CHAPTER I

THE CHILD OF THE SUN

ON the shore of Hayama, in a little village two hours’ ride by train

from Tokyo, there stood a sumptuous villa, the summer residence of the

Prince of Nijo, though Nijo himself was seldom seen there. Dissolute and

dissipated by nature and cultivation, he preferred the gayeties and

excitements of the Imperial Court. Here, however, had resided ever since

the year of the Restoration his mother, the Empress Dowager, a noble and

high-souled woman, who preferred the old-fashioned conservatism and

beauty of her country palace to the modern and garish court.

The decorations of her palace, the style of her robes, and those of her

attendants, were entirely of the old time. This was in pleasing contrast

to the customs of the new Empress, who had adopted the foreign style. In

the Imperial Court in its new Tokyo home, there was the heavy perfume of

the choicest roses and violets, but in the palace of the old Empress

Dowager there was the subtle, faint aroma of sweet umegaku and tambo.

Fuji, the queenly mountain, wrapped about in its glorious garment of

snow, mellowed by the touch of the sun, could be seen from her seat. On

all sides of the palace grounds there were valleys and sloping hills.

Within the stone walls which encircled the palace like a fortress there

were gardens of wondrous beauty.

The palace itself was of simple and old-fashioned architecture. It faced

to the east, and its towers and turrets were of gold. Its shojis were

large and so clear that the sunlight pierced through them, flooding the

interior. The floors were covered with soft sweet tatamis—rush mats; the

decorations on the screens and panels of the sliding doors were subdued

and refined though works of art.

It was in this palace that the daughter of the Prince of Nijo spent her

childhood. She was called Sado-ko, after her mother, who had died in

giving her birth. Her father after his presence at a perfunctory feast

given in honor of the birth of the princess had returned immediately to

his pleasures in the capital, and Sado-ko was left in the charge of her

grandmother, the Dowager Empress.

Great was the love existing between these two. All that was noblest in

the character and nature of the young princess was fostered by the old

Empress. The qualities for which she became noted in after years were

the chilling work of those who, after the death of her grandmother, were

given charge of Sado-ko.

In early childhood Sado-ko was wont to run with fleet feet about the

castle gardens, chasing the gloriously hued butterflies. They flew about

her in great numbers, for they were importations to the palace as tame

as home birds. They knew the little princess would do them no harm, and

so they fluttered lightly to her finger, her head, her shoulder, even to

her red lips. Sado-ko loved them dearly, just as she adored the gardens

and the goddess-like Fuji,—her first sight upon arising in the morning.

She loved, too, the quiet, retired beauty of her life, with its freedom

inside the dark stone walls. But more than these things she loved the

Empress Dowager.

Until she was twelve years of age, she knew no other life than that

encompassed by the walls of the palace grounds. Beyond them she had been

told there was another life, turbulent, restless, troublous. The walls

looked forbidding. How much worse must be the world outside them, and

beyond the wide stretch of land and water that faded into misty outline!

Within were sunshine, birds, flowers, gentle words, and soft caressing

smiles. Without, a cruel, cold world waiting to snuff out the warmth and

sunshine of her nature. All this was taught to Sado-ko by the old

Empress Dowager, who in her old age had become selfish. This was the way

in which she sought to keep with her the heart and soul of the companion

of her old age,—the child she loved. Even after she had passed away, she

knew that the thoughts of the princess would remain with her though her

soul should have flown. Thus she paved the way for a companionship in

death as in life, as was the custom with her ancient ancestors.

The children of the Empress Dowager had disappointed her. The Emperor

was occupied with the cares of the nation and the strenuous conditions

of the times, Nijo was almost imbecile from dissipation, her only

daughter had been married into the Tokugawa family, and was practically

separated from her own kin. There was none left to share companionship

with the old Empress, until the little Sado-ko had come. She was the

sole princess of the Nijo family recognized by the Empress, for Western

morality having sifted its way into the Japanese court, the children of

Nijo by his concubines were regarded as illegitimate by the heads of the

royal family, although they were treated with the honor due their blood

and rank. Sado-ko was motherless. The Empress Dowager was her natural

and legal guardian, and to her grandmother she was given.

For ten years, then, these two—the very old Empress and the very young

princess—lived together. Because she was not at all of an inquisitive

mind, and believed implicitly all that her grandmother told her, the

child was perfectly contented with the simple companionship of the

Empress, her butterflies, flowers, and birds. But her grandmother was

too old to run with her about the gardens, and ofttimes the birds, and

the butterflies too, flew over the stone wall and disappeared, to the

tearful anxiety of the little princess, who was sure they would meet

great harm.

