Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

A daguerreotype of Lord Shimazu Nariakira (1809–58). The earliest surviving Japanese photograph. It was created by one of his retainers, Ichiki Shirõ.

The Shogun’s Queen

Book One of THE SHOGUN QUARTET

Lesley Downer

TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
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www.penguin.co.uk

Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Lesley Downer 2016

Cover photographs: woman © Trevillion. Background and branch © Shutterstock.
Cover design by Becky Glibbery/TW.

Lesley Downer has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781448152476
ISBNs 9780593066867 (cased)
9780593066874 (tpb)

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Cast of Characters

(* indicates that they existed in real life)

* Atsu, known in childhood as Okatsu, later Imperial Princess Sumiko of the House of Fujiwara and the Midai, then Lady Tensho-in

KYUSHU

Preamble

Year of the Dog, third year of the Kaei era, a yang metal year (February 1850 – January 1851)

Japan has been at peace for close on two hundred and fifty years, ever since Ieyasu Tokugawa unified it in 1603 and took the title of Shogun – Barbarian-Quelling Generalissimo. His descendant, Ieyoshi, the twelfth shogun, now fifty-seven, governs with the help of a council of ministers from his castle in the glittering city of Edo in the east of the country. In the official capital, Miyako, another personage lives hidden away inside his rundown palace – the emperor. He has no temporal power but performs religious functions. He spends his days conducting rituals to placate the gods, to ensure good harvests and keep Japan safe and healthy.

Japan is made up of some 260 princedoms each under its own daimyo – clan lord – and with its own army. Each has a degree of autonomy but all are under the overlordship of the shogun. The ‘inside lords’, the daimyo who fought on the side of the shogun in 1603 in the great battle which ended years of civil war, have their domains mostly in the north and east of the country and hold the reins of power. The ‘outside lords’, who fought against the shogun, have lands mainly in the south and west. Paramount among these is the fabulously rich Prince of Satsuma, ruler of one of the most powerful domains at the far south-west tip of the country.

Within the domains there is the occasional power struggle. Nevertheless, under this system Japan has maintained peace and stability for nearly two hundred and fifty years and developed a glorious culture.

For most of this time foreigners have been largely prohibited. Chinese traders come and go and there is a tiny colony of some twenty Dutch merchants, all men, who live on an artificial island off Nagasaki. Once a year, most years, a Dutch ship arrives with goods to sell and takes away goods for export. No other foreigners, certainly no westerners, are allowed to approach the country by ship and those who do are driven away; and any Japanese who are shipwrecked abroad are not allowed to return, on pain of death, though in recent years this edict has been less stringently enforced.

But there are shadows hovering over this precarious stability, ships looming on the horizon threatening to invade, barbarian nations eager to share in Japan’s fabled riches. And as the third year of the Kaei era comes to an end, no one dare assume any longer that life will continue in just the same way for ever …

Prologue

Third day of the twelfth month, Year of the Dog, Kaei 3 (15 January 1851): Crane Castle, Kagoshima, in the Satsuma domain

‘Halt! Who goes there?’

Lanterns flicker outside the wooden walls of the palanquin. Feet stamp, metal clangs on stone.

The palanquin hits the ground with a bump.

Inside it is pitch dark apart from the thread of light that rims the door. The traveller looks down at her small white hands, twisting them apprehensively. She left home at cockcrow and the sun has long since set. She has been sitting in this cramped wooden box all day with her legs curled under her, pitching back and forth on the shoulders of the bearers. She’s chilled to the bone and exhausted but she’d far rather stay huddled for ever in her miserable conveyance with its nauseating odour of lacquer than step out and face these hostile men.

The gruff shouts drum into her head. She smells smoke and tallow, hears the crackle of torch flames.

She braces herself, pats her hair into place and smoothes her kimono skirts, badly creased by now. She’s never been away from home before. She wonders what will happen when the door slides back, what these sentries – she assumes they’re sentries – will do when they discover who she is and why she is here.

She takes a breath, tries to still the beating of her heart. ‘My name is Okatsu, daughter of Tadataké Shimazu, Lord of Ibusuki,’ she says, as clearly and loudly as she can. Her voice sounds high-pitched and tremulous in the night air. The last thing she wants is for these men to discover that she is only fourteen years old or – worse – that she is afraid. ‘I have a letter for His Lordship,’ she adds in as firm a tone as she can manage.

The sentries suck their breath through their teeth and confer in mutters. ‘If you’d be so good as to hand it out, Your Ladyship, we will ensure it reaches him,’ says a wheedling voice in deferential tones.

