The Samurai's Daughter

by Lesley Downer

  Other memories bobbed up, memories he’d done his best to erase – the meetings with Taka, Jubei’s dreadful death. He’d thought he’d buried those memories for ever but here they were rising to the surface again. He grimaced and shook his head.

  ‘So there I was, thinking I was going to be with that bastard till I was old and bent.’ Bunkichi seemed to have regained his confidence. His large mouth cracked open in an expansive grin and he leaned forward with a conspiratorial air. ‘Then what do you know, there’s a knock at the door and it’s some official, all dressed up in western togs – jacket, trousers, the lot.’ He pushed his chin out and screwed his face into an officious scowl. ‘ “From the Ministry of War, I am,” says ’e. “Lookin’ for one Kuroda.” “Kuroda?” says I. “No such person ’ere.” I’m rackin’ my brains, trying to think what I’ve done wrong; or maybe it’s young Nobu, I think, in trouble again, maybe he wants us to bail ’im out.

  ‘Seems they’ve been making a record of every fellow in the country and Mori told them we worked for him. They asked ’ow old we were and he told them, “Twenty.” Don’t know where he got that figure from; you’d have to dig up my old ma and ask her, she’s the only one knows for sure. “I’m not twenty,” I says. “Not me. Eighteen if I’m a day.” This official, ’e says, “Look near enough twenty to me. You gotta pay blood tax.” “Blood tax?” says I. “It’s my blood you wants, is it?” ’

  ‘You know perfectly well what blood tax is,’ said Nobu, grinning. ‘It means you’ve been called up, my friend, you’ve got to join the army. No one wants your blood.’

  ‘You should hear what they’re saying down the bathhouses – they’re draining conscripts’ blood to make wine for those blood-guzzling foreigners. Don’t worry, we don’t believe that stuff, we’re not simple-minded. Anyway, Zenkichi tries to do a runner, heads over the wall at the back but they’ve stationed policemen there with those long hooks of theirs.’

  Zenkichi elbowed Bunkichi out of the way. ‘They hooks me right through the obi. It was an expensive obi, too. They drags us over to the barracks, gets our clothes off, gives us a physical, then it’s off with our topknots and on with these uniforms. All we have to do is march up and down, they says, and we gets our pay and our meals. Didn’t sound bad – not at first, anyway. And guess what?’ He cocked his head, narrowed his eyes to slits and gave a knowing smile. ‘Turns out the girls will do anything – anything – for a fellow in uniform. On Sundays we takes ourselves down the Yoshiwara. No need to risk a dose of the clap at some cheap joint any more. Anything you like, no charge, says the girls.’

  Bells rang and whistles sounded. The ship was veering around the headland, tacking closer to the coast.

  ‘Then just as we’re thinking life can’t get any better, suddenly it gets worse, much worse. We’ve barely settled in there when they puts rifles in our hands and packs on our backs and shoves us on to the train. Next thing we know we’re down the docks. And here we are, off to teach the Satsuma a lesson. That’s what they tells us, anyway.’ Bunkichi’s bony shoulders drooped and his scrawny chest deflated. His cockiness had completely evaporated. ‘Can’t say I’m looking forward to being at the sharp end of a Satsuma sword. I’ve no quarrel with the Satsuma. Why should I die for something I don’t know anything about?’

  Nobu slapped him on the shoulder. ‘And there I was thinking you were the tough one. I thought you liked a bit of a brawl. In the army we don’t ask questions, we just do as we’re told.’

  ‘We’re not samurai,’ wailed Bunkichi. ‘We’re townsmen. We’re not made for fighting.’

  ‘The Satsuma are the enemy,’ Nobu said, dutifully reciting the official line. ‘They want to overthrow the government. If they get their way the whole country will be a battlefield again.’

  He pictured the burnt-out ruins of Aizu Castle and the graves of his mother, his sisters, his grandmother, lined up on a bleak windswept hillside. He could never forget that sight, it was seared in his memory for ever. ‘The Satsuma have done terrible things,’ he added with conviction. He knew from his own experience it was true. ‘They need punishing. Though from what I hear, sadly there won’t be much fighting where we’re going.’

