The Last Concubine

  The words came out before she could stop them.

  ‘I know he’s your father,’ Taki said. Her thin face was stern. She pinched her eyebrows together into a frown and drew her breath through her teeth in a hiss. ‘But it frightens me to think you might let him get too close to you. He’s not . . . the same sort of person as us. He’s not of the samurai class. Remember what happened to your mother.’

  ‘All the same I have to see him,’ Sachi murmured almost to herself. ‘I have to find out more about my mother.’

  It wasn’t that she had forgotten her mother; but she had tucked her, and the mystery of what had become of her, somewhere deep inside her mind. Like a fire that has been damped down and left to smoulder, now that yearning burst into flame again, blazing more fiercely than ever.

  Taki held up a mirror. Sachi’s face glimmered palely back at her from the polished bronze surface. These days she no longer wore her hair cut short like a widow but coiled into a loose twist. She remembered the days when she had had a new hairstyle every time she rose in rank and a different set of kimonos to mark the passing of each month. She smiled sadly as she thought of that innocent time, when such things had seemed so thrilling and allimportant. That world was gone for ever.

  She brushed her finger across her cheek. There was sadness on her face. It looked thinner, the cheekbones cut a little more sharply, and there was a faint shadow around the slant of her eyes. She had yet to reach her nineteenth year yet it was hard to imagine what future there could possibly be for her. But it was not only herself that she saw. She was getting closer and closer to the age her mother had been when she met her father. It was strange – disconcerting – to be inhabited by her own mother, a mother she didn’t even know. The more life touched her, the more her face was shaped by suffering, the more she must look like her mother. Daisuké would see it immediately.

  While Taki scurried before her, making sure the doors were open, she glided from one shadowy room to the next. The quilted hem of her kimono swished behind her. Part of her wanted never to reach the great hall, never to see this untrustworthy charmer, this father of hers. Yet another part of her could hardly wait. She slowed her steps till she was barely moving, sliding one foot then the other across the tatami the way she had been taught to walk at the palace, the way great ladies walked. But her spirit seemed to race in front of her.

  Long before she reached the great hall she smelled the woody fragrance of tobacco smoke and the distinctive foreign aroma that always clung to Daisuké’s clothes. There was another scent too. She paused. Hints of musk, aloe, wormwood, frankincense – the kind of perfume a court lady would use to scent her robes. Despite herself her feet moved faster.

  She caught the sound of familiar voices. Haru was there already.

  ‘Haru.’ It was Daisuké’s low rumble. In the stillness Sachi could hear every word. She stopped and gestured to Taki to be silent.

  ‘Haru, did I do wrong? Should I have waited at the temple? All these years it’s preyed on me. I thought it would be best for her if I disappeared.’

  For her. So he was talking about Lady Okoto, Sachi’s mother. His voice was an agonized growl.

  ‘I have to know why she never came back. Was she locked up? Sent into exile? Was she forced to kill herself? If I knew she was dead at least I could mourn. I can’t bear it, not knowing. All these years I’ve had to carry it inside myself.’ He gave a deep sigh.

  ‘Haru, you must have some idea what became of her. Please tell me. I’ve paid for my misdeeds. I’ve suffered enough.’

  Sachi hardly dared breathe. She had always told herself that her mother might still be alive somewhere, that it was just a matter of finding her.

  ‘Not now, Older Brother.’ Haru was speaking in the softest of murmurs. ‘My lady is on her way. She will be here at any moment.’

  He groaned. ‘If she’s alive, just tell me. Just one word, that’s enough.’

  Unable to bear it any longer, Sachi stepped forward into the great hall.

  Threads of smoke coiled in the shafts of sunlight that slid through the cracks between the paper doors. Smoke drifted like mist around the huge black rafters. Daisuké and Haru sat leaning towards each other on each side of the tobacco box. Between them, glowing like a piece of the sky, was the brocade. Sachi’s mother’s overkimono, neatly folded. Daisuké’s large hand rested on it as lightly as a caress.

  When they saw her, they started and leaped back as if they had been caught plotting some terrible crime. Daisuké snatched his hand from the brocade. His eyes opened wide and a look of shock flickered across his face. Sachi knew it was not her he saw but her mother. Then he put down his long-stemmed pipe, scrambled to his knees and bowed.

  The broad shoulders and massive back, the bull-like neck and large head covered in black stubble speckled with grey, the powerful hands on the tatami – everything about him was strong, capable, honest, open. Despite the months that had gone by it was as if no time had passed at all. Sachi knew she should be wary: he had caused her mother’s downfall and had fought on the side of the southerners. But she also knew that he had taken good care of her, Haru and Taki. She couldn’t help feeling a surge of relief and joy that this man was her father. Quickly she knelt.

  He raised his head and gazed at her with a long steady gaze, as if he was afraid that if he once stopped looking she would disappear again. He looked a little careworn, his jaw was more jowly, the crease between his eyebrows deeper, but he was still as warm and handsome as ever.

  ‘Daughter,’ he said solemnly. Then his face relaxed. He broke into a smile.

  Sachi bowed. It was hard not to smile back.

  ‘Welcome,’ she replied stiffly. She knew he wanted her to address him as ‘Father’ but she couldn’t. Not yet.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She couldn’t be bothered with the usual exchange of platitudes and compliments. ‘It’s very rude but . . . I couldn’t help overhearing what you said.’

  Haru was on her knees with her face pressed to her hands. The gleaming loops and coils of her coiffure quivered slightly.

  ‘Haru,’ Sachi said softly. ‘Please tell us. I beg you. My mother . . .’

  There was a long silence. Haru looked up. Her plump face was drained of colour and her lips were trembling.

  ‘If she is dead,’ Sachi pleaded, ‘I need to know. I am her child. I need to make offerings and pray. With no one to pray for her she will be a hungry ghost. I need to be sure she is safely in the next world.’

  Haru’s face crumpled in anguish. She closed her eyes. When she opened them she seemed to be staring into a past she had tried her best to forget.

  ‘My lady, I told you,’ she whispered. But which ‘my lady’ was she speaking to? And what was it she had told her?

  ‘You told me that after I was born my mother went back to the palace,’ said Sachi. ‘Then she received a summons to go home . . .’

  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 w
as 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.