A historical Novel in three volumes, set in Japan during the closing years of the twelfth century when the devastating Heike wars ended the imperial age and brought in the shogunate under Minamoto Yoritomo.

It is the year 1168; Japan is ruled by the retired emperor Go-Shirakawa and Taira Kiyomori, the regent. Against a background of growing unrest between Taira and Minamoto factions, a minor Taira vassal, Oba no Hiramoto, sells his fourteen-year-old daughter Toshiko to Go-Shirakawa in exchange for court preferment. Toshiko submits unwillingly to her father’s iron will, and is thrust unprepared into the treacherous world of concubines vying for imperial attention.

At the same time, Yamada Sadahira, son of another Taira vassal, has rejected his Samurai heritage and works as a physician among the poor of the capital. He attempts to fill his loneliness by adopting two street children, Hachiro and Sadamu. One day, called to the palace to treat one of the imperial cooks, he takes a wrong turn in the palace grounds and finds himself in the forbidden women’s quarters. The meeting between him and Toshiko begins a lifelong tale of passion and sacrifice.

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Toshiko’s and Sadahira’s transgression has dire consequences, for Oba no Hiramoto is furious and seeks revenge. After Toshiko’s mother dies, and Hachiro, who has become a swordfighter, kills Toshiko’s brother in a dues, her father vows to kill all the Yamadas. Sadahira and his young family seek refuge in his father’s stronghold in the south, but there is a price to pay. Sadahira must resume his samurai standing and seek an alliance with Minamoto Yoritomo, overlord of the east and enemy of the Taira.

Forced into military service with Kiso Yoshinaka, Sadahira is unable to return to his family. In her loneliness Toshiko turns to Hachiro, but he leaves her to search for his father. The news of Sadahira’s death in the first battle of the Heike wars reaches Toshiko shortly before her father’s army attacks and forces her and her children to flee for their lives into poverty.

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Against the epic background of a war-torn country, the tragic lives of the main characters reach the final scenes. Bloody battles and the destruction of their home have caused Toshiko, Sadahira, and Hachiro to become separated from each other and from purpose in their lives. Toshiko seeks Go-Shirakawa’s help but is turned away and forced to support her children by performing in the brothels of the Yodo River. Hachiro flees the Kiso armies as they attack the capital and takes up his sword-fighting career again. And Sadahira, nursed back to health in a monastery, conceals his identity to take up the life of a traveling monk.

Eventually, father and son learn that Toshiko and the children have survived and set out to find her. When they meet at Toshiko’s brothel, the three must resolve their troubled relationships and find some peace amid the horrors of war.

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