A Tale of False Fortunes (12 page)

The two brothers were like drowning men, sinking to ever greater depths. Both Korechika and Takaie (who was supposed to have been the most intelligent in the family) were given over to the arrogance peculiar to youth from prospering and influential families accustomed to the world’s favor, and they lacked the prudence to acquiesce, which would have protected them in times of adversity. The main charge resulting in their banish-ment was the incident on the sixteenth day of the first month of that year when Takaie, together with his retainer, shot an arrow at retired Emperor Kazan, who was stealthily returning from a tryst with his favorite mistress. Thus Takaie himself furnished an excellent excuse to the forces loyal to Michinaga.

Kazan, the son of Emperor Reizei, was the elder brother of
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Danjò no Miya (Prince Tametaka) and Sochi no Miya (Prince Atsumichi), both of whom later gained notoriety for their affairs with Izumi Shikibu. Both of the younger princes had been born to the imperial consort later known as Grand Empress Chòshi and thus were the grandsons of Higashisanjò Kaneie, but Kazan himself was the son of Kaishi, daughter of Chancellor Koretada, so his blood ties to the Higashisanjò family were not strong.

Like Reizei, he seemed to have a mental disorder and was often given to eccentric behavior. Kaneie therefore soon had him abdicate and tried to have the throne given to the first prince born to Emperor En’yû and his own daughter, Senshi. It is well known how Kaneie’s second son, Michikane, sought to carry out his father’s wishes by tricking the emperor, having him secretly slip out of the palace and go to Kazan-ji Temple to have his head shaved. Though Michikane promised that he would follow the emperor in taking the tonsure, at the last moment he broke his promise and stole back to his home. It was rumored that Michikane’s sudden death as he was doing obeisance before the regent was some kind of retribution for the sin of having deceived the emperor.

It was that sort of unforeseen incident that had caused him to step down abruptly from the throne, but he nevertheless referred to himself as a “monk retired emperor” and, with no apparent qualms about what the world might think, lived in a grand style, occupying himself with sporting matches, hunting, and chasing women. Even the Higashisanjò household, aware, at the time of his abdication, that the world knew of their unjustifiable treach-ery, made no effort to curb the priestly former emperor’s self-indulgent ways.

Takaie’s motive for almost shooting retired Emperor Kazan with an arrow was not the satisfaction of his own feelings; rather, his action was fueled by the jealousy of Korechika, who at that time was paying visits to the daughter of the Ichijò regent (Tamemitsu), and who had heard that Kazan likewise was in love with her and was calling on her secretly. Actually, the object of Korechika’s passion was San no Kimi, and it was her younger sister, Shi no Kimi, whom Kazan had been wooing, but Korechika misunderstood, thinking that his own lover had been
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stolen away, and consulted with Takaie to see if there might not be some means to keep the retired emperor away from her.

Takaie, who ordinarily took pains to keep his natural unruly boldness in check, was tantalized. “Fine, I’ll take care of that.

Just leave it up to me!” Takaie seemed amused by Kazan’s excitable temperament and once before had wagered with him: it was agreed that Takaie would, together with fifty or sixty retainers, rush into the retired emperor’s gate in ox carts and that the retired emperor would lead his own retainers against them. However, Takaie had been unable to break through his opponent’s defenses and ended up returning, thereby losing the wager. At the time he admitted defeat, saying, “I was no match for his royal aura of authority.” And yet there was something about the incident reminiscent of two naughty boys with a friendly rivalry. Partly for the fun of it, Takaie volunteered to shadow retired Emperor Kazan, lie in wait for his return, and scare him. In
A Tale of Flowering Fortunes,
this passage is narrated as follows.

Perhaps Takaie planned to frighten the Retired Emperor, who was returning on horseback one bright moonlit night from the Takatsukasa Mansion. At any rate Takaie shot an arrow through the Retired Emperor’s sleeve. Now to be sure, the Retired Emperor was a very brave man, but this was an extreme situation, and it was only natural that he should have been frightened.

