Текст книги "Dream of a Spring Night"

The Hollow Reed    Book One

Dream of a Spring Night

1168-1169

I. J. Parker

Copyright 2010 by I.J. Parker

Even the jeweled throne,

Shining in the morning sun,

Partakes of darkness

When unrequited lust regrets the pleasures of the night.

(Daini TakatM Shk)

At this time, the imperial power in Japan rested in the hands of retired emperor Go-Shirakawa, who conducted the nation’s affairs from his “cloister palace” while a son or grandson sat on the throne.  Go-Shirakawa’s rule lasted from his accession in 1155 at age 28 to his death in 1192.  He managed the affairs of five successive emperors, two of them his sons and three his grandsons.

His tenure was marked by increasingly violent power struggles between the throne and factions among the court and military aristocracies.  These disturbances culminated in the Heike Wars and shifted the ruling power permanently from the emperors to military shoguns.

Go-Shirakawa is a shadowy historical figure, considered by some historians too inept to prevent the catastrophe, and by others a diplomat and manipulator of complex and powerful interests that were ultimately beyond his control.  Whatever the scholarly opinion, Go-Shirakawa appears to have been determined to wrest power from the nobles and return it to the imperial family.

Characters

(* marks a historical character)

Oba no Toshiko, fourteen-year-old daughter

of a Taira vassal

Lady Sanjo, senior lady-in-waiting to Emperor Go-Shirakawa’s Consort

Go-Shirakawa*, the Retired Emperor

Taira Kiyomori*, chancellor and clan chief of the Taira

Otomae*, famous singer and performer of imayo

Lady Shojo-ben, lady-in-waiting

Oba no Hiramoto, Toshiko’s father

Oba no Takehira, Yasuhira, Toshiko’s brothers

Yamada no Sadahira, physician

Otori, his housekeeper

Togoro, his servant

Hachiro, Sadamu, orphan boys adopted by the physician

Master Soma, a teacher of swordsmanship

Aloeswood

It was spring when the perfumed darkness swallowed her.

From the moment her parents told her that she must serve the Emperor, the palace seemed to her a huge maw to suck her in and consume her entirely.  She struggled – weakly, for how do you disobey your parents who have given you birth, raised you, and now depended on you?

Already on the journey to the capital, the darkness embraced her.  She was confined inside the elegant palm leaf carriage sent for her, behind reed curtains that were woven with crimson silk threads and securely fastened to all openings.  Hemmed in by cushions, curtains, and her many-layered silk gown, she was aware of the outside world only through muffled sounds: the creaking of the carriage, the grinding of gravel under the huge wheels, the shuffling of ox hooves, the driver’s shouts to make way, and the hoof beats and clinking of bridles and stirrups of outriders.  Later there were the sounds of the capital, of many people, of tradesmen hawking their wares, of temple bells, of other carriages and horsemen.  All belonged to the world of light she had left behind forever.  She wanted to peek out, but that was strictly forbidden, and so she entered the maw blindly.

They backed the carriage up to a raised veranda, and when they lifted the curtain at its back, she saw a dim tunnel made of draped cloth held by many hands.  Other hands reached for her and pulled her up and out, drawing her into a large, dusky room filled with the heavy scent of aloeswood.

A sort of birth – into darkness and whispers.

A woman’s voice: “Let’s have a look at her.”

Blinding light from a candle thrust toward her face made her close her eyes.  Indrawn breaths.  A giggle.  A cough.  The first voice: “Well, at least she is young.”

She was fourteen.

And her life was over.

But of course she did not die then.  The women – scented shadows in a large room – took her in hand, removing most of her clothes, washing her face and hands before applying the heavy paste to her face, then painting her nails while the paste dried on her skin; they blackened her teeth, painted her moth eyebrows, outlined her eyes, rouged her lips, and oiled her hair; and finally they dressed her in layer after layer of silk.  Each color had a name, but she was too dazed to pay attention.  She was thinking of the maw, of being dressed like a dead pheasant or duck her father or brothers tossed at the cook to be plucked, drawn, and prepared for consumption.

And then it was time.  One of the shadows took a candle and motioned her to follow.  There were sighs and whispers from the others.  The flame threw shadows on screens, grotesque distortions of female forms with elongated bodies and misshapen heads, thin, clawlike hands gesturing, reaching.

