Текст книги "Island of Exiles "

Автор книги: Ingrid J. Parker

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Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

was no complete surprise to Akitada. After all, Kumo’s grand-

mother, the senile Lady Saisho, had addressed her as Naka no

Kimi, Princess. But if anything, Ribata’s imperial blood made

her presence on this island of exiles an even greater mystery.

Okisada leaned forward to embrace Ribata. “Dearest cousin.

It is not a happy occasion, I am afraid. Is it true that Kumo

is dead?”

Ribata’s face lost some of its joy. “Yes. His body is outside.

The soldiers said you wished to pay your last respects.”

With her help, Okisada struggled to his feet. Together they

walked to the front of the hall, followed by Akitada, Taira,

and Tora.

Kumo had been dropped carelessly on the wooden planks,

one arm flung over his face and a leg bent awkwardly at the

knee. Ribata knelt and gently rearranged the body. Dark blood

disfigured his brilliant armor, but he was handsome in death.

Okisada made a face, then bent to peer at him. When he

straightened, he said, “A pity. He was a great man. And he could

have been an even greater one under my rule.” Taira also took a

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long look and nodded. They stood for a moment in silence.

Then Okisada reached into his fine robe and handed Akitada

something before turning to take Taira’s arm. Together they

went back to the room they had left.

Akitada looked down at what he had been given and saw

that the prince had returned his imperial mandate. It had been

done without explanation or apology for the theft. Of course, as

the present emperor’s brother and, in his own opinion, the

rightful emperor himself, he probably felt that he had a right to

the documents. But Okisada’s voluntary surrender of the papers

meant that he had accepted defeat. He had allowed Akitada to

complete his assignment. He heaved a deep breath and turned

to Tora. “Stay with them. They are to see or speak to no one

without my permission.”

Ribata still knelt beside Kumo’s corpse. She was praying, her

beads moving through her thin fingers with soft clicks. Akitada

waited. When she finished and rose, he said, “Forgive me for

troubling you, but I gather that you, too, are a member of the

imperial family.”

She bowed her head. After a moment, she said, “Only a

handful of people know why I am here. I ask that you keep

my secret.”

Akitada hesitated. “It may become relevant to the case

against your cousin.”

“No. I swear to you, it has nothing to do with poor Okisada’s

case. It is my story alone. Nothing but tragedy will come to in-

nocent people if it becomes known in the capital that I am here.”

“Very well. If what you say is true, I promise to keep your

secret.”

“Thank you.” She sighed. “I am . . . was the third daughter

of Emperor Kazan. He died when I was only eight. Okisada’s

mother and mine were sisters, married to different emperors.

My cousin and I grew up together until my marriage to a high

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court noble was being arranged. But I was sixteen and in love

with a low-ranking officer of the guards. We were found out,

and he was sent here into exile. I followed him, disguised as a

nun.” She fell silent, as if that explained all.

Perhaps it did, but Akitada was not content. After a mo-

ment’s silence, he said, “You must both have loved very deeply

to give up so much. And Toshito?”

Now she smiled. “How very perceptive of you, my lord. I

suppose you saw the resemblance?”

“Yes. And your . . . husband?”

The sadness returned. “There was no future for us. They

would have killed him if I had become his wife. After my son’s

birth, I shaved my head and took the nun’s habit for good.

Toshito was formally adopted by Mutobe.”

So Mutobe had been the lover? It explained his permanent

appointment. No doubt the emperor who had sent him to

Sadoshima had made him its governor on condition he stay

there. And she had become a nun rather than bring down the

wrath of the emperor on the man she loved. Young Toshito

probably knew or suspected that she was his mother. No won-

der his bearing was haughty. The imperial lineage was in

his blood, though it would hardly make him welcome at court.

“Thank you, Princess. Your confidence honors me,” said

Akitada, bowing deeply. And, even though he still had his

doubts about her, he added, “I ask your pardon for having

suspected you of supporting Kumo.”

She gave him a very sweet smile. “Call me Ribata. I am an

old woman now and a nun. And you were wise to be suspi-

cious.” She turned to look down at Kumo’s corpse. “I knew him

when he was a mere boy. In those days I could not visit my own

son, and Sanetomo became like my own. We used to talk about

his love for the Buddha’s teachings and for all who suffered

injustice in this life. I loved him dearly, but even then I feared

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387

and distrusted him. He was . . . too passionate. I often wonder if this place makes some men pursue grand schemes because their

world has become as small as a grain of sand.” She turned back

to Akitada. “You are a good man and a man of honor. May you

find happiness in the small things.”

Akitada bowed deeply. As he left the hall and the temple

compound to walk back to the farmhouse, he thought about

Okisada, Kumo, and even Mutobe. All three were weak men,

and all three had become obsessed with dreams of power.

Even little Jisei had bargained his life for an impossible dream.

