The Twelve Kingdoms: Dreaming of Paradise

by Fuyumi Ono

  We visited your mom. She's doing well. We dropped in clear out of the blue, but she gave us a warm welcome anyway. Her steamed bread is as delicious as ever. She didn't seem to have any idea what had happened to me since, so I guess you haven't told her. Getting letters delivered from Kankyuu must be well-nigh impossible. I sensed it was the first time in a long time that somebody she knew had visited her.

  So me being Empress never came up. We talked about when I traveled to En with you and what you were up to there. Your mom's hasn't changed a bit. There aren't any natural disasters where she lives, or any youma showing up. They had a better wheat crop this year than last, so her wages went up. While she's aware that Kourin died, she just smiled and said she wasn't sure what it had to do with a little old lady like her.

  Of course, she's worried more about you—if you're eating well, if you're living okay, how college is going. In any case, it's nice to hang out with somebody who isn't bowing to you all the time. I really like her. Did I mentioned how good her bread was?

  We took a quick look around Shin County, and visited the village where I was first swept ashore—from afar, that is. I have to say, it a kind of took me back, and that surprised me. It was a strange feeling, and not necessarily a bad feeling. It brought back memories, all that self-loathing I used to have. But I'm glad I went. I can live with what I've made of myself, and that's encouraging.

  After our tour of Kou and traveling back to Kei, I told myself I really had to get down to business. It's harvest time and still so many farms are a total mess. I have to do something about that.

  It's easy to tell people to keep a positive attitude and put their shoulder to the wheel. I have a ton of things to learn before I earn the right to go around saying things like that. To be honest, there are times when I'm completely out to sea. I guess this long lifespan of mine will be useful for something. Otherwise, about the time I figured out how to run this place, I'd be an old granny with one foot in the grave.

  It'd be nice if there was some sort of news service for the kingdoms so we could get reports on how things are going. The best thing I can do is the Imperial let's-all-get-along ceremony I conducted the other day. It's supposed to keep the youma from getting out of hand, but I'm not sure I see the connection.

  What I could see on the trip to and from Kou wasn't enough to get a good grasp of the situation. And inside the Imperial Palace, I don't hear anything about how the real people are doing. I like to be able to take a relaxed stroll through a normal town. Being empress doesn't give you a whole lot of freedom. Though I probably feel that way because the only other ruler I know is the Royal En. I have to wonder how the other kings and empresses keep tabs on their subjects. If we can't walk around like normal people, then we ought to at least devise some sort of reporting system so we can stay up to date about what's going on.

  Well, back to the grindstone. I still can't remember the names of the government departments and their portfolios and the names and faces of the important ministers and secretaries to my own satisfaction. Hearing myself say that, I have to wonder if I'm up for the job. Keiki tells me that these things are inevitable, that there's no need to rush. Now and then even he shows me a little sympathy, gives me a little encouragement. Only now and then.

  Oh, yeah. We're finally getting around to formally conducting the coronation ceremony. It's set for next month. Remembering all the rules and protocols is a real pain. I hope you'll be able to come. I know you have your studies, so I don't want to inconvenience you. Keiki has made arrangements in any case. If you think it's just going to be a waste of time, don't feel bad about blowing the whole thing off. I won't take it personally.

  Um, with the coronation, there will be an official change of era. The era name was left up to me. I've been thinking about using a character from your name. If I hadn't met you, I would have died in those mountains. Granted, it's a pretty personal name, but I consider you a real prince of Kei, so I was hoping it'd be okay. It's fine with Keiki. We agreed that the era name should be "Sekiraku."

  "Ah," Youko said, as if imagining the expression on his face. "All I'm doing is taking about myself. What are you up to, Rakushun?"

  In fact, I was just in a conference with Rokuta-kun discussing what to do about the Kei refugees still in En. Rokuta says that you ranked number one on your entrance exams. Or maybe you haven't gotten the results yourself yet? Either way, congratulations. I'm really happy for you. Now, don't get all full of yourself.

  So what are universities in En like? I bet you're learning tons of amazing stuff. Rokuta was making noises about recruiting you for the civil service there. If En starts making you offers, we'd like to too. But I guess you'd probably like to go back to Kou. Whatever happens, let's keep our chins up.

  Next time, I'll try to come up with some more noteworthy news. Patching a kingdom back together is a whole lot harder than you'd imagine.

  What's that? Oh, Keiki just told me he says hello. He's no doubt got a pile of work for me to do. Man, sometimes I feel like throwing in the towel on all these weird words. We should come up with some real words that normal people can understand.

  And I'm having Keiki carry my notebooks. He walks around all day, a notebook hanging from a strap around his neck, taking notes for me. I think he looks so charming when he does that. Oops, now he's giving me the evil eye. Time to hit the books.

  See you.

  Chapter 3

  The bird abruptly stopped speaking, tilted its head to the side and looked at Rakushun.

  Rakushun said himself, "You seem to be doing well, Youko."

  The blue bird curiously cocked its head in the opposite direction.

  "You're getting the hang of being an Empress."

