The Courtesan and the Samurai

by Lesley Downer

  A voice barked, ‘Enough!’

  It was the Commander. The two men froze. For a moment they stood like statues, caught in mid-motion, then lowered their swords, slid them back into their scabbards and bowed to each other.

  The Commander had been leaning forward, watching intently. Now he straightened up and looked at one, then the other, from under his eyebrows. ‘You’ve picked up foreign ways, my friend,’ he said. ‘You fight dirty, but you won fair and square. Our friend certainly gave you a run for your money, Tatsu,’ he added, grinning uncertainly.

  Yozo bowed. He could see the Commander was trying to make light of Tatsu’s defeat, but it was a humiliation for the fencing master all the same. The only way Yozo could have won was by using unorthodox methods, but, unorthodox or not, he had beaten the Commander’s best swordsman and by doing so had made the Commander look foolish too, both in the eyes of his own men and of Enomoto’s. From now on he’d have to watch his back.

  14

  ‘We’d better get you back to the barracks and get that wound bandaged up,’ Kitaro said.

  Yozo nodded, wincing as he tried to move his arm. He had forgotten his shoulder in the heat of the fight but now it was on fire and stiffening rapidly. He probed it gingerly, easing away his shirt, which was stuck to his skin with congealed blood. It was only a flesh wound, but a deep one.

  The barracks were deserted, so Yozo and Kitaro went in search of the doctor, a bulky young man who had been with them on board the Kaiyo Maru and had travelled with them in Europe. Young though he was, he had mastered both western and Chinese forms of medicine and had set up a makeshift surgery at one end of the barracks with an assortment of western medicines in bottles, along with pickled ginseng root, deer antler and an impressive array of knives. There was even an operating table.

  He bandaged Yozo’s wound then put a large brown ball of Chinese herbs into a clay teapot, poured in water and set it to brew over the hearth.

  ‘Here, drink this,’ he said, giving Yozo a cup of the bitter liquid. ‘It’ll make you sleep for a while.’

  ‘I’ll go and find Enomoto,’ said Kitaro. ‘He needs to know what’s happened. I’ll come back and check on you in a couple of hours.’

  *

  When Yozo woke up it was dusk, and the pain in his shoulder had turned into a dull throb. A voice was calling his name in a singsong French accent.

  Yozo sat up slowly. ‘Here!’

  Stockinged feet clumped across the barracks as he pushed aside the bedclothes and stumbled out into the great hall. The lamps around the walls had been lit and soldiers were crowding in for their evening meal. Savoury aromas drifted from the kitchens, mixed with smells of sweat and grime.

  Sergeant Marlin’s burly frame appeared, stomping across the tatami. In his own country, Yozo knew, he would not have been considered particularly tall but here he was a giant. He filled the hall with his bulk and had to bend his head to get through the doorway. Yozo grinned as he saw his heavy features and drooping moustache, but his smile quickly faded. He could see by the Frenchman’s face there was something badly wrong.

  ‘There’s been a casualty,’ said Marlin. There was an edge to his voice. ‘By the rifle range. An accident.’ There was a long pause. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

  The pain in Yozo’s shoulder was beginning to return and his head was still befuddled from the potion. He tried to focus on what Marlin was saying. Men got killed from time to time; it couldn’t be helped. Why was Marlin coming to tell him personally?

  ‘You’d better come and have a look, sir. It looks like …’

  A fearful suspicion stirred Yozo out of his daze. Where was Kitaro?

  Without stopping for a coat, Yozo ran out into the freezing night and headed for the rifle range. The grounds seemed to stretch for ever and no matter how fast he ran, he couldn’t seem to get any closer. For a moment he wondered if he was still asleep and it was all some kind of nightmare, but the icy wind pummelling his face and cutting through his thin uniform told him it couldn’t be. The moon was rising, casting a bleak light across the distant buildings and ramparts, and the endless expanse of bare earth was heaped with grubby mounds of snow. Outside the walls of the fort, a wolf howled, a melancholy sound that echoed around the hills.

