Dream of a Spring Night (Hollow Reed series) (7 page)

The priests taught that women could not attain paradise, but she preferred to believe them wrong.

The door slid open, and her youngest daughter slipped in.
 
Nariko was, like her name, a gentle, agreeable child.
 
Two years younger than Toshiko, she had none of her sister’s obstinacy.
 
Her eyes were wide with curiosity as knelt beside her mother.

“Yasuhiro is taking a guest around,” she announced.
 
“Who is he, Mother?
 
He is very handsome.
 
Is he a teacher?
 
Yasuhira says he came from the capital.
 
Does he know Toshiko?”

Lady Oba suppressed a smile.
 
“Nariko,” she said, “calm yourself.
 
You must learn restraint.
 
Young women need to control their emotions.
 
Men dislike them.”

Nariko instantly folded her hands in her lap and bowed.
 
“Yes, Mother.”

“The visitor is a doctor
 
. . .”

Nariko’s eyes flew to her face.
 
“Is someone ill?”

“You see how much you need to practice self-control?
 
I was about to explain that he is on his way to his own family and stopped to bring greetings from your sister.”
 

Nariko’s face fell.
 
“Oh, is that all?
 
Just greetings?
 
No news?”

“No news.”
 
Lady Oba had decided that there must be no mention of Toshiko’s letter, nor of the one she would write to her daughter later that night.

“Then may I go with Yasuhira?
 
I’m sure Doctor Yamada has stories to tell about the capital.”

Lady Oba shook her head.
 
“Remember your age.
 
You have put on your train this year. It is no longer suitable that you run after your brothers and male guests.”
 

Nariko looked astonished.
 
“Why not?
 
Toshiko was allowed to.”

Lady Oba compressed her lips.
 
Yes, she thought, and
see
where it got us.
 
“Enough,” she said.
 
“Go practice your zither.”

Grass shades hang in doorways and hide the person inside while allowing her to look out.
 
It is always the women who are inside, hidden from sight.
 
Men remain outside, on the veranda.
 
Inside lives and outside lives have little in common.

A woman may welcome the visit and converse, or she may hide herself away in the darkness.
 
There are no other choices for her.
 
The pair may exchange poems by pushing them under the shade.
 
If so, the gentleman, if he feels inclined and his imagination has painted a seductive image of the hidden lady, may return at night to breach the thin barrier between them.
 
But that is always his choice, not hers.

The day Sadahira returned to the hidden garden, Toshiko felt shy and stayed behind the grass shades.

She was shy because she had spent the intervening days and nights thinking of him and hoping fervently that he would come again.
 
She reminded herself repeatedly that he would not trouble and that it was even unlikely that he would deliver her letter.
 
A busy young gentleman did not waste his time on a mere country girl.
 
Yet he had such a very kind face, and he had been so gentle with the cat.
 
That surely meant that he was a good and kind man.
 
But still, a handsome man like that no doubt already had a wife and children to occupy his leisure.
 
Several wives even, for someone so very handsome.

Thinking so much about him during the day caused her to dream at night, and she would wake up hot with shame and half-understood desire.
 
But sometimes dreams did come true, and in the privacy of the darkness around her, she put her lips to the small scar on her hand where he had touched her.
 

Every morning and every night, she returned to that small eave chamber and peered through the grass shades at the empty veranda and garden beyond.
 
After a while, when it seemed reasonable to think that he might have completed his journey, she carried her sewing or a romance novel with her and spent the time dreaming of impossible things.

Toshiko knew all about flirtations through grass shades and about secret visits by lovers in the dark.
 
The breaching of the grass-shade barrier signified their union.
 
She knew these things from reading courtly tales, and she wished more than anything in the world that it would happen to her.
 
But it could not be.
 
It must not be – even if he thought of it, as he would not, for why should he?
 
He was simply a kind man who had taken pity on her loneliness in the same way he had pitied the cat.

And so it was that she was shy and a little dizzy with emotion when she found him seated on the veranda outside the grass shades.

Ah, she thought, he was keeping his promise by delivering a message from home.
 
And afterward he would leave, and she would never see him again.
 
This filled her with such grief that, when she spoke to him, her voice brimmed with unshed tears, even though she only said, “Good morning, Doctor Yamada.”

He bowed from the waist, and she wished the shade gone so she could see him better because already her memory of his features was vague.
 
She wondered if his eyes were smiling at her as they had before.
 
Eyes, she thought, could caress as well as hands.
 

Should she dare to raise the shade?
 
