The Last Concubine

  The women gazed at him wide-eyed. It was impossible even to imagine a world so different from their own. Yet they had seen the ships, they had heard the cannons, they had ridden in the wheeled carriage. They could see that there were things in the world they’d never heard of.

  ‘You’ll get one here too very soon, I promise. Probably several. You thought my carriage went fast. They go much faster. You could travel along the entire Inner Mountain Road in a day in one of those.’

  Sachi stared down at her small white hands neatly placed one on top of the other on her kimono skirts. She couldn’t imagine wanting to travel so quickly, without stopping to see the famous views. Surely the whole point was the journey? That was why people travelled.

  ‘Really?’ she said, smiling at him. ‘But you’ve forgotten all those mountains. I think you must be a fortune teller.’ She couldn’t help teasing him. ‘You have no divining rods, you make no incantations, you haven’t even looked at our faces or hands or asked us for a fee. And yet you say you can see the future.’

  Edwards grinned at her. ‘Maybe I can,’ he said playfully. ‘There’s no holding back progress, it’ll come no matter what. And I’ll tell you another thing: an engineer has already arrived from my country to build a . . . a . . . When you see watchfires on the hills and you know there’s a fire or an army approaching. You know? It’s like that. To pass a message across a long distance. But much more precise. You tap out a message here in Edo and someone – for example in Osaka – receives it immediately. At the same moment.’

  ‘Sounds like black magic,’ said Taki disapprovingly.

  Sachi pursed her lips. She had heard the stories that went round about foreigners practising magic but she had never paid much attention. But what Edwards was saying really did sound sinister. An iron monster she could imagine. It had something in common with the big ships and the cannon fire she had heard with her own ears. But the sending of messages that were not spoken by a voice or written on paper . . .

  ‘But why?’ she asked. ‘We already have “flying feet”. We can send a message from Edo to Kyoto in three days by messenger, one day by horse. Why would we want to get it there any faster?’

  Tatsuemon piped up. ‘It’s like rifles and swords.’ Everyone turned and looked at him. There was colour in his cheeks and a spark in his eye again. ‘With swords the best man wins. But with rifles – a man can shoot you and you never see his face. You can kill a man and you don’t even know it. There’s no glory in it. At least when you can see their faces you know you’ve killed them. But people who fight with rifles win. They beat people who fight with swords. So we have to have rifles to make sure we win. Good rifles. English rifles. And if they have whatever it is Edwards- dono is describing – these magic messages – we must have that too. I’d like to see those things you talk about. I’d like to ride on an iron monster. I’d like that more than anything.’

  ‘You will,’ said Edwards. ‘The magic messages will come next year. I don’t need to summon the spirits to tell you that. And after that the iron monster. No matter what happens with the war, you’ll have your iron monster.’

  IV

  Every day Sachi went to the parapet and gazed out at the fireblackened landscape and the distant hill, yet she couldn’t help noticing that day after day nothing changed. In the past after a fire people would have been out straight away, repairing the damage and starting to rebuild the houses. But a terrible lethargy had fallen over the city. Sachi was afraid that soon Edo would be overrun by woods and moorland until there was no sign there had ever been a city there at all.

  Marooned in lonely splendour in the hilltop mansion, she felt as if the life of the whole great metropolis had drained away along with the blood of its warriors. Her own life seemed to have shrunk until there was no more than the four walls that surrounded her. She and Taki slept together, halberds at the ready. The remaining ladies-in-waiting and even the invisible attendants who always hovered in the background had all disappeared. Haru took care of the princess and the cooking. Occasionally they heard voices in distant parts of the mansion but still it felt as if it was populated by ghosts.

  The old man guarded them. At night they heard the clack of his wooden clapper. It echoed sharp and cold across the silent grounds, warning off any intruder who might think of crawling under the building and stabbing a blade up through the gaps between the floor mats.