  The rifle range was on the far side of the grounds, well away from the barracks. Yozo could just make out the line of targets in the distance. Then he noticed a dark shape crumpled on the ground near one of the firing positions. He stopped short, his heart thumping. Shaking, he put his hands on his knees and gasped for breath. Then, very slowly, he walked towards it.

  Kitaro was lying on his back, his jaw agape, his eyes open. His glasses glinted a little way away, the lenses broken, and his large bony hands were flung out to his sides, as if he had fallen over backwards and hadn’t had time to save himself. There was a great black stain spreading across his shirt.

  Yozo dropped to his knees and stared at his friend, trying to take in what he was seeing. Shuddering, he stretched out his hand and touched Kitaro’s cold cheek. Then he put his fingers on his eyelids and gently closed them.

  Leaning across, he ripped Kitaro’s shirt open and ran his hand across his bony chest. There was a single wound there, a long narrow cut – a sword, not a gunshot wound. Kitaro had been murdered with a single stroke before he had had a chance to put up a fight.

  Yozo sat back on his heels. He had seen battlefields heaped with corpses, people killed before his eyes more times than he cared to remember. But this was different – this was his friend, with whom he’d been through so much. With a groan he grabbed Kitaro and lifted his shoulders off the ground. Kitaro’s head fell back and Yozo cradled it to his chest, then laid it back down. The first time they’d met, Kitaro had been a gawky hollow-cheeked seventeen-year-old with unruly black hair and absurdly thick glasses. Yozo had covered for him on shipboard when there were difficult jobs to be done, such as climbing the rigging. But in Holland Kitaro had been quicker than anyone at fitting in. He was like a jackdaw, snapping up nuggets of information.

  All that travelling, all that knowledge, the long journey back to Japan and up to the land of Ezo – and all for this, to die so brutally, so casually, with a single sword-stroke, at the age of twenty-four.

  Yozo rubbed his eyes. Someone would pay for this.

  ‘I give you my word,’ he promised Kitaro, his voice hollow in the silence. ‘If I make it back, I’ll find your family and tell them you died honourably. I’ll make sure they are well provided for. And I will find your killer and make sure you are avenged. This I swear.’

  A hand touched his shoulder and Yozo jumped. Marlin was looking down at him, his face full of concern. Yozo shook the hand off and rose to his feet.

  By the time he realized where he was, he was in front of the militia headquarters. He felt strangely calm, every sense poised. It was obvious who had killed Kitaro. It was a swordsman – Tatsu, surely, or one of his cronies – and it had been done with the Commander’s knowledge and approval, in retaliation for what had happened that morning. It might even have been the Commander himself. After all, he had a reputation for cutting down men without a second thought if they displeased him.

  Whoever had been responsible, Yozo would find them, all of them, and exact his revenge. But he had no coat and his clothes were stained with Kitaro’s blood. He wiped his face with a handkerchief and straightened his uniform. He would have to be cunning.

  The militiamen loitering in groups gawped as he walked briskly through the hall towards the section of the building where he guessed the Commander’s private rooms must be. Voices shouted: ‘Hey, you can’t go there! Out of bounds!’

  ‘I have a message for the Commander,’ Yozo snapped. ‘From the Governor General. It’s urgent. I have to deliver it direct.’

  The men followed as he padded through the silent rooms, sliding open one set of doors after another. Light filtered around the edges of a last set of doors. A couple of blue-jacketed youths grabbed his arms but
he shook them off and pushed the doors open, then blinked for a moment, dazzled by the sudden brightness. He was standing outside a small tatami-matted room. Quivering with panic the men laid heavy hands on his shoulders and shoved him to his knees.

  The Commander was kneeling in the centre of the room, strands of oiled hair hanging around his cheeks. He was holding a brush between two fingers, poised above a large sheet of paper spread on a cloth on the floor, held in place with paperweights. The fragrance of fresh-ground ink filled the room. In the lamplight Yozo caught a glimpse of his pale complexion, broad nose and stern brow, his hooded eyes and sensual mouth. He could see the pores in the Commander’s skin and smell the musty scent of his pomade.

  There were two retainers kneeling opposite. They jerked their heads up when Yozo appeared. Yozo’s skin prickled as he saw Tatsu’s face and the moles on his cheek.