Or step outside?
 
No.
 
Lady Sanjo was always watching -- watching and waiting.

In his warm voice he said, “I hope I find you well, Lady Toshiko.”
 

She murmured, “Yes, thank you.
 
And you?
 
Are you well?”

“Quite well.
 
And your cat?
 
How is his ear?”

“Almost well.
 
Thank you.”

It was a clumsy exchange, but she could not find the right words.
 
She had no talent for sparkling repartee or even cheerful chatter – especially not with him.
 
The emotion of the moment made her eyes brim again, and she was grateful for the shade between them.

“I delivered your letter,” he said.
 
She could hear his smile in his words.
 
“Your lady mother is well and has sent an answer.”

Oh, dear, she had forgotten her mother.
 
Guilt made her voice a little stronger.
 
“How very kind of you,” she said.
 
“I regret that I have given you so much trouble, but your news brings great joy.”
 
She stopped.
 
It was too stiff and cold when she wanted him to know how very much his kindness meant to her.

He said nothing but seemed to look very searchingly at the grass shade between them.
 
Then, reaching into his sash, he took out a letter and pushed it under the shade.
 
She took it, felt the warmth of his body on it and pressed it to her cheek before slipping it inside her gown between her breasts.

And now, she thought, he will make his good-byes and walk away forever.
 
She braced herself, considered lifting the shade a little when his back was turned so she could see him clearly one more time, to hold his image in her heart.

But he said instead, “The countryside near your home is very lovely.
 
Your younger brother showed me around.
 
I saw the places where you used to walk and ride your horse.”

The thought of what Yasuhira might have said caused her to gasp audibly.
 
She put her hand over her mouth.

He misunderstood.
 
“I have distressed you,” he said quickly.
 
“Forgive me.
 
I thought perhaps you would like to talk about your home.”

She lowered her hand.
 
“Oh, yes,” she begged.
 
“Please tell me.”

“Well, then, I did not speak to your father.
 
He was away with your brother Takehira.
 
But your mother was very kind and saw to it that I was given lodging and a fine meal.
 
There was fresh fish and even some wild duck.
 
I haven’t tasted food like that since I left home.”

“My family still keeps to the old ways of hunting,” she said apologetically, remembering the rich taste of roasted pheasant and dove, and of rabbit stew.

“Your younger brother, I think, shot the duck.
 
He showed me the horses.
 
They were very fine.”

She wanted to ask about her own mare, Fierce Storm, but was afraid to.
 
They had probably sold her by now.
 
Grief overwhelmed her again.
 
“I cannot go home,” she said in a forlorn voice.
 
“I can never return home again.”

He was silent for a moment,
then
said, “Surely you may visit your parents sometimes?”

“I don’t think so.”

He moved a little closer.
 
“It pains me that you are so unhappy.”

She said nothing because speaking her true feelings would be disloyal to her family.

“Perhaps you will make friends here,” he offered.

“Yes,” she said sadly, and both were silent.
 
She thought of Lady Shojo-ben and knew that even the kindest friend would not take the place of what she had lost.

Through the grass shade she looked at his wide shoulders and his shapely head.
 
His hands rested on his knees, and he inclined his face a little toward her.
 
She inhaled deeply to breathe in his scent and nearly swooned.
 
Perhaps, she thought, what I am about to lose is much worse, for there is no hope for us.

He sighed as if he agreed.
 
“I should not be here,” he said, “but I’ll return if you would like me to.”
 
He paused,
then
added, “As a friend.”

“Oh, yes,” she said quickly.
 
“Please.
 
But . . . I’m not sure . . . it is not permitted, I think.”

“I see.
 
Not here, at any rate.
 
And not like this.”
 
He stood,
then
said quite fervently, “I am your friend, Lady Toshiko.
 
Call on me whenever you need me and I shall come wherever you direct me.”

Toshiko had been lost in the perfumed darkness for four months when her father and brother arrived in the capital.
 
It was nearly
autumn
by now, and the roads were dusty and crowded with soldiers and pilgrims.

Oba no Hiramoto and his nineteen-year-old son, Takehira, belonged to the warrior class, masters in their own domains but despised by the court nobility.
 
On the highway, they met with respect, even fear.
 
Foot travelers stepped politely out of their way and bowed.
 
Peasants knelt.
 
But when they reached the capital, they encountered the court nobility who showed their disdain by raising their chins and staring right through them.
 
The Obas responded to this by making gross jokes about perfumed fops in their carriages.
 

