The taiko on the ten ships rumbled, and Yukio watched the fish-shaped wind vane on the masthead. It pointed inexorably towards Hakata. Huge, puffy clouds sailed eastward across the sky like a fleet of heavy-laden trading vessels. Moko crouched at Jebu’s feet, his back to the rail, and closed his eyes, his dogu box in his lap. The samurai drowsed at the rails. Only the men at the oars worked, rows of bare, brown shoulders rhythmically rising and falling. Gradually the Muratomo fleet drew into the centre of the bay. The Takashi ships, their red banners fluttering, were much plainer now, but they had not left their position at the mouth of the bay. Jebu counted thirty of them.

Suddenly Yukio snapped out an order. At the sound of his voice heads turned all over the lead ship. The pilot spoke to the steersman, the signalman and the rowers’ overseer. The right bank of oars held steady, while the left bank worked at double the rhythm. A green flag flapped over the signalman’s head. The steersmen braced their feet against the rail and pushed at the tiller. Within a few moments the Muratomo fleet had changed course and was steering for the little fishing village of Hakozaki, northernmost of the three towns around the bay.

One by one the Takashi ships changed direction and formed a pursuing column. Everything seems to be happening so slowly, Jebu thought. First we change course, then they react and some of them change course. And we’re still hours apart. But every advantage gained at this distance could mean life or death for thousands of men.

He might die today. He sat down on the deck with his back to the rail, took the shintai out of his robe and stared into its fiery core. Slowly he felt strength and calm flow into his veins. The power of the shintai worked as ever. Sitting nearby, Moko watched him.

Jebu stood up to look over the rail at the Takashi ships. A long way off, fifteen of them, a tight little group, came after the Muratomo fleet. Their sails were up, as were the Muratomo sails now, but they were drawing little wind and the oarsmen were still pushing the ships. The Takashi were far behind. The Muratomo oarsmen were fresh, while those rowing for the Takashi had been working for days.

Breakers thundered ahead on the rocks between Hakozaki and Shiga Island. Here and there black boulders jutted up like fangs in the white water. Yukio ordered another change of direction. The Muratomo were sailing parallel to the shore, past Hakozaki and back towards the town of Hakata. The sails of the Muratomo ships boomed, swelling with wind. Now the onshore wind was pushing them. Yukio ordered the oarsmen to rest.

After a time, Yukio gave a whoop and pointed. One of the Takashi ships was slowly toppling over on its side, its sail folding, its mast crashing down, the red banner drooping into the water; soon the crew and fighting men were black dots in the green and white waves. Another of the pursuing ships had come to a dead halt, simply sitting in the waves as its companion ships left it behind, stuck on a sandbar.

“Our pilots know these waters,” Yukio laughed. “Their’s don’t.”

Now he snapped another command to his signalman, who leaped to his feet and began waving a red flag and a yellow flag at the other ships. The two steersmen leaned into the tiller. The town of Hakata was still a long distance down the shore when Yukio’s fleet changed course again and headed out towards the centre of the bay.

Jebu watched once again the delayed reaction of the enemy craft as one by one they altered their course to continue the pursuit. Then cries from the other side of the ship drew him across the deck.

Through the green, terraced hills behind Hakata, streams of horsemen and foot soldiers were pouring into the town. Red pennons were fluttering on the town’s ancient wall. Masses of men were gathering along the quays. The high sun of noon glittered on helmets, armour and naginata blades. Smaller contingents of Takashi appeared on the docks of Hakozaki on the north and Imazu on the southern side of the harbour.

“Now they’re going to take fishing boats and come out after us,” Yukio said. “I expected this, too.”

Even as they watched, Takashi samurai were crowding into every boat along the shore. Doubtless they would force the fishermen to row the boats out. Many of the fishing boats were overcrowded and low in the water.

The thousands of Takashi samurai left behind on shore waved their red banners and shot angry futile arrows into the water in the direction of the Muratomo ships. The waste disgusted Jebu. Samurai had no sense of the value of things.

Now there was no way the Muratomo could land again. They were cut off, committed to fight, to live or die on the water. Fifteen Takashi warships still blocked the harbour’s mouth. Thirteen more pursued the Muratomo ships around the bay. And dozens of small craft from Hakata, Hakozaki and Imazu, their gunwhales bristling with Takashi samurai like teeth in the mouth of a shark, formed a long sprawling line cutting across the Muratomo course.

