Shike, p.8
Shike, page 8
There was a searing pain. She gritted her teeth, but she could not stop herself from screaming aloud. It felt as though she had been stabbed in the bowels with a samurai dagger.
Horigawa opened his eyes and grinned at her, showing his blackened teeth again. "Your scream gives me pleasure," he whispered. He threw back his head, the cords in his scrawny neck stood out and his body convulsed momentarily. Then panting heavily, he stopped moving. He pressed his brow, covered with cold sweat, against her cheek, then pulled away from her. She felt wet and soiled. She pulled her skirts down to cover herself. Would she have to spend the rest of the night with this man?
And there was worse. She was expected to spend the rest of her life with him. There would be countless nights like this one. Despair overwhelmed her, and she wanted to cry, but with the little man still lying beside her, duty to her family forbade any show of her real feelings.
"That was very pleasant, my dear," Horigawa said with a small, false smile. "It has been some time since I have lain with a woman. I have simply been too busy. My work at the Court, in these difficult times, has allowed me no leisure. But it is not healthy for a man to abstain for too long. It puts the forces of yin and yang out of balance in the male body. You have made it possible for me to return to my work with renewed vigour."
Taniko felt a flicker of curiosity. "I am pleased to have been of help to you, Your Highness. Your work must, indeed, be very demanding." She added what good manners required her to say. "I cannot imagine that such a vigorous man would wish to abstain for very long."
"Quite right," said Horigawa smugly. He began to draw his dark robes together. "And for that reason I came to you tonight, even though, as you say, my work is very demanding. Although it pains me not to spend the night with you, I must leave you now."
"Will the streets be safe for you tonight, Your Highness? I saw the fighting last night and the burning of houses, and I was frightened." Actually, she had not been that frightened, but she hoped Horigawa would shed some light on what was happening in the capital.
"I appreciate your concern, my dear, but I am quite safe. My friend Sogamori, the Minister of the Left, has provided me with a samurai guard, both for my house and for my person when I go abroad. These disturbances are the work of rebellious elements who refuse to yield to the will of the Emperor. But they will soon be crushed, and you will have no further need for fear."
Taniko knew how meaningless was Horigawa's accusation that his opponents were rebels against the Emperor. All sides in any major political dispute claimed to be doing the will of the Emperor and charged their enemies with treason. Actually the Emperor had no power of his own, and his will was the will of whichever faction controlled him at the moment.
"These rebels, Your Highness, are they the Muratomo?" Taniko asked. "You must forgive my country ignorance, but I do not know."
"Women are not expected to know anything, my dear," said Horigawa.
Taniko resisted an urge to throw her candle at him. Instead she said, "But I find you so fascinating, Your Highness, that I cannot help but be interested in the world in which you move." The fact was that it was only his connection with high places and great political matters that made the thought of marriage to him at all bearable.
"Very nicely put," said Horigawa, rising to his feet. "On future visits I shall explain as much of matters of state as your female intelligence seems capable of grasping. Meanwhile, be assured that we are doing everything necessary to maintain the safety of the realm. More blood will have to be shed. We must deal mercilessly with rebels. We must be as fierce as were our ancestors of old Yamato. Many, many heads will fall."
A chill went through Taniko. She sensed that this pompous creature's feeble frame harboured a thirst for blood almost unnatural in its intensity. As a daughter of samurai she had known many professional fighting men, and none of them had spoken as lovingly of mass slaughter as did this scholarly government official.
She placed her hands on the floor and bowed. "It is an honour to be courted by a man of such greatness."
Tying his tall black hat under his chin, Horigawa turned and let Taniko raise the blinds for him so he could step out on the veranda and thence into the Shima garden, thus preserving the ritual secrecy of his visit.
When he was gone, Taniko turned to find her aunt was already back in the room with towels and a pot of hot water. Taniko sank to her knees and put her face in her hands. Her body shook with racking sobs. Aunt Chogao knelt beside her and put her arms around her.
