Keiichirō would have given anything to be happy, to marry Isla and find somewhere quiet for them to settle.
But each day that passed that he was away from Saigō-sama and his army carved more guilt into his soul.
At night, Keiichirō caressed the wrapped handle of his katana sword, glaring into the dark. At this point of the war and back in Kagoshima, he was not a true samurai, a warrior his ancestors could be proud of. He had abandoned the battle and left his friends to die.
Keiichirō drank in the sight of Isla’s sleeping face, wishing that they could go where Nakamura Nene had gone, find somewhere to farm, and leave the war far behind.
But it wasn’t an option for him. If that were to happen, then every day a small piece of him would die. He would be as cowardly as Kana.
He could not abandon the bushidō, the way of the warrior.
It was his life.
His very existence.
He blew air onto his forehead. Even at night, the humidity was stifling.
Morning came, bringing another sweltering day. Summer had arrived in full force. Cicadas buzzed in the trees as people flocked to the river to cool off. The women of Satsuma, now wearing thin-layered yukatas, harvested blueberries by the basketful. Kana and Yura came home many afternoons with a bag full of the little blue fruits.
‘Kirino Hisa made it back safely,’ said Isla, pleased, as she set down her own basket of fruit. ‘She’s back working with the unmarried women, as before.’
‘The soldiers still patrol,’ said Kana. ‘I don’t think it’s safe for you to go out there, big brother. Not with your swords.’
Kana had stopped treating Isla as if she were a nasty smell, though there was still a strained atmosphere between them all, and as far as Isla knew Keiichirō had said nothing to his sister about himself and Isla, although their relationship was obvious now and they slept together in Isla’s room every night. Keiichirō told her privately that Nene had decided to marry a farmer.
Keiichirō glanced at Yura and patted his leg. Yura hesitated, then toddled over to him and placed herself in his lap. She was warm and soft and so fragile. Carefully, she plucked the proffered berry from his hand and shoved it into her mouth. She smiled, and he offered her another one.
What he wouldn’t give to be able to forget the war and flee, like Kuroki Hisakichi had. But he would never forgive himself. He couldn’t abandon his brothers, abandon Saigō-sama.
One hot night, Keiichirō slept fitfully.
He dreamed of Murakami, his face covered in blood as he shouted through broken teeth, ‘Where are you, Maeda?’ Toramasa glared at him, shouting about betrayal before he exploded, body parts flying. Beppu-san and Murata-san, mighty leaders both, regarded him with disgust, blood seeping from bullet wounds as they called him traitor. His friends fell to gunfire as Kirino-san ran into a burning forest, his sword held high above his head. All of Satsuma burned while Keiichirō was eaten alive by wolves.
He gasped awake, his face damp from sweat and tears. Isla sat up beside him, her eyebrows creased with worry. But even her touch couldn’t quell the guilt that threatened to tear him apart from the inside.
He had to fulfil his duty as a samurai. It was his burden.
With no lute to play, Keiichirō picked at a hangnail as he sat on the porch overlooking the riverside, watching the imperial soldiers patrol until the sun rose and bled the earth.
‘Brother.’
He didn’t look up as Kana knelt beside him. They had sat like this as children, watching people fishing, or wondering aloud whether Mount Sakurajima would one day erupt and cover the whole world in ash. For just a moment, it felt to Keiichirō like they could go back to that time if they sat here long enough; smell their mother’s cooking, hear their father’s laughter.
‘I know you won’t forgive me,’ Kana murmured, ‘but I have something for you.’
On Kana’s outstretched hand was their father’s favourite shōchū cup, the halves Keiichirō hadn’t been able to throw away newly mended. Keiichirō smiled to see the picture of the cockroach still inside. It seemed fitting somehow.
When the sun reached its zenith, Isla and Kana worked under dark parasols to shade themselves from the heat as they picked fruit, and Keiichirō shaved weeks of bristle from his face, smiling sadly at the kamisori razor in his hand. When his face was smooth, he showed Yura the fishing boats in the harbour and watched her run around on the grass nearby with other children, picking flowers, stopping her just in time as she tried to eat them. He was sorry he hadn’t been as good to Yura in the past as he could have been, but it was enjoyable making up for it now.
