Yamada Monogatari: To Break the Demon Gate (6 page)

“It is a sad thing,” I said, again making certain my voice carried to every corner—and alcove—of the court, “that a mere hundred or so years after the honored poet Ono no Komachi exposed this simple trick, we should fall for it again. The ink in Fujiwara no Kiyoshi’s letter is of course untouched, for it has been wedded to this paper for the past fifteen years. Clearly, the poem slandering Princess Teiko was added within the month.”

“Are you accusing me—” Lord Sentaro stopped, but it was too late. He himself had made the association; I needed to do little else.

“I accuse no one. I merely state two self-evident facts: that Teiko-hime was innocent, and that whoever wrote the poem accusing her had both access to the letter,” and here I paused for emphasis, “and access to a Fujiwara seal. These conclusions are beyond dispute, Excellency. At the present time the identity of the person responsible is of lesser concern.”

The man was practically sputtering. “But . . . but she was here! Why did Princess Teiko not speak up? She said nothing!”

I bowed low. “How should innocence answer a lie?”

The murmuring of the witnesses was nearly deafening for a time. It had only just begun to subside when a servant appeared from behind the alcove, hurried up to the dais, and whispered briefly in Lord Sentaro’s ear. His face, having slowly turning a bright pink, now turned ashen gray. Kanemore and I bowed to the court as the official part of the proceedings were hastily declared closed. The proceedings that mattered most, I knew, had just begun.

That evening Kanemore found me once more on Shijo Bridge. The moon was beginning to wane, now past its full beauty, but I still watched its reflection in the water as I waited for the ghosts to appear. Kanemore approached and then leaned against the rail next to me.

“Well?” I asked.

“Teiko’s honors and titles are to be posthumously restored,” he said. “Lord Sentaro is, at his own expense and at Chancellor Yorimichi’s insistence, arranging prayers for her soul at every temple in Kyoto.”

“If you’ll pardon my saying so, Kanemore-san, you don’t sound happy about it.”

“For the memory of my sister, I am,” he said. “Yet one could also wish we had discovered this deception soon enough to save her. Still, I will have satisfaction against Lord Sentaro over this, Minister of Justice or no.”

I laughed. “No need. Even assuming that the expense of the prayers doesn’t ruin him, Lord Sentaro will be digging clams at the beach at Suma or Akashi within a month, or I will be astonished,” I said. “It’s enough.”

“Enough? It was
his
slander that killed my sister! Though I must ask, while we’re on the subject—how did you know?”

I had hoped to spare us both this additional pain, but clearly Kanemore wasn’t going to be content with what he had. There was that much of his sister in him.

“Lord Sentaro did not kill your sister, Kanemore-san. We did.”

One can never reliably predict a man’s reaction to the truth. I thought it quite possible that Kanemore would take my head then and there. I’m not sure what was stopping him, but while he was still staring at me in shock I recited the poem from his sister’s letter. “I trust you get the allusion,” I said when I was done.

From the stunned look on the poor man’s face, it was obvious he did. “Teiko
knew
the poem was a forgery? Why didn’t she—?”

At that moment Kanemore’s expression bore a striking resemblance to Lord Sentaro’s earlier in the day.

“You understand now. Teiko knew the poem was forged for the obvious reason she did it herself. She used a carefully chosen ink that matched the original for color but was of poorer quality. I don’t know how she acquired the proper seal, but I have no doubt she did so. It’s likely she started the original rumors as well, probably through her maids. We can confirm this, but I see no need.”

Kanemore grasped for something, anything. “If Lord Sentaro thought the letter was genuine, that does explain why he didn’t destroy it, but it does
not
explain why he didn’t use it himself! Why didn’t he accuse Teiko openly?”

“I have no doubt he meant to confront her in private if he’d had the chance, but in court? Why should he? If Takahito was Kiyoshi’s son then the Emperor’s heir was a Fujiwara after all, and Teiko, the Dowager Empress, would be under Sentaro’s thumb thanks to that letter. Until that day came, he could continue to champion Prince Norihira, but he would win no matter who took the throne, or so the fool thought. Teiko was not mistaken when she said Sentaro was searching for the letter—he wanted it back as much as she did.”

