by Fuyumi Ono
The wrecked buildings were everywhere, only the skeletons of their structures remaining behind. The jumble of motley shops lined the road, from the cramped buildings spilled a tide of smashed jars and jugs and furniture and household implements. Countless small huts, shutting out the wind with scrapped wood and old rags, perched along the outer loop road encompassing the city. Ragged, weary people crowded sullenly around the bonfires.
Kei was a country in turmoil. Here the precedent of a long-lived king did not exist. The most bitter difference between En and Kei was the long rule of a single monarch.
Large numbers of people flowed into the Kei side of the city, and the greatest portion of them were refugees.
"I thought it would have improved a bit more," muttered a despondent man, who seemed to speak for the crowds of people flowing down the street. "Yeah, I shouldn't have come back."
Shoukei heard the sighs from people in the group.
"Is it all this rotten, I wonder? It sure doesn't look good."
"I left the country after the empress died. I had no idea it had gotten this bad."
"Yeah, it's hard," Shoukei thought to herself as she walked along. It's going to be hard fixing up this kingdom.
The refugees were a headache to En, but so they were to Kei. People who had been to En couldn't help comparing it to Kei. In fact, compared to her home kingdom of Hou, the condition of Kei wasn't so bad to make her despair. Yet the differences between En and Kei were as obvious as the nose on your face. Side by side with the prosperity and liveliness of En, the Kei side of the city looked a wreck.
The group of people continued on down the street together and entered a cheap inn. She finally found a three-story building with vacancies. Big rooms, but you had to share accommodations.
The refugees staying at the inn expressed a variety of sentiments: from those happy they were able to return to their home country, earnestly optimistic about the future, to those nursing the broken dream of moving back to a blessed, wealthy kingdom and living the easy life.
"You hear that about the empress?"
Shoukei overheard several people talking together in a corner of the guest quarters.
"An empress? Again?"
"If I'd known that, I would have stayed in En."
"Empresses are no good. They don't have what it takes. It's all going to hell in a handbasket soon enough."
"The minute it starts heading down that road, we're hightailing it to En."
"I'm telling you, the next time we leave, we're never coming back."
Yeah, it really was a mess. Shoukei sighed. For some reason, the Royal Kei didn't seem like a stranger to her. When she thought about what it must be like to be the Empress, she had to sigh in sympathy.
And right now she's probably in the palace thinking the same thing.
"I wonder if we just should head back now."
"Never happen. There's nothing left for us in En. No matter how you slice it, we weren't born in En."
"Yeah, but we can't go back to where we was born, neither."
"Hopefully something's left of our hometown."
"Forget it." One of the men leaned forward. "You know anything about ships leaving from Goto?"
"What's that?"
"Warships headed to Tai. One of the governors in Wa Province been dispatching them, or so's I hear. Seems they're picking up refugees in Tai and bringing them here."
"News to me. You gotta be crazy, heading off to Tai, now? Put a cork in it."
"Not, I'm not talking about that. Let's see, where was it… yeah, Shisui. The governor of Shisui, he sends out these boats 'cause of how sorry he feels for the refugees and all. If you get on board and make it to Shisui, he'll give you a plot of land and register you on the census."
"Shisui, Wa Province… that's right on the border of Ei Province."
"Hey, if they can take care of refugees like that, Shisui's got to be doing great, right? If we ask, they got to welcome us in, right?"
"Nonsense." A woman waved her hand dismissively. "It's all sweet talk. People pulling the wool over your eyes."
"It ain't. I heard the same from other people as well. Right?"
There was a lull in the conversation.
"They got you believing in tall tales, all right. That's all they are."
"That can't be true. C'mon, no one's heard of it before? Really?"
In response to his query, Shoukei raised her voice. "I have."
The tight little group suddenly opened up, its attention falling on her. The one man approached her. "It's true, isn't it? I knew it!"
"Well, um, I heard about it in Ryuu. I heard about it from a sailor who worked on ships that sailed from Ryuu to Tai. He said there were ships like that."
A flurry of conversation followed, all of them arguing at the same time about how well off Shisui must be, and how their hometown might not even exist anymore.
"So why don't we just go see for ourselves?"
"My village got destroyed when the river flooded its banks."
"I'd still rather go back to where I was born."
They ended up split down the middle, between those who wanted to start for Shisui right away, and those who thought it all a pack of lies and argued that nothing good would come of it.
"Where'd you come from?" one of them asked Shoukei.
She tilted her head to one side. "I'm from Hou. You know, I'd like to get a homestead of my own, but I'm not old enough." She could always fib about her age, but she wasn't sure about how to carry it off. "But if Shisui really is that wealthy, I don't see any harm in finding out for myself." She nodded to herself as she spoke. "I figure I've got to get a job somewhere, and it might as well be Shisui as anywhere else."
The next day, Shoukei started her journey to Shisui. She'd gotten used to traveling by wagon in Ryuu so that was how she'd decided to proceed. Unlike Ryuu and En, there were many people walking along the roads. In fact, it wouldn't be too cold to walk. The work of walking alone would keep you warm enough, aside from the tips of your feet and hands, to be tolerable.
