The Last Concubine

by Lesley Downer

  Then light footsteps came dashing along the corridor. It was Taki. Two women’s palanquins had arrived at the gate, she announced breathlessly. Lord Oguri and Lord Mizuno had alighted, entering by stealth on a secret mission. Sachi was to go to the princess at once.

  Sachi closed her eyes and sat very still. She could sense a tidal wave rushing towards her.

  Carefully she cleaned her ink stone and washed her brushes. She put the ink stick back in its box and set paperweights on the paper so the ink could dry. A single thought was battering on the edge of her mind.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll come immediately. Thank you for telling me.’

  She did not need to ask. She already knew. The shogun was dead.

  4

  Escape, 1867

  I

  Sachi scuffed her feet along the earthen path, staring listlessly at her small wooden clogs peeking out, one then the other, from the skirts of her bulky winter kimonos. Leafless trees sighed in the chilly wind and gnarled branches swayed like skeletal arms against the cold blue of the sky.

  Taki scurried behind her, the quilted hem of her thick outer robe sending the dry leaves swirling as she walked. They reached Half-Moon Bridge and clambered to the top. The water of Lotus Pond was murky. The lustrous red lacquer of the pleasure barges had grown faded and dull.

  ‘Look at those turtles,’ said Taki brightly, pointing to a rock where three or four stone-coloured shapes huddled motionless. ‘Poor things! The lake will be completely frozen over soon.’

  Sachi raised her head and tried to smile. She wished she could stop the thoughts and memories endlessly revolving in her mind. Tears came to her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. Ever since the shogun had died nothing good had happened, nothing at all. It was as if a spell had fallen over the palace. The gardeners still tended the grounds, the lower-ranking maids cooked and swept and dusted, the ladies-in-waiting combed their hair and did their make-up and sewed and practised the halberd. But the life had gone out of it. The shogun had been the heart and soul of the palace. Without him it was like a dried-out husk, a chrysalis left behind after the butterfly has flown away. There was no gaiety any more. No one felt like staging plays or dances or masques without him to see them.

  Women had begun making excuses, saying there was illness in the family. They left the palace and did not return.

  More than a year had gone by since the shogun’s death. Sachi was in her seventeenth year now, taller and willowy, though when she looked in the mirror she still saw the softly rounded face of a child. Her skin was as white as ever – as white as a mountain cherry blossom, as white as the moon, even whiter than that of the proud noblewomen who surrounded her. Her small nose arched delicately, her lips were full and rosy. Her eyes were dark green still, like the pine forests of Kiso. But there was sadness in them. Sometimes when she looked in the mirror she thought she saw the princess there, as she had been when she first caught a glimpse of her at the inn.

  Like the princess’s, Sachi’s glossy black hair no longer cascaded to the floor but swung at her shoulders. They had both taken the veil, as widows of great lords did. Sachi now had a Buddhist name: she was the Retired Lady Shoko-in. But how could she be a ‘Retired Lady’ already when she had barely tasted life?

  Every moment of every day Sachi thought of the shogun. Sometimes she saw his face so clearly it was as if he were there. She pictured his smile, the soft skin of his hands, his smooth pale chest, and felt the warmth of his body. Then she remembered he was dead and a great shuddering sob would pass through her. When she left her rooms she covered her head with a cowl. She dressed in plain robes and, in theory at least, spent her time in prayers and devotions. Her world had shrunk so much there was almost nothing left.

  When she closed her eyes and tried to sleep, she saw his embalmed face as he lay in state, painted chalky white with his eyebrows brushed in and his cheeks and lips rouged. He had looked so small and shrivelled, nothing like the noble youth she remembered. Again and again in her memory she was back in the great hall, kneeling at his bier surrounded by hundreds of ladies-in-waiting, all in white. She heard the drone of priests mumbling prayers and smelt the incense and the dusty scent of thousands of white chrysanthemums. He had been so young. And to have died in such a way!

  ‘Why, Taki, why?’ she groaned.

  ‘If you’d been brought up as a samurai you’d know it’s not our place to ask questions,’ said Taki, taking her arm and squeezing it. ‘You just have to endure.’