“Hurry!”

She obeyed and began to walk, her own shadow gliding along beside her, a companion until it, too, was swallowed by the darkness.

She followed the flickering light along a corridor with floors so highly polished that they looked like black ice.  The flame of the candle split in two, dancing both above and below the black ice until she no longer knew which light she followed.  The cold crept up through the silk socks on her feet.  She shrank away from it, shrank into herself trying to vanish into insubstantiality.

Someone was singing – a male voice – the tune strangely familiar but dreamlike.  She floated toward it like a petal on a stream.

When she had almost achieved the state of not-being, two wide doors parted before her and she came into a large room.  On a raised platform in front of painted screens, a man sat at a desk.  He was the one singing.  Between snatches of song, he made notations on a scroll.

“The girl, Your Majesty,” said her guide and knelt.

With that simple announcement, Oba no Toshiko, fourteen years old, rematerialized and became “the girl.”

The singing stopped.

Oba no Toshiko’s knees turned to water.  She collapsed in a rustle of silks and lay face down on the black ice, wishing it would melt and swallow her.

“Ah, Lady Sanjo!” said the male voice.  And then, “Yes.  The wild goose.  So she is here.  It is good.  You may leave.”

Leave?  A wild hope kindled and was instantly extinguished when he said, “Come here, little goose.  Let me look at you.”

For a moment, she toyed with a foolish thought: What if she pretended a fainting spell?  Or better yet, death?  From an excess of awe.

But she remembered that she was Oba no Toshiko, daughter of warriors, and got to her knees to look up at him.

For a Son of Heaven he looked quite ordinary.  Not handsome at all.  A broad face and small eyes that studied her.  He smiled, and she saw that he was her father’s age and had bad teeth.

“Come closer,” he said again, waving a hand, and she got to her feet.  Somehow the fact that he looked so ordinary gave her knees the strength to support her as she crept up to the dais.  He made room beside himself, and she sat down on the high, thick grass matting.

“Do you know any imayo?” he asked.

She was startled.  Imayo were popular songs sung by women of questionable virtue.  Of course she knew them, but a lady could not admit to such knowledge.  She shook her head.

“Ha, I thought so.”  He sighed, rinsed his brush in the water container, and laid it aside.  “I had hoped,” he said, “but it doesn’t matter.  Do you know why I called you the wild goose?”

“No, sire.”  He, too, smelled of aloeswood, and of something else, masculine and not unpleasant.

“On my recent visit to your father’s home, I saw you riding with your brothers.  You reminded me of a famous poem.

As they lift their wings

Against starry skies.

The moon is counting each

Of the wild geese flying

On this autumn night.”

She looked at him in wonder, remembering.  Her father had been entertaining visitors from the capital.  Her oldest brother, proud owner of a new horse, had wanted to try him out, and so they had all got on their horses and raced through the valley.

“You were there and saw me?” she asked, her eyes wide and her voice breathless at the memory of that perfect night of galloping hooves, of flying free on the wind that lifted her long hair and her horse’s mane and molded her clothes to her body.  Yes, there had been geese that evening.  They had raced the geese and each other, she and her brothers.

He smiled, nodding.  “We watched the moon from the veranda.  The geese passed over, flying south, and there you were, following them.  You wore something white and looked like a ghostly bird skimming the earth.”

She chuckled.

“I have never seen a woman ride like that,” he said softly.

She heard admiration in his voice and suddenly felt warm.  “It was not very ladylike,” she said with a small gasp.  Then she remembered where she was and why, and suddenly the fear was back and the grief.  Tears welled up and she turned her head away.

He reached out to touch her cheek.  Cupping her chin, he turned her face to him.  “Are you unhappy about the arrangement, little one?”

She looked at him fearfully.  “I . . . don’t know what to think.  I don’t belong here . . . I . . .” and to her horror, she burst into violent weeping.

He took his hand away and said nothing for a long time.  When she had calmed down a little, he pressed a paper tissue into her hand.  “You are tired from your journey,” he said.  “Go and rest, little wild goose.  We shall talk again.”

