The Last Concubine Read online

  Then she sat down to think about the poem she would send to His Majesty.

  Sachi was having to learn how to be a great lady, carving out a niche for herself in the palace hierarchy and discovering how to behave towards the lower ranks. Until recently she had been almost as lowly as they. Now she was expected to treat them as if they did not exist.

  Exasperated, Lady Tsuguko told her, ‘When you call the honourable whelps, you don’t say, “Excuse me.” You shout, “You! Come here!” You don’t ask them to do something, you command them. They’re not people. They don’t count.’

  Morning to night, Sachi busied herself with her studies, while Taki learned the shogun’s schedule off by heart, down to the last detail – where he would be having lunch that day, where he would rest and where he would stop to admire a famous view or to worship at an important shrine.

  Every morning, when Sachi woke up, Taki announced, ‘His Majesty will be on the road by now.’ When the drums sounded the hour she said solemnly, ‘The fourth hour. He’ll be at Chigasaki, having lunch,’ or ‘He’ll be in Yumoto at Sounji Temple, viewing the hydrangeas; they’re said to be lovely right now,’ or ‘The sixth hour. He’ll be at the great inn in Mishima, dining on eel.’ Then she would smile and glance at Sachi to check that she was properly impressed with the extent of her knowledge.

  Sachi smiled back at her. It was a comfort to know that in this vast palace full of women whispering and plotting behind her back, there was one person she could trust completely. It made her feel she was not alone.

  The place names meant little to her. She only knew that with each day that passed the shogun was moving further away. This was his third journey to the west in little more than two years. Before, she had been too young and too involved in her own concerns to know anything about the shogun and his activities. Now that she was his concubine she waited impatiently for reports to arrive. Messengers galloped back and forth bringing dispatches to the government offices in the outer palace, and from there news quickly seeped into the women’s palace.

  But it seemed an oddly reluctant progress. On the previous occasions, the shogun had reached the capital, Kyoto, a couple of weeks after leaving Edo. This time the journey was to take a month, with plenty of stops for rest and sightseeing along the route. It seemed a strange way to go to war.

  Indeed it was hard to imagine him fighting at all. Sachi could picture him stepping out of his palanquin to gaze at a famous sight, composing a poem, joking with his courtiers or dining at some country inn like the one her father ran. She could even picture him on horseback, looking splendid in a suit of armour and a helmet with a ferociously moustachioed face mask such as she had seen on the samurai who had passed through the village. His surely would be far more magnificent and awe-inspiring than theirs. But leading his troops into battle? She could not begin to imagine what that might mean.

  The following morning Sachi awoke with a dull pain like a sword turning slowly in her belly.

  ‘Taki, Taki,’ she whispered, shaking Taki awake.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Taki, frightened.

  ‘I don’t know what to do. My monthly bleeding. It’s started.’

  ‘So you’re not with child,’ said Taki.

  Sachi began to sob, wiping her eyes with her sleeves. She had failed the shogun, failed the princess, failed to provide the House of Tokugawa with an heir. She thought back to the battle she had had with Fuyu and wondered if it was the blow to the belly that had brought it about. She had never known before what it meant to have enemies.

  Confined to her chamber, she spent the days alone with only Taki and her maids for company. Sometimes she paced up and down, sometimes she toyed with her sewing, unable to think of anything except her failure in this all-important task. She hardly dared look at the amulet the shogun had given her, supposedly to ensure that she would have a child. She hid it deep inside a drawer.

  ‘There’s no point upsetting yourself so,’ said Taki on the second day. ‘There’s nothing to be done. You’re still His Majesty’s concubine and you are both very young. Our destinies are in the hands of the gods. There will be plenty of opportunity when he returns.’

  Sachi nodded. She was beginning to feel a strange relief. She had been under such pressure, but now she knew where she stood. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her oval face glimmered palely back at her. She gazed at the smooth contours, at her green eyes slanting upwards, at her small rosy lips. It was all she had in the world, that face. It was that face that had brought her to the palace and taken her into the shogun’s bed. How was it possible that she, a mere peasant girl, had been born with a face like that? It was almost as if the princess was there, hidden behind the mirror, but a younger, more childish, carefree version.

