The following day the weather was clear and beautiful as Amaromi came into view, nestled beneath a luxuriant green canopy of oaks. The ship, now at the end of its voyage, waited for high tide before sailing into the harbour. The jetty that stretched from the wide beach to the shoals had been fashioned from piles of white limestone rocks. The blue sky, the water so clear you could see the white sands at the bottom of the sea, the green-canopied island, the white jetty. Surely Masago had come down to meet his ship. Yakinahiko searched the shore for sight of her. But she was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he noticed a man wearing a short white garment, his legs exposed, standing with a dazed expression.
Why did the little reed boat they had seen mid-journey flash through Yakinahiko’s mind? He was seized with a terrible premonition. Not waiting for the ship to reach its moorings, he leapt from the deck to the jetty, the helmsman and the sailors watching from the gunwale. When they saw the man in white step out to meet him, their faces uniformly stiffened. The short white robe was the garment of mourning.
‘Welcome back, Yakinahiko-sama.’
The man awaiting him at the jetty was Masago’s father, the chief of Amaromi Island. As soon as Yakinahiko drew closer and saw that his face was twisted with sorrow, he knew disaster was imminent. ‘What has happened?’
‘I am sorry for the shock this will bring you, but Masago died seven days ago.’
Yakinahiko froze, unable to comprehend what he had heard.
Unashi gave a loud wail. ‘That cannot be true!’
The chief was unable to answer.
‘Was the birth difficult?’ Yakinahiko asked. ‘Was that it?’
The chief slowly shook his head. ‘No, she delivered the child safely. My wife is looking after the baby now.’
‘So how did she die? Was an illness going round?’
‘I don’t know.’ The chief’s face darkened. ‘It was so sudden. She didn’t even seem to be sick. One day she spoke of feeling cold water splash her cheek, and then she was gone.’
‘Cold water?’
It was so mysterious, and Yakinahiko was lost in confusion.
‘Masago delivered the baby three weeks ago. It was an easy birth and she recovered quickly afterwards. She was so looking forward to your return, Yakinahiko-sama, knowing you would soon be back. And then, just seven days ago, while she was nursing the baby, she complained of a great pain. She fell where she was and said, “A splash of water . . . so cold,” and she was gone. Everything happened so quickly, I feel as if I’m in a dream. The whole village is in shock. We are all at a loss.’
‘For a young woman as robust as she to die so suddenly is sad beyond measure. How fleeting is this world of ours.’ Yakinahiko was overwhelmed with sorrow.
Unashi, with tears streaming down his cheeks, whispered, ‘Yakinahiko-sama, please tell me why this is happening.’
‘What do you mean, Unashi?’
Unashi bit his lip, as if he was afraid to explain himself. Yakinahiko urged him to speak his mind, but just then the chief began again.
‘Yakinahiko-sama, would you like to see the baby?’
Yakinahiko walked behind the chief as he led them up a path paved with broken white shells. In the stilted house at the top of the hill, Masago’s mother, also dressed in white mourning clothes, waited, the baby cradled in her arms. ‘The keepsake Masago left behind.’ Crying as she spoke, the mother handed the baby to Yakinahiko.
How many thousands of children had he fathered? Rather, how many millions? Yakinahiko asked himself, as he held the tiny infant in his arms. But even as he peered into the baby’s face, he did not feel any particular tug at his heart. At least the baby had not been the cause of its mother’s death . . . at least she had had that good fortune.
‘Have you named her?’
‘Masago named her Sango for the coral.’
Sango-hime – princess of coral. It was not a propitious name, for now the white bones of the coral would for ever be associated with Masago’s death. Yakinahiko gazed down at the baby asleep in his arms. He didn’t need this child, he thought. He would rather have Masago returned to him. Without warning, tears fell from his eyes.
When the chief saw this, he touched Yakinahiko’s hand. ‘Would you like to see Masago?’
‘See her?’
