8. Lady Iga remembers the last mistress of Go-Daigo.
仕事で死にそうになっておりました。なんだか更新のたびに見に来て下さっている方もいるらしいので、嬉しくありがたく思います。ところで、先日浅草でZINEの即売会に行ってきました。ZINEって何、というとつまりは同人誌のことですが、アニメ・漫画に限らず自分で作っちゃうMAGAZINEのことだと解釈しています。
本作りが商業化される前のほぼ全ての本は、勅撰和歌集でも無い限り、つまるところZINEであったので、わたしたちは千年前のZINEが残されたことに感謝しながら源氏とか楽しむという恩恵に浴しております。この第八章の御伽局のような変人たちによって、火の中から何度も救われたであろう同人誌たち、そして結局燃えてしまった本たちこそが、この物語のもう一つの主人公です。
第八章 先帝の御息所御消息の事
After eating a rice ball and his mother’s breastfeeding, the little boy was sleeping on the Lady Iga’s back. The samurai boy carried her basket.
“Empress Dowager suspects that I attempted to horrify Your Majesty, but I really didn’t know what Lady Otogi said to her when she was dying. Moreover, in recent years, I have been watching this little gangster. I couldn’t go outside at night.”
Iga might have been from a samurai family. Her muscles were a bit thicker than every man in Kazuhito’s family. She was larger than ordinary women and taller than Kazuhito. She couldn’t be the woman who had come to him the previous night.
“After running away on the pass to Anou holding Kadoko-sama on my back, I returned to the pass to support our soldiers,” she said. “Only Her Majesty took care of the lady’s deathbed in this village because almost the entire workforce, including women, had to go to break the bridge in the valley or to stay up with bows and arrows in case the pursuers appeared on the pass that night of our exodus from Yoshino.”
She walked the mountain pass lightly, even though she was holding her son. The royals had to walk hard to keep up with her.
“Who was Lady Otogi, and has she passed away?” the ex-emperor gasped and said to her.
The lady stopped walking, looking back at him. “Yes, she is gone because of the fire set by your general, Moronao of Kō.” Her voice was moderate, and she didn’t look angry. However, he felt her suppressed emotion in her eyes. Yutahito and Naohito said nothing to her.
“Did she have a gown embroidered with green maple leaves?” Kazuhito asked her suddenly without hesitation.
Iga seemed slightly confused about why the ex-emperor asked her such a thing. “I... I don’t know how many dresses she had,” she said. “She had some amount of clothes as well as books and scrolls. When I saw her for the first time, she wore a male costume.”
“Excuse me, what are you talking about between you?” Yutahito asked them, but she began to walk again on the slope of the mountain pass.
They arrived at a fork of the trail with a view. There were short trees around the connection point and a small open area covered with lawn grasses. Round stones stood in the short grass in a half circle. Someone offered wildflowers to them. Below were the riverside bushes and the sparkling water surface. One narrow path forked there, going down to the bank of the river, and another continued to the mountain pass, terminating at Yoshino.
Kazuhito wasn’t satisfied because he could not see the entire scope of the Southern base on Anou. Because many nobles and soldiers had moved here, it would have been hard to feed themselves and their horses without a sufficient supply from somewhere. Iga might have carefully selected the way to avoid showing the guests their army size. Everywhere was the beautiful light green of spring, but the valley encircled three sides of the base, and deep mountains protected the back of the village. Anou was an impregnable fortress and an inescapable prison.
“We came here. I’ll tell you her story, so please pray and chant for her to rest in peace,” she said, crouching in front of a smaller tombstone. The lady nodded, and the boy spread the flower petals in his basket over the tombstones.
“Peonies,” Naohito said.
...
“Lady Otogi was the last mistress of the ex-emperor Go-Daigo. I heard from someone who liked rumors that she was the daughter of the princess between Emperor Kameyama and Honorary Empress Gojo, but it’s uncertain.”
Emperor Kameyama made his half sister, Gojo, his concubine. That was a scandal, even if they were divine descendants. Kameyama didn’t worry about such a notorious act. At the same point, his elder brother Go-Fukakusa, Kazuhito’s great-grandfather, was as bad as he was. He slept with another half sister of theirs. Both brothers seduced their half sisters even during the Mongolian raids in Kyushu. What did samurai think of the royal brothers in their sisters’ beds during the war of defense? Bad reputations cannot remain hidden from people for a long time. Kazuhito felt bitterness.
“Empress Dowager and I liked her, even though she was a bit strange. I think she was a kind of courtesan.”
A bush warbler chittered somewhere. The boy opened the picnic sheet on the grass. The royal family sat on the sheet, taking off their sandals. Kazuhito and Yutahito took off their grass hats. Iga also had sat and laid the sleeping toddler there.