  There were footsteps in the distance, the clatter of wooden clogs coming along the path. They caught a whiff of a musky scent and swung round. Lady Tsuguko was hurrying towards them. Her hair, tinged with grey, was tied back in a long tail which swung behind her. They ran down the bridge to meet her.

  ‘I was hoping to find you here,’ she said.

  Sachi could tell from the agitated way Lady Tsuguko fingered her fan that something terrible had happened. Whatever her news, it was surely extremely urgent for such a grand lady to be rushing through the gardens.

  ‘His Majesty the shogun . . .’ said Lady Tsuguko. She stopped for a moment, as if she couldn’t bear to continue. A frown creased her forehead.

  His Majesty the shogun . . . Not Lord Iemochi, of course, not the much-lamented young shogun, but the new shogun: Lord Yoshinobu, His late Majesty’s cousin. Just to think of him made Sachi feel as if icy fingers were closing round her heart. Along with all the women in the palace, she had the gravest suspicions about Lord Yoshinobu. She had never met him – none of them had, for he had never even visited the palace. He had been in Osaka since long before Lord Iemochi’s death. As the prince regent, he had effectively ruled the country during Lord Iemochi’s reign because His Majesty had been so young. And he had taken over the reins of power completely after His Majesty’s death: he was now the head of the House of Tokugawa and thus the shogun. There had been no other candidate. Lord Iemochi had had no heir. Even now, to think of that caused Sachi a stab of pain. If only she had not failed in that, if only she had borne him an heir, who knew what might have happened?

  She glanced at Lady Tsuguko’s stony face. Gusts of wind rippled the women’s sleeves, sending clouds of perfume wafting through the air and blowing strands of Sachi’s short hair around her pale cheeks. Clouds scudded across the sky. Yellow leaves fluttered down.

  ‘Lord Yoshinobu . . .’ said Lady Tsuguko, ‘has abdicated. There is no shogun.’

  Sachi and Taki looked at her aghast, their eyes wide, trying to take in the enormity of what she had said.

  ‘But . . . But . . . he only just became shogun,’ Sachi stammered.

  Sachi had never said a word of what she had heard in the princess’s chamber – the details of the shogun’s illness, the horror of the way he had died. Nevertheless all the women assumed he had been poisoned. Most probably poison had been applied to his writing brush: everyone knew his habit of licking the tip as he wrote. The official report on his death had said His Majesty had passed away of a heart attack following a bout of beriberi. The women had sneered in disbelief. Beriberi! It had been beriberi when the last shogun died and the shogun before that. No one believed it for an instant. Besides, it was all too obvious who stood to gain from his death. But that would mean . . .

  ‘You mean he took the title . . . only to give it up? But . . . but why?’

  ‘For fourteen generations the House of Tokugawa has governed this country and given it peace and prosperity,’ said Lady Tsuguko in measured tones. Only the gruffness of her voice gave a hint of her disgust. ‘Now Lord Yoshinobu is throwing it all away. He’s offered to return power to the emperor.’

  Just as there was a new shogun, there was a new emperor too. The previous emperor had died very suddenly at the beginning of that year. Sachi glanced fearfully at Lady Tsuguko, then at Taki. She knew nothing of the emperor except that he had been Princess Kazu’s brother. Lady Tsuguko and Taki were both from Kyoto, where the emperor had his court. They had come to Edo wi
th the princess. Along with the princess they had wept and mourned for months after he died.

  The emperor: Tenno-sama, the Son of Heaven. Until Sachi came to the women’s palace she hadn’t even known there was an emperor. He lived in seclusion in his palace in Kyoto and never left it. He was said to be sacred and pure, a divine being who had a special connection to the gods and conducted rites to ensure that crops succeeded and humankind was prosperous.

  The new emperor, his son, was only fifteen. It seemed unlikely that such a being could be interested in wielding power.

  Lady Tsuguko’s shoulders slumped as if the whole weight of the world had descended on them.

  ‘Here in the castle we lead an enchanted life,’ she sighed, ‘untouched by the world outside. But even you, young though you are, will soon know the truth. There has been terrible fighting in Kyoto for years now, practically ever since the princess left. Everyone there lives in fear of their life. No one knows what will happen next. There are skirmishes daily, murders, assassinations, sometimes pitched battles. Much of the city has burned down and the imperial palace itself was attacked.’

