The Last Concubine (40 page)

Silently Sachi knelt before the princess and peeped up at her face. It was a deplorable breach of protocol, but she needed to see this face she loved so well.

Beneath the white make-up the princess’s skin was still transparently pale. The delicately arched nose, the large sad eyes, the tiny pursed mouth – nothing had changed. She was so thin she looked as if she might vanish at any moment into the world of ghosts. A few strands of her hair were out of place as if she might even – impossible to imagine – have had to comb it herself. Between her shaved eyebrows Sachi made out a faint line, a mark of her suffering.

Yet something was different. She held herself more upright. There was a spark in her eye as if she had found something to fight for after so many years listlessly watching her life go by. She looked bolder, more commanding.

‘Come,’ the princess said softly and led Sachi to the side of the room. On the altar was a funerary tablet and a small daguerreotype. That picture! Sachi remembered it so well. She took it in both hands and raised it reverently to her forehead. She could
hardly see through the tears that sprang to her eyes and coursed down her cheeks, streaking her make-up. It was His late Majesty. In her memory he had always been so knowledgeable, so grownup. But she had been only a child at that time. Looking at the picture now she saw he was just a vulnerable boy. The two women knelt together, mumbling prayers, running their beads through their fingers.

‘I’m happy Your Highness saved these,’ whispered Sachi.

‘Seeing you reminds me of happier times,’ said the princess. ‘And yet . . . Were they so happy? If only I had been a better wife to him.’

‘I’m sure he . . .’ said Sachi. She stopped. It was not her place to speak of such things.

Princess Kazu dabbed her eyes with her sleeve. ‘It’s good that you’ve come back,’ she said. ‘There is a lot to tell you. Much has happened since you’ve been away.’

Silence filled the room. Sachi waited respectfully for her to continue.

‘You completed your mission well.’

Mission? Sachi had forgotten that she had had a mission.

‘We heard the imperial palanquin had been attacked by rebels. People were saying I had been abducted – I or the Retired One or both of us – and taken off to Satsuma, the southerners’ stronghold. Yes, people were filled with anger. No one doubted it was southerners who had set fire to the castle. Our men burned the residences of the Satsuma clan and drove them out of the city. Later they found the imperial palanquin, somewhere . . . somewhere far from the city.’

She glanced down at her thin hands folded on her lap, then glanced up again.

‘We thought we had lost you,’ she said softly. ‘We mourned for you. We thought you had gone for ever . . .’ Her voice trailed away. She looked around at the empty room and opened her hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘Our life is changed. Our world is at an end. I would never have imagined it could come to this. Never. Never!’

Startled at the intensity of the words, Sachi looked up.

‘I have missed you, child,’ the princess murmured. ‘I was sad I
had sent you on such a terrible mission, with no retinue, not even a single servant. How did you survive? It must have been terrible . . . out there, away from all our comforts. I am glad to know you did your duty. But it was cruel of me – unforgivable – to cast you out like that. I am reassured to see you back and in good health.’

Sachi looked at her in amazement. There were tears in the princess’s eyes. That she had even thought of Sachi – that she could even try to imagine what had become of her – showed how much she had suffered, how much she had changed.

‘Your Highness. It’s very rude of me but . . . What of the ladies? Lady Tsuguko . . . ?’ The princess’s chief lady-in-waiting had always been at her side. Sachi dared not think what had happened to her.

‘Lady Tsuguko . . .’ repeated the princess. A shadow crossed her face.

Footsteps whispered across the tatami outside the princess’s chamber. The door slid open. A tall figure was on her knees outside.

‘Your Imperial Highness. Excuse my rudeness. I heard she had returned. My Lady Shoko-in! Daughter-in-law!’

Sachi knew that commanding presence and deep resonant voice. Hastily she bowed to the ground and pressed her face to her hands.

The Retired One was wearing an elegant kimono in a modest shade of grey. Her hair, which hung to her shoulders, was glossy and black. Her eyes were jewel-bright, her beauty undimmed. Sachi remembered the ice queen in the folk tale who lured men into the snowy wastes with her beauty and then left them to freeze to death. She was just as perfect and as blood-chilling. She was looking at Sachi with a honeyed smile. Sachi’s heart sank. Had she come all this way only to be the butt of her sarcasm again? She braced herself.

