Blood and Chrysanthemums

by Nancy Baker

  “No, nor for any other audience. Not the way it is. But I have already written another version that will suit. I am certain it will be very popular.”

  “A hundred years from now, no one will know your name,” Lord Sadamori pointed out. To his surprise, Hidekane’s mouth twisted into a thin smile and he bowed with graceful, mocking respect.

  “You will, Fujiwara no Sadamori. You will.”

  Chapter 26

  October, 1902

  And I did remember him, more than once in the years since that frosty night in the fifteenth century. There was some truth to the divided demon he embodied on stage . . . but I was never only that. As the years went on, I both hated my state and revelled in it. I longed for death and clung to life. I lived on, because I could not do otherwise, and yet much of the process of that living was no different from that of any other man in my land. I had my joys and griefs, my dangers and my delights.

  There were narrow escapes, especially during the long wars that racked the land throughout the sixteenth century. I tried the adoption ploy once or twice more but when both times ended in bloodshed, I was forced to abandon it. I developed new stratagems for survival, new lies to protect myself. It helped that my ancestral lands were neither too rich nor too near the centre of power. It helped that my soldiers were always well trained and well led, the beneficiaries of whatever wisdom and cunning I had acquired in six hundred years. And, perhaps most of all, it helped that I always chose the winning side. If I had not, especially during the last, terrible battles, I would surely have lost everything.

  I watched Oda Nobunaga become shogun and defeat the warlike monks of Mount Hiei, breaking the power of the Buddhist priests. I was on the field when he used the firearms he had bought from the foreign Portuguese who first reached our shores in 1542. They had tried to give us their god; we took their guns instead. Many of the southern barons converted to Christianity. No doubt, some of them did it in true faith. The rest did it for the control of the cargoes of silk and riches that the barbarian traders brought. The foreigners intrigued among themselves, Portuguese against Dutch, Jesuit against Franciscan, for the right to save our souls and take our wealth.

  When Nobunaga was assassinated, one of his generals, Hideyoshi, came to power. Tokugawa Ieyasu, secure in his eastern provinces, helped his rival consolidate power over the rebellious daimyo, then took it for himself upon Hideyoshi’s death.

  After Ieyasu’s victory, there came peace of a kind. It was the peace of denial and repression, of secret police and hierarchy. The foreigners were sent away. The followers of their alien god were persecuted or killed. No Japanese could leave on pain of death. No Japanese who had left could return on pain of death. No commoner could leave his land. No commoner could carry weapons.

  Things were easier among the aristocracy. The two swords in my sash entitled me to many things, including the unquestioned right to cut down any commoner who did not show me sufficient respect. If we were required to spend half a year at the court in Edo and leave our families there as hostages for the other half, it was surely a small price to pay to the shoguns whose policies preserved our privileges and wealth.

  The Tokugawa shoguns believed that they could freeze Japan in a shape that they could forever dominate. They believed that they could stop time.

  For a time, I believed it as well.

  Chapter 27

  Dimitri Rozokov set down the leather-bound book. How long had he been reading, he wondered. How long had more than five hundred years taken to pass through the words into his mind?

  The tiny apartment suddenly seemed smaller, more stifling, than ever before. He needed the cold kiss of the autumn air to break the spell the words seemed to have cast upon him and help him think clearly. The diary still in his hand, he rose and went to the door, then stepped out onto the landing.

  In the clear night sky, he saw the passage of time. More than three hours had vanished since he had retrieved the wrapped book from the stoop and begun to read it. He pulled his coat tighter and took a deep breath of the cool air.

  Almost a thousand years. If the book was true, if he still lived, Sadamori Fujiwara was almost a thousand years old.

  Rozokov pushed the thought away and let himself contemplate all the questions his absorption in the diary had blotted out for those long hours.

  Who had left the book for him? Whoever had done it, they must know his true nature. He did not believe anyone in Banff had that knowledge. Leigh had made it abundantly clear, if only unconsciously, that she did not remember him.

  Had Ardeth somehow betrayed her true need to Mark Frye? His attitude the other night did not suggest that. If he had suspected Rozokov, he would hardly have come to his rival’s door alone and at night. The young man did not seem to be the sort who would have possession of such a book—or could concoct it.

  Could someone have emerged victorious from the power struggle in the crumbling Dale empire and discovered the truth behind Althea’s final madness? If that were so, the diary seemed an unnecessarily subtle and dangerous ploy. Surely it would make more sense to take him by surprise than to warn him of possible danger.

  Was the diary true or false? If it were a forgery, it was an impressive one. But if someone were to falsify the diary of the vampire in order to signal him that his nature was known, why would it be a vampire from a culture so distant from his own? Because he would be less likely to spot any historical inconsistencies in such a tale than in a story set in Europe? He had to admit he knew no more about the history of Japan than had been publicized in the newspapers of this century and the last.

  If it made no sense for the diary to be false, then it would follow that it was true. The vampire had taken a great risk, one Rozokov himself had never dared. To commit to paper the darkest secret of one’s existence . . .

  Whoever wrote it knew, he thought with a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold. Whoever wrote it understood the terrible beauty and monstrous evil, the contradictory urges for life and death, as well as the playwright Hidekane had.

