The Last Concubine (23 page)

Yuki was gazing up at her.

‘Is this how you used to dress in Edo?’ she asked.

‘No,’ Sachi lied, swallowing hard. Her voice was wobbling. She tried to smile at the little girl. ‘Much the same as here.’

No one must ever know about the palace or the life they had led there. It was their secret, to be treasured for ever.

Uncle Sato picked another card and sang the first half of a poem in his deep voice. Before he had even finished Yuki had shrieked and snatched up the card which contained the second half. She read it out triumphantly. Taki too was poised over the cards, hand stretched out. She took the game every bit as seriously as Yuki did. Soon there was a heap of cards beside each of them.

Only a few matches were left to find when there was a commotion at the side entrance. The heavy wooden door juddered open and a cold wind swirled in, setting the candles guttering. The servants rushed around taking the new arrivals’ mantles and swords.

Then the great hall was full of people. Everyone was on their hands and knees, bowing.

‘My brother and his family,’ said Aunt Sato. She was smiling, playing the gracious hostess, but Sachi couldn’t help noticing the tension in her voice. ‘You know Shinzaemon, of course.’

Sachi raised her fan to cover her face and peeked curiously from behind it. She remembered that smile he had given her. Shinzaemon looked tidier now. His bushy hair was knotted into a ponytail and his sun-darkened cheeks clean-shaven. Without his horse and long sword, he looked uncomfortable and out of place. He stood around awkwardly, scowling, as if he wished he were somewhere else.

Aunt Sato introduced Sachi and Taki to Shinzaemon’s stern, heavy-set father and small, soft-spoken mother and his bespectacled elder brother and his wife. Sachi had never imagined that a rebellious character like him would have a respectable, well-spoken family. But of course he did.

Shinzaemon was next in line. Sachi knelt beside Taki, keeping her eyes to the ground. She wanted to look up, to see those eyes which had stared at her so insolently, to see whether there was a spark in them, whether he was looking at her now. She wanted to say, ‘You said you were going to protect us. But we never even see you.’

But of course she didn’t. She kept her eyes lowered and murmured politely, ‘Thank you for taking care of us.’ Taki pressed her face to her hands in silence.

‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered. ‘I wish I could do more.’

It was not like him to be so formal. There was uproar as Aunt Sato’s sons clustered around him.

‘Cousin Shin,’ yelled a boisterous voice. It sounded like Gennosuké, the oldest. ‘It’s been a long time.’

‘Where have you been?’ demanded another. ‘What happened to your hair? Is that the way they wear it in Edo?’

‘Time you got it cut,’ cried the first voice. ‘We need you here. We’re fighting here too, you know. What about that duel you promised me?’

‘Any time.’ It was Shinzaemon’s gruff tones. ‘You haven’t got a chance.’

There was a roar of laughter.

‘Haven’t changed, have you?’ said the second voice.

‘This way,’ said Uncle Sato, heaving himself to his feet and leading the menfolk off to his section of the house. While the maids prepared sake and food for the guests, the women gathered up the cards to play another round. The children were soon absorbed in the game.

Shinzaemon’s small, plump mother asked polite questions of the newcomers. It was hard to see anything of Shinzaemon in her faded, pretty face. Like everyone in that strange city she had a haunted look in her eyes.

Aunt Sato knelt beside her.

‘He’s grown-up, that boy of yours,’ she croaked in her raspy voice. Sachi bent over the cards, pretending to be interested in the game, but she couldn’t help listening. She was prickling with curiosity.

‘He’s not a boy any longer,’ said Shinzaemon’s mother, who spoke with a strong Kano lilt. She sounded sad and resigned. ‘He’s bloodied his sword.’

‘How long has it been now? Three years? Four?’

‘It was before the time of the troubles. We didn’t think he’d ever come back. At least he didn’t disgrace the family. His father gave him a scolding but there’s no talking to him. He won’t listen to anyone.’

‘In this world there’s no place for people who won’t fit in,’ said Aunt Sato, shaking her head. ‘The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.’

Sachi had heard the proverb a thousand times before but that day the words gave her a feeling of foreboding. A
ronin
was undoubtedly a nail that stuck up.

‘He was always a fighter, always practising with his sword instead of reading books,’ said his mother with a sigh.

