The Twelve Kingdoms: Dreaming of Paradise

by Fuyumi Ono

  Sei looked up at the hazy moon rising over the garden. "When the sun sets and the roads are shrouded in darkness, the moon appears to show us the way."

  There was a halo around the moon and the faint light shining down on them was tinged with a cold and melancholy gloom. Hardly an equal with the noonday sun. But enough to serve as a guide.

  Next to him, Sei raised his voice. "What about a moonlight court?"

  Gekkei blinked, not getting what he meant. Sei grinned. "It's inconvenient speaking only of a 'provisional court' or a 'pretender's court.' Say we call a court where the king occupies the throne a 'daylight court' and a court without a king a 'moonlight court.' Working by the light of the moon, we await the dawn."

  "Of course," Gekkei said, smiling in turn.

  Chapter 7

  Tendrils of mist crept through a ravine. The faces of rocky ridges jutted out of the smoky haze. Here and there a mountain stream coursed down the slopes to a small pavilion, where it emptied into a deep pool.

  Gekkei sat by himself at his desk in the study and studied the scene that appeared to him inside the box.

  It was etched onto an inkstone the size of his two hands put together. The stone was a celebrated product of the Shun Kingdom. It was laced with lines of jade and embedded with a marble-like mottling that resembled scattered clouds. The valley descended beneath the shrouded skies and the pavilion watched over the deep, dark waters of the well of the inkstone, where a setting moon peered back.

  The mottled, cloud-like patterns seemed to float in the channel of the inkstone where the ink stick was scraped back and forth. On the opposite side was etched a poem lauding the craft of calligraphy.

  But it—and the stone itself—was neatly split in two.

  Gekkei examined the fissure running through the stone. He could still remember the sound of the shattered stone, a sound so beautiful it was painful.

  The inkstone was a gift from the Royal Hou Chuutatsu on the occasion of Gekkei being appointed Province Lord of Kei. Some ten years later, he broke the stone. Now useless, ruined even as a centerpiece, he'd set the fragments aside. It was the same as discarding it, as there was no way to return it to its original form.

  He'd known that and destroyed it anyway upon receiving the news that in excess of one hundred "criminals" had been executed at the castle gates. Most of these "sinners" were guilty of nothing more grievous than "sloth," of shirking their duties or abandoning their fields. Their individual circumstances—an illness in the family, a friend in need—was never taken into account.

  In order that sin be truly shunned, the sin must truly be despised. The citizens of the capital were ordered to gather at the city gates and stone the sinners to death. Then the corpses were beheaded and their bodies left to rot in the sun.

  When this news reached him, Gekkei broke the inkstone in a rage. The clear, high sound of the shattering stone echoing in his ears, he set off on a path from which there would be no turning back.

  He'd never regretted raising the army. But he did regret that he ever had to do it, that he wasn't able to stop Chuutatsu before the dynasty began to crumble. Chuutatsu had entrusted Gekkei with this high position, and he'd repaid that debt with treason. And he hated himself for it.

  Chuutatsu was undeniably the Royal Hou, and the throne was his alone. Unable to stop him from straying from the Way, Gekkei had turned against him, and waving the banner of his righteous cause, assassinated him. He'd come to believe that taking what had been Chuutatsu's would be unforgiveable.

  There was no greater crime than regicide. The broken inkstone remained as a symbol of that singular fact. Just as the inkstone could never again return to its original purpose and form, having trampled on the Divine Will, Gekkei could never wash the blood from his hands. He could say it was all for the people and for the kingdom. But every time he looked at cruel fissure in the inkstone, the reality that it was nothing more than mean and willful destruction was again driven home.

  The faint sound of footsteps interrupted his thoughts.

  Shouyou appeared in the doorway. "I thought maybe you were looking for me. There was a servant waiting at my residence when I got back from the office."

  He stepped into the study. Even in the lamplight, he could see that all of Gekkei's personal books and other effects had been piled up in a corner of the room. He was already getting ready to clear out of the place. Seeing Gekkei's will so physically manifested was terribly depressing.

  The study's owner laughed softly. "And so you came all the way over here? Sorry about that."

  "No problem," Shouyou muttered to himself. His eyes fell on the object in Gekkei's hand. "That is—"

  "Yes, the gift I received from His Highness."

  "Ah," exclaimed Shouyou. "When I was appointed Minister of Heaven, I received a similar inkstone."

  "Do you still have it?"

  Shouyou reacted with a troubled smile. "I do. I've tried to throw it away on many occasions, but could never bring myself to."

  "Same here." Gekkei closed the lid of the box and carefully placed it back on the shelf. "Whenever His Highness gave one of his retainers a gift, it was always an inkstone, brush, paper or ink."

  "Indeed it was," Shouyou agreed, feeling a strange twinge of nostalgia.

  The look must have shown on his face, for Gekkei raised his wine glass. "What do you say, Shouyou?"

  "Wasn't there something you needed me for?"