  ‘By ronin,’ snapped Taki, scowling. ‘Southern ronin.’

  Sachi gasped. Ronin. She knew what that meant – masterless samurai, two-sworded men who had left their clan and belonged nowhere. They had no lord to answer to, no one to take responsibility for their deeds. They were nameless, faceless men, wild men who operated outside the law, knowing their actions would not bring shame or censure on their clan. Far from being an organized army, they committed acts of random violence, raping, looting and murdering. They wielded their two swords without reserve. For them the only constraint was death.

  ‘His Majesty spoke to me of . . . of the Choshu rebels,’ she whispered. ‘He was going to put down their uprising.’

  Lady Tsuguko nodded. ‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘The cause of all the trouble in Kyoto is clansmen of the southern domains – Choshu, Satsuma, Tosa and the other great domains of the south-west. Their lords have risen against the Tokugawas and are trying to wrest power from them. The northern lords are loyal and are trying to hold them back and keep the peace, but the southerners are rich and powerful and armed by the English barbarians.’

  ‘But why does the shogun, Lord Yoshinobu, want to give power to the emperor?’ asked Sachi.

  ‘The southerners have clever thinkers who’ve put about the idea that the shogun derives his power from the emperor – that generations back the emperor delegated the shogun to rule as his representative,’ said Lady Tsuguko.

  ‘Well,’ muttered Taki, ‘I grew up in Kyoto and I never heard anything about that.’

  ‘Now, they say, the time has come for the shogun to give that power back,’ said Lady Tsuguko dryly. ‘It’s all a pretext, of course. The late emperor, Her Highness’s brother, would have nothing of it. Perhaps that’s why . . . anyway, he passed away. His son is very young and easy to manipulate. He is a pawn, a puppet. It’s a question of who is going to work the strings. There are powerful men in the emperor’s court who are in league with the southerners.

  ‘But Lord Yoshinobu is very clever too. He’s engaged in some complicated game. And even though he has abdicated as shogun, he is still head of the House of Tokugawa. Nothing can change that. The northern clans are firmly behind the Tokugawas and will fight to the death for them. And everyone still reveres Lord Yoshinobu, no matter what he does. It’s what he stands for that counts, not what he is.

  ‘The most fearful thing of all is that the enemy is closing in. There are gangs of southern ronin right here in Edo now. They rove around causing havoc in our streets, looting, setting fires and killing anyone they suspect of being a supporter of the shogun. The townsfolk dare not go out.

  ‘Even here in the palace you must have heard the fighting. We’re safe here, but maybe not for much longer. We don’t know what will happen, or how much longer this life of ours can go on. Sooner or later the southerners will try to take the castle. They’re bound to. It’s the last stronghold of the Tokugawas. They may also try to capture the princess and the Retired One and hold them as hostages. We must be prepared.’

  Sachi felt as if she had been turned to stone, like one of the rocks in the gardens. She had spent so many years learning the rules and traditions of the women’s palace, doing her best to become part of this ancient way of life. She had thought nothing could ever change it. But now it was rushing towards a terrible end. Darkness surrounded their frail world, threatening to swallow it up at any moment.

  ‘I will willingly give my life for the princess,’ she said quietly. ‘You know that.’

  ‘Be ready,’ said Lady Tsuguko. ‘The time may come sooner than we think.’

  II

  Somewhere in the distance Sachi heard the jangling of fire bells. There seemed to be many, ringing faintly at first, then louder and louder. Someone was shaking her.

  ‘Wake up! Wake up!’ It was Taki’s voice.

  The fire bells really were clanging – not far away in the city but right there in the castle. Suddenly she was wide awake. She pushed her covers aside, shivering as the icy air pierced her sleeping robes. All around her women were stumbling to their feet. Heavy garments swished against the closed door and voices whispered urgently. It was night time still. There were lanterns lit around the room. With no time to wait for Taki to help her dress, she grabbed the nearest robes she could find and threw them on, then tugged her cowl over her head. She slid her dagger into her obi and slipped her comb, mirror, amulets and handkerchief into her sleeves.