  The Commander must have heard the clunk of the doors sliding back, but he paid not the slightest attention as he dipped his brush into the pool of ink on the ink stone and brought it down on the paper in a flowing black line, lifting it to make the line more delicate, lowering it to make it fatter and ending with a flourish. Yozo watched, mesmerized. Much though he hated the Commander, it was impossible not to be in awe of him as well.

  From where Yozo knelt he could read the first words: ‘Though my body may decay on the island of Ezo …’ The words glowed on the page, burning into his mind. He saw Kitaro’s body bathed in moonlight. In the end they were all going to die on this accursed island.

  The Commander rinsed his brush, wiped it and laid it on a rest. He sprinkled sand on the paper, shook it, and knelt for a moment studying his handiwork. Then he turned slowly and looked from beneath his brows at the three men kneeling on the threshold.

  ‘Tajima,’ he said mildly, as if he was not remotely surprised at Yozo’s sudden appearance. ‘Have you written your death poem yet?’

  Yozo couldn’t speak. The blood was booming in his ears.

  ‘We are fighting a losing battle for a government that no longer exists,’ the Commander said, his face stern. ‘With the shogun gone, it would be a disgrace if no one was willing to go down with him. I will fight the best battle of my life and die for my country. What greater glory could a man ask?’

  Yozo gripped the hilt of his short sword so tightly he could feel the binding cutting into his palm. Now was his chance to avenge Kitaro. Summoning up all his energy, he took a deep breath and was about to spring forward when a bulky figure appeared in the doorway beside him.

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir.’ Marlin put a hand on Yozo’s arm, addressing the Commander in his quaint French accent. ‘My friend here came to tell you the news. It seems the southerners have taken possession of the ironclad and they’ll be sending a fleet here as soon as the weather improves. If we all pull together, sir, we have a good chance of defeating them. The French army is the best in the world and the southerners only have English arms. No need to despair yet, sir. We’ll destroy those bastards!’

  Yozo stared at the Commander. ‘Watch out, Yamaguchi, you’re not immortal,’ he thought. ‘You’re a man like any other. I’ll wait my chance but my time will come; and I will find a way to avenge the death of my friend.’

  Trembling with rage and hatred, he stood up and, with Marlin’s hand on his good shoulder, left the Commander’s room.

  15

  Hana woke with an inexplicable feeling of excitement. It was dawn and the scent of spring was in the air, yet in Tama’s rooms in the Yoshiwara everyone was still fast asleep. Maids and attendants sprawled around the reception room and Tama herself was in her bedroom with the last of her lovers for the night.

  It was too good an opportunity to miss. Hana had been in the Yoshiwara long enough to know that she would not get away with simply sitting in the cage for much longer. She would soon be expected to do more – far more. It was time to take her chances and try once more to escape, no matter what the consequences.

  She pulled on a plain jacket and cotton socks to hide her feet, stepped across the creaky rung and hurried down the stairs. At the front entrance she hesitated, trembling, remembering the last time she had stood there, the footsteps pounding along the corridor towards her and the stick coming down on her back. But today there was no one around and the entranceway was dark and empty, lined with racks of sandals. She slipped on a pair and pushed aside the curtains that hung across the doorway.

  Outside, the sky was a brilliant blue, birds were singing and a balmy breeze rustled her skirts. A manservant was on his haunches beside the door, snoring softly. Hana looked around, thrilled to be free, if only for a moment.

  Morning people loitered – scrawny cleaners wielding brooms, porters staggering under bundles on poles across their shoulders and bandy-legged characters bent under buckets swilling with night soil from the toilets. A man stumbled out of a door as if he’d only just realized how late it was and, as he turned and gawked, she caught a glimpse of bleary eyes and dark stubble on a pallid face. She shrank into the shadows, feeling every eye on her.

  Suddenly there was a bang like a thunderclap. Hana jumped and looked up, sure it must be someone coming after her, but it was only maids pushing back the shutters of the house opposite. It was the first time she had seen the street in daylight and she stared around in amazement. The buildings were palaces, huge and splendid with slatted wooden walls, grander by far than any house she’d ever seen before. Curtains swung like banners outside the enormous entrances and along the upper floors were balconies, where faces were already beginning to appear. The street looked washed-out, as if even the houses were exhausted from the partying of the night before.