  She smiled at her reflection. She must learn everything that was necessary to make His Majesty happy – to sing, to dance the elegant court dances, to play the koto, to write a beautiful script and turn a witty poem, to perform the many varieties of tea ceremony and play the games that sophisticated women played, like the incense-guessing game and the shellmatching game. She would make herself the perfect concubine.

  By the time her confinement ended, the rains had finished and summer had begun in earnest. In the princess’s chambers the ladies-in-waiting lounged, fanning themselves languidly, too exhausted to sew. By day even the insects and birds were silent. In the evening mosquitoes buzzed maddeningly in the twilight. Cicadas shrilled and the bullfrogs in the palace ponds brayed like a stableful of ancient horses.

  Not long after Sachi had re-emerged, Lady Tsuguko swept grandly into the room that they shared.

  ‘Her Highness requires you to attend upon her,’ she said, smiling.

  Many days had passed since Sachi had last seen Princess Kazu. Overjoyed, she followed Lady Tsuguko through the princess’s apartments. Shyly she slid on her hands and knees to the edge of the folding screens and peeked around. The gold walls of the inner chamber shimmered in the light of lamps and candles.

  Princess Kazu was kneeling at a low writing desk, her brush poised above a scroll of paper. Her hair cascaded down her back in a glossy black waterfall and coiled around her on the floor. She had grown thin and wan. Beneath her white make-up her skin was translucent. Her long, melancholy face, aquiline nose and small mouth puckered like a rosebud seemed to embody everything that was noble. To Sachi the pallor of her skin made her look all the more regal, as if she really did live above the clouds.

  When she looked at Sachi her face brightened. She spoke softly to Lady Tsuguko.

  ‘Her Highness is glad to see you,’ Lady Tsuguko told Sachi. ‘She is sorry to hear that you are not with child, but she begs you not to distress yourself. In the future you will have plenty of opportunity. His Majesty frequently writes to Her Highness of his regard for you. You are sisters now. She would like you to attend upon her regularly, as you used to.’

  Thrilled and grateful, full of the love and awe she had always felt for the princess, Sachi took her place beside her. She picked up a fan and began to fan her. This part of her life at least was returning to normal.

  But why had the princess kept away from her when she had been such a favourite before? Sachi waited until she was alone with Taki in a corridor, far from even the sharpest ears. Then, in the softest of whispers, she asked her.

  ‘If she was an ordinary person and not Her Imperial Highness, I might wonder if she wasn’t jealous,’ Taki replied firmly.

  ‘You mustn’t say such things!’ exclaimed Sachi, horrified at the suggestion that the princess could have anything other than the most exalted feelings.

  ‘If you had had a child, you would have taken precedence over her. It would have given you power in the palace. Now everyone can relax, at least until His Majesty returns.’

  ‘It is not for us to speculate on Her Highness’s feelings,’ said Sachi sternly. ‘But maybe . . .’ She glanced around to check there was no one within earshot. ‘Maybe she was sad because she did not bid farew
ell to His Majesty. Maybe seeing me reminded her of that.’

  ‘Don’t you think sometimes she might become tired of living above the clouds? She might wish she could run and jump and laugh, like you do. Maybe seeing you makes her more aware of how dull her life is. Maybe that’s why she didn’t want to see you.’

  Sachi took Taki’s thin hand and curled their fingers together.

  ‘That’s a terrible thing to say,’ she said, smiling at her fondly. ‘Her Highness is not like you and me. Anyway, I’m trying to improve my behaviour. I’m a grown-up now.’ But in her heart of hearts she wondered if Taki might be right. ‘I couldn’t help noticing,’ she went on softly. ‘The Retired One and Lady Honjuin – they were surrounded by their ladies. They were not hidden away behind screens.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Taki impatiently. ‘They are great ladies but they are not royalty. The princess is of the blood. That’s the way things are done at the imperial court. Only those of the very highest rank can enter her presence, or those she specially favours – like you. I know I shall never see her.’

