White Butterfly : Chapter 2
Crawford waited till the next morning to discover what coin the two brothers used to buy him. He had a light breakfast of millet soaked in green tea and a tea made of lemon and ginger with which he preferred to start his day. Maya and Saya attended him as Naoe ate little and never had breakfast, and Schuldig would not be awake until nearer noon.
“So,” he said inhaling the rich spicy sweet scent of the tea. “How did they try to buy me?” He was amused by the affair. He was employed by the emperor to remain neutral throughout the negotiations but always the powerful or rich lords tried to buy his allegiance. It was how most negotiators acquired their wealth. The Taira would make such gifts in the next week or so, even if it were only in show because it was the Takatori that Crawford had been sent to investigate. The twins made an effort never to eat in front of anyone, even Crawford.
Maya started as Crawford savoured his tea. “Lord Shuiichi was a gentleman, he apologised for disturbing your bath. He brought you fine silks to be made into kimono.”
“If we ever get a seamstress,” Crawford groused, “I’ll make sure that you get new robes from them.” In that way he accepted and rejected the gift at the same time.
“Naoe has gone to the village to bring the old woman as per your order.” Saya said pouring out more of the sweet white tea into Crawford’s bowl.
“He also brought some fine sake,” Crawford feigned interest in that, “and some fine items of pottery.” Maya did not sound overwhelmed by Shuiichi’s largesse. “And the pick of horses from his stables.”
“All but the sake I have no use for.” Crawford said dryly, “and that will be sent to Kyoto as a gift for the emperor, after all these lands are famous for their sake.” He lifted the tea bowl, measuring its weight in his palm. “And Reiji, how has he tried to sway me?”
Saya flushed brightly. “The man is an insufferable ass. He spent the entire interview staring at my legs before ensuring that I had a sister. He said quite specifically that he would be pleased to see us together.” She shuddered, “I know it is common knowledge that the man is an ass but I cannot say I enjoyed his company. He asked for a night with Nee-chan and I.” Maya put her hand on Saya’s shoulder; they both wore short indigo kimono with scarlet obi, and their hair in high tails that fell down their backs. There were many in the capital that would have paid a lot to see such a spectacle, having refused them Crawford was happy to refuse Reiji. “If it pleases you, Master.” To their obvious relief he shook his head, “he left a concubine for you, the man thinks with his cock.” She said, “Schuldig put him up in the doll room.”
Crawford was startled at that, “he?” He asked. “My intelligence suggested that Reiji had spoken out about the emperor’s male concubines as perverted and an affront against the Buddha.”
Saya shrugged. “Nevertheless he left a boy who is too pretty to be anything but. They had him dressed in layers of very beautifully embroidered silk and his obi was tied at the front.” Crawford noted that, only prostitutes tied their obi at the front. “It was an elaborate knot and he hid his hands beneath it. His hair was gathered in a knot by golden wands, with a tail down his back.”
“A tayu?” Crawford asked.
“If so,” Maya said, “then he is from this area, there is no way that such a boy would have escaped the emperor’s attention. I brought him his breakfast, which he did not eat. He is a very unusual beauty,” she said, “but Master, he is very beautiful.”
Crawford considered this before he spoke again. “Does he have an attendant?” He asked. Maya shook her head. “If he is to be a tayu then Reiji has insulted me by not giving me this boy’s household.” He was playing with the tea bowl on the table as he thought, “I will see this,” he lingered on the word, tasting it, “Tayu, if Naoe has any clean robes give him one, I will see him before arranging relations with this woman.” He emptied his tea in a single swallow. “Now leave me.”
Maya had said that they tayu was beautiful but nonetheless the boy caught Crawford unaware. The boy had a simple and flawless grace, with his head bowed low. He wore rich porphyry purple, indigenous to the area, which he complimented with several several layers of cream-colored kimono underneath and a cloth of gold obi stitched with red and blue. The colours heightened the beauty of his very unusual colouring. Maya was right, the emperor would never have missed such a boy. His scarlet red hair was held in place with ivory combs, carved with roses. He was pale, like a gaijin, without the usual honey skin of the Nihonjin and most surprisingly his thin, almond shaped, eyes, were the same purple as the outer kimono flecked with the blue and red embroidered into the obi he hid behind.
His posture was not one of demure acceptance but of defeat.
“What is your name, boy?” Crawford asked quietly. Although he had been offered the boy, and at 16 he was as thin as a maiden, he had not moved since Schuldig had dragged him in. Most tayu would be working on seduction by now. The boy remained silent. “Answer me, boy.” He repeated, “I think that a welt would mar that lovely skin.”
“Ran,” the boy’s voice was that of a man, deep but breathy.
“Just Ran?” Crawford pressed.
“It doesn’t matter.” The boy answered.
“I didn’t say it did.” Crawford said, “but that is for me to decide not you. I asked you and you will answer me, you were given to me and I don’t’ care to be disobeyed.”
For a second the boy’s eyes flashed with fire and the thin lips narrowed in distaste. “No,” he stopped, shy of the word.
“Say it,” Crawford growled.
“No, Master.” Ran almost spat the word out.
Crawford decided to forgo the boy’s family name for now, it didn’t take a genius to work it out after all. “What was your service for the Takatori?”
“I was a concubine, Master.” Only the last word was grated out, the rest was wistful and sad. “For Lord Hirofumi, but he will not be returning from Kyoto and I was acquired after he left.”
“Are you a virgin?” Crawford asked.
Ran flushed hotly, “Yes, master.”
A smile slid slowly across Crawford’s face. “I do not like it when people lie to me, Ran, remember that. Has Takatori sent you to kill me?”
Ran’s reaction was an instinctive “No.” Then he realised what he said, “I mean, no, Master.”