  Blazoned across the pale brown curtains of the establishment Hana had just crept out of was the name: the Corner Tamaya.

  Glancing back, stopping to listen for footsteps, she half walked, half ran the few steps to the end of the street. Around the corner was a broad avenue yet more splendid than the one she had just come from, with a line of cherry trees down the middle just bursting into bud. Smoke spiralled from the food stalls and smells of grilling fish and sparrows and simmering vegetable stew filled the air. She was in the grand boulevard she had walked along with Fuyu when she had first arrived a few months ago, though it felt like a lifetime now.

  She could see the city wall at the far end, too high even to think of climbing over. The massive doors of the Great Gate were pushed right back and a guard was squatting in the sunshine, dozing, tattoos mottling his massive thighs. She knew there were four guards there night and day, to make sure women didn’t escape and men didn’t sneak out without paying their bills, but he seemed to be the only one around. Glancing to left and right, she sauntered towards the gate as casually as she could.

  She was nearly there when a woman burst out of one of the houses, setting the dark red curtains over the doorway flapping like wings. Startled, Hana jumped back but the woman was beaming.

  ‘Welcome to the Chrysanthemum Teahouse!’ she cried. ‘Come in, come in! I’m Mitsu, and this is my teahouse. I’m so happy to make your acquaintance at last!’

  Hana bowed, bewildered. She had never seen the woman before in her life.

  ‘Hanaogi-sama, isn’t it? The young lady everyone’s talking about?’ gushed the woman. She was tiny and birdlike with a delicately sculpted face that was still quite beautiful and white hair smoothed back into an immaculate chignon. ‘I’m swamped with enquiries about you.’

  Hana was shocked. She hadn’t realized news travelled so fast. Another woman pushed through the curtains of the neighbouring house, quickly followed by others from other houses, and they clustered around Hana, introducing themselves in a babble of voices.

  Mitsu laughed, a high-pitched fluting laugh, and flapped her hand dismissively at all of them.

  ‘The Chrysanthemum is the best teahouse in the Yoshiwara,’ she said firmly, in tones that brooked no disagreement. ‘You can be sure that any guest I recommend will be of the highest quality. Now, come
in and have a smoke and a cup of tea!’

  Any hope of slipping away had been foiled, for today at least, yet Hana felt strangely relieved. After all, if she had been caught, Father would only have given her another beating and, in any case, she didn’t know where she would have gone. Suddenly she thought of the sweet-faced woman who did her hair and had given her the comb to protect her before she went into the cage.

  ‘I’d love to come and see you another time,’ she said, smiling. ‘But actually, I was looking for Otsuné, the hairdresser. Do you know where she lives?’

  *

  The houses on Otsuné’s alley were small and humble, packed so tight not a single ray of sunlight could get through. Hana picked her way along the dirt path to the door marked with Otsuné’s name, slid it open and peeped inside. Piled in corners and on shelves were boxes overflowing with combs, hairpins, curling irons and clumps of bear’s hair, along with tubs of camellia oil and bintsuké wax. Pungent smells of burnt hair, hair dye and charcoal smoke filled the small room.

  Otsuné was kneeling at a low table with a swag of hair in her thin hands, working on a hairpiece. She looked up and beamed with delight when she saw Hana. She was in a striped indigo kimono with a padded collar. Charcoal burned in a ceramic brazier in the middle of the room and a couple of candles lit the shadows.

  She filled a teapot and gave Hana a cup. As she did so, a ray of light caught her face, picking out the lines on her forehead and at the corners of her mouth. She had rather a sad face, Hana thought.

  Sipping her tea, Hana started to tell Otsuné about the extraordinary encounter she had had with Mitsu and the teahouse owners.

  ‘You’re doing very well,’ Otsuné said when she had finished. ‘The Corner Tamaya auntie will be very pleased.’

  Hana held her breath, wondering if Otsuné might ask how she came to be roaming the streets, but she didn’t seem at all concerned.