“Dark days are ahead if you are correct.”
Kanemore raised his cup. “Dark days are behind as well.”
So. It seemed we had chosen to live, and in my heart I hoped that, at least for a while, things might get better. To that end I drank, and as the evening progressed I used the saké to convince myself that all the things I needed desperately to believe were really true.
I told myself that Teiko was right to do as she did. That it wasn’t just family scheming or royal ambition. That Kanemore and I, though mostly unaware, had helped her to accomplish a good thing, a noble thing, and time would prove it so. First, in the continued decline of the power and influence of the Fujiwara. Second, in the glory to come under the reign of Crown Prince Takahito, soon to be known to history as His Imperial Majesty, Sanjo II.
My son.
A TOUCH OF HELL
Any sensible person would have many critical things to say of Kenji the priest: he drank too much. He didn’t bathe often, ritually or otherwise. His understanding of and devotion to the Eightfold Way was dubious at best. Yet let it never be said he couldn’t recognize the obvious.
“Yamada-san, you look terrible.”
Kenji kneeled, grinning, in the doorway to my rooms, neither quite in nor quite out, much like his relative position on spiritual matters. The open door let in a shaft of light, illuminating an empty saké cask, the remnants of my last drinking cup—smashed when I finally realized that the cask was empty—and me, lying on top of some not very clean bedding. I groaned and tried to sit up, but the room was still spinning too much. I settled for groaning again.
“Who let you in?”
“And a cheery good morning to you as well. The Widow Tamahara of course. She saw no need to announce me as we’re old friends.”
“I’ve known you a long time. It’s not the same thing.”
Kenji had a more proper Buddhist name he’d been given when he’d become a priest, but he didn’t use it and neither did I. I didn’t even remember what that name was, though I’m sure I’d heard it at one time or another. His priest-name was something pure and pious, no doubt, which were attributes I could never quite associate with Kenji.
He grinned. “Even so,” he said, and then the grin went away and he went on, “It doesn’t help, you know.”
It took an effort, but this time I managed to sit up. My head felt like a blowfish looks, and I wasn’t exactly certain I’d be able to keep my breakfast down, if I’d planned to eat any. “What doesn’t help?”
“The saké. You can’t drink Teiko’s memory away.”
So. Kenji knew about myself and Teiko. I should have been surprised, but I wasn’t. “I can try. So. What do you want? I know you didn’t come here to lecture me on the evils of drinking, you of all people.”
“You need employment, if nothing else to pay for these elegant quarters and more useless drink. I may have something for you.”
These “elegant quarters” consisted of two shabby rooms in the compound adjoining the drinking establishment that the Widow Tamahara ran near the Gion Shrine. Nothing elegant about either my quarters or the Widow Tamahara, truth be told. Still, there was music in summer, saké was never too far away, and it certainly beat living in the streets of Kyoto. Which, truth again admitted, I was one more late rent payment away from.
“I’m listening.”
“An old friend of mine named Saigyo is now the abbot at Kokusho-ji, a temple near Mount Oe. I trust you’ve heard of it.”
“There are temples beyond counting, but Mount Oe? Certainly.”
Indeed, who had not? That area along the northwest road was famous for being infested with ogres from legendary times, though none had been reported in the area since the Emperor Ichijô ordered the hero Minamoto no Yorimitsu to clear the mountain of them some fifty years or so before. Still, rumors persisted.
“Saigyo says an ogre now haunts a section of the Tambakaido near Kokusho Temple. It’s made travel through that area somewhat difficult. He’s aware of your reputation and contacted me to employ you.”
I shielded my eyes against the fierce morning sun. “Me? Why doesn’t he petition the Imperial Government for aid? Keeping order along the roads is its concern.”
“Such petitions take time, Yamada-san. Especially with the turmoil within the Court of late. The Minister of Justice has just been banished to Akashi and the Chancellor himself is in seclusion. I suspect you know a thing or two about this.” He paused then, perhaps hoping that I would admit or deny, but of course I did neither.