“As you see, Your Majesty, I’m taller than usual women because my father is one of the imperial braves, and I haven’t been afraid of ghosts and demons even if I walk at night without the moon. When I was a girl, I served in the palace of Yoshino. Noble people sometimes held meetings or parties at night, and senior staff made me bring food or drinks between the buildings.”
…
I was walking under the full-blooming cherry blossoms. Although it was in the time of the new moon, I thought every cherry tree shone faintly in the darkness. The winds were cold for me, and I hurried up to bring hot sake for Kadoko-sama.
I noticed some lights in the old building at the corner of the temple. I felt strange because the place was usually uninhabited and unused for ceremonies.
I blew out my torch, took hold of the knife in my futokoro, and hid in the cherry tree near the entrance of the building. I smelled an unknown incense odor, which was uncomfortable.
Several people who came out of the door talked to each other in a foreign language. I didn’t know if it was Korean or Chinese. The men wore black clothes and masks like mountain monks, and the tallest one, who seemed to be their leader, called someone’s name who was still inside the building. After a brief interval, a man came up from the door, and the light inside the building was turned off. He wore a coat, trousers, and headwear for nobles. This young man told the tallest monk something closely in the same language. He was shorter than the other men around them, and his voice was as high-pitched as a woman’s. He leaned on the monk, and the monk bowed to kiss his lips through the mask. I thought I had seen something wrong that I couldn’t tell anyone. Then he looked back and set his eyes on me in the tree’s shadow. I took a breath and tightly held my carrying box and the knife, but he just winked at me without letting the men notice me.
After the monks and he had left, I brought the cold sake to Empress Kadoko. She said she slightly sensed an odd smell from me, and I told her about the monks in the unused place of the temple at night, without saying anything about the strange nobleman. She shook her head with an air of disgust and asked servants to heat a bath for the emperor. Her bloom-gazing party was over.
The next morning, I saw drawers and bookshelves carried into a room at the corner of the palace. A young noble lady commanded the move. She dressed in a pale pink robe, weaving the pattern of cherry blossoms, so she looked like a spirit of the spring blossom. I gazed at her wonderfully on the passage, and she set eyes on me. Then I noticed who she was, so she just winked at me.
Emperor Go-Daigo called her Otogi. She comforted him in his last days before his demise. You may be surprised, but despite their ages, she was friendly with Empress Kadoko. I knew they sometimes exchanged their books and poetry anthologies. She gave birth to a princess after he had gone, and we respected her as a mother of the ex-emperor’s last princess.
The lady had a lot of knowledge but was open and friendly with everyone. When I was in need because of my father’s request to restore the honor of his friend’s death, she advised and made a ghost story for me. If I told the Empress Dowager that I had met a ghost of the warrior who needed a ceremony for his soul on a summer night, I would not need to tell her about my father’s complaints. That worked well. The lady was good at telling fantastic stories and loved stories too much. It was almost crazy...
…
Iga stopped her words, blushing a bit. She said to the tombstone, “Sorry.”
She picked up a small bamboo bottle with a lid from her futokoro and poured sake on the tombstone. “In the new year of Shōhei 3[1], Empress Dowager lent a series of books to Lady Otogi. She was so pleased...”
Kazuhito interrupted her words. “Shall I try to guess what series of books those were?”
“Oh, do you know?” she said.
“It was The Tale of Genji, wasn’t it?”
“...Yes, why do you know that?” Iga narrowed her eyes.
“I just thought of it,” he said.
The royal family chanted sutras while clasping their palms. After that, Naohito asked Iga, “I’m afraid you’ll be angry, but I thought you all escaped from the Yoshino raid because someone leaked the plan before it happened. Why did the fire kill her?”
“She ran away from the palace with her princess once in the evening. However, after she asked servants to take care of the princess during the exodus, she returned to Yoshino to take the books back...” Iga wiped her eyes. “Poor lady, if I were there, I would have beaten her into submission to stop such a silly thing.”
“I’m sorry. I was there,” the watchboy said apologetically.
“It’s not your fault. You were just a child,” the lady said. “You can talk about her return. Please speak about what you saw in your own voice for the guests,” she ordered him.
He bowed and began to talk.
“I ran away on the pass, taking the hand of her princess. As soon as we began to climb a hill, it started snowing. She slipped on the snow, and we were much behind the adults. The sunset had passed, and darkness came, although we had no lights. Suddenly, the sky filled with red light. When we looked back, firestorms rose from the temples and shrines through the woods. The princess was frozen there, so I carried her on my back and ran and ran. Finally, when we arrived at the small bridge in the valley, the adults almost broke it down to stop the Northern chasers. We asked them to wait for the princess’s mother to return, but they refused. The princess said she would stay in the valley waiting for her mother, so I got angry. I had to survive for my little brothers, and I left her hand and tried to cross the bridge alone. After I ran over the narrow bridge, they began taking off the plates. Just a moment later, a snowy woman appeared from the dark mountain path wearing burnt robes...”
