A Tale of False Fortunes (7 page)

Empress Teishi was a niece to the empress dowager. According to the customs of that time, there was nothing exceptional
Chapter Two
c
39

about a wife’s being older than her husband, and if Teishi were a submissive young woman who had simply been raised in a somewhat liberal manner, the empress dowager would certainly not have grown so anxious. And yet, as an aristocrat’s daughter who had been brought up with the utmost care, Teishi was endowed with scintillating talent, and the fact that the emperor appeared to find this very refreshing invited his mother’s jealousy.

In fact, as mentioned previously, a fashionably new salon was beginning to take shape around the emperor under the influence of such talented young nobles as Korechika and Takaie, with their sister Teishi as a binding force. That so peculiar a lady-in-waiting as Sei Shònagon was able without restraint to display her brilliant talent to the astonishment of the courtiers actually owed to the bright and free atmosphere that had grown up around Teishi. And, to the extent that the young emperor’s tastes were cultivated as a member of that salon, the empress dowager was saddened by the thought that he was gradually becoming estranged from her.

The empress dowager hinted at those feelings in oblique terms to Michitaka, who, being a good-natured sort and fond of drink, did not listen sympathetically, but rather made a joke of her pensiveness and evaded discussion of the matter.

It was in the fourth month of Chòtoku 1 (995)—the year after the services at Sakuzen Temple—that Michitaka passed away. From the first month, he had lost his appetite and would drink only water, and thus had grown quite gaunt. Within two or three months there was little hope for his condition. From spring of that year an epidemic spread in the capital; countless people died every day, and there were not a few well-known nobles and courtiers who succumbed to this malady.

However, that was not Michitaka’s illness. In all likelihood, his digestive system was damaged by alcohol poisoning. By the third month, he himself no longer seemed confident that his illness could be easily cured and, upon secretly seeking an audience with the emperor, petitioned that during his illness his eldest son, Palace Minister Korechika, be appointed as acting regent.

40
c
A Tale of False Fortunes
The emperor was sixteen years old at the time and had developed sufficient discretion in matters to render a decision. He thus approved the petition, and on the eighth day of the third month a proclamation was issued to Korechika that during the regent’s illness he should “execute government over the entire realm and all officials therein.” Senshi, the Higashisanjò empress dowager, was of all people both surprised and displeased to hear news of the proclamation.

Through her feminine intuition, the empress dowager sensed that someone was pulling strings behind the scenes for the emperor to have made an immediate decision on such an important governmental affair without consulting her, his mother.

That “someone” was Empress Teishi, who, the empress dowager was convinced, had bent the emperor’s heart to herself using the caressing and servile looks of an elder sister, and who was tearing the emperor away from his mother.

The empress dowager, who at that time was in Ichijò’s palace, was in attendance at court one day and invited the emperor to a room in the Kokiden Palace. He entered wearing a white informal court robe with a twilled floral design, the openings of the freshly scented sleeves loosely pulled back to show a crimson undergarment. He had grown taller during the brief time she had not seen him. His boyish innocence was gone, and though he was her child, he seemed to the empress dowager very dignified and somewhat constrained in her presence.

The emperor, too, looked nostalgically on his mother’s beauty as he beheld her in her nun’s guise, a crimson garment visible under her black robe, her ample black hair cut shoulder-length and spread out like a fan.

“In the short time I haven’t seen you, you’ve become quite a man, and have grown very handsome. . . .” The empress dowager looked fixedly at the emperor’s appearance, and held the sleeve of her nun’s robe up to her eyes. “At any rate, the regent’s illness is really too bad, isn’t it? I hear that he has grown quite thin.”

“Yes, he called at the palace one evening at the beginning of the month. Though he is by nature genial and joking, now he
Chapter Two
c
41

has become thin as a shadow. Even his voice sounds somehow withered. It’s so depressing that I couldn’t help crying.”

“It makes me think of my father. My older brother is still only about forty. I would never have imagined that he would fall victim to such a terrible illness. The empress must be very worried, I suppose.”