Akitada suddenly felt a great need to be with Haseo, who had

been his friend and protector. Without him he would not have

survived. He remembered his face again, shining with the

happiness of being free—for too short a time. Haseo had fought

joyfully against their enemies and been a better man than any

Akitada had met on Sadoshima.

The sky was clouding up a little, and the brightness of the

afternoon sun had become like light shining through gossamer

silk. The sea, instead of brilliant silver and blue, now stretched

before him faintly green, pale celadon fading to the color of

wisteria. He looked at the softened greens of the mountains,

themselves turning to a bluish lavender, and at the russet houses

below, and found the world both sadder and more beautiful

than before.

E P I LO G U E

The return voyage was swift and unexpectedly pleasant. Nei-

ther storms nor seasickness spoiled Akitada’s homecoming.

The skies were as clear as they sometimes are in autumn, a

limpid blue which swept from Sawata Bay past the headlands

of Sadoshima all the way to the shore of Echigo. A brisk wind

carried them smoothly toward the mainland.

Akitada stood at the bow, watching the approach of the

long rugged coastline that protected a green plain and distant

snow-covered mountains, and was filled with an astonishing

affection for the place. He resolved to make the best of his future there, for he was going home to his family, the firm center of his

turbulent life.

His deep joy in being alive was increased by Tora’s cheerful

presence and, to a lesser extent, by the exuberant spirits of

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Turtle, who had decided to follow his new master. Killing

Wada, a man who had tormented him repeatedly in Mano,

had given Turtle self-confidence and an altogether more opti-

mistic outlook on life. Even his limp seemed less noticeable,

perhaps because it was modified by a distinct swagger. Turtle

had become “somebody” in his own eyes by ridding his fellow

drudges of a cruel and petty tyrant. Turtle was now a man to be

respected, even feared, by other men, and so he had offered his

talents and services to Tora and Akitada.

But the ship carried far more important travelers. Okisada

was returning to the capital under heavy guard. Akitada had

twice visited the prince in his cabin and doubted that Okisada

would survive the overland journey to Heian-kyo. Soft living

and repeated doses of fugu poison had undermined his health to such a degree that he was in constant pain and frequently

vomited the little food he consumed.

Akitada had not escaped unscathed, either. He still limped,

and his knee ached when he walked too much or the weather

changed. Spending long hours sitting cross-legged on the dais

during the court hearings in Mano had not helped.

Three officials had been present for the hearing which had

cleared young Mutobe of the murder charge. The judge, a

frightened rabbit of a man, expected ignominious dismissal for

having ordered the governor’s son jailed in the first place. He

kept looking to the governor and Akitada for approval.

The third man on the dais was so far above the judge that

he did not dare look at him. He was the imperial advisor who

had sent Akitada to Sadoshima. It was widely assumed that he

was there to protect Prince Okisada’s interests, but this was not

quite true. He had come to take the prince back to Heian-kyo to

face the punishment chosen by the emperor. Unlike his shorter,

more irascible assistant, he had not returned to the capital, but

remained in Echigo to await the results of Akitada’s mission. He

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had taken ship when the news of Kumo’s death and Okisada’s

arrest had reached the mainland.

After lengthy deliberations and many nervous recitations

from his legal codes, the judge had found Taira and Nakatomi

guilty of laying false charges against the governor’s son. He was

not, of course, competent to deal with Okisada’s treasonable

intentions. That would be judged by a higher court in the capi-

tal. However, the sovereign’s advisor, along with the governor

and Akitada, had extracted private confessions from all three

conspirators. Afterward Taira had requested a sword. When this

was naturally refused, he had broken a sharp sliver of bamboo

from a writing table in his cell, forced this into the large vein in his throat, and died during the night. The physician Nakatomi,

on hearing the news, hanged himself the next night by his

silk sash from the bars in his cell door. Only Okisada, protected

by his imperial blood from public execution, seemed apathetic

to his fate.

That left Sakamoto. Akitada had long since decided that the

poor and elderly professor had been duped by Taira and Kumo.

They had not trusted him with their real plans or the details

of the plot but had played on his adulation of Okisada to use

his home for their meetings and his good name to cover their

activities. Not unlike Shunsei, though the relationship had

been different, Sakamoto had been the victim of his own fool-

ish sentiment. The thin gentleman from the emperor’s office

had, once he had spoken to Sakamoto, agreed. Sakamoto was

left with a warning that he faced arrest if he returned to the

capital. It amounted to unofficial exile, much like that imposed

on Mutobe many years earlier, but since Sakamoto had no wish

to leave, he expressed tearful gratitude.

