#Observation 5 — Kinai (畿內)
Contents
Authority. The main text is Fiction-Only — the record of one outsider, in which fact, rumor, and misunderstanding are mixed. Only "At the Table" at the end is Scene Tool. This volume has no Law — if you need numbers, go to the canon
co. The promise of this whole book is in About This Book; the one who wrote this diary is in The Narrator — the Nanban Brush.
The old provinces covered: Yamashiro (山城) · Yamato (大和) · Kawachi (河內) · Izumi (和泉) · Settsu (攝津) — these five provinces enter none of the seven roads (道) and are bound apart as the "inner land" (畿內). That circumstance is held by the Cross-Reference.
Itinerary: previous — Observation 4. Kii · next — Observation 6. Omi
#The Road — Entering Miyako
From Pinto's diary — the fifth day since I left the mountains of Kii and came down into the plain, I entered Miyako.
The mountains ended and the plain opened. Past the old capital of Nara (奈良) and north for two days — through the middle of the plain a river ran, the road straightened along the river, and the people on the road grew suddenly many. The Sword noticed first. "A great city is near. When the smell of earth leaves the road, it is a city."
When I crossed one hill, I saw it. Miyako (Kyoto) — the city the people of this country call simply "the capital." I had walked from the harbor onward listening to the tales of this city. Where the emperor dwells. What had been the center of the country for nearly a thousand years. Silk and gold leaf and a thousand temples. Merchant that I am, I had heard those words cut by half — but coming and seeing it, I had mistaken which to cut by half and which to double.
The city had no wall. Where in the capital of my country the thickest wall would have run, there were fields and reeds and a burnt place. And the city was two. A town to the north, a town to the south — an empty plain wedged between the two towns, and through the middle of the plain a single road joined the two towns.
"The city is two?" I asked.
"It was one originally," said the Tongue. "The middle burned."
When I asked when it burned, who burned it — every person I met on the road named a different battle. The old man spoke of the war in his grandfather's day, the man at the inn spoke of the battle of twenty years past, the child spoke of last year's fire. Only then did I understand. This city did not burn once. Over a hundred years it burned many times, and each time it was built again.
I entered the southern town. At the mouth stood a palisade, and there was a watchtower, and there was a gate — but the one guarding the gate was not a soldier. A man like the master of a draper's shop stood holding a ledger, looked once into our baggage, wrapping-cloth and all, and let us pass. Having been a body that spent half a day passing a single barrier, I was dumbfounded and looked back twice.
Unlike us, the gate of this city was not raised by a lord. The people who live in the town raised it at the mouth of their own town with their own coin. There is no lord's wall, yet the town's palisade is there in every town — one city is made of dozens of small castles, by the reckoning.
Inside the gate was another world. Silk shops ran in a row, the swords of the sword-shop gleamed in the lamplight, and a shop selling sutras and charms and a shop selling the wine offered to the gods stood side by side. With the burnt plain at its back, the market seethed with haggling as if nothing had happened. The hand that drew out the ledger and began to write did not stop for a good while.
I went up to the northern town and passed the place said to be the emperor's palace. The wall was low, and in places the earth had crumbled and was left so. Even the smallest detached palace of our king is girdled by a higher wall than this. And yet — every person who passed before that wall slowed his step and bowed his head. The Sword too tilted his hat. That he bowed his head to anyone, I saw for the first time.
"Does the one who dwells here have an army?" I asked.
"He does not," said the Tongue.
"A treasury?"
"Empty, I have heard."
"Then why does everyone bow?" The Tongue thought a good while, then left off the office of interpreter and answered in his own words. "Because he is here."
A bow received without army or treasury. A wealth that can be set down in no column of the ledger. I do not know the way to reckon this — and I set down even that I do not know.
When the sun set the bells rang in layers. The temples within the city one layer, the temples on the mountain to the northeast another layer. The sound of the bells came down equally over the market and over the burnt plain.
I set it down today. The capital was half ash and half market. This I saw. And neither on the ash side nor on the market side was there one person who doubted that this city was the center of the country.