The road headed south toward Meikaku, the capital city of Wa Province. The highway to Gyouten ran east to west through Meikaku and Shisui.
The devastation of the countryside was severe. Many of the buildings in the villages en route were destroyed. The wrecked fields lay fallow, the ashen forests blighted and burned. With so little snow, nothing was hidden from view. Now and then, in the countryside surrounding a hamlet where people lived, you could see the rows of earthen mounds. So many people had died.
It made her shudder. The ravaged mountains and streams, the loss of life. This was because of the king, because no king sat upon the throne.
"Miss, where you from?" an old man sitting next to her in the wagon asked.
Shoukei tore her eyes away from the view out of the back of the wagon. Many wagons in Kei traveled with the back uncovered.
"Hou," she said.
"Is it true, the stories about the king of Hou dying?"
"Yes."
"Huh." The old man hugged the onjaku to his chest. "So Hou's gonna go through this as well."
Shoukei's eyes widened in response to this matter-of-fact statement. It was true. Many people would die. Victims would begrudge their assailants, the same way she hated the Marquis Gekkei.
And so he should be hated, for bringing such destruction upon the kingdom. She said, "Kei is better off now, with a new empress on the throne."
The old man chuckled. "I suppose you could say it's getting better. But that's what we all thought the last time."
He didn't have anything more to say after that.
12-4
Wa Province was east of Ei Province, stretching from the eastern border of Ei to the Kyokai. Along with Keiki, Youko was traveling to Meikaku, situated in the eastern quarter of the province. A large highway reached straight across Kei from the Kyokai to the Blue Sea. A second major route ran southward from the Koushuu Mountains. The roads intersected at Meikaku.
> "Meikaku is an important overland stop," Keiki said.
Using the shirei, the journey took two days. They landed not far from Meikaku and walked the rest of the way.
"This road is the lifeline to the northern quarter of the kingdom. The terminal city of Goto is the only real port that Kei has on the Kyokai. Salt and rice shipped from the south, medicines from Shun, wool and barley from the north, all of these must be purchased with the surplus from agricultural harvest and supplied to the northern quarter to keep the people alive."
"The northern quarter is that poor?"
Keiki nodded. "It is a mountainous region with little arable land. It is dry during the summer, with a long rainy season starting in the fall. The harvest all depends on the weather, but there is no other industry they can turn to."
"Huh."
"Especially now, with shipping traversing the Blue Sea from the south largely at a standstill, Goto has become even more critical. On top of that, there is but one port of entry between En and Kei along the Koushuu Mountains, hence the importance of Gantou to the overland routes and Goto to the sea routes. Cargo coming into Kei from either must necessarily use these roads and pass through Meikaku."
"Could Wa Province be wealthy, despite being in the northern quarter?"
Keiki smiled sardonically. "It is said that highwaymen prowl the roads of Wa. In order to protect cargo shipments, Wa dispatches the provincial guard to build forts and protect the caravans. Because it is paid for with excise taxes, the cost of goods rises accordingly."
"Makes sense."
The unfortunate truth was that there was no way to avoid Wa Province when shipping anything from Gantou or Goto.
"Gahou certainly knows his business."
Keiki scowled. "I think not. There are big cities bordering Meikaku to the north and east that warehouse cargo and house travelers. They're called Hokkaku and Toukaku, and while part of Meikaku they are much bigger than Meikaku. Farmland was procured and leveled, tall walls constructed, and these cities were built from nothing just to house merchandise and people. The people who use those cities shoulder the entire burden. The people of Wa do the work. They're worked like slaves."
Youko said in exasperation, "Why should a man like Gahou be made a Marquis of as important a province as Wa?"
Keiki lowered his gaze. It was the Late Empress Yo-o who had given Wa Province to Gahou. Gahou presented her with a garden on the outskirts of Gyouten. It was a garden the size of a hamlet. Passing through the gates, you were presented with a scene of rustic beauty. A row of six homes, an old man who served as gamekeeper to the deer, a child to feed the pheasants.
Gahou gave Yo-o this beautiful little hamlet, in which the empress could live out her dream of a quiet, uneventful existence. She visited it often, and in thanks gave Gahou whatever he wished. That was how Wa Province came into his possession.
The empress surely was happiest when chatting with the villagers, trimming the grass in the gardens that surrounded the hamlet, teaching the children embroidery in a house built for that purpose. Would things have turned out differently, Keiki wondered, if she hadn't been able to indulge herself so. Every time he pled with her to return to the palace and she wept and refused and carried on, her eventual fate drew inexorably closer.
He should not have put her on the throne. It was not right for her, but the divine oracles had directed him to her. No one else was possible.
"Keiki?"
A soft voice called out to him. Keiki quickly collected himself. His new lord peered up at him, her head tilted quizzically. "What's up?"
"Oh, nothing," Keiki said, shaking his head. He raised his head and looked across the countryside. A mountain stream ran alongside the highway. Ahead of them was the soaring Ryou-un Mountain. You could see the walls rising up at its base.
"That looks to be Meikaku."
Meikaku Mountain pierced the Sea of Clouds. The gently sloping hills gathered about the foot of the mountain. The city snaked along the valleys beneath the ridgelines formed by the hills.