Kumo’s mines were confiscated and closed, and their work-

ers were dispersed among other public projects. Osawa, newly

wed and in rotund health, had provided useful testimony that

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the mines had not produced enough silver to justify their

continued operation. Akitada wrestled with his conscience

about the gold. Gold was vitally important to the nation, but

more intensive mining and abuse of prisoners were sure to fol-

low if the government heard of the gold deposits. Eventually he

told the emperor’s advisor. The thin man asked some searching

questions and had Kita, Kumo’s bird-faced mine supervisor,

brought in. Kita saved his life by making a full report, which

caused the thin gentleman to remark that the distance from the

capital and the difficulty of transport made it highly unlikely

that His Majesty would be interested.

And so Akitada was returning home, a man so changed

that he felt like a stranger to his former self. As he strained his eyes for the shore, he was seized by a dizzying sense of unreality. For a man who had lived like a common criminal, subjected to vicious

beatings and backbreaking labor, who had been buried alive

and barely survived against all odds a battle to the death, this

uneventful and untroubled homecoming seemed more dream-

like than the nightmares that had plagued his feverish brain

underground.

To steady himself, he searched for his wife and son among

the people waiting on shore. The shoreline began to swim

before his eyes, and the snow-covered peaks fractured into

green and white patches floating against the blue of the sky. As

he reached up to brush the tears from his eyes, the thin gentle-

man interposed his tall frame between Akitada and the view.

“Not long now,” the emperor’s advisor said in his dry

voice, averting his eyes quickly from Akitada’s face. “You will

wish to be with your family after we land, so I shall make my

farewells here.”

“Thank you, Excellency.” Akitada managed to choke out the

words. To cover the awkwardness of the moment, he asked,

“You have been to see His Highness? How is he?”

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393

“Not well. He may survive the journey, but his mind is

weakening rapidly. I doubt that he will be able to say much in

his defense. He seems to be under the impression that he is to

assume the throne.”

Akitada said, “I am sorry.” It was the strongest expression of

sympathy he could find. He thought of the dying Haseo and

found difficulty in adjudging proper levels of regret to the tragic lives of the men he had met. What, for example, of the little

thief Jisei? Would his soul rest more happily knowing that

the two pirates who had beaten him to death had been captured

on Okisada’s ship? Akitada had identified them in the provincial

jail and brought murder charges against them, based on Haseo’s

account. Ironically, they, like Akitada, had been in the stockade

under false pretenses. They were there to deal with Jisei if he

decided to make trouble about the gold. And, of course, he

had done just that, hoping to buy himself freedom with his

knowledge.

“I wished to thank you,” the thin man continued more

cordially, “for your help and your loyalty. Without your brilliant

exposure of the prince’s clever sham, all of our efforts would

have been in vain. You have certainly confirmed the high opin-

ion your friends have of you. If it had not been for your deter-

mination and courage, we would be involved in a major war

by now.”

Akitada bowed. “I have done nothing,” he murmured. It was

the polite response to a compliment, but he knew it was

painfully true. There was little to be proud of in the way he had

handled his assignment, and he had almost paid with his life

for his careless mistakes.

The thin gentleman said, “I do not need to tell you that you

have made enemies in the capital. Your requests to return to

your former position in the ministry have been blocked by your

superior, for example.”

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Akitada glanced at the other man’s profile. Soga’s dislike

was no news to him, but he had not known that the minister

hated him so much that he would condemn him and his young

family to permanent misery in Echigo. He turned his eyes back

to the approaching land. Green and golden, the shoreline

stretched before him until it faded into a misty horizon. Those

waiting on shore were waving now. And there, in front, he now

saw a slender figure of a young woman holding a child. Tamako

and Yori. He raised his arm to wave, and saw Tamako lift up Yori

in response. Warm, joyous gratitude flooded over him. What-

ever the hardship, he still had his work and his small family.

Injustice flourished everywhere, in Sadoshima, Echigo, the cap-

ital, and also in the place where Haseo had lived. Akitada had

survived, and that was all that mattered.

But his companion still waited for a comment. “Thank you

for telling me,” Akitada said. “I shall have to be patient and work harder to win the regard of my superiors, that’s all.”

The thin man smiled and put his hand on Akitada’s shoul-

der. “Courage! You may have enemies in the capital,” he said,

“but you also have a new friend.”

H I S TO R I C A L N OT E

During the Heian Period (794–1185) the Japanese govern-

ment loosely followed the Tang China pattern of an elaborate

and powerful bureaucracy. The junior official Sugawara Akitada

is a fictional character, but his ancestor, Sugawara Michizane

(845–903), was very real. His life exemplified the dangers faced

by even the most brilliant and dedicated officials who made

enemies at court. Michizane, a superb administrator and great

poet, rose to preside over the sovereign’s private office but

ended his life in miserable exile.

