Shouyou first saw the hard expression on Gekkei's face, and then the bewildered look on the face of visitor from the Kingdom of Kei, who was dressed in ministerial robes. He sensed the awkwardness in the air. But Gekkei's brisk exit afforded him no opportunity to call him back.
"I am the Chousai of the Kingdom of Hou. I thank you for taking the trouble to travel such a great distance to visit us."
He bowed, though he could tell that the attention of his opposite was still focused on the door Gekkei had just exited. The man's entourage as well buzzed with audible confusion.
"What—what was that?"
"I am truly sorry," Shouyou said with a nod of his head. "I fear I bear no small responsible for the mood of the Marquis at the moment."
The man knelt and bowed. "I am pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Sei Shin, commander of the Kei Palace Guard.
"And I am pleased to welcome you here. You must be very taken aback by what has transpired so far."
"Not at all," Sei said with a smile. "I am sure the fault is my own. I must apologize to the Chousai as well. The fact of the matter is, Her Highness entrusted me with a letter that was to be delivered to the Marquis of Kei. Yet I gathered from the Marquis that the Chousai governs the Imperial Court. In that case, I suppose the letter should be delivered to you. Except that this correspondence touches upon a matter that concerns the Marquis personally. I am left in something of a quandary as to what to do next."
p. 88
Shouyou sighed and shook his head. "Please make yourself comfortable and get what rest you need. Your aides-de-camp as well."
He called for the undersecretary and instructed him to provide quarters for the general's attendants and to see to it that they were taken care of. Then he led the general deeper into the annex, to a courtyard shadowed by a fresh growth of verdant green.
"You've arrived at the best time of the year in Hou. Please, have a seat. I'll have some refreshments brought."
"That would be fine."
The general followed him into the courtyard. The stone table there was situated to catch a refreshing breeze.
"It seems that I owe you an apology, General."
"Not at all. The error appears to be ours."
"It would be entirely logical of you to seek an audience with the Marquis. I'm sure you find this quite awkward. You having not so long ago installed a duly-appointed Empress in your Imperial Palace, and we—with the Marquis as our leader—having struck down our own king."
"I've been informed of the Royal Hou's mercilessly tyrannical actions toward his subjects."
p. 89
Shouyou nodded. "I know it is an ugly truth to put forth, but during the reign of His Highness, six hundred thousand people were executed, often for the most trivial of sins."
"Six hundred thousand—"
It would be said in years hence that the land was covered with corpses. The arithmetic averaged out to at least one from every household in the kingdom.
"His Highness loathed sin. There could be no forgiveness, no matter how slight the offense. Pick a man's pocket or leave the fields at harvest to attend the fair—the death penalty attended both equally. That's the kind of place Hou was."
Sei did not challenge this information. He appeared to be well-informed on the subject.
"At last, the Marquis of Kei called together the other Province Lords and mounted an insurrection. We murdered our King. The Marquis led the alliance. So it would be natural for you to assume that having deprived the King of his life and the throne, the Marquis would then occupy it. And we assumed the same."
Four years before, the other eight Province Lords answered Gekkei's call, as had Shouyou and the ministers. Chuutatsu was treading a path to extinction. They must arise and revolt. Chuutatsu and Queen Kaka were assassinated. Hourin was killed. The curtain of Chuutatsu's reign was rung down.
The disease was eliminated. But Chuutatsu had been the rightful ruler. When a king died, the kingdom soon followed him into the grave. Between Chuutatsu's ruinous reign and the fires of insurrection ignited by Shouyou and the rest of them, the Imperial Court was left in tatters. They had to somehow patch things together without worsening the era of the empty throne.
p. 90
That had been the goal of the conspirators from the beginning. They had killed the king, sending the kingdom further along its downward path. So it was their duty to set things aright.
Nevertheless, once Gekkei, the leader of the revolution, had tied together the minimum number of loose ends, he passed the reins of government on to the Imperial bureaucracy (now half its original number), and retired to Kei Province.
"The Marquis hadn't the slightest desire to inherit the Kingdom. His goal all along was to stop the slaughter, not to become the substitute king or rule the Kingdom."
"And yet the news that reached our ears was that the Marquis of Kei was guiding the Imperial Court of Hou."
"That was how things evolved. The Marquis believes that, in the abstract, it is an offense against nature that we traitors should rule at all. The real world, however, begs to differ. Without the guidance of the Marquis, everything would unravel. Because he is the leader of our alliance. Having accepted that role, without his direction, the Court would cease to function."
