The Last Concubine (49 page)

For a long moment there was silence. Sachi could hear her heart beating, feel the rivulets of sweat running into her eyes. The southern soldiers were staring suspiciously at the little group of women, fingering their guns. Then Edwards looked at her and Taki, his round eyes widening in surprise. Sachi saw a gleam of recognition, then his brows came together in a furious scowl.

‘So that’s where you got to,’ he exploded. ‘What do you think you’re doing here?’

His bark was so fearsome the birds settled on the corpses flew off with a great rustling of their big black wings. He said a few words in an angry tone to the other foreigner, then he turned back to the women.

‘I can’t believe it,’ he shouted. ‘I pay you people, you live in my house, and look how you repay me. This Jiro, this half-wit boy. Getting himself into trouble like this. And you women – you’re supposed to be cleaning my house, cooking my food.’

Sachi was gawping at him in such amazement that she really did look like a servant, she thought to herself.

‘Didn’t expect to see me here, did you?’ he barked. ‘You’re coming straight back with me, all of you.’

Coming to her senses, Sachi fell on her knees and pressed her forehead in the mud.

‘Sorry, master,’ she bleated. ‘Straight away, master. Our boy, our Jiro . . .’

Taki knelt too, her thin shoulders hunched. She didn’t need to play-act exhaustion and fear.

The southerners were gaping, uttering throaty inarticulate grunts of amazement. Sachi could hear them muttering to each other. ‘His household? Likely story. Then again, he seems to know them. They knew his name . . .’

‘So-called housekeeper,’ snorted Edwards.

‘His housekeeper?’ mumbled one.

‘Hold on,’ muttered another. ‘So how’d he get that uniform, that boy?’

‘Well, if the foreigner-
sama
says so . . .’ grunted another. They all turned towards Edwards and bowed, twisting their mouths into ingratiating smiles.

Sachi was overcome by a weariness so deathly she wondered if she would ever be able to stand up again. She wanted to weep for sheer relief, but she knew it would never do to show weakness in front of the hateful southerners.

The huge black-haired foreigner had stooped down and put a flask to Tatsuemon’s lips. Gently he lifted his damaged arm and tied a cloth around it to make a sling. Then he scooped him up as easily as if he was a child. The injured boy’s limbs dangled like a doll’s.

The women followed the foreigners back down the hill, picking their way carefully between the corpses. They stumbled past wives – widows – keeping watch, kneeling on the muddy ground beside one fallen man or another. Some knelt in silence, heads bowed. Every now and then a sound mingled with the cawing of the crows, the buzzing of flies and mosquitoes and the monotonous shrilling of the cicadas: a thin keening like an animal trapped in the woods, a hopeless, anguished wailing.

Once they had passed through the Black Gate and across the bridge the southern soldiers disappeared. Dazed and filthy, the women looked up at Edwards.

‘Thank you,’ whispered Sachi.

‘This is Dr Willis,’ said Edwards. ‘He will take care of your friend. He’s lucky. If he’d shown the slightest sign of life the southerners would have had his head off long ago.’

‘My hospital is full of southerners,’ said Willis. ‘I can’t take
him there. They’re beheading all the prisoners. What about—’

‘My house?’ said Edwards. ‘I have room. After all, he’s one of my staff.’

‘Will he be all right?’ asked Sachi.

‘I don’t know,’ said the doctor. ‘You will have to pray to your gods.’

11

Before the Dawn

I

Sachi was back in the Shimizu mansion. She had been so determined to leave for ever but in the end there had been nowhere else to go. Now she lay tossing on her futon. The heat was unbearable. Again and again her head slipped from the wooden pillow. She pushed it away and lay flat on her bedding.

In her mind she was stumbling through the Black Gate. Her feet brushed against the rubbery flesh of corpses and the foul taste of death was on her lips. Images of broken bodies and the dog with a human hand hanging from its mouth swam before her eyes.

