The Last Concubine (25 page)

In her hand there was a tiny white flower – a wild orchid.

6

Prison Gates

I

The snow was receding and spiky bamboo leaves and clumps of dark moss burst through. Here and there wild orchids shone like small white stars. On the plum trees buds were swelling and a few five-lobed blossoms, the colour of aubergines, glistened on the gnarled branches.

Ever since her conversation with Shinzaemon on the veranda, Sachi had been packed up, ready to leave. Taki had begged Aunt Sato to take the least valuable of her palace gowns to a merchant to sell or at least pawn. But Aunt Sato refused. She would lend them money, she said; after all, they were going with Shinzaemon and he was family. They could worry about repaying her when everything was back to normal. But there had been no further news from him. The silence became more and more ominous.

In the house, life went on as before. But something had changed. Was it that people walked a little more quickly or spoke more softly or started whenever the great main door slid open? Was it that everyone seemed to be listening as if something dreadful was about to happen? Even motherly Aunt Sato seemed ill at ease.

But something else filled Sachi’s thoughts. Again and again she reached into her sleeve and took out the wild orchid Shinzaemon
had given her. She had tucked it in there for safe keeping. She gazed at it, lying wilted in her hand. The way he had looked at her: surely he knew it was unacceptable to behave in such a manner towards a respectable woman, let alone a lady of rank like herself! She ought to feel outraged – yet she did not. Every word he had said reverberated in her mind like a bell ringing the hours. When she closed her eyes she saw his face.

To spend time alone in the company of a man was, she knew, unthinkable for any decent woman, let alone for her, bound as she was to the late shogun for the rest of her days. She had taken holy vows. Nothing could be more foolish than to imagine that she could disobey those above her or take any path other than the one laid out for her. That way lay only disaster.

Yet . . . It was wartime. Things were different. No one knew who or what she was. And who could tell whether any of them would live or die? Sachi sighed. If only she could see Shinzaemon alone again just one more time, to ask what he had meant.

It was approaching the hour of the snake and the maids had long since taken away their breakfast trays, yet Yuki had still not appeared for her poetry lesson. Ever since Sachi had woken up she had had a feeling something was terribly wrong. The distant hum of the house seemed different. Instead of the usual morning routine she heard agitated sounds of people rushing around, clattering and raised voices.

A melancholy wail echoed from the groves of cryptomeria trees that towered over the mansion. She started. It sounded like the moan of a conch shell summoning troops to war and for a moment she was back in Edo. But it was only the hoot of an owl.

Then the door slid open. Yuki skidded in and dropped to her knees. The butterfly loops on top of her head flopped forward as she bowed.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

‘What is it?’ gasped Sachi. The little girl’s eyes were wide and staring. Her plump round face was as pale and haggard as a ghost’s.

‘Mama . . . has disappeared. Gone home, I’m sure of it. They won’t let me go and find her. Please help me!’ She was struggling to maintain the composure proper for a samurai, biting her
lips to stop them trembling. The last words burst out as a sob.

Sachi looked at her in horror. Gone home – what could that mean? Then she remembered the ruined house they had passed on New Year’s Eve. She grasped the little girl’s hand.

‘Why do you think she’s gone home, Yu-
chan
?’ she asked urgently.

‘I just know. This morning . . .’

Aunt Sato was close on her heels. Her face was frozen into a mask, as impenetrable as if it was carved out of stone.

‘Enough, Yu-
chan
,’ she snapped, her voice harsh. ‘Just wait. She’ll be back.’

Her lips were clamped tightly shut, her dark eyes opaque. She was no longer the sunny Aunt Sato whom Sachi knew.

‘I have to find her,’ said the child fiercely. ‘I’ll go alone, I don’t care.’

Sachi looked at her. ‘I’ll go with you,’ she said.