‘He’s a good swordsman,’ said Aunt Sato firmly. ‘One of the best.’

‘We need that,’ said his mother. ‘If we survive, then’s the time for scholarship. I dread to think what will happen now, now that his lordship’s . . .’

Aunt Sato laid a warning hand on her knee. They both glanced at Yuki’s mother who was kneeling in a corner, twisting her
thin hands, gazing pensively at the poem cards, and fell silent.

Sachi was not the only one who had overheard the conversation. Taki had been listening too. Sachi leaned towards her and whispered, ‘I have to talk to Shinzaemon before he goes. I have to find out what’s happening in Edo. They brought us here, those three, they have to help us get away. We can’t stay here for ever.’

Taki raised her eyebrows and looked at her quizzically. There was disapproval in her big eyes. Sachi knew perfectly well that a lady like her was not supposed to speak to a man. If anyone addressed him, it should be Taki. But Sachi didn’t care.

The maids were closing the shutters and lighting the lamps and the women had tired of playing the poem card game when they heard angry shouts.

‘Insolent boy! Have you no sense of duty?’ It was Uncle Sato. ‘If you weren’t my brother’s son I’d take my sword to you.’

‘I’ll ride north when I see fit and not before,’ came Shinzaemon’s voice. ‘I have a job to do here. I wish we could have got back sooner.’

Sachi leaped to her feet and ran to the entrance hall. Shinzaemon was thrusting his long sword angrily into his belt and throwing on an overmantle.

‘Master Shinzaemon,’ she said softly. He swung round, startled.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I would be most grateful if you could pay us a visit when you have news. We need to know when things have settled down in Edo. That would be of great service to us.’

Shinzaemon stopped in his tracks. He looked straight at her, his eyes straying across her face, her hair. He seemed to take in every part of her – her small nose, her rosy lips, her white skin, her green eyes.

With an effort Sachi broke the spell, lowering her gaze and biting her lips.

‘Of course,’ he said and bowed abruptly. ‘I shall.’

Then the door slid open and he stepped out into the night.

IV

At first Sachi and Taki listened hopefully for Aunt Sato or the maid to come pattering through the house to announce that
Shinzaemon or Toranosuké was in the entrance. Whenever the doors slid open they looked up expectantly. But it was always simply to bring in their meal, lay out their bedding or invite them to the great hall for a chat.

Little by little they were becoming accustomed to their new life. Their splendid kimonos – all that remained to remind them of their life in the palace – lay bundled up, gathering dust. Sachi tried not to think of that other strange robe she had brought with her from the village. But when out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed the silk scarf that wrapped it, she seemed to see it glowing inside like an ember. It really was like an angel’s cloak. It was too beautiful. It frightened her, as if it was enchanted.

To fill her days, she taught Yuki poems from the
New Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems
. She taught in the way the princess had taught her, making the little girl recite each poem over and over again until she could do it without thinking. She was amazed at how quickly the child learned. Yuki particularly loved the poems of the monk Saigyo. ‘They’re so sad,’ she said. ‘They make me feel lonely.’

Sachi, also, as the princess had done, wrote out each poem in her best cursive-style calligraphy for the child to copy. In the palace she had learned not just
hiragana
, the syllabary that was all that women were supposed to need, but the Chinese characters that classical literature was written in. She started to teach Yuki these too, even though Aunt Sato protested that if the little girl was too highly educated no one would marry her.

‘Where is your husband?’ Yuki asked in her direct way as they sat together one day. ‘Has he gone away, like Papa?’

‘I don’t have a husband,’ said Sachi, taken by surprise.

‘Is that why you don’t have children?’ Yuki persisted.

It was true. It was outlandish for a grown woman like Sachi to be childless, let alone still unmarried. She was now eighteen. Like everyone else, she had added a year to her age at New Year.

‘I can’t marry,’ said Sachi gently. ‘I’m too far from home. When I go back to my family, my father will find a marriage broker.’

‘But you’ll be too old then,’ said Yuki. Sachi nodded. The words filled her with an indefinable unease.