It was bittersweet. Perhaps if there had been no war to return to, he and Isla could have had a child together. In his mind’s eye, he saw a chubby little boy, light-brown hair catching rust-red in the sunlight, laughing as he ran with a wooden stick, begging his father to teach him swordplay.
But the guilt would tear him apart. Maybe at first, he could convince himself it was best as he left his swords behind and started a new life as a farmer. But the guilt would catch up to him, only in his dreams at first, then in every waking moment, sapping any life and happiness he managed to find with the woman he loved.
His hand automatically went to brush the swords at his hip, but they weren’t there. Leaving them in the house had been like leaving a piece of his soul behind. He was anxious, but two-thirds of Kagoshima was controlled by the enemy. It was odd, watching the children play and laugh, oblivious to everything happening around them.
‘Kei-chan?’
A slender woman approached, hair tied in a neat bun. A little boy clung to her leg and she held a bundle in her arms. Keiichirō caught sight of a chubby cheek in the cloth. It was his cousin Tatsuzō’s wife, Maeda Saki.
He bowed. ‘A healthy birth. My congratulations.’
‘A boy.’ A smile played on Saki’s face as she gently rocked the bundle. Yura came running up and Saki knelt, showing her the baby. Yura gently touched the silk-soft cheek and the baby burbled.
Saki glanced at Keiichirō. ‘Would you like to hold him?’
He held out his arms for the child, and a paternal ache ran through him as he gazed down at the large brown eyes and the tuft of midnight hair. ‘When was he born?’
‘The beginning of April, as the cherry blossoms were falling. His name is Haru.’
Keiichirō cradled little Haru, his own blood. Saki’s older son, Jin, ran off with Yura to play, and she shrieked with laughter as she ran after him. Then Saki asked the question he knew was coming.
‘Is Tatsuzō coming home, too?’
Keiichirō met her eyes. He had not seen his cousin since the battle in Kumamoto months ago. ‘I don’t know if he still lives. He was alive when I left, but the battles are many and the imperial soldiers are strong. Many of us have perished. I’m sorry.’ His voice cracked as his friends’ faces flashed before his eyes.
Saki took back her baby, her mouth firm. No samurai’s wife would show her emotion, least of all in public to a man who was not her husband.
Keiichirō looked over to where his cousin’s son Jin was playing with Yura, hiding his face behind his palms, then crying out, ‘baa!’ to make her laugh. Yura’s giggles were like sunshine, but even that could not penetrate the dark storm cloud that loomed over them both.
‘Why did you come back?’ Saki asked. Her words were soft, but they were like needles.
Keiichirō knew the real question behind what she said, and it was a fair one. Why are you here in Kagoshima when so many others have died and there is still a war to be fought?
There were so many ways he could answer that question. Because I needed to ask Kana something. Because I knew I would die otherwise. Because I’m a coward.
He let a slow sigh escape his lips and blow away on the summer wind. His gaze travelled to the hilltop, where two soldiers in Western imperial uniforms were coming to speak to him, guns at their sides.
One of them pointed. Shouted.
‘Jin! Jin!’ Saki called after her son, who came running back. Yura followed, her hair flying behind her, giggling and unaware of the danger.
‘I’ll take her,’ she said under her breath as the soldiers came close. ‘I’ll pretend she’s mine. You’ll be faster without her. Go. Now!’
Saki snatched Yura’s hand as Keiichirō fled, his waist feeling empty without his swords. Cold fear for Saki and the children flooded him and Keiichirō glanced back, but the soldiers had run past them after him.
Keiichirō crossed a stone bridge over the river and headed towards the town, narrowly avoiding colliding with a carriage pulled by a horse. An old man grumbled something. He took to the alleys that he and Toramasa had made their own as children.
