The Last Concubine (6 page)

Outside, the passageway was full of women on their knees. Bowing again and again, the ushers greeted the princess. Sachi scurried along with tiny steps, wary of the swathes of fabric that eddied around her feet. Being shorter than everyone else, she almost had to run to keep up. Once she stumbled over her train. ‘Smaller steps,’ Lady Tsuguko cautioned, tucking an elegant finger under her elbow. ‘Toes turned in. Hands on your thighs, fingers straight, thumbs tucked in. Head down. Look at the ground.’

Preceded by the ushers, the princess and her ladies glided infinitely slowly, with measured steps, along one corridor after another, their robes swishing gently like waves lapping at the edge of a river. The palace was a maze. Pattering along, eyes fixed firmly on the tatami mats, Sachi wondered how she would ever have found her way back again if she had been on her own. Glancing up, she caught a glimpse of the long corridor disappearing into the distance, lined with rows of closed wooden doors. Behind them, she knew, would be the crowded rooms where some of the hundreds of ladies-in-waiting and their maids lived.

When she peeked again they were skirting a vast audience
chamber. Most of it was swallowed up in darkness. On one set of doors, dimly visible in the gloom, painted cranes soared and turtles swam; on another were mountains and waterfalls that reminded her for a moment of home. Leopards and tigers lurked in the shadows, their eyes glinting. Dragons coiled along the lintels and friezes and the ceiling glimmered with gold. Even the nail heads were of gold, intricately moulded. To one side of the hall was a courtyard with a small pond and a tiny square of grey sky. White flowers sparkled on the rocks. The heat was so intense it was difficult to move. The air was steamy, dense with moisture.

‘Head down!’ barked Lady Tsuguko.

They came to a walkway which led to the shogun’s private wing, rising like a pavilion amid lawns, willows, sparkling streams and beds of purple irises. A crowd of women were waiting on their knees there. They shuffled back as the princess approached. At the front were seven shrivelled women with parchment faces and elaborate wigs of glossy black hair – the elders, who ruled over every detail of life in the women’s palace. They had, so people said, once been beauties, among the hundreds of concubines of Lord Ienari, the present shogun’s grandfather. But as far as Sachi was concerned they were fire-breathing dragons. She lived in fear of their sharp tongues and hard knuckles. What might they say or do, seeing a lowly creature like her daring to climb so high above her station? She raised her eyes just enough to see their faces as Lady Tsuguko ushered her past and was startled to see that they were looking at her kindly. One even smiled and nodded encouragingly.

She barely had time to register the strangeness of it before the princess and her entourage had swept on into a long, gloomy passageway. Reed blinds decorated with huge red tassels formed one wall. At the far end was a hefty wooden door.

This was the famous Upper Bell Corridor, the point of entry into the women’s palace from the middle and outer palaces which were the domain of the men. Only the shogun used it; he was the only man who ever came into the women’s quarters. There were a few men who worked in the women’s quarters – desiccated priests, a couple of smooth-faced doctors, the brawny guards at
the outer gates – but they did not count. As far as the women were concerned, they didn’t exist.

Beside the door hung a ball of copper bells that sounded when the shogun was about to pass through; to ring them at any other time was a terrible crime. A lady-in-waiting was kneeling on each side, together with a couple of the lady priests, gnarled old women with shiny shaven pates who dressed like men in priests’ robes. When Sachi had first seen them she had stared in surprise but now they just seemed part of the palace population.

The princess and her entourage wore the white robes, scarlet trousers and vermilion brocade coats which were the formal costume of the imperial court at Kyoto. But the noblewomen who filled the passageway were dressed in robes more lavish than any Sachi had ever seen. Some were embroidered with designs of wisteria and irises, others with cypresswood fans and oxcarts. On some, miniature landscapes in shades of blue scrolled across the ladies’ curved backs. The princess and her ladies wore their hair long and straight, cascading to the floor. But the heads bent to the ground were adorned with heavy loops and coils of oiled hair bristling with combs, hairpins and ribbons.

