The Courtesan and the Samurai

by Lesley Downer

  ‘Marlin!’ he gasped.

  The Frenchman put a grimy finger to his lips. Other faces crowded round the cage and then hands were grabbing Yozo, pulling him out and cutting his bonds. He sprawled on the ground and feebly shook his arms and legs, trying to get the feeling back into them. His wrists were red and raw and his hair was gummed together with dirt and sweat, with something hard and scabby on one side. He fingered it gingerly and felt a stab of pain. It seemed like an old wound that was healing on its own.

  Slowly he sat up and looked around. Black-jacketed figures sprawled in the bushes, limbs bent and broken. Blood gushed from the throat of one and trickled in a dark stream from the arm of another. A severed hand lay nearby. A bearded man wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat was running a cloth up and down the blade of a large knife, while another collected up fallen swords and spears. One came up to Yozo and said something in a gruff northern burr, then slapped his shoulder reassuringly. Small, wiry fellows, they moved as lightly as deer. Bear hunters, Yozo thought; this was bear country.

  A soft snarling came from behind him where a couple of dogs, fangs bared, white fur bristling, held four porters at bay, pinioned against a tree. Yozo turned to look at Marlin as he strode towards him up the path. Instead of his neat French uniform he had on a cotton jacket like a Japanese peasant and his big rough heels were bursting out of straw sandals. His hair had grown over his ears and his face was covered with a bristly beard. He was different somehow, Yozo thought, different from before. It wasn’t just the way he was dressed. He looked younger, more cheerful. There was a brightness in his eyes and a spring to his step as if he’d cast off a weight of responsibility along with his uniform.

  He walked over to the porters, who were quivering with fear, their lips drawn so far back Yozo could see their gums.

  ‘Sorry, lads,’ he said airily. ‘Either you come with us or I slit your throats. Can’t risk you giving us away.’

  ‘We’re northerners, sir,’ squawked one in a terrified tremor. It was obvious the southerners had press-ganged the locals into portering. Marlin frowned as if he was considering the options.

  ‘OK,’ he said, shrugging. ‘I’ll let you go. But remember, if there’s any trouble, the dogs will find you, wherever you are.’

  Marlin took a last look around the clearing, then he and one of the hunters looped their arms under Yozo’s. Yozo groaned in protest, feeling the wrench on his damaged arm as they lifted him up and plunged into the woods.

  The hunters led the way, darting between trees, dodging rocks and jumping over streams as if they knew every leaf and stone in the forest. They cut across a valley, loping between ferns and bushes with great trees soaring overhead, and scrambled up a rise dotted with huge rocks. Tucked around the side of a knoll was a makeshift hut, covered in branches and twigs, which almost looked like part of the forest. They pushed through the doorway and crouched inside, panting, listening for pursuers. There was silence, only the twittering of birds and the rushing of wind through the trees.

  Marlin pulled a metal flask from his belt and held it to Yozo’s mouth. Water. He drank greedily, feeling strength return to his limbs.

  The hunters had taken off their hats. Their faces were like bark, lined and weathered, and their eyes glittered like berries, half hidden in their hair.

  Yozo nodded his thanks. He was probably a lot more filthy and wild-looking than they were, he realized.

  ‘My brother wrestles bears single-handed,’ said one, jerking his chin towards his companion. Yozo could see that he had a bear’s claw on a string hanging round his neck. ‘A few soldiers are no problem.’

  ‘You want something to eat?’ said the other. He took some foul-smelling brown strips from his pouch and held them out. ‘Mountain whale,’ he said. He grinned, revealing a mouthful of decaying teeth. ‘That’s what you lowlanders call it, isn’t it?’

  Yozo groaned and shook his head.

  ‘I have rice balls,’ said Marlin, digging into his pack and bringing out a bamboo-leaf package. Yozo folded back the leaves and took a cautious bite, then another.

  The hut was hot and sticky inside, with rough wooden walls and a doorway made of branches, and a musty smell emanated from something black and furry in one corner. A bear skin. One of the hunters stood in the doorway and whistled, a long low note that might have been a bird call or an animal cry.

  ‘How … How did you get here?’ Yozo croaked. ‘What happened to Enomoto and … and the rest?’