The provincial warriors were fiercely proud of their lands and loyalties but had not been welcome at court until recently when the fops had come to realize that they needed the warriors to protect their ancient wealth and power.
 

Father and son wore full armor and were attended by ten armed foot soldiers.
 
Hiramoto was tall and broad-shouldered but had a pock-marked face and
grizzled
beard.
 
His son drew the eyes of young women because he was handsome and had a dashing narrow mustache.
 

The Obas were not wealthy but proud.
 
At the moment, they were dusty, hot, and tired.
 
City life was strange to them and that, along with what lay ahead, made them tense.
 
The father worried about the outcome of his journey, and Takehira was filled with nervous energy.
 
His eyes went everywhere, taking in the teeming humanity all around him, gazing at willows and canals, squinting toward the distant imperial palace and the green foothills beyond.
 
He noted that earthen walls enclosed whole city quarters of tenements and houses, each like a village in the larger city, each, no doubt, filled with shops and amusements for his delight as a member of the imperial guard.

“Too many beggars,” his father complained, and Takehira tore his eyes away from his golden hopes and looked at the people around him.

They made little headway.
 
Large carriages drawn by slow oxen impeded them.
 
Servants on their master’s errands ducked in and out of the throng.
 
Half naked porters bore their goods in enormous baskets on their backs.
 
Traveling monks strode along as if they owned the street, the small rings on their staffs jingling at every step.
 
And everybody was shouting.
 
The ragged children with limbs like sticks and distended bellies were everywhere, crying for coppers with their shrill voices.
 
They dashed into the street to reach for their bridles, touched their stirrups, hung onto their saddle blankets, pleaded with sunken eyes and hungry mouths.
 
And yet the smell of cooking foods was all around them.

Takehira tossed the children some coins, and a fight broke out between the hooves of their shying and rearing horses.

“Stop that,” snapped his father.

They caught up with a fine ox-drawn carriage.
 
Its driver and runner used their whips on the crowd and cursed at people.
 
Now and then, the reed curtain in the back twitched, revealing glimpses of colored silks inside.
 

Takehira stared.
 
“Who do you think she is?” he asked his father.
 
“A princess?
 
Maybe it’s Toshiko?
 
What if it’s
Toshiko,
and here we are, right behind her?”

“Nonsense,” grunted his father.

Takehira dismissed the thought of shouting a greeting at the lady, and looked instead at some palace guards riding the other way with their bows and quivers of arrows slung over their shoulders.
 
“Fine horses, those,” he remarked, “and look at that armor.”
 

This time his father did not hear him, for there was too much noise, a grand cacophony of shouts, creaking wheels, hoof beats, cracking whips, barking dogs, bells, and laughter.

They took Third Avenue to the river, passing more walls and fences of every kind, tall plastered ones with massive gateways, wooden ones, modest ones of woven bamboo, and poor ones made from twigs and brushwood.
 
Everywhere, as far as the eye could see were homes, temples, shrines, palaces, markets, and villas.
 

At one corner, two pretty young women in red silk skirts and colored jackets laughed and waved to them.
 

“Can they be shrine maidens?” Takehira asked his father.
 
“They seem very immodest.”

Hiramoto looked and gave a snort.
 
“Whores.”

Takehira grinned.
 
“Really?”
 
He whistled to the women as he passed.
 

Both immediately plunged into the street and ran alongside their horses.
 
One put her hands familiarly on Takehira’s knee.
 
“Welcome,” she cried in a high voice. “We know first-class lodgings where your lordships will be treated like princes.
 
Please follow us.”

Hiramoto reached for his sword.
 
“Away, scum!” he roared.
 

The women shrieked and scattered.

Takehira looked after them regretfully.
 
“What’s your rush?
 
We should stop and find lodging before we make our bow to His Majesty.”

But his father only grunted again.
 
A long bridge spanning the Kamo River took them out of the old city and into the green eastern hills where new temples and palaces with shining blue-tiled roofs and gilded pagodas beckoned from the trees.

They had been told that the Retired Emperor resided in His current residence until the Hojuji Palace was being built next to the temple by the same name.
 
Like His predecessors and any number of princes of the blood, He planned take the tonsure.
 
That time, Oba no Hiramoto feared, was near.
 
He had been praying that his daughter would find imperial favor before it was too late.

Takehira hoped that she had already succeeded and that fortune would fall on his family like summer rain, fortune beyond the wildest expectations of provincial gentry, fortune which would increase their power and influence in Settsu province for generations.
 