"This is the capital?"
Youko stood at the gates of Meikaku and looked down the main boulevard, a broad avenue almost devoid of life. The imperial and provincial capitals had eleven gates. District and prefectural capitals had twelve. In the case of the imperial and provincial capitals, the central north gate or Rat Gate, was left out. In its place, just north of the city was the Ryou-un and the imperial and provincial government offices.
Youko and Keiki entered Meikaku through the western or Rooster Gate. The main boulevard ran straight east seven hundred paces from the Rooster Gate to the municipal offices in the middle of the city. The street was a good hundred paces wide. In every other city, small shops lined the street making it much narrower, and the street itself would be thronged with people and wagons. But there wasn't a single shop in sight.
There was no evidence of the refugees camped out in the surrounding countryside. There were none of the impoverished and homeless people they had seen in every town and city they had passed along the way during the three days, traveling by means of Keiki's shirei. The place was lifeless. Not a store, not a roadside stall. No crowds coursing along the thoroughfares.
A number of the travelers who entered the gate with her looked over the wide street with equal surprise. Youko glanced to the right and left as she passed through the gate. A sullen man approached, walking through the gate with accustomed steps. Youko called out to him, "Excuse me."
The man stopped and turned his blank gaze to her.
"Something going on today?"
The man was carrying a heavy basket on his back. He cast a disinterested look at the street and then back to her and said with sleepy eyes, "Naw. Nothing."
"Yes, but it's almost nightfall."
"Nothing out of the ordinary here. If you're looking for an inn, better go to Hokkaku or Toukaku. For Hokkaku, go to the Boar Gate. For Toukaku, go to the Hare Gate."
He spoke curtly, and in a low voice. He swayed a bit, as if adjusted the load on his back, and then turned on his heels and without another word walked away.
It was not uncommon for cities to have a second or third much larger city appended to them. She had seen quite a few of them in En. The entire metropolis was often given a single name, but the appended cities were known to keep their original names as well.
"What do you think?" Youko asked under her breath.
Standing next to her, tying a bandana around his head, Keiki tilted his head and said, "Well. It is a bit too quiet."
"Yeah. I could understand there being no people here, but no stores or shops either?"
Surveying the shoulders of the avenue outside the gate as well, there was not even a pushcart to be seen. A few people here and there, the sound of the wheels of the occasional horse cart echoing in the empty air.
"Something happen?" asked the people who had just come through the gate.
Youko smirked unconsciously. "Yeah, I had the same question."
The other party was a group of three men. They looked across the wide boulevard, the confusion evident on their faces. "Is this Meikaku?"
"Supposedly."
"I've never seen a capital city this empty. You two from here?"
Youko shook her head. The men gave the street another puzzled examination. "No shops. No people."
"Something bad went on here?"
"If there'd been a disaster, they'd be flying a white flag."
When disaster befell a city, white flags were flown from the ramparts. With this forlorn sight in front of their eyes, travelers would know something had happened. But that didn't seem to be the case here.
They watched the men start guardedly down the street. Next to her, Keiki said, "I smell death."
"Keiki?"
An unpleasant expression briefly clouded his pale complexion. "This city is a swamp of human malice."
Youko spun around. "We're leaving."
"Your Highness?" he replied.
Youko glanced back ov
er her shoulder. "There's a road through the countryside. The cities are to the north and east, right? There should be access from the outside. I'm not chancing going through the city and stressing you out."
Part XIII
13-1
"We don't have a name for ourselves," Koshou said, drawing water from the well. Next to him, Suzu rinsed out the buckets and jugs. "We number no more than a thousand. Most of us are in Shisui Prefecture."
"Oh."
"If you need something in the city, search out a person wearing this ring. Ask him where he's from. Guaranteed, he'll acknowledge you with an eshaku."
"An eshaku?"
"Like this." He had Suzu hold out her hands and clench her left hand--but not tightly--and then cover the left hand with the right. She then raised her hands together and bowed. This was how people of stature greeted each other. To properly perform the eshaku, though, you should be wearing long sleeves. The jacket Suzu was wearing only came to her wrists.
"It feels funny."
Koshou smiled. "All that really matters is that you confirm that the person you're looking for is wearing a ring without drawing attention to it. When you ask where he's from, if he answers, Shikin in San County, Baku Province, then he's your man. If he asks your name, you say you're Otsu Etsu of Rou Shou."
"What's that mean?" Suzu asked with a quizzical expression.
Koshou chuckled. "Shikin is an old place name. Hundreds of years before, during the reign of King Tatsu, a wizard named Rou Shou showed up in Shikin."
"Was Shikin the location of his grotto?"
"No. Rou Shou didn't have a grotto. He was a wizard who gained his powers through the exercise of his own will. So he can be called Rou Shou or Shou Rou. This class of wizard uses the prefix Rou, meaning elder or old man. He's also called Count Shou."
"Oh, so he's a Senpaku, a self-made wizard who's an earl or count."
Wizards who had risen to the rank of count, and who had attained that rank by means of their own effort, also served at the Five Sacred Mountains. They were the Senpaku.