The Heretical Sect

I

Not long ago I told you the history of the Hell Screen, the most astonishing event in all the years of His Lordship’s life. This time I propose to tell you of the one strange occurrence in the whole life of the Young Lord. Before I do, however, I must first give you a general account of the elder lord’s death from a sudden and wholly unexpected illness.

It happened, if memory serves, when the Young Lord was nineteen. Sudden and unexpected though the illness was, for nearly half a year beforehand there had in truth been all manner of evil portents: stars streamed across the sky above the mansion; the red plum trees in the garden burst into bloom all at once and out of season; the white horse in the stables turned black in a single night; and the pond dried up before our eyes, leaving the carp and crucian carp gasping in the mud. Most dreadful of all was the dream that came to one of the ladies. A carriage blazing furiously, like the one in which Yoshihide’s daughter had ridden, descended from heaven drawn by a beast with a human face. From within it a gentle voice called, “Bring His Lordship here to receive me.” Then the human-faced beast gave an uncanny growl and raised its head. Even in the dream’s darkness, halfway between sleep and waking, its lips alone showed a vivid red. The lady shrieked and woke herself with the sound, drenched in cold sweat, her heart beating like a warning bell. The Lady of the North was distressed, as were all of us. We pasted charms from the diviners upon every gate of the mansion and summoned monks of proven virtue to offer prayers of every kind. Yet perhaps this was karma from which there could be no escape.

One day—a bitter day with snow in the air—His Lordship was returning by carriage from the residence of the Imadegawa Grand Counselor when a high fever suddenly seized him. By the time he reached home he could do no more than cry, “Hot! Hot!” His entire body had taken on a ghastly purple hue, and he seemed so fiercely aflame that even the white silk of his bedding might have scorched. Monks, physicians, and diviners gathered at his pillow, each exhausting every art and straining desperately to save him. But the fever only grew more violent. At last he rolled from his bedding onto the floor and, in a hoarse voice that sounded like another man’s, roared in frenzy, “Ah! My body is on fire! What is this smoke?” Within scarcely six hours he met an end too cruel for words.

The grief, the terror, the sacrilege of it—even now the scene rises plainly before me: the smoke of the ritual fire wandering among the shutters; the scarlet trousers of the ladies as they rushed about weeping in confusion; the stunned faces of the ascetics and sorcerers. Tears overtake me even in this brief telling. Yet among those memories, one image brings me a singular feeling. The Young Lord, for all his youth, showed not the least disorder. His pale face clouded, he sat perfectly still beside his father’s pillow. To remember him there is like catching the scent of a newly honed blade: a chill that pierces to the bone, yet with something strangely reassuring in it too.

II

Though they were father and son, it would be difficult to find two men more completely opposite in appearance and disposition. His Lordship, as you know, was a great, stout man. The Young Lord was of middle height and rather slender, with none of his father’s thoroughly masculine, guardian-god features. He had instead the gentle beauty of his mother, the Lady of the North, whom he resembled almost exactly. His brows grew close, his eyes were clear, and there was a slight peculiarity about his mouth. It was an almost feminine face, yet beneath it lay a dim, melancholy shadow. In formal robes especially, his quiet dignity seemed less magnificent than sacred and remote.

Their temperaments differed even more. Everything His Lordship did was bold and immense, driven by an energy that could not rest until it had astonished the world. The Young Lord’s tastes, by contrast, were unfailingly delicate and elegant. As the elder lord’s spirit could be read in his Horikawa palace, so the Young Lord’s revealed itself in the Tatsuta villa he built at Nyakuoji. The villa was modest in scale, but its garden, planted entirely with maples as though to embody Sugawara no Michizane’s poem, its single limpid stream winding among them, and the countless white herons he released upon that stream—all expressed his reserved and subtle sensibility.

Thus His Lordship delighted in martial things, while the Young Lord loved poetry, music, and the arts above all else. With masters in every discipline he associated freely, as though forgetting all difference of rank. Nor was he merely an admirer. For many years he devoted himself to the deepest secrets of the arts. The mouth organ was the one instrument he did not play, but rumor said that since the celebrated Commander of the Ministry of Popular Affairs no one but the Young Lord had mastered all three accomplishments of Chinese verse, Japanese verse, and music. Many of his finest poems and verses survive in the family collection.

The work most famous in the capital was a poem he composed at a service in Ryugaiji, where Yoshihide had painted the cycle of birth and death through the five realms. Two Chinese visitors were looking at a bronze ritual chime decorated with an eight-petaled lotus between two peacocks. One said, “Abandon the body, cherish the flower, reflect,” and the other replied, “Strike, not rise, have bird.” Those present could make no sense of the exchange and began debating it. Hearing them, the Young Lord swiftly wrote a poem in his beautiful hand on the back of his fan and sent it into their midst:

Could the bird that gives its body
grieve to leave the flowers?
Some birds will never rise,
however often they are struck.

III

Because father and son differed in everything, there also seems to have been something discordant in their relations. The world had its rumors. Some even claimed that the two had quarreled over the same palace lady. Needless to say, no such absurdity could have been true. So far as I remember, the first shoots of hostility were already visible when the Young Lord was fifteen or sixteen. The cause was connected with what I mentioned a moment ago: why the mouth organ alone was an instrument he would not play.

At that age the Young Lord was passionately fond of the sho and studied under the Nakamikado Lesser Counselor, a distant cousin. The Counselor was a peerless master who had inherited through his family both the famous instrument called Garyo and the score of the Daijikicho Nyujikicho mode.

The Young Lord studied and disciplined himself under the Counselor for a long while. But when he asked to be initiated into the secrets of that score, for some reason the Counselor would not grant this request alone. Even repeated entreaties brought no satisfactory answer, and the young prince must have felt the refusal keenly. One day, while playing backgammon with his father, he happened to voice his disappointment. His Lordship gave his usual broad laugh and consoled him kindly. “You must not complain so. In time the season will come when the score falls into your hands.”

Less than a fortnight later, the Nakamikado Lesser Counselor was returning from a banquet at the Horikawa mansion when he suddenly vomited blood and died. That alone might perhaps be passed over. But the next day, when the Young Lord casually entered his chamber, there on the mother-of-pearl inlaid desk lay Garyo and the score of Daijikicho Nyujikicho, though no one could say who had brought them.

Some time afterward, His Lordship was again playing backgammon with his son.

“Your skill on the sho must have improved greatly of late,” he said, as though pressing the point.

The Young Lord kept his eyes calmly upon the board. “No. I have resolved never to play it again as long as I live.”

“And why have you made such a resolution?”

“In my small way, I mean to pray for the Counselor’s repose.”

As he spoke, the Young Lord looked steadily into his father’s face. His Lordship shook the dice cup vigorously, as though he had not heard a word.

“It seems I shall win this one without losing a point,” he said, and continued the game with an air of perfect unconcern.

Their exchange ended there. From that time on, however, I believe an unpleasant feeling came to lodge between father and son.

IV

Until His Lordship’s death, the two remained locked in a ceaseless watchfulness, like a pair of goshawks circling the sky while each searched for the slightest opening in the other. Yet, as I have said, the Young Lord detested every form of quarrel and dispute. Almost never did he openly defy his father’s conduct. Instead, a sardonic smile would flicker over that distinctive mouth, and he would let fall one or two cutting remarks.

Once, after His Lordship encountered the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons at Nijo-Omiya and emerged entirely unharmed, the feat became famous throughout the capital and beyond. The Young Lord turned to me and said with evident amusement, “A demon met another demon. It is hardly strange that Father suffered no harm.” Later, at Kawara-no-In in Higashi-Sanjo, His Lordship drove off with a single shout the ghost of Minister Toru, which appeared night after night. The Young Lord twisted his lips into his customary smile. “They say Minister Toru was gifted in poetry and the appreciation of nature. He must have decided that a man like Father was not worth the trouble of answering and vanished.”

Such words wounded His Lordship more than anything. Whenever one of them happened to reach his ears, he concealed it outwardly with a bitter smile, but the anger within was plain upon his face. I recall his return from a plum-viewing banquet at the Palace. The ox drawing his carriage strayed and injured an old man in the road. Instead of protesting, the old fellow joined his hands in reverence and declared himself blessed to have been struck by the ox of a lord who was a living incarnation of divine power. In His Lordship’s presence, the Young Lord addressed the ox boy.

“You are a fool. If you were going to let the ox stray, why did you not run that lowborn wretch beneath the wheel and kill him? An old man who gives thanks even for being injured would surely have deemed death under the wheel more blessed than the welcoming descent of all the saints. Father’s glory would have risen higher still. Your want of thought is deplorable.”

His Lordship’s displeasure was so terrible that all of us feared his fan would rise at any moment and a beating follow. Yet the Young Lord smiled brightly, showing his beautiful teeth.

“Father, Father, do not be angry. See how thoroughly the ox boy repents. If he applies himself from now on, next time he will surely manage to kill someone properly and carry Father’s fame all the way to China.”

He said it with such innocence that His Lordship at last yielded, though he rose and left without a word, his face sour.