The perfumed fops needed the military power of the warrior families, and the warriors needed the political power that lay in the hands of emperors, ex-emperors, and chancellors of the realm.

But most specifically and immediately, Takehira expected an appointment with officer’s rank in the imperial guard.
 
That would bring with it a nice income, friends among the nobles, an endless series of entertainments, and all the women he could wish for.
 

At the enormous covered gate to the cloister palace, they identified themselves and their errand to guards, and passed into an equally enormous courtyard
surrounded
 
by
many galleries and halls.
 
The midday sun shining on glossy tiles, red painted columns and balustrades, and the white gravel underfoot blinded them.

“Amida!” breathed Takehira.

They reined in and blinked at the scene.
 
Carriages, as many as thirty of them, waited along both sides of the rectangle, their oxen unharnessed and their drivers and escorts sitting cross-legged in the shade of the ornate two-wheeled vehicles.
 
Soldiers walked about, their bows in hand, to keep an eye on things.
 
Black-capped and silk-robed officials held up their trains as they stepped gingerly in their full trousers.
 
Palace servants, in tall black caps and white clothing under brown cloaks, ran with messages and documents, and Buddhist priests stood in small groups.

“What happens now?” Takehira asked eagerly.

His father bit his lip,
then
called one of his men to his side.
 
“Go announce us!”

The soldier saluted,
then
looked around at the many halls.
 
“Where?” he asked.

Hiramoto muttered a curse.
 
“Idiot.
 
Over there.”
 
He pointed to the largest hall.

The man trotted off and returned quickly.
 
“Master, they say they don’t know us.
 
They say to go away.”

Hiramoto cursed again and hit the man on the head with his wooden baton.
 
“You and the others go wait over there.”
 
He gestured toward the carriages.
 
“Come, Takehira.”
 
He spurred his horse and galloped to the stairs leading up to the building, coming to a halt in a shower of gravel.
 
Swinging down from the saddle, he took the stairs two steps at a time.
 
A court official wearing a pale green silk robe and small lacquered court cap took a step back.

 
“You there,” Hiratomo roared at him.

Takehira grinned.
 
His father had attracted the attention of the entire courtyard.
 
He decided to follow suit.
 
More galloping and another rearing, splattering, whinnying halt later, he joined his father on the veranda.
 
The official, who had sent their man away only moments ago, glared at them.

Hiramoto advanced on him.
 
His heavy boots made the boards of the veranda tremble.
 
His large sword swung and his heavy armor flapped and clinked as he moved.
 
Takehira followed gleefully.
 

The official retreated farther.
 
“Stop!
 
You cannot come here like this,” he squeaked.

Towering over him, Hiramoto put his hand on the hilt of his sword and raised his voice.
 
“I am Oba no Hiramoto, son of Oba no Kageshita and nephew of Oba no Kageyoshi, descendants of Oba no Kagemasa, the hero of the
five-years
’ war, and I am here to see the cloistered Emperor and my daughter who is in his service.
 
Announce me instantly or I’ll find the way myself.”

The official paled.
 
“Your pardon, sir,” he stammered with a bow.
 
“Your soldier, er, servant, did not mention your errand.”

“He’s an idiot,” growled Hiramoto.
 
“And so are you to offend strangers without knowing their business.”

The official bit his lip and stared in despair at their dusty clothes.
 
Takehira put a frown on his face and a hand on his sword.
 
The courtier gave up his resistance.
 
“You will have to remove your weapons and boots.”

Disarmed and in their stockings, they were passed on to another official.

Inside the great hall, more men were waiting, but these were nobles, high-ranking clergymen, and senior officers of the guard.
 
Takehira eyed their uniforms and court dress with admiration and interest, but his father still glowered.

“I have written,” he grumbled.
“Why this delay?”

Officials came and went.
 
They wore black slippers and moved along in stiff, softly hissing silk robes.
 
Their faces were powdered, and a faint scent of perfume accompanied them.
 
Hiramoto wrinkled his nose in distaste.
 
They both stood stiffly, in their dusty clothes, their helmets under their arms.
 
Finally another official, more polite than the first, asked their business and departed.
 
When he returned, he told them that he regretted but His Majesty was in a meeting of national importance.
 
If the gentlemen would wait in another room, his Excellency, Counselor Tameyazu would come to speak with them.

Hiramoto’s face relaxed.
 
He said, “A great man, Counselor Tameyazu.
 
I know him well.
 
He came to my house with His Majesty.”