They danced forward and back. Grinning, he took a step towards her. She saw the sun glint as he raised his sword. With a yell she lunged forward and swung the halberd, slicing through his trouser and nicking the front of his calf. She raised her weapon and spun round, ready for the next blow. He leaped back with a yowl, his face twisted in pain. There was a wet stain growing larger on the black of his trouser leg.
‘Now I’m angry,’ he roared. His face blackened and swelled like a bullfrog’s as he bore down on her, swinging his sword with both hands. But the halberd was longer.
Sachi was poised, balanced, waiting. He raised his sword. She sprang forward and caught the blow on the blade of her halberd. There was an ear-splitting clang. The force of the blow sent her staggering back a few steps. She slipped and put her hand out to steady herself. As she looked up, she saw the sword flashing through the air towards her. Before she had time to breathe she had raised her halberd and parried the blow. She gave the blade a twist. She felt the rush of air, smelt the vile stale smell of the man as he stumbled clumsily forward, caught off balance by his own momentum.
She leaped to her feet and spun round on her toes, pointing the halberd at his chest. Her hair had come loose and fallen across her face. She felt no fear, only a sort of wild elation.
Out of the corner of her eye she could see Shinzaemon fighting like a madman, striking, stabbing, parrying blows, thrusting his sword into men’s chests and slashing them about the face. Taki was at his side, lashing out with her halberd as the southerners’ bodies piled up in a bloody heap in front of them. But they were being driven inexorably back by the onslaught. She needed to finish this quickly and help them.
The man scrambled to his feet, roaring like a wounded beast. He charged towards her. She saw the hatred in his little black eyes. The sounds and noise of battle – the metallic clangs and crashes, Shinzaemon’s war cries, the yowls of pain – faded away. There was an eerie silence. In the whole world there were just the two of them. Her halberd had become a part of her, an extension of her body.
She focused on his eyes. He swung his sword. She leaped back as it crashed down on the blade of her halberd. Then she darted forward and dropped to one knee.
Very deliberately she swung the halberd, aiming for his throat. She could feel the heaviness of the blade, the momentum of it, and hear the hiss as it curved through the air.
Then suddenly the pockmarked head was spinning upwards. She looked at the halberd in amazement. The blade had passed through the man’s muscular neck as smoothly as a knife through water.
The headless body staggered on, blood spouting in a fountain from the neck, then lurched to one side and crumpled. The head rolled across the road and flopped into the gutter. The water divided around it, running red where it had landed.
She awoke as if from a trance and darted into the fray. She could see that Shinzaemon had been hurt. He was fighting lefthanded, with blood streaming from his right arm. And no matter how many southerners fell, more took up the attack.
Suddenly there was a bang, ear-shatteringly loud. Sachi started and looked around frantically. She knew the sound though she had never heard it so close to hand. Gunfire. Everyone froze. There was another shot.
Half the southerners were sprawled on the ground, groaning or screaming in pain. Some lay silent. Taki and Shinzaemon leaned on their weapons, wiping blood and sweat from their faces. Their clothes were in tatters, their hair sticking out wildly, but apart from the wound on Shinzaemon’s arm they seemed to be all right.
Sachi ran up to him. ‘I’m fine,’ he said, grimacing as he tore off a piece of his kimono skirts to bind the wound. ‘Just another scar.’
Passers-by were standing at a safe distance to watch, blankfaced. At the sound of the shots everyone had gone deadly quiet. Then they started shrieking and running in every direction.
In the turmoil, no one had noticed some palanquins appearing accompanied by an escort of samurai. Two creatures leaped out and stormed into the crowd, holding guns above their heads. Smoke coiled from the barrels.
But were they men or ogres? They had two eyes, two ears and two hands, but they were huge and brawny, like giants. Their heads and shoulders poked above the crowd. Their faces were craggy, not smooth and round, and their noses jutted out, monstrously big. Could they be tengu, the long-nosed goblins that lived in the mountains? But tengu had red faces. These creatures were deathly pale like ghosts. One had hair the colour of rice stalks in autumn, while the other’s hair was the colour of earth. And they were wearing strange outlandish clothes like nothing Sachi had ever seen before.