Given such a relationship, nothing cast so strange a shadow over our hearts as the sight of the Young Lord watching his father’s last moments in silence. As I told you before, even now the memory produces that curious sensation—the penetrating chill of smelling a newly honed blade, together with an inexplicable reassurance. At that moment we truly felt that the age had changed: not merely within the mansion, but as though the sunlight falling upon the whole realm had suddenly veered from south to north.

V

From the very day the Young Lord inherited the house, an unwonted serenity drifted into the mansion from nowhere, like a spring breeze. Poetry contests, flower contests, and competitions in love letters were held more frequently than before. The dress and manners of the ladies and retainers grew so elegant that they seemed to have stepped from an ancient picture scroll. The greatest change, however, was in the noble visitors admitted to the mansion. No matter how powerful a minister or general might be, if he possessed no distinction in any art, he was seldom granted an audience. Even if admitted, he found every other guest so gifted and cultivated that shame soon kept him away.

On the other hand, a mere warrior without rank or office could receive rewards beyond his station if he excelled in poetry or music. One autumn night, moonlight streamed through the lattice and the cry of a weaving insect could be heard. The Young Lord suddenly summoned someone, and a newly arrived retainer appeared. For reasons of his own, His Lordship addressed the man at once.

“You too can hear the weaver’s cry. Compose a poem upon it.”

The retainer bowed below and considered for a time. At last he gave the opening phrase: “The green willow…” Because it was so unsuited to the season, suppressed laughter rose among the ladies. But then he continued in a clear voice:

The green willow’s threads
were reeled and laid away; summer passed,
and now in autumn
the weaver sings.

The laughter instantly ceased. Through the lattice, into the moonlight, the Young Lord pushed a court robe patterned with bush clover as the poet’s reward. The retainer was in fact my elder sister’s only son, a young man nearly the Young Lord’s own age. This was the beginning of his service, and afterward he repeatedly received marks of gracious favor.

Such, in broad outline, was the Young Lord’s ordinary life. During those years he took a Lady of the North, and at each annual appointment ceremony he rose in court rank. Since everyone knows these matters, I shall not dwell upon them. I must hurry on, as I promised, to the strange event that occurred but once in his entire life. For though, unlike his father, he acquired the nickname “the greatest lover under heaven,” his years were in truth remarkably peaceful, and apart from the event I shall relate, he left no anecdote celebrated on every tongue.

VI

The affair began, if I remember correctly, five or six years after His Lordship’s death. At the time the Young Lord was constantly sending letters to the famously beautiful daughter of the Nakamikado Lesser Counselor whom I mentioned before. Even now, whenever one of us lets slip some story of his ardor in those days, he laughs brightly and says in jest, as though mocking himself, “Old man, wide though the realm may be, in those days I was beside myself. Every wretched poem and verse I made was love’s doing. I might as well have trodden on a fox’s grave and been bewitched.” And in truth, the Young Lord was then so unlike his usual self that he seemed wholly absorbed in love.

Yet he was hardly alone. Among the young courtiers of the day, there was probably not one who did not long for the Nakamikado Princess. Around the residence at Nijo-Nishinotoin, where she had lived since her father’s time, these amorous gentlemen came continually, some drawing up their carriages, others arriving on foot. I even heard that on one night two men in tall court caps stood beneath the pear blossoms outside the mansion, each playing his flute to the moon.

There was, for instance, a gentleman called Sugawara Masahira, once renowned for his learning. He too fell in love with the Princess. When his suit failed, resentment drove him suddenly to renounce the world. No one now knows where he is. Some say he wanders at the farthest end of Tsukushi; others that he crossed the eastern sea and went to China. He had been one of the Young Lord’s close literary friends. In their letters, I am told, he compared the Young Lord to Bai Juyi and himself to Su Dongpo. However beautiful the Nakamikado Princess may have been, for a man of such elegance and talent to waste his life in a remote land over a single disappointment can only be called a grave lapse of judgment.

And yet, when I think again, she was so beautiful that his folly seems almost pardonable. I saw her only once or twice, but I shall never forget her splendid figure: dressed in mingled willow green and cherry pink, the jeweled sash of her brilliant brocade train shining in the bright lamplight, her heavy-lidded eyes inclined languidly downward. Her spirit was as unusually free and open as her beauty. She would see through any mediocre courtier at once, toy with him mercilessly as though he were one of her pet cats, then never permit him near her again.

VII

Among the Princess’s admirers there were therefore many ridiculous episodes worthy of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. The most pitiable concerned the Kyogoku Controller of the Left. His complexion was so dark that the street boys of the capital nicknamed him the Crow Controller, but his heart was no different from any other man’s, and he too adored the Nakamikado Princess. He seems to have been clever but timid. However deeply he yearned for her, he never confessed it himself, nor did he ever mention it to his peers. Yet his secret visits to catch a glimpse of her face were known to everyone. One day several courtiers used this fact to corner him, questioning him in every possible way until he would admit the truth.

Driven to desperation, the Crow Controller tried to escape with a stratagem. “It is not merely that I have feelings for her,” he said. “The Princess herself has shown signs of affection, and that is why my visits have grown so frequent.” Then, on a sudden impulse to make the story convincing, he invented phrases from supposed letters and poems she had sent him, mixing truth and falsehood until it appeared that the Princess was burning with love for him. His mischievous companions, half believing and half doubting, promptly forged a letter in the Princess’s hand, tied it to a spray of wisteria, and delivered it to the Controller.

His heart pounding, the Kyogoku Controller opened the letter in haste. To his astonishment, the Princess wrote with touching sadness that, however desperately she loved him, he treated her with such coldness that she had abandoned all hope and resolved to become a nun. He had never dreamed that she might feel so strongly. For a while the Crow Controller could do nothing but sit with the letter spread before him, sighing in an emotion that was neither wholly sorrow nor wholly joy.

At all events, he decided to see her and reveal the feelings he had kept hidden in his breast. It was an evening in the rainy season. Taking one page with him and holding an umbrella overhead, he went secretly to the residence at Nijo-Nishinotoin. The gate was firmly barred. However often he called or knocked, there was no sign that anyone meant to open it. Night fell. On the earthen-walled road, where passersby had become scarce, only the croaking of frogs could be heard. The rain came down harder and harder, soaking his robes and nearly blinding him.

After a long time the gate at last opened. An old retainer named Heidayu, a man about my own age, silently handed him a letter tied to another spray of wisteria, then shut the door sharply again.

The Controller returned home in tears. When he opened the letter, he found only an old poem written in scattered lines, without one further word:

Since all you say is that you love me
while acting as though you do not,
no—I shall not love you;
there is no profit in loving.

Needless to say, the mischievous young lords had written the Princess a detailed account, and she knew perfectly well how faithlessly the Crow Controller had behaved.

VIII

Some who hear this story may compare the Princess with ordinary noblewomen and think her conduct too improbable to be true. But while speaking of the Young Lord, whom I presently serve, I have no reason to add such falsehoods. At that time two princesses were famous throughout the capital for their unusual ways. One was this lady; the other loved insects so dearly that she even kept snakes. The latter has nothing to do with my tale, so I shall say no more of her.

The Nakamikado Princess had lost both parents. At the mansion there remained only male and female servants under the old retainer Heidayu, whom I mentioned earlier. She had inherited ample wealth and lacked for nothing. Thus, trusting in her beauty and high spirit, she sometimes behaved with extraordinary boldness, as though the world itself were beneath her notice.

The gossiping public therefore produced people who claimed that the Princess was actually the child of the Lesser Counselor’s wife and His Lordship, and that His Lordship had poisoned the Counselor out of jealousy. But as I have already related, there was nothing of the kind in the Counselor’s sudden death. The whole rumor was a baseless lie. Otherwise the Young Lord would surely never have given his heart to the Princess so completely.

From what I later heard, however ardent the Young Lord was at first, the Princess treated him more coldly than any of her other suitors. Once, when my nephew carried one of his letters to her, she refused to open the gate, just as she had done to the Crow Controller. For some reason Heidayu hated everyone from the Horikawa mansion as though they were mortal enemies. The spring sunlight lay warmly over the pear blossoms that day. He thrust his white head above the plastered wall, rolled up the sleeves of his cypress-bark-colored hunting robe, and snarled at my nephew, who was trying to force the gate.

“You there! Are you a daylight thief? If you are, expect no mercy. Set one foot inside this gate and Heidayu’s sword will cut you in two.”

Had it been I, the matter might have ended in bloodshed. My nephew merely picked up a lump of ox dung from the roadside, hurled it like a stone, and came home. Even when the Young Lord’s letters reached her safely, no reply ever came. He paid no heed. Every few days, for more than three months, he patiently sent letters, poems, and splendid picture scrolls. His later confession was wholly true: “Every wretched poem and verse I made was love’s doing.”

IX

It was at just this time that a strange-looking monk appeared in the capital and began spreading a doctrine never heard of before, which he called the faith of Mari. He became quite famous for a while, so some of you may have heard of him. When old tales say that a tengu crossed over from China, just as they say a demon possessed the Empress of Somedono, they use those stories as figures for this very monk.

I first saw him around then. It was, I think, midday on a cloudy spring day. Returning from an errand, I passed outside Shinsenen and found some twenty or thirty people gathered before its earthen wall. There were men in soft court caps and tall caps, curious women in broad traveling hats, even children astride bamboo horses. They formed a single knot, shouting and jeering. I thought perhaps a madman cursed by the god of fortune was dancing, or that some careless merchant from Omi had had his load snatched by a fish thief. The uproar was so great that I looked in from behind.