"Was it that bad for you, my dear?"
"Aunt, I can't go through with it. I can't."
Chogao patted her shoulder. "You have to. Your father commands it. Your family needs this marriage." She stroked Taniko's hair. "I know it's hard. What you have to do is harder than anything I've had to do. I was married to a man with whom it is very easy for me to live. But you, because you must do the more difficult thing, will be the nobler person."
"I can't. I don't want to."
Chogao moved so that she was facing Taniko, her normally cheerful features suffused by burning seriousness. "You are samurai. What you feel does not matter. If you were a man, you would go to war and die. It would not matter that you were terrified of death, that you wanted to live. It would be your duty to your family. Do not women have as much courage as men? We give our lives, too, by marrying as we are required and bearing the children that are needed. Didn't your mother teach you these things?"
"Yes," said Taniko in a small voice.
"Then never forget them. If you do not live your life as a samurai, it is not worth living. Now lie back, my dear, and let me wash you. That miserable man. He should have spent the whole night with you and left at dawn. What sort of lover does he think he is? Oh, well, I suppose, considering his age and all the work he does, that's the most you can expect. He certainly doesn't have much fire left over for women, does he?"
Closing her eyes, grateful that Horigawa had left her as quickly as he did, Taniko said, "I want nothing more from him."
"Good, my dear. Be content with your lot. That, too, is the way of a true samurai."
From the pillow book of Shima Taniko:
My future husband's next-morning letter was cliched and perfunctory, and his love poem was copied straight out of the Kokinshu. The prince must think we have no books in Kamakura. Even my aunt, who keeps trying to persuade me to accept this marriage, made a sour face when she read his effort. But the letter and the poem mean he intend to continue courting me, and that is what the family wants.
In the bleakness of these days my greatest pleasure is my conversations with Moko. I have convinced my aunt and uncle that Moko is an expert carpenter whom I brought with me from Kamakura at my father's suggestion. My father will never know the difference. Fortunately, there are plenty of repairs needed around this house, and every day, pretending to give Moko instructions, I learn the news he has picked up in the street.
Samurai crowd the streets of Heian Kyo, swaggering about with their long swords. They accost people and demand to know if one is a supporter of the Takashi or the Muratomo. Such encounters lead to blows and sometimes to bloodshed, though both the Takashi clan chieftain, Sogamori, and the Muratomo clan chieftain, Domei, claim to deplore all disorder. There has not been any rioting as bad as that of the night I arrived here.
It was as though the riot in my soul that night was reflected in the streets of the city.
There was a full moon, too. That may have had something to do with it.
Moko reports that Domei has been heard to repeat the old Confucian saying, "A warrior may not remain under the same heaven with the slayer of his father." Since Prince Horigawa appears to be chief among those responsible for the execution of Domei's father, it is possible that I may find myself a widow soon after I am married.
The grounds of the Imperial palace are kept bare, but in winter certain herbs flourish in concealment under the snow.
-Eighth Month, twenty-first day
YEAR OF THE DRAGON
Ten days after Taniko's first night with the prince, her aunt warned her to be ready for his second-night visit.
It was all she could do to restrain herself from laughing as the spidery little man carried out the ritual pretence of slipping into her bedchamber. The blinds knocked his tall hat off his head, leaving it dangling from his neck.
But there was nothing laughable in the way he fell upon her, first blowing out the candle to thwart spying members of the Shima family. This night his lust was tainted with cruelty. Taniko discovered that there is a kind of man who is aroused by inflicting pain on others. None of the small torments to which Horigawa subjected her left any mark, but she was frightened and revolted. He must know, she thought, that my family will insist on my marrying him. Otherwise he wouldn't treat me this way.
After he had worn himself out on her body, Horigawa ordered her to relight the candle so he could dress himself. Embarrassed by the ugliness to which she had just submitted, Taniko kept her face turned away as the room filled with yellow light and flickering shadow.