‘I have been instructed to deliver it directly into His Lordship’s hands,’ she says sternly. She has rehearsed her words again and again during the long journey here. ‘I am charged to see that His Lordship, and only His Lordship, opens it. I request to be admitted into His Lordship’s presence.’

‘Apologies, Your Ladyship. We have orders to check the identity of all visitors before they enter the precincts.’

The door to the palanquin rattles. Before she can utter another word it slides back. Faces peer out of the shadows, as hideous as demon masks in the lantern light. She blinks, dazzled by the sudden glare.

The sentries’ eyes widen. There’s a long silence, an intake of breath. ‘Well, what do you know!’ says one, shaking his head. ‘A child!’

‘And what a beauty!’ says another.

The lanterns and faces close in. A cold wind swirls.

She shrinks back. On her knees, swaddled in futons, she feels small and vulnerable. She is a lord’s daughter, she reminds herself. She draws herself up. ‘I require to be admitted into His Lordship’s presence,’ she snaps with as much dignity as she can muster.

The men grunt and back away and the door slides shut. Once again she’s cast into darkness. Footsteps retreat across the courtyard, staves clang on cobblestones. She bites her lip. Will they arrest her, lock her up, take her hostage? Her father and His Lordship are bitter enemies. The sentries may suspect she is a decoy, that she plans to assassinate His Lordship, that the letter is poisoned.

She curls her fingers around the hilt of her dagger. Like all women of the samurai class, she carries it tucked into her sash at all times and she knows how to use it, to fight if necessary or, if she is captured, to kill herself.

Winding her way along the coast, dozing in her palanquin, she’s been trying not to think about the events that have brought her on this freezing winter’s night from her peaceful home in the seaside town of Ibusuki to the towering gates of Crane Castle in the city of Kagoshima. Now images flash through her mind – the gatherings, the raised voices, the doors slamming late into the night.

She screws her eyes shut as she remembers that fateful day when soldiers arrived to arrest her father, shouting as they slammed their staffs against the door. He was lucky, he’d been put under house arrest. But several of her friends’ fathers had been sent into exile and two were executed. She blinks back tears as she thinks of it.

And there was worse to come. Her father’s closest friend, a much loved uncle, had been ordered to commit ritual suicide and her father had been commanded to witness it. She pictures her father’s face when he came home that night, his shoulders slumped. He’d brought back her uncle’s white linen underrobe, black with blood. He gathered the whole family together and held up the robe so that everyone could see it. She hears his voice, hoarse and ragged, ringing in her ears. ‘Take a long, hard look,’ he’d croaked. ‘This is the price of justice and loyalty.’

‘Justice and loyalty …’ No one tells women anything and especially not fourteen-year-old girls, but she’s worked out that there is a power struggle between His Lordship, the veteran Prince of Satsuma, and her father’s cousin, Lord Nariakira, His Lordship’s son. Lord Nariakira is Okatsu’s favourite uncle and her father his most loyal ally. There is no doubt which side of the struggle she and her family are on.

She shuffles and grimaces as blood comes flooding back into her legs, numb from kneeling for so long.

A couple of months have passed since that terrible night. The maple leaves had fallen and there was a dusting of snow on the ground. Then – just yesterday – her mother had come in search of her. Okatsu had been in her room, bent over her books. Her mother took her aside, her elegant face pale and drawn. She had a task for her, she’d said hesitantly. She was to go to Crane Castle, the seat of His Lordship the Prince of Satsuma, to deliver a letter.

Okatsu was startled that her own mother would send her into a hornets’ nest, into the enemy camp. But when she tried to ask, her mother raised a finger.

‘Not a word,’ she said.

Okatsu understood. The less she was told the less she’d be able to give away if she were captured and tortured. She drew herself up, proud that she’d been entrusted with such a vital mission.

‘I have faith in you, Okatsu-chan,’ her mother had said, handing her a scroll box. ‘I know you will do your best.’

Okatsu had been taken aback to see tears in her proud mother’s eyes. As she’d stepped into her palanquin at dawn that morning the whole household had lined up to see her off. Even her father and brothers were there to wish her a safe journey, as if they weren’t sure they would see her again.

There are footsteps outside the palanquin. The sentries. The young lady may enter but she is to leave behind the attendants and guards who have come with her from Ibusuki. The bearers take her in her palanquin up to the great entrance hall of the castle. There she gingerly unfolds her legs, first one, then the other, and steps out into the dark hallway.