At the center stood a monk dressed like a beggar, talking vehemently while holding upright a banner bearing the unfamiliar image of a female bodhisattva. He appeared close to thirty, dark-skinned, with upturned eyes and a savage face. His black robe was rumpled and worn, but his hair hung in coils to his shoulders, and around his neck he wore a strange golden cross-shaped amulet. He was plainly no ordinary priest. As I watched, falling cherry petals from Shinsenen showered over his head. He looked less like a human being than one of the monstrous followers of the demon Chira Eiju, concealing a kite’s wings beneath his robe.

A powerful blacksmith standing beside me suddenly snatched a bamboo horse from a child’s hands.

“How dare you call Jizo Bodhisattva a tengu!” he roared, and struck the monk across the face.

Even under the blow, the monk merely gave a sinister grin. He raised the banner of the female bodhisattva still higher into the petal-laden wind.

“Though a man enjoy every splendor in this present life,” he cried, “if he turns against the teaching of the Sovereign of Heaven, then at the instant of death he shall fall into the hell of ceaseless screams. Unending karmic fire shall burn his flesh and bones, and he shall howl until the end of time. As for one who strikes Mari Shino, the priest left behind by that heavenly Sovereign, he need not wait for death. By tomorrow the divine youths shall punish him before all eyes, and his body shall become white with leprosy.”

His force overwhelmed us. Even the blacksmith stood for a while with the bamboo horse held like a spear, staring in amazement at the mad monk’s behavior.

X

The pause lasted only a moment. The blacksmith took a fresh grip on the bamboo horse.

“Will you still not cease your abuse?” he shouted with terrifying fury, and sprang at the monk.

Everyone, myself included, believed the bamboo horse had struck the fellow squarely in the face. Indeed, it appeared to add another livid welt to his sunburned cheek. But no sooner had the stick swept down sideways, scattering petals from the fresh green bamboo leaves, than it was the blacksmith—not the monk—who crashed to the ground.

The crowd recoiled. Men in soft caps and tall caps alike turned their backs in fear and surged away from the monk. The blacksmith lay on his back at the fellow’s feet, still clutching the bamboo horse, white foam bubbling from his mouth like an epileptic’s. The monk watched his breathing for a moment, then turned his eyes upon us.

“Look well. You see that my words were no lie. The divine youths struck this heretic at once with an invisible sword. He may count himself fortunate that his head was not smashed to dust and his blood scattered across the avenue.”

At that instant a shrill wail broke from the silent crowd. The child who had owned the bamboo horse came tumbling toward the fallen man, his cropped hair flying.

“Father! Father, please! Father!”

He cried out again and again, but the blacksmith showed no sign of returning to his senses. The foam gathered on his lips, stirred by the cloudy spring wind, and dripped white across the breast of his hunting robe.

“Father—please!”

When still no answer came, the child’s face changed. He leaped up, seized with both hands the bamboo horse still clutched by his father, and bravely rushed straight at the monk. The monk effortlessly brushed the blow aside with the staff of his painted banner and gave that sinister laugh again. Then he deliberately softened his voice.

“What folly. Your father did not lose consciousness through any act of Mari Shino. Punishing me cannot bring him back to life.”

It was probably not that the child grasped the logic, but that he understood he could never win a fight with this monk. After swinging the bamboo horse five or six times, the blacksmith’s little son stood frozen in the middle of the road, his face crumpled and ready to cry.

XI

Seeing this, Mari Shino smiled again, sidled up to the child, and said:

“What an understanding child you are—clever beyond your years. If you remain so meek, the divine youths will look kindly upon you and soon restore your father to his senses. I shall pray for him now. Watch me closely, and entrust yourself to the mercy of the Sovereign of Heaven.”

With these words, the monk clasped the banner pole in both arms, knelt in the middle of the avenue, and bowed his head reverently. His eyes closed, he began loudly reciting something like an outlandish dharani. How long did it continue? To those of us standing in a circle around him and watching this strange rite, it seemed nearly an hour. At last the monk opened his eyes. Still on his knees, he stretched out a hand over the blacksmith’s face. Before our very eyes, warm color returned to the man’s cheeks, and presently a long, painful groan poured from his foam-covered mouth.

“Father is alive again!”

The child flung away his bamboo horse, leaped for joy, and ran back to his father. Before the boy could even help him up, however, the blacksmith raised himself slowly, almost at the same instant as the groan escaped him, moving as unsteadily as though he were drunk. The monk rose in turn with an air of perfect satisfaction. He held the banner with the female bodhisattva over father and son like a shield against the sun and solemnly declared:

“The majesty of the Sovereign of Heaven is as vast and boundless as the sky itself. Well—has faith awakened in you?”

Still crouching on the ground, the blacksmith and his son clung tightly to one another. The terror of the monk’s spiritual power must have frightened their very souls out of them. Looking up at the banner of the female bodhisattva, they joined their hands piously and worshiped it, trembling all over. Then two or three among us removed their hats or straightened their caps and bowed to the image as well. I alone felt, for no reason I could explain, that both monk and image were steeped in the winds of the demon realm. The sensation was hateful. So, taking the blacksmith’s recovery as my opportunity, I hurried away.

I later heard that the doctrine this monk preached was the faith of Mari, brought over from China. As for the man called Mari Shino, no one could say for certain whether he had been born in this country or raised in the Tang realm. Some even claimed he was a priest from the furthest reaches of India, belonging neither to China nor Japan: by day he walked the streets as we had seen him, but at night his black robe became wings, and he flew into the sky above the pagoda of Yasaka Temple. That, of course, must have been idle nonsense. Yet the very birth of such rumors was understandable, for many of Mari Shino’s deeds were wondrous beyond explanation.

XII

First of all, with the power of that strange dharani, Mari Shino healed multitudes of sick people in the blink of an eye. The blind saw, the lame stood, and the mute spoke—it would be tedious to enumerate every case. The most famous, perhaps, concerned the human-faced sore that tormented the former Governor of Settsu. As punishment, it was said, for shooting his nephew from afar and stealing the man’s wife, a mysterious sore bearing the nephew’s face appeared on his left kneecap. Day and night it afflicted him with agony that seemed to carve into the bone. Yet when the monk performed his rite, the face’s expression softened before the onlookers’ eyes. No sooner had a voice saying “Namu” escaped from what appeared to be its mouth than it vanished without a trace. Given such powers, it was no wonder that fox spirits, tengu, and nameless demons and apparitions alike would fall away as soon as their victims received one of his cross-shaped charms, like leaf-eating insects shaken loose by a gale.

But healing alone did not make Mari Shino’s powers famous. As I myself saw in the street, whenever anyone slandered the faith of Mari or abused one of its followers, the monk would call down a dreadful divine punishment upon the offender then and there. In some houses the well water turned into reeking blood; in others locusts devoured every grain of rice in the fields overnight. A shrine maiden of Hakushu Shrine was even said to have become a leper, hideous to behold, in retribution for trying to pray the monk to death. Thus the rumor that he was a tengu in disguise grew stronger still. A hunter came all the way from the depths of Kurama boasting that, if the man were a tengu, he would bring him down with a single arrow. But perhaps the sword of the divine youths struck him: he suddenly went blind and in the end became a believer in the faith of Mari himself.

With events proceeding in this fashion, the number of converts—young and old, men and women—increased day by day. Initiation apparently required a rite resembling consecration, in which the head was wetted with water. Until a person had undergone it, he could not offer proof that he had taken refuge in the Sovereign of Heaven. My nephew once witnessed the ceremony. Crossing the Shijo Bridge one day, he saw a tremendous crowd on the riverbank below. Looking down to learn what it was about, he found Mari Shino initiating a samurai who appeared to be from the eastern provinces. Imagine the scene reflected in the Kamo River: the spring water already warm enough to carry drifting cherry blossoms, the samurai kneeling respectfully with his great sword at his side, and the bizarre monk holding aloft his strange cross-shaped charm as they performed an unfamiliar rite. It must have been quite a spectacle. I should add something I neglected earlier: from the beginning, Mari Shino had built a tiny, mat-covered hermitage among the outcasts’ huts on the Shijo riverbank, and there he always lived alone in poverty.

XIII

To return to my story: in the meantime an unforeseen event made it possible for the Young Lord to speak intimately with the Nakamikado Princess, to whom he had so long devoted his heart. It occurred one night when the scent of mandarin blossoms and the cuckoo’s call both suggested a sky heavy with rain. Unusually, the moon was out, bright enough for one to make out a face dimly in the night. The Young Lord was returning from a secret visit to one of his ladies. To avoid attention, he had taken only one or two attendants, and his carriage moved slowly through the moonlight. It was very late. No one else passed along the road; only frogs calling in distant fields and the rumble of the carriage wheels could be heard. Beyond lonely Bifukumon Gate, a place where fox fires often burned, an uncanny chill seemed to press close, and even the unthinking ox quickened its pace. Just then, from the shadow of an earthen wall ahead came a suspicious cough. At once six or seven masked men, evidently brigands, sprang from both sides and rushed savagely upon the Young Lord’s carriage, their naked blades glittering in the moon.

