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was compelled to comply. Before setting out for Ikoma at the head of his troops, Yoshinori paid a visit to Kasuga. He finished worshiping, then turned to Toyome and said, weeping bitterly: “Because of an absurd, mistaken oracle, I now bear a miserable fate. I am not a powerful man, and in the end am not likely to return alive.
    Take good care of Ayame and Kureha. My wish for all of us to live together in the capital was in vain.” Toyome was also in lower spirits than usual, but she assumed as stern a countenance as possible and remonstrated with him, saying: “How faint-hearted for one who wears a sword!
    Those redheaded bandits are not gods, after all, and you Chapter One c 27

    are not facing them alone. The God’s oracle was a propi-tious one, and you will certainly return victorious. Don’t say such inauspicious things!”
    The bandits were only five in number, but each had the strength of ten men. They tormented their attackers mer-cilessly, but the soldiers outnumbered them. Two of the bandits were killed and another two were taken captive.
    The remaining one—the largest among them—pulled up a tree by its roots and brandished it about. No one was able to get near him.
    Yoshinori was ordinarily weak-spirited, but the sight caused his warrior spirit to well up, and he cried: “Leave it to me. I’ll bring him down!” He circled around to the rear and shot an arrow into the elbow of the bandit, who then could no longer hold up the tree. Yoshinori ran up and thrust his sword into the enraged bandit, who grabbed Yoshinori and tried to shove him over a precipice. Even while locked in the bandit’s grip, Yoshinori never let go of his sword, and continued to gouge his opponent. The two of them, wrapped together in a deadly embrace, fell from the precipice. When the soldiers doubled back through ravines and reached the bottom, they found that the bandit’s belly had been slashed open by the sword. Yoshinori’s head had hit a rock at the bottom of the ravine. Each had died at the other’s hand.
    The governor praised Yoshinori and, along with the two captive red-haired bandits, presented a report of the valiant deed to the capital. For Yoshinori, the glory was posthumous.
    Upon hearing the news, Toyome was prostrate with grief. Because of the words of a god who had possessed her body, she had senselessly lost her lover. Even if his welfare had not been at stake, she was struck by the presumptuousness of such an enterprise, whereby people’s fortunes were set on courses for good or evil through the words of her mouth.
    28 c A Tale of False Fortunes For these reasons, then, Toyome was loath to have her daughters become mediums. Only three years had passed, however, when the vengeful ghost of the third princess possessed Ayame’s body and tormented Kaneie on his sickbed, though no one had ordered Ayame to act as medium. By then Toyome had already passed away and was thus spared the grief of seeing her daughter follow in her footsteps. Major Counselor Michinaga, who was concurrently serving as steward of the empress’ household, asked Ayame to become a lady-in-waiting to his first wife, Rinshi. After what happened at Kaneie’s sickbed, Michinaga had great expectations of the mediumistic powers Ayame had inherited from her mother.
    A year later, upon hearing from Ayame that her younger sister Kureha had turned fifteen, Michinaga announced that he wanted to meet the young woman. He did not summon Kureha to his residence, but made a point of having her escorted to the hermitage of a nun who had served as his own nurse, and there he received the two sisters together.
    Ayame had a slender build like that of her father and tended to keep her eyes cast down, but Kureha closely resembled her mother as a young woman, and had grown up to be very robust. Her complexion glowed like a peach blossom, and her smooth skin radiated youthful allure.
    The elder sister’s mediumistic powers had already been demonstrated. Kureha’s