Chapter 1
YOSHI-NO-KATA
Yoshi-no-kata shuddered as if an ice-cold wind swept through her pure, unsullied body, blowing news of an event she had longed for and feared.
As an o-kiyo, one of the thousand other virgins in the ōoku, the women’s quarters in the shōgunate, Yoshi yearned to be touched by the Shōgun. And today she had been chosen.
Yoshi had no idea how or when she caught the master’s eye.
Just having turned twenty, she thought this day would never come because she had passed her prime.
She feared she would be forever relegated to the otogibōzu, the servant class of women with shaved heads and dreadful black kimono.
It wasn’t that she disliked the otogibōzu; they were nice enough, and the oldest one had taken her under her wing like a mother hen.
Yoshi liked the otogibōzu; she just didn’t want to be one.
Coming into womanhood and becoming o-tetsuki, touched by the Shōgun, seemed especially impossible to Yoshi because this year the Shōgun’s visits had become less and less frequent.
It had been months since she heard the bells ring, heralding the lord’s arrival at the kami osuzu rōka tobira—the padlocked, ironclad door that stood between the ōoku and the world beyond.
Even though the women of the ōoku swore their loyalty and secrecy, gossip spread like smoke through the fall forest, and they knew—the Shōgun was ailing and possibly unable to fulfill his duties.
The rumors soared when he adopted two sons when none of his wives or concubines produced a true heir.
“You must hurry, Yoshi,” her favorite otogibōzu advised. “Shōgun Tokugawa Iemochi will be here soon. You will want to make him wait in anticipation, but not in frustration.”
Yoshi heard muted excitement in her voice. It had seemed like an eternity for all the otogibōzu since his last visit.
Yoshi looked for clarity in her emotions.
Am I afraid, anxious, or excited? But there was no time to think about it when she heard the bell jingle, the bell between the Shōgun’s apartment and the ōoku.
Yoshi thought she could hear all one thousand women gasp and flutter like blackbirds in a persimmon tree.
“Yoshi, please,” her otogibōzu begged, holding out the white kimono to dress her.
Yoshi hesitated. “Are you certain I am the one he asked for?”
“Yes, yes, of course. Now hurry!”
Yoshi wanted more. She did not stretch her arms out so the other attendants could undress her.
Her otogibōzu sighed with frustration. Nearly at her wit’s end, she muttered something, handed the white kimono to an attendant, pulled a parchment scroll from the sleeve of her black kimono, and handed it to Yoshi.
Tentatively, Yoshi unrolled it. Filled with writing, she ran her finger over each character.
She wanted to see his request and to savor the moment, one that might never come again.
She knew that the scroll, dictated by the Shōgun himself to his scribe, had been handed to an otogibōzu waiting at the chamber door for such a time as this.
The characters indicated the Shōgun wished to visit the ōoku and asked for his concubine, the daughter of Shibata Takenaka.
That’s me! Yoshi said to herself and nodded. Still, she thought it strange that the Shōgun asked for her by her birth name, not her given name. When she had entered Edo Castle at age five to begin her training, her name had become Yoshi-no-kata.
She felt the burning eyes of the attendants. No time to think about it, she said to herself. The Lord has asked for me. She rolled the parchment, returned the scroll, smiled, and held her arms out straight.
“You always were a difficult child,” her otogibōzu teased. “You have no right to play hard to get!” The other attendants chuckled and quickly disrobed Yoshi.
Still, Yoshi showed no sense of urgency.
She had proof of being called, and she wanted to enjoy each moment of the preparation process.
After all, she had trained all her life for this; all the women had—those waiting to be called, those who had been called, and those who had not been called and attended to women in waiting.
Each woman understood her exact role. Yoshi smiled.
How many times had she practiced putting on the copulation kimono and fixing her hair with a comb rather than the customary hair pins?
Each day, she’d bathed and put on fine powder, just in case the Shōgun called her to duty.
She had been trained in seduction and how to please a man, always giggling when shown the explicit drawings of intimacy.
But would she remember all the training when it came to performing the genuine act? Yoshi frowned.
She had never been to the actual bedchamber, and she wondered what it would be like as her attendants pulled and pushed her body into the kimono.
Would it be warm enough? How would it smell?
Many women had gone before her with different lords of the Tokugawa Shōgunate.
Stories circulated that the eleventh Shōgun, Tokugawa Ienari, had a more insatiable sexual appetite for his ladies-in-waiting and visited the inner chamber three times a day.
He’d fathered over seventy-five children.
So different than this fourteenth Shōgun, Tokugawa Iemochi.
Yoshi had only seen Lord Iemochi once and from a great distance.
She found him strikingly handsome, though his youth took her by surprise.
But the women of the ōoku respected him and had recently celebrated his eighteenth birthday, even though he did not attend.
While gossip in the ōoku flowed like a waterfall, not a single whisper dared to breach the otogibōzu silence of the inner chamber.
Anyone who wondered why a young man would not have a stronger libido kept it to herself.
A pre-pubescent attendant tapped on Yoshi’s foot, requesting her to raise it.
The girl slipped on a white tabi sock with the slit between the great toe and the second.
Yoshi put her foot down and lifted the other for the attendant to wiggle on the second sock.
Then Yoshi gently slipped into the tall and lacquered koma-geta sandals.
“Please, let us go,” her otogibōzu said, pushing Yoshi forward.
Yoshi caught her balance in the platform sandals and kept from falling. She wanted to scold her otogibōzu for her impatience but understood the old woman’s job and reputation were on the line as well.
