[kotteri]
by lacygrey
Confluence
They say that downriver, where the water spreads as far as the eye can see and beyond, lies another land. There are fish aplenty, but also monsters who upturn ships and drown unwary seafarers, tearing the surface with their great fins and men with their teeth. Kawa-jin was happy where he was - fishing on the river - with the hope of a fair catch and a good supper. Fishing was a welcome rest from the shôen. With water between himself and the farm lands he could forget the problems, the drudge of his days, the lack of labor on the farm, the demands of the palace...
He was looking at the point his line met the water and following its reflection in the pale dawn when he spied a form on the quiet water surface. Though the tales of great vengeful fish sprang to mind, this was something floating, not something swimming. He steered his boat closer. It was a tall black thing, not a fin, but a tall eboshi, a noble’s hat: something thrown away from the palace, no doubt. He recognized it because the shôensupplied food for the nobility that lived cloistered behind its walls and he had briefly seen those people, the men at least, as they entered or left the city in fine carriages.
A little vexed at himself for wasting his time on this useless object, he turned his attention back to his line. But at that moment he saw something else; something else recognizable and altogether more frightening. He forgot all about the hat, all about the fish. It looked like there had been a terrible accident. Pulling on the oars he neared himself to a person he saw floating in the water, kept up by air caught in his robes, face blue with cold surrounded by an undulating cloud of hair. Was this man dead or simply chilled to unconsciousness?
~~~
In his sorrow, it was a question Sai had never asked himself: Is there Go after death? He had given himself to the water, welcoming its cold until it felt like warmth, accepting the biting until it dulled and he was surrounded, clothed in darkness he became one with.
But now he was dry, aching all over and lying on something hard. There was rough fabric against his skin and a smoke smell coming from somewhere near. His head throbbed. He had no idea what being dead was supposed to feel like but doubted it felt like this. And the anguish was still very much alive when he thought of his Go, tainted by injustice and shame.
“I have nothing.”
“You’re not only inept, you’re dishonest. ”
How could people believe that of him? Anyone who loved Go as he did would never do such a thing. Go is my life.
There was a noise of someone moving close to him and he opened his eyes to see the face of an unfamiliar woman; a smiling face. Who was she? And where was he? Around him were the walls of a strange room with an earth floor. The woman’s face was worn and looked older than those he had known in the city, but softer too. Sai tried to smile back, for her sake. She looked at a loss for words, relieved. Though his last days at the palace hovered in his mind, with alternate pangs of anger and despair, he realized, as he looked at this woman, that here was someone who was happy to see him alive.
The next time he awoke there were more women, talking together. Sitting up, he found his hair was all loose and spread about him and that he was wearing a shapeless grey tunic, the like of which he’d never seen. He must look terrible, but he felt better. They hadn’t noticed he was awake. Sai had grown up among the women of the palace and was used to their company. As Go tutor he’d had the privilege of meeting them directly. When they weren’t learning Go, the ladies at court often chatted with him. They would tease him about how they envied him his hair.
But these women here were different; they weren’t only talking, but also working. It looked like they were beating reeds on the floor. With difficultly, he moved closer to watch them and saw they were collecting the tiny grains from the dried plants. He must be among commoners and this was probably their food. Hunger!! Though his disgrace and exile he had been too morally sickened to eat at all, no wonder he felt so weak.
One of the women saw him standing watching. She made a sound and all of them looked up at once. In an instant he was surrounded by faces.
“Oh…the one from the city.”
“You’re better, beautiful one.”
“Oh, the eyes he has.”
“Look at his hands.”
“Get him some soup.”
“It was my husband who saved you,” one of them said, “You fell in the water. Do you remember? We’ll take care of you and take you back to the palace.” Then she asked, hesitantly, “What should we call you?”
Her expression was kind, but the question stabbed him: his name, his family, his rank: all were meaningless. She only wanted to know how she should address him, but it brought his despair to the surface.. “I can't go back there!” he replied. He hadn’t the strength to say the rest: I don’t belong there anymore. I have failed. I am nobody. His knees buckled and the floor came up to hit him as consciousness and the swarm of faces slipped away.
~~~
“Tendoumaru! Tendoumaru, will you come in now? Your teacher is here.”
A boy sprang out from behind a clump of melia trees, hair ruffled and escaping from the looped tresses over his ears. He sped towards the veranda.
“Sai! Sai! you’re back. Sai, where have you been? Let’s play Go.” His mother stood there and looked troubled.
“No darling, it’s not Sai. It’s your Chinese teacher. It’s time for your lesson now.”
His most dreaded lesson and still no Sai: definitely not his night.
As Sai’s youngest pupil, Tendoumaru hadn’t cared much for Go when Sai had introduced him to it. Much as he’d loved his tutor, he preferred ball games to board games. But now that Sai had gone away, Tendoumaru missed him. And he started to wonder what the big deal was with Go anyway. Why did Sai think it was so important? And where was Sai anyway? No one ever told kids anything. If ever Sai returned, he promised himself they’d play Go. In the meantime, Tendoumaru asked to play Go with her majesty, his aunt. She had no children of her own and indulged him, though she too placed her stones like a child.
When a palace guard found a hat in the river, it really should have been a trivial thing and quickly forgotten. But few had forgotten the scene between the two Go tutors, least of all his majesty. Rumors travel quickly in places where little happens from day to day; minor gossip becomes insatiably interesting and details inflated and embellished. News spread that Fujiwara no Sai had drowned himself in the river: a logical explanation. There was hushed dismay but feverous debate. The women heard about the hat. The higher courtiers heard about the hat. His majesty heard about it, or rather he heard how Fujiwara no Sai had desperately thrown himself in the waters of the Kamo for the love of Go…because someone had written a poem about it. Far from being disgraced; in the eyes of the women of the court, Sai was a tragic hero. Sai would have many a lavishly decorated story dedicated to him for his act was one of love.
Sai’s suicide was an outcome Sugawara no Akitada had not predicted; though Sai always had been such that a dramatic fool he should have known he would over-react. Now it seemed that everyone was more influenced by pathos than reason. Too many people were looking at him strangely and too few were asking for games.
His majesty retired for several days. He did not want to play Go.
~~~
Kawa-jin’s family were surprised that Sai did not want to wear his old clothes again, even though they’d carefully cleaned and dried them for him. For Sai, they went with a life that was gone, a life that truly had drowned in the river. Dressed like the men of the farm and with his hair in a simple ponytail, he felt he’d been though a metamorphosis.
He’d tried to die: sought that place none return from. It seemed impossible, like a terrifying dream. But the reality remained:
"I am banished. I can no longer serve the emperor. I can no longer play Go," he sobbed, burying his face in his hands. A arm came around his shoulders.
"What is Go?" someone asked.
“Tell us what happened.” said another.
Sai couldn’t keep the tension out of his voice, when, having first described his life and his love of Go, he told them of his strong but selfish rival and their final competition.
“I would never have suggested such a thing to the emperor.” Sai shook his head. “Though I did not care for that man, until the moment he cheated against me I would never have wished that he leave. What is Go without strong opponents?”