The pilot spoke to Yukio and pointed upwards. The wind vane on his ship had changed direction. Now the fish’s head was pointing straight at the mouth of the harbour and beyond that to the open sea.

Yukio turned to the pilot. “Is the tide running out?” The grey-haired pilot grinned and nodded.

“Then Hachiman is with us,” Yukio exulted. “It is time to say goodbye to our Takashi friends. We’ve shown them the beauties of Hakata Bay long enough. Now we leave for China. Up all sails. Rowers, row your hearts out. Head for the open sea!”

The signalman’s flags blossomed on the afterdeck. In a moment the Muratomo fleet had made another course change. Now they were charging at top speed directly at the Takashi blockade.

The Takashi vessels, so distant for so long, now loomed larger. Faint cries came from the men on their decks. A few impetuous arrows arched towards the Muratomo ships and fell short, into the waves.

Yukio shouted to the captain in the nearest Muratomo ship, “Aim for the steersmen and rowers only! Don’t bother with samurai! Pass the word!” He gripped Jebu’s arm and pulled him to the rail.

“Come on. Our men think it’s unworthy to shoot anyone lower in rank than a samurai. Let’s set an example.”

The column of Muratomo ships aimed for the head of the Takashi line. Takashi vessels were pulling out of formation and rushing to crowd in upon the Muratomo as Yukio’s ship raced across the bow of the leading enemy galley. Yukio drew back on his samurai bow, as tall as himself, and a fourteen-hand arrow with a humming-bulb head screamed through the air to strike the throat of a steersman on the lead Takashi ship. Yukio had used the noise-making arrowhead to call the attention of his men to the target he had chosen.

Jebu looked out past Shiga Island, a sandspit at the tip of the northern arm of the bay, as if trying to see the fabled land that lay to the west. As he looked, a long, dark shape slid past the island. It was followed by another.

A silence fell over the quays. Then a murmur rose as ship after ship appeared in the entrance of the bay. The murmur grew as, oars sweeping rhythmically through the waves, the vessels sailed closer. The bright banners that bedecked the ships became visible. The banners were blood-red.

“We’re trapped,” said a man near Jebu.

“Might have known the Takashi wouldn’t let us leave,” said another.

The crowd parted and Yukio strode down to the edge of the water. For the occasion he wore his finest suit of armour, silver-chased with white laces. A silver dragon roared defiance from his helmet. The men watched him closely.

He smiled when he saw the Takashi ships. “They honour our departure with an escort.” Some of the men laughed hesitantly.

Yukio stepped to the edge of the pier and raised his arms. Silence fell over the assembled samurai.

“O Hachiman-Yawata, my great-grandfather was known as Hachiman Taro, your firstborn son. Now, in my family’s hour of greatest need, I call upon you to give us your aid. Bless our journey across the great water. May we find the good fortune we seek in China. May we return one day, victorious, to this land of the gods.”

“May we escape from Hakata Bay to begin with,” said Jebu in a low voice, eyeing the Takashi sails.

Hastily, bidding last farewells to those who had come to see them off, the samurai trooped up the gangplanks of their assigned ships. In every man’s mind, Jebu thought, there must be the same question: am I really embarking for China, or am I going to die today? Jebu held Nyosan’s hand for a moment, and their eyes locked; then he turned abruptly and went to Yukio’s ship. On the quay Moko bade a tearful farewell to a woman holding an infant in her arms. At last he tore himself away. Carrying his precious box of carpenter’s tools, his Instruments of the Way, he followed Jebu up the gangplank.

Yukio stood on the deck atop the after cabin of his galley. Beside him was his pilot, a grey-haired man in a black tunic who had made the voyage to China and back many times. Around him gathered his armoured captains, each of whom would be responsible for one shipload of samurai. Of them all, Yukio was the smallest figure. Jebu joined the group.

“I’ve prepared myself in case of an attack by sea,” Yukio said. “I have consulted with the local fishermen on the winds and tides in Hakata Bay. I am certain that we can evade the Takashi and escape them.”

