Part 5

CHAPTER II

AN EMPEROR’S PROMISE

ON a cold morning in the month of January the Empress Dowager died. She had returned from a ceremony of the thirtieth anniversary of the death of her late consort. Exhausted, broken, and ill, she had come back to her country-seat, her visit to Kyoto having been too much for her strength.

That night messengers went in haste to the capital, and the following morning brought to the bedside of the dying Empress her son, the Emperor, and his consort.

All night long the little Princess Sado-ko crouched in the darkness of her room alone. Wide-eyed and tearless, she looked out from her shoji at the ghostly snow which shrouded her beloved trees and flowers in so cold and chilly a garment, eerily touched by the moon-rays. She heard, without heeding, the movement and stir within the palace; the muffled beat of a drum without quickly hushed. Early in the gray morning the royal visitors arrived. Sado-ko knew that some catastrophe was about to fall upon the palace and her beloved grandmother, and so she waited through the night for the end.

She did not know that below in the sick chamber the heartbroken Emperor knelt on his knees by the side of his mother and besought her, like any ordinary man, to speak but one word to him, to express but one wish ere she must leave him. The Dowager Empress opened her tired eyes, attempting to speak. She could only murmur in the faintest of voices, so that her son scarcely caught the words:—

“Sado-ko—Pray thee to care for—Sado-ko!”

Then her eyes closed as though the effort at speech had been too much for her, but the Emperor knew that she heard the words he spoke into her ears.

“Divine mother, the Princess Sado-ko shall have my personal care. She shall be nurtured and cared for as the highest princess in Japan, and when she has attained to a fitting age the greatest honor in my power shall be given to her.”

There was no further sign from the Dowager Empress.

“Princess!” called a voice penetrating the darkened room, by the shoji of which the child crouched dully. “Noble princess!”

Sado-ko did not stir, though she looked with wide eyes toward the sliding door through which came her maiden Natsu, holding carefully above her head a lighted andon. She had not seen the little figure by the shoji, and she shuffled toward the couch. A startled exclamation escaped her when she discovered that the couch was empty. At that the princess called to her in a strange voice, which seemed somehow unlike her own.

“I am here, honorable maid.”

The woman hastened forward, the light still swinging over her head. She stopped aghast before the still little figure of the princess, who was, she could see, fully dressed. It was plain that the child had robed herself with her own hands, after she had left her for the night.

The maid set the andon down, then touched the floor with her head. After her obeisance she went nearer to Sado-ko, and spoke with the familiarity which years in the child’s service had allowed her.

“Thou art not unrobed, noble princess!”

“I have not slept,” said the child, quietly.

The maid seized her hands with an exclamation of pity.

“The hands are like ice!” she exclaimed immediately. “Exalted princess, you are ill!”

“No,” said Sado-ko, shaking her head, “I am not ill, Natsu-no. But tell me your mission. Why do you come so early to my chamber?”

There was nothing childlike now in the grave glance of Sado-ko’s eyes. She seemed to have aged over night. At her words the maid burst into tears, beat her hands against her breast, and finally bent her head to the floor. The princess waited in silence until the maid had regained somewhat of her composure. Then she said severely, quite in the manner of her august grandparent:—

“Maiden, such emotion is unseemly. Speak your mission, if you please.”

“Oh, august princess, her Imperial Majesty—” She fell to weeping again.

Sado-ko leaned forward, and placing her hand on the maid’s shoulder, peered into her face.

“—is dead?” she said in a whisper.

The maid’s head bowed forward mutely. After that there was a long silence. Then Sado-ko arose to her feet, her hands pressed to her face on either side. Her eyes, between her little parted fingers, were staring out in shocked horror. Her strange silence stilled the sobbing maid, who tremulously arose.

“And if it please thee, noble princess,” she said, “his August Majesty is below and commands thy immediate presence.”

Sado-ko did not speak or move. The maid falteringly touched one of the drooping sleeves.