Chapter Text
Kume was the third daughter of an impoverished peasant family who had once been the relatives of samurai – however, the inept ruling of the daimyo and years of war had eroded any and all trace of the honour of belonging to the samurai class. In the spring of her eighth year, her parents sent her to serve as a kamuro. A child attendant originally contracted for four years of service and then she was to return to her parents. Alas, it was not to be. Her parents were illiterate and naïve, the owner of the Ōgiya at that time shrewd and greedy. Her soul and life had already fallen into the hands of people who would never willingly let her go.
Kume became Ayaha and was sent to serve under a high-ranking courtesan named Utahime alongside her fellow attendant, Kureha[1]. Utahime was of a warm temperament and loved the beautiful little girls and trained them well. Ayaha showed an aptitude for literature especially but was in general a bright student who learned and absorbed everything anyone deigned to teach her. Utahime instructed her two kamuro in everything an upper-class courtesan from a first-class teahouse needed to know. The art of conversation, tea ceremony, flower arranging, appreciating incense and calligraphy to dancing and mastery of musical instruments koto, the flute, and shamisen was drilled into them with a discipline belonging to something not unlike that of a military operation.
When her contract was supposed to end on her twelfth birthday, no one came to collect her and so the Mother of the brothel sank her claws into Ayaha’s soul for good. Once again, her name was changed; Ayaha became Karauta[2] following the tradition of incorporating a character of her former mistress’ name into her own and she debuted as a shinzō mere three months from her thirteenth birthday.
Having been trained by Utahime and belonging to a teahouse of good reputation and standing, newly named Karauta was granted her own room and the rank of heyamochi[3] from the start of her career. That was already a notable feat, but she also proved quite popular. Wealthy patrons competed for her favour and her first night – it was won by the second son of a middle-ranking nobleman. Three meetings were arranged, and the winner turned out to be a beautiful young man of only 16. He proved his wealth and both the Mother and Utahime approved of his character. A mere month after turning fourteen, on the eve of the third meeting, Karauta consummated the bond between her and her first patron. Having snagged such a fat source of income almost immediately after her debut saw her promoted to a zashiki-mochi – a rank just below that of the oiran – with this promotion followed a larger apartment, higher pay, and a single child attendant if you could afford it seeing as all the costs of the upkeep of a kamuro fell to the mistress and not the brothel itself.
By the time she was seventeen, Karauta was among the top-ranked courtesans. The highest and most honorable of oiran. She had just about taken a cloud ladder to the top of the hierarchy and with her ability proven, she was granted her own inherited name – her own myōseki. For the fourth time in her short life, she was granted a new name. Komurasaki was one of the patented names of the Ōgiya and had not been in use for over five years since the former owner of the name retired at the ripe old age of twenty-three, leaving the red light district in a fancy palanquin to marry the heir of a minor noble as his second wife as she had taken him as her only customer in her last year of service. When she got pregnant, the patron paid off the debt she owed the brothel and married her as his second wife - eager to bring her home, since he was still without an heir of his own.
Komurasaki was at only eighteen years old a yobidashi chûsan: living in large resplendent apartments, with not one but two kamuro at her beck and call – in addition to the ability to pick her own clients as she pleased. Even getting a single glimpse of Komurasaki was a privilege, not to mention the prolonged time spent in her company. Hell, even getting as far as to be allowed to sit beside her was a prolonged and complicated affair.
You see anyone wishing for even the chance of courting her needed a letter of recommendation from one of the other first-ranked teahouses of the capital district as proof of their status and character. Usually, after another high-ranked regular patron vouched for him. Then they needed to submit an application to the ageya, the house of assignation that she belonged to. Even if one's application was accepted which was not guaranteed - one would still have to meet with the oiran and her entourage three times, paying a small fortune each time, all the while engaging in ceremonial performances, and only after that long arduous procedure if the oiran chose to go further with the client, would one be able to enjoy the services of the oiran in question. Being rejected by an oiran was quite common, even expected, and competitions for the affection of a given oiran were quite common. No matter how wealthy, without connections or the oiran’s approval, a man simply had no chance to have her. Even applying to become her patron was a privilege. Only nobility, states officials and the most elite of shinobi had the capabilities of even seeing her face. It might almost have been easier to seek an audience with a daimyo than with her.
If one wished to see her, one needed an appointment and she was to be summoned to the teahouse – a parade of her retinue would pass from her private quarters to the teahouse on platformed geta and supported by manservants, musicians, and her attendants – both shinzō and kamuro.
Komurasaki was at the peak of her career, so pricey and exclusive a woman that only four men were her regular patrons. However, all of them were noble and so wealthy that even her exorbitant price was but a pittance to them. A minister, another high-ranking member of the government, a lower-ranking prince of a small country and kage-level shinobi were the only men who had ever graced her bed. It was not the pleasures of the flesh that they paid such prices for – nay, it was her company, her expertise, her intelligence, not to mention the prestige of and ability to flaunt having become her patron.
