by Fuyumi Ono
Youko nodded slightly. The man put his arm around her. "Well, then, hold on. It's only a little further. You can make it."
Youko nodded again and put her hand on his shoulder. When she stood up, she intentionally let the bundle fall to the ground. When she stooped to get it, the woman picked it up for her and said to the children. "Why don't you carry this. It's not heavy."
She handed it to the boy and his younger sister. They took it with a serious looks on their faces.
"Can you walk? We can summon the guards, if you'd like."
Youko shook her head. "I'm sorry. I'll be okay. My friends already went ahead and are getting a room."
The man laughed. "Is that so? You've got somebody with you, that's great."
Youko nodded, clinging gently to the man's shoulder as they walked along. She intended to appear beholding to the man helping her, while garnering as much sympathy as possible from the people around them.
They drew nearer to the gates. The guards flanking the gates were inspecting the stream of people hurrying toward them. She passed through the gates. She felt eyes on her, but no one raised his voice. After putting a bit of distance between her and the gates, Youko finally allowed herself to breathe. When she peeked back over her shoulder, the gates were far enough away that she could not make out the faces of the guards.
Score.
Sighing with relief, Youko took her hand off the man's shoulder. "Thank you. I'm feeling much better."
"Will you be okay? We can take you as far as the inn."
"That's okay. I'll be fine from here. I'm really grateful for your help."
She bowed deeply. I apologize for lying to you, she said in her heart.
The man and wife exchanged glances. "Take care," they said.
The city was bustling with refugees. Worried about falling under the wary eye of an innkeeper, she found an open space along the city walls and spent the night there.
The welcome morning finally came. Youko followed the city streets to the harbor. The streets opened up as she approached the water, ending at a shabby wharf. A ship was tied up at the pier. It looked rather small to Youko's eyes, but it was bigger than all the other ships lying at anchor.
"There it is … . "
As the wharf grew nearer, a flood of emotions filled her chest. She stopped. Soldiers were inspecting the line of passengers boarding the ship. For a moment everything went dark. They were searching the passengers' luggage as well.
She had no desire to get rid of the sword. She'd managed to get this close staying in the shadows, and could get no closer. Youko stared at the guards and passengers.
Do I lose the sword?
She'd lose her primary means of defense, but it was better than staying behind in Kou. Yet thinking this, seeing the water not far from where she stood, she couldn't bring herself to do it. It was what tied her to Keiki. Lose it and she'd sever the half of her connection to him. It'd be as much as severing her ties to her home.
What to do?
She turned the question over and over in her mind and could not come to a decision. She looked around the harbor. Was there any way to get to En and keep the sword? Several small boats were moored there. Could she steal one of them?
I haven't the slightest idea how to sail a boat.
She'd heard that the Blue Sea was an inland sea. So while she couldn't imagine how long it would take, she ought to be able to make it to En by following the shoreline. Dazed by the tumult of her own thoughts, she suddenly heard the loud pounding of a drum. She looked up, startled. The sound was coming from the deck of the ship. It was the signal that the ship would soon be departing. The line of passengers was gone. The soldiers were standing idly by.
I'm not going to make it.
Even if she made a run for it now, the guards would grab her. There wasn't enough time to undo the bundle and take out the sword. And if she dumped everything, it would look equally suspicious trying to board a ship without any luggage at all. Frozen with indecision, she watched as the ship raised its sail.
The gangplank was withdrawn. Youko jumped out from her hiding place. The ship edged slowly away from the pier, where the guards stood observing the departure. She ran toward it, but could not risk getting any closer. She watched dumbfounded as the ship set sail. The image of the white sails burned into her retinas.
If I do it now, I can jump.
Ideas raced through her head, but she could not act on any of them.
That's my ticket out of here.
Hugging the bundle to her chest, eyes wide, she could do nothing but watch the ship sail away. So much had depended on her making this escape, and she didn't think she would recover from the shock.
"What's the matter?" a rough voice said. "Miss your ride?"
Youko started, the gravelly voice bringing herself back to her senses. Down where the piles of the wharf were driven into the earth, she saw a vessel. Four men were working on the deck. One of them was looking up at her.
Youko nodded stiffly. The next ship wasn't for five more days. Those five days would probably settle her fate.
"Well, come on, kid. You want a ride or no?"
For a moment, Youko didn't grasp what he was saying and only stared.
"Hurry up, then. You got other plans?"
Youko shook her head. The sailor grabbed hold of the rope tied to the bollard next to her. "Loosen that up there and jump aboard. We'll catch up with them at Fugou. But you've got to work for your passage."
The other sailors thought that was a pretty funny offer. Youko nodded as resolutely as she could. She undid the rope from the bollard and, holding it tightly, jumped down onto the deck.
It was a cargo ship that went as far as the island of Fugou, just north of Agan. It was a full twenty-four hours to Fugou. From Fugou to En there were no more ports of call.
Save a ferry ride on a school field trip once, Youko had never been on a boat. And this was certainly the first time in her life she'd been on a sailing vessel.