Kanemore, warrior that he was, continued to fight a lost battle. “Rubbish! Why would Teiko go to such lengths to deliberately dishonor herself?”

I met his gaze. “To make her son emperor.”

Despite my sympathy for Kanemore, I had come too far alone. Now he was going to share my burden whether he liked it or not. I gave him the rest.

“Consider this—so long as the Fujiwara preferred Prince Norihira, Takahito’s position remained uncertain. Would the Teiko you knew resign herself to that if there were an alternative?
Any
alternative?”

Kanemore looked grim. “No. She would not.”

“Just so. Your sister gave Sentaro possession of the letter solely to show that he
could
have altered it. Then she likewise arranged for the letter to disappear and for us to find it again. In hindsight I realize it had all been a little too easy, though not so easy as to arouse immediate suspicion. Those
shikigami
might very well have killed me if I’d been alone, but Teiko sent you to make certain that did not happen. Her attention to detail was really astounding.”

Kanemore tried again. “But . . . if this was her plan, then it worked perfectly! Lord Sentaro was humiliated before the Emperor, the Chancellor, the entire Court! His power is diminished! She didn’t have to kill herself.”

I almost laughed again. “Humiliated?
Diminished
? Why should Teiko risk so much and settle for so little? With the responsibility for her death laid solely at his feet, Lord Sentaro’s power at Court has been
broken.
The entire Fujiwara clan has taken a blow that will be a long time healing. No one will dare openly oppose Prince Takahito’s claim to the throne now or speak ill of your sister in or out of the Imperial Presence. It was Teiko’s game, Kanemore-san. She chose the stakes.”

Kanemore finally accepted defeat. “Even the
shikigami
 . . . Goji-san, I swear I did not know.”

“I believe you. Teiko understood full well what would have happened if she’d confided in either of us. Yet we can both take comfort in this much—we did not fail your sister. We both performed exactly as she hoped.”

Kanemore was silent for a time. When he spoke again he looked at me intently. “I thought my sister’s payment was in gold. I was wrong. She paid in revenge.”

I grunted. “Lord Sentaro? That was . . . satisfying, I admit, but I’d compose a poem praising the beauty of the man’s hindquarters and recite it in front of the entire Court tomorrow if that would bring your sister back.”

He managed a brief smile then, but his expression quickly turned serious again. “Not Sentaro. I mean you could have simply ignored Teiko’s final poem, and her death would have been for nothing and my nephew’s ruin complete and final. She offered this to you.”

I smiled. “She knew . . . well, say in all fairness that she left the choice to me. Was that a choice at all, Kanemore-san?”

He didn’t answer, but then I didn’t think there was an answer. I stood gazing out at the moon’s reflection. The charming ghosts were in their procession. I think my neck was extended at the proper angle. The rest, so far as I knew or cared, was up to Kanemore.

I felt his hand on my shoulder; I’m not sure if that was intended to reassure me or steady himself.

“You must drink with me, Goji-san,” he said. It wasn’t a suggestion.

“I must drink,” I said. “With or without you.”

A pyre, once it burns

On the barren Plain of Smoke

Can never be doused.

The mountain gives up no one.

Yet may a good name return?

It was four months, through the end of fall and all through that winter before I finally managed to crawl out of the saké haze I’d hidden myself in, mostly due to the fact that the last of Teiko’s gold was exhausted.

On the evening of the third day of the fourth month, I received a letter containing a single poem, written in a delicate, flowing hand. I read the poem through for the third time, but even one so unused to the intricacies of courtly communication as I could not mistake its meaning. Mount Toribe and the plain at its eastern foot were the traditional burial grounds of the capital, the Plain of Smoke: the place where all funeral pyres were lit. Not my father’s, however; he had been executed in Mutsu province and burned there. Still, his good name and my future had both gone up in smoke that day, almost literally, so the metaphor was apt.

“Tamahara-san, who brought this letter?”

