by T. Cook
And still, I dreaded to think of finishing her kimono and what might follow.
I watched the servants busying at their endless tasks, vigilant for a tall, broad gardener, but Shin did not come, and he did not come, and at night when I laid upon my futon, the cold, silvery voice of doubt penetrated my conscious mind:
Shin cannot come to you. Something has gone wrong.
* * *
“Do you know what will happen for me next year, Fuyuko?” The Princess asked me while walking through the grounds before Shogatsu.
“I do not know, Highness.”
“I will marry.”
“Oh.”
“You sound sad to hear it, but it is considered a very good thing by my family.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I shall marry into the Whitegrain family. It is the first alliance by marriage between our two families and will strengthen and reinforce what little political influence my father has.”
“That is well.”
“Yes. I have pleased my father very much in this.”
“How do you feel about it?” This was a bold question to ask and I ventured it cautiously.
“I wondered if you might ask me that. And I will tell you in confidence: I am a little afraid.”
“Is your intended a kind man?”
“How can I know? I have not so much as looked upon him and will not until we are married, as is custom, but the rumors are that he is very harsh and bold.”
“He may be something different to you.”
“Perhaps.”
“Will you go to Western Capital next year?”
“Yes of course. Will you go with me?”
I gasped. “I will go to serve you.”
“I am glad. I have several good and loyal servants, but none who have displayed the same devotion and fervor you have.”
“I am honored.”
“Have you felt safe at court, Fuyuko?”
I started at the question. “Yes, Highness.”
“Good. Then my orders are being followed.”
“Your orders?”
“I know the courtiers intrude upon you, but didn’t you realize I have been protecting you from others?”
“No. For this I thank you,” I said and bowed low.
“I know I made no promises of seclusion, because I didn’t think I could guarantee it. But several high-ranking officials have visited and had asked my father about you. For my sake, he has turned them all away.”
I couldn’t speak for surprise.
“It cost me something to ask this of my father, but you have pleased me very much.”
I bowed again, this time to the ground. “Thank you, Your Highness. I cannot say it enough.”
“I think you are a strange girl, considering your opportunities. You are noble, and yet you seek to serve. You might rise quite a bit within your noble class. You might marry a wealthy man and live to make him richer.”
I repeated my wish to never marry, but she silenced me.
“If I were you, I would do differently, I think. And I may persuade you yet. But we will not speak of it. I can see you are unwilling even to discuss it. Finish my silk by the Sakura Festival, then you may begin some work on my wedding trousseau. You see, you may stay here with me as long as you like, and follow me to Western Capital when I am married.”
40
I wove by day and unraveled half of my progress by night. My fabric developed haltingly, at turns rushing and retreating through the fall and into winter.
Then preparations for Shogatsu began, with servants busy about court, sweeping, dusting and planting kadomatsu sprigs about the entryways. I watched them move. Seasonal preparations would put them almost anywhere within the palace, and I envied a servant’s access to so many doors shut tight to me.
They came and went barely visible in their plain robes, barely audible in soft soles. Uniform clothing. Purposeful movement. Anonymous faces. I was once one of them, and thought I could be again. I might blend and go almost anywhere.
The uniform was simple enough. A few questions and I might understand the routine, then disappear behind a task of work. Nothing I attempted at court eluded risk entirely. If I watched carefully…if I made a key friend…I might mitigate the risks I was about to undertake.
* * *
Bound up in their costly, and confining obi wraps, the ladies at court were graceful, subtle creatures. So much meaning passed with a nod of the chin, or a wink of a well-made-up eyelid. I could never keep up with it. The only time ritual relaxed enough to make a space for me was at bath, when the women shed formula and rite much like they shed their robes. I had kept aloof from their invitations so long, I couldn’t be certain any would be offered again, but if invitations were renewed, I became determined to seek out one particular woman.
She was the most elderly of all the ladies at court, and more than fabric or any physical adornment, it was her years that she wore with most pride.
The aged courtier never went anywhere without at least one servant nearby to lean upon. At the edge of the communal bath she stepped gingerly into the steaming pool, resting one blue-white hand upon her lady servant’s shoulder.
Followed behind I offered her my hand as well. She might have brushed me off with a terse word as I had seen her do to others before, and was prepared for her usual brusqueness. Instead, she clutched my hand with a desperate grip, and held on. It was her lady servant who she compelled to fall back behind us as we waded deeper into the pool, ignoring curious glances from the other courtiers as we waded to the bath’s farthest side.
I waited for her to speak directly to me, to give me advice, to scold, praise, reveal anything about the urgency behind the vice grip around my forearm. When she finally did speak, it was, I assumed, about the princess.
“In the old days, she would have had twelve attendants instead of three. Six menservants and six maidservants. In the old days…before.”
She alluded to ‘before’ instead of overtly identifying the military government that had stripped all political power from the Emperor, and installed him as a figurehead, a kind of tame demigod.
