But all had failed.
Now it was in the black time of the night and she wept silently, lying on her set of futons, her husband asleep on his beside her, not happy in sleep, a cough now and then, his limbs jerking, his sleeping face not unpleasing to her. Poor silly boy, she thought anguished, is it your karma to die heirless like so many of your line? Oh ko oh ko oh ko! Why did I allow myself to be talked into this disaster, out of the arms of my beloved prince?
Four years ago when she was twelve, andwiththe delighted approval of her mother, last and most favorite consort of her father, Emperor Ninko, who had died the year she was born, andwiththe equally delighted and necessary acquiescence of the Emperor Komei, her much older stepbrother who had succeeded him, she was happily affianced to a childhood playmate, Prince Sugawara.
That was the year the Bakufu formally signed the Treaties that opened Yokohama and Nagasaki, against Emperor Komei's wishes, the majority of the Court, and the outspoken advice of most daimyos. That was the year sonno-joi became a battle cry. And the same year the then tairo, Ii, proposed to the Prince Advisor that the Princess Yazu marry the Shogun Nobusada.
"So sorry," the Advisor said.
"Impossible."
"Very possible and highly necessary to bond the Shogunate to the Imperial Dynasty and bring further peace and tranquility to the land," Ii had said. "There are many historical precedents when Toranagas have agreed to marry Imperials."
"So sorry." The Advisor was effete, elaborately dressed and coiffured, his teeth blackened. "As you well know Her Imperial Highness is already engaged to be married as soon as she reaches puberty. As you well know, too, the Shogun Nobusada is also engaged to the daughter of a Kyoto noble."
"So sorry, engagements of such illustrious persons are a matter of state policy, in Shogunate control and always has been," Ii said. He was small, portly and inflexible, "Shogun Nobusada's engagement, at his own request, has ceased."
"Ah, so sorry, how sad. I heard it was a good match."
"Shogun Nobusada and Princess Yazu are the same age, twelve. Please advise the Emperor, the tairo wishes to inform him the Shogun will be honored to accept her as wife.
They can marry when she is fourteen or fifteen."
"I will consult the Emperor but, so sorry, I am afraid your request will not be possible."
"I certainly hope the Son of Heaven will be guided by Heaven on such an important decision. The gai-jin are at our gates, the Shogunate and Dynasty must be strengthened."
"So sorry, the Imperial Dynasty needs no strengthening. As to the Bakufu, obedience to the wishes of the Emperor would surely improve the peace."
Ii said harshly, "The Treaties had to be signed. The barbarian fleets and weapons can humble us whatever we say publicly!
We-are-defenseless! We were forced to sign!"
"So sorry, that is the problem and fault of the Bakufu and Shogunate--Emperor Komei did not approve the Treaties and did not wish them signed."
"Foreign policy, any temporal policy, such as the marriage I so humbly suggest, is the absolute province of the Shogunate. The Emperor..." Ii chose his words carefully, "... is preeminent in all other matters."
""Other matters"? A few centuries ago, the Emperor ruled as was custom for millennia."
"So sorry, we do not live a few centuries ago."
When Ii's proposal, considered by all those opposed to the Bakufu as an insult to the Dynasty, became known there was a general outcry.
Within a few weeks shishi had assassinated him for his arrogance and the matter lapsed.
Until two years later when she was fourteen.
Though not yet a woman Imperial Princess Yazu was already an accomplished poetess, could read and write classical Chinese, knew all the court rituals necessary to her future, and was still enamored with her prince and he with her.
Anjo, needing to enhance the prestige of the Shogunate, increasingly under threat, again approached the Prince Advisor who repeated what he had already said. Anjo repeated what Ii had already said but added to the astonishment of his adversary, "Thank you for your opinion but, so sorry, Imperial Chancellor Wakura does not agree."
Wakura was in his forties, a man of high court rank though not of the nobility who, from the beginning, had assumed leadership of the xenophobic movement amongst middle-ranking nobles opposed to the Treaties. As Chancellor, he was one of the few who had Imperial access.
Within days Wakura sought an interview with the Princess. "I am pleased to tell you that the Son of Heaven requests you agree to annul your engagement to Prince Sugawara and marry Shogun Nobusada instead."
Princess Yazu almost fainted. Within the Court an Imperial request was a command.
"There must be some mistake! The Son of Heaven opposed this arrogant suggestion two years ago for obvious reasons. You are opposed, so is everyone--I cannot believe the Godhead would ask such a hideous thing."
"So sorry, but it is not hideous and it is asked."
"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."