“Yesterday she returned home to visit him. Among all of his children, the regent was especially fond of the empress and the palace minister, and so her grief seems to be all the greater.”

“That’s no doubt the case. . . .” The empress dowager bowed her head ostentatiously. “Be that as it may, there is a matter about which I should like to caution you. Will you listen?”

“Of course, whatever you say. . . .” Even as he spoke, it occurred to him that his mother’s advice would no doubt be about Korechika, as usual. Even when Michitaka had come to him under cover of night, the emperor had said he would like to discuss the matter with his mother, but Michitaka would not give in.

“If you discuss this with the empress dowager, she will certainly advise you to have either Michikane or Michinaga act as regent. I don’t say this merely out of flesh and blood attachment; it is precisely because Korechika is young that he has the temperament to take the reins of government. Moreover, your majesty has attained manhood now, and the empress will no doubt give cause for celebration before long. But even if she gives birth to your first son, if either Michikane or Michinaga is in power at the time, that prince will have absolutely no hope of succeeding to the throne. If your majesty’s love for the empress is truly deep, I beg you to give heed to my request. . . .” Michitaka had been in tears as he presented his petition, his frail body withered and bent like a leafless tree. Considering that the emperor had for some time been fond of the young Korechika’s comely appearance and his superior gift for learning and music, and that, moreover, the empress had the utmost confidence in her brother, the emperor could not very well reject the petition of the seriously ill man before him.

Nevertheless, when the empress dowager put it to him so ten-42 c
A Tale of False Fortunes
derly, he could not help feeling guilty for not having sought her opinion in advance. The glow of the lamp against his face, with his habitually downcast eyes, had a feminine beauty about it.

When the empress dowager sensed his contrition, she thought it too cruel to scold him openly. Drawing upon the precepts of the retired emperor En’yû, who had passed away some years ago, she delivered a detailed lecture on governing, stressing the importance of maintaining a clear distinction between public and private, and reminding the emperor that those who are young and inexperienced must revere the opinions of their elders. She concluded in an unusually stern tone: “In this case, since Korechika’s appointment is only for the duration of the regent’s illness, I shall not say anything. This is not an agreeable thing to talk about, but if worse comes to worse for the regent, the one who succeeds him would also be responsible for determining and ordering the course of your reign. When that happens, I shall very much resent it if you fail to discuss the matter with me.” To the empress dowager, Korechika and the empress were also blood relations: nephew and niece. Based on the degree of intimacy, though, she had set her sights on Michikane and Michinaga—especially on her youngest brother Michinaga

—and after Michitaka’s death, she would not be pleased to see political power passed on to Michitaka’s talented posterity. She was beset with anxiety at the possible outcome if Empress Teishi should join forces with her elder brother, Korechika. It was upon Teishi that the youthful emperor bestowed all of his special affection. Though her mother, Kishi, was the upstart daughter of a provincial official, the other ladies-in-waiting and imperial concubines faded in obscurity before Teishi like stars before the moon.

Empress Teishi had grown up under favorable circumstances and was gifted with both intelligence and beauty. She was unable to harbor the secret machinations others imagined, and one might conclude it was because she in no way felt inferior to them. Thus if she seemed downcast by her father’s illness, she was in low spirits for that reason alone, and resorted to no such strategies as making a tearful and clinging entreaty to the
Chapter Two
c
43

emperor in an attempt to keep political power within her father’s household. The very guilelessness of her own heart prevented the empress from realizing that she was watched with such guarded caution by the empress dowager, for whom she felt only compliant respect as the emperor’s mother and as the most noble lady of the Fujiwara clan.

One might say the situation of the defenseless empress was that of being caught between parties struggling for power, people who were keeping a vigilant and unceasing watch on her.

Many of those who knew Teishi well enough to recognize her exterior beauty and sparkling wit knew nothing of the purity of her heart, which was as limpid as fresh water. Because of her all too dazzling beauty, the empress was easily misread as having a demonic ability to manipulate the emperor. In her naive innocence—her inability even to conceive of such scheming—lay the seeds of the adverse circumstances of her later years.

