Shike by Robert J. Shea (classic children's novels txt) đź“–
- Author: Robert J. Shea
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The realm would never be the same again. This palace had been built four hundred years ago by Kammu, the ancestor of the Takashi. Since then it had been the centre of harmony and serenity for the whole empire. Now it was splashed with blood and littered with mutilated bodies. The Emperor would undoutedly survive these great changes that were shaking the land, but he would not govern, nor would his ministers. Whoever governed in the future would govern with the sword.
Men screamed for help, other men begged for a quick death, while some groaned in half-consciousness. The few Muratomo samurai who had stayed behind walked about identifying their dead comrades and trying to help the wounded. Others systematically went from one wounded Takashi to the next, slitting throats, spilling more blood on the white stones. Some performed the same service as a mercy for the badly injured Muratomo. Jebu looked down at his armour, dappled with blood.
Young Hideyori came up to him, wiping his sword clean with a white cloth. “We had better get these men together, shik��. The Takashi will be upon us at any moment.”
“You saw that? Good, Hideyori-san. You’ll make a good general.”
Hideyori smiled, his eyes as remote and cold as ever. “You saw it and I saw it, but my father didn’t see it. My father-” He broke off, shaking his head.
“There’ll be too many of them for us to fight,” said Jebu.
“We can hold the inner compound. Or at least the Ceremonial Hall.” “Yes, and the last of us to die can set fire to it.”
“Why not?”
“Nonsense. I’m going to deliver you to your father alive.” “A foolish promise, impossible to keep.”
At that moment the lookout on the inner wall gave a long, shrill cry of alarm, and the storm was upon them again. There was no stopping the Takashi who swarmed up their scaling ladders, planted their blood-red flags on the parapets, and dropped from the walls to the ground like a swarm of beetles falling upon a mulberry tree.
“This way,” Jebu called. Eollowed by about fifty Muratomo samurai, he and Hideyori burst through the unguarded gateway leading to the northern part of the palace grounds. Takashi samurai raced after them.
Half the Muratomo samurai, forced to act without orders, stopped, turned and formed a defensive line to hold back the Takashi. Jebu could see Kiyosi’s dragon-crowned helmet as it passed through the gateway through which they had just escaped. A mass of Takashi fell upon the Muratomo line. Then Jebu could see no more.
They ran past the Imperial residential buildings surrounding the little park in the northwest section of the grounds. A samurai beside Jebu took an arrow in the back and fell into the ornamental pool. Erightened maidservants and ladies-in-waiting peered out at them. Some were supporters of the Muratomo and called out frantic questions, which Jebu and the samurai ignored.
Beyond the residential buildings Jebu saw a stable. There was no time to saddle the horses. Panting, their breath steaming, the men threw themselves on the animals’ bare backs. There were only a dozen horses. Those samurai who were left without horses turned and lined up to hold off pursuers.
They rode for the northwest gateway in the outer wall. A Takashi humming-bulb arrow shot past Jebu’s head with a piercing whistle. Jebu decided that if the Takashi caught up with them he would turn and fight them at the gate, giving Hideyori time to escape.
They were through the gate and galloping wildly down the city streets. A startled ox pulling a carriage lumbered out of their way and crashed into a near-by wall. What was anyone doing on the streets on this day? Arrows splintered against the pavement behind them. Jebu jumped, his horse over the low wall against which the ox had just blundered, followed by Hideyori and six other mounted samurai. They rode through the gardens of a nobleman’s estate past screaming, terrified servants.
In a short time they had lost themselves among the houses of Heian Kyo aristocrats. Pursuit seemed to have been called off. Eor the moment the Takashi had what they wanted, the palace.
Hours later, circling cautiously through the streets, they found the main body of Muratomo warriors. Domei was sad and tired. His force had been greatly reduced, not only through casualties but because of men getting lost in the streets, wandering away or, discouraged, fleeing.
While Jebu and Hideyori had been looking for Domei, he had realized too late that the Takashi were doubling back for the palace. His men had reached the main gate only to find a much larger army than their own in possession. Then they had marched across the city in the hope of mounting an attack on the Rokuhara, but the Takashi stronghold was occupied by Sogamori with an even larger force of samurai. Domei estimated that between the men stationed at the Rokuhara and the Takashi allies who had come in from the countryside, there were forty thousand Takashi samurai in the city.
“They hold the Imperial Palace against us. They have the Emperor and the Retired Emperor in their hands. Both Their Majesties have proclaimed the Takashi their defenders and us outlaws. Everything has turned out exactly opposite to my hopes.” Suddenly he lifted his head and smiled, almost gaily. “Many times the falcon stoops and comes up with empty claws. Then he must fly away to try again.”
Jebu glanced at Hideyori. The fifteen-year-old boy was staring at his father with an appraising look that was almost contemptuous.
