The Last Concubine

  Haru picked up the brocade, shook it out and ran it through her fingers till she found the crest embroidered on the shoulder. Sachi looked at it, mesmerized. It was the Mizuno crest: she should have recognized it.

  She was opening her mouth to speak when she felt a thin hand grasp her arm. She had forgotten that she and Taki were sworn to secrecy. Besides the princess and Lady Tsuguko, only the two of them even knew he had been in the palace.

  Sachi could still hear him shouting, ‘Go! Go! Leave me alone!’ If her mother was of the same family as that dreadful man then . . . so was she. They shared the same blood. The thought made her go quite cold.

  ‘My mother was . . . your mother’s wet nurse,’ said Haru. She was so caught up in her story she seemed not to have noticed Sachi’s reaction. Her face was alight. She was in another time, another place. She sat back on her heels as the words came tumbling out. ‘She was Lady Ohiro then, the little Lady Ohiro. She was lovely even then, when she was tiny. She had the sweetest face. She was not shy at all, as if she knew from early on what a great future she would have. We always played together. Tankaku Castle in Shingu, in the country of Kii – that was where we lived. When it was stormy you could hear the ocean outside. I used to lie in my futons and listen to the waves crashing up against the rocks below the castle walls. Sometimes I hear it still.

  ‘We studied together. Whatever she turned her hand to she did brilliantly – reading, calligraphy, poetry-writing, tea ceremony, incense-guessing, the koto, the halberd, all that. She was very clever, much cleverer than me. But wild, so wild. She went walking, climbed trees, climbed the cliffs. Imagine that! My father used to say she should have been a boy, that she had too many ideas of her own for a girl. She always got what she wanted. She could charm anyone.

  ‘But she was good to me. She treated me like a sister. We were still children when the Mizuno family were ordered to move to their Edo mansion. She said she would only go if I went too. But we didn’t stay there long, she and I. A couple of years later she went into service at the palace and she took me with her as her personal maid.

  ‘I was not much older than you were when you arrived, my lady. The palace was so huge! It was like a labyrinth, it went on and on. And the ladies with their gorgeous kimonos, and painted faces. So grand, so haughty. I was terrified of them.’

  Haru sighed and wiped a tear from her cheek.

  Sachi was half kneeling, half lying on the tatami, her chin cupped in her hand, gazing up at Haru, gripped by her story, drinking in her words. Taki knelt beside her, listening too.

  At least now she knew that noble blood flowed in her veins, Sachi thought. That was why she was so pale, like a ghost or an aristocrat, not nut-brown like the peasants of the Kiso valley. And perhaps it was why fate had brought her to the women’s palace, just as it had her mother. But more than that: she too was wilful. She shared the same blood as crazy Lord Mizuno.

  ‘Old Lady Honju-in was the number-one concubine back then,’ said Haru. ‘Her Majesty the midaidokoro, His Majesty’s wife, had long since passed away so Lady Honju-in was in charge. She ran this place with a rod of iron. You think the Retired One is tough. Lady Honju-in was worse, far worse. The beatings I got! I was black and blue. She was chief concubine because she was the mother of the heir. A hopeless, lolloping boy. He must have been twenty-one by then. I told you about him. Weak in the body and weak in the head. Everyone hoped and prayed for another son to be heir instead.

  ‘The moment His Majesty Lord Ieyoshi saw my lady he fell for her. I wasn’t surprised at all, not one bit. Who could resist her? She was so lovely and bright and full of sunshine – like you, Little Sister. Just like you. He was old and bald but a dear man, very kind. Of course he had plenty of concubines. But he was not like his father, he didn’t collect women like so many ceramics. He had a tender heart. He always had a favourite. His last had died in childbirth. He was so sad, we heard, he couldn’t sleep, he wept all the time. Then we arrived.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘He took one look and asked, “What is her name?” I didn’t even know what the question meant. I didn’t realize he wanted my lady to be his concubine. She was scared too, like you were when His young Majesty asked for you. But she had to do it, she knew that. So she became Lady Okoto, the lady of the side chamber.