Upon perusing the annals of history, whether of the East or of the West, one finds any number of heroines who followed a hapless course of fate leading from a seat of glory to the bot-tomless depths of misfortune. Such women as Marie Antoinette, empress at the time of the French Revolution, and Kenrei-mon’in, whose life was woven into the sad history of the fall of the Taira clan, were main characters in such tragedies, and it would seem the sorrow experienced by Empress Teishi in her declining years—except for the fact that it was not stained by any sanguinary incidents—hardly pales in magnitude compared to these others.

On the tenth day of the fourth month of Chòtoku 1, Regent Michitaka passed away at the relatively young age of forty-three. It was only natural that Korechika, who earlier had been commissioned by the emperor to act in Michitaka’s stead as regent during the latter’s illness, should desire to maintain a grip on the reins of power and succeed to the position of regent, just as his father had wished. For his young age, Korechika excelled in learning and ability and was, moreover, of a handsome appearance. In others’ eyes, he thus was a flashy figure, but this
44
c
A Tale of False Fortunes
only served to fuel the antipathy of many of his seniors at court who had been displeased for some time with Michitaka’s partiality in promoting Korechika—barely in his twenties—to the position of minister ahead of the latter’s uncle, Michinaga.

The opinion of those people was as follows: “The regency is an important position, controlling the government of the realm.

While the emperor is young, major appointments of trusted advisors are of utmost importance, and an unseasoned, unreliable youth posing as a man is not up to the task. We will not stand for the government’s being played with as if it were a child’s toy.” The chief proponents of this view undoubtedly included the Higashisanjò empress dowager and her brothers Michikane and Michinaga. Moreover, this opinion was supported by many courtiers driven by an intense clannishness that objected to the progeny of Kishi—not a Fujiwara—wielding authority at court.

At this time the bereaved Korechika had no recourse but to rely on Teishi’s ability to captivate the young emperor’s heart.

Korechika explained their family’s common interests to Teishi, who had returned home prior to her father’s death, and anxiously petitioned her support. Teishi herself no doubt wanted her beloved elder brother to be appointed to the regency. With these things in mind, she returned to the palace on the twelfth day of the fourth month in spite of the ritual pollution of her father’s death. She was not permitted to meet with the emperor for the duration of her pollution, so she took up residence in the Tòkaden Palace, some distance from the Seiryòden Palace.
A
Tale of False Fortunes
records the matter in roughly the following manner.

After the dusty Tòkaden Palace was hurriedly swept and cleaned, the empress arrived. It was a departure from precedent to return to court before her father’s funeral services were completed, but both the palace minister (Korechika) and her grandfather Takashina no Naritada earnestly maintained that there was no other way but to try to win over the emperor at this time. Thus she resolved to return. The steward of the empress’

household (Michinaga) soon heard of her plans and gave her
Chapter Two
c
45

notice—pretending that it was by order of the empress dowager—that since it would be improper for anyone polluted by death to meet with his majesty, she should refrain from seeing him.

“That’s our uncle, shrewdly staking out his position as usual!” guffawed the empress’ younger brother, Middle Counselor Takaie, seemingly amused by his own remark. Then he added nonchalantly, “There’s nothing to be concerned about.

Compose a letter and have it delivered to his majesty secretly.

He’ll be sure to take the initiative of coming to you tonight.” The middle counselor was still only seventeen years of age and did not possess the gracefully handsome features of his elder brother. His imposing countenance, with its long, drawn-up eyes, looked very much like that of Michinaga as a young courtier. His disposition also was openhearted, and Michinaga secretly liked the fact that this young man showed no diffidence to those who were self-conceited. Of all the sons of his elder brother—with whom he had not been on good terms—it was only toward Takaie that Michinaga was friendly. He often invited this nephew to accompany him on hunting expeditions, or to drink together.