A bevy of stern-faced women sweeps out of the shadows, exuding musty perfume. They grip her elbows and usher her through long corridors and into a side chamber. Muttering, they remove her heavy kimonos one by one until she is naked and shivering. She grits her teeth, trying not to recoil as they poke bony fingers into every crack and cranny of her fourteen-year-old body. She is of samurai stock, she reminds herself. She must not disgrace her family by showing the slightest humiliation or fear. The women take away her dagger and remove her hairpins and her hair falls in a glossy black curtain around her bare body. They check that she has no other sharp objects then tell her brusquely to dress herself and give her a ribbon to tie back her hair.

Guards carrying torches that blaze with huge yellow flames walk ahead of her through a maze of gloomy corridors. She follows, aghast at the lack of ceremony. She’d been expecting a chamberlain or, at the very least, a maid to escort her. Footsteps echo on the wooden floors, cobwebs hang from the lintels. The walls dwindle away into darkness above her. Men, heavily armed, line her path, silently watching. She holds the precious scroll box tightly in both hands and walks boldly, keeping her head modestly bowed, but her heart is thundering. Each step she takes is one step closer to the dragon’s lair where she must face the enemy, the old lord.

They come to a chamber that smells of candle wax and tobacco smoke and dust. Without even an usher to announce her, the guards push her unceremoniously inside and the door slams shut behind her.

She looks around wide-eyed. Candles on tall gold candlesticks light the corners. Servants and bodyguards kneel along the walls.

There is a wheezing cough. At the far end of the room an old man squats like a toad on a dais, his head poking from the stiff brocade of his robes. He licks thick crusted lips as he stares at her, his small eyes half hidden in the folds of his face. Okatsu has never seen anyone so grizzled and wrinkled and jowly. So this is His Lordship, the Prince of Satsuma, the tyrant who ordered the arrest of Okatsu’s father and the death of her uncle.

She kneels, face to the floor. As she looks up, an expression of lust crosses his face. A tremor runs up her spine.

His mouth creases into a smile. ‘Well, now. What have we here?’ he quavers in a thin dry voice. ‘A gift, is it, a peace offering from my errant kinsman and subject Tadataké? Quite right. He’s caused me trouble enough.’ He leans forward, the leathery flesh of his neck wobbling, narrows his eyes to slits. ‘And such a pretty little creature,’ he says, leering. ‘Such soft white skin. A perfect little doll! Who would have thought my cousin’s ugly son could have sired such a beauty? A most acceptable gift.’ He licks his lips.

Okatsu draws herself up, shaking with indignation. Even if he is her liege lord and master, how dare he treat her with such scant respect!

‘If I may be so bold, my lord,’ she says, trying to stop her voice from trembling, ‘you are misinformed. I am a messenger. I have a letter for you.’

‘Have you indeed? Don’t be afraid. Bring it over here. Show me.’

On her knees she edges towards him, holding out the scroll in both hands. Through the heavy silk of her kimono skirts she feels the tatami like ice under her legs. She smells the old man’s breath, hears him wheeze. His eyes are fixed on her.

‘Let me see it,’ he says thickly. He stretches a hand out, clamps thick fingers around her wrist and wrenches her towards him. Taken by surprise, she loses her balance. Her legs fly up and her skirts fall open and she sprawls face down on the floor.

Flushed with mortification she tries to sit up, but before she can move the old man is on top of her. His flabby body presses her to the ground, his hot breath blows around her ears. Probing fingers squeeze her buttocks, her waist, grope for her budding breasts.

She gasps for breath. Desperately she wriggles this way and that, trying to escape. Her face is crushed against the tatami. She twists her head to one side, shoots a glance at the servants and guards who stand blank-faced along the walls. They look away. She realizes with a shock of desolation that no one will help her. No one dare risk His Lordship’s wrath by interfering. No one cares what becomes of an annoying child sent for His Lordship’s entertainment. She is on her own.

The old man is heaving his clothes up, shoving her legs apart. She feels cold air strike her bare legs as he pushes himself between them. She is struggling to breathe under the weight of him.

She is trained in the martial arts. She wonders if she dare try to fight him off. But he is her lord and master. She is not permitted to oppose his will. She is shocked and dismayed that her liege lord should behave in such a way.

She frees one hand, heaves herself up, tries to push him off. She hears the tear of silk as he wrenches at her skirts. She is determined not to cry. ‘My lord,’ she pants. Her voice comes out as a sob. She takes a breath and shouts as loudly as she can, ‘Please. Please stop. Please let me go. You demean yourself!’

He gives a start. There’s utter silence. ‘Demean myself?’ she hears him wheezing. ‘Demean myself? Are you not honoured, child? I am your lord. How dare you oppose my will!’

She is about to answer when the door slides open. An overwhelming smell of perfume and face powder swirls into the room. ‘Nari-sama!’ shrieks a woman’s voice.