  Marlin stared at the ground and rubbed at it with his straw sandal.

  ‘Later,’ he mumbled. ‘When you’re stronger.’

  ‘No, now,’ said Yozo fiercely.

  Marlin took a knife from his belt and started to whittle a chunk of wood, turning it over and over in his hands.

  ‘It was after you disappeared,’ he said slowly. ‘The Commander had gone too. We’d lost half our men, we were nearly out of ammunition and we knew that if the fighting went on much longer we’d all be dead. Enomoto was in his rooms. The windows were shattered and the place was a ruin but that drinks cabinet of his had somehow made it through. He got out some of the whisky he was so fond of and poured us all a glass.’

  He stopped and Yozo heard branches creaking and twigs snapping as something huge padded by outside.

  ‘And then?’ he demanded.

  ‘Then General Otori called me in. He wanted me to help persuade Enomoto to surrender.’

  ‘Surrender?’ Yozo echoed in outraged disbelief. ‘Enomoto?’

  Marlin nodded. ‘It was the last thing he wanted to do, that was obvious. The southerners were a bunch of cowards, he said. It was only because the Americans had handed over the Stonewall that they’d made any headway at all – that and sheer force of numbers. He was determined to go down fighting. If he had to, he said, he’d die by his own hand.’

  Yozo was picturing the room, remembering the last time he had seen Enomoto.

  ‘You Japanese and your samurai pride,’ Marlin said with a snort of admiration or disbelief – Yozo didn’t know which. ‘Then Otori spoke up. “If it’s dying you want, you can do it any time.” Those were his words. We’ve got work to do still, that was what he meant. There was no need to be in a rush to die.’

  Marlin paused and his face grew dark as he remembered what had happened. ‘I could see he’d hit the mark. Enomoto paced up and down for a while, then he said, “Our men have been loyal to the death. They deserve to live. I’ll hand myself over on condition they let our men go free.” So that’s what he did. Otori surrendered too.’

  So Enomoto had surrendered. In that case they really were finished. Yozo put his head in his hands. All those times he and Enomoto had sat together sipping whisky, the intense conversations they’d had about how they’d set things to rights when they got back to Japan. It had been Enomoto who had insisted on defying the southerners and making off with the fleet and sailing for Ezo, Enomoto who had created the glorious Republic of Ezo in which all men were to be equal, Enomoto who had organized democratic elections. If anyone deserved to live, it was him.

  ‘You should have rescued him!’ he groaned. ‘Not me. What use am I?’

  ‘Enomoto’s a proud man,’ said Marlin. ‘I doubt if he’d have agreed to be rescued. In any case, there were only three of us and the front of the convoy was bristling with soldiers. We couldn’t have got anywhere near Enomoto, so my decision was to come after you. You’re my brother-in-arms, after all.’

  ‘How many of our men did the southerners take?’ Yozo demanded.

  ‘They let the lower ranks go free and just took the leaders. I was watching from behind a wall when they loaded up the cages. One of the injured men looked like you, so I decided to take my chances and follow.’

  He carried on whittling. Yozo had a feeling he was avoiding his gaze. Perhaps someone had seen him gun down the Commander and rumours had spread. Everyone knew there had been bad blood between them. Once again he was back in the ruined town, seeing his face, remembering Kitar
o, raising his gun …

  ‘As for Commander Yamaguchi,’ Marlin said, as if he could read Yozo’s mind, ‘no one knows what happened to him. He disappeared halfway through the battle. He’s probably under a pile of corpses somewhere.’

  ‘And you?’ Yozo asked slowly. ‘How did you escape?’

  ‘The southerners didn’t seem eager to catch me. You can kill a foreigner but if you arrest one you have to explain yourself to the powers back in Edo. Anyway, they wouldn’t have had a cage big enough to hold me.’

  One of the hunters struck a flint and lit a candle and set it in an alcove in the wall. In the flickering light Marlin’s huge nose and deep-set eyes made him look more like a demon than ever.

