bossy wife and the henpecked husband are usually figures of fun. What made it more amusing was that he had earlier chosen the tonsure and had become very holy. It was said he had taken holy orders in order to escape from her, but if so the ruse had not succeeded and now we were daily diverted by the sight of this man of the cloth being led about by the nose.
The aspiring Nobuyori was incensed that advice from this upstart priest had kept him from what he believed to be a deserved appointment. Not that he deserved much. Already Captain of the Outer Palace Guards, he could not even ride properly. There was a now famous incident (a part of those disturbances for which he was himself largely responsible) where he could not successfully hoist his considerable bulk to mount his horse, while a group of his own guards stood about and hid their smiles.
Still, though indolent and overweight, Nobuyori was not without a political sense. He decided upon a coup that would chasten Go-Shirakawa and ruin Michinori. Taking his case to the aggrieved Minamoto, he received discreet sympathy. Indeed, he and his chief sympathizer, my former commander, Lord Yoshitomo, kept their plot so successfully secret that few in the court, and no one among the Taira, knew what they were about.
In this peaceful interlude no one was thinking of dissent. There were, to be sure, many Minamoto officers and soldiers in the capital, but there had been no recent incidents between them and us. Everyone knew that the Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa favored the Taira—one had but to look at the grand state allowed Lord Kiyomori—but the opinion was that our two families had gotten their various allegiances so confused in the Hōgen War of two years before that there was little likelihood of our again fighting each other. In current Kamakura terminology, the necessary polarity had not yet been achieved.
But such opinion was mistaken. Yoshitomo continued to be angry at the slights suffered at the conclusion of the Hōgen War, and hence had entered into this plot with Vice-Councilor Nobuyori. Thus, on that cold night, the vice-councilor took his troops and went and hammered at the gates of the palace. His majesty was still awake, late as it was. Always fond of night life, he and two of Michinori's sons were watching the court dancers practicing for a performance scheduled for the New Year's celebration. When they first heard the racket outside they thought it was a fire.
Everyone was thinking about fire that evening. It had not rained, the air was dry, and the wind was strong. Also, less than a month before there had been a conflagration in one of the riverfront palaces and a young princess scheduled to dance at New Year's had burned to death. Now, hearing the noise, Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa became perturbed and it was then he learned that an armed Nobuyori was author of the commotion, that he had—having perhaps been hoisted onto his animal—ridden over with all of his soldiers, and that he was now demanding audience.
There are various versions of his reception, but the most likely one finds Vice-Councilor Nobuyori complaining that Councilor Michinori had brought false charges against him and that this same person was going to have palace troops come to arrest him. It was upon Nobuyori's having learned this that, escaping, he had come to bid farewell to his imperial patron.
As was intended, the retired emperor was confused by this explanation. He said there was no truth in such allegations and that he would himself go and see the reigning emperor—the sixteen-year-old Nijō—and make certain that such rumors were silenced.
Nobuyori well knew Go-Shirakawa's habit of pretending pow-erlessness and referring all decisions to the inexperienced Nijō, so he could now say that this seemed an excellent thought and if his majesty would but get himself ready then he—Nobuyori— would loyally accompany him.
The retired emperor, angry at this, asked what he meant, to thus order about an imperial person. Several of the attending officers indicated what was meant by seizing him, shoving him into a palanquin, and rushing him out of the gate. Michinori's two sons were then dispatched, and the palace set on fire.
In the meantime, the Emperor Nijō had been awakened by Yoshitomo and his men entering the palace they were supposed to have been guarding. He was taken to an outlying building and locked up just as the retired emperor arrived and was secured in the palace archives. All of this was completed by two in the morning.
The Minamoto were now in command. They had both reigning and retired emperors, they controlled the guards' office, the heads of the councilor's two sons were already on view at the east gate, and now all the rebels had to do was deal with Michinori himself, with the absent Kiyomori, and with us.
By the following morning, Vice-Councilor Nobuyori was installed in the offices of the Police Commission, issuing proclamations in the name of the reigning emperor. Soldiers had already surrounded Michinori's mansion and burned it down with everyone in it, including the bossy wet-nurse wife. Her husband managed to escape but was several days later discovered in Uji and decapitated.
The tonsured trophy was brought back and displayed on the banks of the river. After that, any household members remaining—some nineteen, we later heard—were one by one beheaded under the sightless eyes of the man who had himself revived the death penalty.
The morning after the insurrection the wind had dropped, but it was still cold and the capital remained shuttered. We too at Rokuhara did not venture out far. Our leader was away and Minamoto soldiers stalked the streets. We were safe—Rokuhara had been designed as a fortress, there were several wells and enough food—but we were confused.
And so we remained. Though messengers had been at once dispatched to Kiyomori, our commander was still far distant and he had so made himself sole leader that without him none of us knew what to do.
While we remained inactive in our fort, there was over at the Fujiwara residences a scramble among the usurpers for the various offices of state. Nobuyori finally obtained his wished-for title of General of the Imperial Guards and a ministerial post as well; Yoshitomo was given the province of Harima, and at the following banquet a triumph for the Minamoto was officially announced.
Why at this point an attack was not launched against us at Rokuhara I do not know. It was later said that Yoshitomo had so counseled but that the indolent Nobuyori overruled him, saying that it was an unlucky day for such an enterprise and that, in any event, he—still the cautious Fujiwara courtier in all things— thought they had best wait to see what the forces of Kiyomori would do.
We did nothing—stayed inside and so remained for ten whole days. It was a strange period—now sharply cold and us holed up in our fortress like wasps in winter. Except for the cooking fires one would have thought the place deserted. Then on the nineteenth day of the month, Kiyomori returned.
How happy we were to see him. All of us cheered and his wife ran to greet him just as she was, barefoot, right out into the snow of the courtyard. He had with him many more men—soldiers from Ise—and though this meant that room had to be found for them in our already crowded encampment we were pleased to welcome them.
At first we thought it was their vast number that had intimidated the Minamoto into letting them through to Rokuhara. Later we learned that this was rather the doing of Nobuyori himself. He reasoned that, since he held both emperors, Kiyomori could do nothing. And so this newly appointed General of the Imperial Guards allowed his enemy safely to return.
Others did not reason that the leader of the Taira could do nothing. By the morning of the twentieth day of the month, Nobuyori was all alone in his palace, except for Lord Yoshitomo and his men. All the others, terrified of the anger of Commander Kiyomori, had deserted. The peace had ended.
* * *
This war between the Taira and the Minamoto officially began in the early morning of the twenty-seventh day. At three, a group of masked soldiers entered the palace archives and roused the retired emperor. They took him—again