The old man pushes Okatsu aside and scrambles to his knees, panting.

Okatsu gasps for breath. She sits up and wipes her face, her hands shaking. She smoothes her hair and brushes off her skirts. She has never in her life been so humiliated. Then she turns towards the woman and her heart sinks. This must be Lady Yura, His Lordship’s chief concubine.

She is said to be so beautiful that no man can resist her. Okatsu has heard that she practises black magic, that she cast a spell over the old lord, that she has anyone killed who stands in her way. People say that she had Lord Nariakira’s children killed so that her bastard son could inherit the princedom in place of Lord Nariakira, the rightful heir.

The woman is dressed in brilliantly coloured silk kimonos with a lavish design of pine trees, bamboo and snow scrolling across the skirts. Her delicate oval face, heavily powdered, shimmers alluringly in the candlelight but the black-rimmed eyes that glare at Okatsu are icy cold. Her perfumed hair is wound into a glossy coil and studded with tortoiseshell combs and jewelled hairpins. When she opens her scarlet lips to speak, her black-painted teeth turn her mouth into a bottomless chasm. She is infinitely more terrifying than the old man.

‘You thought I’d leave you alone with some whore?’ she snarls. She has the accent of a Satsuma carpenter’s daughter, not a lady of high rank.

Okatsu is still trembling. ‘I am not a whore,’ she shouts indignantly. ‘I am Okatsu, daughter of Lord Tadataké of Ibusuki.’

His Lordship waddles back to the dais and squats on his brocade cushion, pushing strands of oiled grey hair into place with a liver-spotted hand. His face is red and puffy. He’s panting loudly.

‘Now then, Nari-sama. The moment I go away …’ Lady Yura raps her fan across his thick knuckles.

‘I am a messenger. I have a letter,’ Okatsu says insistently.

The concubine gives her an icy stare. ‘What nonsense,’ she says with a toss of her head. ‘What do you mean by coming here?’

Okatsu looks around for the scroll box. It has skidded across the floor. She picks it up, holds it out to the old man. He casts a timid glance at Lady Yura. Then he turns to Okatsu, bushy eyebrows raised. ‘Demean myself?’ he mutters. He shakes his head. For a moment a flicker of something – shame, maybe, injured pride – crosses his face.

‘Please take it, sire,’ Okatsu says.

‘Don’t touch it,’ hisses the concubine. ‘You know this is a trap.’

Okatsu gazes straight at the old man, holds out the scroll box in both hands. He harrumphs, wipes his face with a handkerchief, then reaches out and takes the box gingerly, as if it’s red hot.

Okatsu sits like a statue, trying to conceal her relief.

Grunting, the old man opens the box, takes out the letter and unrolls it. Okatsu hardly dares breathe as he holds it up to the candlelight. She doesn’t know what it says but it can’t be welcome news.

He runs a stubby finger down the lines of characters, frowning. His face blackens and his eyes bulge. The flesh between his eyebrows protrudes. Then his jowly cheeks sag. He nods heavily and looks up, his eyes bleary. ‘So that’s the way it goes,’ he mutters.

Lady Yura takes the letter between long white-painted fingers and her eyes open wide. A scowl creases her powdered forehead. Okatsu peeks at the two of them, trying to guess what they are thinking.

Finally the old man calls for a writing desk and paper, a brush, block of ink, ink stick and water dropper. A servant grinds some ink for him and slowly, laboriously, licking his thick lips, he writes an answer. The servant sprinkles sand over the ink. The old man rolls up the letter, seals it, presses his stamp to the sealing wax, calls for a scroll box and holds it out with an exaggerated bow to Okatsu.

She is on her feet, faint with relief, eager to be gone, when the concubine calls for tea. Reluctantly she has to stay yet longer and make uncomfortable small talk.

Finally Lady Yura summons a guard and whispers in his ear. He leads Okatsu into a labyrinth of corridors, running ahead, holding a single candle. She hurries after him, clutching the precious letter, wondering where he is taking her, what secret instructions Lady Yura has given him. The beetling hallways look entirely different from the path she took on the way there. She prays to the gods to keep watch over her, hopes that she doesn’t end up down a well or in a dungeon or at the end of some dark corridor with her throat cut.

She hardly dares take breath till she sees the entranceway and her palanquin outside with the guards and ladies who’ve come with her from her home.

The old women are waiting to return her dagger and hairpins. ‘It’s late,’ says one, her mouth cracking into a black-toothed smile. ‘Won’t you spend the night here in the castle?’

Okatsu bows politely and orders her bearers to set off straight away on the long journey through the night. She doesn’t manage even the glimmer of a smile till she’s back in her father’s mansion.

