The Pillow Book of the Flower Samurai (36 page)

‘May the Goddess Hayasasura-hime, who endures in the bottom land, grant you forgiveness.’

I think he will stop. No. He intones my list of impure crimes, and the bristles pierce my skin and Golden Gate.

Drops of blood fly and glint against the lights. Do not scream. I hold the Goddess of Mercy in my mind . . .

He stops. Breathes hard. ‘The coin. My payment.’ He takes it slowly from me, caressing my palm. ‘The priests taught me in the monastery. I grew to enjoy, relish, yearn for this. You crave it as well, I can see.’

I stifle the vomit surging sour and hot in my mouth.

‘I insist on you, my own Creator Goddess, my own Izanami. Next time I will be Izanagi, and we will make the world.’ He strokes his genitals, motions for me to dress and turns away, with more Purification chants.

With his back to me, my heart liquefies to molten metal, where my vengeance will be forged at my leisure.

BOOK 11

I. Abstention

Misuki waited outside the altar room and bowed, acknowledging me. Shooting a wide-eyed belligerent glare to the guard, the one with the missing earlobe, her eyes softened when she looked at me. She took a cloth to wipe the blood from my face and neck. Cleansing baths were next.

Abstention required silence. On the way I memorised each guard’s face. They had all shared in this conspiracy: they were strangers. Where were the samurai who had guarded me in battle and to Rokuhara? Perhaps Michimori had not ordered this torment. Yet I had seen the order, myself, surrendering me to such a man as Goro. The samurai, especially Tokikazu, knew I was to undergo Purification. And I was, after all, the property of the Echizen governor.

I faltered in the corridor because of the stinging gashes between my legs. The baths seem to move further and further away until my legs felt as if I had shuffled four
ch
ō
.

Entering the room for Cleansing, I saw yet another priest. He wore Goro’s threatening smile, the tips of his ugly white teeth gleaming and his clouded left eye reflecting the candles and the water. This priest scattered salt at the bath’s corners. Perhaps not like Goro, I thought, and fear began to release its death grip on my chest.

I breathed more easily. I had only to be cleansed by immersion in water. I turned to Misuki, whose eyes had widened with dread. The priest was pouring heaped bowls of salt into the tiny bath. In the Village a pinch of salt at a bath’s corners had sufficed. There were no friendly faces. I could not avoid stepping into this new scourge.

‘All is ready for you.’ The priest motioned to me, grinning with his thick lips.

I did not speak. I did not make eye contact with this new
oni
. I straightened, memorising his features.

The gashes dripped blood down my legs, and the bruises already showed. Seeing this, Misuki went into the water first, holding out her hand. I clutched it as if it were my
tachi
, but tighter.

She moved her lips, but made no sound. I recognised the spell for protection from the Lotus Sutra: ‘
Iti me, iti me, iti me, iti me, iti me; ni me, ni me, ni me, ni me, ni me; ruhe, ruhe, ruhe, ruhe, ruhe; stuhe, stuhe, stuhe, stuhe, stuhe svaha
.’

I did not make a sound in Misuki’s steadfast presence. This torment thwarted Goro’s purpose, although it intensified my agony. The saltwater closed my wounds and helped me heal without scars.

Several priests led us back to our temporary quarters. During those long, silent days, we wore white silk and plain straw shoes, and ate only rice gruel. I saw only the faces of those who had persecuted me, especially that of Daigoro no Goro, or Three Eyes, named for the
oni
in one of my stories: I remembered each priest – blackened teeth and little goatee, right earlobe missing, large front teeth, thick lips and clouded eye, and the lost three teeth. Those faces bred my plan for reprisal. It burned brightly, like dry leaves for kindling, unlike my vengeance for Tashiko, which had simmered like a pot on a dying fire.

I needed to take my revenge as thoroughly as I had been tortured. I did not think my heart could heal until I saw the head of Three Eyes on a stake. My desire for his death surprised me. I heard Tashiko’s voice and remembered her gentleness, yet my craving for revenge was that of a raging boar.

Tashiko’s agony!

All my stories for nothing

Cruelty again

An armoured fist within my heart

Must strike this demon, and soon!

During my days of Abstention, fan-shaped papers folded into little books distracted my thoughts from vengeance. On every page, drawings danced below the text, which was highlighted with gold and silver.

After three days an unknown priest stood at my door to inform me my Abstention was complete. Tokikazu, Sadakokai and Mokuhasa accompanied me through the corridors to my new home. The new, heavy kimonos pressed against my wounds yet even Tokikazu, handsome and dressed in beautiful clothes, did not seem to notice any difference in my gait. Three Eyes, as sly as he was cruel, had not injured my face, neck or hands.

