The Last Concubine (27 page)

‘And this crazy expedition of yours, Shin.’ Toranosuké had lowered his voice but she could just catch what he was saying. ‘It’s certainly a good subterfuge to travel with women. But straight into the jaws of the southerners, just the three of us? On the whim of some idle court ladies? What makes you so interested in women all of a sudden? You’re losing your muscle. Hang around women and children too much and you’ll turn into a woman yourself. We need to get rid of them before we all go soft!’

That night they stopped at a ramshackle inn on the edge of a village. By the time the women had climbed out of the litters, the men had disappeared along with the porters.

Slowly Sachi straightened her back and stretched her legs, then brushed off her kimono skirts. She was aching and sore from the long day jolting in the litter. She wiped her face with her sleeve and glanced in a mirror. Her porcelain skin was grimy. Her smooth cheeks were specked with dirt and her black hair was ruffled and grey with dust.

Taki was rubbing her thin neck and stretching.

‘I’m so stiff,’ she grumbled. With her big eyes, pointed chin and patrician features, she looked even more out of place in this remote backwater than she had been in Kano. Sachi smiled at her. She took a comb from her sleeve and began to smooth Taki’s hair, tucking the unruly ends into place. No matter where she went, no matter how distant or wretched the place, she knew Taki would go with her. It was a comfort to know she had such a loyal friend.

The room was dark and dank and dirty and much smaller than their room in Kano had been. A wizened innkeeper served them thrushes roasted on skewers, preserved mountain vegetables and wild boar meat.

‘We call it whale – mountain whale,’ the woman mumbled as she served the boar. ‘So we can eat it and still be good Buddhists.’

But the women had little appetite, especially for such outlandish food.

‘I wonder what’s happening in Kano,’ said Yuki after the innkeeper had gone. Her childish face was grave. There was a new look in her eyes, as if she’d suddenly had to grow up.

The women sat in silence, toying with their food. The same thought was on all their minds.

More to comfort herself than for any other reason, Sachi began to tell Yuki about her village – the rushing river, the sun rising over the mountains, the tiled roofs, the woods where she had played as a child. She pictured her mother’s gentle, tired face, her father’s large capable hands, the big old house with its polished floorboards. She hadn’t realized how much she yearned to see them again, those dear familiar faces.

Surely the village must be very close, she thought. It was on the Inner Mountain Road, somewhere in the Kiso mountains. They would have to pass straight through it!

Suddenly it became clear, as if a mist had lifted. She didn’t want to go to Edo after all, not straight away, at least. They would go to the village, she and Taki and Yuki. They could hide there. It would be safe, far safer than Edo. The southerners would never bother with a little place like that. It would be a refuge for the three of them until things were more settled.

It was her only chance to go home. Once things had calmed
down she would be back in the palace again, locked away for the rest of her life. She was the late shogun’s concubine; she could never escape that.

It was a risk to go to the village, she knew. She had no idea what had happened while she had been away or if the village was even there any more. She wasn’t even sure exactly where it was. She only knew she had to get there.

V

At the town of Mitake they joined the Inner Mountain Road. Ahead of them they could see the hills beginning.

‘We walk from here,’ said Toranosuké. ‘It’ll be too steep for litters soon. And they draw too much attention.’

The road led straight into the mountains, winding steeply up between crumbling volcanic crags and pinnacles of rock that teetered towards the clouds. In the afternoon they reached the Hosokute checkpoint. There was a stockade around the town and guards posted at the gates, checking on travellers. Twenty soldiers armed with rifles came crunching across the gravel towards them. The women had made sure their faces were well wrapped up. They were allowed through without much fuss but the men were questioned at length.

Sachi was standing to one side of the compound, trying not to draw attention to herself.

‘Kano, you say?’ she heard an officer barking. ‘We know all about you Kano men. We’ve had enough trouble from you. And these permits of yours – issued by the proper authorities, are they?’

‘Beats me, all this political stuff,’ grunted Shinzaemon in his coarsest Kano dialect. ‘Gotta escort these women. They got relatives upcountry. Just following orders.’