  The bird warbled as if in reply. Rakushun laughed and got a jar from off the bookcase. He took out a grain of silver and gave it to the bird.

  The bird only ate silver. Rakushun didn't know its name. The birds were used to pass messages back and forth among the aristocracy. They usually didn't go anywhere near anybody of Rakushun's class. A blue twill-like pattern ran through its wings. The long, dark-blue tail feathers were spotted with white. The beak and legs were red.

  The bird pecked at the grain of silver with its red beak, and sang again.

  A knock came at the door. Startled, the bird flew off the desk and out the window.

  Before Rakushun could respond, the door opened. These rooms carved into the flank of Kankyuu Mountain were college dorms. The university offices were located there as well. Most of the student body shared quarters with the teachers and staff.

  Meiken—another student at the university—poked his head in the door. "Hey Bun Chou, you got a delivery." He came into the room carrying a book.

  "I told you, this 'Captain' business—"

  "Don't sweat it," said Meiken, placing the book on the desk. "Pillow Spider asked me to take this to the Captain."

  The gray rat's whisker's drooped a bit and he sighed. Observing his expression, Meiken grinned. "Captain of Composition," Rakushun's nickname meant. A professor had used those words to praise him because of an essay he'd written. The word got around campus, and before long the name stuck.

  "Just take it in the spirit of respect intended. Though I wouldn't deny a touch of teasing or prejudice can be found there sometimes."

  "I can't say that I took any offense."

  "So what's the problem? It's a lot better than 'Pillow Spider.'" Meiken laughed.

  Pillow Spider's azana was Shintatsu. But not even the professors called him that. He was so zealous a student that he purportedly never stopped to sleep or eat. One day a friend visiting his room saw that a spider had woven a web attached to his pillow. That anecdote became the basis for his new nickname. That was generally the way names circulated across campus.

  Meiken's name ("crowing intelligently") was not written the same way it was pronounced. He was admitted to college at the age of nineteen, a remarkable feat. The name had accompanied him ever since. Something to
do with him being a clever kid with a big head. Meiken probably didn't really know himself.

  "So, when does he want this back?"

  "Oh, he said you could keep it." Meikaku retrieved a stood from the corner of the room and sat down.

  Rakushun shot him a surprised look. "I just asked to borrow it."

  "Yeah, well, Spidey says he doesn't need it anymore."

  "Doesn't need it?"

  "He's throwing in the towel. Couldn't collect enough signatures to graduate." Meiken added under his breath, "After eight years."

  Students didn't graduate after a fixed number of years, but only after the professors in their chosen field of study literally signed off on their graduation. Until a student had filled his card, he couldn't graduate. It was not uncommon for students to exhaust their financial aid before that happened.

  "Spidey's got a wife and a kid."

  "That's right."

  Rakushun gave the textbook Spidey had given him a troubled look. Only three hundred students or so from across the kingdom won the privilege of attending the Imperial University. Many students retook the entrance exams over and over well into their thirties and forties. A fair number of them had a family by the time they were admitted, and relied on their spouses to make ends meet. Spidey undoubtedly already heard middle age calling to him.

  As there was no set age for matriculation or graduation, students could be anywhere from their twenties to their forties.

  Meiken was twenty-six. He'd matriculated at an unusually young age. But despite his moniker, his progress ground surprisingly to a halt after three years. He stopped attending lectures. In a display of his outstanding talent (or so it was said), he'd collected six signatures his first year alone. But his second came and went, and then his third, and the numbers dwindled. He'd only added one the year before last, and then none at all the year after that. Go three years without passing a course and he'd be expelled.

  Like Spidey, many students quit before that third year rolled around. To the outside world, it looked better on one's resume. A student could always claim he'd run short of funds and he had to think about his family, that he couldn't keep putting his wife and kids through such travails. With his transcripts to date, he could find work and even return to school in the future.

  "Then I guess it's time to take things seriously," Rakushun said.

  Meiken frowned and turned his gaze out the window. "Yeah, I guess."

  Meiken's first thought as well had been to go full bore and make something happen. But the demands of academia were such that he couldn't naively believe that abandoning the simple pleasures of sleeping and eating and recklessly diving into his studies would accomplish the goal.

  It must seem a logical course of action. After all, a student graduating from the Imperial University was guaranteed a job in an Imperial ministry. But in another year, he thought, this rat will discover just how steep that climb would become.

  He turned the stool around and said to Rakushun, "Hey, is it true you never attended secondary school?"

  "It is. Hanjuu aren't allowed past elementary school in Kou."

  "Yeah, I've heard that Kou is pretty tough on hanjuu like that."

  In En, no such restrictions were placed on hanjuu. Any hanjuu like Rakushun could take the entrance exams, and if he passed, could go on to serve in a government position. This was not true in many kingdoms.

  "And in Kou, hanjuu don't have a koseki either?"

  "Well, hanjuu do have a koseki, but all that's recorded is your hanjuu status. And when you turn twenty, you don't legally become an adult."

  "Then even though you've got a koseki, you don't receive an allotment?"

