"Even so I refuse--I refuse!"
"You cannot, so sorry. May I explain th--"' "No you may not! I refuse, I refuse I refuse!"
The next day another interview requested and refused, then another and another. She was equally inflexible. "No."
"So sorry, Highness," her Chief Matron said, very flustered. "The Imperial Chancellor again requests a moment to explain why this is asked of you."
"I will not see him. Tell him I wish to see my brother!"
"Oh so sorry, Highness," the Chief Matron said, appalled, "please excuse me but it is my duty to remind you the Son of Heaven has no kith or kin once he has ascended."
"I... of course, please excuse me, I know. I'm, I'm overwrought, please excuse me." Even within the Court only the Emperor's wife, consorts, mother, children, his brothers and sisters, and two or three Councillors, were allowed to look him in the face without permission. Outside of these few intimates it was forbidden. HE was divine.
Like all Emperors before him, from the very moment Komei had completed the rituals that mystically joined his spirit to that of the recently deceased Emperor, his father, as his father had joined with his, and he had with his in unbroken line back to Jimmu-Tennu, he had ceased to be mortal and became a Deity, the Keeper of the Sacred Symbols--the Orb and Sword and Mirror--the Son of Heaven.
"Please excuse me," Yazu said humbly, appalled at her sacrilege.
"I'm sorry I... Please ask the Lord Chancellor to petition the Son of Heaven to grant me a moment of his time."
Now, through her tears, Yazu was remembering how, many days later she was on her knees before the Emperor and his ever present multitude of courtiers, heads bowed, she hardly recognizing him in his formal swirling robes--the first time she had seen him for months. She had begged and pleaded in a litany of weeping, using the necessary court language hardly understood by outsiders, until she was spent. "Imperial Highness, I do not want to leave home, I do not want to go to this foul place Yedo, the other side of the world, I beg leave to say we are the same blood, we are not Yedo upstart warlords..." And had wanted to screech, We are not descended from peasants who do not speak properly, dress properly, eat properly, act properly, cannot read or write properly and stink of daikon-- but she dared not. Instead she said, "I beg you, leave me be."
"First: please go and listen carefully and calmly as befits an Imperial Princess to what the Lord Chancellor Wakura has to say."
"I will obey, Imperial Highness."
"Second, I will not allow this against your will.
Third, return on the tenth day, then we will talk again. Go now, Yazu-chan." It was the first time in her life that her brother had called her by the diminutive.
So she had listened to Wakura.
"The reasons are complicated, Princess."
"I am accustomed to complications, Chancellor."
"Very well. In return for the Imperial betrothal, the Bakufu have agreed to the permanent expulsion of all gai-jin and to cancel the Treaties."
"But Nori Anjo has said this is impossible."
"True. At this time. But he has agreed at once to start modernizing the army and at once to build an invincible navy. In seven, eight, perhaps ten years he promises we will be strong enough to enforce our will."
"Or in twenty or fifty or a hundred years! The Toranaga Shoguns are historic liars and not to be trusted. For centuries they have kept the Emperor confined and usurped his heritage. They are not to be trusted."
"So sorry, now the Emperor is persuaded to trust them. In truth, Princess, we have no temporal power over them."
"Then I would be a fool to give myself as hostage."
"So sorry, but I was going to add that your marriage would lead to a healing between Emperor and Shogunate which is essential to the tranquility of the State. The Shogunate would then listen to Imperial advice and obey Imperial wishes."
"If they became filial. But how would my marriage bring that to pass?"' "Would not the Court, through you, be able to intervene, even to control this youthful Shogun and his government?"' Her interest had quickened. "Control? On behalf of the Emperor?"' "Of course. How could this boy--compared with you, Highness, he a child--how could this boy have any secrets from you? Of course not. Surely the Exalted's hope is that you, his sister, would be his go-between. As wife of the Shogun you would know everything, and a remarkable person such as yourself could soon have all the threads of Bakufu power within your hands, through this Shogun. Since the third Toranaga Shogun there has never been a strong one. Would you not be perfectly placed to hold the real power?"' She had thought about that for a long time. "Anjo and the Shogunate aren't fools. They would have deduced that."
"They do not know you, Highness. They believe you are only a reed to be twisted and shaped and used at their whim, just like the boy Nobusada, why else did they choose him? They want the marriage, yes, to enhance their prestige, certainly to bring Court and Shogunate closer.
Of course, you, a girl, would be their pliant puppet, to subvert Imperial will."
"So sorry, you ask too much of a woman.
I do not want to leave home, nor give up my Prince."
"The Emperor asks that you do this."
"Once again the Shogunate is forcing him to barter, when they should just obey," she had said bitterly.
"The Emperor asks that you assist to make them obey."
"Please excuse me, I cannot."
"Two years ago, the bad year,"
Wakura continued in the same measured way, "the year of famines, the year Ii signed the Treaties, certain Bakufu scholars were searching history for examples of deposed Emperors."
Yazu gasped, "They would never dare--not that!"
"The Shogunate is the Shogunate, they are all-powerful, at the moment. Why shouldn't they consider removing an obstacle, any obstacle? Did he not, his wa destroyed, even consider abdicating in favor of his son, Prince Sachi."
"Rumor," she burst out, "that cannot be true."
"I believe it was, Imperial Princess," he said gravely. "And now, in truth, He asks, please will you help him?"' Beyond herself, she knew whatever she said, it would always return to the "ask." No way out. In the end she would have to comply or become a nun. Her mouth opened for the final refusal but it never happened. Something seemed to sever in her mind and, for the first time, she began thinking by a different process, no longer child but adult, and this gave her the answer. "Very well," she said, deciding to keep her own counsel. "I will agree, providing I continue to live in Yedo as I have lived in the Imperial Palace..."
That conversation had brought her to this night's silence, broken only by her weeping.
Yazu sat up in the bed and wiped her tears away. Liars, she thought bitterly, they promised me, but even on that they cheated. A slight sound from Nobusada and he turned in his sleep. In the lamplight without which he could not sleep he looked more boyish than ever, more like a younger brother than husband--so young, so very young.
Kind, considerate, always listening to her, taking her advice, no secrets from her, everything that Wakura had foretold. But unsatisfying.
My darling Sugawara, now impossible--in this lifetime.
A shiver went through her. The window was open.
She leaned on the lintel, hardly noticing the mansion below that was gutted and smoldering, other fires spotted here and there throughout the city, moonlight on the sea beyond--smell of burning on the wind, dawn lightening the eastern sky.
Her secret resolve had not changed from that day with Wakura: to spend this life wrecking the Shogunate who had wrecked this lifetime, to rip away their power by any means, to return that power to the Godhead.
I will destroy as they destroyed me, she thought, far too wise now to even whisper it down a well. I begged not to come here, begged not to have to marry this boy and though I like him, I loathe this hateful place, loathe these hateful people.
I want to go home! I will go home. That will make this life bearable. We will make this visit whatever Yoshi does or says, whatever anyone does or says. We will go home--and we-will-stay-there!