A growl of dissent came from the other samurai. “Evade them?” said Shenzo Saburo, the samurai who had long ago been in charge of the expedition to rescue Yukio from the Rokuhara. “We don’t want to evade them. We want to fight them. Why don’t we attack immediately?”

Yukio laughed, a laugh of scorn that reddened Saburo’s face. “Oh, well, if you want to fight and die, why go to the trouble of boarding these ships? There are ten thousand more Takashi warriors marching overland against us. If we wait here we can die fighting on our feet instead of floundering in the water.”

The commanders shifted uneasily and fingered their sword hilts. Finally Saburo said, “Why not attack the Takashi ships at once and try to break through?”

Smiling, Yukio shook his head. “Our aim is to take this army overseas and win our fortunes in China. I am not going to allow the expedition to be destroyed before we are even out of sight of the Sacred Islands.”

The meeting broke up, and the commanders went to their respective ships. Yukio grinned at Jebu and clapped him on the arm. Still smiling, he turned to his pilot and gave the order to sail.

There was a moment of expectant silence. Then the cries went up from the pilots, and the mooring ropes were cast loose. On each ship a drummer raised his wooden sticks and brought them down thunderously on the monkey-leather head of his big taiko. The long white oars flashed through the green water at dockside.

Yukio stood on the afterdeck between the pilot and the two steersmen. Crouched near the rail was a signalman with a bundle of flags. Orders were relayed from Yukio to the pilot to the steersmen. Waving his multi-coloured flags, the signalman passed Yukio’s orders to the other ships.

A brisk, salt-smelling breeze blew in from the sea, and a rising tide lapped against the quays. The advantage was with the ships sailing towards shore. The sails of the Muratomo ships were furled and only the arms of the rowers propelled the ships forward.

His bow slung across his back, Jebu leaned against the rail and stared across the wide expanse of water at the dark hulls and yellow sails of the Takashi. How far away they were! How large this bay was! It could hold thousands of ships. It would be a long time before the Muratomo came anywhere near the Takashi. In warfare on land, your enemy was sometimes upon you before you even saw him. At sea he might be visible for hours before the two of you drew close enough to fight.

The taiko on the ten ships rumbled, and Yukio watched the fish-shaped wind vane on the masthead. It pointed inexorably towards Hakata. Huge, puffy clouds sailed eastward across the sky like a fleet of heavy-laden trading vessels. Moko crouched at Jebu’s feet, his back to the rail, and closed his eyes, his dogu box in his lap. The samurai drowsed at the rails. Only the men at the oars worked, rows of bare, brown shoulders rhythmically rising and falling. Gradually the Muratomo fleet drew into the centre of the bay. The Takashi ships, their red banners fluttering, were much plainer now, but they had not left their position at the mouth of the bay. Jebu counted thirty of them.

I’ve asked Kiyosi how he feels about killing, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. He says the part of his mind that thinks about killing is sealed off when he is with me.

How lonely I will be when Kiyosi is gone campaigning in Kyushu.

-Third Month, twelfth day

YEAR OF THE HORSE

Chapter Twenty-Six

One night in the Fourth Month of the Year of the Horse, Yukio, Jebu and Moko sat together in the monks’ quarters of the Teak Blossom Temple and said farewell to the members of the Order who had been their hosts for so many months. In the morning their little fleet would embark for China.

Down in the town of Hakata over a thousand men were drinking, coupling, sleeping, writing or pacing about, waiting for dawn to come. At Yukio’s summons they had come from all the Sacred Islands, the last, dogged supporters of the Muratomo cause in a realm in which everyone bowed to the Takashi. There were wild men, half Ainu, from northern Honshu; there were hard-bitten warriors from the eastern provinces; there were Shinto and Buddhist military monks from the temples around Heian Kyo; there were near cannibals from southern Kyushu. All of them saw Yukio’s summons as a last chance to recoup the fortunes they had lost when the Takashi plundered the realm.

For the farewell to Jebu and Yukio, Abbot Weicho had ordered a hearty meal—the closest the Zinja ever had to a feast. There were raw fish, steamed vegetables, an abundance of rice, and a small jar of heated sake for each of the brothers and their guests. Though the women of the temple did not usually eat with the monks, Nyosan was also present.

