Shike, p.80
Shike, page 80
"The Shogun's mother!" Bokuden spat. "You are responsible for all this, Taniko. You have always been a disobedient, ungrateful daughter."
Taniko laughed bitterly. "All my life you have looked upon me as a piece of goods to be traded when it suited you. Should I be grateful for that? Should I be grateful to you for plotting to murder Sametono? Being a woman, perhaps I am not capable of understanding the principle involved."
"Kill me," said Bokuden, "and a father's curse will follow you through the Nine Worlds."
"We want to see you praying, Father, not cursing," said Taniko with a smile she knew would infuriate him. "We hope you will live a long time. We feel no need to kill you. We do not fear that you will become a rallying point for those who may oppose us. You are not the sort men rally around. You have spent over seventy years of your life absorbed in the affairs of this world. Now we would like you to enter the cloister, shave your head, and turn your thoughts to the next world. Your worthy nephew Munetoki volunteers to take on the burdens of the Regent's office."
Bokuden's face reddened with fury as he glared at his daughter, his brother and his nephew. After so many years of scheming and plotting, Taniko thought, it must be unbearable to have the ultimate prize snatched away by your own family.
"I made our family first in the realm," Bokuden sputtered. "Your ingratitude will bring you a terrible karma."
"Excuse me, Brother, but it is karma, not your efforts, that put our family in this position," said Ryuichi. "You were merely carried along, as a piece of driftwood is lifted to the crest of a wave."
After Bokuden had been ushered off to a guarded chamber in Ryuichi's mansion, Taniko's uncle said with a smile, "He is right in holding you responsible for our effort to depose him, Taniko-chan. If you were not as clever and resolute as you are, I would have preferred to send you and Sametono into hiding and let my brother have his way with the Regency and the Shogunate."
"That would have led to disaster, Uncle," said Taniko. "In six months he would have infuriated the other great military families and they would have rebelled against him. And they would doubtless have felt compelled to kill all of the Shima for the usual reasons. This will keep the Regency in our family, but Eather will be out of the way."
Ryuichi laughed. "With no father or husband to rule over you, you are now the real chieftain of our clan, though I will now take the title. I shall ask that you be invited to meetings of the Bakufu Council, as the former Shogun's widow. Such things are not unheard of. Right now the Sung Empire-what's left of it-is ruled by the boy-Emperor's mother, the dowager Empress. And among us samurai, it has always been the custom for a wife to take over her husband's duties if he is killed or too badly hurt to manage his own affairs. So now, behind our little Shogun will stand his cousin, the Regent, and behind the Regent will stand the Ama-Shogun-the Nun Shogun."
"I am far from ready for the nunnery, Uncle, regardless of what my father said," Taniko answered, thrilled, but casting her eyes modestly down. But without those years of study and meditation with Eisen, I would never have been ready to seize this moment. I would not have known how to protect Sametono from assassination and save the Sunrise Land from the disaster of Bokuden. Just in time, too. The Elephant will undoubtedly be sending an army to wipe us off the face of the earth. And I know more about the Mongols and their Great Khan than anyone in the Sacred Islands.
Except for one other person, she thought, who knows more than I do about how they make war. But how can I find him?
Chapter Eight
"I think you know more than you admit about the late Shogun's demise," said Taniko.
Moko looked surprised and anxious. "I had nothing to do with your husband's death, my lady."
Taniko observed the heavily brocaded Chinese robe that Moko wore. Many stories of daring raids on the ships and coasts of Mongol-dominated China and Korea had filtered back from the west coast to Kamakura. If Moko hadn't gone on such raids, he had surely supplied ships to the raiders and been rewarded for it. He also wore the long and the short swords of the samurai. Hideyori had consistently refused to award samurai status and family names to commoners, no matter how worthy. Taniko felt that the samurai class should be opened up to bring in new blood and men of merit. Moko was one of a number of men whose services had been especially valuable to the Bakufu and who had been granted, along with their families, samurai status by Sametono, now that he and Taniko and Munetoki were securely in control of the Bakufu. Moko now wore his hair in a topknot, carried swords which he had no idea how to use and had a family name, Hayama, taken from the town where he had built his main boatyard.