The ox boy and the menials in attendance must have thought their souls would leave their bodies. Before they could even cry an alarm, they scattered in confusion and fled headlong the way they had come. The brigands paid them no attention. One seized the ox’s bridle and stopped the carriage dead in the middle of the road, while the others closed in tightly on every side, forming a fence of naked steel. Their leader rudely swept aside the blind and, looking back toward his companions, demanded, “Well? Is this the lord, beyond doubt?”

Their conduct did not seem that of ordinary thieves. Even amid his surprise the Young Lord grew suspicious. He had remained perfectly still until then, but now he angled his fan and peered past it at the man. From among the brigands came a hoarse voice:

“Aye. This is certainly he,” it answered with hatred.

Something in the voice sounded familiar. More suspicious than ever, the Young Lord stared through the bright moonlight at its owner. His face was covered, but there could be no mistake: it was Heidayu, the longtime retainer of the Nakamikado Princess. At that instant, even the Young Lord felt every hair on his body stand on end. For he had long since heard that Heidayu hated the entire Horikawa house as bitterly as a mortal enemy.

Indeed, as soon as Heidayu gave his answer, the leader thrust the point of his sword toward the Young Lord’s breast and snarled more harshly still:

“Then we shall have your life.”

XIV

Yet the Young Lord, never one to lose his composure, recovered his courage at once. Idly playing with his fan, he said:

“Wait. If it is my life you want, I might even give it to you, depending on the circumstances. But why should you gentlemen desire such a thing?”

He asked it as casually as though the matter concerned someone else. The leader brought his bare blade still closer to the Young Lord’s breast.

“At whose hands did the Lesser Counselor Nakamikado meet his end?”

“I do not know at whose hands. But I have firm proof that they were not mine.”

“You or your father—it makes no difference. You belong to the enemy’s party.”

At this, the other brigands muttered beneath their masks, “Aye, the enemy’s party,” each hurling abuse in turn. Heidayu gnashed his teeth. Leaning into the carriage like a beast, he pointed his sword at the Young Lord’s face.

“Your clever talk is of no use. Better say the Name ten times,” he jeered.

The Young Lord remained as calm as ever, as though he could not see the naked blade before his breast.

“Then are all of you retainers of the Lesser Counselor?” he asked dismissively.

For some reason, the brigands hesitated to answer. Heidayu immediately noticed their unease and cried out more forcefully:

“We are. What of it?”

“Nothing at all. But suppose that one of you is not a retainer of the Lesser Counselor. That man is the greatest fool under heaven.”

The Young Lord spoke with a flash of his fine teeth and laughed, his shoulders shaking. Even these reckless brigands were stunned for a moment. The sword tips that had pressed toward his breast withdrew almost unconsciously into the moonlight outside the carriage.

“I shall tell you why,” the Young Lord continued. “Once you have murdered me, every one of you will suffer the severest penalty the instant the constables lay eyes upon you. If you are retainers of the Lesser Counselor, then you cast away your lives for loyalty and will surely count it your dearest wish fulfilled. But if any man here is not his retainer and faces my body with a naked sword merely for a little gold and silver, then he is a fool who would exchange his one irreplaceable life for that reward. Is that not plain reason?”

The brigands looked at one another as though the thought had only now occurred to them. Heidayu alone bellowed like a madman:

“Bah! Who is a fool? Are you not a hundred times the greater fool for dying beneath that fool’s sword?”

“What? Then some among you are fools after all—men who do not belong to the Lesser Counselor? The matter grows more interesting. I have a word for those outsiders. You mean to murder me solely because you want gold and silver, do you not? If gold and silver are what you want, I shall give you whatever reward you ask. In return, I too have a request. If the work is for money either way, would it not be wiser to take the side that pays more and secure your profit?”

Smiling with generous ease, the Young Lord tapped the knee of his court trousers with his fan and thus bargained with the brigands outside the carriage.

XV

“Depending upon your terms, my lord, we may be able to do as you wish.”

In the dreadful silence, the brigands’ leader answered half fearfully. The Young Lord snapped his fan with satisfaction and replied in his customary light tone:

“Excellent. My request is nothing especially difficult. That old man standing there is Heidayu, a retainer of the Lesser Counselor, is he not? Street rumor has reached even me: he nurses a constant grudge and has conceived the outrageous scheme of taking my life if he finds the chance. No doubt he incited you to undertake tonight’s fine enterprise—”

“It is as you say.”

Three or four brigands answered at once from beneath their masks.

“Then my request is this. I want the old ringleader seized so that I may put an end to this source of calamity for good. Will you men use your strength to bind Heidayu?”

The proposal was so extraordinary that the brigands seemed struck dumb. The masked heads surrounding the carriage turned toward one another; for a while there was a restless stir among them. When it subsided, a hoarse voice suddenly rose from their midst like the cry of a night bird.

“You witless dolts! You let this milk-lipped lordling talk you round until you can do nothing with the blades you drew—and then you say you will obey his will? Have you no shame? Fine, then. I need none of your hands. One paltry life is no great matter. Heidayu’s sword alone will take it splendidly, and in the blink of an eye.”

With these words, Heidayu lifted his sword high and lunged at the Young Lord. But at almost the same instant, the leader flung aside his blade and seized the old man firmly from the side. The others sheathed their swords and sprang upon Heidayu from every direction, like so many locusts. He was one against many and an old man besides; there was no longer any question of a contest. In moments they had bound him with the ox’s bridle—or some such rope that lay to hand—and dragged him down into the moonlit road. There he writhed and panted stubbornly, baring his teeth like a fox caught in a snare.

At the sight, the Young Lord laughed through a yawn.

“Well done, well done. That eases my anger for the moment. Since you have come this far, escort my carriage too, and lead that senile old fellow to the Horikawa mansion.”

After such a command, the brigands could hardly refuse. So the whole band set off together. Driving the ox in place of the vanished servants, they surrounded their bound prisoner and tramped through the moonlit streets. The realm is wide, but surely no lord except the Young Lord ever took brigands into his own retinue. This strange procession did not reach the mansion intact, however. We had heard the alarm and rushed out to meet it. After each man received a reward on the spot, the brigands slipped quietly away.

XVI

When the Young Lord returned to the mansion with Heidayu, he had the old man tied to a pillar in the stables and ordered the servants to keep watch over him. Early the next morning, however, he summoned Heidayu into the garden beneath a cloudy sky.

“Now, Heidayu. Your determination to avenge the Lesser Counselor is certainly foolish, but it is not wholly without merit. And your design of gathering masked men on a moonlit night to murder me displayed a degree of elegance one would scarcely expect from a man of your kind. Bifukumon Gate, though, was not the best setting. You should have chosen the shadow of the ancient trees in the Tadasu woods. On a summer night the murmur of the stream can be heard close by, while the white deutzia blossoms gleam faintly in the moonlight and lend still greater charm to the scene. Perhaps it is unreasonable of me to expect so much from one of your sort. Still, in honor of your admirable loyalty and your taste for the picturesque, I shall pardon your crime this once.”

The Young Lord laughed with his usual sunny ease, then added:

“In return, since you have come all this way, carry a letter from me to the Princess. Do you understand? I charge you to deliver it without fail.”

Never in this world have I seen a face as strange as Heidayu’s at that moment. His sour, malicious features took on an expression between laughter and tears, while his eyes alone darted furiously about. Perhaps the Young Lord found the sight as pitiable as it was absurd. His smile faded, and he addressed the servant holding the end of the rope.

“Come, come. A long stay would only inconvenience Heidayu. Untie him at once.”

Not long afterward, Heidayu—whose back seemed to have bent like a bow in a single night—came scrambling out through the rear gate with a spray of mandarin blossom over his shoulder, the Young Lord’s letter fastened to it. Another man quietly slipped out behind him: my nephew, the samurai. Fearing that Heidayu might insult the letter, he followed the old man at a distance without informing the Young Lord.

There was perhaps half a block between them. Heidayu trudged along as though every nerve and thought had gone slack, dragging his bare feet through the capital’s walled streets. The sky had not yet cleared, and the fresh persimmon leaves gave off their morning scent. Now and then a woman carrying vegetables passed him, glanced back suspiciously, and watched this extraordinary messenger go by. The old man paid no attention.

For a time my nephew thought all would be well and considered turning back. Yet some lingering doubt made him follow a little farther. Just before Heidayu reached Aburanokoji, beside a roadside shrine to the guardian gods of travelers, an unfamiliar monk rounded the corner and nearly collided with him. The banner of the female bodhisattva, the black robe, the strange cross-shaped charm—one glance told my nephew that this was Mari Shino.

XVII

Mari Shino avoided the collision with a quick turn. For some reason, however, he stopped and stared fixedly after Heidayu. The old man seemed not to notice. He merely gave way by two or three steps, then resumed his same slow, lonely progress. My nephew assumed that even Mari Shino must have found Heidayu’s extraordinary appearance suspicious. But as he drew nearer to the monk, who still stood as if lost in himself before the roadside shrine, he saw something in the man’s gaze that could not be ordinary, even for a tengu in disguise. Its usual sinister gleam had vanished. Instead, it held a gentle moisture, almost as if tears had filled his eyes. Beneath the shadow of green chinquapin leaves spreading over the shrine roof, the monk rested the banner pole slantwise against his shoulder and watched the old man disappear. There was such loneliness in his figure that, for the first and only time in his life, my nephew felt affection for him.