  ‘We don’t even know where that is. They don’t tell conscripts nothing.’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough.’ Nobu hesitated. The three of them went back a long way. There was no harm in them knowing. ‘Kagoshima. We’re going to Kagoshima.’

  Across the water the hills undulated, a great curtain of green, wild and rugged, an impassable mass of foliage. Nobu wondered uneasily how their northern troops would fare in such an alien land.

  Bunkichi gulped and his pockmarked face turned the colour of rice porridge. He opened and closed his mouth like a frog. ‘Not … the Satsuma capital? But that’s … We’re putting our heads in the hornets’ nest!’

  Nobu smiled wryly. ‘No such luck. From what I hear it’s undefended. There’s just women and children and townsmen there, hardly a samurai left. We’ll be an occupation force, that’s all. We’ve fairly well finished off the Satsuma. They were hunkered down around Kumamoto Castle but we broke that siege and they’re on the run now. All that’s left is to mop up the stragglers and track down the leaders. I was looking forward to cutting down a few Satsuma myself. Shouldn’t think I’ll have much chance.’

  He didn’t add that they had good intelligence that the Satsuma were racing to get back to the city before the army did. There was no need to fill these raw recruits with terror. They’d find out soon enough.

  Bunkichi looked puzzled for a moment as if he was trying to take all this in. He scratched his head, then a grin spread across his face. ‘Well, that’s a relief.’ He was his cocky self again. He looked at Zenkichi. ‘Kagoshima. Wasn’t there something …’

  ‘Yes, to do with …’ said Zenkichi.

  Bunkichi scratched his toe on the deck then looked at Nobu with big frog eyes. ‘That lady came,’ he said.

  Nobu stared at him, wondering what he was talking about. One of Oshige’s friends, he guessed; what had that got to do with him? Bunkichi glanced at him knowingly.

  ‘The maid from the big house,’ he added.

  Okatsu! Taka’s maid. Nobu started. He felt a surge of hope and excitement that set his heart racing. Shocked and angry at himself, he tried to rein in his joy. This wasn’t what he was supposed to feel. He’d put all that behind him. Guiltily he wondered how much Bunkichi knew about his meetings with Taka. It was hard to keep secrets in Tokyo, least of all in Mori’s house; he should have remembered that. At this point consorting with the enemy could almost be seen as treason.

  ‘Remember Oshige?’ said Bunkichi.

  Nobu nodded, picturing Mori’s thick-lipped, good-natured mistress and her cloud of powder.

  ‘The lady had brought a letter for you. She wanted Oshige to pass it on.’

  Nobu swallowed. The last thing he’d expected when he saw Bunkichi and Zenkichi was news of Taka. It was all he could do to keep up a pretence of indifference.

  ‘Oshige didn’t know where you were,’ said Zenkichi. ‘I don’t think she wanted to get involved.’ The two grooms exchanged glances.

  ‘So what happened to the letter?’ Nobu tried to speak casually, as if he didn’t care, but he couldn’t iron out the tremor of excitement in his voice.

  ‘Oshige wouldn’t take it.’

  ‘You mean there was no message, nothing?’ He’d let his hopes rise too high. Now they came crashing back to earth. Bunkichi looked at Zenkichi.

  ‘It was the tenth month she came, a long time ago, and we only heard about it from Oshige. I think she said they were leaving Tokyo. Had to go rather suddenly. When you mentioned Kagoshima, I remembered. It seemed a strange place to be going but now we’re all going there. Kagoshima. That was where they were going. Kagoshima.’

  Bunkichi and Zenkichi went back below decks and Nobu returned to his cabin. It seemed smaller and more cramped than ever; if anything the temperature had risen even
higher. His fellow cadets were sprawled around, fanning themselves. He could smell the sweat in the air. He climbed over them, reached for his kitbag and dug around in it. There were books, changes of clothing, a jumble of underwear, pens, towels. His fingers closed around a folded sheet of paper – the letter his brother Kenjiro had sent him.

  He went up to the deck and found a corner where he’d be left undisturbed. He needed to sort out his thoughts, get some perspective. He unfolded the letter and gazed at the beautifully brushed characters. He’d read it so many times he knew it off by heart.

  It was dated 25 March by the new calendar.

