ‘for’ us, as you say, only because our interests and her own are in harmony. This will likely not always be the case.”

  “A problem, I hope, for much farther down the road,” Kenji said. “Or were you merely reminding yourself of this?”

  “It is something best not forgotten,” I admitted. “I’ll feel somewhat better when both Lord Yoshiie and Lord Yasuna are safely inside Dewa, although ‘safely’ is probably not the right term to use. Say rather that neither is dead at the time.”r />
  “By the way . . . you did say you have no intention of visiting your sister near Yahiko, correct?”

  “I did.”

  “You may not get your wish. I am reliably informed that, once we cross into Echigo, Lord Yoshiie intends to make a pilgrimage to both the shrine Yahiko-jinja and Yahiko-ji, the temple complex devoted to the goddess Kannon. This is where your elder sister is cloistered, is it not?”

  I felt a little chill. “It is.”

  “Well, you might be able to avoid her,” Kenji said, grinning. “But since I am also informed Lord Yoshiie plans to stay at the temple overnight, and our writ requires we remain near him, at the moment avoiding your sister does not appear likely . . . unless she is also avoiding you?”

  I didn’t answer him. I briefly considered attempting to persuade Lord Yoshiie against the pilgrimage, but my own arguments sounded hollow to me. Making a show of piety and respect for the kami and the goddess alike before battle and receiving the blessings of both abbots and priests, on the other hand, made perfect sense as reassurance to his troops of the rightness of their cause. Even those who served strictly for the chance of spoils and rewards would expect no less. Plus, the temple compound itself, to my understanding, was walled and far more defensible than a campsite on open ground. Lord Yoshiie knew his business, but that wasn’t making mine any easier.

  Fortunately, Lord Yoshiie’s forces were well on their way to breaking camp, and young Taro came leading our mounts, already saddled and bridled, through the chaos. He gathered up our sleeping mats and cooking utensils and the like and began expertly packing them up.

  “Feeling better?” I asked.

  He paused in his work long enough to bow. “I am well, Lord Yamada. Please do not concern yourself. I’ll see that your bowls are washed before the noon meal.”

  I held the reins of my horse, a beautiful white mare—yes, I could dismiss them as stupid, obstinate beasts, but I could not ignore their finer qualities on an esthetic level, try as I might—as I watched Taro hurry off. “I’m not used to being waited upon,” I said.

  Kenji smiled. “I could get used to it very quickly, but I’m trying not to do so. All things are impermanent, and the services of Prince Kanemore’s attendant? Doubly so.”

  The column was soon ready to move, and Kenji and I mounted our horses and took our respective places. We crossed the barrier into Echigo early that same afternoon. Lord Yoshiie met briefly with a courier from the provincial governor, and by dusk in two day’s time we were approaching the temple complex at Yahiko. It was my understanding the governor himself would bring another detachment of bushi to add to our ranks before we crossed into Dewa.

  “Mutsu borders on Dewa to the east, but at Echigo on its southwest corner. The Mutsu barrier is just a few leagues to the northeast,” Kenji said when he joined me again near the head of the column.

  “Lord Yoshiie knows this. He’s sent a dozen or more scouts.” As I was riding closer to the head of the column, it was easy enough to observe at least the outward signs of discretion.

  “Have there been any reports?” he asked.

  “Three by my count, and so far nothing appears to concern our young leader. Besides, would Sadato risk drawing Echigo into the war directly by an attack across its border? The entire province mobilized to join the Minamoto and Kiyohara is not quite the same concern as the governor volunteering a few dozen bushi as a nominal demonstration of loyalty to the Emperor.”

  “I keep forgetting war is more political than merely strategic or tactical. All I can seem to remember is that it gets people killed. I’m enough of a priest to disagree with this aspect of it all.”

  I had no real disagreement with him. Personally, I wouldn’t give a rat’s tail for all of Mutsu province and three more besides. It had already led to the death of my father and the destruction of our family’s fortunes. I had long since reconciled myself to this, but that didn’t mean I was eager to re-open an old wound. None of which changed the reality that Prince Kanemore was my friend, and loyalties aside, I understood what was potentially at stake should the Minamoto fail. I was no great friend of the Minamoto and neither was Prince Kanemore, but allowing the country to fall into chaos would mean a great many more deaths and great misery besides, and I said as much to Kenji.

  “We trade a few lives to save many more. Perhaps it is the right thing to do,” Kenji said. “That doesn’t mean no one will answer for those lives.”

  “Then let it start and end with Lord Sadato and his murderous lackey, Tenshin.”