Presently the sound of my nephew’s footsteps must have startled the monk. Mari Shino turned sharply as though waking from a dream. Raising one hand high, he traced the mysterious nine signs, muttered an incantation under his breath, and hurried away. My nephew said he heard something like the word “Nakamikado” among the syllables, though his ears may have deceived him. Throughout all this, Heidayu walked on without once looking aside, the spray of mandarin blossom still on his shoulder. My nephew again followed at a distance, all the way to the residence on Nishinotoin. Yet Mari Shino’s strange behavior so troubled him that he nearly forgot even the Young Lord’s letter.

The letter evidently reached the Princess safely, for this time, most unusually, a reply came at once. We humble servants could know nothing certain about her reasons. Perhaps, spirited as everyone knew her to be, she heard from Heidayu of the attempted ambush and for the first time understood the Young Lord’s exceptional character. After two or three further exchanges of letters, the Young Lord at last took my nephew with him one drizzly night and secretly visited the Nishinotoin residence, now half buried behind the foliage of the willows. Even Heidayu’s resistance must finally have broken. He frowned fiercely that night, but my nephew said the old man showed no particular inclination to abuse him.

XVIII

Thereafter the Young Lord visited the Nishinotoin residence almost every night. On occasion he took even an old man like me in attendance. It was on one of those visits that I first beheld the Princess’s dazzling beauty. Once, the two of them called me close and commanded me to tell them how the world had changed from former times to the present. I believe it was that same night. Clear starlight fell upon the garden pond visible through a gap in the blinds, and the scent of the few remaining wisteria blossoms drifted faintly through the air. In that cool night, with only one or two ladies attending them, the two sat quietly drinking. Their beauty made them seem to have stepped out of a painting in the Japanese style. The Princess in particular, wearing a pale violet robe over layers of white, was so pure in appearance that even the radiant Princess Kaguya could scarcely have surpassed her.

Presently the Young Lord, pleasantly warmed by wine, turned toward the Princess.

“As the old man has just said, even within this narrow capital the mulberry fields have more than once become the sea. All the laws of this world are forever arising, passing away, and flowing onward; not for a single instant do they remain. Thus the Sutra of Impermanence teaches that never has there been a thing not swallowed by impermanence. Our love, too, can hardly escape that law. My only concern is when it began and when it will end.”

He spoke almost in jest. The Princess turned deliberately away from the bright lamplight with a little pout.

“How hateful your words are. Did you intend to abandon me from the very beginning?” she asked, casting him a tender, reproachful glance.

The Young Lord, in higher spirits than ever, drained his cup.

“No. It would better suit my feelings to say that from the beginning I expected to be abandoned.”

“Please do not tease me so.”

The Princess smiled charmingly at first. Then suddenly she gazed dreamily into the darkness beyond the blinds.

“Is all love in this world truly so fleeting?” she murmured, almost to herself.

The Young Lord showed his fine teeth in his customary smile.

“It may well be. Yet the only time we human beings can forget the impermanence of all things and taste, if only briefly, the marvelous medicine of the Lotus Treasury World is while we are in love. One might even say that during that time we forget love’s own impermanence. In my eyes, therefore, Narihira—who passed his days wholly absorbed in love—was a splendid spiritual guide. If we would leave behind the sufferings of this defiled world and dwell in the light of eternal tranquility, there can be no way but to love exactly as in The Tales of Ise. Do you not think so?”

He leaned sideways and peered into the Princess’s face.

XIX

“The blessings of love may indeed be called measureless beyond counting,” the Young Lord continued.

The Princess lowered her eyes in embarrassment. Turning his blissful face from her to me, he said:

“Well, old man, you think so too, do you not? Though in your case it would not be love. What of your beloved wine?”

“By no means, my lord. I fear too greatly for my life to come.”

Flustered, I scratched my white hair as I answered. The Young Lord laughed brightly again.

“That answer proves my point. You say you fear the world to come, but the desire to be reborn upon the further shore, relying upon that hope as a lamp in the dark night, is no different from the desire to forget this world’s impermanence. Thus, although religion and love are not the same, in the end your heart and mine are one.”

“That is outrageous, my lord. The Princess’s beauty may surpass even that of the goddess of the arts, but love is love and the Buddha’s teaching is the Buddha’s teaching. Still less can my fondness for wine be ranked with either.”

“You think so only because your heart is narrow. Amida and women alike are, to me, nothing more than puppets made to help us forget the sorrow of being human—”

As the Young Lord insisted upon this, the Princess stole a glance at him.

“But would not a woman object to being called a puppet?” she asked softly.

“If ‘puppet’ displeases you, I shall call you a Buddha or bodhisattva.”

The Young Lord answered readily. Then, as though some memory had suddenly returned, he stared into the flame of the great oil lamp.

“When I was close to Sugawara Masahira, we often had arguments of this sort. As you may know, Masahira was unlike me: simple and upright by nature, ready to give his faith wholly to one thing. Whenever I mocked the sacred sutras spoken from the Buddha’s golden mouth as being no different in truth from love poems, he grew angry and repeatedly abused me as a heretic lost in worldly passions. I can still hear his voice, yet Masahira himself has vanished, and no one knows where.”

He murmured with unaccustomed melancholy. Perhaps his mood drew us in, for the Princess, her ladies, and even I fell silent. In the still room, the fragrance of wisteria alone seemed to grow stronger. One of the ladies, apparently fearing that the gathering had become awkward, ventured to break the silence.

“Then perhaps this so-called faith of Mari, now fashionable in the capital, is another new device for helping people forget impermanence.”

Another lady added, with evident unease, “And are there not all manner of strange rumors about the monk who preaches it?” She made a show of trimming the wick of the great lamp as she spoke.

XX

“What—the faith of Mari? That is a curious doctrine indeed.”

The Young Lord, who had been lost in thought, seemed to recollect himself. He raised his cup and looked toward the lady.

“If it is called Mari, perhaps it worships Marishiten.”

“If only it were Marishiten. I hear that the object of its worship is the unfamiliar figure of a female bodhisattva.”

“Then perhaps it means Lady Mallika, consort of King Prasenajit.”

At this point I related in full everything I had seen Mari Shino do outside Shinsenen.

“Judging by the image,” I said, “she cannot be this Lady Mallika. Indeed, she resembles none of the Buddhas or bodhisattvas we have ever known. Above all, the horror of her holding a naked infant makes her look like a female demon who feeds upon human flesh. At any rate, she must surely be the Buddha of a heretical sect never before seen in our country.”

The Princess gently drew her fine brows together.

“And did this man Mari Shino truly look like a tengu in disguise?” she asked, as though seeking confirmation.

“He did, my lady. In dress and appearance, he might have beaten his wings straight out of a mountain of flame. Yet surely no such shape-shifting creature would walk the capital in broad daylight.”

The Young Lord laughed again in his clear voice.

“One cannot be certain. In the reign of Emperor Daigo, a tengu is recorded as having perched for seven days in the branches of a persimmon tree near Gojo, taking the form of the Buddha and emitting light from the white curl between its brows. And the creature that came every day to torment the priest Ninsho of Butsugenji appeared to be a woman, but was in truth a tengu.”

“What dreadful things you say!”

The Princess and both her ladies cried out together, drawing the sleeves of their layered robes close. The Young Lord’s face softened further with the wine.

“The three thousand worlds are vast and boundless. There is nothing that our meager human wisdom can declare impossible. Suppose, for example, that the tengu disguised as this monk were to set his heart upon the Princess of this mansion and, one night, secretly stretch down a clawed hand from the sky above the gable. No one can say it could never happen. But—”

The Princess pressed close to him in fright, though scarcely a trace of color left her face. The Young Lord gently stroked the back of her robe.

“But fortunately this Mari Shino has never so much as glimpsed you. Until he does, there can be little danger that a love born of the demon realm will be fulfilled. You need not be so frightened.”

He laughed and comforted her as though soothing a child.

XXI

For roughly a month after that, nothing happened. Then, one day at the height of summer, the Kamo River flashed more dazzlingly than ever beneath the sun, and in the blazing heat even the towboats had ceased to pass along its course. My nephew, who had always been fond of fishing, went beneath Gojo Bridge, sat among the mugwort on the riverbank, and, grateful for the cool breeze that reached that one spot, cast his line into the shrunken stream and busied himself catching dace. Presently he heard voices from the railing overhead, voices that seemed somehow familiar. He glanced up without thinking. There stood Heidayu, leaning against the railing and working a tall fan, deep in conversation with none other than Mari Shino.

At the sight, my nephew recalled Mari Shino’s strange conduct at the crossroads in Aburanokoji. There had seemed even then to be some hidden connection between the two men. So although he kept his eyes on his line, he strained his ears toward their conversation. The road was almost empty in the stillness of midday, and the men above had evidently let down their guard. They showed no sign of noticing my nephew below and were discussing matters so outrageous that he could scarcely believe his ears.

