We were somber for a few weeks, but then a new distraction appeared. That was when the woman who would become my wife arrived.
She was glorious. Like fresh dew on the leaves of the cherry blossoms. She caught my interest almost immediately, unfortunately, she also caught my brothers'. I do not know why she chose me in the end. I was not the handsomest, that was Eiji. Nor was I the one with the greatest prospects, that would have been Atsuki. I was never worthy of her, and she passed through my life so quickly. She was only with me long enough to grant me two small children before she faded away into the dusk.
But a cold breeze is now blowing through the house, and my daughter has come to lead me away from the open door. Have I truly been lost in my meandering thoughts for so long? That is the privilege of the old, I suppose.
"Hah. So you have come back, young shadow. Does the imperminence of the world make more sense to you now?" I ask the boy who has popped up besides me.
"Was it supposed to have?" he asks me with a curious tilt of his head. Smart boy.
"No, I suppose not. Even Yoshitsune never made sense of it.
Now at this point in the story, they had been exiled to the rural province of Izu.
"Izu was very different from what my brother was used to" Kunichi, or should I say Yoshitsune at this point, started up once more. "He had been raised in the grandeur of the court with all of its elegance and ceremony. This new setting seemed almost barbaric to him. I was still too young to have become familiar with the urban setting of Kyoto, so it was much easier for me to adapt to the country setting. Besides, I enjoyed the freedom the large fields and silent forests gave me. And, once I could ride, I spent long hours on my horse exploring this new terrain. My brother hated it. He could not appreciate what he saw as a dishonor to himself and to his family. This setting was not a new place to develop in, but rather it was the setting of his exile.
Time passed this way for ten years or so before the domestic peace was broken.
It was storming, that night in the eleventh month of the year. The trees were whipping their branches around in a mad frenzy. The wind whistled through their branches in an eery call, and the rain poured down. It was a night to stay inside and pile on the extra blankets. It was not the time one would expect activity to brewing. Thus, it was the perfect night for any one to initiate an attack.
And that is what happened.
I lay awake amidst my covers, unable to let the sound of the rain on the screen doors soothe me into the peace of sleep. I was troubled, that night. I could tell my brother was unhappy, and I could not understand. What was there to miss in the stuffy rooms flooded with the scent of too many perfumes, that were our habitation in the capital? Here we could breathe the fresh air and wander outside whenever we pleased. Here we could ride horses and shoot arrows without worrying about whether or not our peers were better. There was no pressure for status, the only competition was with oneself.
As I was pondering this, I suddenly heard a noise. A small 'scritch...' as if some wooden object had scraped against the screens. It was not a loud sound, nor obviously outside of the normal sounds of the night, but my senses were attuned to the night, after having Noriyori jump me a few times. And this sound struck me as odd.
I silently reached for the miniature sword I kept at my bedside, as well as the small dagger that no one but the old blacksmith and I knew about. Cautiously I opened the screen doors a crack and peered out into the hall. I was not really expecting to see anything, except possibly my youngest brother, so when I saw the two figures in black, I was very surprised.
I must have made some sound of my shock, for one of the figures turned to look back. Fortunately, his eyes looked for someone the height of a full grown man, and I was but ten. So I was able to see the way his eyes glanced coldly down the hall. His face was shadowed above the mask that hid his lower face, and I could see the glint of silver that meant he held throwing daggers.
I knew what they were. Asassins. The most deadly of political tools. At least with poison one had the possibility of surviving, but a well-placed knife in the dark... Well, there were few survivors. I knew what they were, but it was not until much later that I realized that they were not there to murder the family holding us in some interclan dispute. They were here for us, the last of the Seiwa Genji.
I did not bother to close the screen door. I knew it was luck that had allowed me to open it before. Instead I crept over to the window, and exited through it. This was a normal route between my bedroom and my brothers when we wanted to continue our discussion without our caretakers knowledge. It was not a smooth route, fit only for an active boy since it involved dashing between open spaces and climbing up to the others window, but it worked for us. This was how I was able to reach Yoritomo. And this was why he had sufficient time to gather his sword and cause an uproar, the kind of chaos that is anathema to those silent shadow walkers.
