The Last Concubine

by Lesley Downer

  Yuki pushed up one of the blinds and stared at the city going by. The sun had not yet risen but the streets were already buzzing. At first they threaded their way between the high earthen walls that lined the shadowy lanes of the samurai districts. Then pungent aromas of woodsmoke and cooking began to waft into the litter. Cocks crowed and dogs barked. There were sounds of knocking and tapping, of planing and chiselling, and the smell of lacquer heating as they passed through the craftsmen’s neighbourhood.

  Then a new odour came creeping up, slow but relentless, until it enveloped everything like a fog. It was so strange and unpleasant that Sachi recoiled. It was many years since she had smelled it last, yet she knew it immediately. For a moment she was a child again, back in the village, playing with the other children. Some, she remembered, had been smaller, stunted, under-nourished, their skin permanently blackened with dirt and the sun. The same faint, rather nauseous smell clung to their ragged clothes and strange broad hats. Sachi could hear her mother’s voice ringing in her ears: ‘That smell – I can smell it on you. You’ve been playing with the outcastes again. How many times do I have to tell you? They’re unclean. Their parents deal in death. Decent people stay well away.’ She too had learned to shun those who performed the jobs decent people spurned – tanning leather, disposing of animal carcasses and carrying out executions.

  Taki was jogging along in the second litter. Someone like her, who had led such a protected life, had surely never before come anywhere near people like these. Sachi knew she must be shrinking in horror, terrified of pollution.

  Yuki was slumped against the wall of the litter. Suddenly she jerked upright and squealed, ‘Stop! Stop!’

  At the same instant Shinzaemon barked, ‘Stop!’ The bearers lowered the litter to the ground. Yuki was already scrambling out.

  Sachi leaned forward then shrank back, pressing her veil to her face. The stench was unbearable. It was decaying flesh, the reek of the charnel house. Through the open door of the litter she could see a pair of huge wooden gates. Nailed on to boards set on posts was a row of strange round objects. Some had long, tangled hair, like ghosts. Others, though dishevelled, still had their hair knotted into samurai topknots. Their eyes were shut and their jaws slack. Where their bodies should have been was nothing but air. Dark liquid still dripped from some of the severed necks. They were human heads.

  The faces were grey and immobile as if modelled in clay but even in death they looked noble. Beneath each was a wooden board inscribed with their name, age, birthplace and crime. Ignoring the revulsion rising in her throat, Sachi tried to make out which of them resembled the countenance she had seen in the daguerreotype. The ignominy! It was a terrible death for a samurai.

  Yuki, in her small child’s kimono with her hair tied into butterfly loops, and big brawny Shinzaemon, with his bushy hair pulled back in a ponytail, stood side by side, chins tilted, staring up at them.

  Finally Yuki nodded. ‘It doesn’t look much like Papa,’ she said. There was a long silence.

  ‘One day I shall avenge you,’ she added. Her piping voice was soft but fierce.

  ‘You are a true daughter of a samurai,’ Shinzaemon said to her. ‘Your father would be proud.’

  III

  There was no time to lose. As they jogged along in silence, Yuki sat staring straight ahead, her face as stony as the ones outside the prison gates. Sachi put her arms around her. She was afraid she would never speak again.

  Shinzaemon and Toranosuké rode together, conferring in low voices. Sachi caught their words drifting down the wind.

  ‘Checkpoint coming up. Could be southerners.’

  She pushed up the window flap and peeped out. They were swinging and swaying along a narrow street lined with high earthen walls. At the end was a pair of massive wooden gates. She dropped the blind and sat in silence, hardly daring to breathe. Uncle Sato, she knew, had arranged travel permits – a wooden tablet for each of them with the signature and burned-in seal of the Kano authorities. But would the checkpoint be manned by the old guard, who were loyal to the shogun, or had southerners taken their place? If the guards were from the south, it was all too likely they would be arrested and escorted straight back to Kano. Sachi realized with a lurch of fear that they might well end up next to Yuki’s father on the prison gates.