  ‘I saw them load the cages on to boats and found a boat to take me to the mainland. I started following the convoy but I soon realized I was drawing too much attention to myself. People up here have never seen a foreigner before and crowds kept gathering wherever I went, so I decided I’d better avoid the towns and stick to the mountains and keep a lookout for the convoy from there. I knew the soldiers would have to take the main road south. Then I fell in with my friends here and we waited our chance.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Yozo, bowing. ‘You saved my life.’ Weak and feverish though he was, it was entirely clear what he had to do. He looked Marlin in the eye. ‘Now we must do the same for Enomoto and Otori.’

  Marlin nodded grimly. ‘I knew you’d say that,’ he said, ‘but it won’t be easy.’

  ‘We’ve been through so much together, Enomoto and I,’ Yozo said. ‘There’s no way I can stand by and see him put on trial and executed.’

  ‘They’re very closely guarded, him and Otori, which means we’ll need more men. And you’re on the run yourself now, don’t forget that. But if you’re determined to take a chance and follow the convoy to Edo, I’m with you all the way.’

  Heavy bodies came crashing down the hillside and the two dogs hurtled in and stood panting, tongues lolling, tails lashing feverishly. The hunters patted and hugged them and threw them strips of dried bear meat.

  ‘For now, let’s turn you back into a human being,’ Marlin said to Yozo. ‘We’ll get down to a river so you can have a wash. You need cleaning up.’

  22

  Yozo wriggled through the bushes, keeping low to the ground. After being on the road for more than a month he could disappear into the landscape nearly as easily as a bear hunter. A bullet whizzed over his head and buried itself harmlessly in a tree trunk as the sounds of stumbling feet and breaking branches faded behind him. Then the scrub thinned and he scrambled uphill, beating his way through the close-packed trees and plunging through mounds of dusty foliage under a dark canopy of leaves. He stopped for a moment to swab his brow and catch his breath. A large shadow darted through the woods not far away: Marlin.

  Pinpricks of light penetrated the leaves at the top of the hill. Yozo clambered over branches and roots and shoved his way through bushes, then burst out into sunlight and threw himself down, gasping for breath. He was high above a brilliant yellow plain, on a broad sill of land thickly carpeted with grasses and wild flowers. Marlin thumped down next to him and they lay for a while, panting, while the sun blazed down out of a hazy blue sky.

  As his breathing eased, Yozo pressed his ear to the ground and listened hard. Silence. Cautiously he raised his head. The air was full of floating thistledown and the scent of flowers. Birds swooped and soared, and wild geese honked overhead.

  ‘We lost them,’ he said, with a laugh of triumph.

  ‘They’ll be back,’ said Marlin. ‘They’ll track us down. We’re not hard to spot. You’d be better off on your own, my friend.’ His big face creased into a grin.

  Yozo grinned back. In his cotton jacket, with the front of his head shaved and his hair combed into a rough topknot, Yozo could pass for a peasant, but Marlin towered above everyone. Here in the north Yozo and Marlin were in friendly territory. Villagers and farmers welcomed them like heroes and fed them and hid them wherever they went. Whenever southern soldiers came knocking, they were given false information and sent off in the wrong direction.

  As much as they could the two men kept to the mountains to avoid border posts, and whenever they were forced to take to the road, Marlin hid his head inside a straw hat as deep as a basket, like a mendicant monk. They drew stares all the same.

  ‘No one’s ever seen a monk as huge or as well fed as you,’ Yozo told him.

  Below them, the plain stretched far into the distance, a sea of golden rice ready for harvesting, laid out in a patchwork of ragged squares. A thin line snaked across, edged with trees and dotted with moving figures. Yozo peered down, searching for a convoy of cages, but there was nothing.

  Then he made out a dark smudge on the horizon with a haze of smoke floating above it.

  ‘Over there,’ he exclaimed, narrowing his eyes. ‘Isn’t that … Edo?’

  Marlin heaved himself up on an elbow and shaded his eyes with a large hand.

  ‘Too bad you lost that telescope of yours,’ he said.

  Yozo nodded. ‘It’s Edo, I’m sure of it. The only question is what to do when we get there. We’ll have to start looking for men and making plans.’

  ‘Enomoto’s probably in prison by now, awaiting trial.’

  ‘Unless he’s managed to escape, which, knowing him, is quite possible.’ Yozo didn’t want to tempt fate by saying so, but he knew there was also a good chance that Enomoto was dead. Nevertheless, at the very least they had to find out what had happened.