So many men, hundreds upon hundreds, left to rot. She had been so busy searching for Shinzaemon she had hardly thought about all those others – all those shattered bodies and faces she had looked at that had not been his. They must all have had wives, lovers, children, parents. They must all have said goodbye with bravado as they went riding off with their comrades, eager for glory.

Those wives and lovers must have hoped and prayed that they would see their men again, despite the odds. Many were hoping and praying still. She had seen a few out on the hill, searching. But most would never know what had happened and their men would lie rotting until they were ripped apart by crows or wild dogs.

And for what? To fulfil their duty to their lord the shogun, to
hold back the barbarous southern clans who were overrunning the country. The war was not finished yet. There would be other battles, Sachi told herself, other battlefields just as grim or worse. And yet . . . To have fought so bravely and now to lie unburied. Having seen such a sight it was hard to think any longer of death in battle as honourable and glorious. It was nothing more than carnage and butchery and terrible waste.

And Genzaburo . . . He had been so young and, for all his love of mischief, so innocent. He hadn’t been fiercely committed to the shogun, yet he had been on the hill all the same. Wherever danger or adventure was to be found, he had always been there. Sachi remembered their childhood together: the time he had wrestled a wild boar and how proud he had been of the scar where it had gored him; the way he used to dart about in the river like a fish and pluck hairs from horses’ tails to make fishing lines; the time they had gone off together to watch for the princess’s procession. He had whispered to her that they should hide in the eaves; but instead she had been snatched up, taken to Edo, and by the time she saw him again she had become a different person.

She remembered the wistful way he had looked at her when they met in the village a few months earlier. He had been so alive; now it felt as if her childhood had died with him. After all their years together she had not been able to do anything for him, had not been able even to bury him. In her mind she said goodbye to him. It was like the end of a chapter in her life.

When she finally drifted off to sleep, she saw not Genzaburo but Shinzaemon sprawled among the dead. His eyes were wide open, staring at her. He stretched out his hand but she drifted past like a ghost. She heard the roar of a great wind, saw the spirits of the dead warriors rising like columns of smoke, hovering whitely over the hill. She heard their wails, felt their chill breath. She jerked awake with a start, shuddering with horror, drenched in sweat.

From the next room came the sound of a bell. Light glimmered through the gap between the doors. Haru had been up all night. She was chanting sutras, praying to the Buddhas for the souls of the dead. Then she called on Lord Amida to save Tatsuemon.

Sachi scrambled to her knees, lit a candle and prayed too. She
prayed first for Genzaburo, for his spirit to find peace, then for Shinzaemon and Toranosuké too, to keep them safe, wherever they might be. Then she rubbed her beads hard and whispered, ‘Dear gods, dear ancestors, Lord Amida Buddha: keep Tatsuemon here, don’t send him to join those dead warriors. He is so young. His life is just beginning.’ She was ashamed for thinking it but she couldn’t help herself: if he lived, he might be able to tell her where Shinzaemon was, whether he was alive or dead.

‘They’ve gone north,’ the priest had said. ‘A lot have gone north.’ Shinzaemon had surely been among them. He’d be back one day, standing in the great entrance hall of the mansion, looking at her with his slanted eyes, his hair bushing out around his head. If only she could hold on to that belief, it might happen. She prayed to Amida Buddha to keep him safe.

Morning came at last, even hotter and closer than the previous day. Sachi’s clothes clung to her. Her face was sticky with sweat, she couldn’t eat, she hardly dared breathe. She could think of nothing but the men dead on the hill and those who perhaps were not dead: Shinzaemon, Toranosuké – and Tatsuemon. Young Tatsu.

Taki and Haru had pulled back the paper doors that divided the silent rooms. They were lifting them out of their frames, turning the rooms into a big open pavilion so that any passing breeze would waft in. The shrill of cicadas shattered the still air.

Far in the distance there was a faint noise: the clatter of hooves pounding up the hill.

Supposing the news was bad? Supposing Tatsu had died in the night? For a moment Sachi was frozen with fear. Then she leaped to her feet, hitched up her kimono skirts and darted through the sombre rooms. Taki and Haru pattered across the tatami behind her.

