Chapter 30 - Jōkyō 3 (1686), Part One

Jōkyō 3 (1686), Fifth Month — The Capital, Kyoto

“Princess, if you do not return soon, you will be late for your lesson with the mistress.”

“She’s right. And if you lean in that far, they’re going to notice you.”

“I know, Saki. Do not rush me so. Just a little longer. And Natsume, do not say unnecessary things.”

Clinging to one of the high windows that provided light to the training hall overlooking the inner courtyard of the vast Tsuchimikado estate at Hachijō was Princess Kana, the family’s eldest daughter, who had turned eight that year.

Because she had forcibly wedged her face into the high window, the hair arranged in her child’s coiffure had become somewhat disheveled, but her features were adorable, and above all, her eyes brimmed with curiosity.

Inside the training hall she was watching, prospective trainees—including her elder brother Yasumasa—were in the middle of practicing Onmyōdō arts. At present, they were listening to an Onmyōji instructor explain the Tsuchimikado family’s Nine Cuts.

Only those judged outstanding among them would someday become Onmyō students, formal trainees, and thereafter qualify as Onmyōji, so everyone listened intently.

“Hmm, I see. So here, you do this, then this… And the incantation is… Oh? It can be used in circumstances like this as well?”

Holding the foot of the ladder steady while urging their mistress to hurry back were Princess Kana’s two ladies-in-waiting, Saki and Natsume, as she muttered to herself atop it.

Both wore their hair hanging down and pale scarlet kosode marking them as Princess Kana’s attendants, but the impressions they gave were quite different.

Saki, small and somewhat plump, was mainly entrusted with attending to the princess’s meals and other daily needs, including preparing her snacks.

Natsume, meanwhile, was rather tall for a woman and had strikingly large, round eyes. She was responsible for managing the princess’s clothes and accessories, as well as doing her needlework.

Both had served Princess Kana since she was seven, and incidents like this had been an everyday occurrence throughout that time, so they were already accustomed to it. Unfortunately, being discovered and scolded afterward was equally routine for the princess, which made matters rather troublesome for them.

“Good, I understand it! Now, I am coming down, so hold it firmly.”

Despite her imperious words, she descended the ladder very cautiously, one step at a time, though for the final two rungs she gave a spirited shout of “Yah!” and jumped down.

Saki immediately picked up the ladder and ran off to return it to the elderly gardener.

“Now then, let us try it before I forget!”

As the princess looked around for something suitable to use as a target,

“Are you sure this is all right? You do remember what happened last time, when you failed and caused that enormous commotion?”

Natsume asked while giving her a doubtful look. About a month earlier, Princess Kana had attempted the Nine Cuts merely by imitating what she had seen, only to fail spectacularly when she forgot the incantation partway through. The half-completed technique had remained suspended in the air.

Worse still, because the head of the family, Yasutomi, had been away that day, an Onmyōji had to come all the way from the Bureau of Onmyō to dispel it. Until then, the courtyard had been too dangerous for anyone to enter, and two butterflies and a sparrow had fallen victim to the technique.

Naturally, when Princess Kana’s father returned home, he had given her a monumental scolding.

“Of course I remember! Father threatened that if I ever did such a thing again, he would throw me into a Buddhist convent.”

“Then perhaps you should refrain from doing it…”

Saki, who had returned by then, spoke anxiously as well, but—

“Do not worry. I will not make the same mistake twice. I have already mastered the Nine Cuts perfectly.”

Seeing their mistress grin smugly as she said this, the two attendants, filled with nothing but foreboding, could only sigh in resignation.

“Oh, that should do nicely.”

Finding a stone in one corner of the garden that looked large enough that even an adult would need both arms to encircle it, the princess happily began pacing out the distance between herself and the stone.

“Nine, ten. Good, this should be about right. Now then, here I go!”

Remembering the posture of the Onmyōji she had just watched, she took her stance.

“Suzaku, Genbu, Byakko, Kōchin, Teikyū Bun’ō, Santai, Gyokunyo, Seiryū!”

As she recited the Tsuchimikado family’s Nine Cuts, she traced four vertical and five horizontal lines through the air with the edge of her hand, poured divine power into them, and released it all at once. A lattice of light shot straight toward the target.

Baaang!

With a tremendous cracking sound, the stone shattered into a grid-like pattern.

“Oh! It worked! Did you see that, Saki, Natsume?! A stone that enormous has been smashed to pieces!”

Watching their mistress hop about in delight, the two attendants, already predicting what would happen next, could only place their hands against their foreheads. The sound had been far too loud. It was obvious that people would come running to see what had happened.

“What was that sound…?”

“What happened? What was that?”

Sure enough, people began pouring out of the training hall and the house, and among them, naturally, was Yasutomi, master of the estate and head of the Bureau of Onmyō. Even worse, behind him they could see his wife, Chino…

(Oh no…)

The two attendants’ shoulders slumped at the worst possible development.

His eldest daughter was celebrating, a shattered stone lay nearby, and there had been that noise. Yasutomi immediately seemed to understand what had happened, and his thunderous rebuke came at once.

“Kanaaa! How many times must I tell you?! I warned you again and again not to use techniques without permission, yet you have done something like this again! And how many times have I told you that a woman cannot become an Onmyōji?!”

As he scolded her, he glared at what was now barely recognizable as the object it had once been. Then, apparently realizing at last what it was, he cried out.

“Ahhh! This is the Kurama stone I went to the trouble of having brought here! Look what a miserable state it is in…!”