"Everyone agrees that Lord Hideyori's death was caused by his horse's shying," said Taniko. "The poor animal was sent to the slaughterers to satisfy those who felt someone must be punished. But surely you heard that Jebu was seen that day."
"I heard many tales, my lady." The crossed eyes were not as amusing as they had been once, Taniko noticed. They were the eyes of a man who had seen much and had done much thinking. The heavy lids were outlined by deep wrinkles. Well, we're all getting on, she thought. Can I actually be forty-five?
"I saw him, Moko. He looked very aged. Moko-san, besides Yukio and perhaps some of the Zinja, you're Jebu's closest friend. I know he is alive. You must know it, too."
"I am not worthy to be called his friend," said Moko, looking sadly down at his broad, worn woodworker's hands. "My lady, you blamed the shike for Lord Kiyosi's death and for the killing of your son, Atsue. Now you want to blame him for the Shogun's death as well."
"Moko-san, the Shogun was planning to kill me. If he hadn't died when he did, I wouldn't be alive now." She told Moko how she had learned that Hideyori had deceived her, and how she had hated him after that.
"I promised the shike I would tell you nothing," he said hesitantly. "Then he is alive!" she exclaimed. "You've talked to him. Moko, tell me. Tell me everything, I beg you."
He sighed. "I can't break a promise."
"Yes you can, for the sake of a greater good. Would you have me live out the rest of my life in loneliness and despair?"
Eor a long time Moko did not speak. Einally he sighed again and said, "Please understand, I don't mean to make too much of my part in it. It was just luck that I was there. What the priests call karma. You gave me the idea, my lady, if you remember. It was you who told me that Lord Yukio and Shike Jebu had been discovered in Oshu, that Horigawa and the tarkhan Arghun were going there to arrest them, and that Eujiwara no Yerubutsu had secretly promised to betray Yukio. I never believed that Lord Hideyori wanted Lord Yukio brought back alive. He was not the sort of man who gives his enemies time to defend themselves."
"I wanted very much to believe that he intended to spare Yukio."
"It is a woman's duty to think well of her husband. I don't know what madness possessed me, but I thought somehow I could help the shike, warn him if nothing else. I did not tell you because I did not wish to compromise you with the Shogun. I packed various items into travelling boxes and hired a crew for my fastest kobaya, an open ship with twenty rowers. I sailed north along the coast from Kamakura. When my kobaya reached Kesennumo, near the capital of Oshu, I learned that Horigawa and Arghun and the Mongol army had already arrived at Hiraizumi, and that Lord Yerubutsu had given them permission to attack Yukio. I had just time enough to don the Mongol cavalryman's armour I brought back with me from China ages ago, trade some gold pieces for a horse, and ride off after them. My years among the Mongols helped me to join Arghun's troops without attracting attention. The greatest risk I ran was that I might be sent into the fight and be killed by one of our own people, or even by Lord Yukio or the shike. But no Mongol officer recognized me as one of his men, so none gave me orders to attack. And so it was that I saw Lord Yukio's last stand, my lady."
"Moko-san, much as it will hurt me, I want to hear what happened. No one has been able to tell me the whole story of that battle."
"It will be painful for you, my lady, but I'll try." He described Arghun's parley with Yukio and Jebu, Jebu's attempt to kill Horigawa, how he threw Torluk over the cliff edge, the heroic deaths, one by one, of Yukio's followers and Jebu's final charge as the chapel burnt behind him.
"He stood there, my lady, like the god of war himself, an enormous figure in black armour. He held out his arms and shouted, 'Kill me!' The Mongols tried to kill him, pouring arrows into him. Still he stood, leaning on the broken staff of his naginata, and he did not fall. He had killed so many of them by this time that they were afraid to venture closer to him. At last one officer rode close to him, brandishing a sabre. The shike seemed to lunge forward, and the Mongols shrieked that he was attacking again. But it was just that the breeze from horse and rider had knocked him over. It had only been his armour and the staff holding him up. He crashed to the ground, then rolled over the cliff edge and tumbled down the steep mountainside into the gorge. There he lay, half-buried in the snow.
