The Last Concubine (55 page)

She remembered Haru’s tale perfectly. Her mother had been summoned home because her brother, Lord Mizuno, was desperately ill, on his deathbed. That was what Haru had said. And yet . . . Sachi had seen Lord Mizuno herself, with her own eyes. She could never forget that fearsome hawk-like face scarred with the marks of smallpox, or those muscular swordsman’s hands. He might have been on his deathbed all those years ago but he certainly hadn’t died.

‘She was summoned to the family residence,’ said Haru slowly. ‘They said that . . . her brother was dying. She was to go home immediately. I helped her pack. I’d never left her side before, never, but she told me I must stay behind, that I must go back to the temple and tell Daisuké-
sama
. . .’

‘I waited, Haru, but you didn’t come.’ His voice was hoarse with pain.

‘I was going to make an excuse and sneak out. But then . . . then a message came.’

Haru put her sleeves over her face. There were tears running down her cheeks. She brushed them away with the back of her fist.

Daisuké leaned forward. His bushy eyebrows were jammed together. He stared at Haru as if he was trying to carve into her soul with his eyes.

Haru opened her mouth then closed it again. She shook her head violently, took a shuddering breath, then another. Sachi reached out and put her small white hand on Haru’s. Haru screwed her eyes so tightly shut they nearly disappeared into her plump cheeks.

She muttered some words. Sachi shuffled closer, trying to catch what it was she was saying. Taki was just behind. Daisuké was so close she could feel the warmth emanating from his large body. She could hear his rasping breath, smell his sweat mingled with the scent of some foreign fragrance.

Haru spoke again in the faintest of whispers. This time Sachi made out the words. ‘It said . . . that she had passed away. She was taken ill and passed away, all of a sudden. That’s what it said.’

Sachi caught her breath. For a moment she couldn’t make sense of the words. Then she realized, and felt a chill that rippled out from somewhere inside her until the tips of her fingers and toes were like ice. The sunlight had faded and the candles flickered in a sudden breeze. She shivered.

‘You didn’t tell me, Big Sister,’ she said hoarsely.

Daisuké ground his great fist into the tatami.

‘The day after?’ he roared. ‘That’s not possible. How could she die so suddenly?’

Haru’s shoulders slumped, her plump face sagged. ‘Maybe she fell ill,’ she said, avoiding his eyes. It was as if the words were wrenched out of her, as if she was reciting something she had told herself a million times to try to persuade herself of the truth of it, like a spell that could drive out ill fortune. ‘She’d just had a baby. People die in childbirth. It’s very dangerous to move around after you’ve had a baby. You’re supposed to stay sitting up for seven days to stop the blood flowing to your head. I suppose that was it.’

Daisuké looked at her accusingly.

‘Is that what you think, Haru? Is that what you think happened? We were together. I saw her after she had the baby. She was fine.’

Haru flinched. ‘Anyway,’ she mumbled, ‘the family offered apologies to the shogun for depriving him of his concubine. They sent money, a lot of money. After all, she was a valuable possession. Lady Honju-in saw the letter and told us about it. I think we were meant to take it as a warning not to forget that . . . it was a crime, what my lady did. Not to make the same mistake ourselves.’

The crease between Daisuké’s eyebrows had deepened into a furrow. He clenched his huge fists so tightly the veins stood out. The black hairs on his knuckles stood on end. ‘So she died just like that in a single day. And you went to the family residence for the funeral?’

‘There was no notice of a funeral, only a death. We women aren’t allowed to leave the castle for private matters. But I did manage to sneak out. Not for the funeral. I went to the temple. But you’d gone. And taken . . . your child, my lady, with you.’

‘And you really believe she’s dead?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Haru. Then she opened her eyes and looked straight at Daisuké. ‘Myself, I’ve never believed it. When women commit a crime like hers, families do very strange things. Sometimes they lock the woman up for ever. Sometimes they execute her. But often they can’t bear to, so perhaps they made up the story and hid her away somewhere. Perhaps they put her in a convent. I didn’t go to her funeral, I didn’t see her body, I didn’t take part in any religious observance. I didn’t observe the seventh day and the fourteenth day and all the other ceremonial days after her death. As far as I’m concerned, she’s alive.’

In the candlelight Daisuké looked tired and old. His face haggard, he stared blank-eyed at the tatami. His mouth was twisted in torment. He picked up the brocade and buried his face in it. When he put it down again the exquisite embroidery was stained with tears.

‘After all, both of you were dead to me and now you’re here,’ said Haru quietly.

They sat in silence, not daring to meet each other’s eyes, until the charcoal in the tobacco brazier began to fade from red to grey. Taki filled a pipe and tamped it. She picked up a pair of tongs, stirred the embers until she found a live coal, then lit the pipe and handed it to Daisuké. He took the delicate stem in his big fingers and slowly, as if he was very old, put it to his lips. Taki prepared a pipe for Sachi, Haru and finally for herself.

‘The nightingale died,’ said Sachi, staring at the dying coals. She suddenly felt like a child. Tears pricked her eyes. ‘Father, I wish you’d come sooner.’

Father. She was surprised at how easily the word slipped out now and how natural it felt to say it.

Sachi could barely remember what it was like to have a father. Ever since she left the village and entered the women’s palace she had been surrounded by women. Then suddenly she was out in
the cold, making decisions and taking responsibility. Now she knew that someone was watching over her.

