by Fuyumi Ono
Now she is cutting close to the bone, Risai thought. "That's--"
"I only know that if and when word of the forthcoming troubles reaches the ears of the Taiho, it will wound him deeply. Isn't proceeding anyway and sending the Taiho off to a foreign kingdom nothing more than a strong-arm tactic? What if the Taiho knew that a purge would be underway while he was abroad? It's not just the existence of a purge that would cause him pain. Will not the fact that he could do nothing, that he could make no appeals for compassion or clemency, leave the deepest scars?"
Risai fell into silence. Thinking about this from Taiki's point of view, the feeling came to her that he would blame himself for failing to do anything. And at the same time, if he realized that he was being sent abroad to keep him from doing anything, that would hurt him all the more.
"While I do not deign to read the Taiho's mind, I can see how the decisions His Highness have made could appear as an abandonment of the Taiho. I can't help thinking that this is true of all His Highness is attempting to do."
"Lady Kaei."
Kaei smiled ruefully. "Well, it looks as if all I did was complain. That's the way I see things. His Highness will take only those of his retainers who trust him unquestioning and push through his reforms at top speed. The same way the feelings of the Taiho will be set aside, so will many other things as well. Or so it seems to me."
What other things will be set aside, Risai meant to ask, but she got the feeling Kaei was not up to answering that question.
Perhaps Kaei was perturbed only by the rapid pace of change going on. This wasn't to mean she could provide physical evidence to support her feelings. Her anxieties about Gyousou were really her sense of panic at riding the whitewater that he had created. Many people felt the same way. Nobody liked rapid change. No, far from it. There were plenty of people who embraced their fears instinctively. And people who quailed at Gyousou's resolve and lack of indecision. And people who opposed him merely for the sake of opposition.
Squeaky wheels in search of grease.
Opposition to His Highness under normal circumstances was related to dissatisfaction with the way one was being treated, misgivings about the competence of the government, or was born out of some disagreement with the king's personality.
Yet Kaei expressing concerns about the way she was being treated didn't mean she questioned Gyousou's competence. Her complaints sounded more to Risai like a disagreement with Gyousou's personality, but that was probably not the whole of it. The root of the problem lay in Kaei's irrational fear of rapid change.
A brilliant light shining in the darkness. This wasn't Gyousou's fault, and nobody was finding fault with him directly. If so, this would all be easy to understand. Easy to read. Such problems could be tended to in advance.
Risai didn't know where and in what form such sentiments were lurking. This opaqueness was what she found frightening, Risai thought, as she bid Kaei goodbye.
Chapter 14
Risai and Kaei grew closer after that. Risai wasn't as much of a newcomer as Kaei, and wasn't technically one of Gyousou's retainers. They were both women, but the one was a civil official and the other a military officer. Perhaps being as different as they were alike explained why they got on so well together.
Kaei wore a worried expression on her face as she always did. Taiki was headed to Ren and the winter hunt had begun in earnest, leaving her all the more depressed. She felt herself engulfed in uncertainty.
Government officials of all stripes were being hauled into the dock to answer for their sins. It was up to Kaei to decisively assess the charges and hand down the verdicts. Already the cry was being raised by the bureaucrats that her sentences were too light. Even when she hardened her heart they called her a softy from the shadows.
With one voice, those who knew nothing of these people or their circumstances assailed the Ministry. Would these corrupt officials who had done as they pleased while serving the previous king be all but ignored? Be allowed let run free without reproof? The bitter criticisms rained down.
The assaults ate away at her mentally and physically.
"Why am I in charge of the Ministry of Fall? Risai, I can't comprehend what His Highness could have been thinking." Kaei sat in her office at the Ministry and wept. The daily grind of her job had all but made it her second home.
At a loss for consoling words, Risai left for the Outer Palace. It was night. The world above the Sea of Clouds should be warmer than the world below, but the gardens at night were cold enough that frost had started to fall. A gentle breeze was blowing. Risai almost thought she could smell blood in the air. In fact, there should be no reason for such an odor to linger about the Imperial Palace.
Civil servants were arrested and handed over to the Ministry of Fall, and then hauled off to the gallows. Depending on the circumstances, Risai and her colleagues had the responsibility of surreptitiously disposing of the bodies. Because of the necessity of acting in a covert fashion, Risai employed only a bare minimum number of subordinates. She ended up having to dirty her hands as well. She'd been reduced to grave digger on occasion, and was sure the stench was seeping into her skin.
But she could live with it. As a soldier, she'd become inured to death. But Kaei--
For some reason or other, Risai found herself in the Inner Palace. Spotting the gate leading to the Seishin, she stopped in her tracks. The six generals of the Imperial Army had permission from Gyousou to enter the Seishin whenever they wished. But what would she say to him once they were face to face? She had no idea. Finally she turned and left with a heavy heart.
She sat down in a corner of a gazebo within the Inner Palace gardens, too tired to go any further.
Kaei really is in a bad way. Risai hunched her shoulders and sighed. From behind her a voice said, "You look worn out."
