Читать онлайн «The Shogun's Daughter»

Laura Joh Rowland

The Shogun's Daughter

Historical Note

A streak of misfortune began for Japan with the great earthquake of December 1703, which leveled most of Edo, caused a giant tsunami, and killed thousands of people. In a ritualistic attempt to usher in better times, the government changed the name of the era from Genroku to Hōei. It didn’t help. In May 1704, the shogun’s daughter, Tsuruhime, died at age twenty-seven. Her husband died a month later. Tsuruhime’s death had serious ramifications for the future of the Tokugawa regime. She was the shogun’s only child. It was unlikely that he would sire any others. Tsuruhime’s death cost him the chance of a grandson to inherit the throne. Faced with his own mortality, he was under pressure to name a successor. Some historical sources say that Chamberlain Yanagisawa, the shogun’s longtime advisor, tried to pass his son, Yoshisato, off as the shogun’s son. Had he succeeded, Yoshisato would have become the next shogun, and Yanagisawa would have ruled Japan through him. Other sources debunk this story. If Yanagisawa did try such an audacious scheme to seize power, it didn’t work. The shogun adopted his nephew, Tokugawa Ienobu, and designated him as the official heir and successor. However, the troubles continued. In July 1704 Lady Keisho-in, the shogun’s mother, died at age seventy-eight. In 1707 another earthquake struck Japan, and Mount Fuji erupted. In 1709 the shogun died of measles, during an epidemic. Ienobu became shogun. The Shogun’s Daughter is an episode in my story of what might have happened during those tumultuous times.

Prologue

Edo, Month 4, Hōei Year 1

(Tokyo, May 1704)

Moans filled a chamber lit by a single dim lantern.

On the bed, an emaciated young woman writhed under the quilt. Her face was an ugly mask of swollen pustules, covered by gray membranes, that clustered on her features, sealed her eyes shut, and preyed on her mouth like leeches. Pustules on her scalp oozed bloody fluid through her cropped hair onto her pillow. She whimpered in agony, fever, and delirium.

A nurse dressed in a blue cotton kimono, a white drape shrouding her face, knelt by the bed. She patted the sick young woman’s hands, which wore mitts to prevent her from scratching the pustules, and murmured soothingly. On the tatami floor, one table held basins, soiled cloths, and ceramic jars of medicine; another supported an array of brass incense burners. The smoke from these saturated the air with bitter, astringent haze intended to banish the evil spirits of disease. On the walls, in murals of marsh scenes, herons, geese, and cranes peered avidly through the reeds, like carrion birds waiting for a fresh kill. Painted water lilies rotted in the stench of the young woman’s decaying flesh.

A white gauze curtain hung over the doorway. Beyond this hovered two shadowy figures. Standing in the dark corridor outside the sickroom, they peered through the flimsy barrier that guarded them from contagion. One was a man dressed in sumptuously patterned silk kimono, surcoat, and flowing trousers. Short legs supported his long torso and broad shoulders. The crown of his head was shaved in samurai style; his hair, worn in the customary topknot, gleamed with wintergreen oil. His companion was an old woman. Her modest gray robes clothed a figure as thin and fleshless as a skeleton. Silver-streaked black hair, knotted and anchored with lacquer combs, framed a narrow face whose right side was distorted, its muscles bunched together, the eye half closed as if in pain.