In silence Sachi and Yuki wrapped themselves in outdoor clothes and slipped their feet into clogs. It was the first time Sachi had been outside since New Year’s Eve. The melting snow had turned the earthen road into slush. Snow lay piled in grimy mounds along the edges of the walls. The little girl dragged Sachi along, tugging at her hand. They passed a massive roofed gate with a couple of manservants standing guard outside, then another. Then they came to a gate with a wooden name plate reading ‘Miyabe’. It was only a few doors away but the houses were so big and the walls so long it seemed like an eternity of walking.

On New Year’s Eve the gate had been shut and bolted. Now it gaped open. The little girl shook off Sachi’s hand and dashed through before she could stop her.

Sachi chased after her. Instead of a neat expanse of gravel, as at the Sato house, the grounds were a jungle of overgrown trees and bushes, half buried under snow. She could see the child pushing through the tangle of trees at the side of the house and followed as quickly as she could, trampling down twigs, beating through bushes and scrambling across rocks. Branches snatched at her clothes, as if trying to hold her back. Showers of snow tumbled from the trees, making her clothes sodden.

‘Yu-
chan
!’ she panted. ‘Wait!’

But Yuki had already disappeared through the side entrance.

The door was half rotten and some of the boards had fallen out. Clenching her fists so tightly she could feel her nails digging into her palms, Sachi took a deep breath and followed.

The rain shutters were tightly closed. In the darkness Sachi could hear the little girl’s footsteps and her piping voice shrieking, ‘
Haha-ue Haha-ue
. Mama, Mama.’ She stumbled after her, sending clouds of dust puffing from the mouldering tatami. Piles of leaves brushed against her feet and cobwebs stretched out tendrils to snag at her hands and face. There was an all-pervading musty smell of damp and mould.

She paused to listen. The child’s voice and footsteps had stopped.

In the distance there was a glimmer of light. Sachi glanced about fearfully, half expecting to see a ghostly woman drifting like smoke, moaning and pulling out her long black hair in clumps. She was supposed to be a samurai, she reminded herself, unafraid of any mortal enemy – but it was not mortals that inhabited a place like this.

‘Yu-
chan
?’ She could hear her voice quavering in the silence.

On tiptoe she moved towards the furthest room. The shutters seemed to be open. Through the paper doors she could see that the room was bathed in light. Swathes of silk, as pure and white as new-fallen snow, rippled at the threshold.

She looked again. A dark red stain soaked most of the silk. Right in the middle was a white-clad figure. Yuki’s mother was half kneeling, half lying face down. Her black hair was loose and fanned out on the floor. A stained dagger lay nearby.

Yuki had thrown herself down with her arms around her mother, clinging to her as if she intended never to let her go. There was a deathly silence. A sickly sweet odour filled the air.

Despite her samurai training, Sachi felt a shock of horror, like a bolt of lightning, go through her. She swallowed and turned her head away, closed her eyes and took a breath.

In her mind’s eye she saw Yuki’s mother sweeping the room until it was spotless, carefully cleaning the altar, spreading the silk across the tatami and praying for the last time. She would have
stilled her mind, would have wrapped the handle of the dagger lovingly in paper, then knelt and tied her ankles together to ensure she would maintain her dignity even in death. She would have thrust the dagger into her throat with precision and economy of movement, modestly and quietly, without fuss, with a sort of calm joy. It was a textbook suicide, a death to be proud of.

Sachi was filled with admiration, almost envy. She knew, as a samurai, she should be prepared to die at any moment. She was well acquainted with the procedure. She hoped that when her time came, she too would be able to die in such a way.

Yet, seeing the lifeless body before her, she felt a horror that no amount of thinking would remove. What had been a gentle, lovely woman was now an inert mass. Sachi’s heart was banging and she felt nausea rising in her throat.