For where was her home? In this world everyone belonged
somewhere. But she and Taki were like weeds floating on a pond, cut off from their roots, or jealous ghosts, suspended between one world and the next. They needed to get back to the palace in Edo or, if not that, to their families. They couldn’t go on hiding away, living a half-life for ever, no matter how kind their hosts.

Every day, sometimes with Taki, sometimes alone, Sachi took a quilt and went out to the veranda. She sat and contemplated the garden, brooding on the strange fate that had brought her and Taki there and trying to imagine what their future might be.

V

Not long after the end of the New Year holiday, when the festive decorations were being taken down to be burned, the sky became grey and heavy. Great white flakes began to waft down, at first slowly, then faster and faster. When Sachi went out on to the veranda that afternoon, the trees and rocks and toppled stone lantern had turned into a mysterious landscape of ghostly white shapes, muffled beneath a thick mantle of snow. She wrapped a quilt around her and absorbed herself in the stillness.

Suddenly there was a noise. Sachi started. Surely it was the crack of the bamboos, bending under the weight of snow? Or perhaps it was an animal or a spirit. No one ever came to this side of the grounds. This was her secret place, hers and Taki’s.

‘My lady,’ hissed a voice. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

A figure emerged from the shadows at the side of the house, bundled so warmly that only the eyes were visible. He crunched across the snow towards her, leaving a trail of footprints marked with the weave of his straw boots. He followed along the wicker fence until he was so close she could see his breath like steam in the frosty air. She knew those piercing black eyes and that deep growl of a voice. It was Shinzaemon.

Sachi sat bolt upright, pulling her quilt tighter round her. ‘Sir. This is quite improper.’ She spoke in a low voice, looking hastily over her shoulder. Perhaps Taki was in the room behind her and could chaperone them. But the room was empty. She was not sure whether she was sorry or pleased that Taki was not there.

‘I need to see you alone,’ he muttered urgently. ‘There are ears everywhere.’

For a moment he stood awkwardly shifting from foot to foot, staring at the ground, his hand on his sword hilt. With no one else around he seemed less sure of himself. It was extraordinary for them to be alone together – a man and a woman, just the two of them. It simply never happened. Even when Sachi had lain with the shogun there had been ladies-in-waiting hovering in the background.

‘We are unendingly grateful to your family, sir,’ said Sachi, fumbling for words.

‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered. ‘It was wrong to bring you here. It was a mistake – a terrible mistake. I promised I would protect you but I’ve failed. I thought this place would be a haven. But I was wrong. It’s not safe for you, not safe for any of us. His lordship the daimyo . . .

‘We’re loyal retainers of the Tokugawas here. But the present daimyo . . .’ He lowered his voice still further, glancing around as if even in this walled garden, with snow drifting down in huge flakes, there might be spies. Sachi leaned forward, listening hard. They were so close she could feel the warmth of his body and see his breath rippling the scarf which muffled his face. As she breathed she caught a faint whiff of sweat, mingled with tobacco smoke and dust. There was something about the smell – so raw, so natural – that sent a prickle up her spine.

‘His present lordship is . . . a man without honour. He refused to send troops when the shogun asked for them. He’s been waiting to see which way the wind would blow. He wants to make sure he’s on the winning side. My cousin was . . . is one of his advisers. He’s been doing his best to persuade him to do the right thing, to support the shogun, but there are powerful men among his lordship’s counsellors who favour the south.’

His cousin . . . Could it be . . .

‘So that’s why you’re here, to help your cousin?’

‘It was stupid. We’re
ronin
. There are men here who would hunt us down if they could. But all three of us, Toranosuké and Tatsuemon too, we all agreed we had to come back.’

‘So that was where you were going . . .’

‘ . . . when we came across your palanquin.’ He nodded. ‘As servants of His Majesty it was our duty to protect you. But we also needed to get back here as fast as we could. We thought this would still be a safe haven for you. But . . .’

He stared at the ground, scowling. Beyond the overhanging eaves snow floated down.

‘Your cousin . . .’ gasped Sachi, feeling a sudden chill as the realization dawned. ‘You mean . . . Yuki’s father?’

With a pang she thought of the little girl’s bright hopeful face. She dared not ask any more.

Shinzaemon’s dark eyes narrowed.

‘We grew up together. He’s like a brother to me. He’s a good man, a man of honour.’