Dream of a Spring Night (Hollow Reed series) (8 page)

The official bowed more deeply,
then
led them to a small room under the eaves.

Here Takehira eyed the thick, springy grass mats under foot and the fine green shades that kept the sun out.
 
“A comfortable place,” he observed.
 
“Wonder where our Toshiko sleeps.”
 
He lifted the shade and peered out at another courtyard and more large buildings.
 
“I haven’t seen any women, have you?”

His father grunted and sat down on a cushion, crossing his legs.

“I expect she looks as beautiful as an angel these days,” Takehira continued.
 
“Can you imagine our Toshiko behaving like a real lady?”
 
He laughed.
 
“A grand lady, with other ladies waiting on her hand and foot.
 
I bet this palace is full of beauties.”

“Quiet,” growled his father.

Takehira sat down and fell into happy musings about graceful maidens in many-colored silk gowns.
 
In his mind, they flocked around him and looked admiringly at his armor.
 
From this delectable image, his mind wandered to the delights of being a guard officer, participating in drills and performing on horseback with bow and arrow.
 
He was a fine rider and an excellent marksman and pictured himself the center of applause, stripping off his sleeve to reveal his fine arm and shoulder muscles as he stretched the bow and placed the arrow in its groove.
 
Ahead would be the ringed target, and his arrow would hit its center.
 
Perhaps even the Emperor would see him, and all his women . . .

The door opened abruptly, and Counselor Tameyazu came in.
 
Tameyazu was a middle-aged courtier, clearly of high rank.
 
Takehira stood and saluted.
 
Hiramoto simply stood and nodded.
 
Tameyazu inclined his head with a thin smile but he did not sit down nor invite them to do so.

“Ah, Oba,” he said in an affable tone.
 
“Good of you to come.
 
All is well in Iga, I hope?”

“All is well, sir,” said Hiramoto stolidly.

“Good, good.”
 
Tameyazu waited.

Hiramoto cleared his throat.
 
“My son and I have come to return His Majesty’s visit and to see how my daughter fares.”

Tameyazu nodded.
 
“I see.
 
Very kind of you to wish to repay His Majesty’s favor, but not at all necessary.
 
I shall inform Him of your courtesy, of course.”

Hiramoto reddened.
 
“My daughter Toshiko?
 
She is well?”

Tameyazu frowned.
 
“Your daughter?
 
I’m not sure . . .”

Hiramoto tried once more, a little desperately.
 
“It pleased His Majesty to invite her to serve him.
 
I . . . we wondered if her service has been satisfactory.”

“Dear me,” Tameyazu said blandly.
 
“I wouldn’t know.
 
She is probably in the women’s quarters.
 
You must inquire there.
 
I shall send someone to take you.
 
Now, you must excuse me, it is a very busy time.
 
Enjoy your visit to the capital.”
 
He inclined his head again and was gone.

“What the devil is this?” snarled Hiramoto, after a moment’s stunned silence.

“What was that all about?” Takehira was confused.
 
“When will we see His Majesty?”

“We won’t.
 
But I shall want to know the reason why before we ride home from here like beaten dogs.
 
This must be your sister’s fault.
 
I shall get to the bottom of it.”

A servant arrived.
 
They put on their boots again and walked to another building.
 
Here they were asked to wait again.

This time, they were in an inner chamber.
 
Takehira had no opportunity to see any females, but he could hear women’s voices and the rustling of long gowns across the floors of the corridors outside.
 
Now and then someone giggled.
 
Somewhere a door slid open, and lute music sounded faintly from the distance.
 

When their door opened, he expected to see his sister.
 
But it was another lady.
 
She was his mother’s age but not nearly as handsome.
 
When she lowered her fan to adjust her train, he saw that she had a narrow face with a sharp nose.
 
She bowed to his father in a perfunctory manner,
then
knelt, announcing in a prim nasal voice, “My name is Lady Sanjo.
 
I am mistress of His Majesty’s women’s quarters.
 
They tell me that you are the father and brother of Oba no Toshiko?”

Hiramoto glowered at her.
 
“That is so.
 
And I wish to speak to my daughter.
 
Please bring her.”

Lady Sanjo drew herself up in disapproval.
 
“That is not usually permitted.
 