  Taki was rolling up a few of the most valuable embroidered kimonos, bundling them together with Sachi’s favourite poetry books. Even in the castle, with its massive stone ramparts, thick plastered walls and sturdy wooden beams and pillars, fire was a real danger. A few years earlier the second of the three fortified palaces that occupied the grounds had gone up in flames. Many people had been killed and large sections of the palace had been gutted.

  Looking around hurriedly for things to take with her, Sachi noticed a dusty bundle shoved away in a corner. It was the one she had brought with her from the village. For some reason the tattered old fabric suddenly seemed far more precious than all the gold and brocades she had accumulated in her years in the palace. She tucked it under one arm and took her halberd in its silk bag from its rack on the wall.

  There was a sudden silence. The footsteps dashing up and down outside stopped, as if the crowd of women jostling past had turned to stone. Then there was a whisper like the wind rippling a field of long grass – the sound of many women drawing in their breath. The door to Sachi’s room slid open. Standing in the shadows outside was a tiny figure. A pale face glimmered in the darkness, half hidden in the folds of the cowl draped around it.

  It was the princess. Without waiting to be announced, she burst in and stood very still in the centre of the room. The subtle scent of a musky winter perfume swirled in with her. She was panting, her fists clenched so tightly that her knuckles were white. Lady Tsuguko and a bevy of ladies crowded in after her. Shocked, Sachi and her maids dropped their bundles, threw themselves on their hands and knees and pressed their heads to the matting.

  ‘My Lady Shoko-in,’ said the princess, addressing Sachi by her formal name.

  Sachi glanced up. It was the first time she had ever seen the princess without make-up. With her wide eyes and uncombed hair she looked like a child. Her skin was so translucent she seemed scarcely human, as if she could not possibly be a creature of this world. But there was something else. There was a spark in her eye, a grim determination about her that Sachi had not seen before.

  ‘Lady Shoko-in,’ said the princess, drawing a deep breath. ‘Child. They’re here. They’ve broken in. Southern ronin have set the palace afire. Now they’re out to find me and kidnap me in the confusion.’

  ‘Here in the palace? Southerners?’ stuttered Sachi in horror, trying to grasp what the princess was saying. ‘But . . . how can that be? How could they poss
ibly break in?’

  Southerners inside the castle? It was unthinkable. The castle was supposed to be impregnable and the women’s palace was deep inside the castle grounds. The southerners would have had to cross moats, scale massive ramparts, cross drawbridges and evade squads of guards. If it was true, then the last stronghold had been penetrated. This was what the women had been training for all their lives – to defend their world against their enemies no matter what it took.

  ‘I have my spies,’ hissed the princess. ‘We have to move quickly.’

  Lady Tsuguko was a couple of steps behind the princess. Her black eyes shone. She seemed to have grown in stature. She was full of quiet excitement, eager to take command. She raised a hand, signalling to Sachi to listen.

  ‘Your time has come,’ said Princess Kazu. ‘I have a service to ask of you, the greatest service anyone could ask. Take my palanquin and leave the castle. I have sent orders to my guards. You must lure my enemies away from the palace.’

  ‘You are the only one who can do this,’ Lady Tsuguko chimed in. ‘You know that. This is your chance to repay your debt to Her Highness.’

  The bells were clanging urgently. Feet raced past the closed door. Smoke was beginning to waft into the room. The princess’s ladies glanced around nervously.

  Sachi knew very well that this was a desperate mission. If she was to be bait for the enemy she was very probably going to her death. But she was bound to the princess. She had every reason to sacrifice herself for her. It was the princess who had taken her from the village and installed her in a position of luxury and privilege and given her to the shogun as his concubine. She had always known the time might come when she would be called upon to repay that debt.

  There were practical reasons too to choose her. The southerners could have no idea what Princess Kazu looked like. No one apart from her closest ladies-in-waiting and her family in Kyoto had ever seen her. But everyone knew that she was a high-nosed aristocrat with the whitest of skin and, as His Majesty’s widow, that she must be a nun. Sachi looked just like Her Highness and she too was a nun; she wore her hair cut short and covered it with a cowl. She was a perfect copy. She could have been born to be her lookalike.