“Not a soul in all this broad capital can know that it is you who spreads the faith of Mari,” Heidayu was saying lightly, his words keeping time with the snap of his fan. “Even I could not place you, though I felt I had seen you somewhere, until you told me who you were. And no wonder. Who could imagine that the young gentleman who sang The Cherry-Blossom Folk one spring night and the fearsome figure who now walks half naked beneath the burning sun—if you will pardon me, looking for all the world like a tengu—were one and the same? Even the shrine maiden who falls into trances could never have guessed it.”

Mari Shino answered with the unhurried manner of some great lord.

“I too am more pleased than I can say to have met you. I once caught sight of you before the roadside shrine in Aburanokoji. Without looking aside, you trudged toward the mansion beneath a mandarin branch bearing a letter, your step weary and your face lost in thought.”

“Did you indeed? At my age, that was an unseemly spectacle. I beg your pardon.”

Heidayu must have remembered that morning, for his words sounded bitter. Soon, however, his fan resumed its brisk flutter.

“Still, our meeting today must surely be a blessing from the Bodhisattva Kannon of Kiyomizu Temple. Never in all Heidayu’s life has anything given him such joy.”

“Do not name gods or buddhas in my presence. Unworthy though I am, I have received the divine command of the Sovereign of Heaven and taken the robe in order to spread the faith of Mari throughout this land of Japan.”

XXII

Mari Shino broke in with these words, apparently knitting his brows. Yet, contrary to what one might expect, Heidayu showed no sign of being abashed. His tongue worked as tirelessly as his fan.

“Ah, yes, of course. Heidayu must truly have grown senile of late, for everything I do ends in some blunder. If that is how matters stand, I shall never again utter the name of any god or buddha before you. To tell the truth, this old man has never been greatly burdened with piety. I spoke so suddenly of Kannon only because I was overjoyed to see you after so many years. And now that I think of it, how delighted the Princess will be to learn that her childhood companion is alive and well.”

He spoke with a vigor wholly unlike the taciturn manner he showed us, when even answering seemed too much trouble. For a while Mari Shino appeared at a loss for a reply and merely nodded. At length, seizing upon Heidayu’s mention of the Princess, he lowered his voice still further.

“Concerning the Princess, there is a private matter upon which I wish to speak with her. Heidayu, could you arrange for me to meet her, at night if need be?”

At that moment the fan above the bridge stopped abruptly. My nephew nearly looked up toward the railing, but any careless movement might have betrayed his hiding place. He kept his gaze fixed upon the water flowing through the riverbank mugwort and listened without breathing. Heidayu, so lively until then, did not answer. To my nephew beneath the bridge, the silence lasted so long that every muscle in his body began to itch with impatience.

“Though I live upon the riverbank, I too dwell within the capital,” Mari Shino resumed at last, his voice quiet and almost soliloquizing. “I know that the Lord of Horikawa has lately been visiting the Princess with great frequency. But it is not because I yearn for her that I ask to meet her. The desire that once enslaved me was extinguished when I wandered in China and heard the teaching of the Sovereign of Heaven from a red-haired, blue-eyed monk of the western lands. What pains me is that the Princess, precious as a jewel, does not know the Sovereign of Heaven who created heaven and earth. She believes instead in demons and false ways called gods and buddhas, offering incense and flowers even to wood and stone carved in their likeness. When the hour of death comes, she must therefore burn in the fires of hell that never go out through all eternity. Whenever I think of it, I see her delicate form cast headlong into the darkness at the bottom of the great Avici Hell. Indeed, only last night—”

His voice, which had gradually weakened, fell silent as though emotion had overcome him.

XXIII

“Did something happen last night?” Heidayu asked anxiously after a time, prompting him to continue.

Mari Shino seemed to return to himself. In his former quiet voice, pausing between each phrase, he answered:

“Nothing that could be called an event. Last night I was dozing alone behind my hanging mat when the Princess came to my bedside in a dream, wearing five robes of willow green. Only one thing differed from waking life: amid the haze that veiled her lustrous black hair, a golden ornament gave off an uncanny light. Overjoyed by a meeting denied me for so long, I said, ‘How glad I am that you have come.’ But the Princess lowered her sorrowful eyes and sat before me without a word. Then I saw something stirring at the hem of her crimson trousers. Not only at the hem—when I looked more closely, they were upon her shoulders and breast as well. Some crouched within her black hair and seemed to grin falsely at me.”

“That alone tells me nothing. What were these creatures?”

Heidayu had evidently been drawn into the monk’s cadence despite himself. The swagger had gone from his voice. Mari Shino replied in the same brooding manner:

“Even I do not know exactly what they were. I saw only countless uncanny beings no larger than unborn children, swarming and writhing about the Princess. The moment I beheld them, grief seized me even within the dream, and I cried aloud without restraint. Seeing me weep, the Princess too shed tears without end. This continued for a long while, until somewhere a cock crowed and the dream vanished.”

When Mari Shino had finished, Heidayu too fell silent and once more began to use the fan he had stopped. My nephew listened so intently that he forgot the dace upon his hook. Throughout the tale, the coolness beneath the bridge seemed to pierce his skin, and he felt strangely as though he himself had once dimly seen the Princess in just that mournful form.

Presently Mari Shino’s low voice sounded again above him.

“I believe those uncanny beings were demons. The Sovereign of Heaven must have pitied the Princess, burdened with karma that condemns her to hell, and granted me this sacred dream so that I might instruct her. That is why I ask your aid in gaining an audience. Will you not grant my request?”

Heidayu still hesitated for some time. At last he closed his fan and struck the railing sharply with it.

“Very well. Once, at the foot of the Kiyomizu slope, Heidayu fought with a band of street ruffians and came within an inch of losing his life. It was through your aid that I escaped. Remembering that debt, I have no right to refuse what you ask. Whether the Princess embraces this faith of Mari is for her alone to decide, but she cannot object to meeting a childhood companion after so long. I shall do everything within my power to arrange the interview.”

XXIV

It was three or four mornings later that my nephew told me the full particulars of this secret conversation. The guardroom, usually crowded, held only the two of us. Bright morning sun shone through the green leaves of the plum trees outside, yet from among them a cool breeze occasionally carried the first hint of the approaching autumn.

When my nephew had finished his account, he lowered his voice still further.

“How that man Mari Shino knows the Princess is beyond me. Yet if the monk is allowed an audience with her, I have a dreadful feeling that some wholly unforeseen disaster will befall our lord. Telling His Lordship would be useless; with his temperament, he would never take such a warning seriously. So I intend, on my own authority, to prevent the monk from meeting the Princess. What do you think, Uncle?”

“I too have no desire to let that uncanny tengu-priest look upon her face. But neither you nor I can spend all our time guarding the Nishinotoin mansion while neglecting our lord’s service. Even if you say you will keep the monk away from the Princess—”

“That is precisely the difficulty. We do not know the Princess’s wishes, and Heidayu is there besides. We cannot openly prevent Mari Shino from calling at Nishinotoin. But every night he lodges in a mat-covered hut on the Shijo riverbank. Depending upon what we devise, it should be possible to ensure that he never again comes forth into the capital.”

“We can hardly keep watch over the hut forever. You speak in riddles, and an old man like me cannot wholly follow you. What exactly do you mean to do with Mari Shino?”

My nephew glanced before and behind the room, where shadows of the plum leaves fell, as though fearing that anyone might overhear. Then he put his mouth to my ear.

“What else can be done? Late at night we shall steal down to the Shijo riverbank and put an end to the monk’s breathing.”

Even I was so astonished that for a while I could not find another word. My nephew, however, spoke with the single-minded intensity of youth.

“He is only a beggar-priest. Even if he has two or three men to help him, killing him will be no great task.”

“That seems rather lawless. Mari Shino may go about spreading a heretical creed, but apart from that he has committed no crime. To kill him would be to kill an innocent man.”

“One can always find reasons enough. Suppose instead that the monk borrows the power of this Sovereign of Heaven and lays a curse upon our lord or the Princess. Then what worth is there in the stipends you and I receive?”

His face flushed as he argued on, unwilling to heed anything I said. At that moment two or three other samurai entered, their fans sounding in the doorway, and the discussion was left unresolved.

XXV

Another three or four days passed. One night beneath a sky crowded with stars, my nephew and I secretly made our way to the Shijo riverbank after the hour had grown late. Even then I had neither resolved to kill the tengu-priest nor decided that killing him was right. But my nephew would not abandon his first design, and for some reason I could not bear to let him go alone. Thus, absurdly heedless of my years, I too crept through the dew-soaked riverbank mugwort toward Mari Shino’s hut.

As you know, countless wretched huts of outcasts line that riverbank. By then the many pale, diseased beggars who lived there must have been deep asleep, dreaming dreams stranger than any I could imagine. As my nephew and I stole past the huts, placing each foot without a sound, nothing came from behind the mat walls but heavy snoring. Everywhere lay utterly still. One refuse fire had been left smoldering, and in the windless night its white smoke rose in a perfectly straight column. Its upper end seemed to merge with the mottled Milky Way. Looking upon it, I felt as though innumerable stars were tilting the sky above the capital and descending foot by foot, inch by inch, so silently that even their faintest sound might have been heard.

My nephew must have marked the place beforehand. Standing among the riverbank mugwort, he pointed to one of the hanging-mat huts beside a narrow channel of the Kamo River and turned to me.