‘Stop!’ yelled one of the soldiers, and an elderly woman cried out as Keiichirō shoved past her, racing around a corner and past a soba noodle shop, jumping over a pile of foul-smelling trash. He took a turn, then another, and pressed himself against the secluded wooden wall of a house, hiding in the shadow of its low roof, his chest rising and falling as he listened for the soldiers’ shouts.
‘O-samurai-san?’
Keiichirō glanced around to see a familiar little boy. His straw sandals were a touch too small, and his own wakizashi sword sat at his hip, thrust through his belt. It was the child he had given the fish to all those months ago.
He put a finger to his lips as shouts echoed on the next street. The boy nodded.
‘I’ll distract them,’ he said bravely. ‘So you can escape.’
Keiichirō’s breath caught with emotion, and the boy moved past him into the alley and out of sight.
‘Hello.’ Keiichirō shrank against the hard wall of the building at the sound of the youngster’s voice. ‘Could you help me? I’m lost.’
‘We’re busy, child, looking for a samurai.’
‘A real samurai?’ The boy’s voice rose as if in awe. ‘Oh, I’d love to see a samurai. My mother tells me one day I will, but the day never comes.’
‘Tsk,’ muttered a soldier. ‘They are not all they are cracked up to be.’
The footsteps retreated and Keiichirō let out a breath. When he was sure they were gone, he slipped between some trees and took a long route home. The sun was descending by the time he stepped through the sliding doors.
‘Where have you been? And where’s Yura? You’ve been gone for hours,’ Kana snapped.
Keiichirō quickly explained, adding, ‘Yura is with Saki. The soldiers were right behind me and I wouldn’t have escaped if I had kept her with me.’
Kana looked stricken, gripping her robe as the remaining colour drained from her face. Keiichirō looked at her, the sister he loved yet now almost despised for her mistake. But the terror on her face, the way she anxiously glanced towards the door . . .
She really loved her daughter.
‘She’s safe. Saki would die before she’d let anything happen to her,’ he assured her.
Keiichirō found Isla sewing in their room, a light sheen of sweat on her face and wearing one of Kana’s old yukatas, dulled and frayed at the edges. He knelt before her, holding his swords.
‘I can’t stay any longer,’ he said, tucking the blades into his belt at his side. ‘I need to be with my men, with Saigō-sama.’
Isla glanced up from her work with strained, tired eyes. ‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘I thought you might say that.’
‘I hate this cowardice. The hiding.’ He clenched his calloused fingers in his lap. He wanted to cut his own throat, to thrust his wakizashi blade into his belly and spill out his insides for his cowardice. ‘I shouldn’t be here. I need to be with my men. With Saigō-sama.’
Isla moved close, her scent of earth and pine wreathing him. Her presence was like perfume, intoxicating and warm. He felt at home with her, like he could finally drop the mask he wore for others.
‘I am a samurai,’ he sighed, something crumbling within him. ‘I must live like one. Die like one.’
Something hot and wet splashed onto his hand as his shoulders shook. The dam was broken. He could no longer hold it all back. Isla’s warm arms wrapped around him as he spilled his grief, the sorrow he had kept inside all this time. He held her back, sobbing into her shoulder, wishing everything could be different. Wishing he wasn’t a samurai. Wishing Saigō-sama had never gone to war. Wishing for death.
‘I will leave,’ Keiichirō promised when he had dried his eyes. ‘First thing in the morning. I will rejoin the fight—’
Knuckles pounding on wood made them spring apart.
‘This is the imperial police!’
Kana looked in, her face ashen. ‘They’re here. Quickly, under the floorboards.’
* * *
Isla and Keiichirō slithered beneath the hidden floorboard as quietly as they could and crouched in the uncomfortable, cramped space next to the Maeda family armour.
Rapid, sharp Japanese accompanied heavy footsteps above their heads as the men stomped about.
Yura, back now, screamed, ‘Haha-ue! Haha-ue!’
‘What are you doing with my baby?’ Kana cried.
‘So she is yours?’ said a deep voice. ‘Our soldiers saw a samurai with this girl earlier today. What have you got to say about that?’