  Pacing their shelf of land, he found a goat path that led down the cliffside. Marlin followed as he edged along it, looking out for handholds, clambering from one crumbling outcrop to the next. The shadows were lengthening by the time they jumped down the last slopes to the bottom. The paddies began almost at the foot of the hills, slotting into the contours, and they followed the narrow paths that wound between them, keeping the road in their sights, then, when it was too dark to walk any further, found a copse and curled up under a tree, their stomachs rumbling, resigning themselves to a long night.

  Suddenly a small grey rabbit hopped out of the bushes and looked at them, nose twitching. Marlin made a lunge for it, grabbed it by the ears and held it up, prancing about in triumph. They both knew lighting a fire would be risky but they were a long way from the road or any town and well hidden in the trees and, in any case, much too hungry to care. Yozo cleared the ground and collected brushwood while Marlin slit the rabbit’s throat and skinned it and, when it was cooked, they wolfed it down greedily. It was the first good meal they’d had in days.

  The following day they came to a river and followed it downstream till they found a place where the water was shallow and waded across it. The opposite bank was a wilderness of silver plume grass, the feathery fronds towering high above their heads.

  ‘Looks marshy,’ said Marlin. ‘If we’re not careful, we’ll be up to our waists.’

  Yozo took a few steps between the clumps of grass, stamping his feet. The soil was dried out and firm.

  ‘We’ve got no choice,’ he said. ‘At least we won’t leave any tracks. So long as it doesn’t rain we’ll be able to make it through.’

  They threaded their way single file through the tall grass, tramping down stalks and beating back the swaying fronds. There was no sound except for the rustle of the leaves, the crunch of their straw sandals and the warble of tiny birds flitting from stem to stem. Yozo kept an eye on the sun, hoping they were heading westward.

  They were deep in the marshland when the land started to become damp, then boggy. Yozo took off his straw sandals and walked barefoot, feeling his feet sinking into the ground with each step and the mud sucking at them as he pulled them out. The sun beat down. He wiped away the sweat that ran into his eyes, his legs aching with the effort of dragging them out of the clinging mud. Marlin squelched behind him, cursing volubly.

  ‘We’ll be out of this in no time,’ said Yozo, trying to sound more cheerful tha
n he felt. Looking around at the sea of grass, he realized with a shock of fear that they’d lost their bearings. At least in battle he knew where the enemy were and how to fight them, but here, in this wilderness of swaying white fronds, he had no idea which way to turn.

  Peering between the stalks, he noticed a rise in the land not far away.

  ‘Looks like dry ground over there,’ he said lightly, trying to conceal his relief.

  They were exhausted by the time they got to the bottom of the slope. As he climbed, Yozo started to hear a noise. At first it was a whisper, barely audible beneath the rustle of the grass and the rattle of pebbles tumbling down behind them. Then it grew into a distinct hum – voices, and the clatter and tramp of feet.

  Keeping his head low, Yozo peered over the top and gave a groan of dismay. There was an enormous earthen wall in front of them, cutting right across the plain, entirely blocking their path. It was a massive rampart, many times higher than a man. They were so close that he could see the pale straw walls of stalls at the top and people moving along it. As for the road, they’d lost it completely.

  ‘Whatever that is, it’s between us and Edo,’ he said grimly. ‘One way or another, we’ll just have to get across it.’

  He turned to Marlin and stared at him in disbelief. The big Frenchman was beaming as broadly as if he’d just defeated an army single-handed.

  ‘It’s the Japan Dyke, my friend,’ he shouted, as if he could barely contain his excitement. Smoke rose from the stalls at the top of the wall and tantalizing smells of food drifted across.

  Yozo glared at him and hit him on the shoulder. They needed to keep quiet.

  ‘Don’t you understand?’ said Marlin. ‘It’s the Yoshiwara. We’re nearly there. We can hide out there.’

  Yozo’s jaw dropped. Then the words sank in and he too began to laugh. The Yoshiwara, the walled city. It was years since he had even thought of it. Marlin was right; it was another country in there, with its own laws and its own law-keepers. Once inside they’d be fine – if only they managed to get in, that was. He frowned, thinking it through, trying to picture the layout.