“That one,” he said.

By the faint light of the dying refuse fire, whose embers still put forth tongues of flame, I saw that the hut was perhaps smaller than any of the others. Its bamboo posts and roof of old mats differed in no way from its neighbors. Yet upon that roof stood a cross-shaped emblem made of branches, grave and unmistakable even in the darkness.

“That one?”

I repeated the question in an uncertain voice, without knowing why. The truth is that even then I had not firmly resolved either to kill Mari Shino or to spare him. But while I hesitated, my nephew kept his gaze fixed upon the hut and answered curtly without looking back.

“Yes.”

At the sound, the thought that the hour had come to give blood to our swords sent an indescribable tremor through my whole body. My nephew had already prepared himself. He carefully moistened the peg of his sword, then, without so much as glancing at me, slipped through the riverbank grass toward the hut as silently as a spider stalking its prey. Indeed, in the dim glow of the refuse fire, his back pressed close against the mat wall as he listened for movement within, he looked to me like some enormous and sinister spider.

XXVI

But matters having come to this pass, I could hardly stand by with folded arms. I tied the sleeves of my hunting robe behind me and, following my nephew, crept up to the outside of the hut. There I pressed my eye to a gap in the matting and peered intently within.

The first thing I saw was the picture of the female bodhisattva that Mari Shino carried aloft upon his banner pole. It now hung on the far wall of matting. The figure itself was indistinct, but in the glow of the refuse fire seeping through the rush mat at the entrance, its lovely golden halo shimmered faintly, like the sun or moon in eclipse. Before it lay a man lost to the world in the exhaustion of the day—Mari Shino, no doubt. Something like a garment half covered his sleeping form; but because it lay with the light behind it, I could not tell whether it was the wing of a tengu, as rumor had it, or the pelt of the fire rat said to dwell in India.

At that sight, without a word between us, we took up positions on either side of the monk's hut and quietly drew our swords. Yet perhaps because I had felt a strange reluctance from the first, my hand slipped, and the guard of my sword rang out with a sharp metallic note. Before I could even start inwardly, there came a movement beyond the rush mat, where until then Mari Shino had lain without so much as a breath.

“Who is there?” he challenged.

Now my nephew and I alike had mounted the tiger and could not dismount: there was nothing for it but to kill the monk. The instant he spoke, therefore, we raised our naked blades and burst into the hut from front and rear without a word. Blades clashed, bamboo posts snapped, and mat walls ripped apart, all in one fearful uproar. Then my nephew suddenly sprang back two or three paces.

“Villain! You shall not escape!” he roared painfully, flourishing his sword high above his head.

Startled by his cry, I too leapt nimbly aside and strained my eyes through the light of the still-burning refuse fire. And what do you suppose I saw? Before the hut, now smashed to fragments, crouched that uncanny Mari Shino like an ape, a pale lavender lady's robe draped across his shoulders and the familiar cross-shaped charm pressed to his brow. He watched our every movement. I was frantic to strike him down at once, yet somehow the darkness seemed naturally to thicken around his crouching body, leaving no opening through which I might spring. Or perhaps I should say that something invisible appeared to whirl within that darkness, so that I could not steady the point of my sword. My nephew evidently felt the same. Now and again he cried out as though gasping for breath, but his naked blade merely wheeled and wheeled above his head, tracing dizzy circles in the air.

XXVII

Presently Mari Shino rose slowly to his feet. Brandishing the cross-shaped charm to right and left, he cried in a voice as terrible as a storm:

“You there! Would you profane the majesty of the Sovereign of Heaven? To your clouded eyes this body of Mari Shino may seem to have no protection but a black monk's robe. In truth, however, it is guarded by a heavenly host a million strong, with divine youths beyond all counting. Come then—raise those blades you boast of, and test your strength against the chariots, horses, swords, and spears of the saints who follow behind me!”

His last words were flung at us in mockery.

Threats such as these were not enough to make us shiver. At his words, my nephew and I rushed upon him from either side like oxen broken loose from their tethers. Or rather, I should say we were just about to rush upon him. For at the very instant we raised our swords, Mari Shino swept the cross-shaped charm once more around his head. Its golden surface flashed upward like lightning, and a dreadful vision appeared before our eyes.

Ah, how could a tongue such as mine describe that fearsome apparition? Even if I could, it would differ from the truth as much as a horse displayed in place of a kirin. Yet let me tell it as best I may. The instant the charm flew into the air, it seemed to me that the darkness over the riverbed suddenly tore open behind Mari Shino alone. Through that rent appeared countless horses and chariots of flame, together with monstrous forms like dragons and serpents. Scattering sparks more swiftly than rain, they crowded the heavens so vividly that they seemed ready at any moment to plunge upon our heads. Amid them thousands upon thousands of things like banners and swords glittered, while a tremendous roar, like the sea under a gale, surged up with force enough to send the very stones of the riverbed running. Against that host stood the monk, the pale robe still across his shoulders and the cross-shaped charm raised aloft. His awesome figure was like some great tengu descended into the middle of the riverbed from the depths of hell, leading all the armies of demons behind him.

Overwhelmed by the marvel, we dropped our swords, clutched our heads, and flung ourselves helplessly to the ground on either side. Above us Mari Shino's voice rang out once more in thunderous rebuke:

“If you value your lives, beg forgiveness of the Sovereign of Heaven. Otherwise the million guardian saints will at once reduce your stinking carcasses to the eight successive stages of decay!”

Even now, merely remembering the terror and horror of it sets me trembling. At last I could endure no more. Raising my clasped hands, I shut my eyes and faltered fearfully, “Homage to the Sovereign of Heaven.”

XXVIII

What followed is almost too shameful to relate, so I shall be as brief as I can. Perhaps because we had prayed to the Sovereign of Heaven, the terrible vision soon vanished. In its place, however, the outcasts who had risen at the clash of swords surrounded us from every side. Most of them were believers in the faith of Mari. Seeing that we had cast away our swords, they looked ready to overpower us at the least provocation. Men and women pressed upon one another, shouting savage abuse and craning forward to stare hatefully into our faces as though we were foxes caught in a trap. The faces of those lepers—no man could say how many—thrust out from before and behind and on either side, bathed in the light of the newly kindled refuse fires until they hid even the starry night. Nothing in this world could have been more ghastly.

Yet Mari Shino, to his credit, slowly calmed the raging outcasts. Then, wearing his usual mysterious smile, he came before us and expounded at great length upon the blessed origins and workings of the Sovereign of Heaven's majesty. Throughout his sermon, however, I could think of nothing but the beautiful pale robe draped over his shoulders. Such robes are common enough in themselves, but could this one possibly belong to the Nakamikado Princess? If so, she had already met the monk in secret; worse still, she might even have embraced the faith of Mari. The thought so consumed me that I scarcely heard a word he said. Yet I dared not betray my concern, lest some new horror befall us. From Mari Shino's manner, moreover, he seemed to suppose that we had attacked him in the dark merely because we resented his contempt for our gods and buddhas. Fortunately, he appeared not to have guessed that we served the Young Lord of Horikawa. I therefore kept my eyes from the pale robe as much as possible and, seated upon the river sand, feigned a most devout attention to the monk's discourse.

To him, it must have seemed that we were admirably penitent. When he had delivered a sermon of suitable length, Mari Shino softened his expression and held the cross-shaped charm over us.

“Your sins arose from ignorance and benightedness. The Sovereign of Heaven will surely grant you exceptional pardon. I too have no wish to chastise you further. In time, this very ambush may become the bond that brings you to the faith of Mari. Until that day comes, you would do well to withdraw from this place.”

So he spoke with gentleness. Even then the outcasts glared as though they might seize us at any moment, but one word from the monk made them obediently open a path for our departure.

My nephew and I fled the Shijo riverbed so hastily that we scarcely took time to sheath our swords. As for what I felt then—joy, grief, mortification, or something else— I do not know. Even when the riverbed lay far behind us and we could faintly hear the lepers, clustered like ants around the wavering red refuse fires, singing some strange hymn, neither of us looked at the other. We walked on in silence, doing nothing but sigh.

XXIX

After that, whenever we met, my nephew and I put our heads together and speculated about Mari Shino and the Nakamikado Princess. We considered every possible means of driving the tengu-monk away, but whenever we remembered that terrible vision, no useful plan came readily to mind. My nephew, being younger than I, clung more stubbornly to our original purpose. He seemed even to contemplate gathering a band of street toughs, as Heidayu had done, and making another assault upon the hut on the Shijo riverbed. Before we could act, however, something wholly unexpected occurred—another display of Mari Shino's miraculous powers that left us astounded.

It was early in autumn, when the first cool winds had begun to blow. The Reverend Nagao had built a hall of Amida at Saga and was holding its dedication. The hall has since burned down, but it had been constructed of the finest timber gathered from the provinces, by craftsmen of the greatest renown, without stinting in the least on gold. Though it was not vast in scale, you may therefore imagine the splendor of its adornment.

