The Last Concubine (14 page)

There were the usual festivals to mark the passing of the seasons. But when the palace women celebrated the Festival of the Dead in the seventh month Sachi discovered that she was now too grand to participate in the dancing. She had to sit primly, peeking from behind her fan, as the lower-ranking ladies and maids undulated in and out of the verandas and around the palace gardens in their summer kimonos, waving their fans and clapping their hands to the tootle of flutes and the roll of drums. It was the price she had to pay for having risen to such heights.

But despite everything she was contented. The only person who might have disturbed her peace was Fuyu, but ever since their battle in the training hall Sachi had done her best to avoid her. Sometimes their paths crossed in music lessons or dancing class or during a tea ceremony or an incense-ceremony practice, but when this happened Sachi always bowed with scrupulous politeness and quickly moved on. She attended halberd class at a different time. And she never saw the Retired One at all.

It was early morning. Footsteps came scooting along the corridor outside the rooms that Sachi shared with Lady Tsuguko. The door flew open and Taki’s thin face came peeking round.

‘Mushroom hunt today!’ she announced in her mouse-squeak of a voice, beaming with excitement.

Sachi loved the mushroom hunt. She waited impatiently for the maids to finish combing and scenting her hair. Then they did her make-up and swaddled her in kimonos, tugging the layers into place so that the different colours flared at the neck and wrist. On top of it all they put an overkimono, a thick padded coat with a quilted hem embroidered with autumn leaves in red and gold. Swathed in her layers of clothing she was like a huge multipetalled flower.

Taki led the way outside. Holding baskets of woven bamboo, the two girls slipped away from Sachi’s other maids and ran off, giggling. The landscaped section of the gardens was a perfect place to play hide-and-seek. Entirely forgetting that she was supposed to be a grand lady, Sachi crouched behind a towering rock tufted with moss and lichen and waited for Taki to find her. They skipped along the paths that meandered from rock to pond to bridge to teahouse, kicking through the red, brown and gold maple leaves.

Taki, who had grown up among the beautiful gardens of Kyoto, had taught Sachi the names of all the rocks, ponds, bridges and teahouses and what they were meant to represent.

‘This is Eight-Fold Bridge,’ she said solemnly as they clambered up a curving bridge that arched across a stream lined with small white pebbles. Her black eyes were sparkling and her pale, rather plain face was flushed. Her thick hair hung to the ground in a long black ponytail, tied here and there with ribbons. She had tucked her kimono skirts up. A skinny white leg peeked out somewhat unbecomingly.

‘No, it isn’t,’ laughed Sachi. ‘It’s Half-Moon Bridge. And over there we have Lotus Pond,’ she said, gesturing towards the greentinged lake in front of them, where turtles huddled on the rocks and red-lacquered pleasure barges were moored. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the water – a court lady in voluminous robes, with hair immaculately coiffed. Framed in the glossy hair was the same oval face that used to glimmer back at her from her mother’s mirror in Kiso. There were her eyes slanting upwards, sparkling green. There were her small lips and arched nose. It was a shock to see herself there, like seeing a ghost.

‘No, it’s West Lake, like West Lake in China,’ shouted Taki. ‘That’s the stone causeway, those are Crane and Tortoise rocks and that’s White Thread Waterfall.’

They ambled around the lake, skirted Moon-Viewing Pavilion and sat on the veranda at Lapis Teahouse, swinging their legs inside the bell-like skirts of their robes. Then they crossed a bridge to another section of the gardens where great rocks and silvery streams made them imagine they were strolling among soaring peaks, rushing gorges and dark rock-strewn gullies.

‘And this?’ asked Taki, glancing sideways at Sachi.

‘Kiso . . .’ said Sachi under her breath, shivering a little in the autumn air. It was uncanny how much it reminded her of home.

Women were pattering around in their outdoor clogs, clutching their bamboo baskets and peering at the ground. As a child Sachi had spent happy days every autumn searching for mushrooms in the hills around the village. Here, she could see mushrooms poking out of the pine needles that carpeted the ground and places where the needles had been disturbed, indicating that there was a mushroom underneath. To her it was obvious that the mushrooms had been carefully placed for the ladies to find; they could not possibly be growing there naturally.

‘I can’t see any,’ said Taki, getting bored.

‘Here are some,’ said Sachi, picking a couple and slipping them into her basket. The important thing was not to be too successful but to leave plenty for the other ladies to find.