They were half-way through the meal when one of the monks escorted a samurai to Yukio. He was one of the guards Yukio had posted some miles from the town.

“Perhaps this should be for your ears alone, Lord Yukio,” the samurai said. He was out of breath and clearly tired.

“If it is bad news, tell it to all of us. The more we know, the better prepared we will be.”

His calm manner seemed to reassure the samurai, who nodded and said, “It seems the Takashi have learned of your plans, and they mean to prevent you from going. An army of ten thousand men crossed over from Honshu two days ago. They are now less than a day’s march from here. They’ll be here tomorrow for certain.”

“Then they’ll arrive too late,” said Jebu. “All they’ll see will be our ships sailing out of the harbour.”

“They may revenge themselves on the townspeople and the monks for helping us,” said Yukio.

“Don’t worry about that,” said Weicho. “We’ll protect our own. If need be, we’ll teach them that the Order is still to be respected, even if we have lost a few members.”

Yukio stood up. “There are still things to be done. I thought something like this might happen, and I have given some thought to preparing for it. I apologize for leaving this feast, Holiness, but there are arrangements I must make in town.” With a smile and a bow, the slight figure turned and strode to the door, where he buckled on his dagger and sword and went out.

Before sunrise the next morning the quays of Hakata were alive with the thump of bales and boxes, the clank of weapons and the shouts of young male voices as Yukio’s men assembled. In a few hours, according to word from scouts Yukio had sent out, the Takashi army would be upon them.

The warehouse workers sweated in the cool dawn air as they raced to load each ship with provisions for a voyage of ten days. The ten ships were ocean going galleys designed to carry both passengers and freight. Eight had sails stiffened with bamboo battens to catch any favourable wind that might help the oarsmen. At stem, stern and masthead the ships were bedecked with white Muratomo banners and pennants and streamers bearing the crests of other samurai families joining in the expedition.

As the sky above the hills around Hakata turned a paler blue, the samurai began to board the ships. Some of them bade goodbye to sombre little family groups that had accompanied them this far on their journey. Others, reeling drunk, were half carried to the docks by the women with whom they’d spent their last night on shore.

Long before dawn Nyosan and Jebu made the long downhill walk from the Teak Blossom Temple. Now, dressed in the ankle-length grey robe and black cloak of a woman elder of the Order, Nyosan gazed up at Jebu with shining eyes. Jebu had to bend almost double to put his arms around her and kiss her.

“That such a great, huge man should have come out of a tiny creature like myself,” she laughed.

“I will miss you, Mother.”

She shook a finger at him. “We have said goodbye too many times in too many ways to feel sadness now. Perhaps you will find your way to the land of your father. I hope, if you do, that it sets your heart at rest.”

Jebu looked out past Shiga Island, a sandspit at the tip of the northern arm of the bay, as if trying to see the fabled land that lay to the west. As he looked, a long, dark shape slid past the island. It was followed by another.

A silence fell over the quays. Then a murmur rose as ship after ship appeared in the entrance of the bay. The murmur grew as, oars sweeping rhythmically through the waves, the vessels sailed closer. The bright banners that bedecked the ships became visible. The banners were blood-red.

He was not angry, Taniko saw, just sad and tired. “What is wrong, Kiyosi-san?”

“I have come to realize that I will never know peace. All my life I’ve been fighting my father’s battles, and still there are more battles to fight, and there will never be any end to it as long as I live.”

“Give Motofusa a chance to apologize. When he realizes what his people have done, he will probably regret it.” Actually, remembering the smug face at the window of the carriage of state, she could not imagine Motofusa apologizing for anything.

Kiyosi shook his head. “My father would accept no apology from Motofusa. And it’s not just he. Yukio, the youngest son of Muratomo no Domei, has reappeared. He is raising an army in Kyushu. Our spies say he wants to sail across the sea to fight for the Emperor of China. My father is sure Yukio wants to raise another Muratomo rebellion. So I must go to Kyushu and crush Yukio at once.”

Still shaken by the carriage brawl, still stunned by the realization that she had killed a man, Taniko felt a new fear clutch at her heart. “Must you go?”