She instinctively straightened her posture. Glancing over her shoulder, it was indeed Gyousou who had addressed her.
"Well, that's not really the problem."
"Mind if I sit down?" Risai wordlessly nodded. He asked, "Aren't you cold?"
"It is a bit cool." Her spirits were like shards of ice. Compared to how she felt inside, the frost falling on the stone tables hardly touched her at all.
"You've gotten to know Kaei quite well?"
That comment was enough to make Risai want to jump to her feet and run away. He likely had a host of reprimands he wanted delivered to Kaei. But right now Risai didn't want to hear them.
"The word is you're quite good friends."
"Y-yes."
"There's something I'd like you to ask her on my behalf: whether she'd consider taking a sabbatical."
Risai's eyes widened with surprise. "Are you talking about dismissing Kaei?"
She fixed her eyes on him and Gyousou smiled wryly. "Nothing like that. I don't mean to suggest any dissatisfaction with the job she is doing, but she seems to be shouldering a great burden."
"I don't think Kaei would consider it a burden. She would consider it her job."
What he was talking about--dismissing Kaei as Daishikou--meant ousting her from of the Imperial Court. Such a demotion would be unbearable for any civil servant. And so Risai rose to her defense.
"She's working as hard as she can. She's being criticized from every quarter, but perhaps Kaei was never a good fit with the Ministry of Fall from the start."
"Perhaps," Gyousou agreed.
Risai trembled though it wasn't from the cold. It was her anger. "If you understood that much, Your Highness, then why appoint her to the ministry in the first place?"
"You mean, the Daishikou seems awfully soft on the criminal element--"
"Yes, indeed. Which is why I said she's not the right person for this job."
"Which is why she is the right person for the job."
His answer took the wind out of her sails and left her at loss for words.
"As someone who is 'soft on the criminal element,' Kaei serves as a counterweight to madness swirling around us. However,
from her perspective, there must be limits to what she can endure. If things get too hard for her to bear, I would happily transfer her to another position. Say, the Ministry of Spring or Earth. Let her known that an arrangement of one sort or another can be made."
But, Risai thought. It seemed that Gyousou himself understood that his revolution was careening down too steep a hill.
"The judging and sentencing of people is not a thing easily controlled. Like a stone rolling down a hill, it only picks up momentum. For the time being, the stone must be allowed to roll. That is why I consider the one minister least suited for the position to be so well suited for it."
"Yes, I see that."
"But it's taking its toll on Kaei. I do not wish to see a capable and promising minister broken by such a weight. If I recommended that she take a furlough to her directly, Kaei would take it as a demotion. But if you were to broach the subject as a friend, I believe she would take such a recommendation in the spirit intended."
Risai at once felt a great weight lifting from her shoulders. She drew a deep breath and let it out. "Would it not be possible for you to proceed at even a slightly more restrained pace? Kaei is not a soldier. She feels it is her duty to put everything in context and move forward at a measured pace. I think doing so would take some of the pressure off."
"Except that our goals must be accomplished by the time Kouri returns. I've been informed that Kouri has left Ren. That leaves us no more than a fortnight to work with."
"Can this only be accomplished in the Taiho's absence?"
"I believe so."
"But after he returns to Tai, he's going to hear things. What has been going on--beyond the mere reality of the purge--cannot be repressed. And when he does find out, will it not cut him to the core? Wouldn't it be better to inform him before that happens?"
"The kirin," Gyousou noted with a thin smile, "is called the embodiment of the will of the people. That which must be hidden from the people should also be hidden from the kirin."
"You really think so? Or rather, is this the sort of thing you'd rather not have the Taiho see or hear about? And how can this be hidden from the eyes of the people? If the reality of the purge came to light, they would certainly be alarmed. But those who conspired to cause so much pain during the reign of King Kyou must be brought to justice. They want to know if their oppressors are being punished and what the Ministry of Fall is doing about it. If these cries of dissatisfaction cannot be answered, they will not be satisfied that the past has been dealt with."
A dynasty must come to an end in the moment that the king died. But that didn't bring an end to the suffering of the people. For them, there was no bright line that marked the end of one dynasty and the beginning of the next. A failing dynasty increased their suffering, and then the new Imperial Court that followed overlooked the sins of the old bureaucrats.
Even with the enthronement of the new king, the early days were bound to be filled with chaos. The suffering of the people didn't end with the coronation. There needed to be some sign that marked the end of the evil era, something to shift the focus from the old regime. Something that brought both sides together as one and said that the suffering of the people was over and a new era was dawning in which all things would be made anew.
"That may well be the case."
"But--"
"But I do not wish Kouri to see any of this. He is still small and cannot abide the sight of blood. He is a kirin, after all."
"If you were really concerned about the feelings of the Taiho, shouldn't you be considering his feelings when he finds out what has been going on in his absence? When he finds out after the fact--when he cannot change anything--that he was sent out of the kingdom to ensure that he could not change anything, how will he feel then?"
It occurred to Risai that she was forgetting her place and saying more than she should, but Gyousou nodded. "It is regrettable. However, those are things I cannot do."
Risai inclined her head.