As the children of the retainers of the Empress Dowager were not

permitted to visit the private gardens of the palace, Sado-ko had grown

up without playmates of her own age. She was being reared in that

seclusion befitting a descendant of the sun-goddess, and in quite the

ancient style to which her grandmother still clung. So it was only those

attendants who waited upon the person of the Dowager Empress who saw the

little princess herself. She could have counted upon her ten pink

fingers the number of personages with whom she was acquainted. There

were the four grim samurai guards of the palace gates, the three elderly

maids of honor to the Empress, and her own personal maid and nurse

Onatsu-no, in addition to the palace servants and the gardener.

But one eventful day in the month of June, a new personage suddenly

introduced himself to Sado-ko. She had been listening drowsily for a

long time on the wide balcony of the palace to her grandmother’s reading

aloud of ancient Chinese poems, when suddenly a swarm of her own

butterflies flew by, all seemingly following the lead of a purple-hued

stranger. Instantly Sado-ko left her guardian’s side in pursuit, her net

swinging in her hand. She had seldom experienced any trouble in catching

her own butterflies, but the stranger flew in an entirely new direction.

Through a field of iris and across an orchard Sado-ko followed the

flight of the butterflies, until she came to a wall, over which the

purple visitor flew.

[Illustration: “A score of ripe cherries descended upon her head.”]

Flushed and disappointed the princess sat down breathlessly on the grass

beneath a cherry tree. She had been seated but a moment, when the tree

above her began to shake and a score of ripe cherries descended upon her

head. She sprang to her feet, and looking upward saw a roguish face

peering down at her from the cherry tree. The face belonged to a boy of

possibly fourteen years. He was laughing with delight at the amazed and

frightened face of the little princess, and he kept pelting her with

cherries, some of which actually broke on her small Imperial person. As,

however, Sado-ko continued to gaze up at him in that frightened manner,

he sprang to the ground, rolled himself about on the grass for a spell,

and then turned several somersaults so grotesque that Sado-ko forgot her

fear and burst into childish laughter, clapping her hands delightedly as

he came to his feet before her. They were both laughing heartily now, as

they surveyed each other. The boy’s sleeves and the front of his obi

were filled with cherries, so that his figure was a succession of

grotesque bunches. There were cherry stains, too, on his face,

particularly in the region of his laughing mouth, through which Sado-ko

saw the whitest of teeth gleaming. He had brown eyes, and soft silky

hair, unshaven in the centre of his head, as was the case with the

palace attendants. Gradually as the princess surveyed him she became

grave.

“Who are you?” she said at last. “What is your honorable name, and where

do you live?”

“I am Kamura Junzo,” said the boy, “and I live over yonder.” He waved

his hand toward the wall.

“On the other side?” inquired Sado-ko in an awed voice. He nodded.

“I know who you are,” he continued.

“I am the Princess Sado-ko,” said the child, gravely.

“Yes,” said the boy, “and the august Sun was your ancestor. You live

shut up in this place all alone, and no one plays with you.”

“I have my honorable dear birds and butterflies,” she said.

He looked at her curiously.

“Yes, I have heard you singing to them.”

“And you wished also to see me?” she questioned.

“Yes.” He flushed boyishly, and then added with Spartan honesty, “Also I

wanted some of your cherries.”

“They are very good,” said the princess.

“Oh, yes, there are none so good without.”

“Did the guards deign to let you pass through the gates?”

“No.” A pause, then: “I deigned to climb over the wall.”

“Some day,” said Sado-ko, wistfully, “her Majesty says a prince will fly

over the walls and carry me away. Perhaps you are that prince.”

“Oh, no; I am not a prince, but if you wish, I will play that I am one.”

“How is that?” she asked, bewildered.

“This cherry tree will be your august castle. I will come over the wall,

and you must run around the castle to escape me. I will pursue you, and

then I will carry you off from this dark and lonesome prison over the

walls to the beautiful world outside.”

“But it is not a lonesome prison here,” said the princess, “and outside

it is very cold and miserable, for her Majesty has told me so.”

“Oh, well, let us play it is so.”

And so they played together until past noon, when the maid and gardener

were both sent to seek the Princess Sado-ko, who was chasing

butterflies. They rescued her just as the “prince” was about to carry

her over the walls, upon the top of which he had placed her, by climbing

up in the cherry tree and across a bough which sloped to the wall.

The rescued princess stamped her foot angrily at the gardener when he

threatened the boy, who laughed jeeringly from the top of the wall; and

she scolded the maid when that menial drew her by the hand from the

scene. She would not leave the vicinity of the wall until the boy had

disappeared completely, which he did by jumping off to the other side.

Then she burst into tears for fear he had come to harm in the wicked

world without.

Thereafter a close watch was kept upon her movements, and she was not

permitted to go near that portion of the walls where stood the

cherry-tree castle. Often she heard the boy whistling from that

direction, and once she awoke in the night, because she had dreamed that

he was calling her name, “Sado-ko! Sado-ko!” After that life was a

little more lonesome for the Child of the Sun.

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