Emperor of the Eight Islands: Book 1 in the Tale of Shikanoko (The Tale of Shikanoko series)

by Lian Hearn

  Shika saw the hawks fly over a great city and under the eaves of a temple set in a deep grove, beside a lake, not far from the riverbank. He read its name board: RYUSONJI. He stood on the veranda and saw, through the open doors, the hawks alight on the shoulders of a man dressed in brocade and silk robes, embroidered with dragons. They opened their beaks and sang to him in human voices.

  The man peered into the brightness and said, “I am the Prince Abbot of Ryusonji, the Dragon Temple. But who are you?”

  Then Sesshin was shaking him and he was once again in the old man’s dusty room.

  “Don’t speak! Don’t say who you are!”

  “I wasn’t going to.” Shika removed the mask, held it to his brow, and thanked it before returning it to the seven-layered bag.

  “I saw your lips move. You were about to speak. Never mind; who was there?”

  “The Prince Abbot of Ryusonji,” Shika said. “The hawk was a messenger from him. The hawks speak to him in human voices.”

  Sesshin breathed out slowly. “Why would the Prince Abbot be turning his attention to Kuromori?”

  “Perhaps he is looking for you,” Lady Tora suggested.

  “I sincerely hope he doesn’t know who or where I am.”

  “Don’t be so modest, Master. Surely at one time you knew each other quite well?”

  “Years ago we studied together. He will have forgotten me by now.”

  “Something must have reminded him. Unless it is the Kuromori lord who has attracted his attention.”

  Sesshin scratched his head with both hands. “I just want a quiet life,” he complained. “I don’t want to come to the attention of the Prince Abbot. He’s going to be very angry at the loss of his werehawk. It is dead, isn’t it?” He poked at the bird, but it gave no sign of life. “You shouldn’t have killed it.”

  “Only Shikanoko could have killed it, and he was there,” Lady Tora said. “Doesn’t that suggest some deeper working of fate than your desire for a quiet life?”

  Sesshin buried his head in his hands. “I would like you to go away now while I consider what this means and how I should advise Lord Kiyoyori. I have a horrible feeling it is not going to turn out well, least of all for me.”

  “Shikanoko can leave now, but I will stay. There is something else that needs to be done before I go to Lord Kiyoyori.”

  Shika wanted to stay with them, wanted to talk about what had happened to him, what it all meant, who was the priest who had seemed so alarming and so attractive at the same time. He sensed they knew so much they could teach him and he was seized by a ferocious hunger to swallow up all this knowledge before it was too late.

  “Go,” Lady Tora said, but he lingered outside, aware of the fragrance emanating from her, mingling with the lamp oil and incense. He heard the old man say, as if with foreboding, “What do you want from me?”

  “That which you have not given to earth, water, air, or fire, to neither man nor woman, for forty years,” she replied. “I am going to make you a father.”

  “You’ll have no luck with me,” he said, trying to joke. “It’s all withered away.”

  “You will be able to give me what I need. Don’t look so apprehensive, my dear Master. I promise you will find it enjoyable.”

  Shika walked away. He did not know if he was feeling jealousy or some other deep emotion. He felt a sob rise in his chest—was it grief? But why would he weep for Akuzenji or for any of the others who had teased and bullied him? Yet he was close to tears for them, and felt he should make some effort to honor their deaths and placate their restless spirits. He could hear chanting in the distance. Following the sound, he made his way to the small shrine at the end of the lake, and knelt there beneath the cedars.

  7

  KIYOYORI

  The last of the bodies were stacked in a pile, covered with brushwood, and set on fire. It had been a long time since the smell of burning flesh floated over the peaceful dwellings and fields of Matsutani. Kiyoyori was impatient, racked by desire, but he would not let this distract him from what had to be done. He dispatched groups of retainers with the heads to display them on sharpened posts at the Shimaura barrier and at crossroads and bridges along the North Mountain Road. Then he turned his attention to the problems that the deaths of Akuzenji and his band presented. The most urgent matter was to launch an attack on their mountain fortress and secure for himself their means of controlling the road and the merchants who traveled along it. This seemed like a straightforward exercise that could be carried out by his retainers. Then arrangements had to be made to purify the riding ground from the pollution of death and to make offerings to placate the spirits of the departed. When he had issued his instructions and spoken to the priests, he sent for his wife. By then it was approaching dusk.