  ‘What a life we led! We lived in a magnificent suite of apartments. I was the head lady-in-waiting. Merchants would be lining up at the palace gates with trunks and boxes full of kimonos, obis, hair ornaments, cosmetics sets, all for her. The lords and officials and courtiers and merchants all wanted to be sure she was on their side when they petitioned His Majesty. They knew the only sure way to His Majesty’s ear was through her. It was my job to sort out all the presents they gave her.

  ‘There were many concubines, but His Majesty cared only for her. Night after night he summoned her. The year after we came she had a son, Prince Tadzuruwaka. There were huge celebrations and a ceremony to make him His Majesty’s heir. But His Highness didn’t live long. He passed away when he was still a baby. Then my lady had a daughter, Princess Shigé. She passed away too . . .’

  Haru’s voice trailed away. Sachi glanced over her shoulder. She could almost feel the presence of her mother, the beautiful Lady Okoto, there in the room with them, kneeling by the window, her hair in gleaming oiled loops, wearing the glorious brocade overkimono, the colour of the sky. Maybe she had felt trapped in the palace, this vibrant, lovely woman. Maybe she had looked out at the gardens and wished she could escape, remembered Tankaku Castle and the waves breaking on the shore. Maybe she was lonely in the middle of all the gifts.

  ‘No one would have imagined it would come to this,’ Haru murmured. ‘I can’t say if we were happy or sad. We lived out our lives, here in the palace. And she was young still, your mother, she hadn’t even reached her twentieth year.’ She buried her face in her hands. ‘I tried so hard to forget!’ she wailed suddenly. ‘I thought I had succeeded. But then you appeared.’ She gazed at Sachi, tears running down her cheeks.

  Sachi leaned forward, acutely aware of how little time they had, of the danger they were all in.

  ‘Big Sister,’ she began urgently. ‘I beg you to tell me: who is my father? How did he . . . meet my mother?’

  The light was beginning to fade. Flies buzzed. A shiny black cockroach skittered across a wall. Taki too was staring into space. Sachi could see she was thinking hard, trying to fit together the pieces of the puzzle.

  Haru was gazing at the brocade. She picked it up reverently and held it to her cheek. As she touched it the rich dark scent swirled about the room, ebbing and flowing like a tide.

  ‘Your father,’ she said softly. ‘If only you could have seen him, perhaps then you would have understood. I can see him too in your face.’

  Sachi’s father . . . The man who had carried her to the village when she was a baby; the man who was now the enemy.

  ‘But Haru, how could you possibly have known my lady’s father?’ demanded Taki, voicing Sachi’s thought. ‘You’ve never once left the palace!’

  ‘I will tell you,’ Haru said slowly. ‘I have kept my secret for so long. But now everything is coming to an end. Nothing makes any difference any more.

  ‘It was . . . the year of the rooster, the second year of Kaei. The year before you were born. Some master builders had come to draw up an estimate for the annual repairs.’

  Her eyes disappeared in the folds of her pink cheeks as a wicked smile crinkled her face. For a moment she was the old Haru again.

  ‘There was always such a fuss whenever men turned up. We women would all be peeking through the lattices at them. Of course my lady, your mother, never took part in such nonsense. After all, she was His Majesty’s concubine, she had her dignity to maintain. By then His Majesty . . . What can I say? He needed an heir. He was the shogun, after all. In short, he never summoned her any more. My lady tried hard to endure. She had always been so full of life but now she grew pale and sad. r />
  ‘That summer the ladies were all a-twitter, like a forest full of birds, spying on these men with their belts laden with tools. They were ugly fellows, most of them, not like samurai at all. They crept around looking scared half out of their wits. After all, they only had to offend someone and they’d get their heads lopped off. Normally we wouldn’t have paid the remotest attention to such creatures. But what other chance did we get to see men?

  ‘My lady was in her room, along with her ladies-in-waiting, when the door slid open and some builders came in to examine the ceiling. Some of the bamboo slats were fraying and falling apart. We shouldn’t have been there at all, but no one had told us they were coming. My lady stood up immediately and out we all swept. But I couldn’t help noticing that she glanced at one of the carpenters and he glanced at her. Just for a moment, nothing inappropriate.’

