The Last Concubine by Lesley Downer Page B

chattered quietly, trying to pretend that nothing had changed. The princess herself remained hidden behind her gold-encrusted screens. In the past Sachi had always been at her side. But today the princess did notsummon her. Quietly Sachi went to help Taki and the other maids who were busy teasing out and combing the ladies’ floor-length hair. Taki smiled at her.
    ‘Lady Oyuri is the honourable lady of the side chamber,’ she whispered. ‘She is no longer a maid. Come and sit over here.’
    So Sachi knelt while the maids massaged her shoulders. They renewed the dye on her teeth and manicured her small pink nails. Then they combed and oiled her long silky hair, lifting the tresses strand by strand and waving an incense burner under them to scent them. They painted her face and helped her into a fine silkgauze kimono of plain white with red overskirts.
    The lady of the side chamber! Just the previous day, she would never have aspired even to look on such a grand personage as the shogun. Now it was over, that experience she had dreaded so much. She could hardly believe it had really happened. As the maids fussed around her, she sat in a dream. She tried to picture His Majesty’s – Kiku- sama ’s – smile, his sparkling eyes, his white skin, his hands. But already the image was fading. The more she tried to hold on to it, the more it slipped away.
    All day long the ladies of the castle swept in and out. At midday the seven elders swirled in with a swish of silk and disappeared into the princess’s audience chamber. The heavy scent of their robes lingered, perfuming the air. Puffs of smoke came wafting out from their tiny long-stemmed pipes. The shadows were gathering and the sultry heat had become bearable by the time Lady Tsuguko emerged. The ladies-in-waiting clustered round. She addressed Sachi directly.
    ‘You will sleep in my chamber now,’ she announced in her grandest tones, ‘not with the maids. Of course, if you have a child you will receive your own room, with a staff of four maids and three dressers. You will be given a monthly salary in rice and gold ryo sufficient to feed and pay them. You will also receive a clothing allowance and grants of lamp oil, soy bean paste, salt and firewood for heating the bathwater. If you have a child, your family too will be given honours. Your father will be promoted and will be awarded a good stipend. I will personally make sure that all this comes to pass. His Majesty too will protect you and ensure that your family is suitably honoured.’
    After the evening meal, while the maids were clearing away the trays of small dishes, sweeping the rooms and laying out bedding for the night, Sachi sat down and began a letter to her mother and father. Ever since she had arrived at the palace, she had not had time to write to them at all, neither had they written to her. Her father, she knew, prided himself on his writing skills. After all, he was the village headman. And although her mother couldn’t write, she could always call on him or on the village priest, the local scribe, to write for her. Perhaps they thought themselves too humble now that she had become a great lady; or perhaps they were not even sure what had become of her.
    Sachi picked up a brush, chose a plain paper of mulberry bark, sat down with a candle at her elbow and began to write as simply as possible, forming the letters carefully in her childish handwriting.
    ‘Greetings,’ she wrote. ‘I trust you are taking good care of yourselves in this humid weather. Here in the palace gardens the irises are in full bloom. I am well. I have been working hard, pursuing my studies. I try my best not to bring shame on you. Don’t worry about me. They are taking good care of me here. I have recently been promoted. I am now a maid of the middle rank.’
    As she thought of the tiled roofs of the village and the sun rising over the mountain, tears welled in her eyes and trickled down her painted cheeks. She could not bring