Imayo

The Emperor watched her run away across the glossy surface, sleeves billowing and skirts hissing along the floor.  She burst through the door to the gallery and disappeared.

He was disappointed, even a little angry.  Her flight reminded him again of the soaring geese and the white-robed girl skimming across the night-darkened fields on the back of her horse, but the gorgeously robed and painted creature who had crept in and fearfully ascended the dais to sit stiffly beside him was nothing like that memory.  Except for her reluctance, she was like all the rest, those young women who had been brought to him through the years, as indistinguishable from each other as dolls or as the hundred representations of the Kannon in the Sanjusangendo temple.

He bedded many palace women, some more than once, in case he might after all discover some hidden talent, some unique trait.  Most could play an instrument, or talk amusingly, or tell stories, or compose little poems.  That sort of thing was common enough among noblewomen.

None of his carefully selected wives and concubines had proved to have special gifts either.  And yet, from the time he had been a mere boy, he had hoped to find a soul mate – a talented musician or a poet – as his companion, a woman whose passion matched his.

It struck him that not one of the ungifted had been a very passionate lover either.  Mostly, they had lain beneath him, rigid, their eyes squeezed shut, biting their painted lips – and when he had left them, he had never felt more than the mild distaste that follows a mediocre meal.

He sighed and called, “Otomae, you can come out now.”

A soft rustle, and a small gray nun’s figure appeared, mouselike, from behind one of the painted screens.  She sat down beside him where the girl had been.  He regarded her fondly.  “Well?”

Her wrinkled face broke into a smile.  “Bravo, Your Majesty.”

Otomae’s voice was still the most beautiful of voices to him and filled his heart with pleasure.  Her narrow face, framed by short white hair, was almost equally dear.  He shook his head.  “Ah, Otomae, how can you say that?  I have been grossly duped.  She knows nothing of imayo.”

His beloved Otomae was no nun.  Far from it.  In her younger days she had been a street entertainer, one of the singing and dancing shirabyoshi, and at times a prostitute.  When her fame had reached his ears, he had still been a young man and she already middle-aged.  She never became his lover, but she was his teacher and the closest thing to a soul mate he had ever found.

“She is very young and frightened,” said Otomae.  “I think you shocked her when you asked if she knew imayo.”

He sighed.  “It is far more likely that Kiyomori and her father lied.”

Reaching for a narrow box made of black lacquer painted with golden reeds, he took out a flute – an ordinary bamboo flute, old but with an incomparable sound.  It was the only one of the imperial treasures he had kept after his abdication.

He fingered the flute.  They had meant to try out a new melody, but he had lost his desire.  “There must be women who satisfy a man’s desire.  The poet Narihira poured out his passion in matchless verse.  Prince Genji loved many women deeply, including his imperial father’s favorite.  My own father was so besotted with one of his wives that he allowed her to decide the succession.”

The Fujiwaras used to train their girl children to seduce and bewitch young emperors so they could produce imperial heirs.  And now, Taira Kiyomori was following the pattern.  He had already matched him with a Taira consort.

Otomae broke into his glum musings: “Shall we continue our work?”

“No.”

Their work was the collection of the songs performed by shirabyoshi in markets and on streets, those haunting words and melodies that would otherwise cease to exist.

This passion for imayo had almost cost him the throne when his august father, urged on by his Consort, refused to make him crown prince, saying that his obsession made him unfit to rule.

Still upset, the Emperor put away the flute.  “Kiyomori is behind this,” he said.  “He hopes to distract me from the nation’s business with this girl.  He called her an artist of uncommon talent.  Like a fool, I believed him.”

He did not mention his tantalizing glimpse of the girl astride her horse, flying along the moon-lit valley with a flock of geese, her long hair streaming behind.  His utter enchantment and sudden physical desire had shaken him to the point of dizziness.  Light-headed with wine, moon light, and the thought of a girl on horseback, he had burst out with the offer.

Otomae said softly, “There is something about her.  Don’t judge her too quickly.”

“She is a child, the daughter of a minor noble.  What could she know of the art?”

Otomae chuckled.  “You mean she is not a streetwalker?”