‘Is that so?’ said the officer, raising an eyebrow. ‘You’ll do well to watch out for yourselves. The imperial troops are on their way. If they catch up with you you’d better be good and ready to convince them you’re on their side.’

‘Those guards – they bend whichever way the wind blows,’ muttered Shinzaemon when they were safely through. ‘I bet they
were the shogun’s men a few days back. And now they’re all imperial loyalists. We’ll keep going as best we can. Make sure we inflict some damage before anyone asks too many questions.’

Just beyond the ramshackle row of inns, the mountains rose in a line of crags that beetled into the sky. Taki and Yuki stared at them open-mouthed, but to Sachi they were no more formidable than the ridges that had overshadowed the village. She had clambered around peaks like that as carelessly as a mountain monkey when she was a child.

The road climbed through forests of leafless trees along the side of the bluff. The flat stones that lined the path were covered in ice and snow. Taki and Yuki stumbled along, slipping and sliding, stopping more and more frequently, gasping, to catch their breath. At the post town they had bought straw boots specially woven to resist the snow, with spikes to help them keep a grip on the path, but even so the way was treacherous.

At first Sachi trudged as laboriously as they. When she stopped for breath she saw them sitting wearily on the road far below her. Toranosuké and Tatsuemon were with them, standing patiently, waiting for them to set off again.

Back in the mountains after all these years! The air tasted fresh and clean. She began to find her mountain legs again. She stepped out rhythmically, feeling the cool air flow into her lungs.

Up ahead of her Shinzaemon was leading the group. Loping effortlessly along the steep path he was like a fox, with his bushy hair and black dangerous eyes, or a bear. He no longer seemed caged as he had in the trim, prim samurai world of Kano. He was back on the road and heading for action.

With a few quick steps Sachi caught up with him. He looked at her, startled, his slanted eyes glinting under his thick brows. His broad, open face with its great cheekbones had grown tawny from days outside in the wintry sun. Stubble sprouted on his chin, and his sweat was pungent and salty. He was not perfumed like a courtier.

Sachi was panting and hot from the climb. As she looked at him she felt the blood rise to her face and her cheeks grow hotter still.

‘It’s a long climb,’ he said, frowning at her as if she was a
naughty child. ‘Four
ri
, they said at the post town. And steep the whole way. Slow down. Take it easy.’

Sachi looked away. She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck rising and something like panic deep in her stomach. Her heart was pounding, and not just from the thinness of the air.

They were alone together. She was aware of how wrong that was, even for a moment, but it was too late now to worry about propriety – too late for anything. This was the chance she had been yearning for. There was so much she wanted to ask him. That flower – had he given it to her simply because she was out of reach? Or was there more?

She peeped up at him. He was looking down at her as if he too had suddenly realized that a moment had come that might never come again. They stood as the clouds swept by them and the shadows on the mountain changed.

He held out his hand to her. ‘Let’s walk together,’ he said at last.

It was a hard steep climb but Sachi barely saw the road. She was conscious only of the closeness of his body, the sound of his breathing. She could almost hear the beating of his heart in the stillness.

The higher they climbed, the deeper the snow became. A bitter wind blew. Sachi’s feet were like ice, but she hardly noticed. She stopped and looked around. The plain spread below them, bleak and brown, dotted with patches of snow. Here and there hills rose. Far in the distance, mountain peaks shimmered white above the clouds.

‘Mount Hakusan,’ said Shinzaemon. He stretched out his great hand and pointed. His skin was golden, his fingers firm and strong, scattered with black hairs. ‘And Mount Ibuki. And there, do you see over there? The sea. And way over there in the distance, glittering? That’s Kyoto.’ Sachi shaded her eyes with her hand and looked as hard as she could.

Finally they reached the top of the pass. A few steps beyond the summit was a teahouse where they sheltered, warming their hands over the open hearth. The pungent smoke of burning pine filled their nostrils. The little hut was crowded with travellers. The fire spluttered and smoked, teacups clattered, voices chattered. But it all seemed far away. For a few precious moments
Sachi and Shinzaemon were free – free from their families, their duty, their obligations, even their social ranks. It was just the two of them at the top of this mountain with the clouds rolling beneath them.

