The Shogun's Daughter

by Robert Ames Bennet

Yuki learned that her visit had been made without detection by our enemies. Not only was she safe,—she had gained some information. Yuki brought from her a message of warning, which Fujimaro read for me: “The way of the departed winds past the eyrie of falcons. The seabird should keep to his nest.”

“The Superior Mito Yashiki lies on the road to Uyeno,” explained Yuki.

“They would not dare to desecrate the funeral cortege by an attack?” I exclaimed.

“What Mito does not dare is yet to be seen. My lord and his escort will wear steel within their linen robes,” said Yuki, and he hastened out to fetch me a mail cuirass and a cap-like helmet, while Fujimaro brought me a mourning costume of white linen.

Leaving me to the chamberlain, Yuki withdrew to prepare himself and my retinue against treacherous attack. I was dressed and conducted by Fujimaro to a room in which I had often honored the ancestors of Owari by bowing to the Shinto god-shelf. But the shelf and its tablets were now hidden by a curtain of white paper.

We passed on into the chamber where the dead lay before the lighted candles of the Buddhist family shrine. Neither the Prince nor the Princess were present. I was received by the chief mourner, a grave and decorous-mannered boy of twelve, the son of Yoritomo’s elder brother. I had expected to see the square coffin or great red urn in which, as a rule, persons of noble rank are buried. But my friend was recumbent in a long lacquered case, the head of which was placed to the north.

A napkin lay across his neck. The serene smile on the face was so characteristic that I could have fancied he was asleep had it not been for the vermilion with which the coffin was in great part filled. The chamber was crowded with friends and relatives of the family, but I saw none of them. I looked at my dearest friend, and drew back to kneel among the other mourners, my eyes dim with the starting tears.

My arrival had been late. A Buddhist priest with a little bell entered. After a brief ceremony etas came in to bear out the corpse. None other than a pariah might touch the dead. All passed out into the open and formed the funeral cortege, led by the priest with his bell and next a boy carrying the ihai, or memorial tablet, of the deceased. All the men followed with the chief mourner, bearing flowers and symbolic banners. The coffin was borne after us on the shoulders of the etas in the reversed position of a norimon. Last of all came the women mourners.

The procession was very long. Before the rear left Owari Yashiki, the van was far outstretched on the causeway that led along the bank of the outer moat towards Mito Yashiki. Slowly and solemnly we paced along the deserted roadway, beside the still waters in which marvellous lotus blossoms reared aloft their great blue-green pads. A mile brought us to the bridge across the Yodogawa where it flows into the moat.

The causeway now turned with the moat from northeast to east and skirted the long walls of Mito Yashiki. Yuki and his men pressed up close beside me, and grasped their swords within the white robes. But the yashiki seemed as deserted as was the street before the funeral cortege of the son of Owari. Not a face appeared at one of all the long row of grated windows. The great gates were closed, and no warder peered from the porter’s window.