She had no idea what she was doing, but every time one of the sailors barked at her she hauled something here or straightened up something there and generally chased her own tail around the ship. When they left the coast and the ship settled into its course, she found herself being told to do this, that, and the other thing, from scrubbing the dishes to cooking dinner. Finally, they even had her massaging the legs of some old salt of a first mate. Whenever anybody asked her about herself, she mumbled a half-hearted reply and they laughed about how she was a reticent little brat but thankfully didn't pry any more into her affairs.
The ship sailed on through the night without rest, and arrived at Fugou harbor the next morning.
The ship bound for En had already arrived and was resting quietly in its berth. The sailors worked Youko right up to the last minute. At last, not even coming into dock, they brought the boat alongside the passenger ship and called out to one of the seamen and requested that Youko be allowed to come aboard. Clinging to a pole that was lowered to the boat, she was hauled onto the ship. Coming aboard, somebody threw a small parcel up onto the deck.
"Some dumplings for you. Put a little meat on your bones."
One of the sailors on the boat waved to her. Youko picked up the parcel and waved back. "Thank you."
"You're a good worker. Take care, now."
They laughed goodheartedly. The men hauling up the fender--Youko had been the one who'd lowered it--were the last people she saw as she left Kou.
6-4
The inner sea was so wide that Youko could not see the opposing shore. Standing on the deck, breathing in the salt spray, it looked like a perfectly normal sea. The ship left Fugou and crossed the bright blue water, heading north to Ugou as the bird flies. From Fugou to Ugou it was a journey of three days and two nights.
When the coast of En first came into view, it looked no different than Kou. But as the ship drew closer, the differences became apparent. A well-maintained harbor and the huge city looming up behind it. Ugou was bigger than any city
Youko had seen in Kou. Save for the buildings, she could have been looking at a city in Japan. It was obvious that a fair percentage of the passengers gathered on the deck were seeing Ugou for the first time, too, and along with Youko stared in amazement.
The city itself was set off to the side of the harbor, surrounded by walls that enclosed the city in the shape of a "U." The city wound leisurely up the side of the facing mountains. In the distance, the richly-colored architectural decor ran together into a subdued, rosy hue. Around the circumference of the city and about its center, she observed tall, finely-built stone buildings. One was a clock tower, and her eyes opened wide as she saw it.
The harbor was developed to a degree to which Agan could not compare. The number of ships lying at anchor far outstripped those at Agan. The harbor was alive and bustling. The masts stood together like trees. The furled white and faded, ruddy brown sails accented the gorgeous panorama. Having finally arrived here after escaping such a harsh country, Youko gazed at it all as if there could be nothing else to compare to such a spectacle.
Descending from the ship, Youko looked out over the throngs. This was a city that left its inhabitants in good spirits. The faces of the people streaming by were full of vitality and life, and her own face was likely the same. Down on the dock, Youko found herself in the midst of bedlam. Men working madly, children running around doing heavens knows what, the voices of people and peddlers, thrumming together in a frenzied rhythm.
She was standing there on the pier when the voice called out to her.
"Youko?"
Her head snapped around at the sound of a voice she could not have possibly expected. She saw the charcoal-gray coat, fine whiskers gleaming silver in the light of the midday sun.
"Rakushun … . "
The rat pushed his way through the crowds to Youko's side. With his small, pink paw he grabbed the bewildered Youko by the hand. "This is so great. You arrived safely."
"How … ?"
"Take a ship from Agan and you're bound to arrive in Ugou. I've been waiting for you."
"For me?"
Rakushun nodded. He tugged on Youko's hand. She was still frozen with surprise.
"I waited for a while at Agan. When you didn't turn up, I thought maybe you'd gone on ahead of me. But there was neither hide nor hair of you here. So I decided that every time a ship came into port, I'd come down and look for you. I figured you might have gotten delayed, but made it through just the same."
The rat looked up at Youko and smiled.
"But why, for me?"
Rakushun rounded his back and bowed his head. "I wasn't thinking. I should have let you have the money, at least half. You must have had a rough time of it getting here. I'm sorry about that."
"But … I'm the one who ran off and left you behind."
"I blame myself for that as well. I really messed up." The rat smiled bitterly. "And a good thing you did run. If the guards had arrested you, then what? Better if I had told you myself and given you the purse, but I kind of got myself knocked out cold."
"Rakushun … . "
"I was really worried about what happened to you after that. I'm glad to see you're okay."
"It's not like I abandoned you because I had to."
"Really?"
"Really. The idea of traveling with another person gave me the willies. I didn't think I could trust anybody. I thought I was surrounded by no one but my enemies. That's why."
Rakushun twitched his whiskers. "Does that include me now?"
Youko shook her head.
"All's well, then. Well, let's get going."
"Don't you hate me for double-crossing you?"
"I might think you a fool for doing so, but, no, I don't have any particular reason to hate you."
"I even thought of going back and killing you."
Rakushun started to walk off, still holding her hand. He stopped in his tracks. "You know, Youko … . "
"Yes."