Safely back in Ibusuki, Okatsu mulls over that disturbing encounter. At her lessons, bent over her books, all she can think of is the old man crushing her under his weight and the icy cold eyes of the concubine, glaring at her. Over and over again she runs through all that happened, ponders how it might have gone. At least she is not dead, not even hurt, and she still managed to fulfil her task. She wonders why – why she was sent on such a perilous mission, and what has been achieved. Above all, the letter pricks her curiosity. She wants to know what it said and what the old man’s answer was.

And so the Year of the Dog comes to an end and the Year of the Boar, the fourth year of the Kaei era, begins. On the first day of the first month, every person in the country becomes one year older. Okatsu turns fifteen. Nearly two months more pass and the plum trees are in full bloom when her mother runs in one morning to tell her that Lord Nariakira is here, asking to see her.

In the grand reception room the rain doors have been pushed back and light filters in through the paper screens. Lord Nariakira is warming his hands over the brazier.

He’s a handsome man with a thoughtful face, tall and powerfully built with a broad chest. Usually he wears ceremonial kimonos with huge starched shoulders that stick out like wings but even in loose informal robes he still fills the room with his presence. He has piercing eyes that seem to take in everything, and a proud jut to his jaw. His stern face softens when he sees Okatsu.

Everyone else is in awe of him but he’s always been kind to her. He says she’s like a daughter to him. Whenever he comes he always has stories to tell her, marvels to show.

‘Come and sit here with me,’ he says. He speaks in grand lordly language, quite different from the earthy Satsuma brogue.

A servant lights a long-stemmed pipe for him. He takes a long slow draw and a thread of blue smoke curls towards the bamboo ceiling. He taps the pipe out in the tobacco box. ‘I wanted you to be the first to know,’ he says. ‘My father has abdicated. I am the Prince of Satsuma now.’

Okatsu smiles at him joyfully. So the power struggle is over. They can live in peace again.

‘There is a lot of work to be done,’ he says, his face grave. ‘But first I must thank you. You are a brave young woman, braver than most men could ever be.’ He picks up his pipe again. ‘I understand you met my father and that concubine of his, Lady Yura.’

Okatsu lowers her eyes. She’s ashamed of what transpired, how close she came to failing in her mission.

‘My father is a cruel and ruthless man. The whole princedom has suffered under his rule – farmers taxed to the hilt, samurai on starvation-level stipends having to take odd jobs, good, hard-working people forced to live in penury. I would have stood by, let his reign run its course. After all, I am the next in line. But then my children started dying.’

He pauses, stares into the glowing embers of the brazier. The rain doors rattle and an icy draught sweeps through the room.

Okatsu nods, remembering the funerals, the tiny coffins, Lord Nariakira tearing his hair, wild with grief, as one by one his sons had died. The whole princedom had gone into mourning.

‘Not one survives,’ he says. ‘Not one.’ His voice is a hollow whisper, as if he is speaking to himself.

He looks up, his face dark. ‘Children die. It is a fact of life. But to lose all four, that was too cruel.’ He groans, thumps the floor with his fist. ‘It was not chance or fate. It was a curse. That woman cast spells on my children to make them die.’

Okatsu gazes at him, perplexed. ‘Do you really think that, Uncle?’ she asks.

Everyone talks about spirits and magic and spells, about ghosts and goblins and long-nosed tengu, though Okatsu has never seen any herself. When children are born dead or families fall into ruin, people say it’s the doing of the spirits. If the dead can’t rest in peace they hover around the living, causing harm. That is why it’s so important to tend the ancestors’ graves and make offerings and pray to them.

But Lord Nariakira is different. He’s taught her to think for herself. He’s told her about the red-haired men who live on a man-made island outside Nagasaki. He admires their culture and their way of looking at the world.

Every year a ship comes from their country, Holland, bringing barbarian instruments and books of barbarian knowledge, which he collects and studies. He’s shown her books of charts and maps and diagrams, covered in dense illegible squiggles which, to her intense admiration, he can read. Sometimes he lets her peer through his ‘mirror of distant hopes’, a long metal tube fitted with lenses which brings the stars so close you can almost touch them. It makes the moon look so big you feel you could step out and walk on it, and she’s seen that far from there being a rabbit pounding rice cakes up there, as everyone says, the surface is actually grey and pock-marked.

Lord Nariakira knows there’s no rabbit on the moon, so how can he believe in curses and spells?