  Greetings. The wanderer of the eastern seas is on his feet again. I have recovered my health and am no longer pressing my nose into books. An end to indolence! Sword in hand I am departing Tokyo with all haste to join the government forces in Kyushu. Our time has come and we must seize this chance to take revenge on the Satsuma, or how can we face the spirits of those who lie beneath the soil in Aizu? We will meet on the battlefield or on the day of victory or in whatever place we find ourselves after we depart this life. Your brother, Kenjiro.

  Nobu could barely see the words through the tears that filled his eyes. The last time he’d seen Kenjiro, he’d been on his sickbed, yellow with jaundice, feebly trying to raise himself on one elbow. Time and time again he’d been ill but he was not a man to let poor health stop him fighting alongside his clansmen. In fact he seemed to need war to restore him to health. Nobu remembered how he’d pulled himself to his feet in their home in Aizu and stumbled out of the door to take part in the defence of the castle nearly nine years earlier.

  Still he didn’t know how his delicate brother would cope with the hardship. Hopefully he was alive and healthy, on the front line somewhere in Kyushu with a rifle in his hand, probably sleeping out on hillsides in rain and wind. Nobu’s eldest brother, Yasu, had also gone south at the first opportunity despite his injured leg, while Gosaburo, the third, had left their father in Aizu and joined the police force so he could go too.

  The government was well aware of the hatred of the northerners for the Satsuma and soon after hostilities began had set about recruiting northern samurai to fight. Soldiers returning from the front were full of tales of the extraordinary courage of the Aizu warriors. Men who’d seen them in action spoke with awe of the savagery with which they fought with rifles, swords, whatever came to hand, battling at closer quarters than anyone else dared, hacking their way through the Satsuma ranks, cutting down rebel after rebel until they were killed themselves.

  They were shining examples of the old adage that Nobu had learned as a child growing up in Aizu: ‘In battle there’s no samurai code and no mercy. If you lose your sword, grab a rock. If you have no rock, use your hands. Lose your life but make the enemy pay.’

  For the men of Aizu, their time had come at last.

  30

  TAKA TOOK A breath, let out a piercing yell straight from the belly then lunged forward and swung her staff down with all her strength towards the demure young woman opposite her. Yuko, her opponent, didn’t flinch. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on Taka’s. She had a solemn round face like a child’s but her staff spun like the wind. In less than a heartbeat she’d parried Taka’s blow then twisted round, skirts whirling, and brought her practice stick slicing straight towards Taka’s head. Taka leapt aside, tried to dodge the blow, stumbled and nearly fell and with a gargantuan effort thrust her own stick up just in time to deflect it.

  The white oak staffs were light but long and, for Taka at least, fearsomely unwieldy. Moving with crisp steps like a dancer, yelling at the top of her voice, Yuko struck again and again. Taka’s knees quivered and she staggered under the impact, parrying blow after blow. Wood cracked down on wood as they circled, walls, trees and bushes revolving in a blur behind them.

  Taka was dressed for war, her sleeves tied back with cords, the hem of her kimono tucked into her obi to free her legs and a white headband round her hair. The trampled grass felt soft and moist under her bare feet and the air smelt of earth and flowers. The last of the cherry blossom had fallen and pink and purple azalea and rhododendron bushes filled the grounds. Around her, women sparred with steely concentration, their yells punctuated by the hoarse cawing of crows.

  It was a perfect morning. Fluffy clouds floated across a dazzling blue sky, stained with the ever-present veil of black ash that drifted from Sakurajima’s mouth. To the east the volcano’s dark hulk rose above the compound walls, a fresh ball of ash already ballooning out. It had turned hot far earlier in the year than it ever did in Tokyo. It was going to be a scorching summer.

  Yuko gave a shout and charged, whirling the blade so fast Taka could hardly see it. As it sliced through the air, she made a feint, swung round and dropped to one knee, her staff pointing straight at Taka’s throat. Had they been using real blades, it would have been the death blow.

  Taka bowed in submission. She was panting hard and her arms and wrists and shoulders felt like lead. Yuko hadn’t even broken sweat.