“Assuming I was foolish enough to challenge an ogre, how would I be paid? In prayers for my soul? Granted, there’s a good chance I would need them.”
Kenji just pulled a small black cloth bag out of his robe and dropped it on the wooden floor beside my bedding. Since my head was throbbing, the clinking sound the bag made was at once too loud and yet pleasant. I opened the bag to find thirty knife-shaped Chinese bronze coins and one sliver about half the length of my middle finger that looked like and probably was pure gold.
“Your temple seems to be doing rather well for itself,” I said.
“You must understand that Saigyo is from a well-to-do family. More, he is not acting in his role as abbot, but rather in aid of his former brother-in-law, Minamoto no Tetsuo. Tetsuo is the provincial governor; since the ogre’s presence has cut off traffic along the road and therefore the fees that Tetsuo is authorized to collect, he’s been especially hurt by the ogre’s presence.”
“ ‘Former’ brother-in-law?”
“Yes. He was married to Saigyo’s youngest sister, Hanako. Sadly, according to Saigyo’s letter, Hanako died about a month ago. I knew her, Yamada-san. She was . . . a lovely young woman.”
There was doubtless a story hidden in the way he said her name, but that didn’t concern me. I picked up one of the coins; there was no mistaking the feel of a good bronze coin. I put it back. “It seems rather odd to me that your friend would go to such trouble to help a man with whom he has no more family connections.”
Kenji sighed. “I don’t claim to have all the details. I have only my friend’s letter and this partial payment, of which, let it be said, I have already removed a small fee. You’ll receive as much again if you succeed, and I’ll want a token of that as well. As for the details, you can ask Saigyo and Tetsuo yourself after we arrive.”
Perhaps it was the glare of light through the doorway, but I only then realized that Kenji was dressed in his traveling clothes, and at his side was the sort of straw hat that the monks favored.
“We? I haven’t even said that I was going yet.”
“It’s either face the ogre or stay here and starve or, worse, run out of saké. Or do you have a better offer?”
“No,” I said, because it was so.
Kenji nodded. “Then you’re going. Now stop wasting our time and get up. The sooner you make ready, the sooner we can be off.”
I got up, because of course he was right.
We were barely past the Nishi Gate before Kenji brought up Teiko again, at least indirectly. “I’m thinking it will do you good to get out of the city for a while.”
“Oh, yes. Much better to get torn apart and devoured than mope about.”
Kenji smiled. “Far better. You’ve made such a mess of this life that it might be best to just get it over with and try again in another incarnation.”
“Your sympathy is quite touching.”
“Sympathy is the last thing you need, Yamada-san. You have more than enough of your own. What would Teiko say?”
I almost struck him then, and the penalties for assaulting a priest be damned to a multitude of hells. My anger didn’t stop me from thinking about his question. “She would laugh at me, and tell me I was being an ass.”
Kenji nodded. “A wise and gifted woman, by all accounts. What would your future together have been, had she lived?”
I thought about that, too. “A Princess of the Imperial Court and a landless noble? We had none. But
it would have been better had she lived.”
“But she did not.”
“As always, your grasp of the obvious is astounding.”
“As always, so is your lack of the same,” he said.
I stopped then. There were other travelers passing by on the western road, but no one paid us much attention. Kenji was a traveling priest, one of hundreds, and he looked the part with his traveling garb and large straw hat perched on his head like an inverted bowl. My clothes, though a bit rumpled, were of good quality. We didn’t stand out. If we started shouting at each other, that was apt to change. I very gently led Kenji off the road and the trees closed in behind us before I stopped again.
“Kenji-san, whatever you know or think you know about what passed between myself and Princess Teiko, from this point forward you will consider the subject closed. Those who bear the blame for her disgrace and untimely death have been exposed and punished. That’s the end of it.”
“So why are you drinking yourself to death?”
“This from a man who practically lives in the front of a wine shop?”
