Judith Gautier - The Usurper

"'He is crazy,' thought I, 'and will utterly ruin himself; but that's not my affair.'

"We were led into a room, where we put on splendid dresses; then we went down into the banquet-hall, where we met all Nagato's young friends, Satake, Foungo, Aki, and many others. They received us with enthusiastic shouts. Soon the bride, superbly dressed, entered, followed by her father and mother, stumbling over the folds of their silken robes. The father seemed quite calm, the mother was flurried, and the young girl so astounded that she kept her pretty mouth wide open. Nagato declared that he took her for his wife, and the marriage ceremony was complete. I never saw so merry a one. The feast was most delicate, everybody was soon drunk, and I among the rest; but I had myself carried hack to the palace about three o'clock for a brief rest, for I wanted to be present this morning at the Regent's levee."

"That is the most absurd story I ever heard," said the Prince of Figo. "There is certainly no one like Nagato for knowing how to carry out a joke."

"And he is really married?" asked another lord.

"Very really," said the Prince of Tosa; "the marriage is legal, in spite of the woman's low rank."

"The Prince invents new follies every day, and gives splendid feasts; he must come to an end of his vast fortune ere long."

"If he is ruined, it will please the Regent, who does not love him over much."

"Yes; but it will grieve the Shogun, who is exceedingly fond of him, and who will never let him want for money."

"Hollo!" cried the Prince of Tosa, "there comes Nagato back to the palace."

A procession was indeed passing through the gardens. On the banners and on the norimono, borne by twenty men, were visible the insignia of the Prince, – a black bolt surmounting three balls in pyramidal form. The cortége marched quite near the veranda which sheltered the nobles, and through the curtains of the norimono they saw the young Prince dozing on his cushions.

"He surely won't come to the Regent's levee," said one lord; "he would run the risk of falling asleep on the shoulder of Hieyas."

"Nagato never comes to pay his respects to Hieyas; he detests him profoundly; he is his avowed enemy."

"Such an enemy is not much to be feared," said the Prince of Tosa. "On his return from these nightly escapades he is only fit for sleeping."

"I don't know whether that is the Regent's opinion."

"If he thought otherwise, would he endure from him insults serious enough to condemn him to hara-kiri? If the Prince still lives, he owes it to the clemency of Hieyas."

"Or to the loving protection of Fide-Yori."

"Doubtless Hieyas is only generous through regard for the master; but if all his enemies were of Nagato's mind, he might esteem himself happy."

While the courtiers thus chatted away the time of waiting for his waking, Hieyas, who had risen long before, paced his chamber, anxious, uneasy, bearing on his care-worn face the marks of sleeplessness.

A man stood near the Regent, leaning against the wall; he watched him stride up and down; this man was a former groom, named Faxibo. Hostlers had enjoyed considerable favor since the accession to power of Taiko-Sama, who was originally an hostler. Faxibo was deeper than any other person in the confidence of the Regent, who hid nothing from him, and even thought aloud in his presence.

Hieyas constantly raised the blind from the window and looked out.

"Nothing," he said impatiently; "no news. It is incomprehensible."

"Be patient for a few moments more," said Faxibo; "those whom you sent out upon the Kioto road cannot have returned yet."

"But the others! There were forty of them, and not one has returned! If he has escaped me again, it is maddening."

"Perhaps you exaggerate the man's importance," said Faxibo. "It is a love-affair that attracts him to Kioto; his head is full of follies."

"So you think; and I confess that this man terrifies me," said the Regent vehemently, pausing before Faxibo. "No one ever knows what he is doing; you think him here, he is there. He outwits the most cunning spies: one declares that he followed him to Kioto, another swears that he has not lost sight of him for an instant, and that he has hot left Osaka; all his friends supped with him, while he was fighting on his return from the Miako 9 9 That is to say, the capital. with men stationed by me. I think him asleep, or busy with his own affairs: one of my schemes is on the eve of success; his hand descends upon me at the last, moment. The empire would long since have been ours if it had not been for him; my partisans are numerous, but his are no less strong, and he has the right on his side. Stay: that plan which I had so skilfully arranged to rid the country, under the guise of accident, of a sovereign without talent and without energy, – that plan which was to throw the power into my hands, – who frustrated it? Who was the accursed coachman who urged that infernal team across the bridge? Nagato! He, always he. However," added Hieyas, "some one else, one of my allies, must have played the traitor, for it is impossible that any other can have guessed the scheme. Ah! if I knew the villain's name, I would at least gratify myself by an awful revenge."

"I told you what I was able to discover," said Faxibo. "Fide-Yori exclaimed at the moment of the crash: 'Omiti, you were right!'"

"Omiti! Who is Omiti? I do not know the name."

The Regent had advanced into the hall adjoining his chamber, which was divided, by a large screen only, from the veranda where the nobles were awaiting his coming. From within, this screen admitted of seeing without being seen. Hieyas heard the name of Nagato uttered; he approached eagerly, and signed to Faxibo to come close to him. Thus they heard the whole story of the Prince of Tosa.

"Yes," muttered Hieyas; "for a long time I took him for a man of dissolute morals and of no political importance; that was why I at first favored his intimacy with Fide-Yori. How deeply I repent it, now that I know what he is worth!"

"You see, master," said Faxibo, "that the Prince, doubtless warned of your project, did not quit Osaka."

"I tell you he was at the Miako, and did not leave there until far on in the night."

"And yet the Prince of Tosa was with him until very late."

"One of my spies followed him to Kioto; he entered the city in broad daylight, and remained there until midnight."

"It is incomprehensible," said Faxibo. "Stay! there he is, going home," he added, seeing Nagato's procession.

"Is it really he who occupies the litter?" asked Hieyas, trying to look out.

"I think I recognized him," replied Faxibo.

"Impossible! it cannot be the Prince of Nagato, unless it be his corpse."

At this moment a man entered the chamber, and prostrated himself with his face on the ground.

"It is my envoy," cried Hieyas. "Speak quickly, come I What have you learned?" he cried to the messenger.

"I went to the part of the road to which you directed me, all-powerful master," said the envoy. "At that spot the ground was strewn with corpses; I counted forty men and fifteen horses. Peasants were hovering around the dead; some felt of them, to see if there were no lingering trace of life. Others pursued the wounded horses, which were running about the rice-fields. I asked what had happened. They told me that no one knew; but at sunrise they saw a band of horsemen pass, belonging to the divine Mikado; they were on their way to Kioto. As for the corpses lying by the roadside, red with their blood, they all wore dark costumes, without any armorial bearings, and their faces were half hidden by their headdress, after the fashion of bandits and assassins."

"Enough!" exclaimed Hieyas, frowning; "go!"

The envoy retired, or rather fled.