  ‘Let’s practise with real blades.’ She handed Taka one of the halberds which were resting on a stand. It was a beautiful weapon with an elegant lacquered shaft, as long as the wooden practice staffs but heavier by far and much more difficult to handle. Holding it with care, Taka slid off the sheath. The curved blade had an edge sharp enough to cut a man in half and a channel along the blunt side to drain away the blood and there was a spade-shaped butt at the other end which was almost as lethal. Among samurai the halberd was the women’s weapon, lighter than a sword and much longer. A skilled fighter could keep a man at bay and slice open his shins or wrists, where he least expected attack, before he could get anywhere near her with his sword.

  ‘Watch. This is the returning wave attack,’ said Yuko, lifting out another halberd.

  She took her stance, legs apart and knees bent. With her implacable glare and the white headband wrapped around her glossy hair, she looked like a warrior woman in one of the old sagas. She let out a war cry so loud it made Taka jump and leapt forward, then drew back and in the same breath swept the blade upwards, slicing open the chest of her imaginary foe. She twirled on her toes, whirled the shaft and slammed the butt towards the enemy’s face, jabbing his eyes, scything his legs and aiming a slashing blow at his shins.

  She swung the heavy weapon as easily as if it were a dainty fan. Taka watched in awe. She couldn’t imagine ever being able to wield it with such ease and confidence. She wished she’d learned to fight when she was a child, but only samurai women were trained to fight. She’d grown up in the geisha district, then, in Tokyo, she’d lived the life of a modern young woman, worn a fashionable gown and shoes, driven in a carriage along streets of brick houses and taken not the slightest interest in the warrior arts.

  It had been more than two months since Taka’s father had marched out of the city at the head of his army, more than two long months since she’d watched the last figures dwindle into ant-like specks until they were swallowed up in the vast white expanses of the hillside.

  The city had become a husk from which all life had fled. As she’d made her way home along the broad avenues of the samurai district, between the shops and warehouses of the merchants’ section of town and into the narrow streets of the geisha quarter, her father’s last words to her had echoed in her mind. ‘You’re a Kitaoka too,’ he had told her in his deep voice. ‘Never forget that.’ She could still see him on his horse, in his uniform, with his broad shoulders, gleaming eyes and thick black eyebrows.

  It was so obvious it should hardly have needed saying, yet she’d never thought about it before. She was not just a geisha’s daughter. She was a samurai’s daughter, the daughter of the greatest samurai of all. But what did that mean? What was she supposed to do? She’d have to work it out.

  As the dreary days went by, her mother, Aunt Kiharu and Okatsu tried to keep up the pretence that nothing had changed. They dusted, polished, sewed, chatted, cooked and visited the few geishas who
had not left town with the army. Everyone started eating less to save supplies for their men. The townsfolk filled storehouses with barrels of shochu, the fiery local liquor, and huge sacks of rice, preserved vegetables and millet, to be sent on packhorses through the mountains when messengers arrived requesting supplies. They kept nothing for themselves but sweet potatoes.

  Whenever they asked what was happening, the messengers told them, ‘We’re winning! We’re winning!’ At first they were overjoyed but after a while they began to wish they had a few more hard facts.

  To begin with there was plenty of news. The tramp through the snow around the bay and up into the forests and mountains had been tough but the men had made it and been greeted like conquering heroes. For the first few days in every town people had lined the streets, cheering and drumming and strumming shamisens. It had taken seven days of hard marching to reach the great city of Kumamoto. Along the way the rearguard had met up with the other battalions that had left earlier, and the whole great army advanced together on Kumamoto’s formidable castle.

  General Kitaoka had written to the general in command of the castle requesting free passage. The soldiers there were Kyushu men and their general was a personal friend of General Kitaoka, so they would most likely welcome them and join them on their long march to Tokyo. Even if they chose to side with the government, most were mere peasant conscripts, raw recruits who wouldn’t have a chance against the well-trained battle-hardened Satsuma.

  But strangely – or so it seemed to the women waiting anxiously at home – the general did not grant free passage and General Kitaoka and his massive army settled in to besiege the castle. It was obvious the garrison there couldn’t hold out for long. Then news began to dry up. There were rumours that the Satsuma had taken the castle and were on their way again, but then the following day there’d be another rumour that no, they were still outside the castle. Soon all the messengers would do was grunt, ‘Don’t worry! We’re winning!’