Keiichirō crouched beside Isla, gripping the handle of his sword. Slits of light fell onto his face. It was unbearably hot, and Isla was certain she could hear both their heartbeats, pounding frantically as one. A trickle of sweat made its way down her spine. The air was muggy and thick, and she resisted the urge to wipe her brow.
A shadow fell over Keiichirō’s face, casting the lower half in darkness. His eyes hardened.
‘The samurai is here, I am sure of it,’ said one of the policemen as Yura wailed for her mother. ‘Where are you hiding him?’
They’ll find our belongings, Isla thought desperately. We’ll be discovered.
‘Give me my child!’ Kana shouted.
A slap, loud as a clap of thunder, resounded through the room.
There was a thud as Kana fell to the floor. Yura screamed louder.
It was too much for Keiichirō.
Isla tried to grab his robe, but he burst from the floor as fast as a whirlwind.
Before the officer could shout in surprise, there was a meaty slice as Keiichirō’s sword went right through him. There was another thump and a strangled groan, blood seeping through the floorboards above Isla, the coppery scent filling the air.
She scrambled out of the floor as the other officer roared his rage, dropping Yura and pulling out his own sword.
Isla ducked through the chaos and grabbed Yura. She buried the little girl’s face into her chest and reached the garden, cradling her.
‘Haha-ue!’ Yura wriggled in Isla’s arms as she held her close.
‘Wait, little one.’
Yura kept screaming. Heart in her mouth, Isla peeked around the corner. Keiichirō was helping up his sister, who was groggily coming to. The two police officers were lying in bloody pieces at their feet.
Isla rushed to Kana and handed her Yura, who clung to her mother, both of them wailing.
‘We need to go, now,’ said Isla as Keiichirō flicked his sword, flecks of vibrant red flying off the steel.
Keiichirō sheathed his katana into his belt, his chest heaving, as he said, ‘Kana, take Yura and everything you can carry and go to Maeda Saki’s house.’
Kana, holding Yura’s face against her chest, nodded, her left cheek bright red from where the soldier had struck her.
Keiichirō turned his gaze to Isla. The blood seeping across the floorboards and onto the tatami mats turned her stomach. She forced her gaze away from the men’s shocked, lifeless faces. Blood, again. So much blood. She would never get used to the sight.
‘I’m coming with you, Kei,’ she said. ‘My place is at your side.’
They snatched what they could from their shelves, not knowing who had heard the screaming and who would come running next. A cockroach scuttled along a shelf, but Keiichirō barely seemed to see it, too busy grabbing pots and bowls from the shelves and glancing inside them.
Isla pressed all the food she found into Kana’s free hand. Yura lay against her mother’s chest; whether she was oblivious to the carnage or simply too little to take any of it in, it was impossible to tell.
Isla and Keiichirō changed hurriedly out of their blood-splashed clothes, and Isla made sure to get her phone and her wallet. They were all she had left of her old life.
Outside, Yura stretched pudgy hands towards her. Isla gave the little girl a quick hug and kissed her silk-soft cheek.
‘Are you coming with us, Isla?’ Kana asked, and for the first time there was no haughty dislike in her tone. Only writhing fear of what fate awaited her brother.
Isla shook her head. The thought of running to hide with the other women while Keiichirō went off to die was nauseating.
‘Brother, I’m sorry.’ Kana bowed to them both, difficult with her daughter in her arms, and ran off into the darkness without further ceremony.
Isla and Keiichirō fled Kagoshima and the two dead men at home and headed for the trees of Mount Shiroyama. Cicadas buzzed in the leaves, their trilling calls masking their fleeing footsteps.
‘Saigō-sama is coming back to Satsuma,’ Isla said. ‘He’ll go to Mount Shiroyama, and the imperial army will give chase.’
Keiichirō let out a breath. ‘Then that is where I must go.’
‘We.’ Isla took his hand, and Keiichirō grasped hers back. ‘Where we must go.’