But as I may take this opportunity to warn you that your daughter has proved less than satisfactory in her manner and appearance, I shall make an exception.
 
You may wish to discuss arrangements with her, as I assume she will shortly accompany you home.”
 
She rose and, with another meager nod, swept out of the room.
 

I knew it would happen.
 
The arrival of the new girl did not remain a secret long.
 
It has attracted curious males.
 
Any new female at one of the courts is like a dish of honey to the young officers and the sons of court nobles.
 

I recall when I was an object of interest and, if I do say so
myself
, they kept coming even after the novelty wore off.
 
I suppose they could not “drink their fill from water sweeter than another well.”
 
Of course, I was always careful to hide, or at least raise my fan when in public view during the brief times when we entered or left our carriages or attended Her Majesty.
 
But one cannot always know when one is being spied on, and perhaps one’s fan does not open when it should.
 
These young gallants are very daring and persistent when they hear of a particular beauty, and it would be rude not to answer their admiring poems.
 
These days my position with His Majesty protects me from unwanted attentions, I am glad to say.
 
Nowadays, they gaze at the moon, “and fondly think of the vanished past.”
 

But to return to that brazen Oba hussy.
 
It has been stiflingly hot lately, and we have kept all the doors open and the lattices
raised
.
 
All the ladies wear their thinnest gowns and few layers of them.
 
In this undress, the girl managed to show herself off to the Captain of the Right Guards, who had just left His Majesty.
 
He told all his friends that there was a new lady in His Majesty’s women’s quarters and heaven knows what else.
 
I was unaware of her shameless behavior until it was too late and we were plagued by constant visitors asking about her.
 
What an irritating girl!
 
She is truly like “the ceaseless cry of the cicadas.”

Of course, I should have suspected it would not end there.
 
Far too many young men lost their way and had to be chased from the women’s quarters like pesky gnats.
 
Far too often did I find one of them seated outside the shades conversing with someone and lingering with the moon until
dawn.
 
As a rule, one assumes that a lady has received a visit from a brother or that the visitor carried a message from her parents or husband, but alas, people tell lies.

One day, I caught her.
 
She was in one of the eave rooms, kneeling just inside the lowered shade and pushing something under it to the outside.
 
And there on the veranda, clearly outlined by his shadow, sat a man.
 
Their hands must have touched.
 
No, worse.
 
The exchange of poems speaks of intimacy, of shocking night time visits, of bodies touching and hands caressing, of burning flesh.

It had to be stopped.
 
Heaven forbid His Majesty should discover her betrayal.
 
Or one of the other ladies should find out.
 
Such affairs cannot be kept secret for long.
 
And what if there were results?
 
In either case, the blame would fall on me.
 
The thought of His Majesty’s disappointment was an agony and I prayed for deliverance.

Thank heaven, my prayer was heard:
 
Her father and brother arrived, and instantly I saw the path to salvation.
 
They must be made to take her away with them.
 
The “tears she sheds in parting” will turn to dew and refresh me in the days to come.

They were country boors, both of them, just as I expected.
 
Crude, gross men with dark faces.
 
They even wore armor – inside an imperial residence!
 
After all the horrors that soldiers have committed in this city, and even to the person of His Majesty, these two wore their armor!
 
Not even the Taira and Minamoto generals dare to do that.

To be fair, the brother, being young, was not without
a certain
attractiveness.
 
He had a handsome set of shoulders and very good legs.
 
I was reminded that it will soon be time for the Sumo matches.
 
His muscles would make an excellent showing there.
 
For all his roughness, my poor woman’s heart beat a little faster at the thought.
 
There is something most pleasing about masculine strength when tamed by a woman’s gentle touch.
 
I must try for a verse on the subject.
 
The pine and the wisteria?
 
A rocky promontory jutting into a softly lapping sea?
 
A hawk, diving for a dove?

But I digress.
 

The father was the usual type.
 
He addressed me rudely, demanding to see his daughter.
 
Demanding!
 
It made me angry to see such country scum behave as if they owned us all.
 
I countered his bad manners by becoming very ladylike and reminding him that his daughter came here only by His Majesty’s excessively generous invitation.

Then the idea came to me in a flash, a moment of true enlightenment.
 
I added that by now she had outstayed her welcome -- a crooked branch in His Majesty’s flower garden.