He was terrified and returned to his palace quite distraught. He ought to have reported this incident at court and to the Regent (Michinaga), but the circumstances under which it occurred were of course awkward. He was embarrassed and determined not to tell anyone, not wanting it to be a shame to posterity.

However, the news spread at court and reached the Regent’s ears. The details were out in the open, and there was no longer any hiding it; it became the chief item of gossip.

Far from thinking this a troublesome incident, Michinaga seized upon it as a good opportunity to turn opinion against the two brothers. At any rate, the disquieting rumors—that they had placed a curse on the life of the empress dowager, or that
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Korechika had commissioned the Daigen Service, a rite properly limited to the court—had all been eclipsed by their one distinct act of attacking retired Emperor Kazan. All at once, the gathering rain clouds had turned into a terrific thunderstorm, pelting down upon the household of the former regent.

As soon as Korechika, who had been depending on Empress Teishi as the clan’s mainstay of support, saw that misfortune was beginning to multiply around him, he invited the empress to his Nijò residence and put her up in the main hall. Her mother, Kishi, and her grandfather, Takashina no Naritada, among others, perhaps held the view that leaving her at court, where Michinaga’s power was most evident, would bring some unforeseen misfortune upon the pregnant empress, who went to her brother’s residence incognito and under cover of night. Out of diffidence to Michinaga, few attended her, but Kureha never left her side as she went to Korechika’s Nijò residence. While Kureha was dutifully seeing to all of the empress’ needs, that fateful day arrived: the twenty-fourth day of the fourth month.

On that day, powerful military commanders—Korenobu, former governor of Mutsu Province, Koretoki, lieutenant of the Left Gate Guards, and Yorimitsu, former governor of Bizen—

rode into the palace compound at the head of their troops and set up innumerable encampments. The crown prince’s guards and the main palace guards stepped up a rigorous watch over comings and goings through the gates and prepared for an emergency. The ostentatiousness of Korechika’s arrest, in spite of his obvious lack of military force, was calculated to demonstrate the regent’s power. It was also a scheme to sever, once and for all, the bonds of the emperor’s affection for the empress

—bonds that tied him to the former regent’s household.

It was common then for yin-yang divination masters to say that natural disasters portended armed disturbances, and in this case, too, various rumors were noised about. Respectable aristocratic families made defensive preparations, and even insignificant merchant families prepared to flee with their belongings on their backs in case of an emergency. Everyone seemed stricken with panic.

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In the former regent’s household, it was the younger Takaie who alone was managing everything with a cheerful countenance in the midst of all this. He realized that Michinaga’s exaggerated posturing was aimed at consigning his family to oblivion, and that behind it lay a formidable hostility toward the empress and himself. Yet he wore a complacent smile in spite of such private bitterness.

Had Korechika been a bit bolder in his judgment, Takaie would have been quite prepared at any moment to invoke the afterglow of his late father’s glory and have a showdown with Michinaga. In light of his brother’s surprising faintheartedness in these trying circumstances—and of the empress’ pregnancy

—it occurred to him that this time there was simply nothing for it but to lie low and plan a later comeback.

A number of soldiers and court officials had for years taken up residence with Korechika and served him as retainers, but when they saw that the household was decidedly in decline, they became anxious about their own welfare rather than their master’s safety. They pilfered household belongings, some even making off quietly with metal fixtures. Thus human nature, ever duplicitous, only further disheartened members of the family.

From the early evening of the twenty-fourth, all of the imperial police in the capital were gathered at Nijò, tightly surrounding Korechika’s residence on all sides. It was a frightening scene to behold as they crowded about, their swords and halberds drawn and at their sides, leaving no space even for an ant to escape.

All the key figures in this incident, including the empress, apparently were gathered in the main building of the compound, yet a dead silence reigned within. Since there seemed to be no one about, the soldiers entered as far as the garden and the connecting corridors and peeked inside. Just catching glimpses through the bamboo blinds of the rough-looking men, their armor glistening, was enough to terrify the women and children inside, who began wailing.