  Rozokov looked up at the moon. The words came back to him, whispered in his mind in a strange combination of English, his old half-forgotten native tongue and an unknown Oriental language.

  The moon must rise again

  as I must rise

  There is no rest.

  He dragged his gaze from the sky and forced himself to scan the quiet alley, the shadowy yards around him. If he accepted that Sadamori Fujiwara was a vampire, what did that mean? To automatically assume that he meant no harm would be foolish. Rozokov remembered the first night he had met Jean-Pierre and the testing that had gone on between them, the struggle for dominance that had finally been resolved in their friendship. It was possible that he and Ardeth had wandered unknowingly into this vampire’s territory and the diary was his way of warning them away.

  But would any enemy care to have his life, his secrets, so revealed to a foe? If Fujiwara did indeed want this town for himself, there were certainly less personal ways in which to send that message. If the diary was an accurate portrait, Fujiwara did not seem to be the sort of vampire who would fear others of his kind. Though there was an undercurrent of ruthless pragmatism in his stories, they did not suggest that he would act violently without reason. Rozokov could find nothing in the words he had read to suggest that Fujiwara would wish him harm. Perhaps the diary had been sent not to warn off an interloper, but to introduce a friend.

  Rozokov frowned unconsciously. He had to admit that he liked the man revealed in the diary’s pages. Sadamori Fujiwara had an intriguing wit and clear-eyed, even cynical, honesty, wrapped though it was in artifice. Each story, each comment that Rozokov read strengthened his desire to meet the writer.

  There was another reason beyond the promise of wit and intelligence, he acknowledged. If Fujiwara had survived nearly a thousand years, then surely the old vampire had found the answers to some of the dilemmas that had so
recently torn Ardeth and him apart, that had kept him entangled in doubt and depression.

  I would be like a child to him, Rozokov realized suddenly. As much as Ardeth is to me. A great wave of longing swept him suddenly. To the vampire who had made him, he had been victim, lover and then betraying angel of death. To Jean-Pierre, he had not been able to help being an elder brother—even when the two of them were taking mad risks in the salons of Paris. To Ardeth, he was failed father, failed lover. To Fujiwara, so much older, surely so much wiser than he, he could be something else. He could surrender responsibility for once. He could learn instead of teach.

  He could be son instead of father.

  Shaking, he leaned on the landing railing and stared down at the book in his hands. Throw it away, part of his mind urged. Throw it away before you want everything it promises too badly. Throw it away before it destroys you.

  Or you destroy it, the way you have destroyed every other vampire you have ever met.

  The leather was warm and soft under his fingers. He opened the book slowly. Just a little more, he told himself. There must be a reason for this to exist. I will never find it if I do not read just a little more. The spidery, beautiful writing caught him in its spell again.

  Oblivious to the chill, he sat down on the top step and began to read by the light of the bright moon over his head.

  Chapter 28

  A DREAM OF DEATH

  There is fire. I feel its heat, sweeping up behind me in the narrow tunnel along which I run. I know in a moment that it will catch me. Then my blood will boil, my bones melt, my skin blacken and dissolve. When it has passed, there will be no ash, no soot. There will be no sign that I have ever existed. In the second before it reaches me, I scream.

  I awoke.

  For a moment, I was not certain where I was. My body rocked unsteadily in the darkness. For a moment, I thought I was at sea and almost panicked. Then I remembered. I was in my palanquin on the road north from Edo to my estate.

  I extended my senses and brushed the awareness of those around me. From their shadowy thoughts, I could tell that it was twilight. The sun was dipping beyond the mountains to the west, the shadows were long and welcoming. I could safely draw back the heavily lined brocade curtains that sheltered me and step out to survey the night.

  But I stayed where I was. I did not need to see to know what our procession looked like: mounted samurai riding front and rear, soldiers marching after and before, bearers bent beneath the weight of their burdens.

  Twice a year, the procession travelled this road. In spring, to Edo. In autumn, back to the estate. The shogun trusted the northern lords more in the winter, when the snow closed our mountain passes and kept our armies locked within our own lands. In summer, he preferred that we were at his court, far from our castles and men.

  In truth, it should be a relief to return to my own four walls. Edo was dangerous for me. There were spies everywhere and my peculiarities were harder to conceal. I let it be believed that I was a scholar of the more esoteric Buddhist beliefs and so often fasted and preserved my seed as part of my studies. Yet I was careful to never appear to have gained any secret wisdom, any useful insights lest the shogun decide I was either a threat or a tool. One walked a very narrow line between the two dangers—too much power could damn a man, too little destroy him just as easily.

  Yet this time I left the city with as much regret as a new bridegroom leaves his marriage bed . . . for this time, I left her.

  Bridegroom I was, for the first time in many years. I avoided marriages when I could but it was not always possible. Alliances were required, appearances had to be kept. Wives of mine were either early widows as I falsified my own death . . . or died young themselves.

  So when Harada Okisata had offered his daughter I reluctantly took her, though it was in name only, for during the long winter we were both locked by ice and edict on our separate estates. With the spring, I had come to Edo and claimed Tomoe as my wife.