It was only a little lie, really.
 
The girl would have been sent home sooner or later.
 
Making her leave now will spare His Majesty embarrassment.

I saw that my small stratagem was working when the father’s face filled with shame and righteous anger at his offspring.

So I sent her in, certain that her mortified relatives would instantly pack her up and remove her to whatever rough hovel they inhabit in their wilderness.
 
Once she was back in her rustic dwelling, His Majesty would hardly send for her again.
 
No doubt he has already awakened from that “brief dream.”
 

I planned to inform him that she had begged most urgently to visit her ailing mother.
 
Women her mother’s age are always ailing with something.
  
As His Majesty is a most understanding man and respects proper filial behavior, he would leave well enough alone, I thought.

But alas, they did not take her.
 
She came back and crept into her corner like a beaten dog.

When Lady Sanjo informed Toshiko of her visitors, she was so happy that she forgot the woman hated her.
 
She mistook the satisfied smirk for kindness, the glittering eyes for empathy,
the
rapid steps for eagerness to see Toshiko’s pleasure.

All she could think of was that her father and brother had come.
 
As yet she dared not hope they that had come to take her home with them.
 
No, that would be a joy too great to bear.
 
But they had come to see her.
 
It was enough.
 
In her grief and homesickness, she had grown afraid that she would never see them again, that in time she would even come to forget what they looked like and the sound of their voices.
 
She had felt abandoned and as if she
were
dead to them.
 
Now life stirred again in her veins.

As she hurried after Lady Sanjo to the distant room where visitors were taken, she thought of the letter to her mother.
 
She had broken a rule that one time only, because of her great fear that her mother was ill and dying.
 
That nightmare had been so dreadful that she had moaned in her sleep.
 
When Lady Shojo-ben touched her shoulder, she had woken drenched in perspiration and with tears running down her face.

She still saw every dreadful detail: her mother’s emaciated form, the feverish eyes, the horrifying spots on her skin – spots of decomposition as in those frightening pictures of the dead that the local temple would put up at year’s end -- spots that suppurated and grew larger until her beloved mother was no longer recognizable.

She stopped in sudden fear and cried to Lady Sanjo’s back, “My mother?
 
Oh, please don’t tell me my mother is dead.”

Lady Sanjo turned her head.
 
Some of the anger was back in her face.
 
“Nonsense.
 
Nobody is dead.
 
Come along.”

Instantly joy returned -- and with the joy, gratitude to the young man who had taken her letter and thus perhaps reminded them of her.
 
How kind he had been with his warm voice and those beautiful gentle hands.
 
Oh, he was even more handsome than her brother Takehira.

And dear Takehira had come with her father.
 
Oh, what happiness!

Lady Sanjo pushed back the door to the visitors’ room and said, “Your daughter.”

Toshiko brushed past her with a small cry and fell to her knees, touching her forehead to the boards.
 
“Father, dear Father, I am so glad to see you.”
 
As she bowed, she was astonished that they were wearing armor.
 
To be sure, at home her father wore his armor on official occasions, but here?
 
No one wore armor here except perhaps the guards on duty at the gates.

She followed the deep bow to her father with a smaller one toward her brother and sat up.
 
They looked well but neither spoke nor smiled at her.
 
She realized that something was wrong, that her father was fiercely angry.
 
His eyes blazed and his brows and beard seemed to bristle.
 
Takehira’s face softened a little as his eyes rested on her beautiful gowns, her painted face,
her
glossy hair.

But her father’s face was implacable, every muscle taut and his lips compressed.

“Father?” she whispered, feeling tears rise.
 
“Is something wrong?”

“You have shamed me.”

Just that.
 
Clipped and as fierce as his eyes.
 
She bowed again, keeping her head down so he would not see her tears.
 
Tears were weak.
 
As was a show of happiness.
 
She had offended by expressing her joy at seeing them.
 
She had lost her self-control.

After a long time, during which she tried very hard to restrain her tears, her father said, “The female in whose charge you are says that you are unsuitable and that we must take you home.”

Home?
 
For a moment she allowed herself another weakness.
 
The desire to leave this dark and stifling place and to see her mother again was so great that even her father’s disappointment seemed small when measured against it.
 
But then she knew it could not be because that would mean failure and failure was unacceptable.
 
