Prologue

Back in the ancient days when the gods held sway, Tatsuta river was an unsung sight among men. In its obscurity, it acted as the boundary separating the mainland forest and Crow's Land.

Crow's Land was a hilly, peopleless land. True to its name, it was the dwelling place of Ikaruga's crows. These intelligent, cawing beasts flocked on its trees, darkened the forest ground with their feathers, and lived peaceably with other wood folks. At dawn they flexed their wings over the dark, misty waters of Tatsuta and at dusk they returned, passing once again Tatsuta's waters dyed with the dying colors of the sun.

On the other bank of the river was the tamed woods of Ikaruga. On one of its hills, nearest to the river, stood by itself against the trees, a house bearing the three-footed crow insignia. The aristocrats from the capital called the house the House of Gloom. When sudden sympathy and virtue befell on the lot of these people they craned their heads to the south as if from their place they could see the unfortunate house hidden by provincial trees. The subject of the House of Gloom was their favorite way of entering into each other's emotional accord, while expressing their concerns for the people who live there because who would want to live away from Heiankyo when the houses here always find festivities to celebrate? When there was so much popular veneration of the common and noble folks, and all kinds of absurdities that are part of the self-knowing?

Meanwhile, the House of Gloom had cold, grim, and silent walls. The bricks met neatly, keeping people without from coming in; and noises within from venturing out. The floors were firm, the doors reasonably shut, the arches of the roof could be seen outside which made a peculiar impression and curiosity to those people who dared to venture in this part of the woods. There were less lights and less merriment compared to the capital but it was a sane house: the people within were content with moderation and more importantly, the house didn't hold the darkness within.

The house sheltered a low-rank noble family―the Mashima. It was once a highly prominent clan back in the Nara period, with a Heian born ancestry. Back then, their men had important ranks in court and society; their women married to high-class nobles. They were adaptable and resourceful that whatever they took up with their hands―a brush, a koto, or a flute―they were proficient with it and people adored them.

The most venerated Mashima noble was Ommitsu Mashima, the 12th head who was a chief advisor of the Emperor Kammu. It was the highest position anyone from the clan achieved. Ommitsu suggested moving the capital from Nara to Nagaokakyo on the Yodo River in order for the emperor to get away from the excessive influence of the Buddhist sect. But he was soon assassinated in the palace then other unfortunate events followed: the untimely death of one of the emperor's wives, a son, and a severe flood and epidemic which all gave Nagaokakyo an air of bad luck.

So Emperor Kammu transferred the capital to Heiankyo which marked the beginning of the Mashima clan's dissent. The Emperor established reforms to sweep away the clutter of previous regimes and set himself up as the supreme and all-powerful sovereign surrounded by his supporters who owed their position and status directly to him. He first made sure the non-interference of the Buddhist sect by not permitting Buddhist temples in the central part of the city and no clergy were permitted to relocate from Nara. Only the two temples on either side of the city's Rashomon gate were permitted to be constructed.

He pruned the state administration, curtailed the number of civil servants and some ministries were suppressed; he formed a small body of counsellors to act as an advisory body, gave generous land grants and key government positions to his new loyal set of followers, ended the conscription of peasants into the militia of the provinces; and dynastic shedding occurred. Over 100 princes and princesses were reduced from royal to noble status, and along with these were some old noble families who were propagating in the ranks and we're seen as competitive and difficult weeds to pull out. The demotion of noble families was aided by the fortunate timing that saw most of the old powerful clan leaders pass away and their successors struggle to find the resources to relocate twice to the new capitals.

The Mashima clan wasn't able to fight against it, not with the recent death of the 12th head and a young, inexperienced son took his place. Those old, less powerful clans than the Mashima who were spared―like the Wakamiya and Yamashiro―took their place at court by providing lovable daughters, and subservient men to the royal family.

Emperor Kammu proved to be the last of a line of influential, capital-building monarchs who were able to mobilize the entire country's wealth and military power for national or dynastic purposes. When he died and his son, Emperor Heizei, acceded to the throne, the limelight of the person of sovereign shifted towards the former holders of nominally subordinate court posts. Those families who still ambitioned to go back to the hierarchy they dissented from found it difficult to rise from the occasion without established backing in the court.