He starts as if he’s forgotten she’s there and gives a sigh. ‘I am not a superstitious man,’ he says. ‘But you have to believe the evidence. When my children started dying one after the other I sent one of my most trusted chamberlains to investigate. He discovered a serpents’ nest of evil – priests making images of my sons and placing curses on them, hermits practising black magic …’

‘And you believed it, Uncle?’

‘There was no other explanation. The only question was, who was hiring them? Who stood to gain from my children’s deaths? It did not take much to work it out. It was Lady Yura.’

Okatsu pictures the toad-like old man and the hard-faced woman at his side and shudders.

‘A vulgar, venomous creature.’ Lord Nariakira’s voice is a growl. ‘She ensnared my gullible old father and poisoned him against me. She wanted to have her bastard son made prince in my place. If I had no heirs, you see, I would not be a fit successor for my father. So she had to have my sons killed.

‘It had to stop. I had to topple my father, take power myself. But he moved more quickly than I expected. He guessed I was plotting a coup and made the first move, swooped on my supporters.’

Okatsu holds her breath. She hears the soldiers hammering at the door, remembers her uncle being led away in the middle of the night. She sees the bloodstained robe, hears her father’s voice croaking out those fateful words: ‘This is the price of justice and loyalty.’

‘Six of my followers killed themselves before they could be arrested,’ says Lord Nariakira. His face is hollow and his voice hoarse. ‘You know what my father did? He had their corpses taken and strung up on crosses. One he had sawn into pieces. Fourteen of my men committed suicide, seventeen were sent into exile. The rest were put under house arrest or died in jail.

‘But in the end the old man brought about his own downfall. No one could stand by and watch when such atrocities were being carried out. When news reached Edo of his bloody purge the Council of Elders decreed he had to go. The question was how to deliver the news, how to persuade him to leave peaceably, without civil war engulfing our domain.’

He looks at Okatsu gravely. ‘That was where you came in, my child.’

‘The letter?’ Okatsu whispers.

Lord Nariakira nods. ‘The messenger had to be a girl, so young that my father wouldn’t suspect treachery, but so beautiful that he’d be curious to see her. It had to be someone who knew nothing of the negotiations in Edo and wouldn’t give anything away. She also had to be fearless, someone who wouldn’t flinch or run away.

‘You were the only person who could do it. We all knew your intelligence and courage. I asked your father to authorize you to carry out this task and explained the risks to him in full. No one knew what my father would do if he was presented with an ultimatum.’

‘And you never breathed a word of it to me,’ Okatsu gasps, cold with horror. ‘No one did. You sent me into a monster’s lair. Do you know what your father tried to do to me? How could you send me to that terrible place knowing what those people are like?’

He looks at her, his face gentle. ‘Did he try to touch you?’

She nods, looks down, her eyes filling with tears.

‘He is well known for that. He thinks it is his right as a clan lord. But I hear you resisted.’ A flicker of a smile crosses his face. ‘That was brave of you. He must have been astonished. No one ever defies him. I knew you would stand up for yourself. That was why he accepted the letter.’

For a moment he looks abashed. But she is a fifteen-year-old girl and he is the lord of the realm. ‘It was for the good of the princedom,’ he says loftily. He narrows his eyes, looks at Okatsu as if she of all people ought to understand.

‘No one cared what became of me.’ Even as she hisses the words she knows it’s true. They all of them, men, women and children, have to be prepared, even eager, to die to serve the greater cause – their lord, their domain. That is a samurai’s duty.

‘It was best not to tell you,’ he says gently. ‘Your innocence was your best protection.’

She swallows hard, opens her mouth to protest. He holds up his hand. ‘I knew you could do it,’ he says. ‘I had faith in you and you repaid it amply. We are all in your debt.’ His face is unruffled. He stares into the distance. He has far greater matters on his mind than the well-being of one young girl.

She shakes her head, gives a sigh. ‘At least tell me what the letter said.’

‘It was from the chief senior councillor, Prime Minister Abé. “Your tyranny has gone on too long,” he wrote. “Your people suffer under your cruel reign. Your position is no longer tenable. The only honourable course is for you to retire. We shall take all necessary measures to ensure that our decree is observed. His Majesty intends to present you with a prized set of tea utensils on the occasion of your retirement to congratulate you on your long reign. We shall appreciate receiving your acceptance of this gift.”

‘If he had refused to accept the letter it would have been an act of rebellion. The government would have had to send troops to remove him.’

‘But if he had refused it he would have had my head cut off,’ Okatsu whispers. ‘Isn’t that what they always do, execute the messenger?’