"At times, Kouri shows me a frightened countenance. To me, I am seeing in that countenance the anxieties of the people."
Startled, Risai looked at Gyousou.
"The Kirin is the embodiment of the people's will--I sometimes wonder if this is not what I am seeing. A fear of warfare and the shedding of blood--isn't that in the nature of the people as well? The late king arose from the civil service. As a consequence, his last days did not end in atrocities. Instead, the realm died a death of long decay. Raising up a king from the ranks of the military is the most effect way of rekindling the faith of the people, but at the same time it hardly calm their fears. While a military king is resolute, his fall from the Way is all the more calamitous. That is the fear I believe I see reflected in Kouri's eyes."
This person, Risai thought, and then forgot the rest of what she wanted to say. She didn't know how to express what she felt right then. Something extraordinary. Something far from the commonplace. She had to wonder if he looked at that endearing child with those same eyes.
"This time around, it's not something I think I want Kouri to see. And that being the case, it must be kept from the eyes of the people as well. Kouri exists to take the measure of such things. The trust of the people has not yet reached that stage--"
Yes, Risai nodded. At the same time she couldn't help feeling, Yes, Gyousou is not one of us. Taiki appeared to her as little more than a young child. And once he'd exercised the enormous responsibility of selecting the king--a helpless, powerless child. But that was not how Gyousou saw him. Taiki continued to have a grave and important role to play, and not as his adorable lap dog. But of course that was the way things were. For Taiki was not a child but a kirin. No matter how many times this had been explained to her, this was the first time she understood it in her bones.
"As far as these events are concerned, Kouri shall be kept in the dark. And so shall the people. Acting with all due speed, and hugging the shadows as much as possible, the knowledge of what happened here will be kept from him."
"I understand."
Risai bowed. Gyousou nodded and got to his feet. Risai watched him leave and then went back to Kaei. For completely different reasons than before, Kaei broke down and wept. She finally seemed to let down her guard. After crying for a while, Kaei smiled like a summer sky clearing after a thunderstorm.
"Risai, I understand now what you mean when you say that His Highness is a different kind of person than ourselves. I sense that even I can find a way to agree."
"I feel my faith confirmed as well," Risai agreed with a self-effacing smile.
Kaei seemed to take things a bit easier after that. The differences in temperament between Kaei and Gyousou's retainers seemed to balance out, and she came to be viewed as part of Gyousou's retinue.
Since about that time, Risai thought she caught sight here and there of similar changes. She began hearing questioning voices in public about the same time that Kaei had voiced her concerns: those who, like Kaei, were not accustomed to Gyousou's methods; in whom the rapid changes produce great anxiety. There seemed to be far more of them than Risai had previously imagined.
However, the volume of those voices diminished. Little by little, the Imperial Court became one in purpose. Or that's how it looked to her.
And Risai found this frightening. She couldn't put her concerns into words. If forced to speak her feelings aloud, she might say she was worried that something succeeding so well could just as well succeed to bad ends. The end product of either would be the same, the only difference being the direction in which they traveled. The same way a ferocious king opened himself up to calamities, was not Gyousou opening the gate to disaster?
In any case, the Imperial Court found its footing and showed a unified front. Misgivings about Gyousou's military rule, anxieties about the speed of his reforms, and fears about the resoluteness of his actions seemed to fade away. The problematic bureaucrats and ministers were dealt with before Taiki returned.
With the scouring away of this g
reat evil, they all believed things would now start to move forward. They kept their eyes peeled, making preparation and looking for signs of forward movement. Differences in temperament, and the discord among those who called themselves retainers and those who did not, resolved themselves as well.
There should be no problems after this. Nevertheless, Risai felt that she hadn't caught something--hadn't seen something--she should have. Some other seed of destruction was hidden in the shadowy depths at the bottom of the well.
She couldn't shake the feeling. And, in fact, they were about to spring forth from beneath the placid waves.
Interlude
It took a while for Taiki to grasp exactly what had happened to him. Put in plain terms, he'd been "spirited away." Scolded by his grandmother and sent out to the yard, he suddenly disappeared from the spot where he'd been standing.
He couldn't remember the moment he disappeared himself. As if dozing off to sleep, after a vague interval in vacant space, he'd returned to his home. More than a year had passed in the interval, but he did not sense the passing of time. And so he found it impossible to explain the substance of that which did not exist.
The police and a doctor were called. He was subsequently bounced back and forth among a number of child psychologists. The adults seemed determined to unearth that lost time, but he could not remember a thing.
As far as he was concerned, no break had occurred. Between the snowy courtyard and the front walk of his house on the day of his grandmother's funeral, a nebulous sense of passage had taken place, but the two events seemed to him like two beads on the same string.
The changes had happened to the world, not to him. His grandmother had died. His brother was suddenly bigger and was his classmate, instead of a being year behind. The kids who had been his classmates were all a year ahead.
But nobody else noticed this shift in the universe. He was the one out of step. Thus a very definite gap was born between himself and everybody else, something very basic that had given rise to discrepancies keeping them out of sync with each other.
