The Last Concubine (34 page)

I

Jiroemon heaved a sigh when Sachi went to tell him she was leaving, then smiled resignedly, as if he knew it was inevitable, and nodded his great head.

‘Edo, is it?’ he said. ‘If I didn’t have an inn to keep and a village to watch over I’d be on the road with you. It’s a long way,’ he added, sucking slowly on his pipe. ‘Eighty-one
ri
. It’ll take seven to ten days, I’d say, maybe longer. Depends how much snow there is on the high passes. Let me give you some advice. People always rush at the beginning. Take it slow and steady and take care of your feet. That way they’ll be in good shape still at the end. And make sure you get to an inn every evening well before nightfall. You don’t want to be walking in the mountains after dark.

‘That Shin. He’s a good lad and a brave one. He’ll take care of you. And remember, keep an eye out for your father when you get to Edo. He’ll be keeping an eye out for you.’

Sachi nodded.

‘I’ll always know I have a father here,’ she said, brushing her sleeve across her eyes.

They left the next day. Otama was up long before dawn, clambering around the woods searching for ferns and horsetail shoots to cook for them. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve as she
arranged food in lacquered wooden boxes – the last thing she would ever be able to do for her child. Sachi wept too. It seemed too cruel to have come home for such a short time and to be leaving again to search for a mother who might be no more than a ghost.

But now Sachi had decided to go she knew it was the right thing for all of them. She had to try to find her mother; Taki was totally out of place in the village and yearning to get back to Edo where, even if she couldn’t see Toranosuké, at least she’d be a little closer to him; and as for Shinzaemon – she knew he had to be on his way. He had been planning to stay only a couple of days anyway. Heart-rending though it was, they had to move on.

Yuki nodded calmly when Sachi told her she must stay behind. She had found a new home here. She and Chobei had become playmates and Otama and Jiroemon were happy to replace the parents she had lost. Nevertheless Yuki was a warrior child. Sachi knew she would not be happy for long in the village and assured her that when things were more settled she would be back to fetch her if she wanted to leave.

Sachi took with her only the brocade. She left the rest of her belongings behind, with instructions to the family to pawn her robes if they needed money.

The three travellers had so little luggage they hired only a couple of packhorses. They put on mantles, leggings and broad straw travelling hats. Sachi and Taki carried their halberds like staffs. Jiroemon, Otama, Yuki and the children walked them as far as the edge of the village and waved and bowed until they were out of sight. Genzaburo was there too, grinning and shouting, ‘See you in Edo!’ The smells of woodsmoke and miso soup, the barking of dogs and crowing of cocks faded into the distance. As the village grew small behind them, Sachi could hear Otama’s voice calling, fainter and fainter, ‘Come back soon,’ echoed by Jiroemon’s gruff tones. With tears in her eyes she murmured the haiku Basho had written when he too was in Kiso, though in another season:

Truly, life was nothing but a series of goodbyes, of meeting people and growing close to them, only to be torn apart again. And at the end of this journey there would be yet another goodbye, when Shinzaemon went to join the militia. With a sigh she pushed away the thought.

Even up here in the mountains where the snow was just beginning to melt, a few cherry trees were coming into bud. The previous spring Sachi had been at the castle. She remembered going into the gardens with her women to admire the fragile blossoms, dewy-eyed over the brevity of their beauty and the transience of life. Had it been only a year ago?

As they headed away from the village they heard water rushing and caught a glimpse of the River Kiso glinting far below them. The road wound up into the woods, through forests of cypresses and pine trees and glades of rustling bamboo. The path was paved with stones, cut into steps wherever it became steep. As Jiroemon had advised, they walked slowly and steadily. They had tied bells to their ankles to warn off the black bears that lived in the mountains. When they came across streams they stepped from stone to stone or leaped from rock to rock. Far off they heard the ringing of bells from trains of packhorses making their way along the valley floor and the plod of oxen dragging carts laden with rice or straw or salt.

It was good to be back on the road. Sometimes Shinzaemon loped in front, sometimes he brought up the rear, keeping an eye on the porters and the packhorses. Shyly Sachi ran her eyes across his broad back and unruly hair, and listened to the crunch of his straw sandals on the earthen road and his deep voice as he barked at the porters. She wished she could slow time down, turn every moment into an hour.