‘She’s dead, of course, cold, but if you would go to see her, it will make her happy in the next world.’
Yakinahiko could hear a voice inside him telling him not to go. But they had been separated for nearly a year and all that time he had loved her dearly. Stronger than the feeling not to go was the desire to see her face just one more time.
With the chief as his guide, Yakinahiko went to the burial ground on the northern end of the island. On Amaromi, the dead were placed in caves dug out of the cliffs that faced the sea. Unashi followed a few feet behind his master, with Ketamaru on his left arm, perched on the falconer’s glove.
‘As is the custom of our island, the dead are laid out in the open, exposed to the elements, until the flesh disappears. After years have passed, we draw water from the sea and wash the bones. When that happens, the spirit is finally released into the heavens, and they say that that is when the spirit departs for the land of the gods on the other side of the sea.’
After the chief had scrambled over crags and through thickets of hardy pemphis shrubs, he began to climb a wall of black rock, with Yakinahiko and Unashi behind him. Midway up it, any number of large rectangular caves had been carved out by the waves. When the chief beckoned the other two towards one, they noticed a strong odour. Masago’s body had begun to decay. Yakinahiko faltered. The chief, seemingly unaware of his hesitation, continued to beckon him forward. Yakinahiko was her husband: of course he would want to see her.
There was a brand new coffin towards the opening of the cave. The chief had said the bodies were exposed to the elements so the coffin had no lid. He urged Yakinahiko to stand beside the coffin and look into it. Overcome by the stench, he covered his nose with his left hand and peered in reluctantly.
There could be no doubt that the body inside was Masago’s. Upon her beautiful brow they had set a square amulet made of shell to ward off evil. Her eyes were closed. The flesh on her face had begun to sag, and she did not look like her former self. The skin on her hands, crossed over her breast, had turned black and was beginning to fester.
‘Masago,’ Yakinahiko called. Yet it was impossible to think of the corpse in the coffin as his Masago, the woman who had once been so beautiful that he had felt reluctant even to draw close to her. The thought of embracing the thing lying before him was so horrifying it made him tremble. He was afraid – and fear brought with it memories of a distant past.
He had once been the male deity Izanaki, and his wife, Izanami, had died. His longing to see her again was more than he could bear so he had pursued her into the Realm of the Dead. She had warned him, ‘Do not look at me,’ but eventually he had peered in at her to find she had turned into a rotting corpse. She might once have been his wife but now she was something entirely different.
And so it was here. The body laid out in the coffin had once been a beautiful woman, his wife, but not any more. Now she was a stinking, rotting corpse. Why, Yakinahiko wondered, was he, who had seen so much of death, still repulsed when confronted with it?
‘Yakinahiko-sama, are you all right?’
He could hear Ketamaru’s wings flapping. Unashi, ever stalwart, rushed up to steady him, afraid he was about to collapse. Yakinahiko looked one more time at his wife’s oozing flesh. He couldn’t turn and run with the chief standing in front of him. Then he saw that the jade necklace he had given his wife had slipped to the ground. Yakinahiko picked it up and said to the chief, ‘This once hung around her neck, but it seems the cord’s been cut.’
‘It must have happened while we were carrying her up here.’
To Yakinahiko, it looked more as if someone had sliced into it – a bad omen. ‘Let us give it to Masago’s little Sango as a memento.’
When you’re dead, there’s nothing left so such things should stay with the living, not go with the dead. He had intended to divide the string of jewels, but when he remembered how Masago’s face had lit up when he had given it to her, he was beset with sorrow.
‘How happy Masago would be to hear you say such a thing.’
‘And in exchange I will leave this with Masago. It is something I have valued more than my life.’
Yakinahiko slipped off the shell armlet and placed it on Masago’s breast. It was the armlet she had made for him, wishing that she might, like the armlet, accompany him on his journey. But returning it to her now signified Yakinahiko’s desire to be free of her corpse.