Her grainy voice elevated in volume. “Then, her mother was so grand. So grand. To look at her was to go blind. It happened, you know. Bold men blinded themselves just looking at her; she was so glorious.”
“She is yet glorious,” I attempted to soothe, but the old woman trembled and scolded.
“No! She is wounded, but she is gathering her strength,” Now the old woman hushed her voice. “But she will be glorious again. She will have help. We must all assist. Will you?” Then she turned her face to stare into my eyes, and in spite of the heat, an icy chill followed the path of a single bead of sweat all the length of my naked spine.
I stammered. “Yes. I am weaving the finest robe I have ever attempted.”
The woman grunted. “That is well—but it is not enough!” she hastened to add. “She needs you. She needs your allegiance, your vigilant service…and protection.”
That chill prickled my sweat-bathed skin into a rash of goose flesh. “I don’t know how to—”
“Listen to me,” the woman urged. “Listen. Prostrate yourself to the dust, swear your loyalty to her. When she trusts you. Then. Then, she will encumber you with service. You must go to her first.”
“But the rules of court!”
“The rules! The rules! You must show yourself willing to destroy the rules at whatever cost to yourself.”
I didn’t dare argue with her in that excited state, but simply bowed my neck to the old, apparently deranged, woman.
Before I left her, she made me promise to do as she had asked. So help me, I did promise.
41
The elderly courtier’s instructions had been rash. Foolish. Dangerous. Following them risked every inch of friendship I had painstakingly created with the Princess. It flew in the face of reason: transgressing the rules of court to achieve the Princess’s trust? She might have me throw
n out of court, in spite of our recently forged friendship. At best, I would be warned, censured, and then isolated and watched. The idea alone was ridiculous.
But for my own reasons, I knew I would do it.
Even while I rejected the mere idea of it, a crisp vision of my transgression appeared in my mind’s eye. I constantly heard the old woman’s instructions echoing in my brain—not for the sake of the Princess’s redemption, but for my own knowledge and survival.
I was blind to the forces directing my life. And what value to me was the Princess’s tepid friendship? Shin had not come. If I were to survive, I must be indispensable to someone more powerful than myself. I must fight my way to the inside of her circle. Whatever damage resulted from my existence must be considered a light matter next to my value. Pretty silk alone would not be enough.
The old woman knew something—perceived something in her blindness that the rest of court couldn’t see. Somehow, she detected the ebbing and flowing of the political forces at court. And the urgency of her grip traveled up my arm beyond my shoulder and into my heart until a plan to approach the princess in violation of court rules became all I ever thought of, eclipsing even Shin.
Past illness had caused me to doubt my madness before. I had reason to doubt it again as I prepared to tempt the court with behavior likely to have me exiled. But to continue as I was without intervention would also drive me mad. I would take the risk my instincts were urging.
Early morning, before the sun was up, I would dress and trespass into the inner court alone. I had watched, and knew the moment when I might sneak past the guard stationed by the gate to the inner palace. By then I knew the court well enough to chart a course, and thought I might reach as far as the Ogakumonjou before being apprehended. If I could get beyond it, I might go further yet, perhaps into the Dairi where the Princess would still be sleeping.
The family should be asleep when I was arrested and detained. I would not risk meeting the Princess somewhere by day. This would force a confrontation before she had fully considered the implications of my disobedience, and if anything, I depended upon her thoughtful consideration.
She must interpret my disobedience as the old courtier had suggested. She must see my willingness to offend court rules, and perceive my act as loyal to her, individually. I didn’t fully understand this tenuous distinction, but even without fully understanding, I trusted its necessity.
Dressed in the near costume of a maidservant, and in the pre-dawn morning light, I passed through the gate, escaping observation. I walked my morning path through the garden and this should have been provocative. Dressed as a house servant, I would have no reason to be there, but no one disturbed me. I walked on and reached the Ogakumonjou. Here, I broke the affectation of a servant, and looked behind me. Astonished, to find my path quiet, I paused, took a deep breath, and took the pathway toward the Dairi, where the Princess slept.
I stared up ponderously at the stately structure. I had never been inside. The Princess and I were not on such close terms as to give me access there. The air in my throat caught, and I swallowed it hard while I ascended the broad steps, rising slowly above each as though shod in lead. The imperial residence was manned. And I stared at the guards, wondrous, expectant. They didn’t seem to see me.
I removed my sandals at the threshold and placed them neatly inside a large cupboard of red lacquer, then surveyed my surroundings within which I had lost myself. I was forced to guess the direction of the Princess’s’ quarters. To stray into the Emperor’s own room, I believed, would leave the Princess no avenue for intervention on my behalf. It would mean my death.
I approached an elegant dining room with a mahogany table set with imported, blown glass goblets. I passed my fingertips over the velvet finish of a sideboard trimmed in ebony and padded deeper into the residence. I reached a narrow hallway flanked by a bank of closed doors and stopped. A hand reached from behind me and grasped my right shoulder.
