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[continuing chapter 16]
“The palace woman would not stay the night here,” the abbess told them when she rejoined them in the garden, “despite all your warnings. She could not very well refuse my offer of an escort, though, so a dozen arms-men from Tōdaiji are accompanying her palanquin back to the capital.” A weary grin emerged from her round, well-padded face. “Always a most interesting personage with whom to deal,” she said.
“Why is she like that?” Shiro asked. “I have never met anyone so pointlessly rude before.”
“You haven’t met that many people yet,” Hiroki said. He felt the sort of deep calm that always came to him after a long bath. Still, this relief in no way compensated for the pain and disgust generated by having to deal with that woman. For any length of time.
The abbess nodded. “In a way she may be cursed, I believe. Inaki Sakiko finds fault with everyone, and takes every development as an assault on or infringement of her dignities, even if the development has nothing whatever to do with her. She simply must be the centre of everything. And then she wonders that she has no friends and nobody likes her.”
“She surely seemed to me a person who was unaware of how poisonously she behaved,” Tetsuo said. “Perhaps this is just the way nobles are?”
“Too many of the kuge share her resentments and entitlements,” the abbess agreed. “But events of my lifetime should surely have given her reason for humility. They have for many of my noble friends, some of whom now teach writing or painting or calligraphy or act as consultants to wealthy samurai in order to earn their daily rice.”
What is she doing in the palace? Hiroki wanted to ask. What has she done with my son? He did not dare to ask these questions, though. Instead he turned to the abbess and asked, “So now may we know what the lady from the palace was doing here, and how she is, or was, connected with the unfortunate Lady Miyoshi Tomiko?”
The abbess nodded and settled her saffron-shrouded bulk into the chair her attendants had provided her. “You may find this amusing, my lords — Amida Buddha knows I do, given the woman’s personality — but she was here performing her duties as a go-between.”
“She was arranging a marriage?” Shiro asked. “In a nuns’ temple?”
The abbess laughed. “Nothing so … fleshly, young man. Not a marriage but a renunciation. The good Inaki Sakiko serves as a go-between for well-born women who wish to leave the world behind them.”
“Lady Tomiko wanted to become a nun?” Hiroki was startled at first, but then he began to understand the lady’s predicament as she would have seen it. “Her brother had refused her permission to marry the man she wanted,” he said, thinking his way through, “and she did not wish to marry anyone else — though I’m unaware her brother had proposed anyone. Did she feel herself cornered, then, with no other choices?”
“I was given to understand that her claim was that her brother had reduced her to being nothing more than an occasional ornament to his pride. Under that circumstance she would rather be an ornament to the Buddha’s humility.” She paused, then fixed Hiroki with a steady gaze.
“I am not certain she would have become one of us. Complete withdrawal from the world is not an easy task to complete. Many who claim to wish it find in the end that they were mistaken; many others who do desire it never manage. But we do not turn away those who cannot make the ultimate commitment if they are sincere in their desire to withdraw from their current lives.
“Provided, of course, that they can contribute to our life here. And that Lady Miyoshi Tomiko certainly was able to do.”
“So what happened, then?” Tetsuo asked. “Why did she not come to you after all?”
“I should have thought the answer to that question to be quite obvious,” the abbess said, “and the reason for you gentlemen being here in the first place.”
“Oh,” Tetsuo said, blushing. “You mean she was killed because she wanted to become a nun?”
“You have gone from being behind me to being ahead of me,” the abbess said, wagging a finger at Tetsuo. “Why the lady was murdered I do not know. All I know — and it was to tell me this that the most noble Inaki Sakiko came to me today — is that the Lady Tomiko was murdered and so would not be joining our community.”
“When was she supposed to have joined you?” Hiroki asked.
“The ceremony was to have taken place two weeks from now,” she said. “The young woman was determined to have her hair shaved away as a symbol of her determination, even though we would not have required that of her yet.”
“Sounds like she really had made up her mind, then,” Shiro said. His gaze took on a contemplative distance, as if he were trying to understand how anyone could give up the pleasures of a worldly life. “I wonder what her brother thought about it.”
“I wonder if her brother even knew about it,” Hiroki said. “Nisou, could I ask you to elaborate on when and how all of this happened? When did you first meet Miyoshi Tomiko?”
“Oh, I never met Miyoshi Tomiko,” she said, “but that is not at all unusual; when women wish to keep their decisions secret we women of the temple never meet the new novice until the day of her arrival at this place.”
“So her brother didn’t know. I wonder why she wanted to keep it a secret. Do you have any ideas, Nisou?”
“I always have ideas. If you are looking for certainties, I can give you much less.” She shifted in her chair. “Would you like some tea? I know I would be better for it. And not that roasted-barley muck,” she called over her shoulder. “Real tea, for all of us.”
To the muffled sound of sock-clad feet on wooden floor behind them, the abbess said, “Now, then: As for why Lady Tomiko wished to keep her decision secret, I cannot say for certain. But usually in cases like this it’s because the woman fears her relatives would object or even try to prevent her from leaving the world behind.
“Certainly I have sufficient experience of family or friends of my newcomers taking drastic steps ― up to and including violence ― to keep these women from taking a decision that might cost the family money or influence.”
“Could her brother have done something like that?” Tetsuo asked Hiroki.
“Possibly. But I’m inclined to doubt it. There’s a difference, I think, between marrying into an inappropriate family and renouncing the whole world. Lady Tomiko would definitely cause Arms Master Lord Miyoshi trouble doing the former, but not the latter.”
Silence settled on the party, and remained there as two servants brought and served the tea. The tea was excellent, and as he sipped Hiroki wondered at what connections the abbess might still have with the world beyond this temple.
“I did not properly answer your question,” the abbess said, after swallowing a small cube of sweet-bean paste the serving-woman had given her, “so please allow me to return to the subject.
“I was first informed that Lady Tomiko wished to renounce the world at the end of the first month, after the shameful fighting in the streets of the capital.”
“The Miyoshi and Yanagimoto fighting for control of the city,” Shiro said. “I’m sorry we missed that.”
Hiroki closed his eyes in silent protest. Shiro liked to dress in the height of sophisticated style, but he was a long way away yet from being as sophisticated as he looked. “It was the Lady Inaki who brought you word?” he asked.
“Yes, she told me she had received a letter from Lady Miyoshi Tomiko. I have told you that this is a service Inaki Sakiko performs. She often helps the young women of noble or samurai families who wish to become nuns. It is not her formal role at the palace, where I believe she is one of the women who administer the imperial household. My opinion is that she does this as a favour to the women; to me she seems to rather despise men. Of course it is not for me to presume to judge her. Sakiko has, deep down, a good heart -- or so I think.”
I would definitely argue with you about that conclusion, Hiroki thought. “And how many times was the lady Inaki here on Lady Tomiko’s behalf? When was the last such visit before today?”
“On this duty she visited me three times before today. Her previous visit was near the beginning of this week — eight days ago. She told me that Lady Tomiko had decided to spend the two weeks before her ceremony staying in one of our guest-houses.”
“Did Lady Inaki know why Lady Tomiko had made this decision?”
“Not that she told me. There was mention of a final farewell to the Lady Tomiko’s lover, but that was an aside and not a reason.”
Hiroki jerked upright. “A final farewell? Didn’t you tell me Lady Tomiko had kept her decision a secret?”
“I said she had kept it a secret from her family,” the abbess said. “Is the distinction so significant?”
Hiroki got to his feet. “I believe it is.”
Next Characters Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6
Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14
Chapter 15 Chapter 16
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