The Widow Tamahara paused in her sweeping of the veranda outside my rooms, and poked through her iron-gray hair to scratch a spot that was apparently troubling her. “I’m not sure, Lord Yamada. Some street child,” she said. “No, wait, I think it was Nidai. Yes, I’m certain. He wears that tattered red sash.”

“I think I’ve seen that one before. I gather he didn’t wait for a reply?”

She grunted. “Not even so much as a ‘
Ohayo,
Tamahara-san’ before he was away. No manners, but then what would one expect?”

What indeed
?

“Thank you, Tamahara-san,” I said.

The old woman hesitated. “Lord Yamada . . . ”

“The rent, yes? I have not forgotten. Soon, I promise.”

The Widow Tamahara just looked glum. “Very well.”

I wasn’t certain how much longer the Widow Tamahara’s indulgence would last, even for one of my alleged station. She had a certain respect for even such minor and landless nobility as myself, but there were limits to all things, and the Widow Tamahara’s patience was a leaky boat even on the calmest of seas.

So, someone had just dangled something they thought I wanted right under my nose. The only obvious reason was they, whoever “they” might be, wanted something from me in return. What that something might be rather depended on whether the hints I had just been offered were intended as inducement or bait, and as things stood, I had no way of knowing which.

I had enemies and more than a few, but only a few in a position to attempt anything and fewer still who would bother with subtlety if they meant to do harm. Furthermore, the text of the poem was written entirely in flowing
kana
script with no Chinese characters, suggesting the author was a woman. While it was true that more than one lady of my acquaintance might have had reason to be annoyed with me, I could think of none who had cause to want my head on a spear.

The messenger, such that he was, had not waited for a reply. Clearly, this meant the author of the poem intended to choose the time and place to contact me again. That only left the choice of whether I wanted to wait. I decided against it.

I returned to my rooms long enough to fetch a long dagger and tuck it into my sash. While I was perfectly within my rights to bear weapons on the streets of the capital, such things were considered a little ungentlemanly. The long
tachi
especially was really a weapon of war and tended to attract attention. I wore it only when the situation dictated it would be foolish not to do so.

The Widow Tamahara’s establishment was in the area near the Gion Shrine, between Shijo-dori and Sanjo-dori; the foot traffic on these streets was good for business, she said. They were also good for losing one’s self in the mass of people, if one wished it so or not. Even though the boy called Nidai tended to haunt the area, finding him might take considerable time. Still, without a current mission or patronage or the means for more saké, it wasn’t as if I had anything better to do.

I was, I confess, curious.

Since I had no idea where to begin, I let myself wander where my feet took me, swept along on the current of people. I passed the magnificent shrine itself as I followed Shijo toward the river, while the crowds thinned but never quite abated. Just past the last of the shrine outbuildings, an
asobi
had set up to perform in the shade of a maple. A small crowd had gathered to watch the lady dance, and I, noting no one I recognized as Nidai in that crowd, started to move on.

I’m not certain what made me hesitate.
Asobi
were common enough in the capital, dancing and singing for their livelihoods and, more likely than not, providing more personal entertainments as well; because there were many unattached young men of means associated with the Imperial Court, the
asobi
were in great demand.

Yet there was something odd about this dancer. Nothing immediately obvious—she was charming and quite skilled. I judged her age at around thirty, perhaps a little less. Her gestures and movements were precise, flowing, and graceful; when the dance required that she spin her fans in the air, she did both at once in perfect precision as nimbly as a juggler, catching both as if there had never been any question of the matter. It occurred to me that I had never seen a better execution of this particular dance since my brief time at Court.

Not even at Court,
I thought after some reflection.

In a moment or two, I realized what had caught my attention, aside from the woman’s beauty and skill; it was the
asobi
’s hair. She wore it long, as nearly all women did when their circumstances permitted, and it reached just past her knees. There was nothing unusual about that, but the way she had dressed it was; she had confined her hair in a sort of loose ponytail tied at the middle of her back with a bright blue ribbon that matched her pink and blue
kimono.
What was unusual was the second blue ribbon, tied much closer to the nape of her neck. I don’t think I had ever seen that done before. Perhaps it was a new style, but such things were no real concern of mine, and certainly no reason to delay my search.