White Butterfly : Chapter 4
Life quickly settled into an easy pace in the old Fujimiya estate. At morning and evening Crawford dined with his nervous concubine but rarely even tried to engage him in conversation. He took the opportunity to check on his correspondence and what word the servants brought him from the village. He knew better than to undermine such an important resource of information, even if he knew that they were reporting as intently to the Takatori. It was inevitable, and not even Baba’s stern gaze could stop the flood of information that left the house. Crawford understood and had expected it; it just meant that he was needed to be more careful than he had been before.
But just as Crawford said little to his concubine, Ran said little to him; mostly it was a request to pass the soy sauce or an offer of more tea to be poured.
Crawford decided he liked it that way, most of the concubines he had had over the years were demanding of his attention, doing their best to be the focus of his day. Ran ate with him because he had been told to. It was all he did. There were no attempts at seduction from the boy, for which Crawford was grateful. He had other things in mind for Ran’s first time than simply tumbling him over the breakfast table.
It added to the anticipation and after all, they said hunger was the best sauce.
However it did little for his tension.
Throughout the day Ran managed to vanish three or four times, often for hours at a time, more than once a thorough investigation of both the house and the grounds had revealed nothing, and when Ran had been found, he was back in his room reading and looking for all the world as if nothing had happened, Perhaps, Crawford thought to himself, to Ran, nothing had.
There were other mysteries about the boy, for no reason that Crawford could see the smell of violets lingered in his hair and about his person. Despite that Crawford had given him leave to dress how he liked he still, as a punishment perhaps, wore the elaborate and heavy layers of silk kimono and the obi so thick with gold thread that it jingled like armour. It was clear to all his servants, who then passed the gossip amongst the estate, that he used his juni hitoe to hide behind. The presence of a tayu, even Ran, in the house meant that the house was full of gossip.
Ran, for the most part, despite his unwitting celebrity, kept to himself in his room.
Crawford was not the kind of man to happily sit and watch the cherry blossoms fall. He was quite bored. The house’s intrigues were mostly petty and Baba stopped them from being harmful to his household. Despite Naoe’s almost constant complaints about the concoction of herbs and goose fat that Baba had coated him with, his chest was much clearer so Crawford saw no reason to contradict her.
Baba ran the house with such military precision that Crawford had absolutely every intention of taking her to Kyoto with him. If she could run his city house half as well as this estate then he would be the envy of the entire capital. He hoped that when Schuldig returned from Kyoto he had the sense to bring a few of the usual maids with him.
In the futon cupboard in the library, a room he used primarily as his study- was a go board with two polished bowls of stones. Perhaps, Crawford thought to himself, Ran could play. It was a way to pass the time. Schuldig could play, and Naoe played badly but if it came to it he could teach his concubine.
With both Saya and Maya involved in attending Saijou to gather information for their cause he sent Naoe to fetch Ran.
Ran, like a woman, knelt at the door waiting to be admitted entrance as Crawford set out the go board on the low table. Crawford acknowledged him with a look. “I am bored, Ran” he said simply, “can you play?”
“Yes, master.” He said in his soft, shy voice, “I play.”
“Then perhaps you will offer me more challenge than Naoe who has never really advanced beyond thirty kyu.” Ran nodded as he settled himself in front of the table, but he said nothing. “Would you like a handicap?” Crawford offered giving Ran the advantage in the game.
“If it would please you, master.” Ran answered calmly, a maid entered with a tray of tea and sweet gelatine squares covered in rice powder on a lacquered tray.
“Would you like me to pour, master?” The maid asked bowing in such a way that she revealed a rather scandalous amount of nape. Crawford shooed her away.
Holding his sleeve carefully between thumb and forefinger, in a gesture that was clumsy enough to have been copied from a female relative, possibly his mother, he poured the tea. Once practised it would be a graceful, beautiful and possibly even sexy gesture, but for now it was endearing because of it. For all the meticulous detail in his appearance such tiny errors completed the picture as well as his slightly yellowed tabi.
He laid down five black stones on five of the star positions on the board. Crawford noted the detail and the way it was only the tips of his index and middle finger that held the stone, and competently. He could have taken nine stones so Crawford, noting he had taken a weaker handicap, played his first stone carefully.
Crawford became amazed at how quickly the day passed as he played go with Ran. The boy was mostly silent but occasionally made quiet asides, most of which were darkly funny. He kept him plied with tea and then noodles when Baba brought them supper. He was diligent to his master, but not to the extent of letting him win. Not only was the game hard fought but Ran had actually beaten him by six moku even before they counted off the dead stones.