I was relieved to see the honourable faces of the samurai, and they had brought Emi with them. She cried when she saw me, so great had been her loneliness. I held her and wept too.

We arrived at a nearby mansion. Tokikazu announced, ‘This is an entrance for wives and concubines.’ Sadakokai tapped the little bronze bell attached to a carved demon. The sound trickled through the dark corridor. I heard footsteps.

My heart shuddered. More torture?

In the formal way, Tokikazu stated, ‘You are to be cared for by the women who will come. The honourable Aged-One-Who-Waits-On-Women will answer all your needs. It has been an honour, my lady Kozaishō.’

They all bowed to me, to Misuki and even to Emi. I was being treated as a wife or concubine. Could I believe Michimori’s poem? Anxiety tightened my throat. It was not my place to say anything but to thank Tokikazu and bow, which I did. He and the others moved back to the end of the corridor. Then we waited until the door opened.

II. Obāsan

An old woman stood at the door, looking like the perfect grandmother. She had the whitest hair and, with her flying white eyebrows and creased skin, her face glowed golden. Her warm black eyes moved quickly in welcome, for which I was grateful. We greeted each other properly. She said, in a cracking but strong voice, that the honour was hers and pointed her claw hand towards my rooms. I followed her to another new and unknown destiny and thought of a poem from the Lotus Sutra:

Between the oceans

Of the living and the dead

I profoundly wish

For the Heavenly Way World

Unharmed by these churning seas

The robes of the honourable Aged-One-Who-Waits-On-Women were shades of blue within the same fabric, like the colours of the sea, an unfamiliar yet elaborate brocade. Her tiny body appeared as if it would snap like a dry branch in midwinter. She walked at such a pace that I had difficulty keeping up, with my injuries. I had barely a moment to examine the rich woods framing each of the
sh
ō
ji
.

Even with her speed, the old woman’s braid did not swing. When she stopped, she said, ‘These are your rooms, mistress. The Lady-in-Charge-of-Rooms and two serving girls are coming. A bath is being prepared now, and then there will be food.’

I nodded as she paused for breath.

‘If there is anything else you require, you need only ask the Lady-in-Charge-of-Rooms.’ She did not smile with her lips but with her eyes.

Lowering mine in modesty, I nodded, bending my head.

‘Governor Michimori is thoughtful,’ she said. She pointed to an opened box on the table that contained extra strings for my instruments. ‘Especially for a man with no wives.’

I bent down, for she was much shorter than I, and kissed her wrinkled cheek, calling her Obāsan, ‘grandmother’. Her cheeks changed colour at the informal word. As our eyes met, we giggled. Fast friends from that moment, we helped each other through the next months.

Before Obāsan returned, I was briefly alone with Misuki and Emi. Misuki and I needed a code, so I declared, ‘From this time until such a person as Diagoro no Goro will no longer exist, he is to be called “Three Eyes”.’

‘Why, Lady Kozaishō?’ Emi tugged at my sleeve as she had when she asked about the dances at Chiba’s.

‘He is Three Eyes because he is named after the
oni
in a story. Remember, Three Eyes marries a daughter while he is in human form. He takes her to a house, which has a hundred and one rooms. When she looks into the one forbidden room, she realises he is an
oni
who wants to eat her.’

‘While escaping she meets the prince!’ Emi recalled.

‘Yes,’ Misuki said, ‘and the prince sets a trap.’

Emi squealed. ‘I remember! A lion and a tiger eat the
oni
!’

I promised myself that some day I would see Three Eyes’ head on a stake. Later, since Misuki was the only one who knew what had happened, I demanded that she tell no one.

‘My lady, I do not understand why such evil, such injustice, is rewarded with our silence. Our new lord would certainly punish Three Eyes,’ Misuki argued.

‘No.’ I responded, sighing. ‘We must not tell him for many reasons. Three Eyes may be using me as a pawn to injure our lord. We must not take risks in a game when we do not know who are the opponents. Also, I do not wish to begin my service to Governor Michimori by complaining. See? My injuries are already healing. If such violence is done without cause, the evil-doer, in time, will be punished.’

‘Like the story of the Handless Maiden,’ Misuki said.

‘Yes. The parent who cut off her hands was punished with a horrible death. If this priest is what Tokikazu calls the People-Above-the-Clouds, I wish we were under the earth. Yet I believe that justice will be done.’

III. New Home

Since it was summer, the large brazier in the centre of each new room was empty. The first room included an alcove,
tokonoma
, in which a painting of men and women in elaborate clothes hung. A writing table offered cushions partly hidden by its legs, which were carved with leaves. On this table, next to the
biwa
and
koto
strings, sat a lacquered writing box with inlaid mother-of-pearl trees – so beautiful. It was a shame my writing was poor.