Kureha’s lover, Tachibana no Yukikuni, was of course included in this group of imperial police. He recalled that Kureha utterly despised her elder sister Ayame for her role in
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playing the part of a false medium. Moreover, Yukikuni knew that Kureha harbored suspicions of and resentment toward himself. Realizing that her devotion to the empress had only grown more unshakable since that incident, he imagined how utterly mortified she would be if she knew he was playing a part in this massive arrest. He loved Kureha’s undefiled passion of mind, and the prospect of enduring her contempt because of this was indeed painful. But it was of course impossible for one in the service of the court to refuse an imperial command.

At about the hour of the serpent (10:00 a.m.), the encir-clement parted for an envoy of imperial messengers, imposingly clad in red robes and bearing swords and scepters, who ascended the stairs to the balustrade of the main building and went inside.

Korechika had, together with his mother and other family members, clustered about the empress within the curtained dais in the main wing, but he could not remain indefinitely in tearful dejection. Prodded by Takaie, he went out into the side room to confront the imperial messengers, who embodied the will of Michinaga. Seemingly quite unmoved by Korechika’s appearance, one of them read the imperial edict with a completely dis-passionate air in clear, sonorous tones. The charges therein were as follows: the crime of having cursed his majesty, the retired emperor (the monk retired Emperor Kazan); the crime of having a malediction pronounced upon the mother of the emperor; and the crime of secretly sponsoring clandestine performances of the Daigen Service, which was prohibited to anyone outside the court. As a result of committing these three crimes, both Palace Minister Korechika and Middle Counselor Takaie were banished and demoted to governor-general of Tsukushi [Kyushu] and provisional governor of Izumo, respectively.

Such was the gist of the edict. As the messenger was reading it, the sound of weeping women, accompanied by the rustling of silk, surged like waves from within the bamboo blinds of the main wing. The crying of the residence guards added to the rising volume until the entire main building seemed to swell with grief. Korechika himself was pressing his face into his sleeve and, sobbing like a bullied child, seemed unable even to answer.

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Takaie, who alone amid the mounting lamentation was not crying, fixed his usual strong gaze on the messenger and answered:

“We have duly received the words of the edict. It will be necessary to make preparations, and we ask for a period of indulgence until we can depart.” The messenger, guessing that the empress was in the room, descended the stairs with the same expressionless look and without making a more forceful pronouncement, but he summoned one of the chamberlains in attendance, Secretary of the Imperial Police Yukikuni, and commanded him, “You are to see both the governor-general and the provisional governor off to their respective places of exile today. It is the lord regent’s command that they leave without delay.” With that, the messenger departed.

Yukikuni was distressed that this command should have been given to him of all people—and at such an inopportune time—

but he could do nothing about it. He was worried lest some of the country warriors who had been sent in for special rein-forcement and who were ignorant of propriety might try to storm the building, and summoned to the balustrade the elderly Norimasa, former governor of Hitachi and one of the remaining loyal stewards of the former regent’s household. “At this point, there would be no way for you to resist. It would be a different matter if it were only we imperial police, but the place is swarming with warriors from all over the country. They are ignorant of decorum, and if they should force their way in, it would amount to lèse-majesté toward the empress. I shall try somehow or other to arrange for a slight delay in your departure. Please tell the middle counselor that they should be on their way by dawn tomorrow.”

Norimasa nodded several times, his face pressed to his sleeve, as he listened to Yukikuni’s offer. Then he went inside. At length he came out and requested in an almost sobbing voice, “Both her highness and the palace minister say that they are pleased with your kindness in this matter. At any rate, they will need until tomorrow morning before they can depart. We ask that the imperial police see to it in the meantime that no ill-mannered men force their way inside.”

Yukikuni discussed the matter with his superintendent and
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others among the police and reported to the palace that they would wait this one night.