#The Land of Fact — Four Cities
The five provinces that hold Miyako are called Kinai — that all seven roads of the country begin here and end here, I set down in Roads and Travel. The plain has long been tilled and is rich, the roads are straight, the rivers are fit to float a boat, and the sea holds several harbors. A rumor begun at any harbor reaches here in the end, and silver dug from any mountain is priced here in the end. In these five provinces I saw four cities. The four were so unlike one another that it was strange they stood on the same plain.
#Miyako — The City That Lives Twice
Miyako, as I set down above, lives in two. In the northern town are the palace and the mansions of the nobles, and in the southern town live the artisans and merchants. Both towns set a palisade and a watchtower and a bell in every town, and at night the people of the town stand watch and guard their own town. They guard against fire, they guard against thieves — and by the porters' account, they also guard against the other thing that walks abroad at night. That tale I set down later.
Walking the town, one sees how this city survived. The pillars are mostly new wood, and the foundation stones mostly old stone. When it burns — they build again upon the foundation stones. In the silk-weaving town the sound of the loom filled one alley, and in the town of the sword-smiths come the finest blades reckoned in this country, I heard. The house that prints sutras, the house that writes charms, the house that brews sacred wine — that half of what is sold is a trade dealing with what cannot be seen by the eye is, by the reckoning, the market telling you first what kind of city this is.
Thirteen or fourteen ri south from Miyako — the sense of ri I leave to the Glossary & Weights and Measures — and you come to the sea, and there Sakai is. Two days on an unburdened foot, three for our column.
#Sakai — The City Without a Daimyo
On the day we entered Sakai (堺), the Tongue's step quickened. His speech changed too — quick and hard speech, the price coming first and the greeting after. It was the speech of his home, he said.
The city girdled three sides with water and opened toward the sea. A moat dug out by hand — this I saw. Inside the moat watchtowers stood in a row, but there is no keep. There is no lord's castle. Where a castle should be, there are storehouses. The storehouses plastered white, standing in a row, look from afar like a wall.
When I asked who the master of the city was, the Tongue pointed to a teahouse. A dozen or so old merchants were drinking tea. "Those gentlemen. They are called the Council (會合衆)." Not a king. Not a lord. Old men drinking tea rule the city — a tale I was told. But that the city's disputes go before those old men, and that by those old men's seal the city's gates open and close, I saw many times while I stayed.
I heard what this city did when an army came. They raised the bridge, closed the gate, and onto the watchtower they put — not soldiers — envoys and chests, they say. The city as a whole named a price, and the army took the price and went back, they say. A tale I was told. I too asked twice over as I heard it. The city, in place of keeping an army, buys an army. The spearmen who guard the gate are ronin who take a wage, and when the wage stops they leave — and yet the night of this city was brighter and quieter than the night of Miyako.
In the harbor our ships had come. I laughed to see a Nanban glass cup sell for three times the price of my home harbor, and I drew in the laughter to see raw silk and silver pass by the chestful. Teppo too are traded by the chest, but the place where that ware is made is not here but the country of the lake, I heard — the tale of that village I set down in the next chapter. I saw, too, earthen vessels called tea utensils (茶器) traded dearer than silk, but the cause of that I must set down apart later.
The very name Sakai means "border," they say — because it stood at the place where three provinces meet. A tale I was told. If a place belonging wholly to no province raised a city belonging to no lord, then it has lived up to its name, by the reckoning.
Since I came ashore, I have been astonished by many things. But Sakai is the first where I closed the ledger and sat a good while. A city without a daimyo. No lord's castle, no lord's tax, no lord's banner. And yet the roads are straighter, the bridges sturdier, the haggling more honest. This country is ruled by the sword — so I have set down until now. Sakai is the single footnote attached to that sentence.
In our sea too there is a city girdled with water that rose by trade. They call it Venice. All my life I had thought that city a freak of the world, but coming and seeing this, it was no freak — two seas had separately found the same answer. A city where the merchant rules by the merchant's law. In this whole diary, this is the first and will be the last time I set down envy.