The crowd surged back as the creatures burst through. Some fell to their knees and pressed their heads to the ground. Others stood transfixed, their mouths gaping in shock. Some of the women screamed and ran away.
The straw-headed one paid no attention. He marched straight into the middle of the battlefield, stepping across the groaning southern soldiers. A rank smell hung about him like fog. It was the smell of the outcastes, of those who dealt in butchery – the smell of meat, of dead flesh.
Of course. These were not tengu at all but something far more frightening and weird. Tojin – foreigners. Sachi had heard talk of the ‘stinking barbarians’ but she had never met anyone who had actually seen one. As far as she knew, they were restricted to a tiny village outside Edo called Yokohama, a port near Osaka and a handful of other ports. She had certainly seen the Yokohama prints that depicted these exotic creatures with their fearsome noses, strange costumes and extraordinary dwellings. There had been plenty of these woodblock prints at the women’s palace. She had also heard – indeed, everyone seemed to know – that the original cause of the southerners’ uprising had been that none of the shoguns had been able to drive the barbarians out. That had been the pretext, at any rate, for their rebellion.
Now the foreigner opened his mouth and shouted. Sachi drew herself up and looked straight at him. She was not going to run away or shriek. She must never forget she was the Retired Lady Shoko-in, the concubine of His late Majesty. She gestured at his gun. What was he going to do? Did he mean to shoot them all?
He stared at her with his strange pale eyes. It made her feel uncomfortable. She wished she could conceal her face, but she had lost her hat and veil. He spoke again. His voice was so loud it made her start. To her amazement she realized she could understand him. He was speaking a stilted version of her language, though with an odd distorted accent.
‘No worry, madam. I shoot in the air only. Can I help you? Are you all right?’
He barked at the southerners, ‘What’s this? Attacking ladies? So many against one man? Shame on you.’
The few southerners still on their feet stared at the ground, scowling. They were panting, bruised, bloodied, their black uniforms ripped, their hair wild.
‘This man is an outlaw,’ snarled one, gesturing at Shinzaemon.
‘That’s not true,’ Sachi protested fiercely. She was thinking fast. ‘He’s my . . . bodyguard. He was protecting me and my maid – my friend.’
The southern soldiers were whispering to each other. Their swords were still unsheathed, their fingers twitching on the hilts.
‘Interfering barbarians!’ hissed one. ‘We’ll get you. Just you wait!’
‘I think you have forgotten the emperor’s proclamation,’ said the foreigner smoothly. His gun was still in his hand. It looked new and shiny, quite unlike the ancient matchlocks that people had in Kiso. ‘No more killing of foreigners. You southerners, you call yourselves the emperor’s men. Do you have no respect for His Grace’s decree?’
He turned back to Sachi.
‘Madam,’ he said. ‘You go to Edo? We too. We escort you – you, your friend and your bodyguard. Travel with us. Our guards protect you. No need to worry.’
Sachi stared at him in shock. Travel with wild, unpredictable creatures like these? She knew nothing of them. With ordinary people – people of her country – she could read their faces, understand the
ir feelings beneath the forms and words that etiquette prescribed. But with barbarians like these, she had no idea what went on in their minds. It was the craziest notion she had ever heard.
Yet . . . it was wartime. The road was undoubtedly dangerous and Edo even more so. The barbarians had guns and a samurai escort bristling with swords and staves – though who those samurai were was another question. Which side were they on? Who did they report to? They were undoubtedly spies, delegated to keep an eye on the barbarians. If she and her companions travelled with them, they would have to guard their speech.
But though Shinzaemon could fight like a demon, there was only one of him. The most important thing now was to finish their journey, to get to Edo – to the princess, perhaps to her mother – before the southerners sealed the city off completely.
