by T. Cook
We entered the palace through the Gekkamon to the west. It was grand, but not half so grand as the gates reserved for state dignitaries. From my first entrance within, I stood with wonder. All about me announced: Behold! Am I not glorious? I have a parallel within the natural world, but I am finer still. I am from above. You may reach, but you shall never grasp!
From the high hipped and gabled roofs, to the intricately cultivated gardens, to the officials parading through the grounds in their magnificent silk robes and their jangling musical accompaniment, all about me followed a splendid formal dance, the choreography of which I did not know, and could not intuit. But the message was clear:
You are from the outside; you are hopelessly inferior. You have no place here within this gorgeous, mortality-suffocating beauty.
A noble woman received me inside the exterior wall where many court families lived. The imperial family resided within the inner court, where, as she told me, I must never venture alone! She gave me to understand that I must stay there and wait for a call from the Emperor’s own daughter, Princess Sachiko. The noblewoman could not say when that would be. But it might be days. (It was weeks.) During this time, I must not wander. And I must not touch anything. And I must adhere strictly to the rules of court, or the penalty would be swift and severe. I had little idea how to observe the rules of court, and should have been terrified. I know the woman receiving me tried to impress terror upon me, but I couldn’t absorb it.
I followed her to a room where other noble women waited, some of them bent above a piece of silk embroidery. She instructed my trunk to be taken away and searched. I wanted to stop her, but held my tongue at the angry scowl she flashed upon me.
I removed a piece of silk embroidery from my small satchel of personal belongings, and went to work on a complicated landscape. For a long time, I knelt in seiza working, before a maid invited me to come and take tea in the courtyard under an elegant pavillion.
I followed, feet and legs pins and needles up to my pelvis. I nearly tripped as I stepped over the raised threshold of the outer door, but caught myself only barely. My legs protested at the thought of kneeling again in seiza, but I couldn’t stand and take tea, so I forced myself back down into a rigid position and bent my focus toward understanding what the strangers around me were communicating—overtly, but more importantly, inadvertently, as Madame Sato would have done.
They were the aristocracy, of course, relations to various wealthy lords. They were all of them above even my fraudulent title as Madame Sato’s daughter, and I sensed they all knew it. I sensed something more: curiosity. And for the first time, the notion of my presence and identity, however false, being rare and strange was born within me.
The women bowed and introduced themselves, their titles and the regional han they represented. They were not permanent residents, but stayed at court part of the year. I bowed and recited my paternity as Madame had taught me. I could neither impress nor offend them with this small title. There was no conversation, for tea followed a strict ceremony.
When we finished tea, matters were different. The ladies followed me back within rooms. When I removed my embroidery, one of the older ladies knelt beside me and peeked over my shoulder.
“My sight is poor, may I have a closer look?” she asked.
When I nodded, she snatched the fabric away, and with a tiny exclamation of joy, she began passing it from hand to hand. The ladies huddled and exclaimed, admiring more openly than I was either prepared for or quite comfortable with. When at last the older women had restored it to me, however, the thread was snagged and the work ruined.
I had nothing else to do, so I painstakingly removed the stitching and began again.
* * *
My wait in the outer court seemed long. As long as an entire season, though it must not have exceeded three weeks. The space of time was long enough to make me familiar with the daily court rituals. Long enough to acquaint me with the ladies and their highly regimented lives. The distinct twang of their various koto strings. Their various skills in reciting verses. The barely audible way each sipped her tea.
Otherwise I knew nothing of them, or court life. Indeed, I had seen little of the variation within the courtiers’ daily routines. I had little insight into their relationships, statuses, biases, and grievances nursed between them. They didn’t let me too far inside their circle. They didn’t know me, after all, and couldn’t commit to an opinion of me until the royal family had pronounced my work and me acceptable or otherwise. I might find favor or I might be just as quickly dismissed. What was the good of risking an alliance too quickly?
I had more to worry about than a courtier’s acceptance or rejection, however. I needed a plan for survival until Shin came. He had promised to come. I had trusted him with my life, and had risked the lives of others.
My presence at the Imperial Court would almost certainly lead to some eminently high-ranking person or persons’ death. Violent deaths always followed any direct attack against me. Poisonings resulted after I performed kitsuke or when I finished a weaving. There would be a death. It seemed pointless to worry or attempt its prevention. Possibly the Princess herself would die, and I would not escape suspicion in such a case. A pattern was forming and investigations would combine to see it.
No. I could do little to prevent the inevitable. But I might find a way to delay, to limit interactions, to confine my activity. If I delayed completion of a weaving long enough, Shin would come, and perhaps foreclose the work’s completion. We could escape and disappear together. He had promised that nothing could prevent our being together. Either way, I would stay at court until execution or deliverance. I had promised it.
Even after many long days observing the gracious rituals of courtier life, I was not considered ready to see a member of the imperial family. I was yet too new, too raw and unpolished. First, I must be properly cleansed, but this would not be a simple grooming for the sake of appearing presentable. The ritual doubled as physical mortification and spiritual humiliation. Such was the final preparation for admittance to the presence of royalty.