Haru came bustling over, bundled in so many layers that she looked like a big round dumpling. Her cheeks were even pinker than usual and her eyes were screwed up against the cold. She turned the large brown flat-topped matsutaké mushroom that she was holding upside down so that the fat stem stood straight up.

‘Look what I found,’ she said. She peeked into Sachi’s empty basket. ‘You’ll have to do better than that at pulling up mushrooms.’ She covered her mouth and shook with laughter. ‘You never heard the verse about the bride who didn’t know how to pull up a mushroom stem? This is the closest any of us will ever get to being a bride – apart from you, of course, my dear Lady of the Side Chamber! You can tell us all about mushroom stems!’

Sachi and Taki looked at each other. Every year Haru made the same joke, but this year for the first time Sachi understood it. Hot with embarrassment, the two girls put their hands over their faces and giggled.

Then Sachi heard the crackle of pine needles. Footsteps were approaching through the trees. A young woman dressed as a junior handmaiden was stumbling towards them, staring at the ground, chewing her lip. Her pretty pert-nosed face was pale and drawn, her eyes puffy. Her make-up was smudged, her hair
roughly twisted into a knot. Her kimonos had been carelessly thrown on. Strangest of all, she was alone.

It was Fuyu.

Sachi looked around hastily, wondering how they could escape. But Fuyu had already reached them. Her eyes flickered downwards then up at Sachi, as if she had been overcome by an uncharacteristic bout of shyness.

‘So it’s you,’ she said in a dull voice.

Sachi could not bear to look at her. She had not forgotten Fuyu’s savage attack in the training hall, nor the blow with the sandal.

‘You’ve done well, peasant girl,’ said Fuyu. Her words came out in a rush. ‘Your star’s gone up and mine’s gone down. There must be some destiny that joins us.’

Sachi frowned. Was this a game? Was Fuyu playing with her? She didn’t know how to reply. Taki had grabbed her sleeve and was trying to pull her away.

‘I know you hate me . . . I wanted to see you,’ Fuyu mumbled, brushing her eyes with her sleeve. ‘There are things I understand now. No matter what you hear about me . . . I wish we could have talked.’

For a moment she looked straight at Sachi. In her eyes Sachi caught a glimpse of the same wild fear she sometimes saw in the princess’s eyes, like that of a deer caught in a trap. Then Fuyu turned and rushed away distractedly as if she hardly knew where she was.

Taki and Sachi looked at each other and laughed uneasily. It was a laugh of perplexity, not amusement. The day seemed suddenly to have grown colder and darker.

A couple of days later, Taki came bursting into the room where Sachi sat sewing.

‘Have you heard?’ she gasped.

‘Of course not,’ said Sachi, pretending to be cross. ‘I don’t hear anything these days unless you tell me.’

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ said Taki. They pulled on extra kimonos and went into the gardens. It was a chilly autumn morning and the sun cast a pale light on the rocks, ponds and pine trees. They
hurried along until they came to Lapis Teahouse, as far as possible from curious ears, and huddled together on a sheltered corner of the veranda.

‘What’s happened?’ Sachi asked, smiling in anticipation of exciting news.

‘It’s Fuyu,’ said Taki. ‘She’s run away. The palace is full of it.’

Sachi wanted to laugh with relief. Could it really be true? Was her rival really gone? Could she walk in the gardens and go to halberd class freely, without worrying about meeting her? Yet somehow she was not surprised. Fuyu had looked almost haunted the other day, as if she barely belonged to this world any longer.

‘It was yesterday, when Lady Onkyo-in went out to pray at the shogunal tombs,’ said Taki. ‘Fuyu was in her retinue. When it was time to leave they found she was missing. In the end they had to come back without her.’

‘Lady Onkyo-in . . . ?’

‘The one everyone calls Lady Shiga. The late Lord Iesada’s concubine – you know, old Lady Honju-in’s son, the one who . . . She was Lady Shiga before she took the veil.’

Sachi drew her breath through her teeth and pulled her padded outer kimono tighter around her. The wind rattled the thin walls of the teahouse. A heron rose, startled, from the far side of the pond and flapped away, its white wings flashing. Somewhere, somehow she had heard of Lady Shiga, but she could not remember why or what she had done. She had a feeling that whatever it was, it had not been good.

‘Maybe Fuyu wandered off,’ she said slowly. ‘She was acting so strangely. It’s dangerous out there in the city. Maybe she was abducted.’