His prowess with the sword was not yet enough to hold off the three grown men, so it was fortunate that they were not eager to remain. He managed to kill one and damage another. The next morning we saw the trail of blood that led into the forest, but a second body was never found. The body of the asassin that remained behind was ruthlessly searched for some clue to who had sent him, but nothing was found. This search was somewhat extraneous as it was perfectly obvious that this was a message from Kyoto that not all were of the same mind as the lady who had previously protected us. However, without official court sanction, our host could not rid himself of us.
That is why we were separated. Yoritomo was to remain at the estate and Noriyori was sent to a separate province, equally rustic. But I was sent to live at the Buddhist temple on Mount Kurama with the hope I would become a monk. I am not entirely sure whether this was meant to protect us or to separate us so that we could be finished off individually. What ever the reason, we all managed to survive.
I suppose you have heard the various legends about my training from the tengu king. While my mentor did have a large nose, I am somewhat doubtful of his magical properties. But it is a good story. It is good for a commander to have a certain magical or legendary aura around him. It makes his men both fear and look up to him as beyond human. So who am I to completely refute the stories?
Our prior hosts seem to have a different view of the temple than what was the reality of the setting. True it was a religious center, but its focus was more on the martial aspects. My days were spent, not perusing Buddhist scripture as I am sure my old guardians assumed, but practicing sword forms under his sensei who spent his free time as a temple guardian. Much like the stories of Sojobo. So I suppose there is a small kernel of truth in most stories.
I did not, however, receive a magic blade from the tengu king. Instead I spent two years apprenticed to the resident blacksmith forging swords for the warriors who came to our temple to train. Of course I was referred to as Jinenji then. It is a good name to use, and just generic enough not to be memorable beyond 'that boy who's face is always smudged with soot.' The sword that has gone down in history, this sword at my hip, is a product of my own hard work after two years of apprenticeship. Much better than any magic sword, I would think.
Indeed that was the majority of my first two years there. My days were full of menial labor for the monks, it was only in my third year there that I took up the sword. This was not within their planned regimen, of course. The head monk was not at all in favor of training me to be a potential threat, but the other monks liked me and did not see me as anything more than a small boy, bored with chores and seeking a challenge. Fortunate indeed, for if they had not I would doubtless end up with a shaved head and holding prayer beads, no matter the temple's less religious focus.
I was not completely isolated. Although the temple was supposedly hidden within the mists of the mountain, we generally had at least four or five visitors, and they always spent time exchanging news in the mess hall. Thus I kept a kind of haphazard perception of what was going on in the outside world. Letters from my brothers were rare. Not only did they have to secrete them out of their respective households, they also had to find someone going to the temple, and a means to pay him. So I received a letter about once every two years. That is why I had to rely on hearsay to find out how my brother's lives were progressing. Noriyori seems to have been doing fine. He was of the type who always manages to find some type of material benefit in a situation. Yoritomo, on the other hand, was like a square peg in a round hole.
He had been kicked out of our first host's household for 'intimate fraternization' with the daughter of the family. Yoritomo was not the type to put himself in uncomfortable situations for the gain of a woman, so I assumed that this was a ploy on his part. It worked as the indignant father ran him out of the territory, thus freeing him. He seemed to have wandered for quite some time over the next two years, and I lost track of him. I was not terribly worried. Although there was the possibility that he had been set upon by bandits and killed, I knew my brother's capabilities, he would have survived. If not from skill, out of pure stubborness. He would not have allowed himself to die before he took out the Taira.
This indiscretion with a woman was a tactic he would continue to use to manipulate the elders who saw him as an undisciplined tool that they could use to their own benefit.
When he finally surfaced again, I heard he was under the protection of Hojo Tokimasa in the Kanto Plains. From what my teachers told me, he was a rebellious figure, and his lands were constantly in revolt. From this I understood that the Hojo lord held no love for the Taira.
Thus it came as no surprise to me that my brother was found to have held an affair with the eldest Hojo daughter, Masako, and that they were soon to be married. This was an inconspicious way of cementing an alliance, of which the Taira overlords could not find complaint.
It was at this point I was told our entire family history by a well intentioned monk, and the desire for revenge began to burn in me as well.