“I am commander-in-chief of the army. I have advised my father to let Yukio go. All the malcontents in the Sacred Islands would flock to his banner, and we’d be rid of them once and for all. We wouldn’t have to lose a man. But my father will not be satisfied unless blood is shed. No victory is real to him unless men die for it.” The anger in his face faded and was replaced by a deep weariness.

“Oh, Taniko, I remember Yukio so well—that bright-eyed boy who used to play in the gardens of the Rokuhara. Every time I looked at him I felt a pang, knowing it was I who beheaded his father. I wondered if he knew it, and I wondered what he thought of me. He wasn’t much older than our Atsue is now, the first time I saw him. And now my father commands me to bring Yukio’s head back to Heian Kyo.”

Taniko held his hand while the carriage trundled along and he, in turn, patted Atsue’s head. “I’m so tired, Taniko. So tired of it all. How terrible it is that the fighting cannot stop.”

From the pillow book of Shima Taniko:

Last night my lord Kiyosi came to me and told me, with no great satisfaction, that the carriage of the Regent Motofusa was attacked by a troop of samurai as his procession was on its way to the Special Festival at Iwashimizu. The samurai killed eight of Motofusa’s retainers, cut the oxen loose from his carriage and drove them off.

Motofusa’s carriage was too heavy for his remaining men to pull. He could have waited for more oxen or a palanquin to be brought, but he was afraid for his life, and so he walked home through the streets like any commoner and missed the ceremony. He has thus been publicly shamed.

Since Iwashimizu is one of Hachiman’s shrines, and Hachiman is the Muratomo patron, Sogamori thinks that in some obscure way he is hurting the Muratomo. By offending the god of war? This seems to me a dangerous way to get at one’s enemies.

Kiyosi brought a new flute for Atsue, a family heirloom called Little Branch, which has been his own favourite flute until now. At least, Kiyosi says, the Regent has paid many times over for the death of our bannerman and the fright he gave our little Atsue. Even the Regent, formerly the most feared official in the land, who once controlled the words and actions of the Emperor, can be chastised by the Takashi.

Each night before I fall asleep, even when I lie in Kiyosi’s arms, the face of the man I killed appears in my mind. His dead eyes seem to look at me and not to look at me. And in the darkness and silence of my bedchamber I feel a horror in the pit of my stomach. I have done a dreadful thing. Killed a man. There is blood on my hands and they will never be clean.

More than that, every night I see the look that was in the eyes of my little Atsue after he had seen me stab the bannerman to death. He knows now that his mother can kill. A nine-year-old boy should not have to live with such a memory. I see my own horror at what I have done reflected in his eyes. It is as Jebu told me. We are all part of one Self.

If that is so, the bannerman was I, and I was killing myself. Indeed, he asked me for death. The samurai often kill themselves or ask others to kill them, to avoid capture, mutilation and shame. What I did was not horrible. It was a mercy. Yet, the fact that I have killed another human being fills me with terror, because it is such a vast thing, such a final thing. Whether I have done it for right reasons or for wrong ones, it is taking for myself the powers of a kami. Such an act should be approached with fear, as one approaches a very holy place.

My Jebu—is he still mine after all these years?—has killed and killed again. By now he must have lost count of the numbers he has killed. I was there the first time Jebu killed a man. I remember how he stood looking down at the bodies of those he had killed for a long time after the fight was over. What was he thinking? I wish I could talk to him now.

I’ve asked Kiyosi how he feels about killing, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. He says the part of his mind that thinks about killing is sealed off when he is with me.

How lonely I will be when Kiyosi is gone campaigning in Kyushu.

-Third Month, twelfth day

YEAR OF THE HORSE

“Don’t distress yourself, my lady,” the bannerman said. “Don’t spoil your pretty cloak with an old man’s blood.”

The man had survived two great rebellions, a hero, only to die in the mud after a sordid little carriage brawl. “I’m sorry,” said Taniko. “I’m so sorry.” She pillowed his head on her lap.

“Don’t feel bad about me, my lady,” the old man said, trying to smile. “I’ve got the same sort of wound I’d give myself if I’d tried to kill myself in the samurai way.”