He talked that fast and nonstop, and he coughed a few times.
“Here.” Naohito tried to pass him the bottle of water, and the boy shook his head to decline that in a polite way.
“‘I did it!’ she said in a delighted voice.
“‘They never noticed me because the snow was covering my tracks. The gods of Yoshino blessed me!’ she said. She was Lady Otogi, carrying a heavy bookshelf on her back. She lightly caught the princess on her arms, ran, and jumped over the void between the bridge plates. I feared a tengu had impersonated her figure. After they crossed the bridge, she hugged her daughter. ‘It’s OK,’ she said.
“‘The story has been saved!’”
Yutahito wiped his tears on his sleeve. “What bravery,” he said.
“She could not save herself,” Iga whispered, caressing the sleeping child’s hair.
“Empress Dowager cared for injured people on her own in the village. Lady Otogi walked there on her own feet and returned the books to their owner. Then she fell there. The harmful fumes and smoke might already have burned her inside out.”
Kazuhito stared at the tombstone of Otogi. It told him nothing.
“Brother, please explain what happened to you. I’m sure you didn’t get enough sleep last night. What dream did you have?” Yutahito said.
“A woman came to me and complained about my responsibility for burning Yoshino. Anyway, you two don’t have to tell that to our ladies, because women easily believe ghost stories.”
“I’m a woman, too. I’m a realist.” Iga crossed her arms. “I have made ghost stories as an excuse to indirectly express people’s opinions to decision-makers, while I am unfamiliar with real paranormal incidents. I would not like to think that you are lying, but as a possible explanation, a native in Anou, who had eavesdropped on her last poem, asked you to attempt to scare Kadoko-sama for a purpose...”
“What’s my benefit from doing such a thing? I simply want her to be kind to my family,” Kazuhito replied to her suspicion. “Anyway, the ghost woman in my dream said not to let a woman kill her. Thus, she thought she was alive. Supposing she was a true supernatural existence, she may be a spirit of a living one besides Lady Otogi.”
“So, who appeared before you?”
“I don’t know, so I asked you. The Southerners could have a plan to kill the woman, for example, a lady who betrayed her husband...”
“We won’t kill Akiko-sama!” she shouted. Then the toddler woke up and began to cry.
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t scold you.” Iga picked him up and rocked him. She seemed to feel that she had blurted out what wasn’t needed.
“At the water place, they asked you to release their families, who were caught by Chikafusa.[2] Didn’t they? Let me humbly say, tell Empress Dowager a new spiritual story, please. Ex-Emperor Kazuhito dreamed of a noble lady. She pleaded with me to save her life every night, so the ex-emperor is threatened by insomnia.”
“What have you heard from the farmers? Your Majesty, it doesn’t relate to your situation and is not your business.”
“A good ruler should not involve innocent people in their own family matters. As you know, it’s shameful to me that the sons of Amaterasu almost destroyed our national governance today because of their family problem with an initiative,” he said flatly but gently enough.
The lady shook her head to deny his words. “It’s time to leave. I’ll guide you to the palace,” she said, standing up and taking her son’s hand.
Yutahito interposed between this argument, “Brother, dreams are too complicated to be analyzed by inexperts. Your dream should be treated more carefully because people could be confused by a misunderstanding. We need a specialist in oneirology.”
He took his grass hat from the sheet and put it on his head. “Let’s return to our place, and we’ll ask Lady Iga to call a suitable specialist to interpret your dream and a high priest to pray to the dead soul.”
Kazuhito bowed to her and put on his hat and sandals.
The ghost, who was she? Could she be a mixture of multiple persons’ spirits...?
Would she appear before him again tonight?
The late-spring breeze brought up a fragrance of wisteria flowers from the riverside. In the distance was the never-ending sound of water. Fishers might have returned to their homes to take a nap. He picked up the tubes of scrolls and put them on his shoulder.
Kazuhito looked down the river. Some fine shining particles were floating on the mixture of splashing and sparkling water on the surface. He narrowed his eyes to gaze at them. Those were not water splashes but looked like white wisteria flowers.
Then, Kazuhito heard a woman’s scream. He dropped the scroll tubes on the grass and looked around.
“What’s up, Father?” Naohito said.
“Somebody called for help. Did you hear that?” He opened his ears carefully, and the lad looked at his father’s face tensely. “No, I didn’t, Father.”
“No one called anything, and it’s enough of ghost stories.” Iga picked up the empty basket and made the samurai boy fold the sheet.
Kazuhito took off the grass hat. The voice was familiar to him. The crying was so sad.
“…Akiko!”
He shouted and ran down the slope.
-----
1. AD 1348.
2. The first name of Minister Kitabatake.
Continued in Chapter 9. "A princess of Go-Daigo tells her hatred of stories from a tree. "
第九章 綴宮、樹上より狂言綺語の奢れるを憤りたまふ事 につづく