By the time of the present novel, two hundred years after

Michizane, the administrative power is almost exclusively in the

hands of the Fujiwara family, whose daughters had consistently

been empresses. The Fujiwara women had borne emperors who

tried to rule briefly before resigning under pressure from their

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in-laws in favor of sons who were often too young to interfere

in Fujiwara policy. The tale of the Second Prince illustrates the

political uncertainties inherent in the imperial succession and

the numerous incidents of rebellion by claimants to the throne

or to the position of prime minister. The real power, the prime

minister, was almost always a senior Fujiwara and he headed,

assisted by brothers, cousins, and uncles, an enormous central

government located in Heian-kyo (Kyoto). They controlled

more or less successfully the rest of the country through provin-

cial governors, men of rank and birth with university training

and Fujiwara support. A governor’s duties encompassed over-

seeing tax collection, law enforcement, and civic improvements

in his province. He normally served four years but might

choose to serve longer or absent himself altogether while his

duties were carried out by a junior official. Akitada is such a

substitute, while Mutobe has taken permanent residence. Their

provinces, Echigo and Sadoshima, are so remote from the capi-

tal, and life there is so dangerous for officials that more favored individuals considered such assignments not only undesirable

but punitive.

Sadoshima, or Sado Island, is located in the Sea of Japan,

about thirty-five kilometers from Echigo (modern Niigata)

Province. In the eleventh century, it was an independent

province with provincial headquarters, several towns, and

Buddhist temples. It was also a place where people were sent

into exile for serious offenses, and where gold was discovered

fairly early. Though there was no government mining of gold

until 1601, panning for gold in rivers and streams had been

known for centuries. Kumo’s secret mining operation described

in the novel is fictional. The descriptions are based on other

early gold mining practices and on the pictures of the Sado

mine in a contemporary scroll ( Sado Kozan Emaki). According to the scroll, both silver and gold were taken from the same

H i s t o r i c a l N o t e

397

mine. In the absence of Japanese historical sources, I am

indebted to Angus Waycott’s Sado: Japan’s Island in Exile, a charming journal of his eight-day hike around the island, in

which he describes the local geography, flora, and fauna, and

gives brief accounts of the island’s history.

Provincial law enforcement was carried out by three distinct

authorities: the local imperial police—present in Sadoshima

since 878; a high constable, usually a local landowner with man-

power at his disposal, who was appointed or confirmed by

the central government; and the governor, who appointed and

supervised local judges. Because of Buddhist opposition to the

taking of life, the death penalty was rarely imposed. Exile, often

with extreme deprivation and hard labor, was the punishment

of choice for serious offenses. This was, as in the case of Haseo,

commonly accompanied by confiscation of property and

dispersal of the rest of the family.

In addition to the practice of Buddhism, the other state

religion recognized in Heian Japan was Shinto. Shinto is native

to the Japanese islands and involves Japanese gods and agricul-

tural rituals. Buddhism, which entered Japan from China via

Korea, exerted a powerful influence over the aristocracy and the

government. It was common for emperors and their relatives to

shave their heads and become monks and nuns in their later

lives. The Buddhist prohibition against taking a life accounts for

Kumo’s strange behavior. The shrines mentioned in the novel,

along with the tengu sculpture, belong to the animistic Shinto faith which was more closely tied to peasant life.

Intellectual life reached a high point during the eleventh

century. The sons of upper-class families (the “good people”)

were trained in Chinese and Japanese studies at local schools

and at the universities in the capital. Their sisters wrote gener-

ally only in Japanese, but they produced exquisite poetry, di-

aries, and the first novel anywhere. In the other social classes,

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education probably ranged from illiteracy to the partial acquisi-

tion of useful skills, especially that of writing with ink and

brush not only in Chinese characters but also in Japanese script.

Akitada, with his university training, would have been adept

at both, in addition to having a very good knowledge of the

Chinese language, while the shijo Yutaka would associate characters only with their Japanese meaning. The emphasis of edu-

cation was on supporting an efficient bureaucracy run by the

“good people.”

A brief reference to the Ezo (modern Ainu), a people distinct

in origin and custom from the Japanese, may explain the very

real danger of Okisada and Kumo’s plan. Considered barbaric by

the Japanese, the Ezo had been pushed northward for centuries

until, by the tenth century, they were more or less pacified in

Dewa and Mutsu, the northernmost provinces of Honshu. The

pacification process had been achieved by allowing Ezo chief-

tains to become Japanese lords, often with the title of high con-

stable of their territory. But in 939 the Dewa Ezo rebelled and in

1056 the Nine-Years War erupted when the Abe family, who

had Ezo origins, rose against the governor of Mutsu. Thus the

warrior lords in the unstable northern provinces close to Echigo

and Sadoshima would have been obvious allies for Kumo and

Okisada.

Finally, the story of the fake silver bars was suggested by an

early Chinese legal case (# 9A) in Robert van Gulik’s translation

of the ‘Tang-Yin-Pi-Shi.