  “Your eyes are red,” he addressed her. “Were you weeping because I was not killed?”

  “Forgive me, lord. I was overcome by shock and grief that such an attempt should be made on my husband’s life.”

  “And you are no doubt affected by the death of one of your waiting-women?”

  “If she was in any way part of the intrigue I rejoice at her death. My tears are for no one but you.”

  “I would like to believe that.”

  “It is true.” An expression of fear flickered into her eyes as though she had suddenly realized the danger of her position.

  “You did not for a moment allow yourself to hope that you might be returned to your first husband?”

  “How can you say such a thing? He is as dead to me. Have I not been a faithful wife to you? Everything that was mine is now yours. I have given you a son; I have been a mother to your daughter, as far as she would let me. I would have gladly given you more children, but you seem to have grown cold toward me.”

  He made no reply, studying her carefully. She met his gaze with frank eyes.

  “My lord must be tired and hungry. Let me prepare a bath and some food. What is your pleasure?”

  “Did you know that my brother had been sending letters to Enryo?”

  “I swear I did not. I would have told you at once. Please, take a bath and relax. Shall I bring the children to see you?”

  The cedar-scented smoke from the bathhouse masked the smell from the pyre, and in the hot water Kiyoyori felt himself cleansed in body and spirit. He ate with his children, who were thrilled and grateful to be included in the special feast his wife prepared: rice with chestnuts and quail, hen’s eggs simmered in broth, freshwater fish grilled with taro. They were well behaved and confident. Both seemed intelligent, especially Hina, who he could see was growing more like her mother every day. She showed a great interest in the events of the day and questioned him closely about what they all meant, what would happen to the boy who shot the bird, and what her father would do with all the extra horses.

  He could find no fault in their upbringing. But how would he feel if their mother was betraying him? He recalled Sesshin’s words. Your brother will be back in Matsutani and your children will be dead.

  This had become the usual behavior of warlords and warriors. Was it not how he had dealt with Akuzenji? Even now his men were clearing out the mountain fortress as though ridding it of vermin. If Akuzenji had children there none would remain alive. He felt a moment of futile regret, which he tried to put from him. He could not show any weakness, or he would be exploited by those he spared or by the others among whom he strove to be first, most important, most powerful. He would reap the benefit of his victory today and bestow the land and resources he gained as a reward to one or other of his men to bind them closer to him. He wondered as he did from time to time what his life would have been like if his father had agreed to his request to become a monk. He might have known greater peace and fewer regrets, he would have no suspicions of his wife or rage against those who sought to betray him, but he would not taste the incomparable elation of success or the restless anticipation of his next encounter with the new woman.

  After they had finished
eating, his wife told the maids to prepare the bedding and take the children away. When they were alone she encouraged Kiyoyori to lie down, and he saw that she wanted to lie alongside him and make love to him. But she was not the one he desired, and he felt ashamed of sleeping while his men were still out risking their lives.

  “I think I will go to the shrine for a while,” he said. “I cannot come close to you when death and blood lie so heavy on me.”

  “Whatever Lord Kiyoyori wishes,” she said, trying to hide her disappointment, but failing.

  * * *

  The priests were chanting, incense burned, and bells rang. Kiyoyori noticed a solitary figure kneeling at some distance from the shrine steps beneath the tall, shadowy cedar trees. He washed his hands and rinsed his mouth at the cistern. An attendant rushed forward with a mat for him to kneel on. After he had prayed for his victims’ souls he asked to have Shikanoko sent to him.

  He spoke some words to comfort him. “I made arrangements for prayers to be offered. May their souls have a safe onward journey.”

