they had passed—usually carrying off with them whatever they could lay their hands on: barley, yams, the occasional peasant girl.
The only value of a soldier seemed to lie in his ferocity. The Minamoto were openly the teeth and claws of the Fujiwara and we Taira were likened to the fabled dogs of Chang-an in distant China. Like these animals, our soldiers were encouraged to bark and to bite. Yet now, in Heiankyō, we were suddenly civil, and able to take our proper place in a proper society.
This had been ordered by Kiyomori—we were to behave as befitted our new station. Previously, having no wealth, few military men had been allowed financial dignity. The fiefs given deserving army officers were notoriously in barren mountains or on desolate moors, where the unhappy recipients existed on what the court threw their way. Now all of this was changed. Kiyomori, to suit his own dignity, took to rewarding and disciplining his troops. Never had I seen soldiers so clean, nor so ready to obey commands.
It was thus a heady season. For the first time we soldiers had a future. Kiyomori had been one of us—and now look at him. His opportunity was ours. And in this possibility dwelt hope. We thought well of our prospects and became, for the first time, well behaved. We were on the right side, the one on the ascendancy.
There were various accountings of our leader's rise to power. One of our favorites was that he was in actuality the son of the Emperor Shirakawa, now dead these twenty-five years. This meant that royal blood flowed in the veins of our leader and that in protecting the present emperor he was also performing a filial duty. Another accounting—this one popular among our enemies—was that he was the unfortunate issue of a deranged priest who had gotten to his mother. We called this a typical Minamoto story. Back then anything contrary to the Taira cause was called Minamoto.
Lord Kiyomori was himself careful to appear the best-bred warrior the capital had ever seen. He showed great concern never to infringe upon any of the imperial prerogatives and was always punctiliously laying this or that idea before his highness. In this he was conspicuously different from the Fujiwara regents, who were often overbearing to all, including the emperor, and from their Minamoto lackeys, who were always surly.
The good manners of our leader were not, I think, actually due to any especial reverence felt for the imperial person. Back in those days an emperor was just another man, an important one, one to whom duty was owed, but quite mortal. Thus it was not at all like these Kamakura days when the emperor—though of little political significance—is treated as though he were a deity.
No, Lord Kiyomori behaved respectfully because it was politic to do so. I think any man in his position might have so behaved. I certainly would have
* * *
All this chronicling. For whom, I wonder, am I writing? Certainly not for the ballad boys whose racket I daily endure, though they might gain by my sober example; they are getting everything wrong as they turn history into entertainment.
For whom, I wonder—not, certainly, for the young louts now in charge up in Kamakura. They know nothing of history. For them the world began with Yoritomo. Even Kiyomori, his great enemy, means nothing. But one can understand this. When the infant Antoku went into the depths, he carried with him an age. A civilization was swallowed and nothing is as it was. For the soldiers now in Kamakura everything earlier is useless.
Not for me, however. I experienced those days and, though I do not want to be one of those doddering ancients forever bewailing necessary change, I cannot believe that my years have meant nothing. That is why I now wish to put them—my life— into some kind of order.
Also to create a permanence where none unfortunately exists. I well realize that impermanence is our natural state, one that we would—as the Lord Buddha suggests—be wise to accept. Nonetheless, I am human enough to resent such eternal evanescence. So I scribble to explain myself to myself, though none but perhaps a few of my descendents will read this after I am gone. Yet, like everyone else who has ever lived this sorry life, I want to be remembered. And I want myself and my times to be remembered accurately, which is among the reasons I resent those sensationalizing scribes down the hall.
Things as they then were ... as I write, I remember how Kiyomori appeared that first day, sitting there, black upon his black horse. He seemed so much himself. That is how I thought of him: this man is entirely who he is. And behind this thought was my own idea of myself—so unformed. Kiyomori could experience no doubts, and I was myself at the time composed of little else.
To become a consistent, understandable person; all of a single piece, standing firm against the tides of time; one who logically looks after his own interests—steadfast and memorable, a worthwhile person. That is what I am still wicked enough to want, priest though I am.
* * *
Time passed swiftly. It was now two years after the Hōgen War and its grand head-display, and there had been many changes. The imperial palace, fired during the disturbances, had been rebuilt, and there were new departments, new ministers. Traditional court ceremonials not practiced for a hundred years were revived; the music academy and the training school of court dancers were again opened; wrestling contests were once more seen in pavilions in the palace park; the pleasure houses were filled with ever younger girls; and Commander Kiyomori policed the capital so well that there was the promise of lasting peace.
A part of this welcome change was ascribed to the ascension of the new emperor. His Imperial Majesty Go-Shirakawa retired and in his place was installed the young Nijō. The welcoming of a sixteen-year-old was in part due to dissatisfaction with his predecessor. It was not so much Go-Shirakawa's taste for low-life, though he did tend to fill the palace with popular singers and stay up till all hours. Rather, it was felt that with such popular tastes went a certain inclination toward intrigue and machination. In addition, it was well known that Go-Shirakawa had his own wealth—he was a major landlord. The new emperor, on the other hand, was said to be properly poor, possessed of a probity much beyond his years and of a conservative turn of mind, which much resembled that of earlier rulers.
Under his reign, then, people hoped that things would be like the good old times, when the emperor smiled upon his subjects and all went well: a time of eternal peace. The people, however, did not have the opportunity to discover if this would actually have come about. Late in the last year of Hōgen, the first year of Heiji [1159], this lasting peace ended.
It ended on the fourth day of the twelfth month on a cold and windy night. We were all in the guardhouse. It was too chilly to wander the streets or to go to the pleasure quarters, so most of us were asleep. To be sure, we should not have been, we were on guard duty, but the Commander had left the week before on a pilgrimage to Kumano Shrine and had taken a large number of officers with him, so our discipline was relaxed.
Though a full complement of guards was on watch, none of us expected anything but more days and nights of nothing happening, and so we were unprepared. At midnight I was sound asleep, and it was just at this time that the Minamoto attempted their coup.
Later we discovered how. Vice-Councilor Nobuyori, a Fujiwara courtier, formerly favored by Emperor Go-Shirakawa, had earlier in the year applied for a higher position. The retired emperor, no longer favoring the man, had refused. In this he had been counseled by yet another Fujiwara, Councilor Michinori, a man who had the imperial ear—and who had, incidentally, also had the death penalty reinstated and was consequently responsible for the executions at the end of the war.
Michinori was also, in addition, something of a joke. His wife, a large, stout woman, had been the nurse of Go-Shirakawa and thus enjoyed special privileges at the cloistered palace. A great gossip, she was always running in and out with this story or that. This amused the low tastes of the retired emperor and so she was eventually able to forward her husband's career. The joke consisted