Barely stopping to slip on sandals, she stumbled out of the shade of the entrance hall and into a wall of heat. In the courtyard the light was so intense that for a moment she was blinded. Each stone in the gravel, each leaf, each tiny piece of moss stood out in dazzling relief. Then she was in shadow again. Taki had rushed out and was holding a parasol over her head.

Sachi stopped short, staring into the brightness. A man was striding through the dark shadows under the heavy overhanging eaves of the gate. The previous day she had seen only that he was familiar, that she knew him. But now she couldn’t help being struck by what an extraordinary creature he was. He was a giant! As he stepped into the sunlight his feet and legs and arms were huge. Even his nose, jutting out like a
tengu
’s, cast a long shadow. Hair, yellow like sunshine, sprouted from his cheeks and chin. He was wearing a hat, the strangest hat she had ever seen, black and cylindrical like a hand drum.

Yet for all his foreignness, there was nothing frightening about him. He had saved her life not once but twice. He was like a bodhisattva, a guardian being from another realm.

She fixed her eyes on his face, trying to read it, and walked slowly towards him. The shadow over her head quivered. Taki’s hand holding the parasol was shaking.

‘How is he?’ she asked breathlessly.

Edwards shook his head. He bunched his forehead so that his eyebrows came together. His skin was ruddy, darkened by the sun. She could see the pores in it and the glow of his pale eyes.

‘We can’t tell yet,’ he said. ‘He’s sleeping. He has fever.’

At least he was alive. Sachi felt weak with relief. The women clamoured around Edwards, bombarding him with questions. ‘When did he wake up? Did he say anything? What did Dr Willis say?’

‘Dr Willis took out a bullet from his arm but the bone is badly broken,’ said Edwards. ‘The wound may be infected. He’s not sure if he can save the arm. He may have to amputate.’

Sachi gasped and put her hands to her mouth.

‘It is wartime,’ said Edwards gently. ‘Many men lose arms and legs. Perhaps your doctors do not do such things but ours do. Often it’s the only way to save the patient.’

Sachi knew this perfectly well. But she also knew that people sometimes died after having a limb cut off.

‘Our medicine works as well as yours – in some cases better,’ said Edwards. ‘Your friend is very ill and is burning with fever. Dr Willis is a famous surgeon. He’s saved many men.’

‘We must go to Tatsu now,’ said Sachi. ‘Please take us.’

‘Out of the question,’ said Edwards. ‘Dr Willis said he must rest.’

‘But supposing he . . . gets worse? He knows us. It will be a comfort to him if we’re there.’

‘There are women there. I’ll come with a wheeled carriage for you when Dr Willis says he can have visitors.’

‘A wheeled carriage?’ gasped Taki. ‘Like in the woodblock prints?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Sachi, smiling despite herself. ‘We’ll walk. Nowhere in Edo is that far.’

Under the brim of his hat Edwards’s forehead bunched again.

‘I live out near Shinagawa, near one of the execution grounds. I shouldn’t think you’ve ever been there. It’s very dangerous round there. Your militia were the only police in Edo. Now there is no one; the southern army cannot keep order. There are looters wrecking storehouses and stealing rice and thieves and robbers and murderers roaming about everywhere. The city is in chaos.’

‘We’re samurai,’ said Sachi quietly. ‘We are trained to fight. We walked to Ueno yesterday. We can walk anywhere.’

Edwards glanced at her. His eye seemed to linger a fraction longer than was necessary.

‘And how are things . . . otherwise?’ Her words hung in the silence.

‘Everyone is waiting to see what happens next.’

It was all too clear that the city belonged to the southerners. But the citizens of Edo were with the north. They belonged to the shogun, every last one of them. The southerners would have to fight long and hard to win them over.

II

A few days after they returned from the hill there was a rumbling and clattering in the distance, the clopping of hooves and yells of male voices. It was as noisy as if a battalion of soldiers was marching up to the gates.