The Courtesan and the Samurai

by Lesley Downer

  Months had passed since Hana’s father-in-law had sent for her. He had been kneeling in his rooms bent over a letter and, when he’d looked up, there’d been a weary, resigned smile on his face. Hana had guessed straight away there was bad news.

  ‘We have been ordered home to Kano,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Should I go and pack, Father?’ she asked uncertainly. There was something disquieting about the way he was looking at her with his rheumy eyes. He pursed his lips and shook his head, scowling in a way that brooked no disagreement.

  ‘You must stay here,’ he said firmly. ‘You belong in this house. Our son will return one day and you must be here to greet him.’

  Hana had nodded, picturing the windswept plain and the streets of samurai houses clustered around the massive stone walls of Kano Castle. There’d been nothing but bad news from Kano in recent months, news of squabbles and internal dissent and of assassinations, neighbour killing neighbour. Nevertheless, both Hana’s and her husband’s families belonged to the Kano domain and had to obey the orders of the Lord of Kano, though her husband had also set up a residence here in Edo close to the shogun’s castle, from which to pursue his military duties.

  She remembered the servants weeping as they clattered about, packing trunks and baskets. They had set off that same day, her parents-in-law in palanquins and the rest on foot, leaving the rooms still smelling of tobacco smoke and the drawers lying open where they had packed in haste. With Oharu’s help she had stored away cushions, low tables and armrests, piling them in cupboards alongside futons and lacquered wooden pillows. The grand reception rooms where her husband and father-in-law had entertained guests, the family quarters, the servants’ areas and the kitchens which had once been full of people, chattering and laughing, eating and drinking, now fell silent.

  A month after they left, dreadful news had filtered through of executions in Kano. It was said that everyone connected with the resistance had died – Hana’s own parents as well as her parents-in-law. As she had suspected, they had left her behind to save her. She had wept for days, then steeled herself. They had ordered her to stay alive for a purpose and she must do so.

  But she had lost everything. All that was left was the house and her memories of her husband. He at least was still alive. He had sent a letter saying he was on his way to Sendai, capital of one of the northern domains.

  In the past, the wooden rain doors that formed the walls of the house would have been pushed right back, letting daylight fill the rooms. But now Hana kept them firmly closed and bolted and the big empty house was as dark and chilly as if the sun had never risen. Slivers of light shone through the gaps where the panels met and fell in pale lines across the tatami, like the bars of a cage. In the months that had passed since her parents-in-law had left, she’d had little to do but huddle beside the hearth and read by the light of a candle.

  Even the street cries outside the gate had stopped. The tofu sellers and goldfish sellers, the hawkers of sweet potatoes and pedlars of clams no longer made their rounds. Hana hardly ever heard the clatter of feet or the babble of voices any more, or smelt roasting chestnuts or grilling octopus. Most of the neighbours had fled – though where they had gone and whether they had reached their destinations remained a mystery.

  There were shouts of ‘Open up or we’ll break down the gate,’ as Hana tucked up her skirts and tied back her sleeves. She knew the halberd was useless in a confined space, but outside she would have plenty of room to swing it. The great front door was barred and bolted, and she ran to the kitchen door at the side of the house and shoved it open, letting icy air flood in. In the sudden glare of daylight she could see the huge smoke-blackened beams and the smoke whirling over the hearth. She blinked, then darted outside, Oharu and Gensuké close behind her.

  The sun was shining in a sky washed clear of colour and frost sparkled on the frozen earth. A few withered leaves still clung to the gnarled branches of the big cherry tree. Hana raced towards the gate at the front of the house and took up her position a good distance from it, one foot in front of the other, holding the shaft of her halberd firmly but loosely.

  From the shuffle of feet, Hana could tell there were a lot of men on the other side of the gate. ‘Open up. We know you’re there,’ a voice bellowed.

