A Tale of False Fortunes (5 page)

Chapter One
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Two reasons may be suggested to explain why Toyome’s confessions were recounted in
A Tale of False Fortunes.
First, she had borne two daughters, Ayame and Kureha, as a result of this sort of “public secret.” Second, the unexpected death of her lover was caused by none other than the words of the god that possessed her.

Toyome’s lover, Usuki no Yoshinori, was a military officer in the service of the provincial governor.

In spite of having grown up in a military household, Yoshinori had a refined disposition and was accomplished at both writing and calculating. Should the opportunity present itself, therefore, he hoped to abandon his swords and secure a peace-ful occupation—perhaps the stewardship in an influential nobleman’s household or something like that. He was actually a rather unassertive man, and even the beginning of his love affair with Toyome apparently owed less to his own advances than to seduction by the untamed passion peculiar to shrine women.

Yoshinori had promised Toyome that someday he would return to a settled life in the capital, that he would then take Toyome and their two daughters with him, and that they would all live in peace and harmony. However, his life was unexpectedly cut short through a singular occurrence, the circumstances of which are recorded thus in
A Tale of False Fortunes:
One year, many of the sacred deer in the precincts of
Kasuga disappeared. Then children of merchant families
turned up missing, and it was noised about that something
suspicious was afoot. When the favorite serving girl of the
governor’s wife disappeared one night, the situation grew
quite intolerable. A rigorous investigation was conducted
throughout the entire province, but to no avail. Some said
that there must be bandits hiding in the mountains, and
places like Kazuraki and Yoshino were searched. When
this yielded no leads, they determined for better or for
worse to seek an oracle from the God of Kasuga. This
command was delivered to the shrine, and the chief priest
had Toyome purify herself and seek the God’s oracle.

As Toyome held up the offering of braided paper strips
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and prayed, the God took possession of her body. Her
face became pale, her eyes twitched, and she began to
shake in a most frightening manner. After a while, a
dreadful voice issued from her mouth: “The bandits who
are stealing and eating my deer and taking my people’s
children are in the mountains of Ikoma. However, they
will not be easy to destroy. The man to subdue them will
have one large mole near his eye, and the middle finger of
his right hand will be somewhat long. Make no mistake
about this.” After the God departed, the governor and all
of the high officials reverently feared the oracle and
searched Ikoma, where they found some bandits of truly
strange appearance living in a cave deep in the mountains.

Those outlaws did not even appear to be Japanese. Their
hair was cut short, they had blue eyes, their faces were
very ruddy, and they could run as fast as birds in flight.

Now then, according to the oracle of the God, the one
to subdue these bandits could be none other than Usuki no
Yoshinori. Near Yoshinori’s left eye was a large mole, and
the middle finger of his right hand was somewhat longer
than that of his left. His comrades all knew that when he
put his hands together, the right side was longer. They
overwhelmingly chose Yoshinori in the belief that they
would certainly subdue the bandits with him at their lead.

Yoshinori felt utterly wretched and tried many times to
refuse, but the governor would not listen to his petition,
and he was compelled to comply. Before setting out for
Ikoma at the head of his troops, Yoshinori paid a visit to
Kasuga. He finished worshiping, then turned to Toyome
and said, weeping bitterly: “Because of an absurd, mistaken oracle, I now bear a miserable fate. I am not a powerful man, and in the end am not likely to return alive.

Take good care of Ayame and Kureha. My wish for all of
us to live together in the capital was in vain.” Toyome was
also in lower spirits than usual, but she assumed as stern
a countenance as possible and remonstrated with him,
saying: “How faint-hearted for one who wears a sword!

Those redheaded bandits are not gods, after all, and you
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are not facing them alone. The God’s oracle was a propi-tious one, and you will certainly return victorious. Don’t
say such inauspicious things!”

The bandits were only five in number, but each had the
strength of ten men. They tormented their attackers mer-cilessly, but the soldiers outnumbered them. Two of the
bandits were killed and another two were taken captive.