  In the darkness, I closed my eyes and thought of her.

  The wedding rituals were done, the guests were gone. I had been through this moment more times than I cared to count and yet I dreaded it. I could not help but remember taking my second wife, when I was mortal. It had been so much simpler then. There were politics involved of course, hidden behind the conventions of love and seduction. I sent my wife-to-be poems, as she did in return, inviting me to her bed. I crept to her chambers like a secret lover, though the whole household knew that I was there. In the dark, we suited each other well enough that our poetry the next morning was encouraging. On the morning of our third night together, I did not have to go home before dawn. There was a minor ceremony and we were wed.

  This wedding night, I had managed to gain some measure of privacy by having my steward, another Tadeo, banish the scandalized servants to the far wing of the house for this one evening. This strange desire for privacy would be added to my list of eccentricities. Only my new wife’s maids remained, to dress her in the gifts I had sent.

  How would she take my revelations, I wondered, this young woman I had seen for the first time at our wedding. There had been those among my wives who were secretly pleased that I did not demand my conjugal rites and those who hated it. All of them were upset that I would not give them the sons they wanted, to seal their positions and ease their hearts. With some of them I had reached an accommodation: I had their blood and their silence, they had my name and my wealth. Others, I dared not trust. Once in a while I still burn incense for their souls, which I sent so early into whatever waited beyond this life.

  Then I reached her room. It seemed that in moments we were alone, her maids and Tadeo gone. She knelt in the centre of the room, dressed in the kimono I had given her. “Husband,” she said softly, bowing. “Thank you for your gift to this unworthy one.”

  “Stand up and let me see.” She rose with a peculiar kind of grace. There was nothing delicate in her movements but instead a sturdy ease that intrigued me. The kimono was violet silk, woven with a pattern of cranes, the symbol of long life. She lifted her head a little. She was not beautiful and yet . . . “It becomes you.” She nodded acknowledgement of the compliment. I saw her fingers stroke the silk then flicker to touch the ivory carving that adorned her sash.

  I presented her with the other gifts I had brought: a small lacquered box holding wooden combs inlaid with gold wisteria patterns, the old symbol of my family. She thanked me for them with the correct measure of decorous pleasure but I noticed that she touched them as she had the silk, her fingertips lingering over the curves and textures.

  She served sake and we sat in silence for a few moments. I looked at her bent head, at the sweet, vulnerable curve of the nape of her neck. “There is something I must tell you,” I began at last. “We will speak of it this night and never again, understand? You will never speak of it to anyone else or I will order you to kill yourself. I will ensure that everyone knows that you dishonoured your family’s name.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “I am not like other men. I am impotent.” There was a long silence.

  “Were you hurt, my lord? Or is it to do with your studies?” She saw surprise on my face. “Forgive my questions. My father told me you are a learned man, very like a monk or a priest.”

  “Yes, it has to do with my studies.” It was not completely a lie. “I cannot give you children but if you obey me I will treat you with honour.”

  “Whatever you say, my lord.” She bowed again and then I saw her eyes flicker up to touch my face. “Do you have any . . . needs?”

  “None that I cannot satisfy elsewhere.” There was plenty of blood to be had in Edo. I rarely killed, simply took from sleeping servants or townspeople I lulled into forgetfulness. If I wished more than blood, there were the courtesans of the floating world.

  “I am your wife. If you find me unsatisfactory, you must go to another. But please, husband, do me the honour
of allowing me to try to please you.”

  “You would do that?”

  “Of course.” She lowered her head again and I realized that she was afraid of what I might ask of her but determined not to change her mind. I could always take the memory of what I did from her, I told myself. And if it went well . . . but I would not think of that.

  “Take off the kimono and go to the bed,” I said at last. I watched her hands as she unwrapped her sash and let the garment fall from her body. They did not shake. She pulled the pins from her hair and it tumbled down like a black river. Her body glowed through the gossamer silk of her last garment. When I turned back from extinguishing the lamps, she was sitting in the centre of the mat.

  She looked calm and composed, but when I touched her she was trembling. The hand I took in mine was cold. It convulsed automatically, curling into a fist as my fingers slipped down around her wrist. We sat in silence for a moment, my thumb stroking the pulse that quickened beneath her skin. Her head bent, she seemed to watch the movement with an odd, almost fierce, concentration. One by one her fingers relaxed, unfurling like a white, five-petalled flower. When I kissed the centre of her palm, I heard her sigh.

  Much later in the night she shook again, but this time it was in pleasure. When I put my mouth against her throat, she was still for a long, frozen moment. I heard her breath catch and, through the sweet fever of her blood, felt a touch of cold despair. Then she gave a ragged sigh and tightened her arms around me, holding me against her.

  She was drowsing when I bent over to whisper the words of forgetfulness in her ear. She stirred and woke. “What . . . ?”

  “Go back to sleep.”

  She turned into my arms and smiled sleepily. “Did I please you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You will not go to anyone else?”

  “Tomoe,” I began, then stopped as she put her hand up to her mouth. Her curious fingers touched my teeth.