The Dowager Lady Jitsusei-in, the shogun’s real mother, was kneeling in the place of honour nearest the closed door. She had a pinched, sallow face. As a widow, she wore the short hair, plain robes and cowl of a nun. Sachi thought of her as the Old Crow. Every day she swooped into the princess’s apartments in her black robes, finding fault here and there. No matter how hard everyone tried to please her, she always unearthed something to complain about.

The princess took her place on the cushion opposite her. But just as she was tucking her skirts tidily under her knees, a bevy of women in richly embroidered robes advanced slowly, grandly, into the passageway. At the front was a tall, imperious woman. She was dressed, like the Old Crow, in a nun’s habit but her robes were of the finest silk, grey verging on purple, and her mantle was cunningly draped to reveal a glimpse of the soft skin of her snowy-white throat. Her bearing made it clear that, no matter what her costume, she was a princess.

Glancing up from her place at the end of the line, Sachi quailed.
It was the Retired One, the fearsome Dowager Lady Tensho-in. Everyone was in awe of her. She was said to have a fierce temper and to be as strong as a man. Everyone knew how she had once picked up the late shogun, her husband, in her arms and carried him out of the palace during an earthquake. She was also, the women whispered, a superb horsewoman who could wield the halberd as skilfully as any soldier, and an expert at performing the chanting and dancing of the Noh theatre. Not yet thirty, she was in the full bloom of her beauty. A knowing smile lurked on her jewel-bright lips and her eyes burned with a fiery energy.

But all heads had swivelled to stare at the young woman who flitted behind her. She was no older than Sachi, with the snub nose and olive complexion of an Edo girl, quite different from the aristocratic pallor of the Kyoto women. Her childishly plump face was expertly painted in the Edo way, her full lips shiny with the greenish gloss known as ‘fresh bamboo red’. She teetered along with tiny in-turned steps, one foot carefully placed in front of the other, her eyes demurely cast down. But the set of her shoulders showed that she knew every eye was on her.

Sachi gasped when she saw her. Beneath the make-up was Fuyu, the acknowledged star among the junior ladies. Sachi yearned to be as poised and self-confident as she. In Fuyu’s presence she felt terribly conscious of her humble background and lack of breeding. As for Fuyu, she did not bother to speak to Sachi, except on the rare occasions during halberd practice when Sachi managed to get in a strike with her stick. Then Fuyu would raise her chin, look down her dainty nose and say with a sniff, ‘Not bad, I suppose . . . for a peasant!’ She was the daughter of one of the captains of the guard and, like Sachi, a junior handmaiden. For all her airs, she was no more entitled to enter the presence of the shogun than Sachi was.

But what sent a murmur of admiration through the crowd was her spectacular over-garment. On it was embroidered a breathtaking depiction of the city of Edo. Curving around the padded hem was the River Sumida lined with storehouses, with Nihonbashi Bridge arching across it. Edo Bay was a sinuous curve of blue at the hip. Spread across the back and sleeves were houses, temples, a pagoda, streets dotted with tiny embroidered figures,
clouds of foliage, even a glimpse of the turrets of Edo Castle picked out in gold thread. It was a work of art, unimaginably costly, designed to draw every eye.

While her ladies took up their places along one side of the corridor, the Retired One swept up to the Old Crow and the princess and bowed deeply.

‘Greetings, Your Imperial Highness,’ she said, addressing the princess. She spoke quietly but her voice – unusually deep and sonorous – carried right to the end of the corridor. ‘You are most welcome. What an honour it is to have you amongst us. I do hope you are taking good care of your health in this hot weather.’

The corridor was silent but for the flutter of fans. The heat was more intense than ever. Sachi wriggled uncomfortably, feeling her heavy garments clinging to her damp skin. She bowed her head, listening fearfully for the princess’s reply.

As one who ‘lived above the clouds’ – she was, after all, the daughter of the late Son of Heaven and sister of the reigning one – Princess Kazu expected the deference due to her superior status. She never forgot for a moment that she had given up the gracious life she had enjoyed at the imperial court in Kyoto to descend to the level of these low-class commoners. Yet, far from behaving with proper respect and showing her appreciation for the princess’s sacrifice, the Retired One took every opportunity to assert her own pre-eminence. As the widow of the previous shogun and adoptive mother of the present one, the Retired One had been the undisputed power in the palace before the princess arrived and was determined to maintain her authority.