The thing that truly surprised Crawford was that he enjoyed the boy’s company, the game had been the best challenge that he had had in months, even with Ran’s handicap. Despite being sixteen, and not much older than Naoe, he had potential other than his raw beauty. A beauty that he probably wouldn’t mature into until his mid thirties, a age when other tayu were prized for their wit and not their faded looks. The Takatori really had no idea exactly what they had thrown away. In truth such a gift would be better suited to the emperor, but Reiji had no sense of male beauty and it was said that only a fool threw away diamonds thinking them grit. Ran was a daimyo’s son, disinherited, but educated to a high degree with an alien beauty that did not come from his house. As he sat toying with his tea bowl, fingering the delicate ridges on the porcelain Crawford thanked Reiji for a gift he truly didn’t know the worth of, because Ran would make a fine companion. If he had have been a girl, even with no dowry, Ran would have made a fine wife.
He decided it would be politic to return Ran to his chambers before he took advantage of him prior to his mizuage. He would be a good companion but his beauty would be best served by sprawling it across a futon. Hikarin would soon arrive from Kyoto. He could wait. Both Maya and Saya would return from Saijou’s house soon enough. They would release his tension for now. They were always more than pleased to help him with that.
Lacking a trained lady’s maid Baba always took the opportunity to brush out Ran’s hair before bed. As the boy had never had a crowning ceremony his hair had never been cut and hung to his waist, Baba considered it the joy of her declining years to brush it through with water in which she kept the dried petals of violets. That done, a task which kept his hair clean and sweet smelling, she would braid it up for the night in the same loose plait she used on her own hair. Then with a whispered admonition to dream sweet dreams she tucked him into his futon, the way that she always had, then turned her attentions to Naoe who did not concede them so gently.
Ran lay that night in the doll room, surrounded by porcelain yujo and princesses, and listened to the pleasured grunts in the next room of Crawford and his twin servants.
He did not sleep that night at all.
Morning found him silent at Crawford’s table as they shared a light breakfast. He lowered his eyes at Crawford’s attempts at conversation rather than outright ignoring him. He simply wore nagajubon and light hakama. Crawford decided that he simply hadn’t slept well and conceded his concubine a distemper and let it pass.
With his left over rice Ran fashioned himself some basic nigiri and wrapped them in a sash he had tucked in his collar. That, at least, piqued Crawford’s interest. “Why are you saving the rice? If you are hungry later you can ask for more. I’m sure Baba will indulge you, you are a growing boy after all.”
“It is not that, master.” Ran said softly, “I was going to make offerings to my parents.” Crawford had nothing to say to that. “It was my intention to spend the day in the burial room praying master, honouring my ancestors, if it pleases you, master.”
Although Crawford had hoped he might have spent more time with Ran playing go he would not deny the boy his grief. Ran belonged to him, but he was not a cruel master, no matter what they said in Kyoto.
Crawford looked up from Bikiko’s latest letter looking for hidden messages when Saya opened the door. It was unusual to see her without her sister but she looked concerned over something else. “Master,” she said with a low bow of her head, her tail of hair lashing about her shoulders. “My tanto is gone, I know it is not like me but I cannot find it, did I leave it here?”
Crawford looked at her for a minute and then clearly said “Ran,” but whether it was an admonition or an epiphany Saya couldn’t tell. He ran past her through the corridor and the main hall to get to the burial chamber.
Ran knelt before the urns and candles with his forehead pressed to the highly polished wooden floor. He was sobbing. The tanto was lying away from him on the floor. Although Saya lingered behind her master she was shocked speechless. Crawford stepped over him and rolled the boy unto his back with his foot. Across his stomach were several long thin cuts where he had attempted, and failed, seppuku. Crawford kicked him in the ribs, “You belong to me,” he snarled, kicking him again, “only I decide if you live or die.”
“I am no use to you.” Ran screamed back, “I’d be better off dead.”
Crawford took Ran’s wrist and roughly pulled him into a sitting position with a wrench. “I get to make that decision,” he separated the little finger on Ran’s left hand and snapped it between his thumb and index finger. “If I keep you as a decoration it is my choice,” Crawford snapped the ring finger. “Mine to cherish, to protect and love.” Crawford cuffed Ran across the face, “only I get to kill you.”
“Then do it,” Ran snarled through his tears, baring his throat to his master like an animal.
Crawford took Ran’s long hair in his fist, and then patted his hand about his waist for his own long knife, baring the blade he severed Ran’s hair away at the nape, letting the boy fall to the floor. “Mine,” Crawford told him, “if I want to send you to work the vilest brothel in Edo I will.”
“Then do it,” Ran snarled back from the floor, “at least there I will have a purpose.”
Crawford turned to Saya, who had never seen Crawford behave like this, “Fetch his beloved Ba-chan, let her see the boy’s idiocy and pride.”