Horigawa laughed and said, " 'She lifts the lute, and I can see but half her face.' " He spoke in Chinese.
Recognizing the poem, Taniko replied in the same language. " 'The music stops, but the player will not speak her name.' " The line seemed a subtle way to express the shame she felt at what she had undergone. Like the woman in Po Chu-i's poem, she felt she had known better days and had now sunk to a low status.
But Horigawa reacted, not to her line of verse, but to the language in which it was uttered. "Do you know Chinese?"
Taniko answered him in that language. "Our family is involved in trade. My father has seen to it that all his children are educated in the skills that are useful in commerce. Knowledge, he says, can be wealth."
Horigawa pulled his robe around his spindly limbs. "Who would have thought that a child-woman from the provinces would possess such a valuable skill?" He was still speaking Chinese. "Mine is a family of princes and scholars, and Chinese has been our other language for centuries. Do you read and write it as well?"
"Better than I speak it." Actually, she surprised herself by being able to carry on the conversation.
"Excellent. When you are my wife you will serve me as secretary. The trade with China is a great source of wealth for the Takashi, and with my own knowledge of things Chinese, I humbly endeavour to help them. As Lord Sogamori's authority continues to grow, we shall see a re-opening of closer relations with China, which our rulers have long neglected, to our cost. The communications I undertake with China are delicate and require secrecy. It is difficult to acquire servants who have the necessary education and are also trustworthy. You will be very useful to me."
"Thank you, Your Highness," said Taniko, trying not to grind her teeth.
The thought that Horigawa was already planning her future appalled her. She tried to remind herself that many of the women in the Sunrise Land had husbands as repulsive, or worse. It did no good.
As before, Horigawa excused himself from spending the night with her, citing the pressure of his world in the service of the nation. After he was gone, Taniko sat in the dark, crying softly. To refuse the marriage her family had decreed for her was unthinkable. But the prospect of a lifetime tied to Horigawa filled her with such despair and dread that she was almost ready to kill herself to avoid going through with it.
Almost, but not quite. Even in her anguish she felt a deep certainty that she wanted to go on living. And she was as strong as Horigawa; in time she could put a stop to his horrid little practises. He was more than forty years older than she; he could only grow feebler and easier to manage with the passage of time. And in the fullness of time she would be rid of him. She had only to endure; to do her duty as a samurai, as Aunt Chogao put it.
The prospect of working on Horigawa's Chinese correspondence was fascinating. The little she knew about China was information over a hundred years old that had been taught to her and her sisters by monks. How wonderful it would be to learn what was happening to China now.
Five nights later a messenger came from Prince Horigawa, and Ryuichi ordered the third-night rice cakes placed in Taniko's bedchamber. After sunset the prince's ox-drawn state carriage drew up before the western gateway of the Shima mansions without even a pretence of secrecy, and the prince, wearing his usual tall black hat and a scarlet and white cloak, more festive looking than the black and gold one he had worn previously, strode through the lamplit gate, while the Shima family peered at him through screens and blinds.
His performance with Taniko was as brief as at their first encounter. This time, though, he bit her breast at his moment of supreme pleasure. This left teeth marks, which he looked at with satisfaction afterwards.
As was expected of her, Taniko paid him a pretty compliment on his manly strength. Inwardly, she was quaking. They were now committed. She was bound to him. It was his third-night visit, with the ceremonial eating of rice cakes, which actually sealed their marriage. It was all over, and now that it was done she could see no future for herself. She felt a sensation of sinking into a bottomless black pool. She had done her duty as a samurai woman, yes, but might duty not be easier for a man, who died only once and quickly, than for a woman who had to die a little bit each day for years and years?
Horigawa nodded in acceptance of her compliment. "You are fortunate to have a well-born man of the capital as a husband. Think how miserable you would have been in the arms of some rough country man smelling of the rice paddies."