‘Welcome,’ the Retired One said smoothly. ‘You’ve come a long way. How very brave to return. You show great loyalty to the Tokugawa clan. We gather you back into our embrace.’

The princess returned her bow, taking care not to incline her head even a fraction lower than the Retired One’s. So they were still battling over who took precedence, even now when there were only the two of them left.

‘Of course I am very happy to see you,’ said the Retired One, addressing Sachi. Sachi bowed. It was far more disconcerting when the Retired One was polite than when she showed open hostility.

‘We thought you’d gone back to your own kind,’ the Retired One continued, enunciating each syllable with icy clarity. ‘We didn’t expect to see you again. Why did you return?’

Sachi shivered. The words were like a shower of sleet, chilling her to the bone. But the Retired One’s harshness no longer hurt her as it had.

‘You must realize it’s all over,’ hissed the Retired One. ‘There is nothing here now. No more luxury. Nothing left except death. There’s no need for you to stay. Everyone has gone. Everyone but us.’

Everyone gone . . . So if her mother had been here then she too . . . Sachi tried to swallow but couldn’t.

‘You don’t belong here,’ said the Retired One in tones of sneering condescension. ‘We release you. I suggest you leave while you have the chance.’

‘It’s very good that you returned, dear child,’ said the princess hastily. ‘We are happy to see you. Happy that you feel such loyalty to us and to the Tokugawa clan. Happy to have the chance to say goodbye. But you must leave, and quickly. We belong to the Tokugawa clan, the Retired One and I. We are wives, we married into the family. But you are young. Life is before you. It was me who brought you here – you did not choose to come. Now it is my responsibility to release you. You must go.’

But the princess had not chosen either. Sachi knew that very well. This was not a world in which anyone could choose any part of their life, the princess least of all.

‘And . . . and what will you do?’ she whispered.

‘We are expecting an attack at any moment,’ said the princess. She spoke lightly, almost carelessly, and Sachi could see that her face was serene, her eyes bright. It was as if she were discussing her wedding, not a terrible battle. ‘The city is under siege. We hear there are fifty thousand southern troops at Shinagawa and Itabashi, waiting for the order to attack. When the time comes our men will fight to the death. The city will go up in flames. We
will stay here, her ladyship and I. It is our place. If they take the castle, it will be with us in it. We will burn it and kill ourselves. Leave, child. Leave now.’

So that was why the princess looked so different, so alive. Here was the destiny she yearned for. To be present at the end, to go up in flames along with the greatest castle in the land – it was a fate to be grasped with joy.

For a moment Sachi too felt intoxicated, swept up in the princess’s excitement. But then she thought of Shinzaemon. She no longer wanted to embrace death like a lover, as a samurai would. The princess and the Retired One had no reason to live, to grow old. She did. In her imagination she was stealing out of the doomed castle. Taki would come too. They would wait at the Tsubone Gate for Shinzaemon to appear. She would beg him to flee with her. Of course he would refuse, he would speak of honour and duty, but she would think up argument after argument: he had to protect her, that was his duty too. Finally she would succeed. She pictured the three of them on their way out of the city, somehow evading the troops, setting off along the Inner Mountain Road again, disappearing into the hills.

But then Sachi remembered her quest for her mother. She needed to find out what had happened to her. How could she leave now if there was even the slightest possibility that her mother was still alive, waiting for her? In any case, she had no choice. She knew what her duty was and what she had to say. She was a warrior woman, a samurai, and she must be ready to die as a samurai would, proudly and bravely. No matter what she might feel in her heart, no matter what she herself might want to do, it was her duty as the late shogun’s concubine to join the princess and the Retired One in death. She could not do less.

‘Never!’ She spoke quietly and firmly. ‘I too am a Tokugawa, unworthy though I am. His Majesty graciously deigned to take me as his concubine – his only concubine. I will share the Tokugawas’ destiny, no matter what it is.’

The Retired One fixed her fierce black eyes on Sachi. ‘Call yourself a Tokugawa?’ she snapped, her lip curling into a sneer. ‘You forget! You are not even a samurai. You’re a peasant. Don’t presume to think you can follow our code. Leave now while you can.’