  Each day she wondered what the next day would bring. Their money and supplies could not go on for ever. Whenever they could – whenever Edwards sent the carriage – they went to visit him. Edwards was full of tales of the strange countries he had visited and of his own country, where women of good family did not expect to spend their whole lives indoors. Sachi secretly dreaded the moment when Tatsuemon was fully recovered and they would have no excuse to visit any more.

  A few days after their first visit Haru came padding through the empty rooms of the mansion with a message: Her Highness required the Retired Lady Shoko-in to attend on her immediately.

  Ever since they had moved to the Shimizu mansion the princess had kept to her rooms. She seemed to feel that everything that had happened was her fault, as if her coldness to His Majesty had caused the whole disaster.

  Sachi was yearning to see her. Of the three thousand women who had formed His Majesty’s household only the four of them were left. With the princess in seclusion, all the responsibility for maintaining their household fell on Sachi’s small shoulders. But she was apprehensive too. She wondered why Her Highness had summoned her now of all times.

  Incense smoke wafted from the princess’s rooms – sandalwood, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, ambergris and the other spices that made up the perfume burned on a Buddhist altar. It was a dark, holy, heavy scent, a fragrance wound about with mystery and awe. It conjured up the dark shadows and rich furnishings of temples, the glimmering gold of the altar, the chanting of priests, the beating of drums, the centuries-old piety of millions upon millions of worshippers and the smoke of the funeral pyre. As she breathed it in, Sachi’s spirit grew calm and her thoughts turned to the world that was to come. She could hear the murmur of prayer. She waited for a while then slid open the door.

  The princess had turned her room into a shrine. His Majesty’s memorial tablet was on the altar with offerings in front of it and candles burning with tall yellow flames. A small figure knelt before it, telling her beads.

  Sachi knelt beside her. Her eyes lit on the daguerreotype of His Majesty’s gentle young face. For a moment she was back in the women’s palace, in a room walled with gold screens and lit with huge golden candles, with crowds of attendants loitering in the shadows. Women’s voices, chattering and laughing, floated through the gold leaf of the walls and across the painted transepts exquisitely carved with cranes and tortoises, peacocks and dragons. The quilted hems of kimonos swished as they glided across the tatami. Everything sparkled with gold – the robes on lacquered stands, the delicate tiered shelves, the cosmetics boxes, the porcelain tea sets.

  She remembered the masques and plays and dancing. And the first time she had caught a glimpse of His Majesty. She had heard his laughter and peeked through the lattices and seen him, sitting on his horse with his falcon on his wrist, surrounded by courtiers. She had been just a child then, fresh to the palace, a maid of the lowest rank who still spoke with a rustic accent. She had admired him from afar, so slender, so youthful, so beautiful. Then the memory of the night they had lain together came back to her – the silken sheets, the warmth of his body, his pale chest and mischievous smile. Sachi was a great lady now and a samurai, but still she had to swallow hard to stop tears spilling down her cheeks.

  But there was another memory colliding with that one, threatening to extinguish it. For a moment she was afraid that the princess might be able to read her mind and see the image of Shinzaemon burning there.

  But the princess seemed no longer part of this world at all. Inside the fine silk of her summer kimono she was as frail and insubsta
ntial as a reed. Sachi could see the blue veins and slender bones through the translucent skin of her hands, and her eyes, large and luminous, as if she was already gazing towards the world to come. No matter what blows fate might rain on her, she was of the blood. She was the sister of the late emperor. No one could take that away from her.

  ‘Those were happy days,’ murmured the princess. It was so long since Sachi had last heard that high-pitched birdlike whisper. ‘Or at least when I think back on them they seem happy. It’s good to see you. You are blooming like a morning glory. Me – I am fading.’

  Sachi gazed at the tatami and listened respectfully.

  ‘You heard the cannons, I’m sure,’ the princess went on. ‘You know that the last supporters of the Tokugawa – the militia – were destroyed or expelled from Edo. There is a new government now, ruling in the name of His Grace the emperor – my nephew.’ She gave a snort of bitter laughter.

