A Scandal in Edo

At first, the banquet hall had been a riot of noise, light and sake fumes. Inured as Luluko was to the hustle and bustle of Asakusa, she had never been this close to the festivities before. Then when the glamour was stripped away, it was just a lot of semi-drunk men lolling around and applauding regardless of whatever was going on on stage while the working ladies filled up their cups.

She had helped Oshiitsu powder her hands to dry them, for damp palms were a detriment when playing the shamisen. Then there had been nothing for her to do but sit discreetly in a corner as Oshiitsu took to the stage to sing a popular song of the tea houses and banquet halls.

It was the music of the lower city--Shitamachi--and Luluko heard snatches of it every day while running errands for her Aunt at the market or when the performers were practicing. It was strange that the lords of the Yamanote sought it out for entertainment.

Oshiitsu’s performance ended in applause and she set her shamisen aside in exchange for her fans. Luluko was glad of some excuse to get up. Her legs were cramping up already for she was not used to sitting down for such an extended period of time--her aunt had made sure of that. After seeing to Oshiitsu’s instrument, she took the chance to stretch her legs by slipping away to the lavatory.

She bowed to the occasional guest she passed along the way, not wanting to meet anyone’s eyes. Surely they would know her for a fraud at once?

But none of them did. They were either too drunk or too engrossed in enjoying themselves to care. Except for that young samurai outside near the garden. She had felt the weight of his stare on her even as she hurried past.

The owner of the Heaven’s Gate had made the best use of the space he had, cramming possibly three halls on his property with a number of other rooms for private parties. The resulting maze of corridors was rather confusing. Luluko turned a corner, opened a door at the end of the cul-de-sac--

She shut it immediately, apologised and hurried away as fast as the kimono would allow her. That was certainly not the way to the toilet.

That couple, the man and woman inside the room, they had been . . .

Luluko's face felt as though it was on fire when she finally found the lavatory. She was glad for the make-up which would hide her embarrassment. The banquet hall apparently rented rooms for that sort of thing as well. She told herself to grow up--this sort of thing was nothing new in the Yoshiwara.

Recomposing herself, she stepped out--and almost collided with another performer.

“Luluko!” Kaguya was the same, day and night. On stage and off stage.

“Kaguya-san--”

“Come, come!” she dragged Luluko into an alcove off to one side before looking around exaggeratedly for any eavesdroppers. “My, look at you! Did your Aunt put you up to this?”

“Actually, it was Oshiitsu-san who--”

“--Did it to get you out of the house and away from slaving over the stove all evening,” Kaguya said knowingly. “Don’t look so shocked, we did think about bringing you out shopping but there was no way around your aunt.”

“You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble . . .” Luluko was unused to people doing things for her.

“No trouble at all!”

“But I should be at home making sure that Nana--”

“Your sister has more sense than you, for all that she can’t see,” Kaguya said, more gently now. “She’ll be in bed by the time we get home.”

Kaguya eventually talked her into walking to the hall next door where Kallen was performing a drum dance with another apprentice.

“It’s fortunate she’s good at that,” Kaguya said as they watched Kallen cross the stage in time with the other apprentice dancer. It was already well known on their street that while Kallen was a good dancer, she was not particularly good at making conversation or discussing poetry. But she was very firm on the subject of patrons “taking liberties” and had a reputation for being “interesting in a fiery way”.

When her piece ended, Kallen bowed her way off the stage and came to where Kaguya was standing.

“Meh, I’m glad I got that out of the way,” she muttered as she wiped away the thin film of sweat on her brow.

“Kallen, look at who’s here with Oshiitsu!” Kaguya chirruped.

“Eh? Really? Your aunt let you go?” Kallen, like everyone else, knew about her aunt. “That woman was probably saving a copper tale on hiring someone else.”

There was nothing Luluko could say to that.

“Now that you’re here, there’s not much fun to be had. This is work,” Kallen sighed. “Oh well, we’ll go home together, eh?”

“Of course!” Kaguya said. “If there’s time later, I’ll introduce you do some other friends!”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

As the night wore on, Suzaku had been partaking sparing of the wine. His former instructor and mentor in martial arts, Toudou-sensei, had warned him about overindulging in alcohol. It dulled the senses and impaired judgement.

It was why he was alert enough to spot Jino coming back in, looking slightly breathless. He had his arm around his middle and Suzaku was immediately alarmed.

Jino waved him away as he jumped up. “Nothing to worry about. Just caught a glimpse of what was going on next door on the way to the toilet. Wooo, that dancer was a spit-fire!”

Suzaku looked dubiously at Jino, who did not appear to be seriously injured. “What did you do?”

“I only said she danced well!”

“But did you try to get fresh with her at the same time?” Jino had markedly different concepts about personal space sometimes.

“Depends on what you mean by getting fresh,” Jino replied cheekily.

Shaking his head, Suzaku sat down again just as another set of performers arrived.

“Oooh, that one over there,” Jino said, his attention focused raptly on a girl with a drum slung at her side.

“What? Is that the dancer you got fresh with?” Suzaku asked.

“You make it sound so bad,” Jino complained and refused to elaborate anymore as the dancers got into position.