  Feet crunched on the frozen snow-covered gravel and swords and rifles banged against each other as soldiers swarmed around the litters. She could hear Shinzaemon and Toranosuké dismounting. In the distance was the pounding of approaching hooves.

  ‘Hey, Aoyama, is that you? Doing all right are you?’

  So Shinzaemon knew the guards. They were comrades. Sachi heaved a sigh of relief.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t Shin and Tora. Where’re you off to?’

  ‘Upcountry,’ said Toranosuké nonchalantly.

  ‘Travelling with women? Smart move. No one will suspect you’re ronin if you have women in tow. Not going to Aizu then?’

  ‘You’ll have to wait awhile,’ grunted another voice. ‘There’s a militia coming through.’

  A troop of horsemen came trotting between the great wooden gates. Several were in full armour, visible beneath their brightly coloured silk field jackets. The cold winter light glinted off their scabbards, pennons and lances. Some wore helmets with ferocious horns, their faces hidden behind iron masks fringed with whiskers. Their breath came puffing out in little clouds as if they were fire-breathing dragons, and locks of black and white hair dangled to their waists. They were like demons in a nightmare.

  Soldiers – and on their way to war. But which side were they on? Sachi guessed they must be escorting some noble and powerful personage but there was no palanquin, only right in the middle a group of several horsemen gathered together. Bringing up the rear was a train of packhorses with huge bundles strapped to their backs and a troop of gawky young peasants with hard brown arms and leathery faces, armed with clumsy rifles that reminded her of the old matchlock her father had kept to protect the village from bandits.

  ‘Shin, Tora,’ bawled one warrior. Above his gleaming breastplate he had the eager face and smooth cheeks of a teenage boy. So they were friends too, Kano men, and on the northern side. ‘Where’re you off to? Not coming to Aizu?’

  ‘There’s a pacification force on its way out of Kyoto,’ yelled another. ‘If you take the Inner Mountain Road, you’d better move fast or they’ll be on top of you. Come with us and join the resistance. We’re gonna hole up in Aizu. There’s gonna be a huge battle. We’ll wipe out those southern traitors. It’ll be glorious!’

  It was only after the whole procession – warriors, retainers, bannermen, grooms, servants, porters and packhorses – had disappeared through the gates on the far side of the checkpoint that Shinzaemon and Toranosuké took in their travel permits to be checked. When they were finally cleared and ready to leave, Sachi handed fresh-faced young Tatsuemon, Toranosuké’s page, some money to give as gratuities to the guards for their wives.

  They were nearly through the second set of gates when a sharpeyed guard barked, ‘Townswomen, you said? With skin like that? Don’t look much like townswomen to me!’

  He must have seen the small white hand pushing aside the flimsy wall of the litter. Quietly Sachi felt for her dagger, tucked securely in her sash.

  ‘There’ve been spies from Edo around, on the lookout for some of the shogun’s ladies. Gone missing, they say,’ drawled the guard.

  ‘Don’t know anything about that,’ muttered Toranosuké. ‘These are our cousins from the Kano estate in Edo.’

  ‘Our permits are in order,’ growled Shinzaemon. ‘Look to your own business. Things are changing fast round here. See you on the battlefield in Aizu!’

  IV

  For a long time Yuki sat in silence, her small round face pale and rigid, her butterfly loops unmoving on top of her head. But then she seemed to realize that she was leaving her home for ever. She peered steadfastly under the blind as the city of Kano grew small behind t
hem. Sachi, too full of relief that they were leaving that city of ghosts, could not bring herself to look.

  The roads were a lot wilder than they had been even a few weeks earlier, when they had arrived in Kano. They were full of ruts and craters, littered with broken straw sandals. No one had even bothered to collect horse droppings, which lay in heaps on the ground. Swathes of plume grass burst across the verges and there were broken branches on the trees that marked the distance. Many of the villages were surrounded by makeshift stockades and groups of farmers stood guard, wielding guns, bamboo lances and clubs.

  At first they jogged through paddies and vegetable fields dotted with mounds of frozen brown earth. Shrivelled rice stalks punctured the grimy snow. Ragged haystacks canopied in snow straggled along the edges of the fields. Trees lined the road and from time to time they came to a village or a thatched-roof stall offering tea and snacks. On the horizon mountains poked up like jagged teeth.