  She heard scrambling and cursing and the clatter of falling stones and a man appeared, heaving himself on to the tiled roof of the high earthen wall, his breath puffing out like smoke. He must have climbed on to another man’s shoulders to get there. Hana stared at his broad high-cheekboned face. Perched on the wall, he looked as huge and fearsome as an ogre, with bushy hair and long arms encased in a tight-sleeved black uniform.

  He gave a guttural snort. ‘No one here. Just two girls and an old serving man,’ he called down to his companions. There were scornful laughs on the other side of the wall.

  Hana took a deep breath and tried to focus but it was hard to hear anything except the blood pounding in her ears. She could see the hilts of the man’s two swords sticking out of his belt. Her only chance would be to strike the moment he jumped down, but the thought of drawing blood and maybe even killing someone was terrifying. Shaking, she reminded herself that she was a samurai and she had to defend the house.

  She pointed her halberd at the man. ‘Stay where you are. I know how to use this and I will if I have to.’ She tried to keep her voice firm but it sounded weak and quavery and sparked another burst of laughter from the other side of the gate.

  Leering down at her, the man put his hand to his sword. Hana heard the screech of metal as he drew it from its scabbard and at the same moment he jumped. There were bangs on the other side of the wall as the men there battered again at the gate.

  As the man hit the ground he stumbled and lost his footing. Before he could regain it, Hana lashed out with all her might. Light glinted from the blade of the halberd as it swung in a great arc, whistling through the air, and Hana felt it take on a momentum of its own. Quivering with horror, she staggered back, seeing the man’s chest gape open like a mouth and a sheet of blood spray out. She had expected to feel resistance but there was none. The blade had cut through flesh and bone as easily as if they were water.

  The man made a choking sound and flailed, lunging helplessly for his sword, then crumpled to his knees and keeled over. He looked shockingly small and young as he lay twitching on the ground, blood pumping from his mouth and chest. Oharu and Gensuké rushed over to him and wrenched his swords from his belt.

  Hana was still staring at the man when more soldiers appeared on the top of the wall. Now she’d killed one of them they’d certainly kill her, she realized. Screaming at the top of her voice she stabbed at one with her halberd. She had to twist to get the blade out, then pushed the man until he fell backwards. Another jumped into the grounds but Oharu swung the big sword she’d picked up in both hands and managed to slice his thigh, sending the man staggering back, clutching his leg and yowling. A third man swung his sword at Gensuké but Hana knocked it out of his hands with her halberd and slashed at his calves.

  More men were climbing the wall and blades burst through the wooden panels of the gate.

  ‘Quickly, Oharu,’ Hana said, panting. ‘We must get inside and barricade the house.’

  A moment later, Oharu was forcing the great wooden bolt through the rusty old hasps of the side door, her broad face clammy and her hands shaking.

  ‘We’ve been lucky so far,’ Hana gasped. ‘But we can’t fight them all.’

  ‘It’s you they’re after,’ said Oharu. ‘You must get away.’

  ‘And leave you behind? Never.’

  ‘We’re servants, they won’t hurt us. We’ll stay here and slow them down.’

  Oharu tilted her head and put her finger to her lips. There were footsteps outside in the grounds. The men had broken through the gate and were racing towards the house. Heart thundering, Hana grabbed a quilted jacket and threw a scarf around her head and face, then picked up her skirts, pushing
open the doors as she ran through one shadowy room after another, with their musty smell of damp.

  Ever since her parents-in-law had left she’d kept a bundle of belongings ready at the back of the house, in case she had to leave in a hurry. Now she snatched up the bundle and wiggled the bolt that held the rain doors shut, but to her horror it wouldn’t budge. She picked up a wooden bowl and whacked the bolt till it shot out, then shoved back the rain door. As daylight flooded in, she turned and looked for a moment at the huge porcelain vase in the alcove, the hanging scroll, the great wooden chests with their iron handles and hasps, the neatly patched paper doors and worn tatami mats, each with its ghostly memories of times gone by. She tried to fix the scene in her mind, realizing with a sob that she was seeing it for the last time.