On the day of the dedication in particular, not only high nobles and courtiers but ladies beyond counting had assembled. Carriages of every kind stood beside the eastern and western galleries; blinds edged in brocade hung around their viewing boxes; and at the blinds' edges showed exquisite hems and sleeves in the colors of bush clover, bellflower, and golden lace. The beauty of the entire precinct beneath the mild sunlight seemed a vision of the jeweled Pure Land of the lotus. In the pond enclosed by the galleries, artificial red and white lotuses bloomed so densely that no space remained between them. Through their midst a dragon boat moved at leisure beneath a canopy of brocade, boys in figured robes dipping painted poles into the water while delicate music drifted over the pond. The sight was so holy it brought tears to the eyes.

Still more venerable was the view straight ahead. Behind the sanctuary rail, which glittered brilliantly with mother-of-pearl, sacred incense curled around the principal image of the Buddha and the figures of Seishi and Kannon, faintly revealing faces of pure gold and jeweled necklaces. In the courtyard before them stood the high seats of the officiating lecturers beneath dazzling canopies, with the ceremonial dais between. Scores of monks taking part in the dedication mingled in splendid blue and red robes and vestments. Their chanting, the ringing of bells, and the fragrance of sandalwood and aloeswood rose ceaselessly into the clear autumn sky.

In the very midst of the rite, however, the people crowded outside the four gates, each hoping for even a glimpse within, suddenly began to roar. Like a sea struck by a rising wind, the crowd surged and shoved, though no one yet knew what had happened.

XXX

Seeing the disturbance, the chief guard hurried over at once. Raising his bow high, he tried to beat back the people spilling through the gate. But as a strangely dressed monk emerged through the waves of the crowd, the guard suddenly threw down his bow. Far from barring the man's way, he prostrated himself on the spot and made obeisance as though before an appearance of the Emperor. The precincts, which had stirred at the commotion outside, abruptly fell silent. Then whispers of “Mari Shino—Mari Shino” arose from nowhere, like wind passing through reeds.

As always, Mari Shino's long hair hung disordered over the shoulders of his black robe. The gold of the cross-shaped charm glittered upon his breast, and his bare feet looked cold even to behold. Behind him the familiar banner of the female bodhisattva rose sternly in the autumn sunlight, no doubt carried aloft by one of his followers.

“Hear me, all of you. I am Mari Shino, charged by divine command of the Sovereign of Heaven to spread the faith of Mari throughout this land of the rising sun.”

He answered the chief guard's obeisance with leisurely composure, then strode without fear into the sanded courtyard and spoke in this solemn voice. The precincts murmured again. Yet two or three officers of the police, though shocked by this unforeseen outrage, did not forget their duty. Brandishing their weapons and loudly denouncing the intrusion, they rushed at the monk from every side to seize him.

Mari Shino looked upon them with contempt.

“Strike if you will. Seize me if you will. But the punishment of the Sovereign of Heaven will fall upon you where you stand.”

He spoke mockingly. At that moment the cross-shaped charm upon his breast flashed dazzlingly in the sunlight, and all his assailants dropped their weapons. As though struck by lightning from a clear sky, they toppled at the monk's feet.

“Behold, all of you. You have now witnessed with your own eyes the majesty of the Sovereign of Heaven.”

Mari Shino took the charm from his breast and held it proudly in turn toward the eastern and western galleries.

“Nor is such a miracle strange. The Sovereign of Heaven is the one and only great God who created heaven and earth. It is only because you do not know this God that you lavish such devotion upon the solemn worship of Amida Buddha and others of his kind—mere demons and deceivers.”

Unable to endure this blasphemy, the monks who had stopped chanting and sat dumbfounded at the scene suddenly raised a tumult. “Beat him to death!” some cried; “Seize him!” shouted others. Yet not one man left his place to punish Mari Shino.

XXXI

Mari Shino swept an arrogant gaze over the monks.

“A sage of China once said that when a man knows he has erred, he should not shrink from correcting himself. Once you have learned that the buddhas and bodhisattvas are demons, nothing could be better than to enter the faith of Mari without delay and praise the majesty of the Sovereign of Heaven. Or if you still doubt my words—if you cannot decide whether the buddhas and bodhisattvas are demons or the Sovereign of Heaven an evil god—then let us compare our miraculous powers by any means you please and determine which is the true law.”

He shouted this in a harsh voice. But everyone there had just seen the officers fall senseless before their eyes. Behind the blinds and outside them alike, nobles and commoners held their breath as though water had been poured over the gathering. Not one person volunteered to test the monk’s powers. The Reverend Nagao was not alone in having his courage broken by Mari Shino, who seemed a living god. So too, it appeared, were the abbot of Mount Hiei and the bishop of Ninnaji, both present that day. For a time the music of the dragon boat ceased, and the dedication courtyard grew so still that one might almost have heard the sunlight falling upon the artificial lotuses.

The monk gained still greater confidence from their silence. Holding aloft his familiar cross-shaped charm, he laughed like a tengu.

“What a pitiful spectacle! I see no lack of holy monks from Nara and Mount Hiei, yet not one will come forward to match his powers against Mari Shino. You must all have quailed before the divine radiance of the Sovereign of Heaven and the heavenly youths, and entered the gate of Mari without distinction of rank or age. Very well. Here and now I shall begin with the abbot of Mount Hiei and administer the initiation to each of you in turn.”

Before his insolent taunt had ended, a venerable monk stepped calmly down from the western gallery into the courtyard. His gold-brocade stole, crystal rosary, and pair of white eyebrows left no doubt at first glance that he was the Abbot of Yokawa, whose immeasurable virtue was renowned throughout the realm. Though advanced in years, he carried his ample body slowly and with dignity. He halted solemnly before Mari Shino.

“Listen, base fellow. As you have said, this courtyard is indeed filled with countless dragons and elephants of the Dharma. Yet one does not hurl a precious vessel merely to strike a mouse. Who among them would compete in spiritual power with a wretch like you? You ought first to know your shame and depart this sacred place at once. Your insistence on displaying supernatural powers is outrageous in the extreme. I take you for an outside monk who has practiced some perverse diamond meditation. Therefore, partly to reveal the efficacy of the Three Treasures, and partly to save the beings whom your demonic influence would drag into the Hell of Incessant Suffering, I myself have come to test my powers against yours. Though your sorcery command demons and gods, it cannot lay so much as one finger upon me under the protection of the guardians of the Dharma. When you behold the miracle of the Buddha’s power, it is you who had better receive the precepts.”

Having delivered this lion’s roar, the abbot at once formed a sacred seal with his hands.

XXXII

From between the hands joined in that seal there suddenly rose a single stream of white vapor. As it drifted dimly into the middle air, a mass of haze appeared directly above the abbot’s head, like a jeweled canopy. Yet to call it haze will not adequately convey the marvel of that cloud. Had it truly been mist, the roof of the hall beyond should have been obscured. But this vapor seemed merely to hold some invisible shape coiled in empty space, while the clear color of the sky remained plainly visible through it.

The people around the courtyard must all have been astonished. A murmur like wind arose from nowhere, enough to stir the blinds. Before it had subsided, the Abbot of Yokawa reshaped the seal and slowly moved his fleshy chin to chant a secret spell. At once two indistinct golden-armored deities appeared like shadows within the cloud, brandishing vajras with heroic force. They were apparitions that seemed present when one believed in them and absent when one did not. Yet as they flew and danced through the air, they bore such divine authority that they appeared ready at any moment to bring a vajra down upon Mari Shino’s head.

Mari Shino himself, however, kept his haughty face raised and stared steadily at the golden-armored deities without moving so much as an eyebrow. Indeed, about his tightly closed lips hovered the shadow of his familiar uncanny smile, as though he could scarcely restrain his contempt. Unable to endure such insolence, the Abbot of Yokawa suddenly broke the seal, shook his crystal rosary, and thundered in a hoarse voice:

“Begone!”

At his cry, the golden-armored deities began to swoop down from the air together with the cloud. At precisely the same instant, Mari Shino pressed the cross-shaped charm to his brow and shouted something in a piercing voice. In that instant a rainbow-like flash seemed to shoot into the sky. The golden-armored figures vanished without a trace; in their place, the abbot’s crystal rosary snapped in two at the center, and its beads flew clattering in every direction like hailstones.

“Your skill is plain enough, Reverend. The man who has practiced a perverse diamond meditation is none other than yourself.”

The triumphant monk hurled this abuse in a ringing voice above the spontaneous roar of the crowd. How utterly the Abbot of Yokawa wilted beneath it scarcely needs to be said. Had his disciples not rushed forward, each vying to support him, he might not even have returned safely to his place in the gallery.

Meanwhile Mari Shino thrust out his chest more proudly than ever.

“I had heard that the Abbot of Yokawa was the most honored master of the Dharma beneath heaven. Yet to the eyes of this monk he is merely a priest in a burning house, who tries to cloud the Sovereign of Heaven’s all-seeing gaze and recklessly enslaves demons and gods. Was Mari Shino wrong, then, to declare that buddhas and bodhisattvas are demons and the Buddhist teaching a cause of damnation? Be that as it may, if any among you still refuses to enter the gate of Mari, monk or layman alike, let him come forward here and test before his own eyes the majesty of the Sovereign of Heaven.”

He glared in every direction as he spoke.

Then, from the eastern gallery, came a clear reply:

“I shall.”

And the man who stepped calmly down into the courtyard, his court robes commanding all around him, was none other than the Young Lord of Horikawa.

(Unfinished)