“Ahh, my dearest Ichiteru. Welcome.” Tokugawa Tsunayoshi lay abed in a futon piled with colorful quilts, in a lair furnished with gilded lacquer cabinets and the finest tatami. Brilliant wall murals depicted a mountain landscape. Screens decorated with flowers kept out drafts and contained the warmth radiating from sunken charcoal braziers. A standing lamp cast a warm, inviting pool of light upon the shogun, who wore a mauve silk dressing gown and cylindrical black cap. Lavender incense perfumed the air. They were alone except for the bodyguards stationed outside the room and Madam Chizuru listening next door. Yet the shogun’s mood was anything but romantic.
“It has been a most, ahh, irritating day,” he said. Fatigue lined his pallid face. “So many decisions to make! Then there is the distressing business of, ahh, Lady Harume’s murder. I hardly know what to do.”
Sighing, he looked up at Lady Ichiteru for sympathy. She sat, laid aside the book, and cradled his head in her lap. He elaborated upon his troubles while she murmured comforting words: “Don’t worry, my lord. Everything will be fine.” After so many years together, they were like an old married couple, with her as his friend, mother, nursemaid, and-least often-his lover. As she stroked his forehead, impatience simmered beneath Ichiteru’s tranquil demeanor. A distant temple bell tolled, signaling the relentless passage of time toward her dreaded thirtieth birthday. But she must let Tokugawa Tsunayoshi talk himself out before they could begin sex. While his doleful voice droned on, her thoughts drifted back to the one truly happy period of her life…
Kyōto, the capital of Japan ’s emperors for a thousand years. In the heart of the city stood the great, walled complex of the Imperial Palace. Ichiteru’s family were cousins of the current emperor. They lived in a villa within the palace grounds. Ichiteru had grown up in sheltered isolation there, but her childhood hadn’t been lonely. The emperor’s court numbered in the thousands. Ichiteru recalled idyllic days spent playing with her sisters, cousins, and friends. But outside the golden halo of her existence, the dark shadow of her future lurked. As a constant background noise ran the complaints of the adults.
They deplored the plain food, the outmoded garments everyone wore, the lack of entertainment, the shortage of servants, and the government.
Gradually Ichiteru came to understand the reason for their genteel poverty and her elders’ resentment toward the Tokugawa regime: The bakufu, fearing that the imperial family would try to reclaim its former power, maintained it on a limited income so it couldn’t afford to raise troops and launch a rebellion. But not until she reached adulthood did Ichiteru become aware of how politics had charted her life from the very beginning.
“Ahh, Ichiteru.” Tokugawa Tsunayoshi’s voice drew her back to the present. “Sometimes I think you’re the only person who understands me.”
Looking down at him, Ichiteru saw that his face had relaxed. At last he was ready for the business of the evening. “Yes, I do understand you, my lord,” she said with a provocative smile. “And I’ve brought you a gift.”
“What is it?” Like an eager child, the shogun sat up, pleasure lighting his eyes.
Lady Ichiteru placed the book before him. “It’s a spring book, my lord”-a collection of shungaerotic prints,-“created by a famous artist, just for you.”
She opened the cover and turned to the first page. In lovely, subtle colors, this showed two naked samurai lying side by side beneath trailing willow boughs. Their swords lay atop piles of discarded clothing as they fondled each other’s erect organs. In the corner was a poem written in elegant calligraphy:
Warriors in peacetime:
Ah! Their jade shafts may prevail
Over blades of steel.
“Exquisite, " breathed Tokugawa Tsunayoshi.”You know what I like, Ichiteru.” From the other side of the wall came the soft rustle of Madam Chizuru stirring, alert to the beginning of the sexual play. Now the shogun noticed Ichiteru’s mannish appearance. His eyebrows raised in happy interest. “And how nice you look tonight.”
“Thank you, my lord,” said Ichiteru, pleased that her scheme for his seduction was working. She let him admire the picture awhile longer, then turned to the second page of the book. The scene featured a bald Buddhist priest, standing in a temple worship hall with his saffron robe hiked above his waist. A young novice knelt at his feet, sucking his swollen member. The poem read:
As the lone raindrop is to a summer storm,
So does spiritual enlightenment compare
With the ecstasies of the flesh!
“Ahh, how blasphemous and disgusting!” Giggling, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi leaned against Ichiteru. Down the corridor came the rhythmic footsteps of patrolling guards. Next door, Madam Chizuru coughed softly. But the shogun seemed oblivious to these distractions as he batted his eyes flirtatiously at Ichiteru.
Smiling in encouragement, Ichiteru suppressed a shudder. She’d always felt extreme revulsion for the shogun’s foolish personality and sickly body. Were she able to choose a lover, she would pick someone like Detective Hirata, whom she had so enjoyed teasing at the puppet theater. Now there was a man who could truly appreciate her! But ambition must prevail over emotion. Ichiteru must fulfill the destiny laid out for her long ago.
During her childhood music, calligraphy, and tea ceremony lessons, adult members of the imperial family would often drop by to observe. “Ichiteru shows great promise,” they would say. A bright but naïve girl, ever compliant and respectful toward her elders, Ichiteru had basked in the praise. Soon came other lessons, given only to her.
A beautiful courtesan from Kyōto ’s pleasure quarter had come to the palace. Her name was Ebony, and she taught Ichiteru the art of pleasing a man: how to dress and flirt; how to make amusing conversation; how to flatter the male ego. On a wooden statue, Ebony demonstrated hand and mouth techniques for arousing a lover. Later she taught Ichiteru the use of erotica, toys, and games to maintain a man’s interest. She undressed Ichiteru and introduced her to the pleasures of her own body. Fingers caressing the downy cleft of Ichiteru’s young womanhood, Ebony had brought about her first sexual climax. When Ichiteru had gasped and arched and cried out in rapture, Ebony had said, “That is what a man wishes to see and hear when he beds you.”
Using a wooden rod, Ebony had showed her how to tighten her inner muscles around a male organ. She taught Ichiteru ways to seduce a man who didn’t like women; how to satisfy unusual appetites. Later the court physician had instructed her on the use of drugs to heighten arousal and promote conception. Ever dutiful, Ichiteru neither objected to anything demanded of her, nor asked why she had been singled out for this special schooling. Hence, she didn’t learn until her sixteenth birthday where the lessons were leading.
Envoys from Edo came to the palace. Ichiteru was dressed in her best clothes and presented to them. Afterward, the empress told her, “You have been selected to be a concubine to the next shogun. The fortune-tellers have prophesied that you shall bear his heir and unite the emperor’s clan with the Tokugawa. Through you, wealth and power shall return to the imperial family. You leave for Edo tomorrow.”
Later Ichiteru learned that her family had sold her to the shogun’s envoys. In a daze of grief and confusion, she endured the month-long trip from Kyōto to Edo. One thought sustained her: The fate of the imperial family depended on her. She must win Tokugawa Tsunayoshi’s favor and induce him to impregnate her. It was her duty to the emperor, her country, and the people she loved.
However, Ichiteru’s attitude had soon changed. She hated the noise and crowded conditions of the Large Interior, the constant surveillance, the indignity of compulsory sex, the quarrels and rivalries among the women. Soon her brightness turned to cunning; love of family turned to resentment toward those who had condemned her to misery. Her sense of duty vanished. She began to crave wealth and power for herself. She hated Lady Keisho-in’s stupidity and tiresome demands for attention with passionate jealousy. The vulgar old peasant woman symbolized what Ichiteru wanted to be: A woman of the highest, most secure rank, living in luxury, free to do as she pleased, while commanding everyone’s respect.