The Samurai's Daughter (47 page)

‘That’s my servant. He’s going back. What’s the best way for him to get a message to me?’

‘Deaf mute, huh? Always safest if you’ve secrets to keep. He can come find me here. Even if soldiers overrun the place, I’ll stay. If he can’t find me, he can look for Madame in her cottage in the hills. Write the name down for him: West Beppu. Though if things get really bad there won’t be anyone here at all. We’ll all be dead.’

Taka walked Nobu back along the path beside the hedge to the gate, thankful that the watchman couldn’t see them there. They didn’t hold hands, it was too late for that. She scuffed her feet in a haze of sadness. There was nothing to say, no plans or promises to make. She daren’t even beg him to come back to her or promise to be here when he did.

‘I hope you find your way,’ she said helplessly. The bamboo stirred and rustled and tiny birds flittered about. Insects swarmed and buzzed.

‘I’ll head for the volcano.’ She saw it rising over the fields in front of them.

He gestured at Eijiro’s robe, tangling up around his legs as he walked. ‘Do you mind if I keep this till I’m back in army-controlled territory? I’ll try and get it back to you.’

She laughed sadly. ‘Just throw it away.’ Their city was to be burnt, Eijiro was gone, everything would be destroyed. Who cared about the garment? It had done its job.

They stood together at the gate. She bowed and said very formally, ‘Thank you for taking care of me.’

She looked up at his intense brown eyes, his prominent nose, his sculpted face and full mouth and remembered the feel of his lips on hers. She wanted to run her fingers across his cheek for the last time but she felt shy. Something had changed in his face. In his mind he was already back in the army, preparing for battle. He was a samurai through and through, she saw that now. That
was
why he’d always seemed mysterious, why he’d made such an unlikely servant.

And she too, she remembered, was a samurai, the daughter of the greatest samurai of them all.

He took her hands and pressed them to his lips. ‘I shall never forget you. If the gods spare me, if I am alive when the war is over, I’ll come and find you. I promise you that.’

She swallowed and stared at the black ash-strewn ground, blinking hard. She wanted to leave him with the memory of a smiling face.

‘I beg you, please take care of yourself and come back safely,’ she whispered.

‘It’s in the hands of the gods.’

‘So this is goodbye …’ If they’d been on the same side she could have wished him good luck and success; but success for him would mean disaster for her father, and she couldn’t wish him that. She looked at him, hoping he would understand.

But there was something that could still be said. Suddenly she had the conviction that if she voiced the wish strongly enough, the words would take on magic power, like a spell, and weave a protective armour to keep him safe. They’d been parted before and each time they’d found each other and each time it had been different. They could find each other again.

‘Come back to me,’ she said, as firmly and as strongly as she could. ‘I’ll wait for you.’

He nodded and smiled. Then he took her in his arms and she squeezed her eyes shut and pressed against him, feeling their bodies mould together, the warmth of him, his firm chest, the beating of his heart, trying to fix it all in her memory. She prayed that time would stop and they could stay there forever while the earth revolved around them and the sun moved.

He released her and she felt his cheek brush hers and his fingers touch her hair. ‘My weaver princess,’ he whispered.

Then the gate opened and he was gone.

PART VI

The Last Samurai

36

Eighth month, year of the ox, the tenth year of the Meiji era (September 1877)

A TWIG CRACKED
and a chill ran down Nobu’s spine. The hairs on the back of his neck tingled. Thorns and brambles scratched his skin, bees buzzed around his face and ants swarmed up his arms but he moved not a muscle, praying to the gods he’d not been spotted.

He was crouching in a thicket halfway up the hillside, his grey cotton uniform torn and sodden with sweat. He’d been climbing since dawn, fighting his way through pines, cedars, camellia trees swathed in vines and groves of creaking bamboo. Buzzards soared overhead, looking for carrion, and volcanic ash drifted on the breeze.

The faint noise might have been a deer or a boar or a fox or a rabbit but most likely it was Satsuma, moving as soft as creatures of the forest. He cursed silently. He hadn’t even heard them approach. They were familiar with the terrain and he wasn’t, and they were used to the sweltering heat while he, from the cooler north, was exhausted and panting, even though he’d been down here for months. His only relief was that he was allowed to wear straw sandals now instead of the hard leather boots that tore his feet to shreds.

An ominous sound confirmed his suspicions – the scrape of a sword sliding from its scabbard. The Satsuma didn’t bother with sparring; they brought the blade down in a single lunge that killed the enemy before he’d had a chance to take a breath. ‘If you need a second strike you’re already dead,’ was their motto.

Once a sword was out it could not be returned without tasting blood.

A field lark trilled in the silence, a breeze rustled the long grasses, crickets chirruped. The air was heavy with moisture.

If he was to die, he would face it stoically, like a samurai. His life was of no consequence. He’d always known sooner or later it would end.

In the last five months he’d seen people shot or cut to pieces right next to him, heard the screams as limbs were blown off and guts spewed out and jaws shattered. He’d fought ferocious Satsuma warriors who’d ambushed him and his fellow soldiers, sent limbs flying himself until the ground was slippery with blood and he was trampling over corpses. In the Kagoshima hospitals there was an epidemic of illness. Men lay wasted and hollow-eyed, dying of typhoid and dysentery without even having seen the enemy. The mortuaries were overflowing.

Yet somehow he’d not been killed, not even wounded. He’d always thought the gods were indifferent to men’s fates, but for some reason they’d given him a reprieve. Until now, that was. Today it seemed his time had come.

