The tetralogy of “The Chronicles of the Maple and the Cherry Tree” by Camille Monceaux, published by Ippocampo Edizioni, has reached its third chapter: “The Shadow of the Shogun”.
A book, like the previous ones, always full of events, twists, highly suspenseful situations, all through a fluid description full of details to immerse the reader in the Tokugawa Period.
In this new writing, the events shift to the figure of Hiinahime, the girl whose face is covered by a mask from the No Theater, who lives in segregation. The girl turns out to be the granddaughter of Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu but the secret surrounding her is that she is not Japanese.
After the fire at the theater where he and Ichiro were acting, the boy was forced to flee the city of Edo, convinced that his friend was dead.
In reality the young woman, after a few days, convinced that no one was aware of her act of rebellion, through the mysterious figure of Akemi, was sedated and taken to the Shogun, who with an air of contempt and a display of his power over the whole The country, to demonstrate that even the Emperor must submit to his decisions, sends her as a gift to become his wife, an affront as she is not Japanese.
At the Imperial court, Hiinahime makes friends with the courtesan Nami, a mute girl with whom, after various vicissitudes, they manage to escape from the severe control of the shinobi Rin and from the quarters of the Kyoto nobility.
Their escape, in search of Ichiro, leads them to a town on the coast, here after fruitless searches they come across Shin, Ichiro’s friend, the ninja Serin and the old theater company of Kyoto: Kote, Otoha and the newcomer Sayuna, also looking for the boy, who disappeared after the siege of Osaka by the Shogun and the defeat of the Toyotomi clan.
Ichiro, the heir of Mikogami Tenzen who joined the Sanada clan, remains nowhere to be found after the fall of Osaka like Yukimura’s “cursed” sword, this weapon was the soul of the revolt which however led to total defeat.
Thanks to Serin’s research, the ninja leads the group towards the Maeda Fief…
A work in which everything revolves around the figure of the two young people, in a circle of apparently random situations but which are instead plotted, in complete secrecy, by the ambiguous figure of Akemi. Fierce fate seems like the end product of a chess game, where people can’t seem to come together. A story where nothing is left to chance, the various characters find a new reason to change their future, no longer fearing the events that await them. Especially Hiinahime, who has known her loneliness and indifference, placing a succession of glances at herself, for her “diversity”. All of this is described in a crude but soft way, her learning of what is different, page after page, is experienced as a new opportunity, giving life to a great plot waiting to be discovered, thanks to her personal growth. A journey that will continue in the last book, with an ending that we will await with anxiety and pleasure.