She understood so many things now – how difficult it had been for Daisuké, an official of the imperial government, to make even this one visit to their house, to be seen entering the compound of women who were not just close to the defeated Tokugawa clan but family members. How dangerous it must have been for him to make sure she was protected; to provide succour to the family of the enemy was certainly a crime. Yet he had done so for months without her ever knowing it was him, without expecting acknowledgement or gratitude. Now she knew what it was like to have a father. That was what a father did.

He nodded gravely. She could see that he had registered the word and the sentiment.

Their eyes met. There were pouches below his, and lines at the corners. They were the shape of bitter almonds, just like the eyes she saw when she looked in the mirror.

He reached forward, took her small hands and folded them in his large ones. His palms were soft like silk – the palms of an official, not a carpenter.

‘Daughter,’ he said, ‘I hadn’t intended you to hear these terrible things. I came to tell you that I’m going back to Osaka. There’s talk that Osaka may become the new capital.’

She stiffened. ‘Capital of what?’ she wanted to say. ‘Whose capital? The war isn’t won yet.’ But she didn’t want to spoil the newly formed bond between them. It was too precious.

‘I will make sure that you’re protected and provided for,’ he said. ‘There’ll be no visits from southern soldiers, no problem with looters or robbers. The mansion won’t be requisitioned and no one will make you leave. I hope . . . I believe that your mother is alive. As soon as I can, as soon as the fighting is over, as soon as the country is at peace, I’ll find her. I promise you that.’

Part V

The Eastern Capital

13

The Coming of the Emperor

I

The rain seemed never to end. Leaves hung dripping on the trees and lay in sodden piles on the ground. Never before had a year been so sad and grim. The city sank deeper and deeper into desolation; even the banks of the castle moat were slipping and sliding into the water. Whenever Sachi saw them they had collapsed still further. No one would ever have guessed what a glorious city Edo had been only a few months earlier.

Then one day rays of sunlight came slanting through the cracks between the wooden rain doors. The air was crisp and cool. From inside the gloomy mansion Sachi heard footsteps crunching across the stones of the courtyard.

Her heart leaped. For a moment she told herself it was a messenger, one of the ‘flying feet’, bringing a letter from up north. She pictured him, thin and wiry, standing at the door in his black uniform and flat straw hat, panting and covered in sweat. He would bow, open his ornate lacquered box and hand her a scroll. As she unrolled it she would recognize the hand. There would be the last two lines of the poem she had sent Shinzaemon. She sighed. Everything was so chaotic there was probably not even a postal system any more.

It was a long time now since Tatsuemon had left, taking with
him her poem. Now at least Shinzaemon must know where she was. Every day she told herself a letter might come from him, but each day she was disappointed.

Tatsuemon had looked so young and brave when he had said goodbye. His cheeks were plump and rosy again, flushed with the excitement of heading off along the road on his own.

‘I can’t wait to see Tora and Shin,’ he had said.

There was no more than fuzzy down on his upper lip and the top of his head was not yet shaved. He still had a long forelock like a child. At fifteen he was old enough to kill and be killed, like any samurai. Nevertheless her heart had been heavy. Tatsuemon was not yet fully grown, not even a man.

Now she wondered with dread what might have happened to him. Then, as now, the roads were swarming with southern soldiers and the chances of his making it through were small.

And even if he managed to find Shinzaemon and Toranosuké, they were probably holed up under siege in a castle somewhere. For a moment the thought passed through her mind that he might be wounded or dead, but she pushed it away. Even to think such a thing was tempting fate.

But it was all nothing more than a daydream. The footsteps on the gravel were not those of a messenger at all. Messengers scuttled about in straw sandals or clopped around on wooden clogs. Only one person stomped along in that determined, firm way: Edwards, with his long legs and boots made of animal skin. The floorboards in the entrance hall groaned as he stepped inside.

Sachi had assumed that after Tatsuemon left they would never see Edwards again. He would stop sending the carriage and the window he had opened on to the outside world would slam shut. But it hadn’t. Edwards continued to visit.

The first time they invited him in Taki had been scandalized. But he was, as Sachi reminded her, a foreigner and not really human at all, so there was no impropriety. In any case, they were hugely in his debt. He had rescued them on Ueno Hill and been endlessly kind to Tatsuemon. He was virtually family. Besides, they needed him. Working at the British Legation, he was always up to date with the news and kept them informed of the latest developments on the war front.

She hurried to the great hall. Edwards was already there, squatting on the tatami, his knees sticking out like the hairpins in a courtesan’s coiffure. Sachi was aware of his big chest inside his coarse linen jacket, the way his great legs awkwardly bent up. He filled the room. He glanced up when she came in. He looked worried; she could see there was bad news. Foreigners were so strange, she thought. Here he was, a grown man, but he didn’t know how to conceal his feelings. Whatever he happened to feel at the time – anger, fear, concern – was written on his face, like a child.

She hurried through the compliments and greetings, then folded her hands in her lap. The hall fell silent.

‘You have news,’ she said quietly. ‘Something’s happened.’

She could feel a knot of fear in her stomach. In the last month there had been nothing but bad news for everyone who yearned for the return of the shogun. The southerners were sweeping all before them. First they had stormed the city of Nagaoka. The town had been reduced to rubble, the castle destroyed and most of the defenders killed. Five weeks later Yonezawa had been lost. Now Aizu Wakamatsu was under siege. Wakamatsu was the northern citadel, the capital of the resistance, the most ancient and powerful fortress of the north. All those who remained loyal to the shogun and the northern cause had retreated there and there had been fierce fighting for the last month. Every time Edwards brought news it was that the attackers had pushed further into the city, taking moat after moat. His most recent reports had been that they had reached the outer walls of the castle. It was heavily fortified, he had said, and should be able to hold out for a while, at least.