I spun and caught the recognizing glance of a high servant before being seized and held by the paralyzing hold of the palace guards.
42
They carried me bound outside the inner court to a retaining room on the edge of the outer court. Hands penetrated my robe, searching my body for evidence of my intent. Finding nothing, they threw me bodily into a cold, dark room innocent of even a window. I shivered where I crouched on bare feet and waited for the interrogation that must follow.
I waited long in that freezing cell—long enough to doubt my judgment in having provoked the tolerance, if not friendship, of my royal hosts. Whether worthy of this punishment or not, I might have avoided it. Did I expect to survive the interrogation? Did I expect the interrogator to survive it?
A guard unlatched the door with a groan of the heavy iron latch.
He pulled me cringing into the now sundrenched exterior room, then dragged me by my still bound arms, halting and stumbling outside into the court. Within a moment, I could see we were returning to the inner court, not to the Dairi, but to the Ogakumonjou. Would I be questioned there?
I fell prostrate upon the tatami, and soon, a servant announced the Emperor himself. I dared not look up, but prepared the lies I must speak if allowed to defend myself. I didn’t wait long for his calm, yet stern voice to urge my explanation.
“Who sent you into my private residence?”
“No one sent me, Your Highness.”
“You cannot protect him. You will be tortured. It will be found out at last.”
“Your highness may torture me, but it cannot alter the truth. I trespassed into the Royal Residence only at the goading of a strange dream urging me to go and protect the Princess from an intruder.”
“How did you intend to defend the Princess? You carried no weapon.”
“I would have warned her of the threat.”
A scoff of contempt. “You are either lying or mad. There was no intruder but yourself.”
“In my dream, I saw clearly a thief entering into the palace and heard a voice.”
“What did you hear?”
I paused, being no practiced liar, I felt sure of detection, but as I opened my mouth to speak, new words flooded into my mind, seemingly from nowhere, and the words followed quickly out of my own mouth without further reflection. “You must hurry. Save Otoppon.”
Silence fell over the hall, then: “What do you think that means: Save Otoppon?”
“I do not know, but I pledge my loyalty to the Emperor. I have no intention but to serve you until I die. I believe I have proven I do not fear for my own life.”
“You have proven no such thing!”
“I will go to death to serve you.”
The Emperor proclaimed me mad. And at last I dared lift my gaze above the tatami floor. But he gave a terse nod to the guards and strode out of the hall.
43
Inside the dark cell at the edge of court, I waited for execution. My death would not take place within the pristine walls of the imperial palace—not in this place of beauty. But my wait lengthened through the day and frigid night.
If my punishment delayed much more, I was sure I would die from exposure and deny the Emperor the satisfaction of killing me. Chilblains speckled my feet, but I couldn’t feel them. Numbness traveled slowly from my extremities up to my thighs and the length of my arms. I had ceased to tremble and I could eat nothing. Sleep came in tortured episodes.
Then the Princess herself appeared in my dream. Covering her nose in disgust from the fetid odor filling the chamber, she shrank back toward the door, still opened a crack.
“If you were not such a pathetic sight already, I would beat you myself,” she scolded. “But you look terrible. Give her hot broth and release her.” She nodded to her maidservant. “Take her to the baths and clean her up before returning her to me.”
The dream illusion shattered only when the heat of the water pouring out over my legs and hands drew tortured screams from my lungs. The Princess’s servant took up my feet and massag
ed them with a coarse bristled brush to coax my circulation. The procedure was agony worse than I had suffered in the three days of raw exposure since my arrest, but the blood returned to my feet, as did the dull ache of the swollen sores upon my feet and hands.
Gradually, the warmth comforted and the broth nourished me. After sleeping for an undetermined stretch in a coal-warmed futon, I awakened weak, but well enough to return again to the Princess.
* * *
“What you did was inexcusable. I will never understand what possessed you to take such a risk. You should have been killed, many times over for the things you have done. If it had been anyone else, I would not have spoken for you. Can you even conceive of the cost of the political capital I have wasted trying to save your life?”
I sank to the floor. “No. I am sure I cannot. But please know I had no wish to provoke you.”
“How could you fail to provoke me by such an act? Were you bent upon destroying yourself? There are better ways, I assure you.”
I searched my mind for a good response, but could find nothing except, “I will not betray you, Princess.”
Her eyes narrowed and she pressed her lips together as though willing to silence the words already upon her tongue. Then she dismissed her servants, even her personal maid to the last woman.
“Take this letter and leave it with the mistress of the Red Door Tavern at the southern edge of Western Capital.”
I didn’t vocalize, but my face could not have disguised my surprise.
“If you want to take risks for me, then at least let them be meaningful,” she said, turning away and leaving the hall ahead of me.
I looked at the letter, neatly sealed with wax. A simple, anonymous seal. It was the kind of letter trying not to call attention to itself. I couldn’t think of why a Princess would dispense with the credibility of her royal insignia, unless the contents of the letter were somehow a danger to her personally.