Lord Nariakira smiles. ‘You were not in danger. He is too easily seduced by a pretty face. No, Lady Yura was the real threat. But I knew your youth and innocence and purity would win them over. And you see,’ he continues smoothly, ‘our ploy worked. He obeyed the government’s decree. He abdicated and appointed me prince of the domain. My father’s oppressive reign is over and it is thanks to you.’

There’s no point arguing any further. Curiosity overcomes Okatsu’s anger. ‘What became of him?’

‘He is in retirement in Kagoshima. He lost his princedom but he still has his concubine. The irony of it is that she got her revenge. I have no sons. Unless I can produce an heir her bastard son will become prince when I die. Let us pray to the gods that that will not be for many years.

‘You have proved yourself, my child. You have justified my faith in you. I hope I shall never have to call upon you again to do anything so dangerous.’

His eyes move to the open doors. Okatsu sees the pale winter sky, the black sands of Ibusuki’s beach, the sea sparkling not far away.

‘The world is changing,’ he says. ‘I have told you about the Hollanders.’

Okatsu nods, remembering the mirror of distant hopes through which she saw the moon’s pocked surface.

He looks at her sternly. ‘They are not the only nation who wish to encroach on our lives. There are others far less benign.

‘Ten years ago barbarous hordes from a distant land called Britain descended on the mighty empire of China. They rampaged along the coast, looting and raping, and threatened the emperor’s capital, Peking. They forced the Chinese people to buy their opium, a terrible drug that saps the body and the spirit, turns people into ghosts.

‘Our country too is in danger. Barbarian vessels have been sighted approaching our shores. Thus far we have repelled them but they will return. We have had warnings from the King of Holland himself. The western nations take land, carve out empires for themselves. They have conquered much of the world and now they have turned their sights on us. So far we have managed to keep them at bay. But our princedom, our whole realm, may soon face a crisis greater than we can even imagine.

‘All that you and I have been through, the sorcery, the killings, may turn out to have been an insignificant dispute compared to what is to come. We must be on our guard. We will need strong rulers in place, men able to make vital decisions, in preparation for that day. We need to be ready.’

His face is grim but Okatsu feels an unaccountable thrill of excitement. The world is changing. Her beloved uncle is prince of the domain, a new era is beginning – and it’s an era in which she feels sure she will have a role to play.

PART I

The Barbarians Arrive

1

Okatsu

Twenty-third day of the sixth month, Year of the Ox, Kaei 6, a yin water year (28 July 1853): Ibusuki, in the Satsuma domain

Ibusuki was a beautiful place, a land of gold and sunshine where the sky and ocean were perpetually blue. It was a spa town, famous for its health-giving waters, where people came to be buried in the steaming black mineral sands along the beach. Whenever the wind changed the pungent rotten-egg smell of sulphur wafted through the streets. Cranes swooped, birds twittered, monkeys roamed the flower-clad hills, palm trees swayed and the purple cone of Mount Kaimon, more perfect than Mount Fuji, rose misty on the horizon.

The governor of Ibusuki, Tadataké Shimazu, was a minor lord, not important or rich enough to be entitled to a castle, but he had a large and splendid mansion set in expansive grounds which dominated the samurai section of town. Here one hot summer’s morning his daughter Okatsu knelt gazing out at the gardens, drumming her fingers on the tatami.

Two and a half years had passed since that memorable night when Okatsu visited Crane Castle. She was seventeen now, tall and long-limbed. She was not a classic beauty. Her skin was white, white as porcelain, but her face was oval rather than melon-seed-shaped and she didn’t have the long jaw and bland expression of the beauties in the woodblock prints. Her nose was a little too pronounced, her mouth full, almost sensual, more suited to a geisha than a lord’s daughter, and her sparkling black eyes were unusually large and expressive.

The strangest thing of all was that she was still unwed. Most of her childhood friends had married at fourteen or fifteen and moved in with their husbands’ families. She met them in the street from time to time, babies proudly tied to their backs. Her oldest brother too had taken a young bride who’d recently moved into the house. But Okatsu still had unblackened teeth and unshaved eyebrows and wore girlish kimonos with long fluttering sleeves. If her parents waited much longer to arrange a marriage for her, she thought, she would turn into that most pitiable of creatures, an old maid.

She snapped her fan open and started to whisk it to and fro. The scent of sandalwood mingled with the smell of leaves and flowers and moist earth and the faint perfume of her blue and white cotton yukata.

A bell rang out, sounding the fourth hour. The rain doors that formed the outer walls and the gilded screens that divided the rooms had all been taken out, turning the mansion into one vast airy pavilion. She shuffled impatiently and glanced across the open rooms to where the servants swept and dusted on the far side of the house and the cooks prepared a meal in the kitchens. No one was paying any attention to her. If she was careful she’d be able to slip out.