They were deep in the mountains, on an unfrequented stretch of highway, making their way through dense forest, when Sachi heard rough voices. There were tall trees all around them, enclosing the path with their great trunks. Her hand tightened on the handle of her halberd. Men burst out of the trees ahead of them, brandishing staffs and sickles. Bandits.

One charged straight up to Sachi, pressing his face close to hers.

‘Toll,’ he growled, holding out a blackened hand, palm
upwards. He spoke in Kiso dialect. ‘Give us a thousand copper
mon
.’

The man had a thin pointed face like a rat. His mouth was a gaping cavern with a few yellow teeth surrounded by blackened stumps. His clothes were ragged and dirty, but his arms were sinewy and his little eyes glittered hungrily. His hair was tied in a greasy knot. She had heard of characters like these, low life who haunted the gambling dens in the poorest parts of town. In normal times their paths would never have crossed. What had happened to the officials who policed the highway? It seemed that the order everyone had always taken for granted had entirely broken down. She stepped back in disgust but the man came after her.

‘Nah, tell you what,’ he said, jerking his head towards the horses. ‘We’ll ‘ave those. That’ll do us.’ Some of the men were already scrambling to grab the reins of the packhorses. They meant to take the brocade!

Sachi looked round desperately. There were ten, maybe twenty gangsters against her, Taki and Shinzaemon. She was about to slide off the sheath of her halberd when the man grabbed her wrists, gripping them hard in his bony hands. Scrawny though he was, he was very strong. She struggled fiercely, tears of frustration coming to her eyes.

Suddenly there was a hissing intake of breath. Rough voices gasped, ‘
Hora!
’ followed by utter silence. The bandits had frozen in their tracks. She looked at them in amazement. Their mouths were hanging open and their eyes popping.

She spun round. Shinzaemon had been bringing up the rear. He had thrown off the right sleeve of his kimono to free his sword arm, revealing his brawny shoulder and the cherry blossom tattoo. Some of the gangsters and the grooms who led the packhorses had tattoos that covered them from elbow to knee to neck like a second skin – scenes of warriors, geishas and kabuki actors, exquisitely pricked and coloured, as gorgeous as woodblock prints. Shinzaemon’s was quite different. It was plain and unassuming.

His sword was in his hand. He looked at them and frowned slightly, then a glimmer of a grin crossed his face as if he was looking forward to some fun.

The next moment the bandits had crumpled to their knees on the stony path and were thumping their heads on the ground.

‘Sorry, master, sorry,’ they spluttered. ‘Forgive us, forgive us. Have mercy.’

Shinzaemon’s grin broadened. He took a long wistful look at his sword then slowly and deliberately slid it into its scabbard. He pulled his kimono back over his shoulder and gestured with his chin. The bandits turned tail and fled into the forest.

Sachi was watching in amazement. The tattoo had certainly not had that effect on the southern soldiers they had encountered. There was so much she didn’t know about Shinzaemon – where he’d been, what he’d done in his life.

‘Well,’ said Taki in a low voice, once they were well on their way again. ‘That was lucky. So we don’t have to worry about bandits with Shin around.’

That night at the post town they checked into a simple inn, the sort of place where ordinary travellers – such as they were supposed to be – would stay. Men and women slept together in the same room and even had to lay out their own bedding.

Once they had settled Taki in, Sachi and Shinzaemon sat on a bench in front of the inn. Stars glittered in the black sky. It was so dark they couldn’t even see the silhouettes of the mountains. Water rushed through the drainage channels and every now and then animals rustled through the undergrowth in the woods behind them.

Sachi took a puff of her long-stemmed pipe. Like everyone in the women’s palace, where she’d first taken up the practice, she enjoyed the occasional smoke. The embers glowed red and a spray of sparks lit up the darkness. They were sitting close together, not quite touching.

‘I’ve never seen the stars so bright,’ said Shinzaemon softly. ‘I never expected to be somewhere like this with . . . someone like you.’