  ‘They have sent me notice of their intentions. Even this meagre life we lead here is to end. The Tokugawa clan is to be punished. We and our retainers are to have our stipends reduced almost to nothing and are to be expelled from Edo. We are to go to Suruga to join the retired shogun, Lord Yoshinobu, in exile.’

  Sachi frowned, trying to grasp the enormity of what she was saying. Without their stipends, they would be ruined. They would have to find some way to make a living or they would die. Most fearful of all, they were to be exiled to Suruga. It felt like the end of the world.

  Then she realized the full implications of this sentence. If . . . when . . . Shinzaemon came to find her, if Tatsuemon had managed to find him, he would look for her at the Shimizu mansion. Even if Tatsuemon never met up with him, Shinzaemon would know she was somewhere in Edo. But if she went to Suruga she would never see him again. Nor her father, either.

  She became aware of the princess’s silence. In the past she used always to announce bad news with wailing and lamentation, yet now she exuded an almost otherworldly calm. Perhaps her months of prayer and meditation had given her such inner peace that she had risen above the problems of this world.

  ‘Twelve thousand households will have to move,’ said the princess, her eyes burning with anger. ‘A hundred thousand people. The government has given us a month to pack our belongings. When we have gone, the city will be empty. This government wants to destroy Edo and everything it stands for.’

  Sachi knew her duty, knew what she should say: ‘I am at Your Highness’s command. If it is your will I am ready to leave Edo whenever it suits Your Highness.’ But she suddenly felt a fierce determination. She would stay in Edo, no matter what. Even if she had to go into hiding she didn’t care. She was not going to be forced to leave, to be sent to some distant unknown place.

  There was a long silence. The princess was gazing at her as if she wanted to imprint her face on her memory. Sachi wondered if there was some hint of rebellion etched there.

  ‘You are like a sister to me,’ the princess breathed. ‘My little sister. I’ll never forget that moment when I saw you for the first time in your country village. Usually I didn’t notice country people. But you – you looked at me with your big eyes, so bright and curious and alive, and I could see that you weren’t afraid at all. And that face of yours – so like mine. Like a younger, happier me.’

  The princess drew herself up. Her small mouth curved into a smile.

  ‘When I married into the Tokugawa family I swore to share their destiny,’ she went on quietly. ‘The world has moved on but I am not a part of it. I never can be. But you – you are different. You brought us all sunshine. Even His Majesty, in his short life: you brought him happiness. You have always done your duty. Now I release you. I erase all obligation you might ever have had to me. If you wish to disobey the edict, that is for you to decide. I am sure you can find a way to remain here in Edo. For myself, I go willingly into exile.’

  Sachi was on her knees, her hands pressed to the tatami. She looked up at the princess, tears running down her face. For so long their destinies had been linked.

  ‘We may never see each other again,’ Princess Kazu said. ‘Though I was forced to leave Kyoto and my family, I have had you for a sister. I will never forget you.’

  12

  A Visit to the Pawnbroker

  I

  Summer had come to an end. It was chilly and wet – the first typhoon of autumn was on its way. Sachi was in a dreadful state of restlessness, expecting every moment to hear the tramp of heavy feet as soldiers barged in with orders to evict them. But day after day passed and nothing happened. Sometimes she wondered if the princess had been mistaken, that there was no decree or, if there was, that no one was going to enforce it.

  But whenever they set off on one of their regular visits to Edwards they would see that the Eastern Sea Road was clogged with refugees. They would be swept up in a vast mob of people with grey, despairing faces, stumbling along, treading on each other’s heels, dragging carts laden with possessions. These, Sachi thought grimly to herself, must once have been bureaucrats, civil servants, guards, clerks, officials in charge of this department or that, undersecretaries of undersecretaries, ladies-in-waiting, maids, cooks. They must all have been in service to one branch of the Tokugawa or another. None of them had done any more or any less than loyal servants were expected to do. Now they were traitors, banished from the only home they had ever known, condemned to lifelong disgrace, exile and poverty.