Being abandoned by Gekkei amidst the chaos following the king's assassination had sent them reeling. They couldn't just come up with another leader. He had called up the ministers and Province Lords, and once the insurrection was accomplished, had organized their allies and directed what they should do. To lose such a critical element threw everything into confusion. Somebody had to step into the role, but nobody stepped forward to shoulder the responsibility.
p. 91
The opinions and expectations and complications multiplied. Nobody could get anything done at all. Shouyou finally penned a desperate petition calling for Gekkei's return, the one thing the Imperial Court could agree upon. In response to these frantic cries, Gekkei at last returned to the Imperial Palace. In the four years since then, the Kingdom of Hou had moved forward under his direction.
"However, the Marquis has sought no position for himself within the government. He refuses our nominations. He says that the job of running the government belongs to the ministers, and he will only help out where he can. In fact, the Marquis is the Province Lord of Kei and normally resides at his palace there. Only at certain critical junctures, and when we request his presence, does he come to Youshun Palace. It works out to him spending about half his time here. And yet—"
Youshou didn't finish the rest of the sentence. This traveler from Kei had no connection to Hou and certainly no connection to himself. Youshou knew better than to let his emotions get the better of him in such a situation. He simply shut his mouth to keep things under control.
"And yet?" Sei pressed gently. "Would it be rude of me to ask for more details? I came here bearing correspondence from the Empress. I cannot leave until I have delivered it."
p. 92
Shouyou grasped his knees. "The Marquis is returning to Kei Province. His intention is to leave here for good."
"Which has the rest of you at loose ends."
"To say the least. No one else is qualified to govern Hou. And yet the Marquis orders me to make it so."
Four years had passed. The chaos was under control. The right people had been placed in the right positions. The Imperial Court was functioning as it should. Steps were being taken to provide help for the people. Goals were being accomplished. And if to end these accomplishments with an emphatic bit of punctuation, Gekkei broached the subject of a Chousai for the first time.
Youshou and the other enthusiastically agreed. Up till now, Gekkei had acted as the Chousai in all but name. Filling the position in name as well as reality—a leader to lead this leaderless regime—would be far more appropriate. Or so all the ministers believed. Instead, Gekkei nominated Shouyou.
"The Marquis ordered me to become Chousai. Why should it be anyone but him? No one agreed with that decision. But we suppressed our outrage and did what he wanted. We had assumed—wrongly—that the Marquis was at last prepared to sit upon the throne."
Up till then, Shouyou and his colleagues had repeatedly entreated Gekkei to fill the empty throne. The Royal Kyou of the neighboring Kingdom of Kyou had recommended the same. But Gekkei soundly rejected the proposition. Now it seemed that he had at last changed his mind.
p. 93
"If the Chousai was supposed to run the kingdom, then the Marquis ought to be doing so instead. But if he was to recommend someone like myself to be the Chousai, then I believed he must take the higher position for himself. He never explicitly denied that he might do so. Yet today, out of the blue, he stated he was leaving the capital and returning to Kei Province!"
Gekkei should have understood the extent to which the other ministers had misunderstood his recommendation. But he never once sought to correct those mistaken assumptions. When he thought about it now, Gekkei must have known this all along. Had the ministers grasped what was going on, they never would have agreed to appoint Shouyou Chousai.
He had not only failed to correct these mistaken beliefs, but from the start he had done his best—by omission—to foster them.
"He says that he is a Province Lord, not an Imperial minister, and his job is to govern his province, not the kingdom. While it may have been necessary to trespass upon that authority in order to calm the chaos, it would be impermissible for him, as a Province Lord, to trespass upon that authority in order to rule the kingdom. He's still sticking to that same old argument!"
p. 94
Tears of rage and disappointment fell on the hands grasping his knees. Shouyou knew that he could not fill Gekkei's shoes. Gekkei had slain Chuutatsu and stopped the slaughter. The faith of the ministers and the people in him was absolute. To retreat to his province, even after appointing Shouyou Chousai—both the people and the government officials needed someone to bind them together. All the more so there being no king to keep the kingdom from sliding into oblivion.
Shouyou couldn't deny the expectation that this was something only Gekkei could do, that they needed him to do. The same year they had struck down Chuutatsu, he had executed at least three-hundred thousands of his subjects, perversely spurred on by the shitsudou afflicting Hourin. Even then, Shouyou and his colleagues had hemmed and hawed. They pitied the people, they lamented the state of the Kingdom, but couldn't muster the courage to mention the word "regicide."