A servant filled a tub for me in a scalding private bath, but I wasn’t to be allowed to simply lather, wash and then soak. A pale-faced servant took up a hard bristled brush and began a cleansing and grooming process that violated every surface of my body, including my most private recesses.
After washing, a different and apparently higher, servant appeared. She trimmed my hair and shaved my eyebrows. Then she stained my teeth and painted my face. Yet another woman came to perform my kitsuke, robing me in a subdued kimono not of my own weaving. In fact, nothing I owned was returned to me. Perhaps it was not appropriate for me to wear my own original designs before the imperial family. Indeed, it would not have done for me to outdress them.
When the process was finished, I followed one last servant out of the private rooms, through a courtyard toward the gate enclosing the imperial family’s residence. I followed, because I must, half poisoned by dyes, and brutalized by razor, brush and comb. Only then was I fit to be seen and smelled by royalty. The Eastern Capital and the imperial family were not the seat of true power in Otoppon, but for all the imperial family had lost in political position to the Whitegrain family, it compensated for in ritual and formalism, as if to say: we are the heart of the nation, if not its head.
Inside the walls, everything seemed magnified in scale and form. The walks were broader; the buildings were larger. But near blinded by cosmetics and humiliation, I filtered details through a filmy blur, and wouldn’t allow my eyes to stare too long or focus too fixedly upon anything.
I followed to a separate hall I would later know as the Ogakumonjo. Within, I knelt in a rigid seiza and waited for the Princess until my feet burned. Finally, a high-pitched austere voice commanded me to rise and meet the Princess. I could barely walk. I almost hobbled to her, and then I knelt and bowed to the floor again. I had yet to see her face, but the slippers of her feet were embroidered in gold si
lk, and I had rarely seen anything so fine.
“Welcome to the palace, Fuyuko Sato.”
If my silk had impressed the princess, the sight of me prostrated before her could not have, but this was by design. “Thank you, Your Highness.”
“I have heard of your work and invited you here to visit and nurse your spirit on the cultural refinement at court. Have you enjoyed your visit?”
“Very much,” I lied. But what choice did I have?
“Then please stay a little longer. I have seen your work, but I hope your visit here will help you produce something even finer, something truly worthy. Something that I may wear myself on a special occasion. I have a great curiosity to see what might be woven by a samurai’s daughter here at court.”
“You do me great honor, Princess,” I said. When I finally allowed myself the briefest glance at her face, I saw that she was beautiful indeed. Her silk kimono was not bright, but fine in every detail, as tasteful and lovely as it was simple. She did not want the vulgarity of bright color. It would be a mistake to present this kind of style to her. And yet she had asked for something appropriate for a special, perhaps public occasion. In which case, it must be better than what she already wore.
She assumed my exposure to the cultural refinement at court would somehow inspire excellence exceeding everything I had ever done. Moreover, it seemed I must simply intuit exactly what she wanted! I had so many questions and didn’t know how to put them to her. Could I speak openly? Could I even venture to ask?
Then with a quick gesture of her hands, she was finished with me. It seemed I would have no chance to speak. I must set to work producing something superior nursed on the court’s refinement alone.
How would I exceed my best work under these conditions? Would I be expected to work only after performing these ceremonial ablutions each day? Already I could barely see, my eyes blurred and ran with the heavy cosmetic dyes. Could I work blind? Could I weave while wearing the restrictive formal dress? Would others watch as I attempted to do this?
I could not. I would fail. I had to beg at least one favor. “Princess, Highness!” I called out of turn.
She frowned at me and I flinched, but I pleaded with her all the same. “I will weave you the finest kimono you have ever owned. I promise, but I will need time.”
Her frown deepened. “How much time?”
I stared a little too directly, but I was bluffing, and had to do it. “Six months.”
“If it is so fine as you say, you may have six months, but if it disappoints, I will find a way to get the time back.”
It was a vague threat, but I couldn’t be intimidated. I wasn’t finished making my demands. “I beg Your Highness to let me work without audience.”
“I myself am curious and would like to see your work before you have finished. Others are even more curious. Should I disappoint these ladies, noble women superior to you in rank?”
“No indeed. There is only Your Highness who I would not want to disappoint.”
She nodded, but gave no promise. There could be no mistake, however. This vague communication was as absolute as a candid rejection.
38
Before the sun set that very day, I had begun working on the most complicated design I had ever attempted. It was so ambitious, a request for six months seemed rather conservative than excessive. I took confidence in the instinct that had inspired the request for time. The design’s inspiration had come to my mind with the direct communication my creative genius always delivered. And even a penalty of death would not alter my commitment to trusting this inspiration. I would adhere to it and suffer the consequences.
I had no confidence in privacy, however. And so it followed. Once making a reasonable beginning, courtiers, perhaps spying for the Princess herself, began to peek inside my quarters to view my loom, and then disappear as quickly as they had come. Sometimes they were so sly that the only thing announcing their presence was a slight vapor of perfume. And so I had no feedback from which to draw any conclusions of approval. As yet my design was so complex, and I had completed so little of it, I felt certain of the Princess’ disapproval, and I regretted again my lack of privacy.