It was difficult to describe the world he had come from to people who lived so differently. But Sai made it clear that he couldn't go back and that they shouldn’t send word to the palace about him. It was silently understood that his bath in the river had been no accident.
Though he’d never thought about it, the cloth of his robes had a high value. Sai gave them away willingly to his hosts and they let him stay on at the shôen.
He drew a goban on the earth in front of the house and explained the rules of the game to anyone who would listen. But no one had enough time to play a proper game, and when Sai explained that Go could last several days, Kawa-jin shook his head and said it was truly a game of the nobles or the gods and he had the rice harvest to manage and would hear about such distractions later. Sai felt that he had fallen into darkness at the shôen but was sorrier still for these people who had never known the joy of Go.
~~~
The empress was excited. His majesty had introduced her to a new game someone had brought to him from the continent. She showed the pieces to Tendoumaru. They were flat, five sided and decorated with delicate calligraphies.
Tendoumaru only wanted Sai to come back. Though he was only a child he couldn’t help but find out that people now thought Sai was dead. But for him it couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t.
“And each player has one piece that for his highness and his servants, and pieces for horses and tigers! And you move the pieces around during the game…Isn’t it delightful?” said her majesty. It was beautiful, that was true, as the empress liked everything to be. It was even fun, like stepping into an imaginary world, but it wasn’t Go.
His majesty, far from being upset that a mere board game should represent him, ordered more Shougi boards and pieces to be made so that everyone could learn and play the new game. Go was no longer in favor at court.
Emperors do not make mistakes. There is only greatness and light in the capital. Though he would not believe that his Go tutors would cheat in front of him, he remembered it was Akitada who’d told him “You only need one Go tutor”, and Akitada who had accused Sai first. His majesty questioned all of the men who had witnessed the game between Sai and Akitada but learned no more. The emperor was young but not stupid. He suspected something and that something tainted Go completely for him.
~~~
The farm supplied rice and fruit to the palace. Kawa-jin also kept pigs. The 'reeds’ that Sai had seen being beaten were rice, though he hadn’t recognized it as the dish he’d eaten in the city.
Sai had little more success persuading the women to play Go than he’d had with the men; they were busy with rice polishing or other chores. He tried the children too: they found him funny, but few of them would sit still for long. They reminded of Tendoumaru from the palace: vivacious, but easily distracted.
Finally, playing alone, he brought himself to lay out the fateful game he and Akitada had played before the emperor. He played out the moves he would have played if he’d hadn’t been so upset by the accusation and found, with bitterness, that he could have won. He cried long and hard over that but told himself that it meant that his Go was strong, despite what had happened. Then he started to wonder: Had Akitada put that white stone in his goke somehow? Surely not; Akitada would have had no way of knowing whether he would be playing black. So it must simply have been an accident, and his rival’s cheating an act of pure opportunism.
“We could use your help with something. I’m building a new wet field system; it’s better for the rice. We’ll flood the land with water from the river but the fields need to wall up the field boundaries to keep the water in. Can you handle a spade?”
Sai thought his limbs looked frighteningly slender and pale compared with those of the other men. Moving the earth he soon became filthy, exhausted and appalled at the crudeness of it all and the sheer slog of such work. His hair, plaited and tied on top of his head was a weighty burden. In half a day he was done in, mud splattered, and red from exertion and sun. “That’s enough for one day,” Kawa-jin told him.
“Do you know how to do anything else besides Go?” they asked him. Sai knew his answer wasn’t what they wanted to hear:
“I play the biwa and the flute.” Kawa-jin sighed.
“I have neither here, but you could perhaps make yourself a flute from the bamboo that grows by the forest. In the meantime, while you stay here, I have another job for you.” Sai knew the shôen lacked workers and knew too that he could not live here as a guest once the cloth of his robes had been bartered away.
“It’s easier than digging.” Kawa-jin reassured him. “What we need is someone to care for the swine.”
~~~
An emperor who doesn’t make mistakes must make sure that there is no reminder of something that might be seen that way. Matters at the palace had been considerably worsened by the romanticized picture drawn of Sai’s demise, notably by court ladies who had little to do but write or paint. And now a new rumour had spread that if you took a walk near the river at twilight you sometimes heard the ghost of Fujiwara no Sai playing his flute.
The emperor called Akitada to him.
“Does his majesty desire a teaching game this evening?” his preceptor asked, eagerly. The emperor had been working on his Shougi and the court, in the name of fashion and good taste, followed suit. Akitada had hoped that this interview meant that the emperor had got over his Shougi infatuation and they would soon also talk of the privileges that went with his new position, after all, he was now Go tutor of both the left and the right palaces.
How badly he had read the emperor. While Akitada wasn’t exiled from the city, he found he no longer had the approval or sponsorship: he simply had no position at court anymore. There was no mention of Sai, simply that the emperor no longer cared to play Go. The disgrace was implicit. Akitada would have to leave Heian Kyo.
On the continent he knew that Go was popular as ever and with his experience he could work for an important family there without the stain of humiliation that now stalked him among the Japanese upper classes. Taking his most valuable possessions he left the capital and sought a passage to China.
~~~
Sai had taken to walking down to the river in the evening. His thoughts of self destruction had faded, to be replaced by longing. He tried to make himself a flute, remembering how the instruments in the city had felt under his fingers, the pattern of the holes. It took several attempts, but finally he fashioned something resembling a real instrument and took it out by the river and in the fields to play surrounded by the rusty plume grass and autumn birds. Soon it was time for the pigs to be brought in for the winter.
He spent winter playing his flute, dreaming of Go and mucking out. The pigs were a good audience and the people on the farm complimented him also, but the sweet sadness of his music was born out of his longing for Go and he knew that he couldn’t stay here much longer. He would find somewhere to play Go once more if he searched. But it was still winter. His bed in the loft above the pigs was warm and comfortable even though he sometimes felt like his whole existence had taken on their odor.
~~~
It was a bad time of year for Akitada to be traveling. Days were short and the roads often damaged from the rain - and that was without bargaining for highwaymen.
Sugawara no Akitada was a proud as well as an ambitious man. Despite the loss of his position he would never dream of traveling humbly. And thus, his ornate carriage attracted attention, but not the kind he wanted. It brought the kind of attention that lies in ambush and surges from the darkness to attack travelers and strip them of their possessions, to slit throats and send oxen running scared into the night when they’re not taken as part of the prize themselves.
Akitada was unused to a world were one negotiated not with the subtle influence of discourse or importance of rank but where that all that mattered was human strength and force in numbers. He was lucky to escape the carnage of his wreaked carriage with his life.
He was also unused to walking, but it was the only way forward. He cursed his bad luck as made his sodden way towards the coast, cursed Sai’s hat and Sai himself for not dying more discreetly, but stopped short of cursing Sai’s Go.
He couldn’t barter for a passage to China using Go lessons. When he reached the place where the land ended and the sea lay before him he could go no further, but he couldn’t turn back either. So he decided to find a ship to stow away on.
Akitada liked to think of himself as an educated man. But he was not well-traveled. His choice of vessel had been very sensible for not getting caught, but not for reaching China. The fishing boat he had hidden on returned to the harbor the very same day with a hold full of fish and one very bedraggled and disgruntled stowaway. No explanations he gave seemed to make sense to the men who found him, the truth about his identity was just too incredible for them to believe.