 He was not amused, though the image was fitting.  “I mean that I bought the girl because of extravagant promises made by her seller, and the merchandise is not as represented.  I have been cheated. The girl’s father is richer by ten shoen of good rice fields and his son by a lucrative post in the outer palace guards.”

The door at the end of the room opened and Lady Sanjo peered in.

Otomae hissed softly, then said, “Please excuse me now, sire.”  She bowed, murmuring, “You may yet find some use for your purchase,” and rose to leave.

The Emperor watched the frail gray figure disappear through another door before turning his attention to Lady Sanjo, who tiptoed in and knelt.

“What?” he demanded impatiently, eyeing her with distaste.  She looked worn in this light.  What possessed some women to paint their faces and drag their thinning hair behind them like young girls?  Women ought to become nuns when they lost their beauty.

“I wondered if the young woman had offended Your Majesty,” Lady Sanjo lisped in the girlish voice she reserved for him alone.  Her expression was hopeful.

He knew that this woman felt some perverse lust for him.  Her efforts at seduction amused him in the way that grotesque scroll paintings of diseased people or of hungry ghosts amused him.

Now he saw the hunger in her eyes as she simpered, fluttering a bony hand before her thin lips, and he suppressed a laugh.  He considered her question.  There had been offense, yes, but one could not quite blame the girl.  She had obeyed her father, that was all.  In this deception, she alone had been honest, making it clear that she had no wish to be near him.

“Not at all,” he said, and added spitefully, “She is quite charming and only needs some time to feel at home.”

He watched Lady Sanjo’s face fall.  She touched her forehead to the floor and prepared to withdraw.

“You will take charge of her and report to me when she is ready,” he said.  “And I particularly wish to know if she has any talents.”

“Talents?”  Lady Sanjo was so crushed she could barely speak.

“Yes.  She is said to have a charming voice.  As you know, I have a great desire to hear charming voices about me.”

“I have been told I have an attractive voice,” Lady Sanjo cried and flushed unattractively.  “I would not wish to sound boastful but—”

He interrupted quickly, “Ah, you are a woman of many talents.”  He laughed, but when she crept a little closer, he said quite coldly, “Thank you.  That is all.”

She bowed again and backed out on her knees.

He watched her creep away, pushing her full skirts out of the way.  The girl in her graceful flight had forgotten that you do not turn your back on an emperor, not even a retired one.

Alone again, the Emperor contemplated his retirement.

 His father had been only twenty-one when he had turned over the throne to the five-year-old Sutoko.  At that age, a man had his life before him and enjoys all the benefits of wealth and power without any of the chores and restrictions of actually occupying the throne.

His own fate had been a darker one.  Poor, foolish Prince Masahito, a poet and a dreamer, had had a short and troubled reign.  Bloodshed and rebellion had marked it.  An since then, he had rarely been at peace from those near him.  Sometimes he found it convenient to play the fool around Kiyomori.  There was safety in foolishness.  People rarely regarded you as a serious obstacle in their path to power.

No, there was little pleasure in his life.  His consorts wanted his embraces only to conceive.  They were brief and loveless couplings.  Sometimes he doubted his children’s paternity.  The galleries of the palace teemed with male attendants, and even a consort’s curtained dais might be invaded stealthily at night while her ladies-in-waiting slept with their robes thrown over their faces.

He had done it himself in his younger days.  Perhaps, like the cuckoo, he left his sons and daughters in other men’s nests.  The thought cheered him a little.  He hummed:

“None rests her head on my arm anymore

Where long ago my sweetheart’s lay;

We two made love hungrily,

Knowing that happiness is short.”

Too bad the girl did not know imayo.  They could have spent such pleasant evenings together, he and the girl and Otomae.  Under those layers of shimmering silk gauze had been a young body.  Why not forget for the span of a few moments of hot lust that he was no longer Prince Masahito, no longer an Emperor, and soon perhaps a priest?  Why not teach someone so young the ways of the bedchamber?

With a smile he opened a document box and took out a sheet of fine paper.  Reaching for his ink stone and the water bottle carved from a piece of translucent jade, he rubbed fresh ink, dipped his brush, and wrote quickly:

My head grows white as snow,

But my heart still follows the white goose in flight,

Across the mountains to the distant sea.

Wherever it roams, wherever it nests,

In time it will return to me.