  ‘I’d hate to be as grand as that,’ whispered Sachi. ‘I’m glad I have you as my friend.’

  A few days later another letter arrived from Sachi’s village, much longer than the last. Everyone in the family was fine, Otama wrote. ‘We all miss you very much but we are happy that you have become a fine lady. Thank you for remembering us.

  ‘Times are hard here,’ she added. ‘We hear talk of chaos in the capital. The fighting has not reached us yet, but the policing of the road has declined. A lot has happened that I can’t tell you about in writing. Do you remember Genzaburo, the younger son from the inn across the road? He had become a fine young man. His father had high hopes for him. But when the rebel force from Mito came through, all that talk of politics turned his head. He told his father he had heard that even peasants could join the militia. He asked permission to go and defend his lord and master. His father said no. Then one day he disappeared. At least it was him, not his older brother Ichiro. At least Ichiro is a dutiful son. He is still here, taking care of his family.’

  The words merged together in a blur. So Genzaburo had gone to fight. Sachi dared not even wonder what might have become of him. And all this talk of fighting . . .

  When she first arrived in the palace, Sachi remembered, she had heard a strange unearthly wailing. It had been so unlike a human noise that she had thought it must be the ghost of some long-dead concubine who had shrivelled away, old and unloved. Taki had told her it was one of the princess’s ladies-in-waiting whose brother had been killed in fighting in the capital. After that from time to time she heard crying, sometimes from the princess’s chambers, sometimes floating down the corridors from some distant part of the palace.

  Once she remembered the princess herself in tears, quietly weeping behind her screens. It had been the previous summer, when the heat was at its height. A flurry of messengers had arrived. Distracted, the princess had ordered Lady Tsuguko to send the messengers in to her directly they arrived and to call in priests to arrange prayers and ceremonies to avert ill fortune.

  If only she had a better idea of what was going on, Sachi thought. Sometimes the clang of alarm bells floated across the castle walls and she heard shouting and the rattle of gunfire, like pebbles tumbling down a hillside. Once, after the shogun left, she had heard baying in the distance like a pack of wolves. Later the older women told her they had heard there was rioting in the city, but there was no need to worry, it was under control. The previous autumn there had been thunderous crashes from just beyond the moat. The flimsy walls of the women’s palace shook so violently that everyone had thought it was an earthquake. It turned out that the palace of the lord of Choshu was being torn down beam by beam.

  When was His Majesty going to move against the lord of Choshu? And when was he coming back? Those were the questions on everyone’s minds. But the days went by and nothing seemed to happen.

  V

  Autumn had arrived. The trees in the palace gardens were blazing red, orange and yellow. Every morning Sachi’s maids laid out five unpadded raw silk kimonos for her to wear, one on top of the other, in shades of maroon and green. The nights had grown long. Dusk came so quickly that the attendants had to start lighting the lamps in mid-afternoon.

  On the surface at least, life in the palace continued as it always had. From time to time letters came from the shogun, brushed in his beautiful calligraphy. He was now in Osaka Castle. The maple leaves in the gardens, he wrote to Sachi, were particularly lovely this year. He told her in conventional phrases that he missed her, but there was no hint of what was going on and he never mentioned when he was coming back.

  She was thrilled when his letters came and happy to know that she was his. She did her best to keep her memories of him alive. But the intensity of her initial feelings had faded. Until he returned – whenever that might be – she would concentrate on learning as much as she could about this strange new life of hers.

  In some ways it was a bit like a prison, though an opulent one. Now that Sachi was a great lady, she was expected to remain closeted in her rooms. Taki had become her mediator just as Lady Tsuguko was the princess’s. Sometimes she played the shell-matching game or the card-matching game with her maids. From time to time one of the ladies-in-waiting invited her for a tea ceremony or an incense-guessing party. And she often went to sit with the princess, who was helping her with poetry composition.