At first they decided he was crazy, which was infuriating: the more Akitada tried to assert his rank, the funnier they found it. But finally, his presumed insanity was useful as they took pity on him and gave him something to eat. They even offered him work - sorting fish. In half a year he figured he could earn an honest passage to China.
He collected small shells from the seaweed the boat brought in, and from the shore itself, scratched a board into a piece of wood from the shipyard. Not may were interested in his “crazy game”. Then he found something to make it more attractive, something people did at the palace too but as little more than an idle distraction. Go was something you could gamble on.
~~~
It was in the spring that Sai bid his farewell to Kawa-jin and the people of the shôen. It was a sad parting but one they all understood.
“My time with you has taught me much and I thank you,” Sai told them. He was capable of doing many other things than playing Go, he knew now. But Go was still the best.
Sai’s skill on the flute earned him food and lodging as he wandered the country. Everywhere he asked whether people knew Go. He found a few other good players, but continued to search for someone as strong as himself. He could finally release his hair, tied up for practicality during so many months. With his flute, his long hair and his wanderlust he fitted the part of an itinerant musician. He traveled on foot. The sun tanned his skin and bleached auburn lights into his hair. It made no difference to him now that his Go was not for the emperor, it was his. As was his goal. People asked him why he lived this way. He would always give the same answer. Because I’m looking for , Kame no itte, the perfect move in a perfect game of Go.
It was when he reached the sea that he heard rumors of a tavern where they played the game of black and white that people wagered on. A traveler showed Sai a salted cod he’d won betting on one of the players there. There is a master sensei there, you should go and play him.
~~~
Akitada had never liked fish, and most of the time when he’d seen them before they’d been dried. But now he had to deal with hundreds of dead fresh fish, all gaping at him with dead glazed expressions, as though still gasping their last. It made him think of what had happened to that fool Sai..
In truth he’d begun to wonder who the fool really was. For Sai had had his revenge, as clearly as if he had struck Akitada down directly. But what good was it if he was dead? Foolish, idealistic Fujiwara no Sai. Sai was dead, he reassured himself, while he was alive. Didn’t that mean he’d won in the end?
He didn’t sleep easy these days. He dreamt of Sai’s Go, both beautiful and fearsome. The presence of Sai at the palace had seemed an injustice to him. Even if it had only been for his family’s importance, Sai would have had a higher rank than Akitada. But Sai’s Go made him a like a shooting star that had risked to eclipse Akitada’s steady ascent of the social hierarchy. And worse still Sai seemed unaware of such things, driven only by his desire for the game, his pursuit of Kami no Itte. Akitada had done one little thing to assure his own future. One tiny thing…that had changed everything.
In the port of Gyoko, Akitada taught many people to play Go and it became an entertainment watching them play one another rather than playing them himself. There was also a flow of travelers some of whom played, but none of them had a level that rivaled his own.
~~~
Strangers were not uncommon in Gyoko. It was one of the place’s virtues, as those passing through sometimes played Go. But one day a young man appeared who could have been Sai’s double. Akitada’s heart stopped in shock when he saw him in the street, and his first reflex was to hide. He repeated to himself that this was impossible as he looked again and saw with relief that it had just been the effect of the man’s long hair. This stranger was simply the same height as Sai and wore his hair long. It wasn’t the Sai he had known, whose fair skin and ebony hair would have him mistaken for one of the ladies. This man was older, his skin weather-tanned skin and, as he walked past, Akitada noticed how his hair was tinged with auburn. This couldn’t be Sai. After all Sai was dead, along with his Go.
The man appeared again that evening at the tavern. Akitada had time to observe him as he entered. He must be a Go player come to find Akitada. His resemblance to Sai was uncanny - it would be very strange playing him. Now the visitor was talking with the landlord, any moment now he’d come over. But no, he reached into his bag and brought something out: a pipe or flute of some sort. Almost before the man started to play Akitada had started to panic. When the music came he was left in no doubt. Fujiwara no Sai was very much alive.
So the rumors were untrue, the nightmares unjustified: Fujiwara no Sai hadn’t died in the river. The ghost that had haunted his thoughts was none other than his own conscience.
Judging by his dress it seemed that Sai had done little better for himself than Akitada. These were a journeyman’s clothes. But Sai was alive. So, therefore, was his Go. Akitada’s pulse quickened. The first high quality player he’d laid eyes on since leaving Heian-Kyo: and it was someone who must hate him worse than any other in the world.
Sai was talking to the tavern owner again. He must be looking for ‘the Go player’, as people referred to Akitada, without knowing who he was about to meet. There was nowhere for Akitada to run. He was about to face the man he had betrayed. He tried to think quickly of a way out.
~~~
He’s a bit strange sometimes the owner warned Sai. “Touched in the head”, he said tapping the side of his forehead -“Delusions of grandeur and all…But he’s a real master of his game - an idiot savant.”
They took Sai to a corner of the room where a bent hooded man was mumbling over a go board.
“Looks like one of his bad days,” murmured the publican.
"Sensei, would you permit me a game?" Sai tried to discern the man’s features.
The dinginess of the tavern and the man’s hood meant that only the very outlines of face were visible. It seemed impolite and cowardly to Sai but he remembered what he’d been told about ‘sensei’ and if the game to be had was worth it then he would play with a man who hid his face.
“Hmm.” said the man and pushed a pot of clam shells towards him. This was no normal player. Sai could concentrate under virtually any circumstances, but there was something disturbing here. The man was very nervous of him, not what one would expect of a ‘master sensei’, and Sai felt uneasy.
But when the man reached into his own pot to nigiri, Sai watched him, mesmerized, as he saw the same hand enter a goke in the palace and those fingers withdrew a single white cheating stone, as it had in his mind a thousand times. He recognized that hand.
Jumping to his feet he flung back the man’s hood.
“You!” The bar went quiet in the bar around them. “You! Here?” He put a hand to his mouth and took a step backwards.
Sai stared at Akitada, shocked. Shocked to see him again, here, looking as much like a commoner as himself. Sai wanted to strike him, he knew he could. He felt injustice, anger, disgust…But what was worst in all he felt was that he still wanted to play Go, yes, play some good Go with someone who knew the game as well as he did, the game he had come for. He felt the bile rise in his throat and hated himself. Sai turned on his heel and swinging his mass of hair behind him he stamped out of the tavern.
~~~
Akitada was surprised but not unhappy when he learned that Sai was still in the town some days later. He found him playing his flute in the market. Catching the eye of each passer-by, as though playing to each of them. When he saw Akitada he stopped.
“The game you asked me for...” Akitada started.
“I asked a stranger. I wouldn’t ask for a game from you. You cheat!” Sai took up his flute as though to continue and ignore Akitada altogether.
“I cheated. Yes. Once.” Sai stopped, flute poised, wide-eyed.
“Nothing is at stake, Sai. Why don’t you play me?”
“Because I hate you” Sai yelled.
“But you are still looking for your Kami no itte.”
“My? What do you mean my Kami no itte? It’s not something you own.” A small crowd had gathered, as though this might be part of the show.
