The Samurai's Daughter (29 page)

She held out a document, not rolled into a scroll in the traditional way but neatly folded. The paper was some modern weave and the script was crabbed and tight, the writing of a man
who
spent his days counting money, not the grand unreadable flourishes of a swordsman or a calligrapher:

Greetings. We hope this autumn season finds Madame Kitaoka in the very best of health and we offer our sincere gratitude for all the kindnesses Madame has deigned to shower upon us. We offer profound apologies for our recent silence regarding the marriage of Madame’s honourable and virtuous daughter to the unworthy young master of our house. We are informed that Master Eijiro has returned to Kyushu to join Lord Kitaoka and fully understand that Madame will wish to postpone all marriage plans until his safe return. We would not like to put Madame to any inconvenience, nor do we wish to embarrass Madame, and therefore happily agree to put all plans in abeyance until Master Eijiro’s safe return. We will not stand in the way should the honourable House of Kitaoka choose to look elsewhere. Signed this thirteenth day of the tenth month, Hiroyuki Hashimoto, chief clerk at the House of Shimada, Banking and Trading Corporation.

Taka had to read the words several times before she could grasp the meaning. The letter must have taken a long time to compose, she thought. It was carefully phrased to make sure no one lost face, but also that there was no mistaking the intention. So Masuda-
sama
was withdrawing his offer. Now that her father was spoken of in the same breath as outlaws and rebels, the last thing the Shimadas wanted was an alliance with his family. Far from being a highly desirable match, she’d become a pariah. The only surprise was that the letter hadn’t come earlier.

She breathed out hard. It was a stinging rebuff but also a reprieve. Her plan – to pretend she was eager to marry so that she could stay on in Tokyo – had been completely misconceived, she could see that now. If Masuda-
sama
hadn’t pulled out she would have ended up marrying him. She had had a lucky escape.

But instead of relief, a shock of fear swept over her, as if she’d been pushing against a great rock which had suddenly given way,
leaving
her teetering at the edge of an abyss. She put her face in her hands, trembling, aghast at the looming emptiness before her. She’d been so busy praying to be saved from this marriage, she hadn’t stopped to think what she would do if her prayers were answered. Now they had been – and she had not the faintest idea what would become of her.

‘Every stream has its depths and shallows,’ she reminded herself, trying to find reassurance in one of the proverbs Nobu used to quote in that touchingly old-fashioned way of his. It still hurt to think of him. After their two romantic meetings, she’d waited day after day for him to come back, daydreamed about how they might run away together, like people did in the old stories. But he’d simply disappeared, as he had before, into thin air. He hadn’t even sent a message. She couldn’t believe he could be so cruel. A terrible thought came to her – that he’d been sent to the front, perhaps killed. Even that was better than thinking he’d stopped caring about her.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have tried so hard to postpone the marriage. Masuda had been a decent enough man. She pressed her hands to her face and gave a long shuddering sigh. At least marriage would have been a familiar fate. But now instead she saw her life stretching out ahead of her, an empty road, long and bleak, with no marriage and no Nobu.

At least she didn’t need to hide her feelings. Her mother would just assume she was distressed by the abrupt end of all her marriage hopes.

‘Come, come, my dear,’ said Fujino, gently patting her thigh. ‘You’re better off out of it. Between you and me, I never liked Madame Masuda. Jumped-up townswoman with those snobbish airs of hers. They’re an arrogant lot, the Shimadas, they don’t care what anyone thinks of them. No sense of honour, no idea how decent people behave.

‘I know you’re sixteen, nearly seventeen, but don’t worry. There’s still time. We’ll find someone for you. One man’s much like another. Your father would have hated you to marry a
banker
, anyway. What you need is a dashing soldier, like the men I adored when I was your age. One of your father’s lieutenants, for example. Do you remember the imperial guards who were always around the house? Wasn’t there one you used to look at with big eyes? I’m your mother, dear. Mothers notice such things.’

Taka glared at her. She wanted to tell her never to interfere in her life again. But despite everything she found herself picturing the young men in their splendid uniforms and the tall, serious one with the pale face and intense eyes who’d been her father’s right-hand man.

Okatsu took a poker and shook the glowing embers in the brazier until they crackled and spat and burst into flame. She was avoiding Taka’s gaze. In front of Taka’s mother she couldn’t say anything.

Fujino sat back, took a sip of tea, smoothed her skirts and tucked them neatly under her knees. It was what she always did when she had something momentous to say. Taka waited, eyes narrowed. Her mother took a breath. ‘I’ve been too selfish, dear. We’ll go to Kagoshima, to your father. The imperial guards are there with him. Perhaps we can—’

‘Kagoshima?’ Taka’s mouth fell open. She’d had a feeling this was what her mother was leading up to but it was a shock all the same. Okatsu had stopped poking the fire and was staring at Fujino in consternation, her eyes huge.

‘Kagoshima?’ Taka said again. ‘You mean … leave Tokyo? Leave our house?’

‘Don’t pucker your forehead like that. It’s very unbecoming. You’ll give yourself wrinkles. Gonsuké will book the passage. It’ll be an adventure. Your father needs us. He’ll be pleased to see us.’ Taka stared at her. She was not sure about that at all.

‘But … but what about Haru?’

‘Your sister belongs to another house now.’

‘But she still visits from time to time and it’s comforting to be close. It will be lonely for her if we disappear off to the ends of the earth.’ Taka took a breath. ‘Mother, it’s a foreign country
down
there. We’ll be like exiles. We won’t understand what people say. Are there four seasons, like in Tokyo? Do they have cherry blossom? We don’t know anything about it.’ She was shouting now. ‘And you don’t want to go there any more than I do.’