Taniko raised her head at the rumble of wooden wheels. Far above her the Regent’s state carriage lumbered past, a rolling palace. When it went by, she saw Motofusa himself looking out the rear window at her. With his thin, small face and sparse moustache he looked very much like Horigawa. He wore the tall black hat of office. He looked at her with a faint, superior smile.

Defiantly, Taniko met his gaze. By your courtiers’ standards it is shameful for me to look you in the eyes, Motofusa, she tried to say with her gaze. But I want you to see the hatred in my eyes, and to show you that your courtiers’ world is passing away.

In response to her stare Motofusa’s grin broadened, showing teeth dyed black after the fashion of the Court. He closed the curtains of his carriage.

Many of the Takashi samurai lay on the ground, badly beaten. A few appeared to be unconscious. Those on their feet looked angry, frustrated and ashamed, all at once.

Taniko turned to one of them. “Go to Lord Kiyosi. Tell him what has happened, and tell him we will wait for him here.”

She looked down at the old samurai whose grizzled head lay in her lap. “Are you in great pain?”

He gave her a smile that was really a grimace. “Of course not, my lady. But I shall not live. You could do me a great service.”

“Anything.”

“None of the men is armed. Except you.”

“I? I’m not armed.” Then she looked down at her hand that was still holding the dagger she had taken from the courtier. “I’ll give this to one of the men and he can help you.”

The deep-set eyes looked into Taniko’s. “I would like you to do it, my lady, if you can bring yourself to. My lord Kiyosi is not here. You stand in his place. It is much to ask, I know.”

Taniko hesitated. I must do it well. He must not suffer. I cannot say no. “Yes. You must tell me what to do.”

His fingers feebly tapped a spot below his rib cage. “Strike here. As hard as you can. Drive upwards towards the heart.”

Taniko raised the gold-hilted ceremonial knife high, gripping it with both hands. Slowly she lowered it till the point touched the place he had indicated. Then she raised the knife again. Am I strong enough?

She said, “Say with me, ‘Homage to Amida Buddha.’”

“Homage to Amida Buddha,” the old man whispered.

With all her might, not thinking, letting the Self do it, as Jebu would say, she brought the dagger down. She felt it meet flesh, but the force of her thrust and the sharpness of the blade pierced the flesh, and her fists struck against his chest.

She looked down. Please be dead. His eyes were open, and they did not blink. She had done it. She had given him what he asked for. She had stopped his heart. She said again, “Homage to Amida Buddha.” Gently, with the index finger of her right hand, she pulled each of his eyelids down. Slowly she eased the grey head to the ground and stood up.

She looked around. A small group of Takashi samurai were standing around her in a circle. When she looked at them, they bowed deeply from the waist. She handed the dagger to one of them and looked around for Atsue.

He was standing beside one of the samurai, clinging to the man’s leg. When she turned to him, he took a step back. She held out her arms, but he did not move. She started to go to him.

Terror filled his eyes. “You killed him. There’s blood all over you.”

She looked down. Her bright yellow cloak was speckled with blood. She hadn’t realized the old samurai had bled so much. She felt that she must wash the fear of her from Atsue’s eyes, or it would remain there for ever. Determinedly, she strode over to him, took the whimpering boy in her arms and lifted him up.

Kiyosi himself came soon in one of the Takashi’s finest Chinese-style carriages. It was surrounded by a hundred Takashi samurai in full armour. Kiyosi gave orders that the body of the bannerman was to be borne in state on a cart to the Rokuhara. He helped Taniko and Atsue into the carriage, climbed in himself, and sat Atsue on his lap. He patted Taniko’s hand.

“You and the boy suffer because my father must have more and more power,” Kiyosi said sadly. “Motofusa is our enemy because he wants Prince Mochihito, rather than my sister’s husband, Prince Takakura, to succeed to the throne. Now we must avenge Motofusa’s insult to our family. So it goes on and on.”

He was not angry, Taniko saw, just sad and tired. “What is wrong, Kiyosi-san?”

“I have come to realize that I will never know peace. All my life I’ve been fighting my father’s battles, and still there are more battles to fight, and there will never be any end to it as long as I live.”

“Give Motofusa a chance to apologize. When he realizes what his people have done, he will probably regret it.” Actually, remembering the smug face at the window of the carriage of state, she could not imagine Motofusa apologizing for anything.