Samurai Rising by Pamela S. Turner

Author:Pamela S. Turner
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781607348481
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Published: 2013-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

Before their parting Yoshitsune gave Shizuka gold and silver and ordered servants to escort her to Kyoto. The servants promptly stole Shizuka’s horse and money and disappeared. Shizuka wandered downhill in hopes of finding shelter before the cold killed her. Storytellers later claimed that “blood from her bruised feet reddened the snow of the Yoshino Mountains, freezing water dripped from her tear-drenched sleeves, and ice formed on the hem of her skirts, weighting her body so that she could scarcely move.” Almost twenty-six years earlier, Yoshitsune’s mother, Tokiwa, had staggered through snowdrifts with Yoshitsune bundled in her arms, fleeing a samurai lord bent on her children’s destruction. Now Shizuka, lost and abandoned, trudged through the wilderness under winter stars, carrying Yoshitsune’s baby in her womb.

At last Shizuka stumbled upon a mountain temple. The monks, who thought she appeared “strange and eerie,” turned her over to Yoritomo’s men. Under questioning she revealed that she and Yoshitsune had parted in the Yoshino Mountains. Yoritomo ordered the search in the region redoubled. After several months’ captivity in Kyoto, Shizuka was taken to Kamakura. By the time she reached Yoritomo’s headquarters, her pregnancy was obvious. It was just as obvious that the lord of Kamakura would never allow a son of Yoshitsune’s to live. Shizuka could only pray for a girl.

Shizuka’s presence excited the Kamakura elite. Compared to Kyoto, Kamakura was a small town and a cultural backwater. Everyone knew of Shizuka’s beauty and divine talents; Yoritomo’s senior retainers and their wives hungered for a glimpse. Possibly Yoritomo was also curious. And perhaps he could not resist an opportunity to injure Yoshitsune from afar. Whatever his motive, the lord of Kamakura ordered Shizuka to dance.

Shizuka tried to plead ill health. She was, after all, seven or eight months pregnant. Yoritomo insisted. He told her she would dedicate her dance to Hachiman, the Shinto god of war and patron god of the Minamoto. Shizuka would also pray for the success of Yoritomo’s government.

The reed-thatched shrine dedicated to Hachiman stood on a hill overlooking Yoritomo’s ever-expanding city. Under a roofed, open-air hall on the temple grounds, Yoritomo’s servants arranged a raised dance platform draped in Chinese damasks and airy fabrics. On the day of the performance, Yoritomo, his senior retainers, and their families settled on viewing platforms with translucent blinds that offered the women a semblance of privacy. The men wore small, stiff caps, silk jackets, and starched wide-legged trousers. The women’s floor-length hair spilled down the back of their voluminous robes.

Kagetoki attended, as well as Yoritomo’s father-in-law. Both had betrayed their former Taira masters to become Yoritomo’s closest confidants. For a man obsessed with his half brother’s supposed disloyalty, the lord of Kamakura was curiously comfortable in the company of traitors.

It is said that Shizuka, wearing a white under-robe and white wide-legged trousers, was carried in on a litter. She stepped out, bowed, and prayed to Hachiman. The patron god of the Minamoto didn’t belong just to Yoritomo. He belonged to Yoshitsune and their unborn child, too.

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