The ceremonial kimono and wooden sandals allowed for only tiny steps but the otogibōzu’s pressure from behind quickened their pace.
Heat rose up Yoshi’s back. After all, she felt deeply honored and could scarcely believe that this day had finally come.
She remembered her life before. As a child, her father had taken her to the castle, hoping she would be chosen as a secondary wife for the Shōgun, thereby strengthening his own status and alliances with the Tokugawa Shōgunate.
There was no greater honor or duty than serving the Shōgun.
Yoshi had dreamed about this moment ever since she’d come of age.
As she and her entourage moved down the bamboo-lined corridor, Yoshi saw two attendants kneeling by the door to the Shōgun’s apartment and her heart raced. All this training and the heart still did what it wanted.
The two attendants, dressed in vibrant silk kimono, bowed deeply to Yoshi and slid open the doors to the tsugi no ma, the antechamber adjacent to the bedroom.
Yoshi’s otogibōzu led her by the hand into the small room.
Then, to Yoshi’s surprise, she did something completely unexpected.
Like a loving mother, the woman placed her hands on each side of Yoshi’s face and gave her a slight nod to recognize this moment.
She bowed deeply to Yoshi and then to another woman who stood close by.
Yoshi recognized this woman from the ōoku.
As an o-tetsuki, having already been paired with the Shōgun, it was her duty to search Yoshi for forbidden items. No Shōgun had ever been assassinated in the women’s area of the castle, but heads would topple with even a whisper of an attempt, so they allowed nothing sharp into the bedchamber.
Yoshi found the ritual unnecessary, because she did not know one woman who wouldn’t gladly give her life for the safety of the lord.
But she also understood that the guards’ presence prevented any scheming by a woman to garnish favors in the heat of passion.
The o-tetsuki and an otoshiyori, an elder woman in charge of the ōoku, would remain on guard outside the bamboo door as the couple fulfilled their conjugal duties.
* * *
To Yoshi, it took an eternity for the thorough examination and the reassembling of her hair and outfit.
When the attendants finally slid open the thin doors of the onjōdan, Yoshi fell to her knees and bowed so that her forehead touched the bamboo mat.
Her bow lasted too long, but she wanted to settle her shock at seeing the man.
Not only was he not naked, or even in his bedclothes, he looked pale and emaciated, leaning up against the wall in his full kimono.
She held the position until he cleared his throat.
Remember your training, she thought. She stood, bowed at the waist this time, and spoke the words taught to her for years.
“My honorable Lord Tokugawa Iemochi. You have so honored me with the opportunity to serve you.” She bowed deeper.
The Shōgun began to speak, but his words gave way to a coughing fit.
Panic struck Yoshi. Her training did not account for this. Seeing a tray of tea next to the bed platform, she stepped quickly to it and poured a cup of hot tea, bowed and held the cup for her master.
“Forgive me, Lord Tokugawa Iemochi, may I offer you tea?”
Yoshi worried she had just committed an unforgivable act and wondered what the attendants were thinking outside the door.
The man took the cup, spilling a portion of it in another coughing fit. Yoshi quickly and carefully wiped at the splashes with the sleeve of her kimono. The otoshiyori would reprimand her for ruining the perfectly white silken outfit. But she didn’t know what else to do.
Lord Tokugawa Iemochi took three sips of the tea, coughed twice and handed her the teacup. Yoshi thought food and drink were not allowed on the bed platform.
“Forgive me, Lord Tokugawa Iemochi.”
The man waved it off, and said, “Please join me.” He indicated to the raised platform with his hand.
Yoshi found herself in completely uncharted territory.
Should she undress? What about the dance of seduction?
Her kimono fit so tight that she did not know how to step up on the platform, so she stood on her tiptoes and knelt on the edge, her feet awkwardly hanging off, and bowed again so her forehead touched the bamboo mat.
She would not move until he commanded her.
In a raspy voice, he finally spoke. “Daughter of Shibata Takenaka, your father has asked me for a great favor.”
He said nothing more and Yoshi hid her face, concerned what her look of confusion might show. She never expected to hear her father’s name in the bedchamber.
“I have asked your father to go as an emissary to France this year to help prepare for the construction of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal. Your father has shown himself worthy with his many honors and awards.” He cleared his throat of phlegm and spit into a handkerchief.
“You may not know this, but your father served as chief of staff and first secretary for the First Japanese Embassy to Europe two years ago. He proved himself very resourceful.”
Her father, a samurai of the highly esteemed shinobi-samurai line, could trace his family’s loyalty to the Tokugawa Shōgunate for countless generations.
From the other women of the ōoku, she discovered that her father had been instrumental in rebuilding a section of Edo Castle during the year of her birth.
But my father traveling outside of Japan?
Yoshi could not imagine of such a thing.
Not only because it was her father, but because travel outside Japan had been strictly banned.
No, she had never heard of these emissary trips.
“Your father has asked that I allow you to accompany him on this trip. He will be taking a small mission.”
Sweat dripped down Yoshi’s back. She did not understand any of this. Would she not be entertaining the Shōgun?
“Do you know where Paris, France is located?”
She managed to shake her head. “Forgive me, Lord Tokugawa Iemochi.”
“Your father brought back many reports of this strange land and its people. I command you to accompany your father.”
“It is my honor, Lord Tokugawa Iemochi.”
With that, she heard the man stand, walk out of the bedchamber, and cough as he shuffled down the corridor.
She collapsed onto the mat and wept.
But the prospect of leaving Edo Castle filled her with a profound sense of relief. She could not bear the shame of leaving Lord Tokugawa’s bedchamber without becoming a woman.