“But it’s something you want, isn’t it Sai, and I can help you find it.” Sai’s face was red and he opened and closed his mouth without answering. Then he raised his arms and Akitada feared that he might use the flute as a weapon.
Akitada backed off and almost ran out of the market. He didn’t hear Sai start playing again until he was almost out of earshot.
~~~
What was Akitada doing outside the city? What had happened to him? Had he been disgraced like Sai? Had someone found out what he’d done? Or had he done it again? No, he said he only cheated once. But should Sai believe him? All the thoughts chased each other around Sai’s head and wouldn’t leave him in peace. He resolved to get the truth from Akitada.
The man was waiting for him in the tavern. As if he knew Sai would come. But Sai did had not come unprepared, or alone.
“We will play Go, honest Go,” Sai told him as icily as he could, “Every one of our actions will be scrutinized so that no one can cheat.” He gestured with his arm to introduce three people he’d brought with him: a merchant, a scribe and another musician, all of whom he’d had the pleasure of playing Go with. “My Go is not unknown. These people wager that I would be the victor in a game between us. I believe there are also people ready to wager that you would win. I think that everyone here wants to see a fair game,” he concluded. Akitada nodded silently.
“But first, you will tell me how you come to be here, what happened at the palace and exactly how you cheated against me.”
Akitada didn’t look as sure of himself as he had the day in the market. He nervously stroked a finger down the line of his moustache and started to explain the goings on in the court following Sai’s ‘death’.
“Am I pardoned then?” Sai thought aloud. “Can I go back?”
“You may not be dead Sai, but imperial Go is. The emperor has turned away from the game altogether. There is nothing to go back to.” Akitada would have expected a suitable display of tears from the Sai he used to know, but instead Sai said to no one in particular:
“It is a terrible loss for the emperor.” Then to Akitada: “This is your doing.”
Akitada bowed his head, breaking eye contact.
“Was it only once?”
“Just once...One white stone in the black goke, one black stone in the white.”
“Black stone in the white” repeated Sai in surprise. ”I had an enemy stone in my goke too.”
“That way luck would be on my side whatever color I played.” Akitada replied with a bitter self-derisory smile.
“And if I’d found that stone?” Sai pursued.
“You would have declared it Sai. I know you.”
“You knew me and I assure you that I am still as honest. Tell me, are you still as dishonest?” This time Sai fixed his eyes on Akitada and tried desperately to read him. Akitada didn’t turn away.
“I simply want to play Go.” He replied. “I will give you an honest game”.
~~~
The atmosphere of the game could hardly have been more different from the lat one they had played. Instead of the reverent silence there’d been in the presence of the emperor, there was rowdy encouragement from all the people watching in the tavern. Sai got black and accepted the pot of mussel shells. They felt strangely fragile between his fingers and looked irregular on the board as he laid the basic foundations of his territory. Akitada obviously incredibly tense, sweat forming on his brow and his expression intense. The noisy crowd, egging them on, did nothing for concentration.
Sai felt his fingers buzzing with excitement. He forgot the circumstances and even who he was playing for the excitement of every path every possibility laid open by each move. He felt alive.
Akitada’s ability, stripped of their bitter conflict and the environment it was born in, shone and Sai’s Go shone in its reflection. Akitada dared to provoke him by placing shells deep in Sai’s territory, risking to be reckless to incite a response. The board became a complicated maze of battles. Sai was content Here was where their differences would be resolved.This was Go.
Sai carried off a two moku victory and there was celebration among his supporters the insistence for a rematch from the others.
Akitada finally slept untroubled.
~~~
The games Sai and Akitada played in Gyoto were honest, balanced and viciously beautiful, though witnessed by few who could appreciate that beauty.
There were few Go players in this world they found themselves in, even fewer were good and none matched the level of the two ex-court teachers. They turned to one another, Sai resolving that his love of Go was stronger than his hatred of Akitada.
Heading for China remained Akitada’s objective. Sai thought that their own emperor could be won over, though he couldn’t imagine how as his majesty’s decisions were above everyone.
Sai’s goal was to reach Kami no itte . Akitada didn’t believe in it.
“Of course you do,” said Sai. “That’s why you play me.”
“Sai, you are trying to teach me to reach for something that I cannot see and worse that you don’t know what it looks like. You are chasing a Chimera. Why should I listen to you and why would the emperor listen to either of us?”
“Because I believe that in his heart the emperor loved Go and that what happened broke his heart.”
“You’re such an idealist. You’d do better to come to China.”
And so they argued, but did not go in separate directions. Not when the most important thing was the Go they were playing then and there.
~~~
Tendoumaru never forgot the departure of his teacher Sai. The ladies told him Sai had gone forever, his soul wandered tortured and on some nights you could hear the sound of his ghostly flute coming up from the river. Tendoumaru heard the music too but he didn't think it sounded tortured, only sad. But then the music too became a thing of the past.
Death was a not a thing that was hidden from children. He knew that people died; he had lost members of his family before. Sometimes an evil spirit would possess someone and despite the priest praying for the spirit to leave, they still died. And that was how it was for the emperor one night of the following spring after the rains had swelled the river and the weather was warming once more.
The emperor had no children, and the importance of this had been pressed on Tendoumaru. So, it was at the age of twelve that the time for being a carefree child had come to an end. Tendoumaru, as son of the late emperor’s sister, ascended to the throne, and with this change came the understanding that he now had the power to do as he wished in the city. And what he wished, when he wasn’t engaged in state affairs, was to play Go.
Go boards were brought out again and he encouraged his couriers to play. He played with eminent visitors, but only the elders knew how and they were very much better than him. He had stopped his tuition much too early. He had to admit it and stop allowing elder courtiers to let him win through diplomacy. Emperor Tendoumaru needed Go lessons. He would search the land for a talented tutor.
~~~
The locals were pleased with the coming of Sai though he was as strange as Akitada in his own way. So were the discussions that led from the games. It was beyond the ken of most people, but the two senseis would try to explain. The tavern was starting to become like an informal Go school.
Akitada and Sai were discovered by the emperor’s emissaries playing go with shells of cockles and mussels outside a tavern. Among the most talented of their generation they were summoned to the palace.
Though he’d rejected the rumors of his drowning Tendoumaru had with time given up hope of ever seeing Sai again. When it happened, he flung himself into Sai’s arms in excitement as he had when he was small, though he stopped short of begging for a game straight away. After all he was a sovereign.
There was a great show of emotion among the courtiers and the ladies were genuinely overjoyed to see him.
Sai told Tendoumaru, in whom he still saw his disobedient pupil, that to maintain the balance of the palace he should take two Go tutors instead of one. Then he told him quietly, he had someone in mind.
~~~
When Fujiwara no Sai was a very old man in the court of emperor Tendoumaru, he had long flowing hair like the ideal woman, except that his was snow white. People considered him a very wise man. His Go was legendary but his life's goal was unattained.
The strength that pushed him forward, which was also rumored to be the secret of his longevity, was his search for Kami no itte - the hand of God.
“Go goes on forever and will keep getting better...forever.” Akitada would tell him. “You will never find it.”
“I will find Kami no itte,” promised Sai.
“And what if you die first?”
“If that happens then I will continue to search in whatever lies beyond.”