"I scrambled down the hillside at once. I didn't care whether they found me out, whether I lived or died. I had some mad notion of saving the shike's body from any further indignity. The Mongols would have to kill me, too, I told myself, before I would let them cut off my beloved Shike Jebu's head. I got to the bottom of the gorge. There were soldiers there, but they were busy rescuing wounded comrades and retrieving their dead. I had just found the shike's body when the officers above shouted orders to retreat. I dragged the body behind a big rock. It was heavy as a boulder itself-I don't know where I got the strength. I heard the Mongols calling something about being attacked, that they had been betrayed, then they were gone, with that eerie Mongol way of vanishing instantly. They even left some of their dead behind. I was alone with the shike, weeping over his body.
"But not for long. I was just beginning to think of gathering wood for a funeral pyre when I heard the footfalls of an approaching horse, muffled by the snow. A figure on horseback came riding up the ravine. To my amazement, it was the Abbot Taitaro."
"Taitaro!" Taniko exclaimed. "I had no idea he was still alive."
"He does seem very old, my lady. You have the feeling he was there when the world was created and knows all the secrets of heaven and earth. When he saw the shike's body, all he said was, 'If only you could have outlived me.' Then he explained to me that the Zinja always know the whereabouts of their own. Now that Shike Jebu was gone, the old abbot had come to get his body and dispose of it according to Zinja rites. The old man did not weep, nor did I expect him to, knowing that the Zinja do not consider death an evil. He thanked me for saving the body. 'Now his urn will not be empty,' he said. He lit a pine torch and sat staring at the shike's still face for what seemed an hour.
"Then he gave a little start of surprise and bent forward. He whispered to me that he had seen a little wisp of vapour above the shike's nostrils. He began to examine the shike carefully, touching him here and there, removing his helmet and some parts of his armour that were not pinned to him by the arrows. He made me hold the shike's wrist, saying that he feared his emotions might trick him into finding signs of life that weren't there. But I felt it, too, a faint pulsing under my fingertips. Somewhere in the centre of that great, motionless, armoured form riddled with arrows, something lived. The old man warned me, though, that the shike would probably be dead within the hour. 'Even so,' he said, 'we ought to do what we can for him.' I could tell he was trying hard to control his own eagerness.
" 'The Self is not ready to drop the mask that is Jebu,' the old man whispered into the shike's ear. Out of pockets in his robe he began to take vials and folded papers. He blew a pinkish dust into the shike's nostrils. He trickled the contents of tiny porcelain tubes between his lips. He kept whispering Zinja incantations to the shike. Once I thought I heard the word 'devils.' We started to remove the arrows, which had been driven through every part of his body. The abbot asked me to cut away the shafts of those that had not penetrated vital areas, leaving the heads embedded. Those that were close to Shike Jebu's heart and lungs and stomach would have to be taken out now, lest they stab him to death when we tried to move him. I held the torch high while the old abbot cut into the deep wounds and gently drew out the heads of the arrows. He plastered over the wounds with medicated papers and cotton cloths. He must be three times my age, but his hands were steadier than mine have ever been.
"The night grew darker and colder around us. Abbot Taitaro explained to me that the cold was helpful. It slowed down the life processes in the shike's body so that he did not need as much strength to survive, and it would keep his many wounds from becoming diseased. He said that a slowing of heart and breathing and all other bodily activities was taught to all Zinja and was a state into which they could put themselves at need, sheltering their life energy within a seemingly dead body, as a fire may hide itself in the heart of a blackened coal. We wrapped the shike's body in robes and made a pallet of spears and quilts to carry him.
"Before we left the ravine we found a dead Mongol with reddish hair who was about the shike's size, and we dressed him in the shike's armour. The abbot said that Lord Hideyori's men would undoubtedly be looking for proof that Shike Jebu was dead, but to them, one Mongol would look much like another. By the time the head was carried to Lord Hideyori, it would have deteriorated so much it would be impossible to say whose it was. Thus, the head that your father identified as Shike Jebu's was that of some unknown Mongol." "Was the other head truly that of Yukio?"
