Read Online The Samurai's Daughter by Lesley Downer - Free Book Online Page A

gruesome ghost stories that sent shivers down their spines. The servants had taken out the wooden rain doors that formed the walls of the house and the painted fusuma doors between the rooms, turning the mansion into a vast pavilion floored with cool tatami smelling faintly of rice straw, with nothing but slender wooden pillars to mark where one room ended and the next began. From time to time a breeze wafted through. Fujino lounged inside, mopping her brow and flapping her fan.
    Nobu was out in the grounds, helping the gardeners put up a trellis to support the overgrown branches of an ancient pine. The ear-splitting buzz of cicadas filled the air –
min mi min mi
droned from one tree,
wa wa, tsuku tsuku
from another. He took off the rolled-up towel he’d wrapped around his head and wrung it out, sending sweat splashing on to the dusty ground. He’d knotted his happi coat around his waist and pine needles scratched his skin. Mosquitoes buzzed around his face.
    He hummed as he tied the bamboo frame in place and looped rice-straw ropes around the branches. He was happy, happier than he’d ever been since he left his home country. He’d found a new home. Fujino was kind to him, the other servants were friendly and he had a roof over his head and decent clothes to wear. Above all he was studying. His reading and writing were coming on apace.
    Whenever Okatsu had a chance, late in the afternoon when Taka was back from school and Nobu was in the kitchens or sweeping the gardens, she would appear and say, ‘Nobu, we need to pick something for dinner.’
    Taka had discovered that Nobu knew all the wild plants that grew in the grounds. One day, not long after they began their studies, they’d sneaked off to the woods with their books. He kept half an eye on the ground, as he always did, looking out for edible roots, shoots, buds and leaves springing up in the moss and under the pines. They were stepping across the stream that meandered between the trees when he spotted a delicate beige shoot peeking out from the fringe of grass and wild plants along the edge.
    He pushed the undergrowth aside, reached down to the base and snapped it off. It was moist and shiny with a honeycombed oval head and fronds around the tiny stem. He put it to his nose. The faint earthy smell reminded him of his northern home, of saucepans simmering on the soot-blackened stove. He held it out to Taka, beaming as he looked around and saw tiny pale shoots poking up everywhere.
    ‘Horsetail shoots! I didn’t know they grew here. We must get something to put them in. The cook can fry them up for dinner.’
    Taka sniffed the frail stem then wrinkled her nose. He laughed aloud. ‘Up north we eat everything – fiddlehead ferns, coltsfoot, burdock, butterbur, there are so many delicious things that grow in the woods and mountains.’
    ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said with a giggle, looking at him wide-eyed.
    He nodded as seriously as he could. ‘We eat bee grubs too, and locusts, and bear meat when the hunters manage to catch one and bring some back.’ He licked his lips at the thought. ‘But that’s for special occasions. Of all the spring foods, horsetail shoots are the best. You sauté them with soy sauce and a bit of sake. They’re really tasty. We’ll need lots.’
    They went back to the house for containers and later in the day brought a basketful back to the cook. He was soon eagerly experimenting.
    Okatsu was put in charge of finding wild vegetables and Nobu went with her because only he could identify them.
    It was the perfect excuse. Nobu and Taka would meet in their secret place in the woods and sit side by side to pore over their books. There were always new characters to learn and text to read. Taka was a strict teacher, testing him and telling him off when he forgot something.
    Whenever he had a spare moment he’d practise the latest characters, scratching them on the ground when he was working in the gardens then quickly smoothing