Memoirs of the Warrior Kumagai. Donald Richie

      Not for me, however. I experienced those days and, though I do not want to be one of those doddering ancients forever bewailing necessary change, I cannot believe that my years have meant nothing. That is why I now wish to put them—my life— into some kind of order.

      Also to create a permanence where none unfortunately exists. I well realize that impermanence is our natural state, one that we would—as the Lord Buddha suggests—be wise to accept. Nonetheless, I am human enough to resent such eternal evanescence. So I scribble to explain myself to myself, though none but perhaps a few of my descendents will read this after I am gone. Yet, like everyone else who has ever lived this sorry life, I want to be remembered. And I want myself and my times to be remembered accurately, which is among the reasons I resent those sensationalizing scribes down the hall.

      Things as they then were ... as I write, I remember how Kiyomori appeared that first day, sitting there, black upon his black horse. He seemed so much himself. That is how I thought of him: this man is entirely who he is. And behind this thought was my own idea of myself—so unformed. Kiyomori could experience no doubts, and I was myself at the time composed of little else.

      To become a consistent, understandable person; all of a single piece, standing firm against the tides of time; one who logically looks after his own interests—steadfast and memorable, a worthwhile person. That is what I am still wicked enough to want, priest though I am.

      * * *

      Time passed swiftly. It was now two years after the Hōgen War and its grand head-display, and there had been many changes. The imperial palace, fired during the disturbances, had been rebuilt, and there were new departments, new ministers. Traditional court ceremonials not practiced for a hundred years were revived; the music academy and the training school of court dancers were again opened; wrestling contests were once more seen in pavilions in the palace park; the pleasure houses were filled with ever younger girls; and Commander Kiyomori policed the capital so well that there was the promise of lasting peace.

      A part of this welcome change was ascribed to the ascension of the new emperor. His Imperial Majesty Go-Shirakawa retired and in his place was installed the young Nijō. The welcoming of a sixteen-year-old was in part due to dissatisfaction with his predecessor. It was not so much Go-Shirakawa's taste for low-life, though he did tend to fill the palace with popular singers and stay up till all hours. Rather, it was felt that with such popular tastes went a certain inclination toward intrigue and machination. In addition, it was well known that Go-Shirakawa had his own wealth—he was a major landlord. The new emperor, on the other hand, was said to be properly poor, possessed of a probity much beyond his years and of a conservative turn of mind, which much resembled that of earlier rulers.

      Under his reign, then, people hoped that things would be like the good old times, when the emperor smiled upon his subjects and all went well: a time of eternal peace. The people, however, did not have the opportunity to discover if this would actually have come about. Late in the last year of Hōgen, the first year of Heiji [1159], this lasting peace ended.

      It ended on the fourth day of the twelfth month on a cold and windy night. We were all in the guardhouse. It was too chilly to wander the streets or to go to the pleasure quarters, so most of us were asleep. To be sure, we should not have been, we were on guard duty, but the Commander had left the week before on a pilgrimage to Kumano Shrine and had taken a large number of officers with him, so our discipline was relaxed.

      Though a full complement of guards was on watch, none of us expected anything but more days and nights of nothing happening, and so we were unprepared. At midnight I was sound asleep, and it was just at this time that the Minamoto attempted their coup.

      Later we discovered how. Vice-Councilor Nobuyori, a Fujiwara courtier, formerly favored by Emperor Go-Shirakawa, had earlier in the year applied for a higher position. The retired emperor, no longer favoring the man, had refused. In this he had been counseled by yet another Fujiwara, Councilor Michinori, a man who had the imperial ear—and who had, incidentally, also had the death penalty reinstated and was consequently responsible for the executions at the end of the war.

      Michinori was also, in addition, something of a joke. His wife, a large, stout woman, had been the nurse of Go-Shirakawa and thus enjoyed special privileges at the cloistered palace. A great gossip, she was always running in and out with this story or that. This amused the low tastes of the retired emperor and so she was eventually able to forward her husband's career. The joke consisted in how she so obviously managed her spouse—the bossy wife and the henpecked husband are usually figures of fun. What made it more amusing was that he had earlier chosen the tonsure and had become very holy. It was said he had taken holy orders in order to escape from her, but if so the ruse had not succeeded and now we were daily diverted by the sight of this man of the cloth being led about by the nose.

      The aspiring Nobuyori was incensed that advice from this upstart priest had kept him from what he believed to be a deserved appointment. Not that he deserved much. Already Captain of the Outer Palace Guards, he could not even ride properly. There was a now famous incident (a part of those disturbances for which he was himself largely responsible) where he could not successfully hoist his considerable bulk to mount his horse, while a group of his own guards stood about and hid their smiles.

      Still, though indolent and overweight, Nobuyori was not without a political sense. He decided upon a coup that would chasten Go-Shirakawa and ruin Michinori. Taking his case to the aggrieved Minamoto, he received discreet sympathy. Indeed, he and his chief sympathizer, my former commander, Lord Yoshitomo, kept their plot so successfully secret that few in the court, and no one among the Taira, knew what they were about.

      In this peaceful interlude no one was thinking of dissent. There were, to be sure, many Minamoto officers and soldiers in the capital, but there had been no recent incidents between them and us. Everyone knew that the Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa favored the Taira—one had but to look at the grand state allowed Lord Kiyomori—but the opinion was that our two families had gotten their various allegiances so confused in the Hōgen War of two years before that there was little likelihood of our again fighting each other. In current Kamakura terminology, the necessary polarity had not yet been achieved.

      But such opinion was mistaken. Yoshitomo continued to be angry at the slights suffered at the conclusion of the Hōgen War, and hence had entered into this plot with Vice-Councilor Nobuyori. Thus, on that cold night, the vice-councilor took his troops and went and hammered at the gates of the palace. His majesty was still awake, late as it was. Always fond of night life, he and two of Michinori's sons were watching the court dancers practicing for a performance scheduled for the New Year's celebration. When they first heard the racket outside they thought it was a fire.

      Everyone was thinking about fire that evening. It had not rained, the air was dry, and the wind was strong. Also, less than a month before there had been a conflagration in one of the riverfront palaces and a young princess scheduled to dance at New Year's had burned to death. Now, hearing the noise, Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa became perturbed and it was then he learned that an armed Nobuyori was author of the commotion, that he had—having perhaps been hoisted onto his animal—ridden over with all of his soldiers, and that he was now demanding audience.

      There are various versions of his reception, but the most likely one finds Vice-Councilor Nobuyori complaining that Councilor Michinori had brought false charges against him and that this same person was going to have palace troops come to arrest him. It was upon Nobuyori's having learned this that, escaping, he had come to bid farewell to his imperial patron.

      As was intended, the retired emperor was confused by this explanation. He said there was no truth in such allegations and that he would himself go and see the reigning emperor—the sixteen-year-old Nijō—and make certain that such rumors were silenced.

      Nobuyori well knew Go-Shirakawa's habit of pretending pow-erlessness and referring all decisions to the inexperienced Nijō, so he could now say that this seemed an excellent thought and if his majesty would but get himself ready then he—Nobuyori— would loyally accompany him.

      The retired emperor, angry at this, asked what he meant, to thus order about an imperial person. Several of the attending officers