“‘Miserable’ is a strange thing to call it. Father, look. It has been cut into such beautifully neat rectangular blocks.”

In response to her lamenting father, Princess Kana picked up one fragment of the shattered stone and held it before his eyes. It was indeed a rectangular block whose cut surfaces perfectly matched the grid of the Nine Cuts she had traced.

Yasutomi could not help widening his eyes at the astonishing sharpness of the cut. Even among currently practicing Onmyōji, only a limited number could accomplish such a feat.

Had it been his eldest son Yasumasa who achieved it, Yasutomi might well have praised him splendidly. But because the one responsible was his eldest daughter, who could never become an Onmyōji, his frustration only fueled his anger further.

“Do not talk nonsense! I have never seen a garden made by piling up rectangular blocks of stone!”

“You need not shout so loudly. I can hear you perfectly well.”

The princess made a show of plugging her ears with her fingers at the force of her father’s shouting, but—

“Oh? Then these are not merely decorative, I take it?”

Her mother, Chino, who had somehow moved around behind Princess Kana, seized her by the ear.

“Ow, ow! M-Mother…”

Dressed in a white kosode, deep-purple divided hakama, and a chihaya robe, Chino was smiling pleasantly, but her eyes were not smiling in the slightest.

“Then perhaps this is the decoration instead?”

As she spoke, she now grabbed the princess firmly by the head. Her already-disheveled child’s coiffure was crushed flat, but that certainly did not make her mother loosen her grip. Chino’s fingers tightened painfully around her head.

“O-Ow…”

“Kana. Tell me, when did you become important enough to keep your teacher waiting? The appointed time for your lesson has already passed.”

The Tsuchimikado family employed several dedicated timekeepers, who tended the water clock and rang a special bell every hour. In other words, everyone in the estate could know the exact time, and precisely because of that, they were expected to observe it.

Children were no exception. Chino was normally indulgent toward children, but when it came to the appointed time for lessons, she showed absolutely no mercy.

“Ah, um… Mother. I am sor—ow, o-ow, it hurts…”

“Now, Chino. There is surely no need to go quite that far…”

At this point, Yasutomi, who had been shouting moments earlier, had no choice but to become the mediator. After all, when his wife Chino became angry, lightning quite literally struck. Even now, ominous rumbling had begun sounding from the sky, and several maids had started running to bring in the laundry.

“Ho ho, how lively.”

Then, accompanied by trailing mist, a gleaming silver-white fox appeared with a cheerful voice. Numerous white foxes, her retainers, waited behind her.

“L-Lady Akomachi!”

Chino hurriedly released the princess’s head and immediately prostrated herself.

“We humbly hope Lady Myōbu is in excellent health.”

Princess Kana instantly assumed the same posture beside her father and mother. Naturally, all the household members and servants nearby followed suit at once.

Akomachi was the highest-ranking divine fox among the retainers serving the five deities worshiped collectively as Inari Ōkami. Myōbu was the title of her office, a rank that even permitted entry into the Imperial Court.

Indeed, within the inner sanctuary of Fushimi Inari Taisha stood Byakko Shrine, also known as Myōbu Shrine, where Akomachi was enshrined, and her existence was already regarded as close to that of a deity.

She also had deep ties to Onmyōji. Kuzuha, mother of Abe no Seimei, the progenitor of the Tsuchimikado family, had been the foremost white-fox divine messenger of Ukanomitama no Ōkami, the principal deity of Fushimi Inari Taisha. Perhaps because of this, generations of Tsuchimikado children possessing particularly strong divine power had, through the principal deity’s favor, received white fox divine messengers from Akomachi.

Princess Kana’s elder brother Yasumasa had likewise received two Kiko the previous year, Matsuba and Kaede, and wherever he went, the pair would trot faithfully along behind him. Every time Princess Kana saw their adorable figures, she could not help being terribly envious.

“There is no need to be so formal. Raise your heads.”

With those words, Akomachi encouraged everyone prostrating themselves to look up. Before they knew it, the shining silver fox had taken the form of an elderly woman dressed in the layered court robes of itsutsuginu-karaginu-mo.

“Kana possesses fine divine power as always. She will surely become an excellent kannagi.”

“A kannagi…?”

“Ho ho. Do not look so disappointed. A kannagi performs important duties—the same duties in which your mother once served.”

A kannagi was one who served the gods, performing kagura to soothe the divine spirits and delivering oracles.

Princess Kana’s mother, Chino, had likewise served at a Tenmangū shrine before marrying Yasutomi, working as a kannagi to pacify the spirit of Lord Michizane. Yasutomi, captivated by both her divine power and her beauty, had earnestly sought her hand in marriage, and she became his wife. For that reason, Princess Kana, born with strong divine power, had from an early age studied various disciplines under her mother in preparation for becoming a kannagi.

“However, the principal deity recently said that something rather unusual appears to lie ahead in your future. Kuzuha has been terribly worried about it. She therefore suggested that it might be wise for you to learn at least a little Onmyōdō as well. Forgive me, Yasutomi, but I ask that you teach her.”

Yasutomi’s eyes widened in surprise at those words.

“Forgive my impertinence, Lady Myōbu, but women cannot become Onmyōji!”

“I know that perfectly well. I merely wish for her to be capable of using the techniques. It is Kuzuha’s earnest request. Grant it for her. Besides, I suspect it will ultimately help protect Kana herself.”

This time, Chino turned pale and asked,

“Lady Myōbu, this child is merely an ordinary girl whose divine power happens to be somewhat strong. What sort of fate could possibly await a child like her…?”