Table of Contents
Aloeswood
Imayo
From Lady Sanjo’s Pillow Book
Tooth Blackening
From Lady Sanjo’s Pillow Book
The Physician
Lady Oba
Grass Shades
Visitors
From Lady Sanjo’s Pillow Book:
A Daughter’s Duty
Ghosts
From Lady Sanjo’s Pillowbook
A Degenerate Age
The Man of Learning
The Dragon King
The Letter
Every Day is a Good Day
The Consort Pays a Visit
The Doctor’s Orphans
From Lady Sanjo’s Pillow Book
The Audience
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter
Hachiro
Only In a Dream
From Lady Sanjo’s Pillow Book
The Waning of the Moon
Togoro
The Secret Note
From Lady Sanjo’s Pillow Book
The Eave Chamber
The Dojo
Death of a Cat
The Emperor’s Dolls
Flight
From Lady Sanjo’s Pillow Book
Temple Bells
His Father’s Wife
From Lady Sanjo’s Pillow Book
In the tempestuous closing years of the twelfth century, the fourteen-year-old Oba Toshiko, daughter of a provincial warlord, enters the women’s quarters of Emperor Go-Shirakawa, her body bartered for favor at court. Toshiko’s talent as a singer of popular songs and her innocence excite the emperor’s lust and the dangerous jealousy of Lady Sanjo. An accidental and forbidden meeting with the noble physician Yamada Sadahira tempts Toshiko’s heart and tests her loyalty to her family. When her enemy strikes, she flees the palace to be with Sadahira.
Impeccably researched, I.J. Parker’s DREAM OF A SPRING NIGHT begins the saga of the Yamada family, of Toshiko and Sadahira, and of the enigmatic adopted son Hachiro. Their fate will play out against the violence and pageantry of the Heike Wars and the fall of the empire.
The Hollow Reed Book One
Dream of a Spring Night
1168-1169
I. J. Parker
Copyright 2010 by I.J. Parker
Even the jeweled throne,
Shining in the morning sun,
Partakes of darkness
When unrequited lust regrets the pleasures of the night.
(Daini TakatM Shk)
At this time, the imperial power in Japan rested in the hands of retired emperor Go-Shirakawa, who conducted the nation’s affairs from his “cloister palace” while a son or grandson sat on the throne. Go-Shirakawa’s rule lasted from his accession in 1155 at age 28 to his death in 1192. He managed the affairs of five successive emperors, two of them his sons and three his grandsons.
His tenure was marked by increasingly violent power struggles between the throne and factions among the court and military aristocracies. These disturbances culminated in the Heike Wars and shifted the ruling power permanently from the emperors to military shoguns.
Go-Shirakawa is a shadowy historical figure, considered by some historians too inept to prevent the catastrophe, and by others a diplomat and manipulator of complex and powerful interests that were ultimately beyond his control. Whatever the scholarly opinion, Go-Shirakawa appears to have been determined to wrest power from the nobles and return it to the imperial family.
Characters
(* marks a historical character)
Oba no Toshiko, fourteen-year-old daughter
of a Taira vassal
Lady Sanjo, senior lady-in-waiting to Emperor Go-Shirakawa’s Consort
Go-Shirakawa*, the Retired Emperor
Taira Kiyomori*, chancellor and clan chief of the Taira
Otomae*, famous singer and performer of imayo
Lady Shojo-ben, lady-in-waiting
Oba no Hiramoto, Toshiko’s father
Oba no Takehira, Yasuhira, Toshiko’s brothers
Yamada no Sadahira, physician
Otori, his housekeeper
Togoro, his servant
Hachiro, Sadamu, orphan boys adopted by the physician
Master Soma, a teacher of swordsmanship
Aloeswood
It was spring when the perfumed darkness swallowed her.
From the moment her parents told her that she must serve the Emperor, the palace seemed to her a huge maw to suck her in and consume her entirely. She struggled – weakly, for how do you disobey your parents who have given you birth, raised you, and now depended on you?
Already on the journey to the capital, the darkness embraced her. She was confined inside the elegant palm leaf carriage sent for her, behind reed curtains that were woven with crimson silk threads and securely fastened to all openings. Hemmed in by cushions, curtains, and her many-layered silk gown, she was aware of the outside world only through muffled sounds: the creaking of the carriage, the grinding of gravel under the huge wheels, the shuffling of ox hooves, the driver’s shouts to make way, and the hoof beats and clinking of bridles and stirrups of outriders. Later there were the sounds of the capital, of many people, of tradesmen hawking their wares, of temple bells, of other carriages and horsemen. All belonged to the world of light she had left behind forever. She wanted to peek out, but that was strictly forbidden, and so she entered the maw blindly.
They backed the carriage up to a raised veranda, and when they lifted the curtain at its back, she saw a dim tunnel made of draped cloth held by many hands. Other hands reached for her and pulled her up and out, drawing her into a large, dusky room filled with the heavy scent of aloeswood.
A sort of birth – into darkness and whispers.
A woman’s voice: “Let’s have a look at her.”
Blinding light from a candle thrust toward her face made her close her eyes. Indrawn breaths. A giggle. A cough. The first voice: “Well, at least she is young.”
She was fourteen.
And her life was over.
But of course she did not die then. The women -- scented shadows in a large room -- took her in hand, removing most of her clothes, washing her face and hands before applying the heavy paste to her face, then painting her nails while the paste dried on her skin; they blackened her teeth, painted her moth eyebrows, outlined her eyes, rouged her lips, and oiled her hair; and finally they dressed her in layer after layer of silk. Each color had a name, but she was too dazed to pay attention. She was thinking of the maw, of being dressed like a dead pheasant or duck her father or brothers tossed at the cook to be plucked, drawn, and prepared for consumption.