The Last Concubine (38 page)

They crossed another moat, then another. Night was falling by the time they reached Hirakawa Bridge. On the far side were a pair of massive wooden gates reinforced with bands of iron: the Tsubone Gate, the ‘Gate of the Shoguns’ Ladies’. They were at the entrance to the women’s quarters of Edo Castle. The gates were set in a smooth granite wall that soared into the darkening sky. Sachi took Taki’s hand and they stood side by side, looking across. A ray of sunlight sparkled on the still waters of the moat.

Sachi closed her eyes. For a moment that life came swirling back: the chambers glimmering with gold, painted with pine trees and cranes and birds; the fretted transepts, the exquisite coffered ceilings, the sumptuous kimonos. Even the maids had had magnificent kimonos, far finer than any she had seen since she left the palace. While she had lived there she had forgotten this other
world where people were poor, where they sometimes did not have enough to eat. But now it was the palace that seemed like a dream, as unreal as the palace of the dragon king’s daughter under the sea must have seemed to poor Urashima.

She had seen the palace in flames. But it had been only one section of one citadel in the great castle complex. Surely in the rest of the castle life must go on as it always had? The women must simply have moved to another part.

And what of her mother? She clutched the bundle containing the brocade and tried to picture the woman who had worn it. Was she too only a dream?

The moment had come, the moment she had been dreading. She had been trying not to think about it, hoping that it would never happen. But there was no avoiding it any longer.

Sachi and Shinzaemon stood together at the end of the bridge. The foreigners were standing nearby but they didn’t matter. There were ducks swimming on the murky water of the moat. The moon already hung pale in the sky though the sun had not yet set.

Shinzaemon took her hand. His large swordsman’s hand enfolded her small white one and held it tight. She felt the calluses on his palm where he wielded his sword. She could feel the dryness of his palm on hers, smell the faint whiff of salt on his skin, feel the warmth of his body. Tears sprang to her eyes but she choked them back. She wanted to beg him to stay but she knew she couldn’t. She ran her eyes across the fine bones of his face, his full-lipped mouth.

‘So you will be where you told me,’ she breathed, ‘on Ueno Hill?’

‘With the
shogitai
militia. The southerners still have to conquer Edo. If we can hold it for the Tokugawas perhaps we can drive them back.’

They looked at each other. ‘While I live I’ll never forget you,’ he said softly. ‘I had never imagined the world contained someone like you – or that it could be so rich and colourful. You make it very hard for me to accept that I may die. No, not “may”. I have to die.’

‘I shall pray with all my might that you live,’ she said. ‘When the war is over, come and find me.’

She knew what she had to do. She reached into her sleeve for her comb, that precious comb that she had loved since she was a child, and held it out to him. The gold crest embossed on it gleamed in the rays of the setting sun and their two shadows stretched out long across the ground.

‘This is the most precious thing I have,’ she said. ‘It’s my good luck charm. I’ve had it all my life. It will protect you. When you look at it, think of me.’

‘I can’t take it,’ he protested. ‘I know what it means to you.’

‘It will bring you back to me,’ she said. ‘It will protect you better than any amulet, better than a thousand-stitch belt. When you see me again you can give it back.’

She pressed it into his hands, letting her soft hands linger on his hard muscular ones. He lifted it gravely to his forehead in a formal gesture of thanks, then bowed and tucked it in his sleeve. They stood in silence for a while.

Suddenly Sachi had an idea. Impulsively she said, ‘Meet me one last time, I beg you. Here, at the Tsubone Gate, tomorrow, at dusk.’

Even as she said it, she knew it was a crazy plan. In the past it would have been unthinkable to sneak out for a meeting with a man. She had no reason now to think things had changed that much. In a moment, when she passed through the gates, she would be the retired lady of the side chamber again. And him? A soldier didn’t walk away from the barracks.

But no matter what, she would be there. ‘I’ll be waiting for you,’ she said.

He looked away, then took a breath and said, ‘I’ll do my best.’ Sachi was expecting Taki to scold her. She could almost hear her voice saying, ‘Remember your place. Remember who you are.’

But Taki didn’t. She was looking at Shinzaemon. There were tears in her eyes too. Suddenly Sachi realized that Taki was sad too, a deep hopeless despairing sadness. She was as far from Toranosuké as ever. Coming to Edo hadn’t brought her any closer to him. She too had enjoyed the freedom of the road and seemed a little shocked to be heading back into the prison of the palace.

‘I have a request too,’ Taki said hesitantly in the tiniest of
squeaky whispers. ‘I know it’s foolish but . . .’ She took an amulet from her sleeve. Sachi recognized it. It was a long-life amulet Taki had brought with her from Kyoto. She pressed it into Shinzaemon’s hand.

‘Please give this to Master Toranosuké,’ she said. ‘Tell him I’ll be praying for him. And for Tatsuemon too.’

Shinzaemon touched it to his forehead and said, ‘I’ll tell them. And I’ll make sure he gets it.’

The sun had disappeared behind the great walls of the castle. Sachi and Shinzaemon still stood looking at each other.

‘We have to go,’ said Taki softly.

Sachi knew what had to be done – what a soldier’s wife would do. She smiled and bowed as bravely as she could.

‘Do your best!’ she said in firm tones.

They turned towards the castle. Sachi hesitated. Once she crossed that bridge, she knew, she would be back in that other world again, a world that didn’t contain Shinzaemon. She felt dead in her heart. She recognized the feeling. It was the same as she had felt just before she heard that the young shogun was dead.

