They can marry when she is fourteen or fifteen."

"I will consult the Emperor but, so sorry, I am afraid your request will not be possible."

"I certainly hope the Son of Heaven will be guided by Heaven on such an important decision. The gai-jin are at our gates, the Shogunate and Dynasty must be strengthened."

"So sorry, the Imperial Dynasty needs no strengthening. As to the Bakufu, obedience to the wishes of the Emperor would surely improve the peace."

Ii said harshly, "The Treaties had to be signed. The barbarian fleets and weapons can humble us whatever we say publicly!

We-are-defenseless! We were forced to sign!"

"So sorry, that is the problem and fault of the Bakufu and Shogunate--Emperor Komei did not approve the Treaties and did not wish them signed."

"Foreign policy, any temporal policy, such as the marriage I so humbly suggest, is the absolute province of the Shogunate. The Emperor..." Ii chose his words carefully, "... is preeminent in all other matters."

""Other matters"? A few centuries ago, the Emperor ruled as was custom for millennia."

"So sorry, we do not live a few centuries ago."

When Ii's proposal, considered by all those opposed to the Bakufu as an insult to the Dynasty, became known there was a general outcry.

Within a few weeks shishi had assassinated him for his arrogance and the matter lapsed.

Until two years later when she was fourteen.

Though not yet a woman Imperial Princess Yazu was already an accomplished poetess, could read and write classical Chinese, knew all the court rituals necessary to her future, and was still enamored with her prince and he with her.

Anjo, needing to enhance the prestige of the Shogunate, increasingly under threat, again approached the Prince Advisor who repeated what he had already said. Anjo repeated what Ii had already said but added to the astonishment of his adversary, "Thank you for your opinion but, so sorry, Imperial Chancellor Wakura does not agree."

Wakura was in his forties, a man of high court rank though not of the nobility who, from the beginning, had assumed leadership of the xenophobic movement amongst middle-ranking nobles opposed to the Treaties. As Chancellor, he was one of the few who had Imperial access.

Within days Wakura sought an interview with the Princess. "I am pleased to tell you that the Son of Heaven requests you agree to annul your engagement to Prince Sugawara and marry Shogun Nobusada instead."

Princess Yazu almost fainted. Within the Court an Imperial request was a command.

"There must be some mistake! The Son of Heaven opposed this arrogant suggestion two years ago for obvious reasons. You are opposed, so is everyone--I cannot believe the Godhead would ask such a hideous thing."

"So sorry, but it is not hideous and it is asked."

"Even so I refuse--I refuse!"

"You cannot, so sorry. May I explain th--"' "No you may not! I refuse, I refuse I refuse!"

The next day another interview requested and refused, then another and another. She was equally inflexible. "No."

"So sorry, Highness," her Chief Matron said, very flustered. "The Imperial Chancellor again requests a moment to explain why this is asked of you."

"I will not see him. Tell him I wish to see my brother!"

"Oh so sorry, Highness," the Chief Matron said, appalled, "please excuse me but it is my duty to remind you the Son of Heaven has no kith or kin once he has ascended."

"I... of course, please excuse me, I know. I'm, I'm overwrought, please excuse me." Even within the Court only the Emperor's wife, consorts, mother, children, his brothers and sisters, and two or three Councillors, were allowed to look him in the face without permission. Outside of these few intimates it was forbidden. HE was divine.

Like all Emperors before him, from the very moment Komei had completed the rituals that mystically joined his spirit to that of the recently deceased Emperor, his father, as his father had joined with his, and he had with his in unbroken line back to Jimmu-Tennu, he had ceased to be mortal and became a Deity, the Keeper of the Sacred Symbols--the Orb and Sword and Mirror--the Son of Heaven.

"Please excuse me," Yazu said humbly, appalled at her sacrilege.

"I'm sorry I... Please ask the Lord Chancellor to petition the Son of Heaven to grant me a moment of his time."

Now, through her tears, Yazu was remembering how, many days later she was on her knees before the Emperor and his ever present multitude of courtiers, heads bowed, she hardly recognizing him in his formal swirling robes--the first time she had seen him for months. She had begged and pleaded in a litany of weeping, using the necessary court language hardly understood by outsiders, until she was spent. "Imperial Highness, I do not want to leave home, I do not want to go to this foul place Yedo, the other side of the world, I beg leave to say we are the same blood, we are not Yedo upstart warlords..." And had wanted to screech, We are not descended from peasants who do not speak properly, dress properly, eat properly, act properly, cannot read or write properly and stink of daikon-- but she dared not. Instead she said, "I beg you, leave me be."

"First: please go and listen carefully and calmly as befits an Imperial Princess to what the Lord Chancellor Wakura has to say."

"I will obey, Imperial Highness."

"Second, I will not allow this against your will.

Third, return on the tenth day, then we will talk again. Go now, Yazu-chan." It was the first time in her life that her brother had called her by the diminutive.

So she had listened to Wakura.

"The reasons are complicated, Princess."

"I am accustomed to complications, Chancellor."

"Very well. In return for the Imperial betrothal, the Bakufu have agreed to the permanent expulsion of all gai-jin and to cancel the Treaties."

"But Nori Anjo has said this is impossible."

"True. At this time. But he has agreed at once to start modernizing the army and at once to build an invincible navy. In seven, eight, perhaps ten years he promises we will be strong enough to enforce our will."

"Or in twenty or fifty or a hundred years! The Toranaga Shoguns are historic liars and not to be trusted. For centuries they have kept the Emperor confined and usurped his heritage. They are not to be trusted."

"So sorry, now the Emperor is persuaded to trust them. In truth, Princess, we have no temporal power over them."

"Then I would be a fool to give myself as hostage."

"So sorry, but I was going to add that your marriage would lead to a healing between Emperor and Shogunate which is essential to the tranquility of the State. The Shogunate would then listen to Imperial advice and obey Imperial wishes."

"If they became filial. But how would my marriage bring that to pass?"' "Would not the Court, through you, be able to intervene, even to control this youthful Shogun and his government?"' Her interest had quickened. "Control? On behalf of the Emperor?"' "Of course. How could this boy--compared with you, Highness, he a child--how could this boy have any secrets from you? Of course not. Surely the Exalted's hope is that you, his sister, would be his go-between. As wife of the Shogun you would know everything, and a remarkable person such as yourself could soon have all the threads of Bakufu power within your hands, through this Shogun. Since the third Toranaga Shogun there has never been a strong one. Would you not be perfectly placed to hold the real power?"' She had thought about that for a long time. "Anjo and the Shogunate aren't fools. They would have deduced that."

"They do not know you, Highness. They believe you are only a reed to be twisted and shaped and used at their whim, just like the boy Nobusada, why else did they choose him? They want the marriage, yes, to enhance their prestige, certainly to bring Court and Shogunate closer.