The dancers were good at what they did, so Suzaku watched while waving away the woman who was trying to fill up his cup. They were looking out for potential customers to purchase their services later that night and while Suzaku had the same desires as young men his age did, there was a cautionary tale to be learnt from one of the samurai of his acquaintance who frequently patronised the courtesans of the Yoshiwara. Poor Norita was never the same after the skin lesions had appeared and had to go into early retirement.

His uncle had noticed his abstinence and had made some hints about finding some younger boy to mentor. Suzaku assured his uncle that while he followed the tenets of bushidou, it would be a while before he went down the route that some of his peers favoured.

The drum-dancers had been the highlight of the evening. The singer returned for another ballad, something slower and more maudlin for samurai who were deep in their cups and then there was some game involving poetry. Hardly a poet even on his best days, Suzaku excused himself to get a breath of fresh air in the adjoining garden.

Away from the bright lights and heat of far too many lanterns, away from the wine fumes and the perfumed courtesans, Suzaku felt much better. Spring was well on its way and the nights were less chilly now, but the cool air was a welcome relief from confines of the banquet hall.

A muffled shriek brought him out of his reverie and into a state of hyper-alertness. He headed over in the direction of the scream and found a distasteful scene involving a courtesan and her patron just outside the guest quarters.

“Excuse me, I’m going to have to ask you to stop that.” The courtesan was obviously frightened and by the look of the bruise forming on her cheek, her patron had been more than just a little rough with her.

“Oh? You’re just the type to argue over the honour of a whore,” the other man said. He was a samurai by the way he assumed a fighting stance, but they had no blades on them. Suzaku hoped that this would not degenerate into a brawl.

“Honour or not, I’m sure you didn’t pay enough to compensate her for that sort of thing,” Suzaku pointed out, carefully ensuring that this hands were free. The other man looked like he had had a few cups too many.

“Honoured guests, I beg of you, don’t make a scene!” The newest arrival looked like the landlord of Heaven’s Gate and someone who could see potential trouble brewing from a mile away. “We can work this out--”

“This interfering--”

“Eh, what’s going on here?” a loud and slightly tipsy voice asked.

Jino’s appearance was timely and very much needed. He outranked everyone present and the owner of the banquet hall would certainly turn to him to arbitrate.

“Nothing important, noble sir! Just a misunderstanding, I’m sure,” the landlord babbled frantically.

“So you have your friends in high places with you tonight,” the other man muttered, but he was not so far gone that he would pick a fight with a noble in the Yoshiwara. “The landlord is right. This can be settled without such a public display.”

“If the honoured patron so wishes, he may select another girl. This way, sir, this way . . .” All unctuous good will and servile to boot, the landlord ushered the other samurai away. The courtesan made herself scarce without being told.

“Suzaku, you might have made an enemy . . .” Jino said, looking at the pair as they departed the scene. He was not as soused as he had pretended to be. Then again, he did live in Edo Castle amongst the most power-hungry nobles in the entire country.

“It’s not as though we have become mortal enemies over a simple disagreement,” Suzaku said.

“You don’t remember him? You beat him in a friendly--and that’s a very loose definition of the word--spar just last week,” Jino said. “He’s not the type to forget that sort of thing. And now this. You, my friend, are sometimes a little too dense to sense when someone hates your guts.”

Oh, him. Suzaku did remember now. It was strange how different a man looked on the sparring grounds and after a few cups of sake. Rujian-no Banjirou, a samurai from Nagano. He was one of the mercenary samurai that Toudou-sensei was not in favour of.

“He’s a mean drunk, according to Hirano,” Jino continued.

“I can see that.” Suzaku’s impression was that the man appeared to have something against higher-ranked samurai. This attitude was fairly obvious on the practice grounds and had become downright poisonous after some sake. “But he’s not going to try anything here, Jino.”

Any further discussion on Jino’s part was curtailed by the sound of the timekeeper’s gong ringing out the hour. It was also a warning and reminder that the great gate of the Yoshiwara would be shut at ten o’clock.

As patrons, they could rent a room at the prices offered by the banquet hall owners of the Yoshiwara or go back home. Suzaku looked to Jino for the final decision. If the ladies of the Yoshiwara still held some appeal for Jino, then he would have ample opportunity to practice his meditation technique while waiting for the dawn.

“This party is getting a bit tiresome, eh? Let’s go back, Suzaku,” Jino said.

Suzaku did not question Jino’s sudden change of heart. This was enough fun for one day, if it even qualified as remotely entertaining. They bade their host farewell, but it was not clear if he even registered their departure.

There was already a steady procession of patrons and entertainers on the streets when they stepped outside--all of them heading towards the gate before ten o’clock. The mass of people at the gate made Suzaku uneasy for such a thick press of bodies could hide assassins.

It was in the middle of all this that he caught a glimpse of a familiar face for the third time that night just over the shoulders of a kabuki troupe.

Her profile seemed to jump out at him even in the midst of the crowd. And then she was gone again, lost in the sea of humanity that was pouring out of the Yoshiwara.

Noticing his preoccupation, Jino shook his head. “Suzaku . . .”

“What?”

“You know you need to get laid in the worst possible way, right?”

* * * * * * * * * * * *