On the twentieth day of the first month in Komurasaki’s nineteenth year on this earth, a child was born in Shimabara, the red light district of Tsushi, the capital city of the land of Earth. Her mother was a highest-ranking courtesan belonging to a rather fancy teahouse by the name of Ōgiya and her birth took place in the resplendent inner rooms of that courtesan. This courtesan stifled her screams of agony as she brought the fruit of nine months of painstaking secrecy into the world. This was done under the cover of the darkness in the early morning hours and with the help of only her child attendants. Seemingly having received all the blessings of Benzaiten, patron goddess of artists, dancers and geisha, the young woman formerly named Kume[4] managed to hide her pregnancy and all the ills it brought with it from her employers, her fellow courtesans and even her patrons.
That fateful child came into the world with an eerie stillness – as if knowing the secrecy surrounding her mere existence. If the pregnancy had been uncovered, Komurasaki would have suffered financially and would quite probably have been forced to ingest dubious medicines to get rid of the tiny seed of life she was determined to nurture.
In her nineteenth year of life, she had decided to go through with her first and only rebellion. Since birth, Komurasaki had been easy-going and ever helpful. She did her duties and helped her family and not even when her impoverished parents had sold her into the ugly world of prostitution had she rebelled or made the smallest of protests. The sacrifice of their daughter enabled the continued survival of the family and the education of a brother she had never even met, but whose maleness made him much more valuable than she. Confucianists would praise her filial piety for sacrificing for the sake of family if nothing else. Truth was that the courtesan hated prostitution and the red light district with every fibre of her being. She had managed to survive, and some might even claim, thrive in the most depraved of environments, but even if she was good at it – she hated everything about it and the cutthroat ruthlessness needed to stay on top. It was a dog-eat-dog world, winners, and losers and no one had any pity for the losers.
Komurasaki had never forgiven her parents for their selfishness, the brothel for their greed nor the patrons for the hunger for the tender flesh of girl-children not even old enough for menstruate yet.
When she realized that she had become pregnant, furious, and ardent feelings of possessiveness and protectiveness made her keep quiet. The nineteen-year-old managed to hide the signs under the bulky layers of luxurious silks and manaita obi tied in the front. Her naturally pale disposition hid any feeling of discomfort and her tall willowy frame would allow any noticeable weight gain to be easily dismissed as finishing a growth spurt or simply eating better.
Having decided, the young woman had plotted and planned with all the intricacy and care of a golden orb weaver. First, she had employed her two child attendants to subtly obtain information from midwives of supplements to her diet, things to be careful of and what to expect at the birth itself. The young woman had never witnessed the birth of anyone and had been the youngest of her siblings when she was sold, and it was not as if she had a mother to go to with her questions. Secondly, she needed a reasonable excuse to not be physically intimate with anyone in the later months of the pregnancy when her body grew heavy with child….
Finding a reasonable excuse had been a bit of a conundrum at first, and Komurasaki had paced barefoot across the tatami-covered flooring, biting a perfectly manicured fingernail as she pondered. The whisper of the bottom of the heavy black and gold furisode being dragged along the floor ceased after a good half an hour of pacing back and forth – it suddenly stopped when she caught sight of the unopened applications that had been sent over and suddenly, she knew.
Announcing that she was accepting a new patron would create enough gossip and excitement to shift attention away from her person unto any of her potential new suitors and the process of vetting, accepting, and meeting the new patron was a rather long process. Focusing on a new patron would give her the excuse she needed to be more aloof and less physically available. Rummaging through her books of poetry and scroll of paintings for all the letters of application took a bit, but at last, she found them all and settled by the bureau near the window to read the correspondences of the men who fought, scuffled and argued with one another to have her was a lot.
Twenty letters had lain forgotten in the mess of the table she used as an office, and her laughter rang like a flurry of small bells as the authors proved themselves more idiotic and pompous than the next. Having read all her letters and finding only one she would reluctantly be willing to put up with for the purpose of her little plot, Komurasaki dropped her elegant seiza and slid down onto her butt, feeling wrung out and a bit frustrated with her would-be patrons. “Not a single exciting prospect..” She sighed stretching her legs to encourage the blood circulation to return to them. “Boring and arrogant stuffy old men with more money than sense.” Unwilling to risk messing up her very heavy hairdo, the young woman refrained from vulgarly sprawling on the floor like a bratty teenager having a tantrum and waved over Hatsune – one of the pair of kamuro her rank allowed her - to assist her in getting up. The many heavy layers of kimono in addition to the weight of all the golden kanzashi in her hair made it a bit of an arduous task on her own.
Absentmindedly patting the girl’s hair, the pale beauty glided across the floor to stand at the open shoji door leading out onto the balcony overlooking the ever-busy main street of the Shimabara district.
A moment that seemed to last forever and a day passed before she was shaken from her reverie and turned her head, “Hatsune, would you- “she trailed off catching sight of an unfamiliar scroll laying on top of her tall clothing chest. Quickly and without the poise she normally would have, Komurasaki strode across the room to examine the elaborately adorned scroll. Lips pursing curiously, she unfurled it and raised her eyebrows at the painting inside it. A beautiful illustration taken from The Tale of Genji and as she could tell by the quality of the colours and the skilful pen strokes by quite a famous artist. Lips curling into a small smile, she glanced at the note that fell to the ground when she unfurled the hanging scroll.
Hatsune hurried over to pick up the note, handed it over and looked up to find her usually even-keeled and ever poised mistress grinning like the that got the canary. The young girl didn’t dare to read her mistress’ correspondence but anyone would recognize the kamon incorporated into the seal at the bottom.