A breeze stirred the waters of the moat and the pond weed rippled. On the other side the ramparts swept upwards, seemingly impregnable.

‘It’s nearly nightfall,’ whispered Taki. ‘Suppose we can’t get in? How are we going to persuade the guards that we are who we say we are?’

She was quite right. With her shabby clothes and travel-stained face Taki looked like a peasant or a beggar, not remotely like a court lady. Sachi realized that she looked exactly the same. They’d been on the road for so long and had so many adventures, they’d become completely different people.

The castle walls loomed in the dusk. But something was missing.

‘Look,’ Sachi whispered. ‘There’s no smoke. It’s dinner time but there’s no smoke.’

The wooden gates with their iron bars and huge bolts were tightly locked. Sachi had thought there would at least be a battalion of guards on duty outside. But there was no one. Cut
into one of the side walls next to the gates was a small door. She knocked then gave it a shove. It creaked open.

The foreigners and Shinzaemon were waiting in the darkness on the other side of the moat.

Swallowing hard, Sachi turned and gave a brave smile and a wave. She could hardly see for tears. Then she and Taki stepped through the door. It clanged shut behind them.

Part IV

City of Ruins

9

The Secret of the Brocade

I

The blackness was as dense as if they had fallen into a well. Only the sky was visible, a small square of dark blue above them. Stars were coming out one by one. An owl hooted in the silence. The sound was still echoing around the battlements when there was a hoarse caw close to Sachi’s face and a raven flapped off with a rattle of its great wings. She stumbled backwards, shuddering. Birds of ill fortune, birds of death.

As her eyes grew used to the gloom she saw where they were – in the enclosure between the outer and the inner gates of the Tsubone guardhouse. She had been there before, when she had walked in with the princess’s train and when she left, racing through in the imperial palanquin.

She was back in the palace, where she had decided she belonged, where perhaps her mother was: but all she could think was that Shinzaemon was gone. It was as if half of her had been wrenched away and all that was left was an empty shell, drifting like a ghost.

Then she heard the scrape of gates creaking open and lights appeared, darting here and there like fireflies. Straw-sandalled feet came running, crunching across the paving stones. Men swarmed around them, swinging lanterns. There were rough shouts.

‘Hey! What’s this? What we got over ’ere?’

‘Halt! Where do you think you’re going?’

‘Intruders. Spies, trying to sneak in!’

A forest of pikes and spears appeared, thrusting towards their throats.

Sachi stood still. Although she and Taki were dressed like a couple of peasant women, somehow they had to persuade the soldiers that they were court ladies with every right to be there. The best thing was to behave in a manner appropriate to their rank, with icy disdain. Soldiers were like dogs, she told herself, and could sense fear.

‘Taki,’ she hissed. ‘Say something.’ As the Retired Lady Shokoin, it was not for her to address these inferior creatures.

Taki drew herself up. ‘I am Lady Takiko, lady-in-waiting to the Retired Lady Shoko-in,’ she squeaked in her haughtiest tones, using the language in which court ladies addressed servants. ‘We have returned to the palace. We require to be escorted to the presence of Her Highness.’

There was a long silence, then a chorus of hisses as the soldiers stumbled back, sucking their breath through their teeth and muttering to each other. An old man hobbled out of the darkness.

‘Forgive me,’ he croaked. He raised his lantern, casting a beam across Sachi’s face. Dazzled by the brightness she looked away, keeping her expression coldly impassive. The man squinted up at her, then bent his bandy legs and pressed his ancient leathery face to the soil.

‘Your ladyship.’ It seemed an eternity since anyone had called her that. ‘Take our heads for our impertinence, ma’am.’ Sachi guessed he must have seen her from a distance when she was getting into the imperial palanquin and about to flee the palace. How else was it possible that a member of the outer guard would know her?

Tumbling over each other, the soldiers fell to their knees and rubbed their heads in the dirt. Sachi stared in relief at the hunched backs and topknots quivering on top of shiny shaven heads.

The old man was snivelling and wiping his eyes. ‘Your ladyship,’ he babbled, ‘is it really you? We missed you.’

Sachi knew she ought to be outraged by the fellow’s
presumption but she was still the village headman’s daughter. She had yet to put on her concubine’s robes again. She had spoken to so many people of so many different classes – she had
been
so many people. Now she was back at last. She should have been pleased, but all she felt was dazed.

‘But . . . ladyship, forgive me,’ the old man whimpered. ‘Forgive me for speaking. But . . . since your ladyship left . . . since the fire . . . There is nothing here now, your ladyship.’

‘Nothing? The ladies? Her Highness?’

Another soldier butted in. ‘Your ladyship, we will escort you to Her Highness’s apartments.’

‘What are you doing polluting her ladyship’s ears with your voices?’ snapped Taki. ‘Take us there immediately.’

Holding their lanterns high, the soldiers led them into the palace grounds. Every corner of the gardens had always been perfectly trimmed, but now there was grass between the paving stones and ivy climbing the walls. The trees stretched out long branches, threatening to engulf them all.

They climbed a winding path lined with rhododendron bushes and stepped out into an open space.

In front of them were the outer walls of a huge tumbledown ruin, stretching as far as they could see. The great slabs of stone were blackened and cracked. Beyond, charred timbers stabbed the sky like the spears of a ghostly army. Huge beams had fallen to the ground. Roof tiles lay in heaps, grotesquely fused together. The pale light of the moon sparkled on chunks of coffered ceiling and fragments of gold screens that had somehow escaped the conflagration. A dank acrid smell hung over the place. The smell of burned wood. The smell of death.