Confluence
They say that downriver, where the water spreads as far as the eye can see and beyond, lies another land. There are fish aplenty, but also monsters who upturn ships and drown unwary seafarers, tearing the surface with their great fins and men with their teeth. Kawa-jin was happy where he was - fishing on the river - with the hope of a fair catch and a good supper. Fishing was a welcome rest from the shôen. With water between himself and the farm lands he could forget the problems, the drudge of his days, the lack of labor on the farm, the demands of the palace...
He was looking at the point his line met the water and following its reflection in the pale dawn when he spied a form on the quiet water surface. Though the tales of great vengeful fish sprang to mind, this was something floating, not something swimming. He steered his boat closer. It was a tall black thing, not a fin, but a tall eboshi, a noble’s hat: something thrown away from the palace, no doubt. He recognized it because the shôensupplied food for the nobility that lived cloistered behind its walls and he had briefly seen those people, the men at least, as they entered or left the city in fine carriages.
A little vexed at himself for wasting his time on this useless object, he turned his attention back to his line. But at that moment he saw something else; something else recognizable and altogether more frightening. He forgot all about the hat, all about the fish. It looked like there had been a terrible accident. Pulling on the oars he neared himself to a person he saw floating in the water, kept up by air caught in his robes, face blue with cold surrounded by an undulating cloud of hair. Was this man dead or simply chilled to unconsciousness?
~~~
In his sorrow, it was a question Sai had never asked himself: Is there Go after death? He had given himself to the water, welcoming its cold until it felt like warmth, accepting the biting until it dulled and he was surrounded, clothed in darkness he became one with.
But now he was dry, aching all over and lying on something hard. There was rough fabric against his skin and a smoke smell coming from somewhere near. His head throbbed. He had no idea what being dead was supposed to feel like but doubted it felt like this. And the anguish was still very much alive when he thought of his Go, tainted by injustice and shame.
“I have nothing.”
“You’re not only inept, you’re dishonest. ”
How could people believe that of him? Anyone who loved Go as he did would never do such a thing. Go is my life.
There was a noise of someone moving close to him and he opened his eyes to see the face of an unfamiliar woman; a smiling face. Who was she? And where was he? Around him were the walls of a strange room with an earth floor. The woman’s face was worn and looked older than those he had known in the city, but softer too. Sai tried to smile back, for her sake. She looked at a loss for words, relieved. Though his last days at the palace hovered in his mind, with alternate pangs of anger and despair, he realized, as he looked at this woman, that here was someone who was happy to see him alive.
The next time he awoke there were more women, talking together. Sitting up, he found his hair was all loose and spread about him and that he was wearing a shapeless grey tunic, the like of which he’d never seen. He must look terrible, but he felt better. They hadn’t noticed he was awake. Sai had grown up among the women of the palace and was used to their company. As Go tutor he’d had the privilege of meeting them directly. When they weren’t learning Go, the ladies at court often chatted with him. They would tease him about how they envied him his hair.
But these women here were different; they weren’t only talking, but also working. It looked like they were beating reeds on the floor. With difficultly, he moved closer to watch them and saw they were collecting the tiny grains from the dried plants. He must be among commoners and this was probably their food. Hunger!! Though his disgrace and exile he had been too morally sickened to eat at all, no wonder he felt so weak.
One of the women saw him standing watching. She made a sound and all of them looked up at once. In an instant he was surrounded by faces.
“Oh…the one from the city.”
“You’re better, beautiful one.”
“Oh, the eyes he has.”
“Look at his hands.”
“Get him some soup.”
“It was my husband who saved you,” one of them said, “You fell in the water. Do you remember? We’ll take care of you and take you back to the palace.” Then she asked, hesitantly, “What should we call you?”
Her expression was kind, but the question stabbed him: his name, his family, his rank: all were meaningless. She only wanted to know how she should address him, but it brought his despair to the surface.. “I can't go back there!” he replied. He hadn’t the strength to say the rest: I don’t belong there anymore. I have failed. I am nobody. His knees buckled and the floor came up to hit him as consciousness and the swarm of faces slipped away.
~~~
“Tendoumaru! Tendoumaru, will you come in now? Your teacher is here.”
A boy sprang out from behind a clump of melia trees, hair ruffled and escaping from the looped tresses over his ears. He sped towards the veranda.
“Sai! Sai! you’re back. Sai, where have you been? Let’s play Go.” His mother stood there and looked troubled.
“No darling, it’s not Sai. It’s your Chinese teacher. It’s time for your lesson now.”
His most dreaded lesson and still no Sai: definitely not his night.
As Sai’s youngest pupil, Tendoumaru hadn’t cared much for Go when Sai had introduced him to it. Much as he’d loved his tutor, he preferred ball games to board games. But now that Sai had gone away, Tendoumaru missed him. And he started to wonder what the big deal was with Go anyway. Why did Sai think it was so important? And where was Sai anyway? No one ever told kids anything. If ever Sai returned, he promised himself they’d play Go. In the meantime, Tendoumaru asked to play Go with her majesty, his aunt. She had no children of her own and indulged him, though she too placed her stones like a child.
When a palace guard found a hat in the river, it really should have been a trivial thing and quickly forgotten. But few had forgotten the scene between the two Go tutors, least of all his majesty. Rumors travel quickly in places where little happens from day to day; minor gossip becomes insatiably interesting and details inflated and embellished. News spread that Fujiwara no Sai had drowned himself in the river: a logical explanation. There was hushed dismay but feverous debate. The women heard about the hat. The higher courtiers heard about the hat. His majesty heard about it, or rather he heard how Fujiwara no Sai had desperately thrown himself in the waters of the Kamo for the love of Go…because someone had written a poem about it. Far from being disgraced; in the eyes of the women of the court, Sai was a tragic hero. Sai would have many a lavishly decorated story dedicated to him for his act was one of love.
Sai’s suicide was an outcome Sugawara no Akitada had not predicted; though Sai always had been such that a dramatic fool he should have known he would over-react. Now it seemed that everyone was more influenced by pathos than reason. Too many people were looking at him strangely and too few were asking for games.
His majesty retired for several days. He did not want to play Go.
~~~
Kawa-jin’s family were surprised that Sai did not want to wear his old clothes again, even though they’d carefully cleaned and dried them for him. For Sai, they went with a life that was gone, a life that truly had drowned in the river. Dressed like the men of the farm and with his hair in a simple ponytail, he felt he’d been though a metamorphosis.
He’d tried to die: sought that place none return from. It seemed impossible, like a terrifying dream. But the reality remained:
"I am banished. I can no longer serve the emperor. I can no longer play Go," he sobbed, burying his face in his hands. A arm came around his shoulders.
"What is Go?" someone asked.
“Tell us what happened.” said another.
Sai couldn’t keep the tension out of his voice, when, having first described his life and his love of Go, he told them of his strong but selfish rival and their final competition.
“I would never have suggested such a thing to the emperor.” Sai shook his head. “Though I did not care for that man, until the moment he cheated against me I would never have wished that he leave. What is Go without strong opponents?”
It was difficult to describe the world he had come from to people who lived so differently. But Sai made it clear that he couldn't go back and that they shouldn’t send word to the palace about him. It was silently understood that his bath in the river had been no accident.