The Mashima's low rank made them a dime a dozen so the once proud family of Heian descent was forced to live in the woods of Ikaruga, Nara. Their noble name was given flimsy honor by maintaining their right on their mansion in the capital, abandoned though it was. This dynastic shedding bruised the pride of the family as it barred the door from the grandeur and security of the court by none other than the imperial family whom they had raised opened hands to from time immemorial and served their interest faithfully. Ah, but of course the family knew the nature of the political game. It was precisely because they knew and they kept playing within the rules as to not jeopardize their place that they took the betrayal harder than anyone. How could they cast them away easily in mere wantonness of power while they were grappling the death of their beloved 12th Head?

The family looked out of their reed curtains to the new landscape of their life: cheap grim-cracks, cramped furniture within little rooms, small gardens, and their fineries laid off like the remains of feast―how unappetizing! They felt the poverty, the insignificance of their surroundings and they shuddered at this dreaded fact: a dull surrounding invited a dull fate. Could the court or the aristocrats of the capital picture themselves in such an interior?

The Mashima took in deep breaths, setting in order for the next day when their new life must be taken up as though there had been no break in its routine. But when they shut their eyes from the dinginess, a formless evil to be blindly grappled closed with them in the darkness in the sharp struggle of self-preservation. They wanted happiness―wanted it as fiercely and unscrupulously as the imperial family and Heian nobles did, but without their power of obtaining it. They must go back to the place where their forefathers were born and where they believed to be their destiny. A Mashima was born in Heian and must die in Heian.

This realization made them wake up one day with a strong resolve to take back what was stolen from them by making use of what they had. When Emperor Kammu ended the conscription of peasants into the militia of the provinces, the state now paid professional warriors from provincial warrior groups. So to find consolation to the court, the family turned to and adapted the practice of the warriors. They slowly formed a private army and let their men learn the trade. The clan once involved in politics became a clan of warriors in Ikaruga to do the fighting of the central government.

Contempt grew stronger as it was passed on from generation to generation and as Heian society grew and prospered while they remained in the shadows. Nobody shunned the capital more than the 15th head, Lady Reiko Mashima. She held her contempt like a knife pointed at every door of the capital's aristocrats. She sharpened it with her natural wit and unorthodox schemes, dipped it in her sweet flattering poetries, sheathed it with her well-endowed beauty and the vibrant colors of her junihitoe. She always held it at arm's length, ready to thrust without batting her eyes at anyone she wished to see their demise.

Reiko was the only surviving child of the 14th Head, Atsushi Mashima, and his sole lover Lady Komachi of Akita. Lady Komachi was a beautiful jewel from a lower rank family who claimed they had noble blood. It was accepted without question because in the face of the lady, no ordinary flower or a tinted leaf could express it. She carried and bore six children before Reiko who all lived short lives: the first and fourth ones were stillborn; the second and fifth had pneumonia and died at 8 and 10 respectively; the third one had a weak body and lived till 13, the sixth one was spirited away. Thanks to her previous life, Reiko survived with a strong body and sharp mind and the interceding prayers of monks ended when she was 13. In exchange, her mother died upon her birth and for a long time the House of Gloom lived up to its name.

The province didn't hide her noble blood and she bore her mother's flawless beauty, attracting many suitors even those nobles at the capital and was a potential consort to the crown prince. But, what these men achieved through their courting was magnifying their faults to the lady than winning her heart. Their lack of judgement and non licentious imagination separated them from herself more than the space she maintained between them and her reeds.

Wise women knew when to open her fan and when to use it to get to the sword. So although she could have used them to take economic and social advantage she didn't accept anyone's hand but sufficiently entertained them for the gifts to keep coming to the House of Gloom, providing her of the things her status couldn't afford that she almost understood what it meant to be an aristocrat in Heian; and news from the capital to keep flowing from their vulgar mouths. And so she wittingly created correspondence of her own without unsparing her men's lives or spending a dime.

The countless ways by which she aroused strong passions in men gave rise to an aversion and antipathy in her own sex. The women of the higher class despised her behind their fans and made themselves believe that an unreachable beauty made her more desirable than those who were easily accessible. The women of her class think no better of her than the former but they treated the lady more courteously as convenience required due to her beauty and the advantage of her luxury that puffed up their vanities and society.