‘Where did you learn to walk like that?’ Shinzaemon asked. His frown had disappeared and a smile spread across his face. His eyes flashed with a reckless look, as if nothing mattered any more. ‘Not Edo Castle, that’s for sure.’

‘I had forgotten how alive I feel in the mountains,’ Sachi said softly.

He reached out and took her small hand in his big rough one, holding it like a rare treasure. She sat in silence, feeling his skin on hers. So he too felt the same yearning for things to be different. And he too realized that they never could be.

What did the future hold for him? Death, a glorious death in battle. And if by chance he lived, no doubt his parents had already planned a marriage for him. He was one small ant in an ants’ nest, a bee buzzing around a hive. His destiny was not for him to shape. He had taken on the mantle of a
ronin
, an outsider, but in the end he belonged to his family, his clan, his city.

And as for her – where were her family and clan and city? She could picture his life and the different paths it might take, but he knew nothing of her.

‘Who are you, Lady Sachi?’ he asked. He was looking at her with his slanted eyes that seemed to see deep inside her. A mischievous grin flitted across his face. He seemed to have brightened since they left Kano, as if the weight of the terrible events of the last few days was gradually lifting from his shoulders.

‘Why should I tell you?’ she said teasingly. She felt light-headed in the thin air. What difference would it make whether he knew her secret or not? He would find out anyway, and very soon.

‘There’s a village in the Kiso region, not far from here,’ she went on quietly. ‘It’s where I grew up, where my parents live. It’s on the Inner Mountain Road. We’re going to pass straight through it. We want to stop and stay there, me and Taki and Yuki. It’ll be safest for us there.’

Almost immediately she was afraid she had made a terrible
mistake, but it was too late to take the words back. She looked at him, wondering how a proud samurai like him would react, knowing that she was nothing but a lowly peasant.

His eyes opened wide. ‘A village?’ he murmured in tones of disbelief.

‘My parents are rural samurai – my adoptive parents, that is. But I spent years in service at Edo Castle.’ She wanted to tell him that she was the adoptive daughter of the house of Sugi, bannermen to the daimyo of Ogaki, as indeed she was. But she was more than that, far more. She was the Retired Lady Shoko-in, the beloved concubine of His late Majesty. But that was far too dangerous a secret ever to reveal.

He looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. Then his lips curved into a smile that spread until his whole face was alight with it. He turned her hand over and gently ran his hard swordsman’s fingers across her soft white palm.

‘I thought you were above the clouds,’ he said softly. ‘I thought you were a court lady, beyond my reach. I thought I would only ever be able to admire you from a distance. But you’re not! You’re a human being, like me.’

He leaned forward. ‘You’re like Momotaro,’ he said.

Sachi smiled uncertainly. Momotaro – Little Peach Boy. Her grandmother had often told her the story of the old woodcutter and his wife who had prayed to the gods for a child. One day the old woman was washing clothes at the river when a giant peach came bobbing towards her. When she cut it open, a beautiful baby boy jumped out.

Maybe Shinzaemon was right, Sachi thought. Maybe she was a bit like Momotaro. She had always known she was different from everyone else. Like her, Momotaro hadn’t stayed in his village. He had grown up and gone off to conquer ogres. But at the end of the story, after he had had his last adventure and the ogres were all dead, he had gone back and found the old woodcutter and his wife waiting for him, yearning to see him – as her parents must be yearning to see her.

For so many years she had thought of the village with longing and now she was beginning to recognize the countryside and knew she was nearly home. The evening before she had been so sure
that that was what she wanted, but now she was not sure of anything. When she turned off to the village, Shinzaemon would go on his way to Edo and she would never see him again. Just as they were getting to know each other they would have to part.

The sun had gone in. An icy draught blew through the little hut. She shivered.

Shinzaemon brushed his finger across her cheek. ‘Like a peach,’ he murmured, as if to himself.

He gazed at her for what seemed like an age. Then he glanced around as if he had suddenly woken from a dream. His face darkened. He thrust her hand aside.