  Stepping on to the narrow veranda at the back of the house, she slammed the rain door shut behind her and tied on her straw sandals, fumbling clumsily with frozen fingers. Pine trees swaddled in straw ropes to protect them from the cold stood around the garden. The stone lantern and moss-covered rocks were laced with frost and the pond was frozen over.

  The grounds of the house were a maze, but she knew them well. Clutching her bundle, she dodged along the paths and through the trellises to the gate in the back wall and pushed it open. Behind her there were crashes as the soldiers broke down the front door of the house, and the sound of chests being overturned.

  Then Hana heard footsteps coming across the garden behind her. Heart thumping, she rushed out into the street and darted along the side of the house, down one tiny lane, then another and another. She ran on, gasping, not daring to stop until she was out of sight of the house, then bent over, panting, feeling the frosty air burning into her lungs.

  She felt for her dagger, tucked securely in her sash, and tried to remember what her husband had told her. The ferry. She needed to get to the ferry.

  2

  By the time Hana reached the river her legs were shaking. The water stretched, dark and oily, in front of her, reflecting the lowering sky and the line of willows along the bank. In the past it had been crowded with cargo craft and passenger ferries jammed with travellers, but now it was almost empty.

  Bobbing in the reeds was a small boat with a flat bottom and a pointed prow. There was a man squatting in the stern with a scarf wrapped around his head and a narrow-stemmed pipe poking from the folds, sending puffs of smoke coiling into the air. A pair of beady black eyes peered out at Hana, then a hand removed the pipe, holding the stem delicately between two stubby fingers.

  ‘Where are you going so fast, young lady?’ croaked a voice in a strong Edo burr.

  A woman alone in a boat would be easy to spot, Hana knew. She needed to find a ferry where she would be hidden among other passengers, but she couldn’t see any.

  ‘Japan Bridge,’ she whispered, trying to keep her voice from shaking. ‘Can you take me there?’

  She had never been that far by boat before and she was afraid to think how much it would cost, but she had no choice.

  ‘Japan Bridge?’ The old boatman nodded, staring at Hana like a frog eyeing a fly. ‘One gold ryo,’ he croaked, enunciating the syllables clearly.

  Hana gasped. She didn’t have anything like that much. Then she heard a commotion in the distance. Black-uniformed men were bursting from between the houses and charging across the grassland towards the river. Without a second thought she jumped into the boat with such haste that it plunged from side to side, sending water slapping against the hull.

  The boatman climbed to his feet with infuriating slowness. His scrawny legs were encased in skinny black trousers and his shapeless cotton jacket barely protected him from the icy blasts that whipped across the surface of the water. With his pipe still jammed between his teeth, he took a pole from the side of the boat and dropped it into the water with a splash, then leaned on it so hard Hana was afraid he was going to fall in. The boat rocked as he gave a mighty heave and edged it away from the bank.

  Hana stared straight ahead, the back of her neck prickling, convinced she could hear feet thudding along the towpath behind them, but when she steeled herself and looked around there was no one there. She slumped down in the boat and, with no one but the boatman to see her, buried her head in her arms. The world had never seemed so huge or she so small.

  Hugging her bundle, she wondered what had happened to Oharu and Gensuké and her thoughts drifted back to the day she’d sorted through her kimonos with Oharu, deciding which ones to pack, even though it had seemed ridiculous to be packing when she probably wouldn’t need to leave the house at all. In the end Oharu had carefully folded Hana’s red silk wedding kimono together with another of her best kimonos and laid them in a wrapping cloth along with Hana’s cosmetics set and her favourite book, The Plum Calendar.

  The boat rocked, setting Hana thinking of another momentous boat ride, when she had knelt in a red-curtained palanquin and listened to the murmur of the river as it bore her to Edo and to the unknown man she was to marry. Oharu had been in the boat too and every now and then she had piped, ‘Madam, are you all right? Is there anything you want?’ It had been such a comfort to hear her voice. Oharu had been there on the day of the ceremony too, helping her into kimono after kimono, putting on the red silk kimono last and pulling the sash so tight Hana could hardly breathe.