While the chief stared at his daughter, seemingly loath to leave her side, Yakinahiko left the cave and virtually flew down the side of the cliff. The chief most likely attributed his haste to grief. But it was fear. Death was defiling. Having seen something so defiled, Yakinahiko had to purify himself. When he had gone to see Izanami in the Realm of the Dead, he had been terrified by what he had seen and had fled through the darkness to the opening of the cave. That time he had been pursued. When he’d looked back he had seen a horde of warriors and women who looked like demons. But surely it had been his own fear that had chased him.
‘Yakinahiko-sama, your grief must be unbearable.’
The chief had followed him and had spoken with the deepest sympathy as he had gazed into Yakinahiko’s blanched face. Yakinahiko nodded without a word. All he could think about was purifying himself. ‘Is there a fresh spring near by?’ he asked.
‘You will find one by the cave where we bury the dead. Its waters always flow fresh.’
Guided by the chief, Yakinahiko reached it. He pulled off the white bandage and washed both of his hands. He rinsed his eyes, removed his white garments and, completely naked, ordered Unashi to throw water over him.
‘But I have no bucket.’
‘Then use your hands.’
Unashi tethered Ketamaru to a tangled banyan branch and began scooping water from the spring with his hands. He splashed it over every inch of Yakinahiko’s firm flesh. Yakinahiko closed his eyes and remembered. He had bathed in the waters of the river on the Plain of Awaki-ga-hara in Himuka. When he came back to himself he found that he was weeping.
‘What is it?’ Unashi asked worriedly, as he circled his master, uncertain what to do.
Yakinahiko collapsed to his knees and continued to weep. He remembered the tiny reed boat. The first child that he, Izanaki, had produced after coupling with his wife Izanami, had had no bones: they had put it into a reed boat and set it adrift on the seas. Now humans imitated what the gods had done. Why then, Yakinahiko wondered, did he find it so ill-omened when he saw the practice, having become a human himself? What had gone wrong? Who had done this to him?
The sun was sinking in the west. Unashi was still at his side, kneeling. They were both in tears. The chief had disappeared.
‘Where is the chief?’
‘He withdrew out of respect for your grief. ’
‘That’s for the best,’ Yakinahiko muttered, as he dressed. He noticed that Unashi was staring in surprise at his left hand. He should have had a gash where Ketamaru had clawed him, but the wound had healed without a scar. Yakinahiko hurriedly covered his right hand, but Unashi prostrated himself at his feet.
‘Yakinahiko-sama, what manner of man are you?’
‘Do you think I am not of this world?’
Still face down on the ground, Unashi replied, ‘I do not know. All I know is that I have never in my life met a man like you. You amaze me. Surely you are someone – something – that exceeds human understanding.’
‘Are you afraid of me? Am I a monster?’
For a few minutes Unashi did not answer. Then he said, ‘No. I’m not afraid of you. It’s just that . . .’
‘When I think you’re not a man like me, it makes me sad. And someone as extraordinary as you are cannot possibly be human.’
‘Unashi, when you saw Masago’s corpse, how did you feel?’
Unashi answered, without looking up, ‘It was so sad to think that someone as beautiful as Masago-hime would end up rotting away, no better than an animal. But it’ll be the same for me when I die. That’s just the way it is, and we humans can’t escape our fate. But it makes living all the more precious.’
So that was it. For humans, death was inescapable. Yakinahiko had not thought of it like that before. But what about Izanami? She was a god. What was death to her? He had not thought about her for so long.
He could feel the tide retreating. The smell of the sea was now strong. Even inside the cave on the cliff, the blowing of the sea winds had been strong. Perhaps the winds would carry Masago’s festering smell far away. Yakinahiko’s mood began to lighten. He asked Unashi, ‘What is worrying you? Any number of times you have seemed about to ask me something and then you lose your tongue. Ask – please.’