A few hours later the Muratomo army was streaming out of Heian Kyo by one of the western gates. The weary samurai glanced over their shoulders from time to time, expecting a Takashi pursuit. Jebu rode with Domei. One of Hideyori’s older brothers lay in a horse-drawn carriage, his right leg almost severed. Jebu had attended him with Zinja remedies, a powder to clean the wound and a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.
When they reached the heavy woods at the base of the mountains north of Heian Kyo, snow began to fall.
Domei said, “We must scatter. My older sons must go with me. But, Hideyori, I want you far, far from Sogamori’s reach. Since Jebu brought you safely through the battle, I will entrust you to him.”
Domei turned to Jebu. “Lord Shima no Bokuden of Kamakura is a secret ally of mine. He is not a very good ally-he feigns friendship for both sides. But he should be able to see that Hideyori can be valu able to him, and only he is far away enough and powerful enough to protect Hideyori from the Takashi.” Domei sighed heavily. “My youngest son, Yukio, is in the capital. I can’t save him. Hideyori may be the last of us. He is the future of the Muratomo clan.”
Jebu nodded, astonished at the revelation that the calculating Lord Bokuden, Taniko’s father, was in league with the Muratomo. Perhaps that was the reason he had relied on one inexperienced Zinja to escort his daughter through Muratomo territory to Heian Kyo. And the reason their party was attacked only once. But Jebu agreed that Bokuden could not be considered a very trustworthy ally.
When Hideyori had walked away, leaving Domei and Jebu alone, Domei let his head drop.
“I have been a fool, shik��. I helped the Takashi destroy my father and now I have ruined myself and my sons. I have done everything wrong. I would welcome death now.”
Jebu said, “In my Order we are taught to see that all is one. Victory or defeat, life or death, it is all the same. The act is everything, the result nothing.”
Domei shook his head. “It would comfort me to believe that. But I can’t. Go now, Jebu.”
Eive days after the Muratomo defeat at the Imperial Palace, Moko brought Taniko the news that Domei had returned to Heian Kyo. Taniko was again at the Empress’s Wisteria Hall, Horigawa having rushed back to the city as soon as he heard that the Muratomo had been driven out of it. Empress Sadako was prostrate in her chambers, still not recovered from the fright Domei’s insurrection had given her. Lady Akimi was conspicuously absent.
Moko knelt on the veranda outside Taniko’s room and spoke to her through the screen, shaking his head.
“It was very sad. Domei and his older sons were attacked by a party of Takashi samurai. They fought their way through, but all their escort was scattered. Domei and his three sons found themselves alone in the mountains in a blizzard, with their enemy in hot pursuit. One son was wounded and could not keep up. He begged his father to kill him, rather than allow him to fall into the hands of the Takashi. Einally Domei gave in and stabbed his son in the heart. At least the boy did not cut his belly open, as some samurai do when they want to kill themselves.”
“Horrible,” said Taniko. “And Domei still couldn’t escape?”
“He tried, my lady. He and his two remaining sons dug a grave for the dead young man and struggled on through the falling snow. They stopped at a farmhouse to rest, not realizing how close behind them were the Takashi samurai. The peasant who offered them hospitality betrayed them. Domei was bathing when his enemies burst in upon him and captured him. The two sons were also unarmed. The Takashi took all three prisoner and brought them back by order of Sogamori, to be publicly executed here. They even dug up the body of the dead son and brought his head back to the capital. Many other Muratomo leaders are to be beheaded as well.”
“How sad. What of Domei’s two younger sons?”
“One of them, Yukio, is here in the capital at the home of his mother, the Lady Akimi, whom you know. They are both under house arrest. The other-this is very interesting, my lady.”
Taniko leaned forward and peered through the screen. She could see that Moko was smiling, revealing all the gaps left by his missing teeth. “What is it?”
“You might not have heard this, because you had fled the capital with your honoured husband when the fighting was going on, but a huge Zinja monk with hair of a fiery colour is said to have performed prodigies in the battle for the Imperial Palace.”
Taniko’s heart beat faster. “That can only be one person.”
Moko nodded. “So I thought, my lady. I have also heard that this same monk escorted Domei’s other young son, Hideyori, into the north-east.”
The north-east, Taniko thought. She would have to send a secret message to her father to watch for them.
“When are the executions to take place?”
“In three days’ time, in a pit beside the prison at a place called Rokujoga-hara, where Rokujo Avenue crosses the Kamo River. All around the execution ground poles have already been set up, and the heads of a dozen of the better-known rebels who were killed in the fighting look down on passers-by. Truly, as I heard a monk say, we must be living in the Latter Days of the Law.”
“Yes,” said Taniko. “Moko, I want to know so much more about the world than I do. All I can see is what happens within this Nine-Eold Enclosure. It is a great pity that Captain Domei and his sons must die. I, knew and like him. But the power of men to execute other men in the name
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