White Butterfly : Chapter 13
Crawford returned just before dawn with a servant trailing behind him. It was Mamoru’s guard Ken, and the next evening it was Rukia, who sat in a billow of pleated gauze, with a velvet robe about her, who revealed that he had accidentally struck Hikarin on the face with the whip he was using to kill rats. Rukia was little given to gossip but her brother had eventually wrung the information from her after she had taken it from her husband.
Aya thought on that, that Ken had scarred Hikarin who had demanded his death and that Crawford had saved him. He thought on how Rukia must have gathered the information from her husband, whom she admitted she had not seen in five years, and wondered if the unsteady sensation in his belly might have been jealousy. Yet, she had said that she would train him, and despite her cold manner and her wicked tongue, he admired her, and wondered if he was jealous of Crawford’s attention to her, or if he just wanted to be her.
Crawford came in to the music room where Rukia was holding court. Schuldig and Yohji were waiting on her every word whilst the twins were laughing behind their fans. Fuji was leaning up against Tezuka, listening to the strange sights his sister described when Crawford slid open the door without waiting. Aya sat alone.
“Your entourage is here.” He said bluntly, “and mail, for our Aya.” He threw the letter at him, he picked it up from the floor. It hadn’t been opened but the seal on the back was Taira.
“I don’t care.” Aya said thrusting it back at him, “why would they write to me?”
Schuldig took the letter and opened it with a roll of his eyes, “hello, blah blah blah, previous friendship, blah blah, interested in starting afresh, blah blah, will call on the,” Schuldig lowered the letter working the date out in his head, “day after tomorrow in the hopes of rekindling our childhood acquaintance as I have returned from court. Yours, Izumi Sano of the house of Taira.” He handed the letter to Crawford who slipped it back into the band of his kimono.
“You will meet him,” Crawford said, “after all,” he smirked to himself, “you were childhood friends.”
Aya scowled, it was true, he and Sano had been childhood friends and he had plenty of memories of the boy before he went to court, and how wild and fun he could be, and how sombre, and how just before he left they had got drunk and promised drunkenly to marry each other and not the women their parents had selected for them. Then he went to court and he never wrote, and his parents betrayed Aya’s and everything fell apart. It might not have been Sano’s fault but he would happily take his temper out on him.
“Now, if you don’t mind, Rukia, wife,” he enunciated that word carefully, “there is a strange man downstairs terrorising Naoe.”
“About yea high,” she asked holding out her hand, “white hair, eye patch, walks with a kind of roll.”
“That will be him.” Crawford did not sound amused.
Rukia laughed, “that’s my elf,” she said, “I found him in Italy and I had to keep him, I don’t think he’s quite human.” Crawford did not look amused, “it’s just Farfarello, he is a great guardian, why he would have made you proud had you known about him.”
“He is throwing Naoe in the air.” Crawford replied, “and I think the boy is about to vomit on the mats.”
Rukia just smiled. “He’s just playing.” She said indulgently, “now where were we before we were so rudely interrupted.” Crawford slammed the door behind him.
Izumi Sano of the house of Taira had, in the year or so of his absence, grown beautiful. He had pale, almost translucent, skin and large expressive dark eyes, framed with inky black lashes. His lips were a pale peach and he carried with him a terrible burden of sadness. When he saw Aya he stood up from where he had knelt, as serene and implacable as a statue with his fine white hands folded in his lap. “Ran,” he said with genuine warmth, grasping Aya’s forearm and squeezing tight. “Your hair,” he touched the short strands with cool fingers.
Behind him Aya heard Yohji say to Schuldig, “Imagine the two of them together,” and shuddered pleasantly.
Schuldig whispered back, “but who’d be on top.”
Yohji snorted out a laugh, “why me of course.”
If Sano heard them he said nothing.
“Lets go get Fuji,” Schuldig snorted back, “we can get pictures and sell them to the highest bidder in the capital.”
Then the two of them stood up leaving Aya alone.
Aya and Sano had been inseparable until Sano had left to marry. He had spent a year away and a lot had happened between them but at the same time being alone with him it felt strangely as if nothing had ever changed. In truth everything had. “You look much younger,” Sano said quietly, “with your hair like that, and I heard that you were ill.”
Aya couldn’t find the words to say so he said nothing instead.
“I missed you.” Sano said, finally breaking the silence.
“You left,” Aya answered and he hadn’t meant it to be as vicious as it sounded, or as cruel.
“We are instruments of our family’s duty.” Sano answered calmly, “even I. I came back though.” He looked saddened which heightened his almost painful beauty.
“You got married.” Aya added.
“I was told to.” Sano said softly, “she died.”
“So you return to me,” Aya answered, “because she died, what was the plan, to see if you could arrange a second marriage with my sister.”
“No,” Sano protested, “you are my friend and when I heard what happened…”
“and what did you hear?” Aya snarled, “that your family betrayed mine and my parents unable to take the shame killed themselves, or how the Takatori were the only people kind enough to take me and my sister in.”
“They didn’t take you in, Ran, they seized your property,” sano protested, “the Taira had nothing to do with what happened, the Takatori betrayed your family.”
“You’re just saying that to make me believe you.” Aya snarled.
“It’s true,” Rukia said from the door, he hadn’t heard her enter, “the Takatori borrowed money from the Fujimiya who in turn borrowed it from the Taira. The Takatori never intended to pay it back, they used your father’s sense of honour against him so when he faced up to the problem they betrayed him to the emperor.”
