Days in Green

4. The ghost lady appears before the ex-emperor again.

　女、再び恨みを訴へること

“Life is short, but music is eternal.”

　When the biwa sound ended, Nakatoki[1], Commissioner General of Rokuhara[2], smiled. He was sitting on the wooden veranda, relaxed and without his armor. Then, there were no bamboo blinds between Kazuhito and him. The room where he was was next to the veranda, looking toward a temple garden. He could see men in the garden. All of them looked at Nakatoki and him. The hundreds of eyes that didn’t say anything.

　Samurai of Rokuhara were defeated by Takauji’s army, and the soldiers were killed or ran away. There were hundreds in the garden of the temple of Bamba. The smell of blood permeated the area. It was highly humid, and a chorus of frogs was heard from the garden pond.

　Nakatoki was also wounded in the last battle. His right leg was wrapped in a bandage, but he looked on with an air of satisfaction. “Your Majesty, thank you very much. I’d like to listen to the music in our next life, too.”

　Kazuhito couldn’t say anything. Behind a blind, his uncle hugged Saneko tightly. Kazuhito’s father, ex-Emperor Go-Fushimi, cried silently, hiding his face under his sleeve.

　Nakatoki turned to the soldiers and told them in the garden, “Men, thank you for following me until today. Your loyalty and bravery will be admired by the gods. However, you must not waste more blood in vain and must not kill innocent people. Surrender to Emperor Go-Daigo with my head. Takauji should forgive you all in exchange for the head of the commissioner general of Rokuhara.”

　Soon, he unsheathed his short sword from his waist and cut his stomach. It was too quick, and nobody stopped it.

　Saburō[3] rushed and hugged Nakatoki. He shouted, “I’ll follow you anywhere, even to the underworld! I know the shame, and I won’t be called a traitor by anyone!” He pulled out the commissioner’s sword from his master’s body and stabbed his stomach with it, too.

　Then, the samurai in the garden began to kill themselves.

　The soldiers cut their stomachs, and their men cut their masters’ heads with a long sword to release them from agony. Young lads stabbed each other’s throats.

　Kazuhito heard his uncle crying; it was the first time he had heard it. He just sat for a long time. The sun was shining, and swallows flew over the pond quickly. Willow branches were swinging in the breeze from the sky, containing men’s blood and wet smells of the rainy season.

　When Prince Itsutsuji’s[4] men ran into the temple of Bamba from around the building, they saw huge ponds filled with the blood of over a hundred men on the floor and in the garden.

　　　　　　　　　　...

　She had come again.

　As soon as he fell asleep, Kazuhito heard the urn’s lid. His left elbow was painful as if it had been burned. Before the incident in Bamba, an arrow shot had injured him on a battlefield. The old wound he thought had healed brought back the uncomfortable memories.

“Please don’t let me be killed.”

　When Kazuhito heard her voice, he looked for Hisanari sitting at his head. The door to the kitchen had been opened. The doctor kept his eyes open toward the master’s bed but didn’t move, as if time had stopped.

　The ghost was still sobbing. Strangely, other family members didn’t get up at her voice and slept deeply.

　A part of her left sleeve was slashed. She wore the same gown embroidered with green maple leaves as yesterday.

“Lady? Please let me sleep,” he said to the ghost.

“Help me, please,” she said again, like yesterday. “I’m dying because she is splitting me...!”

　Now she didn’t hide her face under the sleeve. She stared at Kazuhito directly. Her robes had been loosened around her neck, and her white décolleté was opened, but it was rotten and larvae wriggled under her breasts.

　She crawled toward him but hesitated when she noticed the urn in his palms. It was in his palms! Kazuhito hadn’t noticed that till then. The lid rang more loudly in the cloth bag. The clattering noise from the urn sounded again, and then she gave up approaching and whispered out the words of a poem.

　―Kotono ha no,

　moyuru Yoshino ni ou kudzu no,

　kakaru koromo wo tare ni kisemashi―

　　Yoshino, where poems and lyrics were sprouting,

　　where kudzu vines are growing and creeping,

　　where clothes are woven from these fibers,

　　Who shall I fit the cloth I wove for?