Fujino slammed her teacup down on the edge of the hearth. ‘We’re going to Kyushu whether we like it or not.’ Her voice was shaking. ‘We’re out of choices. I hadn’t realized how dangerous our situation had become till that letter arrived. Now that your father’s being branded a traitor we have to go quickly, tomorrow if we can. We may already have left it too late.’

To Taka’s horror her mother’s eyes filled with tears. She suddenly saw that it was far worse for her. She and Taka’s father had been apart for three years and Fujino had no idea what had happened in that time. He hadn’t summoned her, he probably wouldn’t even want to see her.

He had a wife, if not two or three, and probably some geisha mistresses. After all, he was a man, and that was the way men were. How would he feel when they suddenly arrived? Her brother Eijiro could fight alongside him in battle but Taka and her mother were useless women. Why should he be glad to see his old mistress, no matter how much he’d loved her in the past? Far from his being glad to see them, they might even have to make their own living arrangements. They would probably just be in the way.

No news had come from Kyushu for months. No one knew what was going on down there.

All this time Taka had fought against leaving behind everything she knew and loved in order to go to Kagoshima. It was the fate she’d feared most. And now it was happening. It was a step into the void.

‘Can I … Can Okatsu come too?’ she whispered, aghast at the immensity of it all.

‘Of course. The maids will come.’

Taka gazed around at the spacious room with its pale tatami
smelling
of rice straw, at the upholstered western sofa that no one ever sat on at one end of the room, the ancient chests, the brazier with the kettle hanging over it, the low table and oil lamps and cushions, the polished wooden staircase leading to the upper floor, the smells of cooking from the kitchen. It had been home for more than half her life. She barely remembered the war-torn streets of Kyoto or the long journey from Kyoto to Tokyo. And now they were to leave, to make another journey, far longer and harder, to a place which none of them knew at all.

And Nobu. Here in their house she’d been surrounded by memories of him. At least while she was here there’d always been a chance he might get in touch. Once they left it would be impossible to find him or for him to find her.

Perhaps, she thought, she could send him a message. She would write a letter and Okatsu could take it to the postal office. It would be like setting a lantern on the water at the Obon festival to light the spirits of the ancestors on their way. It might reach him or it might not, but it was the only thing left for her to do. But where would she send it? The only place where he might be was the Military Academy.

But her father was an enemy of the state, virtually an outlaw. People denounced him as a traitor.

It was not north versus south any longer, she saw that now. The old days her mother loved to reminisce about so fondly had long since disappeared. It was her father’s own erstwhile colleagues who were against him. They’d all risen in rebellion and fought a war together but they’d had different aims. And once the government set to work on its reforms, her father had become more and more convinced that what they were doing went against everything he stood for – the samurai code, the old values. His colleagues were determined to throw away the past and move into the future and line their pockets while they were at it, or so her father said, but as far as he was concerned they were moving too fast and in the wrong direction.

When she’d met Nobu in the garden that summer’s night, he
had
warned her, ‘Your family and mine are enemies.’ When he’d worked at their house, her family had been the wealthy rulers, his the impoverished defeated, struggling to survive. But now it was her father who was the rebel. And the bitterest irony of all was that Nobu, who’d been the underdog, had joined the army, whose task it would be to put down any rebellion. Everything had turned upside down but one thing had not changed. No matter what happened, they were still on opposite sides, doomed to be apart for ever.

The servants were starting to pack up around her. Taka rested her elbows on her knees and buried her face in her hands. She had never felt so lonely in her life.

PART IV

No Turning Back

22

Kagoshima. Eleventh month, year of the rat, the ninth year of the Meiji era (December 1876)

‘YEEAAH!’

A high-pitched yell rang out, so ear-shatteringly ferocious that Eijiro stumbled and nearly dropped his practice sword. Before he had time to recover, the drill instructor’s sword smashed down on his and the smack of wood on wood echoed off the hills. Eijiro’s knees buckled and he staggered, blowing out hard. He towered over the small, slender instructor, but that gave him not the slightest advantage.

The two hilts rammed together and the instructor drove Eijiro back relentlessly step by step until he slipped and fell. Cursing, he scrambled to his feet. The sword master was waiting quietly, glossy ponytail swinging. He didn’t have a hair out of place.

He raised his stick again and there was another nerve-rattling shriek as he swung it through the sky straight towards Eijiro’s head. Eijiro’s arms were giving way but he braced himself and managed to raise his own practice sword to parry. Stick cracked on stick but this time he fought back and managed to land a few blows of his own until the instructor drove him back against the wall again. He bowed, heaving a sigh of relief as the barrage
stopped
. Legs quivering, he stumbled to the nearest tree, leaned his sword against it and bent over, panting hard. His breath was like smoke in the icy air.

He straightened up and rubbed his sleeve across his face. The rough hempen cloth snagged on his unshaven cheeks. The earth was hard and cold under his feet and a stiff wind stirred the trees and shook the wooden walls of the converted stables where the students lived and classes were held. There’d been a sprinkling of snow that day though generally winter was a lot warmer here than it had been in Tokyo; but apart from that, this place had precious little to recommend it. The worst thing was having to kowtow to this whippersnapper – he, Eijiro Kitaoka, universally acclaimed one of the best swordsmen in Tokyo. Here he’d had to learn that perfect form was not all there was to it. These fellows sparred as if they were fighting for their lives.

If pushed, he’d have to acknowledge that in Tokyo he’d let himself go just a little. He was a lot leaner and trimmer now than he’d ever been back then and his arms were like iron from hours of daily sword practice. It was good to exercise, to feel the blood rushing through his veins, to know he’d be good and ready when the time came. Though privately he doubted if it ever would; and if it did, he was far from sure that any amount of swordsmanship was going to win out over soldiers with guns.