But Sachi was no longer afraid of the Retired One.

‘Madam,’ she said calmly, ‘I am as much a Tokugawa as you are. I did not choose my birthplace but I can choose my place of death. No matter what I am, I know my duty.’

‘Child, I order you to leave,’ said the princess. ‘Time is running out. You are under no obligation to stay. You must obey.’

‘Never. If you die here then I will too.’

The Retired One sighed. Her face softened. Was it Sachi’s imagination or was there even a tear in those fierce black eyes?

‘You have great strength of spirit,’ she said finally.

‘Her ladyship ordered our ladies-in-waiting to leave,’ said the princess. ‘She shouted at them, told them that it was an order. But she didn’t think they would.’

‘They call themselves samurai,’ said the Retired One, ‘and they’re afraid to die! I thought they would be proud to stay and die here together. But they’ve all fled.’ Her lip curled again. ‘Crawled back to their families. In the old days everyone would have stayed.’

The princess and the Retired One glanced at each other and smiled – triumphant smiles. Sachi had never seen them look so happy and proud, as if their moment had come, as if they were about to fulfil the destiny they had been awaiting for so long. They were no longer victims who had been married against their will. Their eyes were shining like young girls tremblingly awaiting their first lover, as if all of life was before them. But it was not life but death that they yearned for with such impatience.

‘Times have changed,’ said the princess. ‘We are no longer in the Warring Period, when people would elect to die together.’

‘It saddens me that standards have fallen so far,’ said the Retired One. She looked straight at Sachi, smiling. ‘You began life as a peasant, but truly you have the heart of a samurai.’

II

‘After the fire the princess told everyone to leave,’ said Haru. ‘It was too dangerous to stay. The Retired One said it was an order. We are in great peril here in the castle. The southerners have the city in a stranglehold. If they can take the castle, they’ll have the country.’

Haru had cleared away the dinner trays and now knelt, turning her fan over and over in her plump hands. Candles in tall golden candlesticks stood around the chamber, crackling and sputtering. The flames threw a yellow glow across her face, flickering across her round cheeks, the fine wrinkles of her forehead, her small nose, the gleaming coils of her coiffure. The kimono stands cast long shadows. Sachi imagined being outside in the castle grounds, seeing the huge silhouette of the castle looming above her with only a few needle-thin slivers of light to break the darkness.

‘But you didn’t go, Big Sister,’ said Sachi. ‘The princess said you could leave but you refused.’

‘Why would I go?’ said Haru abruptly. ‘Go where? To what?’ Sachi glanced at her, surprised. Her plump face had changed. Her small eyes had widened and her eyebrows were pressed together, as if some painful memory had leaped unbidden to her mind. She was staring into the distance as if gazing into some long-forgotten past. ‘To a family and country I don’t know at all?’ she demanded. ‘That remote place I came from – it’s nothing to me. I’ve been here my whole life. This is my family and my home.’

‘But . . .’ Sachi was remembering the stories Haru had told her about the body in the palanquin and the many other strange and terrible things that had happened in the castle. Haru had always complained about what an unhappy place it was, how she missed the company of men. Yet when she had had the chance to leave, she had chosen to stay.

Haru was looking at Sachi intensely. Sachi shifted and looked away, suddenly uncomfortable.

‘And Lady Tsuguko?’ she asked hastily.

Haru shook herself back into the present.

‘No one knows. You were the last to see her. Did she not take you to the imperial palanquin?’

Of course. That tall figure striding through the smoke-filled rooms while the flames crackled louder and louder. She couldn’t possibly have survived the journey back through that inferno. She must have perished there. It was a good death, an admirable death: she had died while carrying out her duty. Still, Sachi’s eyes filled with tears. Lady Tsuguko had taught her so much and
always taken her side. Why did life have to be so full of sadness?

Haru was usually so sunny and cheerful, but tonight she seemed restless. She was looking at Sachi as if she couldn’t take her eyes off her. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again, then took up some sewing and put it down again. With a start Sachi realized Haru’s eyes too were brimming with tears.