  “I cannot believe they are all dead,” the boy said in a low voice. “They are all dead and I am alive. Though perhaps it is your intention to send me to join them.”

  “Tell me who you are and how you came to be with them, and then I will decide what to do with you.”

  Shikanoko told him his story briefly, and when he had finished Kiyoyori said, “That is rather inconvenient, as your uncle is one of my chief allies. He swore allegiance to me and I confirmed him in the estate after you were presumed dead.”

  “But Kumayama is mine,” Shikanoko replied.

  “Nevertheless your uncle, Jiro no Sademasa, has been loyal to me. I cannot simply evict him in your favor.”

  “Even though he tried to kill me?” Shikanoko said stubbornly.

  “We have only your word for that. Your uncle’s version is you slipped and fell. In his opinion it was a result of your willful and impetuous character, and was an accident that would have happened sooner or later. Furthermore, why should I or anyone else believe you? You could be an imposter, put up to this claim by your bandit master. What proof do you have that you are Kazumaru?”

  “People will recognize me. My men will know me.”

  “Your men are quite happy with your uncle. Boys change in the year between sixteen and seventeen. The boy who disappeared was a child. I see before me a man with all the appearance of an outlaw.”

  “So, you do intend to kill me?”

  “I have not yet decided.”

  The boy said nothing. He did not plead or argue and Kiyoyori liked him for that. He was disposed to spare him—good bowmen were always useful, and Shikanoko had possibly done him a favor by shooting down the werehawk.

  “Was anything revealed in the divination?” he asked.

  “They sent me away after the mask showed us the bird’s identity. There was another ritual to perform between Lady Tora and the master.”

  Lady Tora. So that was her name.

  “What kind of ritual?” Kiyoyori said.

  Shikanoko did not answer for a moment but shot a strange look at the lord as though their roles were reversed and Kiyoyori were the youth whose life hung in the balance.

  “And just who is the so-called lady?” Kiyoyori asked. A bandit’s woman, he was thinking. Mine by right of conquest.

  “Lord Kiyoyori should be wary. Lady Tora is not what she seems.”

  Night was falling and it had grown much colder. The wind had swung around to the north and dark rain clouds were slowly covering the sky. A sudden gust sent dead leaves swirling beneath the trees.

  Kiyoyori stood. “Let us go and learn the results of the divination.”

  He was seized by impatience and alarm that the “ritual” might be a euphemism for something unbearable—and so it was. When he strode into the room and saw the woman and Sesshin lying in disarray and realized what they had been doing, his rage was so great, he felt like killing them both. But Lady Tora smiled and said, “And now, lord, I am yours,” and prostrated herself before him as she had done before. The same lust erupted within him. He grabbed her hand and led her through the garden, where she seemed to fly behind him, so light was her hold on his. He took her to a building on the lakeshore, the summer pavilion.

  Rain drove against the shutters. Drops fell through the flimsy roof, making the charcoal in the brazier smoke and hiss. Beneath the bearskin rugs Kiyoyori and Tora were remote in their own world. He had not lain with a woman for months; his wife no longer attracted him and he had been too preoccupied to seek pleasure elsewhere. Now he was possessed by the mindless lust of adolescence, the inexhaustible desire, yet it was more than lust; it was a passionate yearning to be completely absorbed by this woman, to surrender to her and let her take him to unimaginable destinations.

  He had thought her the bandit’s woman, a prostitute, and when he had walked into the scholar’s room and saw that Sesshin, the old fox, had been making love to her, he had been angry but also strangely relieved. So she was a whore; he desired her, he would take her, and when he was tired of her, he would have her executed along with the boy. But when the night was beginning to fade into dawn and his desire was finally sated, she stroked his hair and sang quietly, one of the songs that were popular in the capital, and he felt he had found the other half of himself, that he would tire of his own body before he tired of her. He lay making plans for the future; he would build her a house and install her there as his second wife.

  He foolishly did not consider that she might have her own plans.