Gekkei was the only one who voiced the possibility, who took action. They saw nothing wrong in placing their faith and expectations in him. They believed that he would continue to lead them as he had during the insurrection. As far as the people were concerned, no matter what became of the Kingdom after this, they were sure that it was Gekkei who had saved them.
Nevertheless, Gekkei seemed determined to turn all that faith and all those expectations into futility.
Shouyou couldn't understand why he'd wallowed in such pain and misery up to now. Looking back on it now, when Gekkei returned to his palace in Kei Province following the uprising, his intentions had been clear. When he'd returned to the Imperial Palace in response to their entreaties, he'd declared he had no inclination of taking on any official Imperial position, and was there only to offer advice. He had not given up the title of Province Lord, nor shown the slightest interest in searching out a replacement.
p. 95
In retrospect, there was no denying that Gekkei was a Province Lord through and through. Despite making his resolution on that matter clear, Shouyou and his colleagues had shut their eyes and covered their ears. Their failure to comprehend the true nature of the situation was their own.
He could grasp all this with his head. But not in his heart. He felt betrayed, tossed aside like a spurned lover. No matter how irrational his bitterness and anger, he could not be the only one who felt that way. In fact, when Gekkei had uttered those remarks at the Privy Council, the entire hall had all but frozen over. After the undersecretary came to fetch Gekkei away, the place had erupted into wails of grief and outbursts of verbal abuse.
Gekkei had probably returned to the Gaiden. The remaining ministers would no doubt try to call him back. And none of their words would touch his heart—
With a start, Shouyou lifted his head. Flustered, his turned and found the Kei general gazing calmly at the courtyard. "I beg your pardon," Shouyou hastily apologized. "I drifted off there for a bit."
Sei looked at him and smiled. "What was that?"
"Nothing," Shouyou responded in a choked voice.
p. 96
Sei nodded. "In any case, I seemed to have barged in at a quite inopportune time. I'm sorry for raising such a ruckus."
"Oh, no, nothing of the sort. I've been the one—"
"Then I guess the Chousai is the person to whom I should deliver this letter. Her Highness assumed that Hou was being governed by the Marquis, so its contents may not be entirely to your liking. But I would appreciate it if you would accept this on behalf of the Marquis."
Sei held out the letter. Shouyou was fit to be tied. "But—"
"Please feel free to pass it on to the Marquis. I'm sure Her Highness would not object."
Shouyou hesitated, but finally took the letter.
"I do not wish to impose on you further," Sei continued, "but I have another letter for the Chousai. Again, you might find its contents disagreeable, but I hope you would accept it."
"Not to be rude, but the substance of this letter?"
p. 97
"It is from a lady of the Kei Imperial Court. It was intended for the Marquis as well. It would seem logical at the juncture to leave it in your hands. I know how presumptuous this may sound, but Her Highness wished both her letter and that of the court lady to be treated with equal gravity."
Shouyou gaped at him. Never before had a minister of Hou ever received a communiqué from the Royal Kei, not to mention a letter from any lady of the Kei Imperial Court.
"General Sei, I—"
Sei calmly interrupted him. "The name of this court lady is Son Shou."
For a long moment, Shouyou couldn't place the name. He was about to ask who Son Shou was when it suddenly came to him: Chuutatsu's daughter, the Princess Royal Shoukei, who had been banished from the Imperial Palace. Shouyou felt his knees go weak from the shock.
"Shoukei-sama—she is living in Kei?"
"Yes." The general answered with a knowing smile that communicated his comprehension of the circumstances surrounding Shoukei. "I know I have placed all these burdens on your shoulders, but I would appreciate it if you could see that they are properly carried out."
p. 98
Sei rose from his chair and bowed. Shouyou gripped the letters in both hands. "General Sei, will you be returning to Kei at once?"
"I have carried out my orders. Having visited Youshun Palace in this informal capacity and delivered those letters, my mission has been completed. I've instructed the officers traveling with me to avail to take the opportunity to inform themselves about the condition of the kingdom, after which we will sojourn in the city below."
"If you are not in too much of a hurry, I would ask that you delay your departure for a while. I really must insist that you meet with the Marquis."
"But—"
"It was the Marquis who had the most concern for Shoukei's welfare. I'll go get him. Please."
The general agreed and Shouyou frantically called for the undersecretary.