"To tell the truth, when I realized that you had gone off and left me there, I was a little let down. Only a little. I knew that you didn't trust me. The whole time, you were worried I was going to try and pull something. Still, along the way, I had hoped the truth would sink in. When you ran off without me, I knew you hadn't. So I was a little disappointed. But if you've finally come to your senses, then it's all good."
"It's not all good. You've got every reason in the world to tell me good riddance and send me packing."
"Whether I do or not, that's up to me, isn't it? I wished for you to trust me. If you do, then that makes me happy. If not, then not so much. But that's my problem. Whether you trust me or not, that's up to you. Trusting me may be to your benefit or to your loss. But that's your problem."
Youko humbly bowed her head. "Rakushun, you're--awesome!"
"Hey, hey, what's this all of a sudden?"
"It's just that I get myself into these snits and convince myself that I have no friends in this world."
"Youko." Rakushun tugged on her arm with his small hand.
"I am so totally messed up."
"No, you're not."
"Yes, I am."
"You're not, Youko. After all, I'm not the one who was washed ashore in a strange land and then chased around it from one end to the other."
For a moment Youko stared down at Rakushun's face. Rakushun looked up at her and laughed. "You've really pulled yourself together, Youko. You're in a fine fettle."
"What?"
"I knew it as soon as you came off the boat. A blind man couldn't miss it a mile away."
"Me?"
"Yes, you. So, shall we get going?"
"Go where?"
"The prefecture building. If you're a kaikyaku and get yourself properly registered, people will do what they can to help. The officials will write letters of introduction for you, or so I've heard. You were taking your time getting here, so I did a bit of wandering about myself and went to the local prefecture building and checked it out. That's what they told me."
"Rakushun, you're unbelievable."
For whatever reason, one by one, doors now seemed to be opening up to her.
6-5
"This is one happening town."
The crowds of people bustling back and forth and proprietors shouting out their wares from the storefronts only added to the lively atmosphere.
"You're surprised."
"Yeah."
"I'd heard that En was a wealthy kingdom, but when I saw Ugou for the first time, even I was taken aback."
Youko nodded. The streets were wide in the same way that the dimensions of the whole city were big. The castle walls that surrounded the city must be a good ten meters thick. On the city-side of the walls, shop stalls had been hollowed-out of the stone and businesses were thriving there as well. They very much resembled under-girder kiosks in Japan.
The buildings were made of wood and reached three stories. The ceilings were high and every window was glazed with glass. Here and there was a huge building made of brick and stone. A "Chinatown-like atmosphere" by itself was not enough to describe the strange and curious ambience the place created. The streets were paved with stone, with drainage ditches running down both sides. There was a park and public square. None of this had she ever seen in Kou.
Youko said, looking at her surroundings, "I feel like a country bumpkin."
Rakushun laughed. "I thought the same. And I am a country bumpkin."
"Just how many layers of fortifications are there?"
"Eh?"
Youko pointed out to Rakushun where the high walls could be seen here and there rising above the surrounding houses and stores.
"Well, technically, a city's outer walls are called the ramparts, and the inner wall protecting the keep is called the bailey. In Kou, cities with baileys are rare. Those are probably the remnants of an old rampart left over from when the city grew bigger and expanded beyond it."
"Wow."
Refugees from Kei were camped out at the foot of the rampart
s and in the plaza, in neat and tidy rows of similar-looking tents that gave no indication of disorder. According to Rakushun, the tents were also provisioned by the local government.
"So, is this a provincial capital?"
"No, a prefectural seat."
"The prefecture is one step below a province?"
"Two steps below. Starting with hamlets of twenty-five households, it goes, from smallest to largest: hamlet, town, township, county, prefecture, district, province. A district consists of fifty-thousand households."
"How many districts are in a province?"
"It depends on the location."
"If this is a prefectural seat, then district and provincial capitals must be huge."
According to official designations, a district capital was a city that was home to a district administration, also called a district seat. For administrative purposes, districts were designated as having populations of fifty thousand households, though that didn't necessarily mean that fifty thousand people lived in a single district. Generally speaking, it terms of urbanization, a town was bigger than a hamlet, a district capital bigger than a county seat, the capital of a province bigger than a district capital.
"How is it that En and Kou can be this different?"
Rakushun answered with a thin smile. "The difference is in the characters of the rulers."
"The difference in their characters?"
Rakushun glanced back at her and nodded. "The Royal En is an unusually enlightened monarch. He is said to have reigned for five hundred years. The Royal Kou has been around for at most fifty years. He's hardly in the same league."
Youko blinked. "Five hundred years?"
"Exceeded only by the Royal Sou of the Kingdom of Sou. It's said that the longer a king rules, the more enlightened his governance becomes. Sou is also a wealthy country."
"A single king reigns for five hundred years?"
"Of course. Kings are gods, not ordinary human beings. The degree to which Heaven allows a king to govern is commensurate with the caliber of the king. So, the better a king rules, the longer he will reign."