　Kazuhito opened his eyes and felt sweat dripping on his body. He noticed Hisanari and Akiko looking down at him in the rose-colored light of the morning, and she wiped the sweat on his forehead with a clean cloth.

“What has happened, Your Majesty?”

“Don’t worry, but the urn...”

　Nothing was in his palms. He got up and checked the contents of the shelf by the bedside. The knotted cord sealing the urn had been broken in the cloth bag.

“Doc, did you see anything strange on me overnight?”

“Everything was as usual. You groaned a few times in the small hours, but no one else entered the room. I have prescribed the tranquilizer a bit stronger than yesterday. What dreams threatened you?”

“Thank you for keeping your eyes on me all through the night, Hisanari. You can go and sleep in your room,” Kazuhito said to him. The doctor bowed and went to the kitchen to fold his blanket.

　The ex-emperor showed the broken cord of the urn to Akiko.

“It’s strange. That’s braided strongly, I had thought,” she said.

“Could you tell someone to fix it before tonight?” Kazuhito asked her. She received the broken cord from him and glanced at it. “Sadako can do that. She has a lot of strings of braided cords and ribbons in her papeterie. I’ll ask her.”

“Thank you, Akiko-san,” he said.

“Do you have additional orders?”

“Don’t take this as a strange question, but do you know anyone who has met me and has clothes with sleeves embroidered with green maples?”

“Embroidery?”

　Akiko swung her right sleeve without embroidery to the front of her mouth. “You know. I’m not very good at stitchwork. By the way, my sisters at least didn’t have such a dress. My mother told me seasonal motifs were favorable but limited to wearable seasons. Some seasonless motifs, such as waves, treasures, or mountains, are useful to decorate your clothes better than beautiful cherry blossoms or green leaves when you don’t have enough income and have many daughters in the family.”

“That’s reasonable,” he said.

　Frustrating ghost. If she had something to say to him, why didn’t she just say it clearly? What did her poem mean?

　Truly, he knew that. It was an accusation against him regarding the war in Yoshino five years ago.

　A man leaked General Moronao of Kō’s[5] raid plan to the Southern Court members, and the Southern royal family left Yoshino for Anou just before they were attacked. Moronao mostly burned Yoshino, the stronghold of the Southern Court, so that no one would return there. He burned ancient temples and shrines in the center of Yoshino completely, too. Even people who belonged to the Northern Court and the shogunate thought it was an escalation because Yoshino was the ancient sanctuary that shouldn’t be invaded. A few years ago, Moronao was killed by Tadayoshi because of the conflict in the shogunate. They said it was the consequence of the gods’ anger in Yoshino.

―Kotono ha no,

moyuru[7] Yoshino ni ou kudzu[8] no,

kakaru koromo wo tare ni kisemashi―

Tanka, Japanese thirty-one-syllable verses, often have double meanings that indirectly transfer a poet’s message.

　Yoshino, where poems and lyrics had been sprouting,

　where they had been burnt, now,

　And kudzu vines were growing on the ruins,

　Our bitterness is growing as well.

　On whom shall I lay the responsibility of the destruction?

　　　　　　　　　　Continued in Chapter 5

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　1. (1306–1333) Hōjō Nakatoki, Commissioner General of Rokuhara Tandai.

　2. Rokuhara Tandai means the Kamakura shogunate’s deputy in Kyoto, or its commissioners.

　3. Nakatoki’s loyal retainer. His official name was Kasuya Muneaki.

　4. The uncle of Go-Daigo. Kameyama’s son.

　5. (?–1351) Kō no Moronao, the warlord of the Ashikaga shogunate, was the steward of Takauji.

　6. Moyu means to burn or to sprout.

　7. Kudzu was sometimes called “uramigusa” because the surface of its leaves is green, and the reverse sides are powdery white. Ura means the reverse sides, and urami means resentment.