In the privacy of the princess’s apartments the aristocratic ladies who had accompanied Princess Kazu from the capital had nothing but contempt for the Retired One and her handwomen. They were unpolished, not to say downright vulgar, they whispered. How dared they treat the princess with such disrespect? And as for their samurai way of dressing and speaking and comporting themselves – well, it would be pitiable if it wasn’t so laughable. When the princess’s ladies met the Retired One’s in the corridors, they would sweep past, barely bothering with a disdainful nod of the head. But among their maids there was frequent bickering. Voices were raised and they had even
been known to start scratching, pinching, biting and tearing at each other’s hair and clothes.

The two great ladies did their best to steer clear of each other. Nevertheless sometimes matters came to a head. The princess was far too proud and gently bred to stand up for herself, but Sachi knew what pain these encounters caused her.

When she had first arrived at the castle, the princess had insisted on speaking the archaic dialect of the imperial court. That was the idiom that Sachi had first been taught. Indeed, the princess had expected that everyone in the women’s palace would adopt the Kyoto language and customs; that had been one of the conditions of her marriage. But in that as in much else she had been disappointed.

Now, instead of saying ‘I thank thee for thy kindness’ in her Kyoto drawl, as she would once have done, she whispered, ‘I am indebted to you, Honourable Retired One.’ She had a high-pitched, breathy little voice, like a bird.

For several minutes they traded compliments, each outdoing the other in the floweriness of their language and the extravagance of their flattery. Then the Retired One drew herself up.

‘Once again I offer you my most sincere thanks, Your Imperial Highness, for taking such good care of His Majesty, my adopted son,’ she said, looking straight at the princess and drawing her lips back in the sweetest, most poisonous of smiles. ‘But I am embarrassed to see that the ushers have made their usual mistake. As always they have erroneously seated you in my position. You appreciate that, as your mother-in-law and the first lady of this household, I must be the first to welcome my son into his home. I’m sure you will be eager to join me in rectifying the error.’

There was silence. Everyone held their breath. Princess Kazu kept her eyes on the ground, chewing her lip.

‘On the contrary, I should express my gratitude to you, My Lady Tensho-in,’ she murmured with icy politeness. ‘I am delighted to see you. But you know rather well that as the representative of the Son of Heaven and His Majesty’s humble consort, I am obliged, unworthy though I am, to take precedence. I hope you would be so kind as to allow me to remain in my proper place, at least this one time.’

‘We have had this discussion many times before, Daughter-in-Law,’ said the Retired One smoothly, her black eyes sparking fire. ‘You speak of tradition and of established ways of doing things. But you forget that we are in Edo Castle. Here in Edo we have our own traditions and our own ways of doing things, which were established by the first shogun, His Revered Majesty Lord Ieyasu, and which have held good for centuries. You know very well that I am the widow of His Majesty the thirteenth shogun, Lord Iesada. As your mother-in-law I am aghast that you could even think of going against my will. You insist on retaining your quaint title and provincial hairstyle and way of dressing. That is all very well. But when we are forced to meet, you must behave with appropriate respect.’

Sachi quivered with horror, feeling the princess’s humiliation as if it were her own. Princess Kazu said no more but shuffled back and knelt on the floor, while the Retired One took her place on the cushion.

II

The bells at the end of the corridor jangled. The thin, tinny sound was still reverberating when four drumbeats echoed one after the other from the ramparts of the castle, marking the hour. The elders and ushers, the ladies-in-waiting and grizzled lady priests prostrated themselves on each side of the door.

Sachi too was on her knees, staring at the tatami. She heard the screech of iron bolts being drawn through their hafts and the groan of the great door sliding open. There was a long silence followed by the muffled clank of steel. Among the babble of voices was the unfamiliar timbre of a male voice, the first Sachi had heard for nearly four years. Along with the patter of female feet and the swish of silk came the sound of soft-shod feet moving across the tatami mats with a jaunty male tread and the scent of an exotic and complex perfume. Time passed with painful slowness. The voice and the scent grew nearer. The chatter of compliments, of talking and laughter grew closer. Little by little the firm male footsteps advanced. Then they stopped, right in front of her.