The Last Concubine (37 page)

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. Up 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.’

When they got to the post town of Urawa the following day there were red banners fluttering outside the gates, marked with a white cross in a circle. Sachi’s heart sank as she saw it. The crest
of the Shimazu, the most implacable of the southern warlords. So the enemy really was right at the gates of Edo. There were other banners too – scarlet, marked with the golden chrysanthemum of the emperor. She had heard rumours that the southerners were calling themselves the imperial army; here was the proof.

The highway was packed with enemy soldiers and they would have to walk straight through the middle of them. Sachi held her halberd low, hoping that in the crush the soldiers would think it was just a staff. With her head down she threaded her way through the throng, keeping close to the foreigners. Taki and Shinzaemon followed behind. She walked slowly and steadily, placing her feet carefully as if she was treading on egg shells, focusing her mind on walking, trying not to let the smallest twitch of her mouth or her hands betray her fear. Her heart was pounding. Thousands of soldiers, all converging, just waiting for the order to march on the city. And this was just the beginning. She prayed to the gods that there was an army just as formidable waiting to beat them back when they got there.

In the evening they came to Itabashi – ‘Wooden Bridge’ – the last post town on the Inner Mountain Road. They were almost in Edo. It was only two
ri
to the centre, where the castle was. Flaming torches were burning along the road and watchfires on the surrounding hills.

Long before they entered Itabashi they heard shouts and laughter and the twang of shamisens. The inns and hostelries were bursting at the seams. There were lanterns lit in front of every house. Enemy soldiers swarmed in the streets, swigging sake out of bamboo flasks, talking and guffawing in their boorish accents. Geishas and prostitutes were out in force, grabbing them as they swaggered by and trying to drag them into their establishments. Porters, bearers and stable boys were touting eagerly for work. Even the beggars were grinning, enjoying the merrymaking. So near to Edo, the shogun’s city, and they partied so carelessly with his enemies! Didn’t anyone care which side the soldiers were on, or were they only interested in their purses? She could guess what it was. Everyone knew the end was coming, so what did it matter any more? They might as well have fun.

They reached the checkpoint – the last they would have to pass before they got to Edo. Sachi and her companions kept their faces lowered, but when the guards saw the barbarians’ palanquins they got down on their knees and waved the party on. As Sachi walked through the gates, she suddenly realized how exhausted she was. Her feet were chafed and swollen and her legs felt so heavy she thought she would never walk another step. The little toe of her right foot rubbed excruciatingly. It could only be another blister. She would have to bind it and put on new sandals.

Then she looked up. Through the houses that lined the road she caught a glimpse of paddy fields dotted with farmhouses and beyond that . . . Roofs, tiled roofs, a great ocean of roofs, sparkling in the evening light, stretching from horizon to horizon for as far as she could see. Edo.

For a moment it seemed as beautiful as the Western Paradise, as if Amida Buddha himself might be there to welcome them. On the darkening east side of the city, lights twinkled and threads of smoke coiled upwards like the smoke from a thousand incense burners. Between the roofs were splashes of pink – cherry trees, perhaps. And there were patches of darkness, groves of trees and broad sweeping roofs marking the estates of the daimyos. Was it just her imagination or could she make out, right in the middle, the battlements, landscaped pleasure gardens and wooded grounds of the castle?

Shinzaemon looked at the city. She could see on his face his eagerness to get there, to join his comrades, to prepare for war. Then he turned. Their eyes met in a long lingering gaze. Taki was staring at the city with a look of dazed relief.

But soon they realized something was terribly wrong. As they stumbled off again on their sore feet, they could see that shops and stalls had been wrecked and storehouses broken into. Doors were smashed and windows ripped out. Broken screens, shards of wood, abacuses and rolls of silk lay in the dust and barrels of rice spilt across the ground. The shops that had escaped damage were shuttered and bolted. They walked in silence. Sachi was afraid even to put words to the thought: if it was like this here, how would it be in Edo itself?

Shinzaemon had been walking behind. They were well inside
the city when he caught up with her. He glanced at the samurai guards to check that they were out of earshot.

‘That’s where I’ll be,’ he said. A road led away to the left between dilapidated shops towards Kanei-ji Temple. ‘The militia is barracked there, on Ueno Hill. I’ll see you to the castle first.’

Sachi was speechless. Her eyes filled with tears. The idea of losing him was unbearable.

A while later they crossed the outer moat. To their right was the samurai section of town with its broad boulevards and high walls masking the daimyos’ palaces, to their left the maze of narrow lanes where the townsmen lived. Sachi couldn’t help noticing that the canals that had been full of people and boats when she last saw them were now empty. A terrible silence hung over the place, as if some deadly plague had fallen on the city. The smells of life had gone, and there was only a faint odour of dust. Some of the daimyos had even taken their palaces with them. The little convoy passed great gates standing open. Beyond the tiled walls Sachi could see nothing but an open expanse covered in sand, no buildings at all. How could everything have changed so quickly? When she had left in the imperial palanquin, the city had been a living, noisy place. Now it was a graveyard, populated by ghosts. She tried not to think of what might have happened at the castle and in the women’s palace.