However, as a woman got older, and things kept moving along, the things she wanted were liable to move past her and not come back. It didn't help being a woman in a lower rank with no strong backing, life was meant to be an unbroken succession of reverses and afflictions. So she accepted the proposal of the governor's son of Ikagura who was called Oligoto without affection or sentiment but for the tolerance of his judgment and imagination.

Their marriage became an entertainment in the capital. The grand ladies genuinely wished for the success of their marriage because if Reiko Mashima whose beauty they coveted only ended up with a lesser man than them, then all was well with the world. The lesser ladies despised her even more now that she was carried off to the capital and she got a middle-class noble to marry her―less handsome than her he might be but more in riches―while they were still stuck in their provincial lot. Her suitors surmised that the lady couldn't marry them who were handsomer than she, lest her pride and vanity be moved. They said this amongst themselves and amongst those who asked and didn't but inside they tended to their grief of her dismissal and wondered what the plain man called Oligoto―what an inauspicious name!―had that they didn't.

Thanks to her previous life, Lady Mashima's marriage advanced her prospects. She was able to move her father back to their Heian mansion and her warriors were supplied with quality arms. However, because she spent a good deal of her life hating the society she disapproved of, she took in the capital with a disenchanted eye and spent most of her time behind her curtain reeds as she planned and carried out her schemes to realize the dream set by her great grandfather. Oligoto's kindness and unprecedented bounty of love was her consolation and he became her trusted confidante and supporter of her schemes.

The House of Gloom wasn't forgotten by the lady. Within its silent, cold walls, she bore her children who were seven years apart and blessed with her mother's blood. The son she called Taichi, an unpromising name but so was the extent of her unorthodox ways; and the daughter was Rika, a request of her husband to honor her name which she could not refuse.

A bond in a former life might have caused the beauty of her son―a jewel beyond compare and the most splendid gifts were bestowed upon him after his birth. He continued to grow in such beauty that one almost feared that he might only briefly be a part of this world. At seven he went through the ceremonial reading of the Chinese classics, and never before had there been so fine a performance. When it came to music his flute and koto made the heavens echo.

At the age of twelve he was to put off his boyish attire for his Genbuku, the coming-of-age for male aristocrats. Many important people were invited and many showed up, even the Emperor and his household. Not the sternest of warriors or the most unbending of enemies could have held back a smile at beholding the face of the boy. The highly ambitious men hold fast at their quivering heart, afraid of this boy whose face was one who should ascend to the highest place and be father to the nation.

They would have been less a prey to the charm and beauty of the child if there was a trace of the ordinary in him and if their hearts weren't fickle and vain for the affections of the world.

A minister bestowed to him his first kanmuri, the official cap, and the secretary of treasury performed the ritual cutting of the boy's hair. At the ceremonial thanksgiving banquet, Taichi drew his adult trousers and not a person in the assembly did not feel his eyes misting over. The people's spite and envy melted at the sight of Taichi and they had nothing but respect and heartfelt congratulations to the lord and lady for bringing such a son to the world. To show his appreciation of the week long festivity and admiration of Taichi, the Emperor promoted Oligoto four ranks higher at the end of the celebration.

Taichi grew up to be proficient in his studies and handsomer as the years before. Even when a daughter was born to the family who was equally praised for her handsomeness, Taichi still carried in his shoulders the glory of their family name. For much was wrought on the male, not to mention a firstborn.

Regardless, it was such a waste to reduce him to the House of Gloom for most of his life, in the strictest directive of Lady Mashima. Keeping her son away from the capital and imperial court was her vengeful measure of depriving them from the pleasure of his company which they scrupulously asked from her―but the ambitious let out a sigh of relief―at the same time keeping her son from their artificial and repugnant influence which she patently turned her head away from. The lady herself was lesser seen in her society and had constantly retreated to the House of Gloom, doting on her children's studies if Oligoto wasn't required to stay in the capital.

For Atsushi Mashima's part, he didn't completely abide by his daughter's directive. He wanted his grandson to have what in his youth he failed to have. If there were formed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, cutting off the bond in his former life that he might dream again, a dream of a more respectable and fortunate portion he wished the fulfillment of it in his grandchildren and wished to live long to see its fruition. He implored to his son-in-law for he had a greater influence on the lady and Oligoto shared his sentiments.