#Nara — The City a Buddha Leads
It was a capital older than Miyako, they say. Now it is no capital, but the city lives as the city of another thing — it is a city of temples.
Deer walk the streets. Even if one snatches a rice-cake before a shop, no one raises a cudgel. Because it is the messenger of a god, they say. A street where the man yields to the deer rather than the deer to the man, I know nowhere but this country. This I saw.
In a great temple there was a great buddha cast of bronze. Its seated height was that of the bell-tower of our cathedral — yet it had no roof. The great hall that had covered the buddha burned in a war, and since then the buddha sits taking the rain, they say. Were it us, the whole country would have wailed the while a holy image took the rain. They bow, lay down an offering, and pass on. That someday it will be built again — none knowing who builds it or when — everyone said the same thing.
In this district it is not the lord but the temple that levies the dues, I heard. The temple holds the rice-fields, holds the storehouses, holds the markets. And spears stand before the temple gate — men with shaven heads holding long-hafted blades guarding the gate, I saw. Unlike us, the friar of this country grips prayer and the sword in one hand. A city where the temple is the lord and the monk is the warrior — in Nara that saying is no figure.
#Ishiyama — The Temple That Holds Out Like a Castle
At the river-mouth of Settsu, on a hill called Ishiyama (石山), is that temple. The people called it Honganji.
Seen from afar, anyone would call it a castle. There is a moat, there is an earthwork, palisades are girdled in layers, and on every watchtower a banner stood. And yet what is heard from within the walls is not a war-cry but the nembutsu. The sound of thousands of mouths calling the buddha's name in one voice pressed in across the water like the moaning of the sea. And into the gate an endless procession of people bearing sacks of rice and bales of salt was sucked in — not warriors but peasants. The procession going in I saw, but the procession coming out I did not see.
Across the river war-banners fluttered in a row. The lord's army had pitched camp and faced the temple. No one was fighting, and no one was withdrawing.
The temple holds out like a castle. This I saw. Which side is winning — even seeing it I cannot tell, so I do not set it down.
The Tongue spared his words at Ishiyama. When I asked the reason he said only this. "The words here, it is better that I not carry them over."
Editor's note: Which temple it was that Pinto saw across the river, whose stronghold that temple is, and whose the facing war-banners were — the inner circumstance of that war is held by the canonical Faction Map. This volume sets down only the walls and the nembutsu as they appeared to an outsider's eye.
#People and Customs — Politics Inside the Narrow Gate
The speech of the people of Miyako is lovely. And that lovely speech is armor. The Tongue taught me on the first day. "When a person of Miyako says 'do come by some time,' it means do not come." We show our feeling in words; they cover it with words. So it is even before a burnt place — everyone knows whose house burned, but no one brings it to the lips. At first I set it down as cold, then erased it. In a city burned many times over a hundred years, perhaps not asking is the law of comfort.
The speech of the people of Sakai is quick, and that quick speech is as heavy as a seal. The trade of this city is guarded not by the sword but by the ledger and credit. When a dispute arises, instead of the sword one goes before the Council, and even if a warrior comes in wearing his sword he cannot cut the price — what cuts the price is not rank but volume. Before a great inn I saw a warrior leave his long sword and go in. Unlike us, in this city what is precious comes not from blood but from the ledger.
And there is the tea gathering (茶會). When a great merchant of Sakai invited me, I went expecting a feast.
It was no feast. A small house thatched with grass at the inner end of the garden — a house smaller than a storehouse. The door was the size of a dog's crawl-hole, so that one had to crawl in on all fours, and the sword was to be hung outside. We greet the most precious guest at the largest gate, but they let him in by the narrowest gate. Even a lord, before that door, unfastens his sword and crawls on his knees, they say. Within the room there was one lamp, one flower, and only the sound of the water boiling in the kettle. The host wordlessly whisked the tea and offered it, and it was a green and bitter froth. I choked, and the host did not laugh.