Unashi raised his youthful, sunburnt face and finally looked Yakinahiko in the eye. ‘Very well. You have many wives. I’ve watched you select the most beautiful woman in any region we’ve visited and make her your wife. I’ve watched you call out to them, as if you were on a mission. Eventually I realised that marrying women is your mission, your job. But recently I’ve noticed a disturbing trend.’
‘What’s that?’
Yakinahiko noticed how frightened Unashi looked. Had the boy grasped that he never aged? Or that his wounds healed immediately? To come upon an immortal could only be unnerving for a human, whose body changed constantly. Yakinahiko was prepared to explain, but Unashi’s answer caught him off guard.
‘Of the women who bear your children, most die suddenly. And because you never travel to the same place twice, you haven’t noticed. But I’ve heard rumours time and again. There was Kuro-sama of Awa and Kariha-sama in Mozuno, and many, many more. And I have heard that all of them died as soon as they gave birth to one of your children. Why is that?’
Taken by surprise, Yakinahiko was unable to answer straight away. And when he did, all he could say was, ‘That is the first I’ve heard of it. Kuro and Kariha are both dead?’
‘Yes. It was very sad – they died so suddenly. That’s why I was beside myself with worry over whether Masago-hime was faring well or not.’
‘Is that so? I thought you were worried about Masago because you had special feelings for her. She was a very lovely woman.’
‘She was.’ Unashi nodded. ‘I was worried but I couldn’t believe Masago-sama would meet a similar fate. After all, she lived so far from Yamato. But death has come here as well, even for her. It is chasing you, Yakinahiko-sama. And I have a thought that is almost too terrifying to mention.’
‘What’s that, Unashi?’
The evening sun had nearly set. A sliver glimmered over the sea to the west – the colour of madder berries. Yakinahiko thought that it would be best to make for the village before the curtain of night fell, but for some reason he could not move.
Unashi hesitated, then asked, ‘Yakinahiko-sama, have you incurred someone’s hatred?’
‘Perhaps.’ Yakinahiko sat down on a large white rock and sighed. He thought of the words he and Izanami had exchanged before they parted.
‘My beloved Izanaki, your behaviour is reprehensible. You have trapped me in this place, and now you say you wish a divorce. From this day forward, therefore, I will take the lives of one thousand people each day in your land of the living.’
To this Izanaki had responded: ‘My beloved Izanami, you may do as you say, but I shall build fifteen hundred birthing huts and will daily see that fifteen hundred new lives are born.’
When Izanaki had finally escaped from Izanami, he had purified his body, and then had given birth to a number of gods, including Amaterasu, the radiant Sun Goddess. Then, upon assuming human form, he had taken the name Yakinahiko and had travelled throughout Yamato impregnating women. If Izanami had caused the deaths of those he had taken to wife, then truly death was the victor. He did not want another wife to lose her life.
Yakinahiko was overcome by sorrow.
‘Unashi, my fate is irrevocable and I have no choice but to accept it. It is my fate to search out women, get them with child, then watch them die. If I love the woman, the pain I feel at her death is all the greater, so I must not fall in love. But even so, it is, as you say, my mission to give them children.’
‘May I ask why? I’ve grown up since I entered your service so, for me, you are like a parent. No, you are more like a god to me. I met you when I was only twelve, and from that time on I’ve been so awed by your magnificent spirit that all I’ve ever wanted was to be at your side. I want to understand your pain and sorrow – I want to share everything with you. I will accept the truth, no matter how cruel, no matter if it is so mysterious no mere mortal could comprehend it.’
Unashi was trembling as he spoke, swaying with fear. At that moment the heavens rolled with thunder and rain began to fall. Surely it was dripping into Masago’s coffin, washing the flesh from her bones. Soaked though he was, Yakinahiko stood gazing up at the cave. Now all he could see was a dark opening carved into the side of the cliff.
‘Please, tell me,’ Unashi shouted, to be heard over the thunder.
‘Very well. I will. But you must not be frightened.’
‘I promise.’ Unashi gritted his teeth.