Ran could withstand everything except the weight of Baba’s love. Crawford threw him into the doll room by the back of the neck and then backed down from Baba’s glare. She alternated between clucking over Ran’s injuries and punishing him over getting them in the first place. She wavered between shouting and crying. She slathered honey over the cuts, witch hazel on the bruises and strapped the broken fingers. She tidied up the cut of his hair with a pair of small shears that hung from her obi. She pressed a foul smelling tea into his hands and then left him sleeping before she turned her attention to his master.
Crawford waited for the storm against the rail outside the doll room. When she found him she looked tired. “I have given him something to help him sleep.” She told him.
“Is there a reason for this outburst?” Crawford asked, perhaps such madness was the reason that the Takatori had given him away.
“Yes,” Baba told him, “he’s confused and grieving and lonely, it just got too much for him.” She looked back at the heavy wooden door that separated her from him. “You do know that he chose the doll room as his own because it is beside the room you have chosen.” Crawford blinked in shock, he had not known that. “You have a concubine that you use for no purpose, he’s lost his parents and his sister, and Reiji kept him as a bribe for Hirofumi’s good behaviour, then he was given to you, a master who blows hot and cold with him.” She stopped for a moment, “why spend your days with him if you spend your nights with the twins?” Crawford balked at Baba’s tone, he knew if it was anyone else speaking to him like that he would have her executed but Baba only told the truth. “Where he can hear everything.”
“I am arranging mizuage.” Crawford stuttered, “I have sent to Kyoto for one of the premier yujo to train him, I,” he stopped at Baba’s patronising glance.
“But you told no one, not even Ran. You spent yesterday lavishing him with attention then bedded the twins where he could hear.”
Crawford found himself apologising to the old woman, caught in the desperate desire to please her. “I didn’t know,” he protested.
Baba disdained the apology. “A great onmyoji undone by the architecture of his own house.” She said, “Ran is the son of a daimyo, educated and skilled, and he could be a great ally or a very dangerous enemy. He is sixteen years old,” she iterated that fact carefully, “yet to grow into his strengths. You own him. He is your concubine. It’s not my place to judge such a powerful onmyoji, but it is an idiot that throws diamonds before his enemy thinking them grit.” She stopped, smoothing down a wisp of white hair that escaped her topknot. “He will sleep the rest of the day and the night. Tell him, Crawford, the gifts you bring him, give him a place or you will lose him.”
Crawford couldn’t meet the old woman’s gaze. Naoe believed that she could glare through steel and Crawford wasn’t prepared to contradict him on the fact. “The Okaasan of the inn in town has several chin dogs,” he said, “I am led to believe that they have whelped, might he like such a gift?”
“Ask him yourself,” Baba told him, “I’ll be off, this house doesn’t run itself you know.”
“Baba,” he called out to her back, “if you see Naoe will you ask him to watch over Ran tonight.”
“By your will, master.” She said although to Crawford it sounded sarcastic.
Glossary
Ameratsu – The Sun goddess of Shinto.
Bikiko - Hel
Dairai – imperial court
Daimyo – a landowner or lord.
Danna – a patron
Doitsujin - German person
Fundoshi – a wrapped loincloth worn by men.
Gaiden – legend.
Gaijin – Foreigner
Hakama – split culottes
Hanzubon – shorts
Hikarin – Schoen
Juni Hitoe – Lit twelve layers but the many layered kimono of the Heian period before the sumptuary laws, this could be over forty layers of fabric.
Kaasan – Mother
Kimono – a decorated robe
Konketsu – half-breed.
Kyu – the lowest ranking in Go
Mizuage – a deflowering ceremony
Moku – two corresponding lines in go – marks one area.
Monogatori – lit: story of a person; romances or stories.
Nagajubon – a light white kimono worn under the more ornate robes.
Natto - fermented soybeans
Nigiri – a pressed rice ball
Nihonjin – Japanese person
Obi – the wide belt used to fasten a kimono
Okaasan - mother
Omemie - Neu
Omusubi – wrapped rice balls
Onmyoji – sorcerer
Seppuku – ritual suicide by disembowelling.
Tabi – socks
Takoyaki – fried balls of octopus and flour.
Tanto – a short bladed sword, usually used by women, part of a set.
Tatami – a mat, rooms are measured by tatami.
Tayu – a very high-class courtesan, also called an Oiran
Usagi - Todt
Yukuta – a light cotton kimono worn for sleeping or festivals.
Author’s note:
I changed some names; Bikuko is Hel.
Schoen became Hikarin
Todt became Usagi because Shishi or Shiko just sounded awful.
And Neu became Omemie, which is the presentation of art by a patron but was the best option for New I found.
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