With the exception of a daily bath with the courtiers and tea, I limited my interactions with others. Eventually, at bath or at tea, I could gauge the Princess’s approval of my work by the warmth the courtiers showed to me on either occasion. Suddenly, it seemed, they communicated more than formula. There were invitations to hear a poetry reading, or to participate in a dance. I declined every invitation, but one—when the Princess herself invited me to take tea with her.
This pleased me, but I hated to go. It would mean another uncomfortable confrontation with royalty, perhaps more than the Princess alone and I would be again scrubbed and shaved and painted. But a relationship with the Princess might also delay my work, and this was well, because my increasing confidence had sped my performance slightly ahead of the timeline I was trying to keep.
When I knelt once again across from the Princess and her companions, I remembered Madame Sato and her story of the suspended katana. I thought I sat as though a great katana were dangling above me, suspended by a single strand from a horse’s mane, but by now I knew better than to doubt the existence of a blade at least as sharp above the Princess’ head as well. The imperial family had already seen their military and economic power ended by the victory of the Whitegrain Clan years ago. Their continued existence at Eastern Capital was but as figureheads, preserved only by the doubtful mercy of military men, and the whole family bore the shame of their reduced position.
As we shared a quiet tea, I let myself wonder further what the more intimate concerns of a figurehead Princess could be. My thoughts being as they were, it was without shock that I received her invitation to join her for a private walk in the garden after tea.
“The fall colors are beautiful in our garden. You have not quite the same exquisite variety of foliage in the outer court,” she said, as she led me intimately on her arm. “It was a chilly reception I gave you last month,” the Princess said, after walking silently for a minute.
I couldn’t contradict her.
“We invite a number of guests, both artists and craftsmen. Some of them behave abominably, bringing with them infection and vermin. At times we have had to dismiss them rather quickly. You understand.”
“Yes, Highness.”
“Not that I really expected the same from you. Your family was noble, after all. It is rather a novelty to have a weaver’s accomplishment in a noble.”
“Is it, Highness?”
“Yes. I have not been to see your loom, but I am very curious. Reports have been quite exciting. Shall we go and have a peek now?”
She asked me as though I had a right to say no. But I knew better. “Yes, of course.”
She gave a signal to a companion following at a distance, and within a few seconds, the way was clear for the Princess to follow me to my loom.
I always fitted the loom with a large covering when not working, and The Princess commanded her companion to remove the draping with a wave of her royal fingers.
“Sakura!” she exclaimed, reaching to almost touch the cherry blossoms embroidered on the exposed silk. “And it will be finished for the annual festival?”
“I hope so,” I said, though in reality, I fondly wished to never finish it.
“I have never seen anything to equal it.” Her eyes shone with pleasure.
“You honor me, Highness.”
“Not at all. I shall have a challenging time awaiting its completion. And of course, I will come again soon. I suppose there is no point in pushing its completion any faster, since the only fitting occasion is so far beyond us. But oh! I will not be able to let you go.”
I had not been so bold as to expect this kind of favor from the Princess, but this was a chance I could not let pass by.
“I beg Your Highness, then, to do as you say and not let me go!” My voice cracked with emotion.
“What do you mean?”
“Keep me as your private weaver.”
Her eyes widened. “But surely you have a life to return to? Surely you have a betrothal to keep?”
“No, indeed. My family was stricken, and my betrothed as well.”
“You have no one?”
“Only my mother survives. And I have no ambition to marry.”
The Princess covered a slight smile with her fan. “This is a maidenly wish I believe I understand. But perhaps you will not feel so always. Many high-ranking men might wish to marry you.”
I lowered my eyes. “If I do not marry, I will be here to serve you always.”
The Princess averted her eyes. “You want to withdraw from society like a monk? Well. I will make a request of the Emperor, and give you an answer.”
This was a strategic play, but it was one I had already well considered. If there was any threat I feared, it was an approach or proposition by a high-ranking man. Would I fight and kill him also? How could I? And how could I not?
If I could persuade the Princess to keep me as her servant, I might avoid being cornered in at least one way. And I might be able to rely upon the rigid rules of court for every other form of protection. I might, but it seemed unlikely. All around me seemed to fall back upon secret alliances and clandestine liaisons to fortify their positions with intelligence. Were I to do the same, I might learn of threats in advance and avoid them. I might even discover some information about Shin.
Having obtained the Princess’s favor, I might realistically make an attempt. I had a new position to trade upon, and I had begun to see that failing to leverage that position would be a mistake. But I had no idea how far beyond intervention my plight had already advanced.
39
When weather allowed, I continued to meet the Princess for tea or a walk through the grounds. In the beginning, I wished she would simply leave me alone. But eventually, her association began to give me hope. I imagined she would not die, but thrive by my work. She had already become my protector. Perhaps I would be luck to her as I had proved to Eiko. I was sure she meant to do good to me if she could.