“I was there,” Sano said, “in court, the emperor knew that the Takatori were lying but he couldn’t prove it.”
“No,” Aya said, “they were kind, they took us in.”
“They married Aya to Hirofumi,” Rukia said quietly, “to make sure the seizure was legal which left them with you, I think if Hirofumi hadn’t wanted you as badly as he did you would have been murdered.”
“You’re lying.” Aya protested, they wouldn’t do that, not the Takatori, they had been kind to him.
“What reason have I to lie, what did they tell you, to keep Crawford sweet, to do what he wanted so that Reiji would come out best in the negotiations.” Rukia said softly.
“It wasn’t much to ask,” Aya conceded. “They were so kind.”
“No,” Rukia said softly, “but it was all a farce. My lord Taira,” she bowed her head to Sano, “I think it would be best if you left, you can return tomorrow, but I think our little rosebud needs to be on his own for a while.”
Sano nodded, then he lifted Aya’s hand and kissed it, just on the flesh where the thumb met the palm. It was a lover’s kiss, Rukia thought, but said nothing. Crawford’s games were his own.
When he had gone Aya collapsed in on himself where he was sat, “tell me it’s not true.”
“Do you want me to lie to you?” she asked, “because I will, I am not my husband, his allegiances are not mine.” In that instant Rukia looked very old and wise indeed, as if she had carried great burdens on her tiny shoulders. More than anything Aya wanted to trust her.
“Does Crawford want me to seduce Sano, to bind him to his cause?”
“I don’t know,” Rukia sighed, “come on, Rosebud,” she said softly offering her his arm.
“Yohji said that he wanted to see me and Sano together.” Aya told her softly.
“That would be the sight,” she said with a wicked smile, “you’re both as pretty as pictures,” she reached out and swept a red ear tail from his face, “you have a lot of thinking to do, a lot of rage to express. When you are stronger, I will ask Tezuka to train you in the art of Kendo.” She looked tired again, “and Fuji in the art of calligraphy, but first, my little Rosebud, we will teach you the greatest art of the courtesan and one of the most satisfying, we will teach you how to say no to suitors you have no interest in.”
For her lesson Rukia had gathered all the young men of her acquaintance, including her rather frightening one eyed guard whose name Aya could not pronounce. She sat them around a table and sat next to Aya. There was a large bottle of sake on the table and Yohji and Schuldig were leaning into each other and giggling, probably picturing him and Sano together Aya suspected. Fuji and Tezuka were trying to be surreptitious as they held hands and Farfarello was picking at his nails with a curved knife. The twins sat behind Rukia waiting for the show.
“We’ll think of this lesson,” Rukia began, “as a game,” she clapped her hands in glee, “we will go around the table and each of you will try and woo Aya, and he in turn will tell you no, but he is not allowed to use the word no and must be witty.” She poured him a bowl of sake and watched as he drank it. “I’ll demonstrate, Yohji.”
Yohji cleared his throat, “Rukia, you are the light of my life, and I simply must know the pleasures you can bring or I will expire.”
Rukia took a fan from the table and rested it against her cheeks, “then I am afraid you must expire for my pleasures are taken by he who is the light of my life.” The twins laughed. “Schuldig,” she said looking at the redheaded Doitsujin.
“You must be an angel to be so lovely.” Schuldig said.
“And you must think I came down in the last rainstorm,” Rukia said without changing her rather sweet expression, “to fall for so trite a line, Fuji.”
“I’m your brother,” Fuji protested, “do I have to?”
Rukia conceded the point and turned to Tezuka, he thought about it for a moment, “your beauty overwhelms me, madam, and know that I would cherish you.”
“And I would cherish such attention,” Rukia winked at Aya, “but beauty fades and I fear you will not want me when I am old so I must refuse.” Tezuka nodded noting Rukia’s pleased expression. “And Farfarello.” She left it open for him.
The white haired man rolled his eyes then said, in a heavily accented voice “How’s about you and me make the beast with two backs?” He asked.
Rukia just laughed.
Glossary
Ameratsu – The Sun goddess of Shinto
Aneki – older sister
Bikiko - Hel
Dairai – imperial court
Daimyo – a landowner or lord.
Danna – a patron
Doitsujin - German person
Ecchi – pervert
Edo – another name for Tokyo
Fundoshi – a wrapped loincloth worn by men
Gaiden – legend
Gaijin – Foreigner
Gei - art
Genkan – small area in front of the door where shoes are kept
Genki – chipper
Geta – a type of sandal, named for the sound they make
Hakama – split culottes
Hanzubon – shorts
Hikarin – Schoen
Horimono – Japanese tattooing
Iki – sense of style.
Juni Hitoe – Lit twelve layers
Kaasan – Mother
Kawaii – an exclamation of something’s cuteness.
Kimi – she who is without equal.
Kimono – a decorated robe
Konketsu – half-breed.
Kyu – the lowest ranking in Go
Minarai – a time of learning by imitation
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
Noh – a type of drama performed with masks
Obi – the wide belt used to fasten a kimono
Okaasan - mother
Omemie - Neu
Omusubi – wrapped rice balls
Onmyoji – sorcerer
Ouji-sama – your highness.
Seppuku – ritual suicide by disembowelling
Seppun – the act of pressing mouths together- the worst of all perversions.
Shibari - the art of rope tying
Sumimasen – the most formal way of apologising
Tabi – split toed socks
Takoyaki – fried balls of octopus and flour
Tansu – a Japanese chest. This is a distinct style
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
|