‘She told Yano, one of the Retired One’s maids, she was going to try to escape. She sometimes got letters in a man’s handwriting. When she failed to be chosen as lady of the side chamber, she went a bit crazy. Some of the maids say she might have got herself with child.’

‘Never!’

‘She often went out with Lady Onkyo-in. You can always find opportunities if you want something badly enough and don’t care what happens. Maybe that was how she felt. She might have
smuggled someone in, in one of those big luggage trunks. That’s what some of the women do sometimes.’

‘So they’re out searching for her?’

‘She’ll probably go home. Or the palace police will find her and take her home. I have a feeling we’ll hear she’s suddenly been taken ill and died. That’s what happened with a lady-in-waiting who ran off a few years ago.’

Sachi gasped in horror. She hoped this was not her doing. She had wished for it so hard, maybe she had made it happen. But she had only wished for Fuyu to go away, not to die. Even Fuyu did not deserve such a fate.

‘Won’t they just bring her back?’ she asked, aghast.

Taki shook her head.

‘I keep forgetting you’re not a samurai. Of course not. Women can’t just do as they please. We samurai know that. And she’s shogunal property, like us. Her whole family will be in terrible trouble. Her father will have to deal with her immediately.’

Sachi nodded numbly. She remembered now why she had heard of Lady Shiga. Haru had mentioned her when she had told the story of the body in the palanquin. Lady Shiga had been Lady Hitsu’s lover – and perhaps her betrayer or even her murderer.

It should have been a relief that Fuyu had gone. It meant Sachi could walk around freely without bumping into her or having to think about her any more. But in fact she thought about her more than ever. There was an unbearable mystery around her disappearance, as dark and sinister as Haru’s story of Lady Shiga and Lady Hitsu.

Sachi was becoming aware that something was terribly wrong. Everyone seemed to know something she didn’t, and no one would tell her what it was. They seemed to think she was just a child and wouldn’t understand – or were they trying to hide something from her? She heard footsteps in the corridor, not gliding in a slow and dignified way but running, panic-stricken footsteps pattering to and fro. Shrill voices were raised, then, when they realized she was around, fell silent. It was as if she had awoken from the innocence of childhood. Suddenly she could see the flicker of fear in every eye. Perhaps it had been there all along but she had never noticed before.

Then news arrived that the shogun was finally massing his troops and preparing to march on Choshu. One day Lady Tsuguko flung open the door to Sachi’s rooms. Sachi had never seen her so agitated.

‘Her Highness urgently requires your presence,’ she said breathlessly. ‘There is no need for your attendants. Only your maid of honour need accompany you.’

She rushed Sachi and Taki along the corridors, moving so rapidly that they almost had to run to keep up, and ushered them into the princess’s private audience chamber. Princess Kazu was in her usual place on the dais with her screens arranged in front of her. Her ladies-in-waiting would normally have filled the room, but today the great chamber was empty.

Lady Tsuguko showed Sachi to a place in the shadows at the back of the dais where her face could not be seen.

‘You need not speak,’ she told her, ‘but the princess wishes you to be present.’

Sachi was still adjusting her skirts when the doors at the far end of the chamber opened. Two men were waiting there on their hands and knees. They were in formal dress, in layered black kimonos and wide pleated
hakama
trousers, and without their swords. They bowed in unison then slid forward until they reached the dais. Each laid a small fan on the floor in front of him, then they prostrated again and remained on their knees with their foreheads on their hands.

Utterly astonished, Sachi stared at the gleaming pates and pomaded samurai topknots. Apart from His Majesty, they were the first men she had seen since she had come to the women’s palace. Even their smell – the sweat of their bodies, their perfume, their pomade – was unfamiliar.

‘Her Imperial Highness has proclaimed that the Honourable Lady of the Side Chamber should attend this meeting,’ Lady Tsuguko announced.

After a respectful pause, one of the men raised his head and spoke, keeping his eyes respectfully on the floor.

‘Tadamasa Oguri, Lord of Bungo, city magistrate, treasury commissioner and commissioner of the army and navy, at your service,’ he said in soft but clear tones. ‘I am glad that
Your Imperial Highness is in good health. I beg your clemency for having intruded in this unseemly way into your private quarters. I beg forgiveness too that I am obliged to attend on you without the regular quota of retainers. As Your Highness knows, I have come in secret.’