"Yes, sad to say. Before the Mongols left the scene of the battle they managed to save Lord Yukio's head from the burning building in which he had committed seppuku."
"Why did the Mongols leave so hastily?"
"Their scouts told them Lord Yerubutsu's army was on its way to attack them and had already engaged their rearguard. Arghun didn't hesitate for a moment, and the Mongols dashed off without even taking time to collect the heads they had been sent to get. Lord Hideyori outsmarted himself. He arranged for Arghun to kill Yukio and then for Yerubutsu to attack Arghun, after which his Kamakura army would destroy Yerubutsu. Yerubutsu's attack on Arghun did not leave Arghun time to take Shike Jebu's head, and it gave Abbot Taitaro and me time to rescue the shike. The Oshu men fought and pursued the Mongols all that night, and by the time they came to the scene of the battle the abbot and I had left with the shike's body. They sent what they thought were the right heads to Kamakura, for which Lord Hideyori rewarded them by invading and conquering their country.
"It was a dreadful journey we made through the mountains of Oshu. Our destination was the Black Bear Temple of the Zinja, near Oma on the northernmost tip of our island of Honshu. Eor many days we trudged through snow-covered valleys between black crags, clambered over boulders as big as the Imperial Palace. We tied one end of the shike's litter to the abbot's horse and we took turns walking with the other end. The shike managed to live through all this. It's the nearest thing to a miracle I've ever seen. The Zinja medicines the old abbot carried helped, of course. His potions fed that tiny flame of life in Master Jebu as oil feeds a lamp. And they helped us, too. A certain powder we took with our meals of dried fish and rice cakes gave us new strength to push on. That powder even made me cheerful, despite the tragedy I had witnessed and the ordeal we were going through. If I could get some of that powder for my shipyard workers, I could build a navy as big as the Great Khan's in a year.
"At last we came to a family of woodcutters, and the abbot paid the eldest son to ride ahead to the Black Bear Temple for help. Two days later we were met on the road by a party of Zinja monks with horses and a palanquin, and the following day, we were at the temple. I was so exhausted I had even stopped worrying about whether Shike Jebu would live or die.
"He was still fearfully close to death. Our long trek through those cold northern mountains, with winter coming on, had nearly killed him. After they put him to bed in the monastery they removed all the arrows from his body, cleaned and dressed all his wounds with powders and papers and ointments and cotton cloths, and kept murmuring invocations over him. The abbot explained to me that these prayers would penetrate to his deepest self, which never sleeps, and call forth the shike's inner energies to speed his recovery. Along with these words, of course, went potions and such nourishment as they could get down his throat. But after a few days at the monastery he developed a fever, and we almost lost him again. Abbot Taitaro and I took turns sitting with him day and night. I watched the fever burn his flesh away until it seemed there would be nothing left of him but a skeleton. After several sleepless days and nights for us, his fever began to cool. It was then I noticed that all the red hairs had fallen out of his head and beard, and those that were left were quite white.
"He lay unconscious at that temple for more than a month. The heavy snows came and buried all the temple buildings. When I was not at his bedside, which is where I spent most of my waking hours, I was talking with the Zinja monks. I learned that among the brothers of his Order, even though the Zinja discourage hero worship, the shike is thought of as the greatest warrior of these times."
How strange that Hideyori falls from a horse and dies, Taniko thought, while Jebu is riddled with arrows, falls from a cliff and lives. He's alive, he's alive, her heartbeats seemed to shout, as Moko told his story.
"Shike Jebu started to stir restlessly one evening, an hour or so after the monastery cook had managed to get an entire bowlful of soup, drop by drop, down his throat. I watched him eagerly. His eyes opened. He looked at me and I started to weep for joy. I wanted to jump up and call Abbot Taitaro and the other monks, but I couldn't bear to leave the room for an instant. I waved my hands helplessly and jumped up and down and stammered. He stared at me, puzzled. I realized that his last memory was of Mongol arrows tearing into his body on a cliff in Oshu. He might be thinking that this was Paradise and that the Buddha bore a most peculiar resemblance to his old servant Moko.