A poem Yasutaro, his brother, liked to recite revolved in his mind:

Yasu had told him it was the death poem of a famous warrior,
lover
and poet of ancient times. Nobu remembered how, when he was a child in Aizu, samurai had composed poems before they went into battle. In this era of rifles and cannons, death sneaked up on you and took you by surprise. There was no leisure for poems.

He could almost hear the swish as the sword swept down. He shuddered, imagining it biting between his shoulder blades, tasting the oblivion that would surely follow. Taka’s face swam before him, as she’d been at the moment of parting. ‘Come back to me,’ she’d said, in her soft, sweet voice. ‘I’ll wait for you.’ He thought of her slender body and silken hair and the days and months they’d spent together in Tokyo. At least he’d found her again, they’d found each other. There was nothing left undone. That was some consolation. Like a warrior he would go calmly to join his mother and sisters and grandmother, and perhaps his brothers too; perhaps they too had already crossed to that other place.

But to fail in his mission now, when he was so close. That was truly bitter.

He could feel the letter inside his jacket, pressing next to his heart. He didn’t know what was in it but he knew it was of vital importance. It was his duty, his responsibility to place it in the hands of General Kitaoka, no one else. Along with Sakurai and Sato he’d been honoured with this task, entrusted by General Yamagata himself, the commander-in-chief of all the government forces.

But with the sword descending on his neck there was no chance of that. He was going to die and that would be an end of his mission. The disgrace was unbearable. A samurai didn’t fail.

Suddenly a voice barked, ‘Stop!’ The lark paused in its song and even the air seemed to stand still. Instead of the death blow, a foot kicked him hard in the back, slamming his face into the rocky soil.

‘We need him alive,’ snapped the voice. ‘We’ll take him back to our master. He could have information.’

Nobu recognized the accent. He knew how ruthless the Satsuma were, all the more so now they had their backs to the wall, like beasts at bay. At least these men were not master swordsmen, he thought. If the blade had been in Aizu hands, his head would have been rolling down the hill by now. He was thankful too that they wore straw sandals. A boot would have done far more damage.

He tried to get to his knees but another kick knocked the breath out of him. He tasted earth and blood and wondered if he’d lost any teeth. Rough hands snatched the rifle from his shoulder and held him down while others seized his sword and dagger and rummaged through his pockets. Four or five of them, he guessed.

‘Bullets! We could do with those.’

‘Rice balls. And what’s this? Water. Fellow’s well equipped.’

‘We’ll take some back.’

‘There’s not enough to share.’ Nobu heard lips smacking and grunts of appreciation as the men wolfed down his supplies. At least they hadn’t found the letter. He knew they’d destroy any missive from the head of the enemy command.

A sandal slammed into his ribs and a voice shouted, ‘On your feet, hands in the air or you’re dead.’

The sun beat down on Nobu’s head. His sandals were in tatters and his feet were torn and bruised. He had no idea how long they’d been walking. He needed to keep his wits about him, to work out a way to get the letter into Kitaoka’s hands, but all he could think of was his bruised ribs and the pain in his legs and the rifle barrel slamming into his back whenever he stumbled or stopped for breath.

He heard panting behind him and wondered if Sakurai and Sato were there, if they’d been caught too.

He’d been climbing for what felt like hours over rocks, around trees and bushes and through bamboo groves until he came to an enormous stockade stretching right across the hillside. His captors shoved him through an opening and he found himself in
a
stone-paved trench with woven bamboo walls topped with mud pats bound with straw, thick enough to stop bullets.

He was stumbling along in a daze when a shove in the back sent him staggering forward. He tripped over something, lost his balance and fell.

When he raised his head, he was in a broad open space with crags all around, bristling with trees and bamboo. To one side was a vertical cliff, forming a natural fortress. The place was packed with men, bearded like brigands, toting rifles or swords. They closed in around him, black eyes glittering out of dirt-stained faces. Even to an unwashed soldier like Nobu the stench of sweat and grime was enough to make him retch.

So this was the dragon’s lair. He’d been searching for the rebels and he’d found them – the rump of them, that was, those who hadn’t died or given themselves up. There were fifty or a hundred, maybe more, some with bloodstained bandages around their heads, others with the stump of an arm or leg swathed in dirty rags. They looked half starved and half crazed.

There were veterans of the civil war, grizzled and beefy with thick beards and square jaws, who must have taken part in the assault on Aizu nine years earlier. But under the dirt and stubble a lot looked like youngsters. Some were in tattered broad-sleeved jackets and striped trousers, like peasants, with thick rags around their feet and rope sandals, others in army uniforms, faded, torn and filthy.

They stared at him with hostility, contempt or blank indifference. Voices boomed around the rock walls.

‘Went hunting for rabbits and look what we caught. Spies!’

‘Why drag them here? You should have chopped off their heads.’ One skeletal fellow licked sunburnt lips. His skin was leathery but Nobu could tell by his voice he was young.

Another stepped forward with a swagger. He’d lost an eye and had a scar across one cheek. ‘We certainly fooled you, didn’t we? Last thing you were expecting was for us to turn up back on Castle Hill! You may have the numbers but we have the strategy,
we
have the brains, we have the ideals! You just do your job. We fight for our cause and our master.’

Nobu tried to get to his feet but hands shoved him back on his knees. He stared at the earthen floor. He wondered if he should tell them that he was a messenger with an important letter for their revered general. But when messengers had been sent to the Satsuma besieging Kumamoto Castle, they’d ended up with their heads tossed back over the castle walls. He couldn’t expect any more mercy himself. He was a dead man.