Though he’d never thought about it, the cloth of his robes had a high value. Sai gave them away willingly to his hosts and they let him stay on at the shôen.
He drew a goban on the earth in front of the house and explained the rules of the game to anyone who would listen. But no one had enough time to play a proper game, and when Sai explained that Go could last several days, Kawa-jin shook his head and said it was truly a game of the nobles or the gods and he had the rice harvest to manage and would hear about such distractions later. Sai felt that he had fallen into darkness at the shôen but was sorrier still for these people who had never known the joy of Go.
~~~
The empress was excited. His majesty had introduced her to a new game someone had brought to him from the continent. She showed the pieces to Tendoumaru. They were flat, five sided and decorated with delicate calligraphies.
Tendoumaru only wanted Sai to come back. Though he was only a child he couldn’t help but find out that people now thought Sai was dead. But for him it couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t.
“And each player has one piece that for his highness and his servants, and pieces for horses and tigers! And you move the pieces around during the game…Isn’t it delightful?” said her majesty. It was beautiful, that was true, as the empress liked everything to be. It was even fun, like stepping into an imaginary world, but it wasn’t Go.
His majesty, far from being upset that a mere board game should represent him, ordered more Shougi boards and pieces to be made so that everyone could learn and play the new game. Go was no longer in favor at court.
Emperors do not make mistakes. There is only greatness and light in the capital. Though he would not believe that his Go tutors would cheat in front of him, he remembered it was Akitada who’d told him “You only need one Go tutor”, and Akitada who had accused Sai first. His majesty questioned all of the men who had witnessed the game between Sai and Akitada but learned no more. The emperor was young but not stupid. He suspected something and that something tainted Go completely for him.
~~~
The farm supplied rice and fruit to the palace. Kawa-jin also kept pigs. The 'reeds’ that Sai had seen being beaten were rice, though he hadn’t recognized it as the dish he’d eaten in the city.
Sai had little more success persuading the women to play Go than he’d had with the men; they were busy with rice polishing or other chores. He tried the children too: they found him funny, but few of them would sit still for long. They reminded of Tendoumaru from the palace: vivacious, but easily distracted.
Finally, playing alone, he brought himself to lay out the fateful game he and Akitada had played before the emperor. He played out the moves he would have played if he’d hadn’t been so upset by the accusation and found, with bitterness, that he could have won. He cried long and hard over that but told himself that it meant that his Go was strong, despite what had happened. Then he started to wonder: Had Akitada put that white stone in his goke somehow? Surely not; Akitada would have had no way of knowing whether he would be playing black. So it must simply have been an accident, and his rival’s cheating an act of pure opportunism.
“We could use your help with something. I’m building a new wet field system; it’s better for the rice. We’ll flood the land with water from the river but the fields need to wall up the field boundaries to keep the water in. Can you handle a spade?”
Sai thought his limbs looked frighteningly slender and pale compared with those of the other men. Moving the earth he soon became filthy, exhausted and appalled at the crudeness of it all and the sheer slog of such work. His hair, plaited and tied on top of his head was a weighty burden. In half a day he was done in, mud splattered, and red from exertion and sun. “That’s enough for one day,” Kawa-jin told him.
“Do you know how to do anything else besides Go?” they asked him. Sai knew his answer wasn’t what they wanted to hear:
“I play the biwa and the flute.” Kawa-jin sighed.
“I have neither here, but you could perhaps make yourself a flute from the bamboo that grows by the forest. In the meantime, while you stay here, I have another job for you.” Sai knew the shôen lacked workers and knew too that he could not live here as a guest once the cloth of his robes had been bartered away.
“It’s easier than digging.” Kawa-jin reassured him. “What we need is someone to care for the swine.”
~~~
An emperor who doesn’t make mistakes must make sure that there is no reminder of something that might be seen that way. Matters at the palace had been considerably worsened by the romanticized picture drawn of Sai’s demise, notably by court ladies who had little to do but write or paint. And now a new rumour had spread that if you took a walk near the river at twilight you sometimes heard the ghost of Fujiwara no Sai playing his flute.
The emperor called Akitada to him.
“Does his majesty desire a teaching game this evening?” his preceptor asked, eagerly. The emperor had been working on his Shougi and the court, in the name of fashion and good taste, followed suit. Akitada had hoped that this interview meant that the emperor had got over his Shougi infatuation and they would soon also talk of the privileges that went with his new position, after all, he was now Go tutor of both the left and the right palaces.
How badly he had read the emperor. While Akitada wasn’t exiled from the city, he found he no longer had the approval or sponsorship: he simply had no position at court anymore. There was no mention of Sai, simply that the emperor no longer cared to play Go. The disgrace was implicit. Akitada would have to leave Heian Kyo.
On the continent he knew that Go was popular as ever and with his experience he could work for an important family there without the stain of humiliation that now stalked him among the Japanese upper classes. Taking his most valuable possessions he left the capital and sought a passage to China.
~~~
Sai had taken to walking down to the river in the evening. His thoughts of self destruction had faded, to be replaced by longing. He tried to make himself a flute, remembering how the instruments in the city had felt under his fingers, the pattern of the holes. It took several attempts, but finally he fashioned something resembling a real instrument and took it out by the river and in the fields to play surrounded by the rusty plume grass and autumn birds. Soon it was time for the pigs to be brought in for the winter.
He spent winter playing his flute, dreaming of Go and mucking out. The pigs were a good audience and the people on the farm complimented him also, but the sweet sadness of his music was born out of his longing for Go and he knew that he couldn’t stay here much longer. He would find somewhere to play Go once more if he searched. But it was still winter. His bed in the loft above the pigs was warm and comfortable even though he sometimes felt like his whole existence had taken on their odor.
~~~
It was a bad time of year for Akitada to be traveling. Days were short and the roads often damaged from the rain - and that was without bargaining for highwaymen.
Sugawara no Akitada was a proud as well as an ambitious man. Despite the loss of his position he would never dream of traveling humbly. And thus, his ornate carriage attracted attention, but not the kind he wanted. It brought the kind of attention that lies in ambush and surges from the darkness to attack travelers and strip them of their possessions, to slit throats and send oxen running scared into the night when they’re not taken as part of the prize themselves.
Akitada was unused to a world were one negotiated not with the subtle influence of discourse or importance of rank but where that all that mattered was human strength and force in numbers. He was lucky to escape the carnage of his wreaked carriage with his life.
He was also unused to walking, but it was the only way forward. He cursed his bad luck as made his sodden way towards the coast, cursed Sai’s hat and Sai himself for not dying more discreetly, but stopped short of cursing Sai’s Go.
He couldn’t barter for a passage to China using Go lessons. When he reached the place where the land ended and the sea lay before him he could go no further, but he couldn’t turn back either. So he decided to find a ship to stow away on.
Akitada liked to think of himself as an educated man. But he was not well-traveled. His choice of vessel had been very sensible for not getting caught, but not for reaching China. The fishing boat he had hidden on returned to the harbor the very same day with a hold full of fish and one very bedraggled and disgruntled stowaway. No explanations he gave seemed to make sense to the men who found him, the truth about his identity was just too incredible for them to believe.