“It is fine, Ran, I will forgive the slip.” The boy was beautiful and blushed prettily. Reiji had given him a gift far in excess of what was expected, and possibly far in excess of what Reiji suspected. “I have more than one concubine in my service, you are not my first, nor will you be my last and I have simple
rules for my property.” Ran was clearly bridling under the words but he said nothing, even if the flush on his neck betrayed his rage.
“You will be attended as soon as I resolve myself of certain staffing issues, such as befits one of my concubines. I will do my best to continue your education into those arts that you practise, including masters if they are needed. In exchange, although you are free to wander the house as you will, you may not leave it. You belong exclusively to me. If you take a lover I will kill them, to remind you that you belong to me. You will make yourself available to me as and when I wish, be that for sex or company.”
The colour had faded from Ran’s cheeks and throat; in fact he had turned a rather ashen grey. “Yes, master.” He stammered.
“I am not a cruel master,” Crawford said quietly, “now undress.”
Swallowing Ran stood up and began to untie his obi. In the course of his adulthood Crawford had known many concubines, both male and female, and a fair number of prostitutes, and none had this unerring grace that Ran did. But Ran did not undress for his master. There was no show or artifice. He simply peeled away the robes to reveal the pale and embarrassed body underneath. In fact he folded his clothes as he removed them.
He was shivering, Crawford noted, although the room was not cold.
It was obviously a boy’s body, yet to thicken into manhood, slim but much taller than he expected with rounded joints. He was as pale as the ivory combs in his hair, and his cock was a nestled seahorse between his thighs in a sparse smattering of wine red hair.
Crawford gestured for the boy to turn and he did with an exhalation that might have been a whimper. The boy’s ass was young and firm, though as thin and his hips, and a tantalising row of bumps revealed his spine. His thighs were faintly sugar dusted with fine downy soft hairs. There were duck egg blue veins in the paper-thin skin of the back of his knees.
“Let down your hair.” The boy lowered his head so that his chin must have touched his breastbone but he pulled out the combs and clips. His hair was glossy and fell to his knees in soft waves. “And face me.”
The dark colour of the boy’s hair flattered his skin and fell like a curtain around his thin frame, heightening the pale pink of his lips and nipples. “You can get dressed now,” with a shiver Ran grabbed the robe and pulled it about his nakedness.
“Do I please you, Master?” the boy’s voice wavered on the edge of sobbing.
“For now,” Crawford said bluntly, “That is all. You may take any room except the cage room as your own.”
Ran quickly belted on the robe but continued to shiver, “by your will, Master.”
Naoe introduced the village wise woman with a look of wild terror in his eyes. Contrary to his usual behaviour he knelt at the door with his forehead pressed almost against the mat. “Master, this is Baba.” He said, “you sent for her, from the village.”
Crawford excused him and Naoe almost fled he left that quickly. Baba, the village crone, stood only as tall as Crawford’s chest and wore her hair in a high white topknot. She had a skirt tied around her kimono. She was wide with hands like slabs of meat. “He’s a good boy,” she said, “he is a credit to his parents.”
“They are dead.” Crawford answered, “would you care for some tea?”
“No,” she answered abruptly then sat on the floor facing him with her legs crossed. “You can’t talk me out of my decision, you will not have servants from the village while you work against the Fujimiya.”
“Then it is in my interests to tell you that I work for the emperor who only spoke out against the Fujimiya because of the support that Saijou Takatori retains at court. It is an open secret that Reiji betrayed the Taira and blamed Fujimiya in his place.” The woman’s face remained set. “The Lords Takatori think that I am here to negotiate with the Taira over the assumption of the debt.” Facing the woman Crawford was glad of his posture because her black eyes were cold and calculating, he suspected that she was judging him and he had the oddest desire to please her. He was reminded of the Kaasan in the Dairai who looked after a gaijin child amongst the onmyoji, she had been at the same time loving and cruel.
“My real purpose, and I only tell you this because you so obviously despise the Takatori, is that the Taira petitioned the emperor that the Takatori be investigated. He weighed up their worth and when Saijou denounced Reiji for the action,” the woman nodded, “we came to destroy them, all of them.”
“What has this” She asked, “to do with me?”
“The Fujimiya were wrongly accused and without choice the emperor acted against them. I have taken Ran Fujimiya into my household,” she reacted to that, “I had little choice, rather than have him as a servant I took him as my concubine, which means he will be treated in the manner which he deserves as the son of a powerful lord.”
The woman understood this, “and Aya-hime?” she asked.
“She is at court, the Takatori have married her to Hirofumi, which as her guardians is their right, but she is beloved of the empress and serves as her handmaiden which means she does not see her husband. They have assured me that they will keep her distant from him.”
The woman relaxed at last, “I will arrange servants for the house,” she said, “but Ran is to be with me, I will attend him and I will not call you master.”
“I have sent to Kyoto for a servant for him.” Crawford corrected, “Ran is older and no longer needs a nursemaid, but perhaps Naoe would prefer such attentions.”
“The boy has weak lungs.” Baba told him, “I will watch over him, not because you have asked me,” she was firm on that and Crawford was beginning to suspect that if the woman tried to be emperor the armies would have backed down from her, “but because he needs a mother and gives me the opportunity to learn if you lie to me.”
Glossary
Dairai – imperial court
Doitsujin - German person
Gaijin - Foreigner
Hanzubon – shorts
Kaasan – Mother
Kimono – a decorated robe
Konketsu – halfbreed.
Millet - a cheap alternative to rice (we feed it to budgies)
Nihonjin – Japanese person
Obi – the wide belt used to fasten a kimono
Onmyoji – sorcerer
Tabi – socks
Tayu – a very high-class courtesan, also called an Oiran.
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