  Haru closed her eyes. She was far away, back in that distant time. The room was utterly silent. Sachi sat mesmerized, trying to catch every word. Taki was holding her hand tightly.

  ‘My, was he handsome!’ Haru said softly. ‘He wasn’t anything like the other carpenters, not one bit. He looked like one of those kabuki actors we all admired so much. We weren’t allowed to go to the theatre but some of the ladies had managed to sneak out. There was a really famous actor we all adored – Sojiro Sawamura. He looked just like him. That was Daisuké-sama. Your father.

  ‘Afterwards we were chattering away about him. But not my lady. She didn’t say a word. She was far too grand. But as the days passed she started to get paler and paler. She couldn’t eat. She grew gaunt and black around the eyes, as if she’d taken opium or absinthe. I was afraid she was coming down with consumption. People always said it was a disease of the rich. But then I began to wonder if someone had sneaked powder of roasted lizard into her food. That was what it looked like, that faraway look in her eyes, as if she wasn’t really there in her body at all any more.

  ‘Then one day she said, “Haru. Haru, I think I’ve fallen under a spell. It’s like a spiritual starvation.” Spiritual starvation, that’s what she said. “Day and night I can’t think of anything else. I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve become a hungry ghost. I shall die unless . . . Somehow I have to see this man again.”

  ‘We all yearn for the company of men, but what can you do except endure it? Endure the loneliness, endure the solitude, live without our bodies ever being set alight. But she never cared what anyone thought. She always had to have what she wanted. I asked a priest I knew to help us. We found out the name of the man and the priest sent a message. I knew Daisuké-sama would come. I could tell from that single look I had seen pass between them.

  ‘We made up a story. My lady said she was going to Zojoji Temple to pray at the tombs of His Majesty’s ancestors. What other reason could there be to leave the palace? We boarded palanquins and set off with a party of ladies-in-waiting and foot attendants. We’d taken a couple of ladies into our confidence. They stayed with the palanquins at Zojoji while we crept away. The priest I knew had had affairs with palace ladies himself. He had a secret room in his temple for that very purpose. Your father was waiting for us.’

  Sachi put her hands over her mouth. So that was what she was, that was where she came from. A spiritual starvation . . . She knew that feeling. That same madness surged in her veins. But at least . . . At least she had not gone as far as her mother. She had not thrown duty and honour away.

  ‘Afterwards she didn’t say a word. But it didn’t quench the hunger. In fact her hunger grew fiercer and fiercer until I thought it would eat her up. Again and again we visited the tombs of the shoguns’ ancestors. His Majesty must have thought she’d become very pious all of a sudden – except that he never thought of her at all any more. That was the pity of it. I kept telling her she must stop. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t stop seeing Daisuké.

  ‘I used to sit in attendance serving sake while they talked. After a while it didn’t seem to matter any more that he was handsome or she was beautiful. They just had to be together.

  ‘My lady grew plump again. She bloomed like a flower. Her eyes shone, she had colour in her cheeks, she laughed and chattered. When we were alone, she talked and talked about him. I was afraid the palace women would notice how different she was. Soon I started to hear murmurs and gossip. The other concubines were jealous of her because she had been the shogun’s favourite. She had plenty of enemies.

  ‘The next thing we knew she was with child. But His Majesty hadn’t summoned her for months. It was obvious she’d have to get rid of it – but she couldn’t bear to. It was wintertime. My lady put on layers and layers of kimonos to hide her belly. She took to staying in her room all the time except when she went to the temple to meet your father.

  ‘She had the baby in the temple. I helped her. I brought you out into the daylight. I remember you still – such a tiny little wizened thing.’

  Haru looked at Sachi and smiled a motherly smile. Reaching out, she laid her plump hand softly on Sachi’s cheek, as if to reassure herself that she hadn’t disappeared.

  ‘At first they were so happy, your mother and father. They held you, they looked at you, they couldn’t stop looking at you and at each other. But then my lady began to panic. “We must get back to the castle,” she said. “They’re going to come after us and kill my baby.” “You must rest,” I told her, but she was too afraid.