At first they decided he was crazy, which was infuriating: the more Akitada tried to assert his rank, the funnier they found it. But finally, his presumed insanity was useful as they took pity on him and gave him something to eat. They even offered him work - sorting fish. In half a year he figured he could earn an honest passage to China.
He collected small shells from the seaweed the boat brought in, and from the shore itself, scratched a board into a piece of wood from the shipyard. Not may were interested in his “crazy game”. Then he found something to make it more attractive, something people did at the palace too but as little more than an idle distraction. Go was something you could gamble on.
~~~
It was in the spring that Sai bid his farewell to Kawa-jin and the people of the shôen. It was a sad parting but one they all understood.
“My time with you has taught me much and I thank you,” Sai told them. He was capable of doing many other things than playing Go, he knew now. But Go was still the best.
Sai’s skill on the flute earned him food and lodging as he wandered the country. Everywhere he asked whether people knew Go. He found a few other good players, but continued to search for someone as strong as himself. He could finally release his hair, tied up for practicality during so many months. With his flute, his long hair and his wanderlust he fitted the part of an itinerant musician. He traveled on foot. The sun tanned his skin and bleached auburn lights into his hair. It made no difference to him now that his Go was not for the emperor, it was his. As was his goal. People asked him why he lived this way. He would always give the same answer. Because I’m looking for , Kame no itte, the perfect move in a perfect game of Go.
It was when he reached the sea that he heard rumors of a tavern where they played the game of black and white that people wagered on. A traveler showed Sai a salted cod he’d won betting on one of the players there. There is a master sensei there, you should go and play him.
~~~
Akitada had never liked fish, and most of the time when he’d seen them before they’d been dried. But now he had to deal with hundreds of dead fresh fish, all gaping at him with dead glazed expressions, as though still gasping their last. It made him think of what had happened to that fool Sai..
In truth he’d begun to wonder who the fool really was. For Sai had had his revenge, as clearly as if he had struck Akitada down directly. But what good was it if he was dead? Foolish, idealistic Fujiwara no Sai. Sai was dead, he reassured himself, while he was alive. Didn’t that mean he’d won in the end?
He didn’t sleep easy these days. He dreamt of Sai’s Go, both beautiful and fearsome. The presence of Sai at the palace had seemed an injustice to him. Even if it had only been for his family’s importance, Sai would have had a higher rank than Akitada. But Sai’s Go made him a like a shooting star that had risked to eclipse Akitada’s steady ascent of the social hierarchy. And worse still Sai seemed unaware of such things, driven only by his desire for the game, his pursuit of Kami no Itte. Akitada had done one little thing to assure his own future. One tiny thing…that had changed everything.
In the port of Gyoko, Akitada taught many people to play Go and it became an entertainment watching them play one another rather than playing them himself. There was also a flow of travelers some of whom played, but none of them had a level that rivaled his own.
~~~
Strangers were not uncommon in Gyoko. It was one of the place’s virtues, as those passing through sometimes played Go. But one day a young man appeared who could have been Sai’s double. Akitada’s heart stopped in shock when he saw him in the street, and his first reflex was to hide. He repeated to himself that this was impossible as he looked again and saw with relief that it had just been the effect of the man’s long hair. This stranger was simply the same height as Sai and wore his hair long. It wasn’t the Sai he had known, whose fair skin and ebony hair would have him mistaken for one of the ladies. This man was older, his skin weather-tanned skin and, as he walked past, Akitada noticed how his hair was tinged with auburn. This couldn’t be Sai. After all Sai was dead, along with his Go.
The man appeared again that evening at the tavern. Akitada had time to observe him as he entered. He must be a Go player come to find Akitada. His resemblance to Sai was uncanny - it would be very strange playing him. Now the visitor was talking with the landlord, any moment now he’d come over. But no, he reached into his bag and brought something out: a pipe or flute of some sort. Almost before the man started to play Akitada had started to panic. When the music came he was left in no doubt. Fujiwara no Sai was very much alive.
So the rumors were untrue, the nightmares unjustified: Fujiwara no Sai hadn’t died in the river. The ghost that had haunted his thoughts was none other than his own conscience.
Judging by his dress it seemed that Sai had done little better for himself than Akitada. These were a journeyman’s clothes. But Sai was alive. So, therefore, was his Go. Akitada’s pulse quickened. The first high quality player he’d laid eyes on since leaving Heian-Kyo: and it was someone who must hate him worse than any other in the world.
Sai was talking to the tavern owner again. He must be looking for ‘the Go player’, as people referred to Akitada, without knowing who he was about to meet. There was nowhere for Akitada to run. He was about to face the man he had betrayed. He tried to think quickly of a way out.
~~~
He’s a bit strange sometimes the owner warned Sai. “Touched in the head”, he said tapping the side of his forehead -“Delusions of grandeur and all…But he’s a real master of his game - an idiot savant.”
They took Sai to a corner of the room where a bent hooded man was mumbling over a go board.
“Looks like one of his bad days,” murmured the publican.
"Sensei, would you permit me a game?" Sai tried to discern the man’s features.
The dinginess of the tavern and the man’s hood meant that only the very outlines of face were visible. It seemed impolite and cowardly to Sai but he remembered what he’d been told about ‘sensei’ and if the game to be had was worth it then he would play with a man who hid his face.
“Hmm.” said the man and pushed a pot of clam shells towards him. This was no normal player. Sai could concentrate under virtually any circumstances, but there was something disturbing here. The man was very nervous of him, not what one would expect of a ‘master sensei’, and Sai felt uneasy.
But when the man reached into his own pot to nigiri, Sai watched him, mesmerized, as he saw the same hand enter a goke in the palace and those fingers withdrew a single white cheating stone, as it had in his mind a thousand times. He recognized that hand.
Jumping to his feet he flung back the man’s hood.
“You!” The bar went quiet in the bar around them. “You! Here?” He put a hand to his mouth and took a step backwards.
Sai stared at Akitada, shocked. Shocked to see him again, here, looking as much like a commoner as himself. Sai wanted to strike him, he knew he could. He felt injustice, anger, disgust…But what was worst in all he felt was that he still wanted to play Go, yes, play some good Go with someone who knew the game as well as he did, the game he had come for. He felt the bile rise in his throat and hated himself. Sai turned on his heel and swinging his mass of hair behind him he stamped out of the tavern.
~~~
Akitada was surprised but not unhappy when he learned that Sai was still in the town some days later. He found him playing his flute in the market. Catching the eye of each passer-by, as though playing to each of them. When he saw Akitada he stopped.
“The game you asked me for...” Akitada started.
“I asked a stranger. I wouldn’t ask for a game from you. You cheat!” Sai took up his flute as though to continue and ignore Akitada altogether.
“I cheated. Yes. Once.” Sai stopped, flute poised, wide-eyed.
“Nothing is at stake, Sai. Why don’t you play me?”
“Because I hate you” Sai yelled.
“But you are still looking for your Kami no itte.”
“My? What do you mean my Kami no itte? It’s not something you own.” A small crowd had gathered, as though this might be part of the show.