  "I think this qualifies," Gekkei replied, offering Shouyou a glass.

  "Then I accept. What about General Sei?"

  "He's resting. We talked for quite a while. Afterward he begged off saying that he was exhausted. He retired to his room without eating dinner. I'm afraid I left a lot on his mind to think about."

  Shouyou leaned forward. He didn't quite see the connection between having a lot on one's mind and going to bed early. Neither could he tell whether Gekkei was paying no attention to his state of mind or hadn't noticed his dubious reaction. A warm expression on his face, Gekkei placed the wine glass in his hand.

  "His Highness didn't care for spirits either. He had no fondness for luxuries of any sort. Whatever he gave his retainers, it would not be gold or jewels."

  "Indeed. Though an expertly-made inkstone easy costs the same as a fine gemstone." Shouyou smiled faintly. "The generals of the Palace Guard were taken aback to receive ink stones as gifts. Probably because they had no idea of their actual value. And even if they did, the idea of receiving the object as a gift itself was surprising enough."

  "Undoubtedly," Gekkei agreed with a smile. He filled Shouyou's glass. "Not just the inkstone and ink, but high-grade brushes and paper. Stationery was the only luxury His Highness allowed himself. He couldn't be bothered with fashion or the extravagances of interior décor. His wife apparently did not share his ascetic nature, though."

  "No, she did not," Shouyou said with a nod.

  Chuutatsu deplored extravagance and pomp. Queen Kaka made a good show of living the simple life, but when it came to her personal affects, only the very best was good enough for her. She did nothing in half-measures.

  "It appears His Highness had no idea what it was his wife was adorning herself with. Otherwise, I would have expected him to criticize her just as he did the rest of us. But because her accoutrements did not look gaudy and extravagant, he assumed she must be as frugal as he."

  Gekkei nodded. "His Highness was always willing to see the best in people like that."

  Shouyou gave Gekkei a curious look. He could almost swear Gekkei was getting wistful.

  As if taking note of Shouyou's expression, Gekkei raised his eyes and smiled. "You still loath His Highness, Shouyou?"

  The memory of Chuutatsu's coronation suddenly rose to his thought, as vivid as a blow to the chest. "I can't say I loath the man he was. Though I have no regrets about raising an army and fighting against him, I regret that it ever became necessary."

  "I wouldn't disagree with that. To tell the truth, I still find the whole
thing an awful waste."

  "You too?"

  "I try my best to put it behind me, but when the countenance of His Highness rises into my thoughts, I find it difficult to tolerate."

  That longing for what Chuutatsu had once been, Shouyou stated bluntly, was why he couldn't discard his own inkstone, however often his anger had prompted him to do so.

  Gekkei answered with a chagrined smile. "It is strange. I never hated the Queen as I did the King. She lied, slandered, and bore false witness. Yet I didn't think her irredeemable. When it came to sheer malicious intent, she was many times his superior. But all her scheming never aroused in me the anger that His Highness's ruthlessness did."

  "Really? I did consider her irredeemable. It was she who spurred him on. That made my blood boil. In all honesty, I thought you soft for merely exiling the Princess Royal to Kei Province. I would agree that, isolated as she was within the Imperial living quarters, none of her father's sins could be laid directly at her feet. But her crimes of omission struck me as just as grievous. Though that was likely more my temper getting the better of me, wondering why she had done nothing to make him see the light."

  "Your temper—"

  "That's the way it seems to me now. Yes, I wanted to make His Highness see the light. I wanted him to be a good King. But he kept sinking deeper into the mire. I wanted to stop him and couldn't. Say that the penalties are too severe, the witch hunts too excessive, and he'd take it to mean you wanted nobody punished for anything. He'd dismiss you as a nuisance."

  "He said as much to me."

  Shouyou nodded. All the nostalgia from a few minutes ago evaporated, leaving a hole behind in his heart. "And if a man of valor, a favored retainer, would say such things, then how much more degenerate his subjects must be—that's what he said as he turned the screws all the tighter. Every admonition was taken as indicative of a worsening state of affairs. Beyond a point, I couldn't bring myself to remonstrate with him. All I could do was hope for someone else to do what I could not."

  "And hence your anger. The Queen and Princess Royal refused to rise to the moment."

  "That would be it," Shouyou said with a nod. "I fear the bitter truth of the matter was that even if they had remonstrated with him, he wouldn't have budged an inch. It was possible that those closest to him would have aroused an even worse outcome. That's certainly the way things turned out with the Taiho. The more the Taiho contended with His Highness, the harsher the laws became. Not even the shitsudou dissuaded him from the course he'd charted for himself."

  "Unfortunately not."

  "I understood what was at the root of those feelings. But I still despised the Queen and Princess Royal. It wasn't hard to do. There was already no greater pain than hating His Highness, that sense of loathing that came from asking myself why he had driven me into this corner. If he could just show the people a little mercy, I believed all those feelings would evaporate. More loathing only invited more pain, and that pain turned into more hatred. Yes, compared to that, what I felt for the Queen and Princess Royal was a mere trifling."