The remaining one—the largest among them—pulled up a
tree by its roots and brandished it about. No one was able
to get near him.

Yoshinori was ordinarily weak-spirited, but the sight
caused his warrior spirit to well up, and he cried: “Leave
it to me. I’ll bring him down!” He circled around to the
rear and shot an arrow into the elbow of the bandit, who
then could no longer hold up the tree. Yoshinori ran up
and thrust his sword into the enraged bandit, who grabbed
Yoshinori and tried to shove him over a precipice. Even
while locked in the bandit’s grip, Yoshinori never let go of
his sword, and continued to gouge his opponent. The two
of them, wrapped together in a deadly embrace, fell from
the precipice. When the soldiers doubled back through
ravines and reached the bottom, they found that the bandit’s belly had been slashed open by the sword. Yoshinori’s
head had hit a rock at the bottom of the ravine. Each had
died at the other’s hand.

The governor praised Yoshinori and, along with the
two captive red-haired bandits, presented a report of the
valiant deed to the capital. For Yoshinori, the glory was
posthumous.

Upon hearing the news, Toyome was prostrate with
grief. Because of the words of a god who had possessed her
body, she had senselessly lost her lover. Even if his welfare
had not been at stake, she was struck by the presumptuousness of such an enterprise, whereby people’s fortunes
were set on courses for good or evil through the words of
her mouth.

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For these reasons, then, Toyome was loath to have her daughters become mediums. Only three years had passed, however, when the vengeful ghost of the third princess possessed Ayame’s body and tormented Kaneie on his sickbed, though no one had ordered Ayame to act as medium. By then Toyome had already passed away and was thus spared the grief of seeing her daughter follow in her footsteps. Major Counselor Michinaga, who was concurrently serving as steward of the empress’ household, asked Ayame to become a lady-in-waiting to his first wife, Rinshi. After what happened at Kaneie’s sickbed, Michinaga had great expectations of the mediumistic powers Ayame had inherited from her mother.

A year later, upon hearing from Ayame that her younger sister Kureha had turned fifteen, Michinaga announced that he wanted to meet the young woman. He did not summon Kureha to his residence, but made a point of having her escorted to the hermitage of a nun who had served as his own nurse, and there he received the two sisters together.

Ayame had a slender build like that of her father and tended to keep her eyes cast down, but Kureha closely resembled her mother as a young woman, and had grown up to be very robust. Her complexion glowed like a peach blossom, and her smooth skin radiated youthful allure.

The elder sister’s mediumistic powers had already been demonstrated. Kureha’s hale and youthful appearance bespoke a nature completely different from that of Ayame, and Michinaga was somewhat disappointed. He nevertheless posed two or three casual questions, to which her answers were lucid, indicating a quickness of mind.

The sisters thought it a somewhat strange audience. Michinaga soon summoned Ayame and told her that for the time being he would maintain Kureha at the hermitage of the nun. He told Ayame to leave everything concerning her sister’s future service up to him, and also strictly forbade her to tell anyone that Kureha was nearby.

Having thus taken care of matters, Michinaga one day paid a call at the palace of the empress. There he used the occasion
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to visit an old lover of his in the women’s apartments, a lady-in-waiting named Shòshò no Kimi.

Shòshò had just finished helping wash the empress’ hair. She had pulled out a screen and was lying down, but when she realized that Michinaga had come she hurriedly got up.

“Napping in the middle of the day! You’re quite the proper young lady, aren’t you?” said Michinaga jokingly as he sat down beside her, dispensing with formalities.

“Well, how sarcastic your lordship is! I just finished helping wash the empress’ hair, and so I’m quite exhausted. Her hair, you know, is quite unlike anyone else’s. It’s utterly amazing that so much long hair could grow out of that little head.”

“Really? It’s such splendid hair, is it? . . . I’m sure it must be a lot of trouble to wash, then.”