Kenji didn’t even blink. “I’m not against having a goal. If one drinks seriously one should do it for a reason,” he said, “but the reasons vary. I know mine. Do you know yours? And please don’t say ‘Teiko.’ Grief and regret are only owed so much.”
“Are you done?” I asked.
“For now,” Kenji said. “But I make no promises for later. After all, I must protect my friend’s investment.”
“I’ve accepted the abbot’s money and I never drink while on a mission. I’ll do my best for Saigyo, never fear.”
“Who said anything about Saigyo?”
Kenji walked past me back to the Tambakaido and, after a moment, I followed. Neither of us spoke again for some time, which I considered a very good thing. We were barely out of Kyoto and rapidly approaching a dangerous, haunted region. Besides the areas’s reputation for ogres, the mountains were also home to several ancient tombs and burial mounds, containing ghosts from a time no one could remember. While most of the area’s reputation dated from the period of the ogres, there were other dangers. Bandits were rare these days but not unknown, and even they were not necessarily the worst thing one might meet on the road.
Even so, it was hard to think of that when one considered the pure beauty of the area. Mountains rose to either side of us; the region was known for its forested hillsides and deep, shaded valleys. The air was cool and clean, and frankly, a pleasant change from the smokes and odors of Kyoto. If it wasn’t for the little matter of an ogre waiting for me at the end of it, I might have enjoyed the journey.
“Did you bring it?” I asked finally.
“Bring what?” Kenji asked, all innocence.
He wasn’t fooling me. Unlike a ghost, an ogre was a physical being and had to be destroyed by physical means which, considering how strong and fierce they were, was no easy task for seasoned warriors and a suicidal one for a man alone. Like the hero Yorimitsu himself, I was going to need some assistance.
“Kenji, as far as I’m concerned that ‘token fee’ you took from Saigyo’s payment went to cover this. Either show me what you’ve brought or I turn back now.”
“Oh, very well.” Kenji pulled out something that resembled, and likely was, no more than a long slip of paper with some writing on it, tied in a single knot as lovers sometimes did. He handed this to me.
“This is an excerpt from a Holy Sutra, a passage of such pure, ethereal truth and virtue that something as coarse as an ogre cannot discern it. As long as you have this on your person and don’t fart or trip over a rock, you should be able to take the beast by surprise.”
“I’ll be invisible?”
“Invisible and inaudible,” Kenji said with a touch of pride. “It won’t even be able to hear your voice, though it can hear any other noise you make. The effect will only last until you strike, as violence will negate the purity of the sutra. Needless to say, make your first blow a good one.”
The talisman wasn’t a guarantee, but it was an advantage and actually more than I expected. I very carefully put the paper away. The sun was approaching zenith and Kenji shaded his eyes.
“If I recall right, there’s a stream and small waterfall not too far from here, though not that many people know of it. It would be a good place to rest and have a bite.”
“You seem very familiar with the Tamba Road,” I said.
Kenji just shrugged. “I received my initial training at Kokusho-ji after I was given to the temple; it was often necessary to travel between there and the Capital.”
I was content to let Kenji lead the way. Walking wasn’t exactly my favorite thing to do at any time, but other than accept the bother and expense of a horse, there wasn’t any other good way to get where we were going. I certainly had no objection to a little rest.
At this point the road led through a wooded valley and I followed Kenji off the road at a place that might have been a path but really looked more like a slight gap in the trees. Still, the way was clear and before long I heard the sounds of a waterfall. I also heard something else. A glance at Kenji showed that he had heard the same thing—the unmistakable music of female laughter.
“It seems this place is not quite so unknown as you thought.”
Kenji just grinned and plunged ahead at a trot. I sighed and followed at a more leisurely place. I arrived at the pool to be greeted with the following tableau: Kenji standing just at the edge of the water and beyond him two naked young women clinging to each other in the deepest part of the pool just beyond where the mountain stream feeding the pool splashed down from the hillside.