The tea bowl was black and warped, a vessel ugly to my eye. After I came out, I heard the price and choked a second time. There is one who traded a castle for a single tea bowl, they say — I was told. It is not that I counted. Only this I saw. In that narrow room the host and the guest sat facing each other for more than an hour, and after they came out one great deal had been struck between the two. There are tales that can be had only in a room one enters having set down the sword. The council hall of this country is not a wide great-room but two tatami mats, I set down in the corner of my ledger.
#The Land of Konsei — Name and Ledger
The war of Kinai is unlike the war of other regions. Rather than armies clashing in the field, more often it is name and seal passing in a room.
In the center is the emperor. That he has no army, that his treasury is empty, I set down on the road. And yet the lords who divided the country into sixty-odd — slaying and slain among themselves — vie to offer tribute to this lord without an army, they say. It is to receive the name of a rank. Even land seized with one's own sword becomes "one's own" only when a single sheet of paper bearing the emperor's name is added, they say. A tale I was told. Our kings guard the name by the army, but the emperor of this country lives by the name alone, without an army. The market that buys and sells that name is the largest unseen market of Miyako.
On the road I often saw one kind of banner. It is the war-banner of a great domain that has raised, as its cause for ruling the realm, the destroying of yoma — Kagura, the Tongue informed me it is called. The stronghold of that domain is somewhere about here, I heard, and I saw the merchants of Miyako and Sakai reckon where that army moves sooner than they reckon the price of rice.
On the mountain to the northeast is a league of temples. The name of the mountain is Hiei (比叡), I heard, and the temples of that mountain form a league (連) and look down upon Miyako. When the mountain is angered the city trembles, the people of Miyako say — the tale of the year the mountain's warrior-monks came down bearing torches, the old folk told as though it were yesterday. And the mountain temple and the river temple — Hiei and Ishiyama — while they enshrine the same buddha call one another heretic, they say. A tale I was told. I asked no more than that one line. For the Tongue twice turned the words aside.
The trade of Sakai is held by guilds called za (座). The largest hand among them is called the Sakai Guild, and though I heard the name of the one called its head, I met no one who said he had seen his face. The merchant knows first where the war-banner moves, and the army moves following where the merchant's silver flows — that army and merchant buy one another is the politics of this land.
And — there is one trade I long hesitated whether to set down.
In a certain guest-room of Sakai, a broker showed a single sword wrapped in silk cloth. The edge was blue as if newly forged, yet the broker said it was the work of a hundred years past. On the tang the name of a swordsmith was inscribed. The Tongue read that name and shook his head — an unknown name, he said. The broker laughed and said that when he called an onmyoji and had it appraised, the onmyoji said it was "a name not yet in being." The price — I will not set it down. If I set it down they will think I have inflated it. This trade began some five years ago, I heard. To ask the source is impolite, and a single certificate of appraisal stands in for the source, they said. Certain lords, for a ware such as this, buy without asking the price, they say.
When asked whether I would buy, I cited the merchant's rule — a ware without a source I do not buy. The broker laughed, wrapped the sword again, and that night I set this down in my diary. It is not that there is no source, but that the source is fearful.
There is a deeper rumor too. That among the deepest dealings of Sakai there are some whose other party is not a person — that saying I heard from two mouths that did not know each other, once at the end of a drinking party, once on the wharf at dawn. A tale I was told. I set down only that I heard it twice.
Editor's note: Whether the sword Pinto saw is genuine, whose man the broker is, and what the "other party that is not a person" is — the inner circumstance of the two trades of the Sakai Guild is held by the canonical Faction Map and Chronicle. How far to make it true when you bring it to the table the GM decides.
#The Land of the Uncanny — The Long-Lived Things of a Long-Lived City
The yoma of the countryside blocks the road, they say. The yoma of Kinai — offers you a seat, they say. The yoma of the land where people have lived longest is the yoma that has lived longest with people, so it does not lunge like a beast of the mountain but conducts itself like a neighbor. For that very reason it is the more fearful, the people of Miyako said, with a face that could be boast or could be lament.