  Sachi knew that she and her little household could not escape the edict for ever. In the not-too-distant future they too would be reduced to the fate of these faceless refugees on the Eastern Sea Road.

  Just as she was thinking things couldn’t get any worse, Haru came to tell her the storeroom was almost empty. Rice, miso, salt, vegetables, firewood, lamp oil – nearly everything was finished.

  All the time Sachi had been at the women’s palace she had always had everything she could possibly want. Lengths of fabric, beautiful kimonos, every cosmetic or game or musical instrument that had ever been invented – if she was lacking anything she had only to clap her hands and it would appear. As for food, she had never been able to finish a meal, there had always been so much. Even in the village they had always had food; they had grown it themselves. But now . . . With a shock of fear she thought of the grounds smothered in weeds. The gardeners who tended the vegetable gardens must have disappeared along with everyone else.

  ‘So . . . so we have no money?’

  In the past she had never even had to think of money.

  ‘We have money, my lady,’ said Haru with a touch of reproof in her voice. ‘You can rest easy on that score. Do you think your father would let you starve? Why do you think no one has come to attack us? He is protecting you and us along with you, and he has made sure we have money.’

  Sachi looked at her in amazement. She had not seen Daisuké for months, not since they left the castle. Even after the battle, when the city was in chaos, he hadn’t sought her out to reassure her or make certain she was safe. She had thought him not much of a father, for all his fine words.

  All the same she had wondered why they continued to lead such a trouble-free life. At a time when all the houses of the Tokugawas and their allies were being demolished or requisitioned by the southerners, they had had no soldiers billeted on them, nor had they been ordered to leave. So he had been watching over them from afar after all.

  ‘We must notify the rice merchants,’ she said. ‘Why haven’t they delivered?’

  Even as she was speaking it was beginning to dawn on her. They couldn’t notify anyone. They had no servants.

  ‘They don’t come any more,’ said Haru quietly.

  Sachi looked at her sharply. Her plump face had grown thinner and there were dark shadows around her eyes. She hadn’t been eating properly; she had been saving half her food to give to Sachi. Tears came to Sachi’s eyes at the thought of such devoted loyalty.

  ‘I’d like to ask permission to go into town,’ Haru added. ‘I need
to find a new supplier.’

  Sachi narrowed her eyes. ‘You’ll carry money?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But the city is in chaos. We must all go, all three of us.’

  ‘It’s too dangerous, my lady,’ Haru protested. ‘You stay here in the mansion. Taki and I will go. It’s not proper for fine ladies to roam the streets or go to places where the common people live.’

  But Sachi had had enough of hiding out. She was stifling in these grand empty spaces, these dusty silent rooms, all this sadness and solitude. She was hungry for life and people.

  ‘Three is safer than two,’ she said in tones that brooked no argument.

  Sachi changed into simple townswomen’s robes, with a padded haori jacket in an unobtrusive shade of brown. She rather liked the familiar feel of the coarse cotton on her skin. In the towns-men’s districts even the humblest hint of silk would be an invitation to robbers. Haru filled a wallet with gold coins and tucked it into the bosom of her kimono, wrapping her obi tight around it. It still made a visible bulge.

  In the grounds gusts of wind blew through fields of sedge. The women scrambled through tangles of knotgrass, ferns and plantain and around clumps of giant plume grass to reach the gate. Sachi noticed with foreboding that even the bridge across the moat was beginning to crumble.

  To get to the townsmen’s districts they had to pass through the burned-out wasteland that lay between the mansion and the hill, in the opposite direction from the route they took to go to Edwards’s house. Great black ravens swooped above the deserted streets and settled on the husks of buildings, peering at the three walkers with beady yellow eyes. Their harsh caws echoed around the ruins, making the place feel even more desolate. The hill loomed still and silent on the horizon. It was the first time they had been in this part of the city since the dreadful day of the battle.