Her eyes were drawn to a daguerreotype on the altar at the side of the room. There had been a few glass-plate portraits at the palace but she had not expected to see one in such a shabby outof-the-way place as this. An image of two people, a man and a woman standing stiffly side by side, stared palely back at her. The woman was Yuki’s mother. She glanced at the man. Surely not! Could it be . . . Shinzaemon? His head was shaved in the conventional way and his hair oiled and folded into a samurai topknot but she knew the jutting cheekbones and fierce eyes and the stubborn set of the jaw. Startled, she looked more closely. It was not Shinzaemon after all, though the man looked uncannily like him.

Beside the picture were two scrolls, tied with ribbon. One was addressed to Uncle Sato, the other to Yuki. As Sachi picked them up, the note to Yuki fell open. It was very brief.

‘My child,’ her mother had written. ‘You must be brave. When you are older you will understand. I cannot bear the shame of your father’s death. My place is by his side. Be a true samurai and carry the Miyabe name with pride.’

Yuki had been lying so still that Sachi was afraid she too was dead. Then she started to sob convulsively.

Slowly, their legs dragging, they made their way back to the Sato mansion. They were covered in dust, cobwebs, blood and grime. Shinzaemon was in the entrance hall waiting for them. His
face was grim. He was staring at the earthen floor, his broad shoulders sagging, his eyes dull.

He straightened up when he saw them. He looked down at the little girl and said, ‘I’m sorry.’

Yuki gazed up at him. Her chin was trembling and her eyes were full of tears but her face was like stone. Sachi could see she was trying her hardest not to show weakness or weep, no matter what.

Sachi had never before seen Shinzaemon so gentle. She longed to take his hand and say, ‘It’s not your fault. You did everything you could.’

Their eyes met. He was so brave, so strong. If anyone knew what to do, he did. She would have to put her faith in him.

‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘The southerners are on the move and his lordship the daimyo of Kano is determined to prove that his loyalties lie with them. As ladies of the shogun’s court you are in grave danger. We too. We’ll leave immediately.’

‘I must prepare my mother’s funeral,’ said Yuki distractedly. They were the first words she had spoken since she ran into her family’s house. ‘I must take care of her ashes and pray to her spirit. I am the only survivor of the house of Miyabe.’ She looked around as if there was something she had forgotten. Her small face was furrowed, her eyes red and swollen. Then her expression changed. Her face grew very calm. ‘I must avenge my father,’ she said firmly.

‘They’ll kill you if you stay here,’ said Shinzaemon gently. ‘There is no house of Miyabe. It was terminated when your father was arrested. There’s no house, no stipend, nothing. You can carry on the Miyabe name better if you stay alive. I told your papa I would take care of you. You must come with us.’

II

They left as the first light was streaking the sky, melting away into the shadows of the walls. They had made their farewells and expressed their thanks the previous night and it was safest to slip away without ceremony. Everyone knew the chances of meeting again in this lifetime were slight.

As she closed the door for the last time Sachi felt a pang of sadness. Their room in Aunt Sato’s house had been cramped and cold, yet it had been a kind of home.

A cold dawn breeze was blowing. The women pulled their garments tighter around them. They were dressed as inconspicuously as possible, in plain townswomen’s clothes. They had pulled their flat straw travelling hats low down over their faces to conceal their pale skin and distinctive aristocratic features. They took with them just a few changes of clothing and a robe each to sell if they needed money. Sachi had also packed the mysterious brocade overkimono. They put their halberds into cases. The men rode along with their two swords tucked into their waistbands. But they wore no crest. There was nothing to indicate which clan they belonged to or where their loyalties lay.

The plan was to avoid the Eastern Sea Road, the main highway to Edo. The southerners would be bound to send their armies that way and it would be crawling with soldiers. Instead the men decided to take quiet back roads until they were well away from Kano, then link up with the Inner Mountain Road. It was a much longer route and passed through rough mountain terrain, but there would be less chance of running into southern troops. Everyone in the party knew they would be travelling through hostile territory – into the dragon’s mouth. Some of the domains they had to pass through were supposedly friendly but no one could be sure any more whose side anyone was on. Clans seemed to switch allegiance with every change of the weather.