In Miyako there is a good lot with no price. Not far from the market, the water good, the sun coming in — and it stands empty. By the merchant's rule, there is no good land that is cheap. There is even less a good land with no price at all — there is a reason. When asked, the people, in place of an answer, tell how the lot's former master died. This city, having heaped up the most splendor, has heaped up the most resentment, and resentment guards its own lot though it have no deed. On such a lot, in place of a house a small shrine is raised, or nothing is raised.
At the southern end of the city is the site of an old great gate. The gate long ago crumbled and only the foundation stones remain, and by day the children play upon those stones, while by night the grown-ups go around the place. Long ago an oni dwelt atop that gate, they say — a tale I was told, and a tale of the very old days. Though the gate crumble, it seems the threshold remains.
There is also a custom of not looking long at a thing too beautiful. Of a person too lovely, a thing too perfect, the people of Miyako say "I see the tail." Because long ago a fox once got in even at the emperor's side, they say — a tale I was told. They say it as though in jest, but I saw that, while making the jest, no one laughed.
And the tsukumogami — what they so call when a spirit dwells in a household good a hundred years old. The land where old things are most numerous in the world is here. In the old-tools market, when I went to take an old mirror cheap, the Tongue pressed down my hand. "A thing old and cheap, and a thing old and having an owner, are different." Now that I think of it, this city had a trade where one pays a price even to discard a thing — one takes the spent needle and comb and doll to the temple to consecrate and burn them. A thing that has lived a hundred years together is family, not refuse, they say. So it is with the cat too — keep it too long and it speaks, an old woman of the market said half in earnest. We, the longer we use a thing, come to cherish it; they, the longer they use a thing, come to be wary.
Editor's note: The originals of what Pinto picked up by ear — the oni atop the gate, the fox of the court, the procession of the night street — are held by Heian Night Tales, which treats the old age. For the Rashomon anecdote see Tsuchigumo and the Oni of Rashomon; for the fox anecdote, Tamamo-no-Mae. This volume sets down only the present traces those old tales have left, and the tendency of encounters to roll in Kinai is in the canonical Lands of the Sengoku.
The eastern exit of Miyako is a pass. The water I saw beyond that pass, and the sound of the hammer at the waterside, I set down in Observation 6 — Omi.
#At the Table
Scene Tool. Only this section is a GM scene tool.
In a Kinai scenario, word comes before sword. The enemy is not an army but face, credit, name, and the battlefield is not a field but two tatami mats. If you wish to compress it into a single roll, you can borrow the judgment frame of the canonical Non-Combat Rules, and the ten incidents to roll in Kinai are already in the canonical Lands of the Sengoku. This volume adds only three scenes from the places the narrator passed.
The empty seat. One old man of the Council has died. A natural death, they say — over a single empty seat three great-merchant houses have begun to move. The party enters Sakai as the guard of one house, as a witness, or as the one who holds the dead old man's last errand. This city does not forgive the one who draws a sword within the walls — so every attack comes as something that is not a sword. A rumor that breaks credit, a forged ledger, the disappearance of a single ship. In a city where people die off without a sword, what is the party's sword a thing to be used for?
The reconciliation of a single tea bowl. The reconciliation of two factions hangs on a single tea gathering. The party has come along as escort — but before the narrow door they must unfasten their swords. Two tatami mats, one lamp, host and guest and boiling water. Everything that passes in that room — the order in which the tea bowl is turned, the kind of flower, the length of a single word — is all a move (手). Poison enters not only the tea but the words, and the moment a famed tea utensil breaks, the reconciliation breaks too. A bout fought in a room without weapons, roll it as a scene rather than a judgment.
The sword of a name not yet in being. In Sakai a famed sword of unknown source was sold to a lord in the east. The party's task is escort — the pay is generous, and for the road you open Incidents of the Road. The trouble is the swordsmith's name inscribed on the tang. The onmyoji who appraised it attached along with it a single sealed slip. "The owner of this name is yet alive — a child. Finish the delivery before the sword recognizes its owner." Neither the one who bought the sword nor the one who sold it paid a price for that slip.
What held the center of this country was not the sword — it was name and ledger. The sword only comes to buy the two.