From their clothes draped neatly over a pair of bushes on the opposite shore, it was obvious that they were two pretty and perhaps foolish peasant girls from some nearby village or farm. Still, their rustic origins seemed to have done them no harm: their hair was long and black, their skin the color of golden straw in autumn. Their lithe bodies were demurely veiled by the water, but only just, and they indeed made a lovely sight.
They looked at us with the appropriate mixture of surprise and apprehension, but their dark eyes did not agree with what their faces were telling us.
“Ladies, have no fear—” Kenji began, but I interrupted him.
“Ladies,” I said. “You’re wasting your time. This alleged monk has no piety to tempt. And as for me, I barely have any soul left at all worth mentioning.”
One of the women actually snarled at me. In another instant they disappeared under the water, nimble as a pair of minnows. There was a ripple and splash on the opposite shore as two red fox vixens emerged from the pool, shook off the water, and vanished into the trees. Their clothes, of course, had disappeared—they were never really there.
Kenji stared at me. “They . . . foxes? How did you know?”
I shrugged. “Let’s just say I’ve gotten better at spotting them over the years. So. Will you unpack the rice cakes or shall I?”
Kenji went searching through his pack, muttering all the while. I skirted the edge of the pool to the waterfall, caught some of the splashing water in my hands and drank. It was clean and cold and, unlike the women, very real. Still, I found myself wishing there was enough magic clinging to the place to transform the water to saké. I put the thought away.
By the time I returned, Kenji had the rice cakes arranged on a small cloth and had already eaten one. I took a couple for myself. While I ate I noticed Kenji staring wistfully at the water.
“I suppose I should thank you,” he said.
“You would if you were grateful,” I said, trying not to smile. “Oh, don’t go on about it. At best they would have given you an hour or two of exquisite pleasure, and then laughed at you, content in the knowledge that they had distracted a holy man from the True Path. I gather that the foxes consider such tricks all in good fun.”
“I’d consider that good fun myself,” Kenji said drily. “What’s the worst that could have happened?”
&
nbsp; “Depends on what you think ‘the worst’ is. They might have kept you entranced at their loveliness for a few minutes from your perspective, only to discover that, back on the road, several hundred years had passed. Or . . . ”
“Or?”
“Or they might have been bathing together in human form for a lark, and been so very angry at being disturbed that they would have killed and eaten you and left your bones to molder at the bottom of this pool.”
“Oh.” Kenji seemed to consider this. “I’m not so keen on those other two options. Still, maybe it would have been worth the risk to find out.”
“Not for me,” I said. “I don’t trust anything that can change at a whim.”
“Then you don’t trust human beings in general,” Kenji said.
I had no argument with that. “Certainly not. Why would I trust any creature that can take a perfectly useful form of its own and let jealousy change it into, say, a snake?”
Kenji frowned. “A human transformation? I thought that was just a legend.”
“Why? It makes sense that emotions too powerful for a human to bear would seek a more appropriate form. Doesn’t your own tradition tell of a once-pious monk who was so overcome with lust for the daughter of an Emperor that he changed into a rat?”
Kenji had just taken a big bite of one of the rice cakes and he chewed, looking thoughtful. “I assume you’re referring to the story of the priest Raigo of Mii Temple,” he said when his mouth was no longer quite so full. “That’s just a story they tell to frighten the young monks.”
“Suit yourself. Go seduce those foxes, for all I care. Just don’t complain to me when one gets annoyed and bites your manhood off.”
Kenji turned a little pale. “I think perhaps we should get back on the road.”
“Only if we wish to reach Mount Oe sometime before next winter.”
The trip was long and arduous but, despite one or two other distractions, we finally reached the temple on the misty slopes of Mount Oe. As was the custom, the temple compound commonly sheltered travelers and we were shown to rooms that, while spare, were far better than my own lodgings in Kyoto. We were, so far as I could see, the only guests. After we had been fed and otherwise attended, Kenji disappeared for a little while and I used the time to massage my aching feet before he returned.
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