Haru was kneeling beside her, sewing placidly. She had been Okatsu’s maid since childhood and was her accomplice in everything. She gave an imperceptible nod. She knew exactly what was on her mind.

Okatsu rose to her feet and strolled languidly towards the front of the house, making believe she was going nowhere in particular. She’d nearly reached the shadowy vestibule when a dainty figure came pattering across the tatami.

‘Okatsu-san!’

Okatsu gave a guilty start. It was Wife Number Three, one of her father’s concubines, a perfectly coiffed geisha with a brisk down-to-earth manner.

‘Going out, are you?’ asked Wife Number Three. ‘It’s very hot out there, you know.’

Okatsu’s heart beat uncomfortably hard. She knew exactly what Wife Number Three meant – that a clan lord’s daughter did not go out in public. ‘I’m just going for a stroll,’ she replied. ‘There’s a festival today.’

Wife Number Three looked her up and down through narrowed eyes. ‘I was young myself once,’ she said with a smile.

As Okatsu stepped outside, the wave of heat nearly knocked her off her feet. Haru was at her heels, holding a parasol over her head. A young girl of good family certainly couldn’t be out on her own.

The street was packed with people – bent old women, swaggering young men with their hips thrust out and their sashes slung fashionably low, pedlars, flower sellers, geisha, burly workmen and a woman with a monkey clinging to her back. Shouts filled the air and succulent aromas rose from roadside stalls where men with chequered headbands grilled octopus and squid.

Okatsu pushed her way through. She glanced behind her one last time to make sure no one had followed her, then turned down a narrow lane just wide enough for one person. Haru had slipped away discreetly, gone to wait at her aunt’s house.

When she was out of sight of the crowds Okatsu picked up her skirts and ran. Soon she had left them far behind. She smelt sulphur and heard the crash of breakers, then scrambled up a ridge of black sand dotted with pines and palm trees and ran down the other side on to the beach.

The sea stretched blue in front of her, turning a deep shade of sapphire as it rippled towards the opposite shore of the bay. Trees tangled in foliage tumbled almost to the water’s edge. Seagulls shrieked and soared and a cormorant swooped with a flash of black feathers.

Okatsu kicked off her sandals, feeling the sand hot between her toes, and ran to the hidden cove she knew so well. She was late. He would be wondering where she was.

But the cove was empty. There was no one there.

‘Kaneshigé-sama,’ she called. Her voice echoed around the rocks. ‘Hurry. I don’t have much time. I’ll have to go back soon.’

She gazed around at the little beach, the waves lapping on the shore. They’d spent so much time here over the years.

Kaneshigé. The salty smell, the roar of the surf, reminded her of how he used to tease her and chase her across the sand when they were little, and bring her seashells he’d found or strands of seaweed. Even when they’d reached the age where boys and girls were no longer allowed to spend time together, they had found ways to meet. They’d tell each other what they were doing and what they were studying. Her hopes and dreams, her picture of the world, had grown larger than if she had just sat at home sewing, as girls were meant to do.

All these years that her parents had never arranged a marriage for her, she’d always clung to the secret hope that they might marry her to Kaneshigé. After all, their families were friends – though they both knew that that was not the way things worked. In the end they were just pawns. Sooner or later they would be married off in political unions.

Kaneshigé was still a good friend of her brother. But no one could ever know about their secret meetings. If anyone had found out they would have been in terrible trouble. Her father might even have been ordered to kill her.

Time passed, the shadows moved. She paced up and down in the shade, filled with foreboding. It was unbearable not knowing where he was. Supposing he never came? Supposing his parents had found out about their meetings and forbidden him to leave?

Then she heard the pad of footsteps and a slender figure appeared on the ridge. For a moment he was silhouetted against the deep blue of the sky, the sun lighting his face, his robe tucked casually into his sash, his legs bare, his two swords glinting. She jumped up, laughing joyfully.

‘Kané-sama.’ It was her pet name for him.

‘Okatsu-san.’ He leapt down on to the sand.

She ran to greet him and threw herself into his arms. Even to meet him, let alone embrace him was a shockingly improper way for any young woman to behave, especially the eldest daughter of the lord of the town. She knew that perfectly well. But she loved him too much to care. No one ever came to the cove. There was no one here to see them, no one would ever know. He held her tight and she closed her eyes and pressed her lips to his. She breathed his smell, felt his thin young body against hers. His heart was pounding. He was panting. He had been running.

She drew back and looked at him, ran her eyes across his face – the down on his upper lip, his dark eyebrows and full mouth. ‘I wanted so badly to see you,’ she murmured.