  ‘My lady began to weep. She couldn’t bear to leave you, even for a short time. She knew she’d gone too far, that she’d committed an unpardonable crime. She was wearing that brocade you have. She wrapped you up in it and tucked her comb into the folds. “There, little one,” she said. “With this you’ll be able to find me some day.” And it worked, you see? In a strange way it worked.’

  Haru pressed her sleeves to her face. She clasped her arms to her bosom, rocked back and forth, then took a deep breath.

  ‘Then . . . she put you into your father’s arms. We carried her to the palanquin, she couldn’t walk. So . . . So that was how we got back to the castle.’

  A large grey rat scuttled into a corner. The shadows in the room were growing longer and the candles glimmered with a bright yellow light. It was nearly nightfall.

  ‘When we got back there was news. My lady’s brother was ill. Desperately ill.’

  Sachi started. Her mother’s brother – Lord Mizuno; perhaps the very Lord Mizuno she had seen crossing the river. Taki frowned at her, warning her to say nothing.

  ‘She was to go to the family’s Edo residence right away,’ Haru continued. ‘I thought I’d go with her, but she told me to stay. “If I’m not back tomorrow,” she said, “tell Daisuké not to wait. Nothing matters, only my baby. She must be kept safe.” She swore me to secrecy. “Never tell this tale to anyone except my child,” she said. She didn’t come back the next day or the next day either. I sneaked out and went to the temple. Daisuké had already left and had taken you with him. The priest didn’t know where he’d gone.

  ‘That was the last time I ever left the palace. I couldn’t even weep, nor could I tell anyone what had happened. My life was over. I just stayed here, doing my work. I concentrated on teaching the new girls.

  ‘And then . . . you came. You were just a child but there was something about you that made me think of that baby. If she had lived, I thought, she would have been exactly your age. And then I saw that comb of yours. Such a fine comb for a little country girl. It was exactly like the one I used to comb my lady’s hair with, hour after hour. I told myself some merchant must have left it in your village – but all the same I couldn’t help wondering. And now – now it’s as if she’s come back. She’s here again, my dear mistress, in you.’

  Sachi was caught up in Haru’s story – in her own story. But the comb, the comb . . . She had given it to Shinzaemon, with whom she was entwined in a passion nearly as obsessive, as mad – as dangerous – as the one that had bound her mother to her father.

  Suddenly she was aware of
the guttering candles and the fading light. She shook herself and scrambled to her feet. She felt strangely disembodied, as if she had no control over her limbs.

  ‘You have your mother in you,’ said Haru. A smile flickered across her face.

  For a moment Sachi wondered what she meant, but she had more pressing matters to think of.

  ‘Go,’ said Haru. ‘Go now, my lady. Go to him.’

  IV

  Sachi hurried across the palace grounds with as much speed as she could muster. She had flung a townswoman’s cloak over her court robes and wrapped a scarf around her head. Her skirts clung to her legs, making her mince with tiny steps. She was flushed and panting, damp with sweat. She could hear her breath, loud in the silence. Court ladies were supposed to glide at a glacial pace, she told herself, not charge about like peasants. She hardly noticed the mud clinging to her shoes and spattering the bottom of her skirts. All she knew was that she had to get to the Tsubone Gate by dusk.

  The gardens were overgrown and cherry blossom floated down like snow. It clung to her clothes and lay in damp mounds, clogging the path around her feet. It made her think of all those young warriors, doomed to die in their prime. Blindly she hurried by the sprawling palace buildings, the streams and bridges and pavilions and the burned-out ruin of the women’s palace. She could hear Taki’s footsteps, scampering along behind her. The old man too whom they had met when they arrived had appeared from nowhere. When patrols crossed their path he warned them off and sent them on their way.

  The grounds were swarming with soldiers. The women might have left but the men were there in force, regiments of them bristling with rifles, marching about, doing all they could to protect the castle.

  The Tsubone Gate – the Gate of the Shoguns’ Ladies, the entrance to the women’s palace – was tightly barred and bolted. Escorted by the old man, the two women slipped between the patrols and hurried through the small door beside the outer gates. Taki stayed in the shadows while Sachi went out on to the bridge. She knew there was very little time, that the door would be locked at nightfall. To be trapped outside the castle after dark, at the mercy of southern soldiers, would be too dreadful to imagine.