  8

  AKIHIME

  The eldest daughter of the Nishimi family was traditionally dedicated to the shrine of the All-Merciful Kannon at Rinrakuji to become a shrine maiden. The family was among the highest rank of the nobility, related to the Emperor. The current head of the household, Hidetake, was a close friend of the Crown Prince, Momozono, and his wife was wet nurse to the Crown Prince’s son, Yoshimori.

  Hidetake had had two daughters born some ten years apart. The older one was called Akihime, the Autumn Princess, because she had been born in the autumn, the same month as now, when the maples were turning scarlet and the ginkgo tree by the gate dropped swathes of golden leaves. The younger one, born in winter, had died at birth. It was because of this that her mother had been able to nurse the young prince, the Emperor’s grandson.

  Aki was fifteen years old, not particularly beautiful but lively and full of high spirits. In that autumn of her sixteenth year, suitors had begun to hover outside the house, wooing with poetry and music. Her mother both feared and hoped that one might find his way in. It was the custom of that time: if a man came three nights in a row and made love to the girl, it was considered a marriage. Aki had already made her vows of purity and she recoiled from the idea yet was drawn to it at the same time. Were the men invited inside or did they force their way in? Did the girl have any choice in the matter or did she simply submit?

  “I won’t let anyone touch me,” she declared one morning when her mother was voicing her concerns. “You know my father has taught me how to defend myself.”

  “You can hardly fight off a young nobleman with a sword,” her mother exclaimed. “That would be a terrible scandal.” Then she added with a sigh, “Sometimes we don’t want to defend ourselves. Men can be very persistent. But at least if that happened we could keep you at home.”

  Aki could see her mother was close to tears. “You will still have Yoshimori, and Kai, who is like a daughter to you.”

  They both looked over to the veranda, where Kai was playing with Yoshimori. They had been born on the same day and were inseparable friends. Yoshimori was in his seventh year. He was an intelligent child, popular with everyone, adored by his father. When he was two years old a physiognomist had pronounced that he would reign as emperor. It had made a deep impression on him.

  “Yoshimori will soon be lost to me,” her mother said. “But I suppose I will never lose Kai, as no one will ever marry her.”
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  “You can’t see her ears when her hair covers them. I think they are charming, like a little bird or a gecko.”

  “A gecko! Don’t say such things!”

  Kai’s mother, one of the women of the household of whom Aki’s mother had been particularly fond, had died in childbirth. Her baby girl had tiny ears like the whorl of a shell. When the midwives saw her they had exclaimed in fear, and the baby had been wrapped in a cloth and left in a corner. It had been a terrible day, with the deaths of a mother and a child and the birth, earlier than expected, of the young prince. Kai’s mother was buried the same day as Aki’s little sister, while the baby prince was given to Aki’s mother to nurse. Everyone forgot the other baby, but she clung to life until Aki’s mother heard her whimpers and demanded to see her. She was moved to pity and insisted that she would bring up both children together.

  They were afraid she might be deaf, but she could hear perfectly well though she had a way of frowning and looking intently at people’s mouths when they spoke to her. She was prettier than Aki, with a sweet, plump face and delicate limbs, and the women of the household often bewailed the fact that she might have made a wonderful marriage or other alliance, maybe even with Yoshimori himself, but for her ears.

  No one knew what the future would bring for her, but Yoshimori adored her, insisted that she be with him at all times, and often would be calmed and consoled by only her. She had a lively imagination and made up stories and games, keeping him entertained in what was otherwise a tedious existence for a young child. He was not allowed outside—the veranda was as far as he went—and he was carried everywhere within the palace. He saw his own parents rarely and then had to be carefully trained in the correct etiquette and elaborate language of the court. Already he was expected to take part in the long, complicated rituals that were part of life in the Imperial Household and, though he was not yet seven years old, sometimes Aki saw on his face an expression of resignation and world-weariness that moved her to pity. Only with Kai did he behave like an ordinary child. He ordered her around, squabbled with her, threatened to scream if he was separated from her, but they ate from the same bowl and slept side by side.