  At noon they stopped at an inn for a rest. The innkeeper looked them up and down.

  ‘Well, you look mightily like a bunch of ruffians but I guess as you’re travelling with women . . .’ he said, before letting them in.

  It seemed it was as convenient for the men as it was for them to travel together. Perhaps this was why Shinzaemon had sought her out. For some reason the thought made Sachi feel desolate. In any case there was no chance now for them to exchange words, surrounded by their companions and with the women hidden away in litters.

  At first Toranosuké and Tatsuemon rode at the front while Shinzaemon brought up the rear, but once they were well away from the city Toranosuké dropped back. From time to time Sachi caught snatches of conversation. It was vital to know what was going on, she told herself. But there was also a certain sweetness in hearing Shinzaemon’s deep tones, though she hardly dared confess it even to herself.

  ‘That prison governor is a fool,’ Shinzaemon said. ‘I should have had his head. But it’s too late now. Reason or bribes – nothing would sway him. There must have been some way. I should have broken in there and fetched him out myself.’ She guessed it was Yuki’s father he was talking about.

  ‘You did all you could, Shin,’ said Toranosuké. ‘There’ll be plenty of killing to be done. These are bloody times. Let’s just do our best to make sure we die honourably in battle.’

  There was a long silence. The clanking of swords, the crunch of the horses’ straw-shod hooves on the frozen ground and the rhythmic thud of the bearers’ feet rang out eerily loud in the icy air.

  ‘Did you catch what they were talking about at the checkpoint?’ Toranosuké asked suddenly.

  ‘Couldn’t help it. So now he’s fled Edo Castle.’

  Sachi had been half dozing, huddled up against the cold as the miserable litter swung and jogged along. But she jerked awake when she heard the mention of Edo Castle.

  ‘Sought sanctuary in Kanei-ji Temple. Taken holy orders.’

  She could hear the bitterness and contempt in Shinzaemon’s voice. They could only be talking about Lord Yoshinobu.

  ‘Holy orders, is it? Hiding out, more like. He’s heard the southern army is on the march, heading for Edo. He’s surrendering before they even arrive! And he calls himself a samurai? That’s the man we’re gonna give our lives for?’

  ‘We’ve no choice,’ snapped Toranosuké. ‘We’ve been servants of the Tokugawa family for generations. We’re not fighting for him; we’re fighting for the Tokugawas and the northern cause. We have our honour to think of, Shin. We have to fight, it’s our duty. To the death. It doesn’t matter who the shogun is or what he does, we have to stand up against the southern clans. They’re greedy for power. They’ll murder and burn and reduce the whole country to ashes if they think that’s the way to get it. They claim they want to drive the foreigners out and then they fight with English weapons. They have to be stopped.’

  The conversation grew indistinct. They seemed to have ridden on ahead. Then voices came wafting down the wind again.

  ‘You know the southerners are calling themselves the imperial army?’ came Shinzaemon’s deep growl. ‘Now they tell us the emperor is our true lord and anyone who opposes him is a traitor.’

  ‘A lot of daimyos are waiting to see which way the wind’s blowing. One by one they’re going over to the south. No one wants to be called a traitor.’

  ‘We can’t win. If we do the honourable thing and stand by our lord, we end up getting branded as traitors!’

  ‘That’s if the Tokugawas lose. We’ll just have to make good and sure they don’t. If the Tokugawa family falls, the government falls. The whole place collapses. Then those accursed foreigners will move their armies in and take over. They’re like flies around a corpse.’

  Sachi struggled to make sense of it all. If Lord Yoshinobu had fled the castle and the southerners were closing in, what could have happened to the princess and the Retired One? They would never flee, or allow themselves to be taken alive. No doubt they were waiting, polishing their daggers. And what had the guard at the checkpoint meant when he said there were spies out looking for the shogun’s ladies? It could only be that they were in search of her – His late Majesty’s concubine. She trembled to think of it. Then she reminded herself of her training. She made her mind still, felt for the steel core inside herself. She must never forget that she was a warrior, a woman of ice and fire, a consort of the Tokugawas.

