Read Online Yamada Monogatori: The Emperor in Shadow by Richard Parks - Free Book Online

and I were two of them. The third was Prince Kanemore. While Lady Kuzunoha had been present at the battle, she did not arrive until that particular fight was over, and the traitorous priest who had lured us there had committed suicide soon after. The only way Yorinobu could have known about the ogre’s head was if Prince Kanemore had told him.
    “You are the reason I am at Ise,” I said.
    “Of course . . . well, one of them. I wished to meet with you, but if it happened in the Capital, that could cause difficulties—for both of us. My dear brothers would almost certainly find out, and they know you are no friend to Fujiwara interests.”
    That, I considered, was putting it mildly. Fujiwara machinations were the reason my father was dead and my family long in disgrace. That my father had been posthumously exonerated and the shame removed didn’t change what had happened. I knew Prince Kanemore was no more fond of them than I was and possibly less. But he knew the situation at court as I did not, and if he trusted the man beside me, it seemed I might have to do the same—up to a point.
    “Yet if we met at the shrine, no one would think anything of it. Thousands of people make the pilgrimage every year,” I said.
    “Officially, I am here to pray for the emperor’s recovery,” he said. “It was Kanemore’s idea. Clever man.”
    “So it’s true, then. The emperor is ill.”
    Yorinobu looked at me. “The emperor is dying. If you hadn’t already known that, I would be very surprised.”
    “I admit I had been so informed. It is a sad thing.”
    He smiled again. “Let us speak clearly to one another. I know your primary concern is that Prince Takahito’s ascension goes forward. It is the goal shared by Prince Kanemore, his royal uncle, as well. Perhaps there was some . . . question, shall we say, about that in the past? Yes? Well, rightly so. It is no secret that both the chancellor and the daijō-daijin of the Daijou-kan preferred Norihira, despite the Emperor Go-Suzaku’s decree.”
    That much I did know. Go-Suzaku was Go-Reizei’s father, and even though, as his eldest, Go-Reizei ascended in due course, his father had decreed it was to be his much younger brother by Princess Teiko, Prince Takahito, who would ascend after him.
    “Prince Norihira is a Fujiwara in the maternal line,” I said.
    “Naturally it would be in our family’s interest if he became emperor,” Yorinobu said. “Though if his present Majesty had produced any sons by a Fujiwara mother, it is likely my brothers would have favored them instead, younger men being considered easier to influence and bend to their will. Yet his late Majesty Go-Suzaku may have known something about his eldest son that the rest of us did not. Go-Reizei has three consorts but no children at all. That left only Takahito and Norihira, so of course they favored Norihira.”
    So far Yorinobu had told me nothing that I didn’t already know, but his casual relating of Fujiwara political strategy from one of the primary sources left me a bit unbalanced. “When you say ‘they,’ I assume you mean the chancellor and the head of the council?”
    “Yes. Specifically, Yorimichi and Norimichi, my elder half-brothers.”
    The names were not unknown to me. From what I had gathered from Prince Kanemore over the years, they had treated Takahito rather coldly from the beginning, even though he was crown prince. But then, their goal had always been to change this.
    “Forgive me, Yorinobu-sama, but I still don’t understand.”
    “Why I am telling you all this? Why you are here?” he asked.
    “Yes to both.”
    “For the second question, it’s very simple—Prince Takahito will ascend the throne upon the emperor’s death, as decreed. That is certain. What is not certain is how long he will be allowed to keep it. My brothers’ plan is to allow the ascension and then, as soon as possible, force Takahito—well, Emperor Go-Sanjo by that time—to abdicate in favor of