She glanced at Taki. Taki was wiping her halberd blade on her skirts. Her hair had come loose and stuck out in a great tangled bush. Her thin face was sticky with southerners’ blood but her big eyes shone with a mad triumphant gleam. She looked back at Sachi, raised her eyebrows and tilted her head to one side as if to say, ‘Do whatever you like. Things can’t get any worse.’
Shinzaemon had sheathed his sword and was tearing off a piece of cotton to make a sling for his injured arm. He looked at her, shrugged his broad shoulders and muttered, ‘What choice do we have?’
She sighed and inclined her head. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
The barbarian took off his hat and bowed stiffly.
‘My name is Edwards,’ he said. ‘Edowadzu.’
She tried out the syllables. ‘Edo-wadzu.’ Like Edo, the city of Edo. It was the strangest name she’d ever heard.
The man with the earth-coloured hair stepped forward.
‘Satow. At your service. By all means, please join us.’
II
The two giants rode in ungainly palanquins built to accommodate their long legs, carried by six bearers each, followed by their servants in two normal palanquins and a train of porters with their belongings. Sachi, Taki and Shinzaemon walked behind with their packhorses. The samurai escort marched in front and behind. Mobs pushed in the other direction – samurai retainers from daimyo households trudging along with grim determination, merchants followed by endless trains of porters carrying baskets of belongings, beggars and threatening vaguely military-looking men hiding their faces under deep straw hats. But travelling with the foreigners and their guard they finally felt safe.
The next town was overflowing with people. Crowds filled the street, clamouring and pushing. ‘Tojin! Tojin! Foreigners! Foreigners!’ they shouted. Sachi heard other cries: ‘Stupid barbarians. Throw out the barbarians. Clear off!’ She hoped the foreigners could not understand them. The mobs were all staring, elbowing each other out of the way, doing their best to get a glimpse inside the palanquins. The samurai shoved them aside with their staves, barking, ‘On your knees. Get down!’ No one paid the slightest attention to Sachi, Taki and Shinzaemon. Everyone was far too busy trying to see the tojin.
The highway wound on, along the side of a river, through rice fields bordered with cherry trees just coming into bloom, with misty hills rising in the distance. Once they were clear of the town, the bearers set down the palanquins and the foreigners clambered out, groaning and stretching their long legs. What strange creatures they were, thought Sachi. How could they be so uncomfortable when they were riding in such big luxurious palanquins? Instead of sandals, their sandal-bearers carried big, shiny boots for them which smelt of animal hide. They pulled them on with sighs of relief and set off again on foot.
Sachi, Taki and Shinzaemon kept their distance. Taki, usually so fearless, seemed terrified of these extraordinary beings. Shinzaemon had spent so much time on the road he had certainly come across such creatures before. No doubt he hated them as much as everyone else did, and would have loved to cut them down, but he was also aware that attacking foreigners was against not just the emperor’s decree but the policy of the retired shogun, his liege lord. No matter what he felt, he had to behave civilly towards them. She could see from the scowl on his face and the way he held his shoulders, his fingers drumming on the hilt of his sword, what a mighty effort he was making. Even worse, he had to bear the humiliation of being described as a bodyguard. No wonder he looked surly.
After a while the straw-headed man dropped back.
‘May I walk with you?’ he asked Sachi.
It was all Sachi could do not to laugh. He was hideous. He had hair sprouting from his face, like the fearsome moustaches that bristled on samurai’s helmets. And the smell . . . Besides, the idea of a samurai woman walking alongside a man who was not even a family member (as Shinzaemon, in effect, had become) was totally improper. But then, she reflected, he was only a barbarian – and a barbarian was not a man at all. It would be like walking with a bear or a monkey.
She glanced behind her. Shinzaemon was loping along as if he was paying no attention to anything, but she knew he saw and heard everything.
‘Where do you go in Edo?’ the barbarian asked boldly, looking down at her.
She was shocked at the directness of the question and also afraid. Ordinary people didn’t ask direct questions, especially at a time like this when nobody knew which side anyone else was on. ‘Have you been to Edo before?’ she asked, hoping that he might let slip some clue.