  Hana pictured her parents waving her off hopefully, thinking they had made the best possible match for her. None of them could ever have guessed that soon after she married, the disturbances that had racked the country would turn into full-scale civil war. And now her whole family was dead and she was alone and, with every stroke of his pole, the boatman was taking her further and further from all that she had left – the house, Oharu, Gensuké. She gave a sigh of despair. Whatever happened, she had to find a way to get back, she told herself.

  For now, the most important thing was to stay alive. Go to Japan Bridge, her husband had told her, then ask for … Panic-stricken, she searched her memory, but she couldn’t remember the name of the place she was supposed to ask for, where she would find people who could help her.

  Soon Hana started to hear sawing, chopping and banging, and smelt the fragrance of freshly cut wood mingled with pungent odours of rotting fish, vegetables, human excrement and the rank smell of the river. She raised her head. They were gliding along between high stone-clad banks. In the past she’d seen children playing with balls and sticks, mountebanks selling their wares and couples snatching illicit meetings under the trees, but now there were only a few people hurrying along, shoulders hunched against the cold.

  ‘We’re supposed to call it Tokyo now,’ said the boatman with a sniff. ‘Edo was good enough for me, but now we’re to call it Tokyo, or so our masters tell us.’ He wrinkled his nose at the word ‘masters’, cleared his throat and spat. The gobbet of spittle glinted in the sun before it splashed into the murky water. ‘To-kyo – Eastern Capital. Whose capital, that’s what I’d like to know. Southern bullies. Give us back our city, I say, bring back His Lordship the shogun.’

  He poled on a little way and pulled over to a landing stage under an arched bridge straddling the river. On the other side was a fortified stone gate like the turret of a castle.

  ‘Japan Bridge was what you wanted, wasn’t it? This is Sujikai Bridge here and that’s Sujikai Gate.’ He waved a gnarled hand. ‘Japan Bridge is through the gate and along the main road. It’s a bit of a walk but you’ll find it.’

  Hana fumbled in her purse but to her surprise he shook his head.

  ‘Keep it,’ he said, scowling. ‘You’ll need it.’ There was a kindly light in his black eyes.

  He turned and waved as he poled away and Hana wrapped her scarf around her face and set off fearfully across the bridge. There was bound to be a checkpoint at the gate. In all her packing she hadn’t thought to bring papers, and the guards would be on the lookout for lone women wandering the streets.

  But there was no checkpoint, no guards armed with grappling irons, no ster
n officials checking papers. The walls of the gate were crumbling and the great stone blocks were overgrown with moss. People wandered through unhindered.

  A pack of ragged women hung around the gate, their thin cheeks covered with make-up and their lips painted bright red. A man passed by and they ran after him, clinging on to his arms and shrieking, ‘One copper mon, only one copper mon,’ until he swung round, cursing, and shook them off. They turned on Hana as she went by, like dogs defending their territory. Perhaps it was because she was on her own, she thought. When she looked back they were still staring after her.

  She hurried across the dusty windswept plaza and looked around, bewildered. ‘Follow the main road,’ the boatman had said, but there were roads leading in all directions. Hana took the widest, but she soon noticed that half the shops and houses were boarded up and many had doors missing and roofs falling in. She had expected a prosperous city, not these half-deserted ruins.

  Then she heard shouts and raucous laughter. A gang of youths was swaggering towards her, completely filling the road. She was doing exactly what her husband had warned her against – walking alone through the city. Fearfully, she darted into the nearest side street and heaved a sigh of relief as the youths passed on.

  But she was now completely lost. She was in a warren of alleys lined with tumbledown houses, crammed so close together that the eaves blotted out the sky. The walkways were slippery, the drainage channels clogged and the air stank of sewage. She stumbled over something soft and brown – a dead rat, left to rot in the middle of the path. In the past the gates at the ends of the streets would have been locked at dusk but now they hung loose on their hinges. She caught glimpses of young women hanging around in doorways, but they faded into the shadows when they saw her looking at them.