“But it’s something you want, isn’t it Sai, and I can help you find it.” Sai’s face was red and he opened and closed his mouth without answering. Then he raised his arms and Akitada feared that he might use the flute as a weapon.
Akitada backed off and almost ran out of the market. He didn’t hear Sai start playing again until he was almost out of earshot.
~~~
What was Akitada doing outside the city? What had happened to him? Had he been disgraced like Sai? Had someone found out what he’d done? Or had he done it again? No, he said he only cheated once. But should Sai believe him? All the thoughts chased each other around Sai’s head and wouldn’t leave him in peace. He resolved to get the truth from Akitada.
The man was waiting for him in the tavern. As if he knew Sai would come. But Sai did had not come unprepared, or alone.
“We will play Go, honest Go,” Sai told him as icily as he could, “Every one of our actions will be scrutinized so that no one can cheat.” He gestured with his arm to introduce three people he’d brought with him: a merchant, a scribe and another musician, all of whom he’d had the pleasure of playing Go with. “My Go is not unknown. These people wager that I would be the victor in a game between us. I believe there are also people ready to wager that you would win. I think that everyone here wants to see a fair game,” he concluded. Akitada nodded silently.
“But first, you will tell me how you come to be here, what happened at the palace and exactly how you cheated against me.”
Akitada didn’t look as sure of himself as he had the day in the market. He nervously stroked a finger down the line of his moustache and started to explain the goings on in the court following Sai’s ‘death’.
“Am I pardoned then?” Sai thought aloud. “Can I go back?”
“You may not be dead Sai, but imperial Go is. The emperor has turned away from the game altogether. There is nothing to go back to.” Akitada would have expected a suitable display of tears from the Sai he used to know, but instead Sai said to no one in particular:
“It is a terrible loss for the emperor.” Then to Akitada: “This is your doing.”
Akitada bowed his head, breaking eye contact.
“Was it only once?”
“Just once...One white stone in the black goke, one black stone in the white.”
“Black stone in the white” repeated Sai in surprise. ”I had an enemy stone in my goke too.”
“That way luck would be on my side whatever color I played.” Akitada replied with a bitter self-derisory smile.
“And if I’d found that stone?” Sai pursued.
“You would have declared it Sai. I know you.”
“You knew me and I assure you that I am still as honest. Tell me, are you still as dishonest?” This time Sai fixed his eyes on Akitada and tried desperately to read him. Akitada didn’t turn away.
“I simply want to play Go.” He replied. “I will give you an honest game”.
~~~
The atmosphere of the game could hardly have been more different from the lat one they had played. Instead of the reverent silence there’d been in the presence of the emperor, there was rowdy encouragement from all the people watching in the tavern. Sai got black and accepted the pot of mussel shells. They felt strangely fragile between his fingers and looked irregular on the board as he laid the basic foundations of his territory. Akitada obviously incredibly tense, sweat forming on his brow and his expression intense. The noisy crowd, egging them on, did nothing for concentration.
Sai felt his fingers buzzing with excitement. He forgot the circumstances and even who he was playing for the excitement of every path every possibility laid open by each move. He felt alive.
Akitada’s ability, stripped of their bitter conflict and the environment it was born in, shone and Sai’s Go shone in its reflection. Akitada dared to provoke him by placing shells deep in Sai’s territory, risking to be reckless to incite a response. The board became a complicated maze of battles. Sai was content Here was where their differences would be resolved.This was Go.
Sai carried off a two moku victory and there was celebration among his supporters the insistence for a rematch from the others.
Akitada finally slept untroubled.
~~~
The games Sai and Akitada played in Gyoto were honest, balanced and viciously beautiful, though witnessed by few who could appreciate that beauty.
There were few Go players in this world they found themselves in, even fewer were good and none matched the level of the two ex-court teachers. They turned to one another, Sai resolving that his love of Go was stronger than his hatred of Akitada.
Heading for China remained Akitada’s objective. Sai thought that their own emperor could be won over, though he couldn’t imagine how as his majesty’s decisions were above everyone.
Sai’s goal was to reach Kami no itte . Akitada didn’t believe in it.
“Of course you do,” said Sai. “That’s why you play me.”
“Sai, you are trying to teach me to reach for something that I cannot see and worse that you don’t know what it looks like. You are chasing a Chimera. Why should I listen to you and why would the emperor listen to either of us?”
“Because I believe that in his heart the emperor loved Go and that what happened broke his heart.”
“You’re such an idealist. You’d do better to come to China.”
And so they argued, but did not go in separate directions. Not when the most important thing was the Go they were playing then and there.
~~~
Tendoumaru never forgot the departure of his teacher Sai. The ladies told him Sai had gone forever, his soul wandered tortured and on some nights you could hear the sound of his ghostly flute coming up from the river. Tendoumaru heard the music too but he didn't think it sounded tortured, only sad. But then the music too became a thing of the past.
Death was a not a thing that was hidden from children. He knew that people died; he had lost members of his family before. Sometimes an evil spirit would possess someone and despite the priest praying for the spirit to leave, they still died. And that was how it was for the emperor one night of the following spring after the rains had swelled the river and the weather was warming once more.
The emperor had no children, and the importance of this had been pressed on Tendoumaru. So, it was at the age of twelve that the time for being a carefree child had come to an end. Tendoumaru, as son of the late emperor’s sister, ascended to the throne, and with this change came the understanding that he now had the power to do as he wished in the city. And what he wished, when he wasn’t engaged in state affairs, was to play Go.
Go boards were brought out again and he encouraged his couriers to play. He played with eminent visitors, but only the elders knew how and they were very much better than him. He had stopped his tuition much too early. He had to admit it and stop allowing elder courtiers to let him win through diplomacy. Emperor Tendoumaru needed Go lessons. He would search the land for a talented tutor.
~~~
The locals were pleased with the coming of Sai though he was as strange as Akitada in his own way. So were the discussions that led from the games. It was beyond the ken of most people, but the two senseis would try to explain. The tavern was starting to become like an informal Go school.
Akitada and Sai were discovered by the emperor’s emissaries playing go with shells of cockles and mussels outside a tavern. Among the most talented of their generation they were summoned to the palace.
Though he’d rejected the rumors of his drowning Tendoumaru had with time given up hope of ever seeing Sai again. When it happened, he flung himself into Sai’s arms in excitement as he had when he was small, though he stopped short of begging for a game straight away. After all he was a sovereign.
There was a great show of emotion among the courtiers and the ladies were genuinely overjoyed to see him.
Sai told Tendoumaru, in whom he still saw his disobedient pupil, that to maintain the balance of the palace he should take two Go tutors instead of one. Then he told him quietly, he had someone in mind.
~~~
When Fujiwara no Sai was a very old man in the court of emperor Tendoumaru, he had long flowing hair like the ideal woman, except that his was snow white. People considered him a very wise man. His Go was legendary but his life's goal was unattained.
The strength that pushed him forward, which was also rumored to be the secret of his longevity, was his search for Kami no itte - the hand of God.
“Go goes on forever and will keep getting better...forever.” Akitada would tell him. “You will never find it.”
“I will find Kami no itte,” promised Sai.
“And what if you die first?”
“If that happens then I will continue to search in whatever lies beyond.”