  There were the usual festivals to mark the passing of the seasons. But when the palace women celebrated the Festival of the Dead in the seventh month Sachi discovered that she was now too grand to participate in the dancing. She had to sit primly, peeking from behind her fan, as the lower-ranking ladies and maids undulated in and out of the verandas and around the palace gardens in their summer kimonos, waving their fans and clapping their hands to the tootle of flutes and the roll of drums. It was the price she had to pay for having risen to such heights.

  But despite everything she was contented. The only person who might have disturbed her peace was Fuyu, but ever since their battle in the training hall Sachi had done her best to avoid her. Sometimes their paths crossed in music lessons or dancing class or during a tea ceremony or an incense-ceremony practice, but when this happened Sachi always bowed with scrupulous politeness and quickly moved on. She attended halberd class at a different time. And she never saw the Retired One at all.

  It was early morning. Footsteps came scooting along the corridor outside the rooms that Sachi shared with Lady Tsuguko. The door flew open and Taki’s thin face came peeking round.

  ‘Mushroom hunt today!’ she announced in her mouse-squeak of a voice, beaming with excitement.

  Sachi loved the mushroom hunt. She waited impatiently for the maids to finish combing and scenting her hair. Then they did her make-up and swaddled her in kimonos, tugging the layers into place so that the different colours flared at the neck and wrist. On top of it all they put an overkimono, a thick padded coat with a quilted hem embroidered with autumn leaves in red and gold. Swathed in her layers of clothing she was like a huge multipetalled flower.

  Taki led the way outside. Holding baskets of woven bamboo, the two girls slipped away from Sachi’s other maids and ran off, giggling. The landscaped section of the gardens was a perfect place to play hide-and-seek. Entirely forgetting that she was supposed to be a grand lady, Sachi crouched behind a towering rock tufted with moss and lichen and waited for Taki to find her. They skipped along the paths that meandered from rock to pond to bridge to teahouse, kicking through the red, brown and gold maple leaves.

  Taki, who had grown up among the beautiful gardens of Kyoto, had taught Sachi the names of all the rocks, ponds, bridges and teahouses and what they were meant to represent.

  ‘This is Eight-Fold Bridge,’ she said solemnly as they clambered up a curving bridge that arched across a stream lined with small white pebbles. Her black eyes were sparkling and her pale, rather plain face was f
lushed. Her thick hair hung to the ground in a long black ponytail, tied here and there with ribbons. She had tucked her kimono skirts up. A skinny white leg peeked out somewhat unbecomingly.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ laughed Sachi. ‘It’s Half-Moon Bridge. And over there we have Lotus Pond,’ she said, gesturing towards the greentinged lake in front of them, where turtles huddled on the rocks and red-lacquered pleasure barges were moored. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the water – a court lady in voluminous robes, with hair immaculately coiffed. Framed in the glossy hair was the same oval face that used to glimmer back at her from her mother’s mirror in Kiso. There were her eyes slanting upwards, sparkling green. There were her small lips and arched nose. It was a shock to see herself there, like seeing a ghost.

  ‘No, it’s West Lake, like West Lake in China,’ shouted Taki. ‘That’s the stone causeway, those are Crane and Tortoise rocks and that’s White Thread Waterfall.’

  They ambled around the lake, skirted Moon-Viewing Pavilion and sat on the veranda at Lapis Teahouse, swinging their legs inside the bell-like skirts of their robes. Then they crossed a bridge to another section of the gardens where great rocks and silvery streams made them imagine they were strolling among soaring peaks, rushing gorges and dark rock-strewn gullies.

  ‘And this?’ asked Taki, glancing sideways at Sachi.

  ‘Kiso . . .’ said Sachi under her breath, shivering a little in the autumn air. It was uncanny how much it reminded her of home.

  Women were pattering around in their outdoor clogs, clutching their bamboo baskets and peering at the ground. As a child Sachi had spent happy days every autumn searching for mushrooms in the hills around the village. Here, she could see mushrooms poking out of the pine needles that carpeted the ground and places where the needles had been disturbed, indicating that there was a mushroom underneath. To her it was obvious that the mushrooms had been carefully placed for the ladies to find; they could not possibly be growing there naturally.