  Rakushun shook his head. "Or a stipend. And you can't legally work."

  "You can't work? You gotta be kidding."

  "I'm not kidding," Rakushun answered with a shrug and a smile.

  Meiken's surprised was not feigned. In En, even refugees and displaced persons without a koseki record could find employment. It tended to be at the lowest wages, often not much better than that of indentured servants, but they weren't barred from working.

  "Anybody hiring a hanjuu would be taxed an amount equivalent to the wages paid. So nobody in his right mind would hire a hanjuu."

  "How do hanjuu in Kou get by then?"

  "They pretty much have to depend on their parents."

  "And when their parents die?"

  "They are sent to orphanages, though as servants."

  "Unbelievable. I never imagined there were kingdoms that did stuff like that."

  Meiken recalled rumors he'd heard about how chancy a place Kou had become, and that the Kou kirin had died. Well, there was no way such a regime could have survived for long.

  "But you at least attended a district academy?"

  "Normally it's not allowed, but I was given permission to sit in corner of the room and audit classes."

  "And after that? Did you attend juku?"

  "We couldn't afford something like that. Unlike En, Kou doesn't provide any financial aid for education."

  "Not even to a prefectural college?"

  "Nope," said the rat.

  "So how does anybody learn anything?"

  Meiken was truly startled by this information. A student normally advanced to university after graduating from a prefectural college. A letter of recommendation from the headmaster or some other well-regarded dignitary was required. Getting into a prefectural college similarly required a recommendation from a district academy, which meant getting outstanding grades and really standing out in the crowd. From the time a student started attending the district academy, attending a juku was a necessity. Either that or, as in Meiken case, hiring a private tutor.

  "I did take on a teacher for about a month before the exams."

  "There's no way that would cut it."

  The place to prepare for university was not at a public school. Having the skills to a district academy the goal did not equate to having what it took to get into a provincial college. It was up to the student himself to make up the difference through his own effort. In En, at least, the student who set himself apart could get his juku fees covered, and there were publically-funded prep schools as well. Unless he could avail himself of these options, a student who didn't have wealthy parents couldn't attend juku.

  "There are books, you see."

  "Books—"

  Books were expensive. A student who couldn't afford to attend a juku was unlikely to be able to afford books.

  "My father left a lot of books to me. And no matter how trying things got, my mom made every effort never to part with one. So when I get my hands on a book, I read it over and over, make notes, and cram its contents into my head. That way, even if I had to sell it, it wouldn't matter."

  Rakushun grinned. "Yeah, my father was like a teacher. He died when I was a little kid, but left a lot of manuscripts behind."

  He indicated the top of his desk. Meiken got to his feet and took a closer look at the pile of worn books. Their rough appearance gave him the impression of a number of documents being compiled and amateurishly bound together. However, the handwriting was exquisite. The text was about diplomatic protocols. It seemed a random collection of thoughts. Still, not only the characters, but the sentences as well were expertly crafted.

  "I see. You've been using this as a model. That's why your writing is so good."

  "Not compared to my dad," Rakushun said with a smile. "This has been a real resource for me. My father's writings are the one thing I would never part with."

  There were five volumes on the bookshelf next to him with the same paper and cover as the one on his desk. Since each book was large enough to enclose seven or eight volumes, the books represented a library of forty or so volumes.

  Meiken quickly corrected himself. Together with the book on the desk, it was more like fifty. A quick perusal told him that the text was written at a fairly advanced level. "This is really something. Was your father a professor or something?"


  "No. Though apparently when he was young, he worked for the county government in one capacity or another."

  "Huh."

  "I had these, and some books, and nothing else to do except study. At best, I could work my allotment and grow rice. But there'd be no house or land in the offing. Anyway, my mom sold everything to pay for my education."

  "No kidding." Meiken said to the smiling, rather nonchalant rat, "Must be tough being a hanjuu."

  "It can be just as tough not being one," Rakushun answered lightly.

  "Yeah, I suppose," Meiken laughed as well, though his internal reaction was far more mixed. In private, the good humor in calling him "Captain" was often less than good. For a hanjuu— said the cold smiles accompanying it.

  The reason Rakushun had to borrow the book in the first place was because the library was loath to lend him the texts required for classes. He alone had to sign an affidavit to the effect that he would return book borrowed from the library on time and undamaged. Some students said it was because they were afraid he would nibble on them. Or that they were afraid he'd sell them.

  Meiken himself couldn't say. As for the former, it was stupid bigotry based on outward appearances. As for the latter, it was the kind of prejudice attached to anybody dumped in the same basket as refugees from other kingdoms.

  It was good of Pillow Spider to give Rakushun the book. At the same time, though, Meiken couldn't avoid noticing that the only people who ever seemed to hang around with Rakushun were dropouts like himself and Spidey. Those steadily filling their cards wouldn't invite Rakushun into their cliques. Professors weren't necessarily an exception either. One in particular had made it clear that Rakushun was welcome in his class only in human form.

  Except that this hanjuu student was a genius. Especially when it came to the law, the rumor around campus was that he amazed even his professors.