Anger against Lady Sanjo stirred.

Without raising her head, she murmured, “She does not like me, Father.
 
Perhaps her words were not as truthful as they should have been.”
 

“Silence!”
 

Toshiko tensed.
 

“It is of no concern,” her father growled, “what a mere female thinks.
 
We came here to make our bows to His Majesty and were refused an audience.
 
How is this?”

Oh, heaven.
 
“He sees very few people.
 
He is the Emperor, Father.”

“He sees my daughter.
 
For that He owes me courtesy.”

“Father, you do not understand—”

“How dare you?”

Toshiko could not control her trembling any longer.
 
“Forgive me, Father,” she whispered.
 
“I only meant that customs are different here than at home.”

“How so?”

“I don’t wish to offend again.”

“Speak.”

“Your armor.
 
Nobody addresses Their Majesties in armor.”

There was brief silence,
then
her Father said, “The courtiers are glad enough of us in our armor when they need help.
 
But let it go.
 
I would have thought that by now you had found his ear.
 
Was he not pleased with your singing?”

Oh dear!
 
The imayo.
 
Toshiko had to make a clean breast of it.
 
“I have only spoken to His Majesty once.
 
He asked if I knew imayo, but I was afraid that he would think me very improper if I admitted it.”

“What?”
 
A roar, followed instantly by another:
 
“You fool!
 
That is why he sent for you.”

“Yes, Father.
 
I know that now, but I did not at first.”

A heavy silence settled over all of them.
 
Toshiko wondered again if her father would take her home now that all was lost.
 
Perhaps he would forgive her in time.
 
Surely he would.
 
He was just.

After a long time, Oba no Hiramoto said, “Sit up and look at me.”

She obeyed, hoping that the traces of her tears had dried.
 
Her father studied her appearance.
 
The anger was gone, replaced by resignation.
 
With a sigh, he said, “I had high hopes of you, daughter.”

She looked at him without blinking.
 
“I know, Father.
 
If I have truly shamed you, I shall gladly die.”

He compressed his lips.
 
“The fault is perhaps not altogether with you.
 
You are young.
 
But you have been taught that, as long as her father lives, a daughter must study his wishes.”

“Yes, Father.
 
And after he dies, she must study his life so that she may be worthy of her own.”

“You must never bring shame or dishonor on your name.”

“I know, Father.”

“If necessary, a son must die in battle for his family and his lord, but a daughter need only give obedient service.
 
It is a small thing.”

“Yes, Father.”

Another pregnant pause fell.
 
Toshiko began to feel a great relief.
 
She was to be forgiven and taken back into the family.
 
Her lip trembled and tears of gratitude pricked again at her eyelids, but she held her father’s gaze.

He was the first to look away.
 
He glanced up at the ceiling and said almost casually, “The great sage himself affirms that the three hundred songs in the world are free from evil thought.”

She frowned, trying to understand.
 
“The great sage, Father?”

He glanced at her briefly.
 
“Kung Fu Tse.
 
Never mind.
 
You’re just a woman.
 
It means that your songs are not improper and that you should not be ashamed of them.”

“But you brought Takehira back when he followed the shirabyoshi.
 
You said they were whores and low dirty women.”

Her father turned red.
 
“Hold your tongue, girl.”

She put her head down again and whispered, “Forgive me, Father.”

He cleared his throat.

“You must try again,” he said.

“What?”
 
She was so startled that the word slipped out before she could stop herself.

Her father snapped, “Don’t be an imbecile.
 
You must sing to His Majesty.
 
You must dance for Him.
 
You must win His heart.
 
How plain do you want me to be?
 
I thought your mother had explained the matters of the bed chamber to you.”

She was still for a moment, listening to her heart pound in her ears like the waves of the sea.
 
Then she straightened her back, the blood hot as fire in her face.
 
“Yes, Father,” she said dully.
 
“I understand.”

He looked away, embarrassed.
 
“What concerns parents must be a concern to a
child.
 
I hope we can rely on your obedience in this.”

“Yes, Father.”

Her father rose with a groan.
 
“Come, Takehira.
 
I am sick of this city.
 
If we make haste, we can reach Kohata by nightfall.”

Toshiko saw her brother’s face fall, but she hardened her heart to his disappointment.
 
It bore no comparison to her despair.