  Kenji gave me a quizzical look. “I do believe you’re taking Lord Tenshin’s actions personally.”

  “Probably much more than he himself is,” I admitted. “Maybe it’s the treachery against his brother that does not sit well with me. One who has lost most of his family might tend to overvalue them.”

  Kenji laughed. “Lord Yamada, if you are in need of perspective, please consider I had three brothers, and hardly a day went by I didn’t want to kill at least one of them. I only meant you should not let your anger interfere with your judgment,” he said. “I know you can use the sword you carry and likely will have to do so before this business is over, but your sword is not why you’re here, any more than my staff is why I’m here. Your talent is your discernment. If that is compromised, you’re useless to everyone, including yourself.”

  I took a long breath, and let it out. “I will keep what you said in mind.”

  I couldn’t help but be annoyed, even though Kenji’s words were no more than sense. Neither of us spoke again until the northern barrier was in sight. We had skirted the village of Shirakawa deliberately, as we were well supplied and Lord Yoshiie wished to avoid any potential problems with the townsfolk of the sort that inevitably happened when large bodies of armed men passed through. I’m not sure if his motives were entirely altruistic or whether he simply wished to avoid calling attention to us. I suspected the latter, but regardless of the reason, we had made good time and had crossed Echigo province without incident. There was another messenger from the governor. I had made it a point to remain as close to Yoshiie as protocol and common sense allowed, and so I was able to hear when Yoshiie related the contents. The governor of Echigo would bring his contingent to join us in three days’ time. Until then, Yoshiie would be hosted at the temple near the village of Yahiko as he made his promised pilgrimages to the temple itself and the nearby shrine, Yahiko-jinja.

  “Yoshiie-sama, pardon me, but how many people know about your plans to visit the temple?” I asked.

  “Everyone in our army,” he said drily. “That was rather the point.”

  “Yes, certainly,” I said. “But otherwise . . . ?”

  “I had to reveal my plans to the governor of Echigo as a courtesy, and to the Shibata Clan chief. I imagine more than a few know by now, but I do know what your concern is. My scouts have reported already—the temple goes about its business as usual, and there is no one in the area who shouldn’t be there,” Yoshiie said. “The temple walls are strong and easy to defend if needed. I will be quite safe there.”

  I bowed. “At such times I almost feel as if Prince Kanemore suffers from an excess of caution, to have sent me along. Yet these are the sorts of questions I must ask.”

  He grunted. “Fail to do so, and I would question the good prince’s judgment. You will accompany my party within the walls . . . and your priest as well. Let it not be said I was uncooperative in regard to Prince Kanemore’s wishes.”

  “I am grateful,” I said, and bowed again. Yoshiie rode some distance away to confer with the members of his bodyguard. I kept my distance until he returned to the head of the column. I did not want it said that I was overstepping my bounds. Yoshiie was barely tolerating our presence as it was. I didn’t entirely blame him—he had his own mission to worry about, just as I had mine.

  Kenji rode close. “What are your concerns about the temple?”

  “I should have none. It is secure and will be surrounded by loyal bushi. It�
�s clearly a much safer encampment than any we’ve had so far. I don’t like that our leader’s plans to stay there are so well known, but how could it be otherwise without defeating a large part of the reason for doing it?”

  “Obviously, it cannot,” Kenji confirmed.

  “We will accompany Lord Yoshiie’s party within the walls. Be on your guard.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there is absolutely no reason why being on our guard should be necessary.”

  Kenji smiled. “To someone who knows you, Lord Yamada, that makes perfect sense.”

  We saw very little on the balance of the journey to Yahiko, neither people nor animals. There were one or two carrion crows shadowing our path. Apparently they had been following us since the incident with the thieves, hoping for another meal, in which case they were disappointed.

  We reached the temple compound in good order. I hadn’t been certain how much weight to give to the initial reports about the compound’s suitability for defense, but I was pleasantly surprised. The temple enclosure was on high ground, using the largest of several wooded hills to best advantage. The walls were of stone with red-tiled pitched roofs to divert the rain, and we could see the tops of the temple structures themselves tiled in the same manner, rather than with the more common cedar shingles. Raised wooden platforms had been spaced at intervals just inside the walls to serve as watchtowers, but as far as I could tell, only the one nearest the gate was currently occupied. While the hillside and even the interior of the temple walls had trees, the approaches had been cleared to give clear lines of site along the road leading to the temple complex.

  Kenji and I were riding at the front of the column at Lord Yoshiie’s request.