‘We live there,’ he said. ‘We have a house. A small house beside a temple. On a hill.’
She had thought he must be old because of the hair on his face and his strange coarse-textured skin. But his voice was boyish. He couldn’t be many years older than her. Where were his mother and father? What was he doing so far from home, travelling through this foreign country that was on the brink of war?
‘Everyone else is leaving Edo and we’re going there!’ he said as if in answer to her unspoken question, showing his teeth in a grin. ‘People say there’s going to be a terrible battle but you don’t seem worried, not at all. I’ve never before seen a woman who can fight like you!’
As he spoke he flapped his hands. They were large and powerful, bigger even than Shinzaemon’s swordsman’s hands. And the colour! As white as chalk. The pale hair on the fingers shone like gold threads in the sunlight. Perhaps he was not such a monster. Certainly he was not of the same race as her, but it seemed he was human after all.
Sachi had heard that barbarians were rough and uncivilized, that they had no manners, that they got violent when they were drunk, that they brawled and raped women. But close up they didn’t seem so bad. It was hard to believe she was really walking and talking with creatures like these. If the country had not been at war, if she had not been full of apprehension about what would happen when they got to Edo, it might have been thrilling, an experience to savour, to tell her grandchildren about.
She could feel Shinzaemon’s eyes on her. She was aware that while she might think the foreigner was only a barbarian, Shinzaemon knew perfectly well he was a man. She could sense Taki’s disapproval too. But after all, she was the mistress and Taki the maid, and she had to be civil to their hosts. And actually she was rather enjoying herself talking to this great lumbering creature.
He worked for the British Legation, he told her, though he said little about where they had been and nothing about the purpose of their journey. No doubt they were on some secret mission.
‘We’ve had great adventures,’ he added. ‘We’ve seen the most glorious things. Mount Fuji! Did you come that way? Did you cross Shiojiri Pass and see Mount Fuji on the horizon? I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. The weather was perfect!’
‘Your country . . .’ she murmured hesitantly, ‘must be beautiful too.’
He came, he told her, from a small island a long way away. It had taken him two months to reach her country. His was ruled by an empress who lived in a palace nearly as splendid – though not as large – as Edo Castle. It was called England.
‘Your country is ruled by a woman?’ Sachi asked incredulously. U
p to then she had believed everything he had said. But a country ruled by a woman – that couldn’t be true. Maybe he couldn’t speak her language as well as she had thought. Or perhaps everything he had told her was just stories.
England, he had said they were from. If they were English, these foreigners, they were on the side of the southerners. Did this Edwards really believe she was just a civilian who had been attacked by ronin? Surely not. After all, he had seen the dead and wounded southern soldiers littering the road. He had stepped right over them. Perhaps he suspected that she was a lady of the shogun’s court and a leading figure on the northern side whom the southerners would give anything to capture. She would have to be very cautious indeed.
That evening they saw lights twinkling far away in the distance, so many it looked as if the stars had fallen down to earth. There was a haze of smoke above the hills, half obscuring the sky.
‘Watchfires,’ said Shinzaemon. ‘We’re getting close. That monkey walking on his hind legs, talking like he thinks he’s a human being,’ he added in a growl. ‘How can you speak to him? He’s English. You know which side they’re on. What’s he doing travelling across our country? He must be a spy. They all are, these foreigners.’
‘Don’t be angry, not just as we’re going to part,’ pleaded Sachi. ‘You know I have to be civil. We’re their guests.’
‘We would have been fine on our own,’ grumbled Shinzaemon. ‘Better off, in fact. I could have taken care of us.’
‘We still have to get through the Itabashi checkpoint and Edo will be swarming with southerners. Dressed like this they’ll think we’re part of the foreigners’ entourage. It’s the perfect disguise. Don’t you see? You’ll be able to take a good look at the southern forces. There’ll be a lot you can report to the militia – how many there are of them, what arms they have, that sort of thing.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ he grunted. ‘Could be I’ll see something useful.’
The Last Concubine Page 28