“It’s really awful, I tell you. . . . Even with two or three of us working at it, it takes a long time before we’re completely finished. . . . And then today, his majesty paid a visit in the middle of all that, and we were quite at a loss as to what to do.” To Michinaga, what Shòshò had mentioned innocently was more than of passing interest; these were all things that must be remembered.

“So, then, what did his majesty do? Did he wait patiently until you were finished washing the empress’ hair?”

“No, he . . .” With a somewhat affected gesture, Shòshò put her cypress-ribbed fan to her mouth and smiled.

“He’s still so young, and he just couldn’t be patient. What’s more, he insisted on seeing the empress today, so he had us bring a lot of old picture scrolls for him to look at while he passed the time.”

His majesty, unable to wait any longer, finally just went right in after they had finished washing the empress’ hair and were drying it.

It was summer, and the empress was sitting near a pillar in the main building where the blinds had been raised. She had three or four women fanning her newly washed, luxuriant black hair in order to dry it. Her skin, so white it looked as if it might melt like snow, was visible under the pale violet hue of her thin
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robe. That, combined with the luster of her hair spread out to cover her entire back, gave her an exotic mermaid-like beauty.

“Oh, your majesty . . . you mustn’t come in here!” remonstrated an elderly lady-in-waiting. But the emperor appeared to pay no heed; he approached the empress and gently stroked her hair.

“Your hair is cold. I think I’ll make it my bedding and go to sleep,” he said in the tone of a spoiled child, snuggling his cheek against the empress’ back. There was no way anyone could reprove the youthful emperor, but the ladies-in-waiting were worried lest the empress feel distressed. She turned, her countenance as serene as ever, and said: “If you make this your bedding, my coldness will penetrate you, and you’ll end up as the frozen emperor.”

With that she gathered the ends of her hair and pulled it up over the emperor with his cheek pressed against her, concealing his slight build behind a glossy, raven-black curtain.

The emperor laughed euphorically and remained motionless for a long time, buried in the empress’ black hair.

Michinaga roared with openhearted laughter as he listened to Shòshò, but secretly he was astounded at the empress’ talent for manipulating the juvenile emperor at will. Michinaga knew very well how deeply the tender affections of a beautiful, older woman can penetrate the heart of a youth, and he could not help being conscious of Empress Teishi as a future formidable rival if he should present his own eldest daughter in court.

After Shòshò finished her account of the incident, Michinaga mentioned casually that he would like to offer a junior lady-in-waiting to the empress’ palace. It was a girl whose identity he could not disclose, and out of regard for the regent (his brother, Michitaka), he wished to avoid the public attention that would result from his making the offer himself. He asked Shòshò if she would not recommend Kureha’s services, saying that she was the relative of an acquaintance.

Shòshò, unaware of Michinaga’s real intentions, cheerfully took on the task and, assuming the knowing look of one who serves at court, said: “That will be easy. It just so happens that
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the empress’ quarters now need one junior lady-in-waiting to serve as her majesty’s personal attendant. I shall recommend this young woman’s services, and say that she is my niece. What does she look like? Anyway, I suppose you’re not saying anything about her family because she has your blood in her.” Michinaga thought it best to treat the matter lightly and go along with Shòshò’s conjecture. “Well now . . . what can I say?

I’ll leave her in your hands. Just one thing, though—don’t bring her up to imitate your amorous ways,” he said as a parting remark, and roared with laughter.

Thus, without revealing her lineage and without any hin-drances, Kureha came to serve at the side of Empress Teishi.

According to
A Tale of False Fortunes,
it was in the third year of Shòryaku (992) that Kureha of Miwa, assuming the name Koben, came to serve as a personal attendant to Empress Teishi.

The six years from the first year of Shòryaku—when Michitaka was appointed regent upon Kaneie’s death—until Michitaka’s own demise in the fourth month of Chòtoku 1 were a time of great prosperity for the regency, and it was as if Empress Teishi always had a brightly shining aura about her. It was during this time that Sei Shònagon, author of
The Pillow Book,
came into Teishi’s service.