Remembering Horigawa's role in the executions of four years ago and his talk about massive bloodshed, Taniko thought, I would prefer the smell of the rice paddies to the stink of the execution ground.
Horigawa reached into the sleeve of his robe and drew out a scroll. "This is a report I received from a monk in China. I intend to present it to Lord Sogamori. You will translate it into your language and write it out in your best hand. I trust your handwriting is acceptable?"
"My handwriting has been praised," said Taniko, "but it is, of course, only the poor effort of a girl raised in a rustic fishing village."
The sarcasm escaped Horigawa. "Lord Sogamori is a man of some discernment, even though he is merely the chieftain of a samurai family. You must be sure to form your characters as beautifully as you can."
Taniko put the scroll in the drawer of her wooden pillow. She could hardly wait for some time to herself, to read the letter from China.
Horigawa ate the ritual rice cakes with her, honouring Izanami and Izanagi, progenitors of all the kami and creators of heaven and earth. She almost wished her own cake were saturated with poison. Then Horigawa removed his hat of office and lay down, resting his head on the wooden pillow she had placed beside her own. With a wave of his hand, he indicated that she was to blow out the candle.
They slept in the same clothing they had worn all day, as was usual. Side by side they lay in the dark on quilted futons. Horigawa was a restless sleeper who mumbled and moaned as if bad dreams troubled him all through the night. Bad dreams might portend future disasters for Horigawa. The possibility pleased her, because her only hope was that he might not live long. Perhaps he was haunted by the ghosts of those whose executions he'd demanded.
Taniko lay awake most of the night. As she had tried to do on her first night with Horigawa, she sent her mind on a journey-this time to Mount Higashi and the night she had spent there with Jebu.
In the morning the Shima family, led by Uncle Ryuichi, Aunt Chogao and their eldest son, five-year-old Munetoki, burst in on them with the expected cries of joy and congratulations. Having spent three nights together and partaken of the sacred rice cakes they were now officially married. However, Taniko would remain in the Shima household, as was the custom among people of their class, and Horigawa would visit her as often as he chose to bestow his princely favours. Taniko hoped lust would provoke him infrequently. She would go to his house when needed there for ceremonial and social occasions.
Taniko's uncle and aunt each picked up one of Horigawa's shoes. By taking the shoes to bed with them that night, they would try to ensure that Horigawa would never leave Taniko. Each sign that the world wanted this marriage to be permanent made Taniko's heart sink a little lower.
Horigawa imperiously handed Ryuichi a scroll. "This is a list of the guests I wish you to invite to the wedding feast. You will hold the feast on the thirteenth day of the Ninth Month, four days after the Chrysanthemum Festival. My diviners tell me that will be the last auspicious day for quite some time." He took another scroll from his sleeve. "I have also included a set of instructions on how the feast is to be conducted. It is essential that every detail be both correct and fashionable. I prefer not to rely on the judgment of a provincial family in such matters."
After Horigawa was gone, Ryuichi raged and wept. He was furious at the prince's contempt for his family, and appalled at the cost of the wedding feast, which, he claimed, would wipe out the family fortune if he followed Horigawa's instructions.
"Why did you have to marry that leech?" Ryuichi howled at Taniko.
Taniko bowed to hide her amusement. "Forgive me, Uncle. I regret that he causes you such pain. My father commanded me to marry him for reasons that seemed wise to him."
Ryuichi subsided. "We expect the marriage to do us good. But if my esteemed older brother had only let me arrange a match for you, instead of doing it by himself from such a great distance-" He smiled suddenly. "You, also, might have been happier with the result. You're a good daughter, Taniko, to put up with marriage to such a repulsive person."
"I intend to do more than put up with it, Uncle. I have always wanted to live in the capital and be part of the doings at the Court. I have never wanted the lot of an ordinary woman. If Horigawa is the price I have to pay to live here, I accept that price. Perhaps I will do well for myself despite the match my father made."