Lady Reiko wasn't surprised. She expected these feelings to be in the heart of her father and husband. She herself wished her children to succeed more than her ancestral lot, and so she reassured him of her identical hopes and dreams and that a good thing will come forth for her children.

"A time will come, my love," she sweetly said, "but the time is not ripe yet. Vengeance and retribution requires a long time."

"Not vengeance and retribution, my darling wife," Oligoto argued. "I have no need of vengeance and retribution for my name. You have accepted me, taken me in. I am the most fortunate man to be the cup of where you pour your love and you bore me beautiful, splendid children that are enough to kill the vengeful spirit that once resided within me. However, our children, and Taichi particularly for he has grown fast to be an adult, would need consolation at court."

"I have always been afraid of your gentleness, my husband, for I know that one day it will placate my hard spirit. Alas, the day came without my noticing. I hear your plight but give me first the occasion of rearing my children in accordance to my heart's desire. I will give them to you when I am done with them. For though I wish my children's success, I do not want them to be subjected to the mercies of the court. No. They will not. Not especially Taichi."

"My love has made up her mind. So let it be."

"Be patient, my darling, and while doing so keep your sensibilities open but do not sustain yourself with visible opportunities. That will only weaken your resolve and your trust of me." Reiko Mashima caressed the tamed and soft edges of his face. "Let this be your consolation."

It was because Oligoto trusted his wife's wisdom that he peacefully acquiesced, returned to Atsushi and assured him. He kept his sensibilities open, and continually gave his wife permission for her unorthodox ways, one of which was giving Taichi allowance to the practice of the warriors.

This was deprived from the aristocratic children for it was an ugly business and an employment that no aristocrat should busy himself with for his preoccupations should be in the beauties of art that enhances his dance, poetry, instrument, and speech to suggest good breeding and taste. Combat and sword fighting were the employment of the hard brutes, the samurai and the ronin, who in their lesser breeding and taste, spent the days bathing in their own sweat under the sun that will burn their skin―an ugly, discriminating sight―and spilling blood that will only result to equally ugly scars most of it will take longer time to heal.

To the inevitable ugly results of combat and sword fighting, Reiko Mashima had seen to it to produce the most effective ointments for Taichi's wounds that no scar would linger for a long time on his skin. And the sun, sensible of the blight on him, didn't diminish one bit of his beauty but only enhanced his natural physical gifts.

Taichi carried the instinctual adaptability and resourcefulness common to his ancestors. He held the sword and bow at ten; at 15 he was able to skillfully spar with an adept warrior with his sword, and ride on a horse with a bow and arrow. And so Taichi Mashima increased in knowledge, stature, and beauty.

Lady Reiko kept a close eye over Taichi's training and lessons. Rain and snow fell and now she smiled approvingly at the imprint of adulthood on his handsome face.

"You were born for such a time like this."

Author's Notes:

The elements of this story are heavily influenced by Genji Monogatari, Fantasy and Folklore from the Konjaku Monogatri Shu, and Kafka on the Shore since those were the books I read before I started writing. So a lot of Japanese beliefs are behind the events and motivations of the characters. Magical realism is prevalent in these Japanese literatures so you can expect the occurrence of the supernatural without an explanation. I think that's the fun of it.

The people's perception of Taichi is liken to people's perception of Genji. But in this timeline, the characters exist earlier than Genji or Narihira's contemporaries. Emeperor Kammu and Heizei are real history figures and what I narrated above concerning them was true. Lady Komachi, Reiko's mother is from the name Ona no Komachi of Akita. She was rumored to have a legendary beauty and she's the standard of feminine Japanese beauty. I've read that the women in Akita are more beautiful than anywhere in Japan and Akita's rice and water are good for your skin but there's no scientific proof to this other than the climate of their place makes them whiter than most. I will also be taking poems from Genji Monogatari since people exchange poetry back then like they're giving out sweets. So I will site the poems at the end of each chapter.

This is only a short story; 10 chapters or less. But it's divided in three parts. Taichihaya is the main pair.

The first chapter will be published on Sunday (GMT+8).
If you like where this is going, please leave kudos and/a comment. It's the numnums of every writer.