  ‘And this crazy expedition of yours, Shin.’ Toranosuké had lowered his voice but she could just catch what he was saying. ‘It’s certainly a good subterfuge to travel with women. But straight into the jaws of the southerners, just the three of us? On the whim of some idle court ladies? What makes you so interested in women all of a sudden? You’re losing your muscle. Hang around women and children too much and you’ll turn into a woman yourself. We need to get rid of them before we all go soft!’

  That night they stopped at a ramshackle inn on the edge of a village. By the time the women had climbed out of the litters, the men had disappeared along with the porters.

  Slowly Sachi straightened her back and stretched her legs, then brushed off her kimono skirts. She was aching and sore from the long day jolting in the litter. She wiped her face with her sleeve and glanced in a mirror. Her porcelain skin was grimy. Her smooth cheeks were specked with dirt and her black hair was ruffled and grey with dust.

  Taki was rubbing her thin neck and stretching.

  ‘I’m so stiff,’ she grumbled. With her big eyes, pointed chin and patrician features, she looked even more out of place in this remote backwater than she had been in Kano. Sachi smiled at her. She took a comb from her sleeve and began to smooth Taki’s hair, tucking the unruly ends into place. No matter where she went, no matter how distant or wretched the place, she knew Taki would go with her. It was a comfort to know she had such a loyal friend.

  The room was dark and dank and dirty and much smaller than their room in Kano had been. A wizened innkeeper served them thrushes roasted on skewers, preserved mountain vegetables and wild boar meat.

  ‘We call it whale – mountain whale,’ the woman mumbled as she served the boar. ‘So we can eat it and still be good Buddhists.’

  But the women had little appetite, especially for such outlandish food.

  ‘I wonder what’s happening in Kano,’ said Yuki after the innkeeper had gone. Her childish face was grave. There was a new look in her eyes, as if she’d suddenly had to grow up.

  The women sat in silence, toying with their food. The same thought was on all their minds.

  More to comfort herself than for any other reason, Sachi began to tell Yuki about her village – the rushing river, the sun rising over the mountains, the tiled roofs, the woods where she had played as a child. She pictured her mother’s gentle, tired face, her father’s large capable hands, the big old house with its polished floorboards. She hadn’t realized how much she yearned to see them again, those dear familiar faces.

  Surely the village must be very close, she thought. It
was on the Inner Mountain Road, somewhere in the Kiso mountains. They would have to pass straight through it!

  Suddenly it became clear, as if a mist had lifted. She didn’t want to go to Edo after all, not straight away, at least. They would go to the village, she and Taki and Yuki. They could hide there. It would be safe, far safer than Edo. The southerners would never bother with a little place like that. It would be a refuge for the three of them until things were more settled.

  It was her only chance to go home. Once things had calmed down she would be back in the palace again, locked away for the rest of her life. She was the late shogun’s concubine; she could never escape that.

  It was a risk to go to the village, she knew. She had no idea what had happened while she had been away or if the village was even there any more. She wasn’t even sure exactly where it was. She only knew she had to get there.

  V

  At the town of Mitake they joined the Inner Mountain Road. Ahead of them they could see the hills beginning.

  ‘We walk from here,’ said Toranosuké. ‘It’ll be too steep for litters soon. And they draw too much attention.’

  The road led straight into the mountains, winding steeply up between crumbling volcanic crags and pinnacles of rock that teetered towards the clouds. In the afternoon they reached the Hosokute checkpoint. There was a stockade around the town and guards posted at the gates, checking on travellers. Twenty soldiers armed with rifles came crunching across the gravel towards them. The women had made sure their faces were well wrapped up. They were allowed through without much fuss but the men were questioned at length.

  Sachi was standing to one side of the compound, trying not to draw attention to herself.

  ‘Kano, you say?’ she heard an officer barking. ‘We know all about you Kano men. We’ve had enough trouble from you. And these permits of yours – issued by the proper authorities, are they?’