* * *
Ikeda Uhei and the others were outnumbered seven to one.
In his opinion, there was no better way to die. A sword in his hand and blood on his robe, like his ancestors had. The dousing of blood he had suffered meant the fabric had been dyed to the colour of rust, and he had long since forgotten what it was to be clean.
The imperial army had them surrounded on the slopes of a mountain of which Ikeda Uhei did not know the name.
Saigō-sama had left with a party of the uninjured. Ikeda had joined the shouts for him to go, to escape the clutches of General Yamagata and his men. The war would end when Saigō Takamori was dead, and Ikeda was determined that this would not be today.
Ikeda himself did not rank among the uninjured.
He had been shot in the hip, and he couldn’t walk, a buzzing numbness now spreading from the injury down to the toes of his right leg. He stilled as he heard the thunder of thousands of feet running up the hill towards them. The frantic buzzing of the cicadas was almost drowned out by the racket.
‘It has been an honour to fight at your side, Ikeda-san,’ said Maeda Tatsuzō, who had remained there because of a nasty slash at his chest, and was next to Ikeda. Every wheezing breath was a chore. Blood ran down his chin, his teeth crimson.
‘And at yours.’ Ikeda looked down at the short wakizashi blade in his hand, where dark brown stained some of the steel. It had saved his life on several occasions these last few months. Now, it would end it.
‘Are you ready?’
The roar of boots on the mountainside grew, shaking the ground like an earthquake. Some of their comrades had surrendered, but the thought of treason, of cowardice, had barely crossed Ikeda’s mind. Farmers, merchants, commoners, they could do what they wanted. Let them beg the emperor’s men for mercy, and pray they found some.
Samurai did not surrender in the face of defeat. There was only one way it could end.
‘It’s a pity I could never see my second child be born.’ Tatsuzō inhaled hard through his nose, fighting to struggle upright. His whole body shook with the manful effort, before he finally settled on his knees. ‘If he was a boy, we were going to call him Haru, for spring.’ Tatsuzō’s entire left side was bloody, sweat beading on the parts of skin not drenched in red.
‘Haru will grow up knowing his father was a brave samurai,’ said Ikeda. ‘Goodbye, my friend.’
As a warm, fresh-smelling breeze washed over his dirt-stained face, Ikeda’s final thoughts were of a handsome young samurai. How quickly and unfairly he had perished, his beautiful body blown to pieces on a bridge without any kind of warning.
Mori Toramasa would never smile again, would never blush in that charming way of his when Ikeda looked at him.
Ikeda fought back the tears that threatened and propped himself up on his knees, despite his shattered hip. The pain was excruciating as he pulled aside his undershirt to expose his firm stomach. From the slopes below, men emerged from the trees like insects, their imperial uniforms dishevelled, clutching rifles as they called to each other, struggling up the slope.
There was no choice. It was either commit seppuku now or have gunfire rain down upon them.
A grunt and the meaty sound of a dagger thrusting into flesh told Ikeda that Maeda Tatsuzō had done it, and he looked across to see veins in Tatsuzō’s neck bulging and a rictus look on his face as fresh blood poured from pale lips.
Bolstered by Tatsuzō’s bravery, Ikeda held his breath and shoved the dagger deep into his own belly. It felt like a punch to the gut more than the cold kiss of sharp steel. Before he could faint or lose his nerve, Ikeda wrenched the blade sideways, ripping open his abdomen. And then it hurt to breathe, like inhaling knives.
There were shouts and the tramp of feet as Ikeda’s vision blurred and agony burned across his stomach. Wet, hot blood and something warm and slippery spilled on to his knees and out across the grass.
The shouts faded as an image burned in Ikeda’s dying mind. A memory of him and Toramasa at a hot spring. They had sneaked away from class together to breathe in the steam of the onsen bath, and then their bodies had moved as one, each lost in ecstasy. It was the happiest day of Ikeda Uhei’s life.
He thought he could hear Toramasa calling. His smiling face appeared before him now, and Ikeda died in rapture.