They talked into the night. Sachi told him about her childhood in the village – about swimming in the river, about the time Genzaburo fought a wild boar, about the seasons in the mountains, the processions that went through and the daimyos who
stayed at the inn. Finally she told him about the princess, how her procession had been so long it had taken four days to pass and how she had swept Sachi up and ordered that she be brought to Edo Castle. Then her story stopped. She didn’t tell him about the palace or the shogun and he didn’t ask.

‘I spent a lot of time in the mountains too,’ he said. ‘I used to go out with bear hunters when I was a child. I got into a lot of fights. My parents were always angry at me. But then I found something useful to do with my sword.’

‘What about your tattoo?’ she asked shyly. ‘Will you tell me about it?’

‘I always wanted to improve my swordsmanship, especially once the troubles began. I spent a year at the Military Academy in Edo. Then I heard of a master swordsman who was the last proponent of the “hand of the Buddha” technique. He’d retired by then. I went and stayed with him in the snow country for a while. He was a great master. Once we’d been initiated, we disciples were allowed to have a cherry blossom tattoo like his pricked on our shoulders. The gangsters all over central Japan seem to know it. Ever since then I’ve had no trouble with them at all. It’s my master, not me, that they’re afraid of. Or maybe it’s the hand of the Buddha. Maybe they’d rather not find out what the secret technique is all about.’

She could hear him chuckling quietly in the darkness.

They said nothing about the future. With each day that passed they were getting closer and closer to Edo and to the moment of their parting.

Day after day they walked, dwarfed by the towering crags like tiny figures in an ink painting. Sometimes the road was crowded, other times the little party walked alone. They toiled up snowcovered passes, gazing awestruck at the peaks soaring above them. They prayed at the shrines at the top, begging the gods to keep them safe. At times they climbed between trees that soared straight towards the sky, topped with foliage so dense that the road was as dark as night. They clambered across rocks, wobbled across flimsy bridges swaying above dizzying ravines, forded waterfalls and streams and picked their way across tracts of ice
and snow. Sometimes, in places where the snow had melted, they had to wade through mud up to their knees.

They had become part of the endless procession that populated the highway. They plodded along, stopping every now and then to adjust the cords of their straw sandals and rub their sore legs and aching feet. They carried spare sandals dangling from their belts and threw away the old ones when they broke. When it rained or the weather turned cold they put on raincoats of straw and walked along like small moving haystacks. When the sun blazed they sheltered under straw hats. No one who saw them in their soiled travelling clothes would ever have guessed Sachi and Taki were court ladies.

Each morning Sachi put on a new pair of straw sandals, hitched up her kimono skirts, picked up her halberd and set off full of determination. She felt stronger with each day that passed, though her feet became more and more chafed and sore no matter how many times she changed her sandals.

Taki too was striding out like a country girl. She had colour in her pale cheeks and her big eyes were sparkling. She no longer complained about the cold and the hardship. Sachi could see that she was excited, knowing she was on her way to Edo – on her way home.

Sachi knew she should have been excited too. She was going back to the palace, to the princess – to the place where, she told herself again and again, she would find her mother. Yet with every day that passed she knew she was a day nearer to the moment when she would have to say goodbye to Shinzaemon.

In the evenings Shinzaemon and Sachi sat together. Sometimes they talked, sometimes they didn’t. They spoke of the events of the day, of their childhoods, of books they had read and music and poetry they loved. Sometimes their hands brushed. They were both aware that what they were doing was wrong, but here on the road they were anonymous. Anyway, they were heading for war. Shinzaemon expected to die and Sachi had no idea what would happen to her.

Seven days after they had left the village they toiled up Usui Pass, the last of the four high passes along the Inner Mountain Road. It was a long hard climb. Standing at the top, breathing
in the thin cool air, they gazed out across the Kanto plain. Somewhere way out there lay Edo. Shadowy peaks rose in the distance, fringing the plain like the battlements of a fortress. Shinzaemon pointed out the angular shapes of Mount Miyogi, Mount Haruna and Mount Akagi. Far away to the south, shimmering on the horizon, was a ghostly shape – the perfect cone of Mount Fuji. They prayed at the Kumano Shrine at the top of the pass, then set off, slipping and sliding down treacherous shale, along the top of the ridge and down to the post town of Sakamoto. As they descended lower and lower the heat came up to meet them. They were moving from winter to spring.