  "Absolutely."

  There were echoes of pain in Gekkei's voice, a tone of voice that told Shouyou why he so adamantly refused to take up the reins of royal authority. "This has all got to have been pretty tough for you."

  The necessity of killing Chuutatsu. And the necessity of living with it afterward. He couldn't simply pile on one disloyalty after another on top of that.

  "I am beginning to understand where you've been coming from. Still, I would ask that you understand where we are coming from as well. You were the only person who could have stopped him. To the ministers and to the people, you are the person who stopped the unbearable suffering and saved us all. When you announced that you were retiring to Kei Province, they couldn't help but become enraged with grief."

  Gekkei took a breath and let it out. He looked at Shouyou. Shouyou continued, "So I'm asking you not make us go through that all over again." Shouyou stood and took the two letters from his pocket and held them to him. "Here."

  "Shouyou—"

  "General Sei asked if I would pass them on to you. I really think you should read them. I'm not the person they were intended for. They belong in your keeping. Please—"

  He placed the letters on the desk next to the box that held the inkstone. Then he bowed and left the study, leaving Gekkei alone with his thoughts.

  Chapter 8

  Gekkei stared at the two letters sitting on his desk for a long time. Finally he picked them up and opened them.

  The letter from the Royal Kei began with a brief introduction, and then went onto explain how Shoukei came into her employ. The Empress hoped that he would read Shoukei's letter and somehow be able to put aside old resentments. Unfortunately, the chaos in Kei had not yet abated and they had no resources to spare on Hou's behalf. Nevertheless, she would pray for Hou's welfare.

  Even when a government enjoyed the Mandate of Heaven, difficulties could flourish. All the anxieties that arose from the concerns about the physical realm and the people simply could not be erased. And how much worse they must be in a kingdom without a king.

  A young and inexperienced empress such as herself could offer no meaningful advice or worthwhile assistance. But if there was any way that Kei could prove helpful, however small, she asked that he inform her emissary about the particulars.

  "A friendly pat on the back—"

  Gekkei spoke without self-reproach or irony. The straightforward tone of the letter touched his heart. Her signature was in a different hand than the rest, which had obviously been transcribed by an experienced scribe. He sensed a slight hesitancy in the brush stroke, as if the signature itself symbolized the character of the new, young empress. He found the effect quite affecting.

  He turned to Shoukei's thicker epistle with a heavier heart. And therein he discovered her unadorned expressions of regret. She regretted never having taken her father to task while she was Princess Royal. She had ignorantly failed to live up to her obligations, and her father was dead as the result. Such a lack of filial piety and such needless suffering inflicted upon the people forced the hand of Gekkei and the others to tread painfully upon the Will of Heaven.

  Furthermore, after Gekkei had spared her life, despite her guilt, she had not reflected upon this gift, but instead had been possessed by hatred. Even when she'd been transferred to Kyou, her impudence had made a mockery of Gekkei's forbearance, and for that she was deeply sorry.

  "So she finally understood—" Just like the Kei general said, people could change.

  Taking another person to task was an often difficult proposition. All the admonishments directed at Chuutatsu came to nothing. In fact, taking every disagreement as evidence of disobedience, in the end they only spurred him on. But Gekkei didn't want to believe that his criticisms had no meaning, for such words of reproof arose out of a hope and a love that couldn't be articulated.

  The letter continued. Shoukei wished to make recompense for the crimes she'd committed when she absconded from Kyou, else she could not be worthy of serving in the Imperial Palace of Kei. She would surrender herself to the Royal Kyou and accept whatever punishment she deserved.

  She did not know what would become of her after that. There were things she wished to communicate to Gekkei personally. But the situation being what it was, she would entrust her thoughts to this document instead.

  And so she concluded the letter, with an additional postscript that she expected to be leaving Gyouten about the same time General Sei delivered this letter to him.

  "To Kyou—" the surprised Gekkei muttered aloud. He glanced through the letter several times, then got to his feet and went to the door of the study and called for a servant.

  Even as a prank, to pilfer the property of the Imperial Palace was no different than robbing the Royal Kyou herself. It wasn't the same thing as petty larceny. If ruled an assault against the Empress, then it wasn't unheard of for the crime to be classified as high treason. In any case
, the mood of the Minister of Fall would come into play.

  Knowing all this Shoukei had written, Hence I am entrusting these thoughts to paper.

  No matter what penance she had performed, no matter how deeply she had earned the trust of the Royal Kei, spending her last days in a prison cell awaiting execution would render it all a waste.

  "Could somebody please come here!" Gekkei called out.

  A servant hurried down the hallway. Gekkei was about to tell him to fetch one of the junior ministers when he hesitated. He was only a Province Lord. He didn't have the authority to go ordering Imperial clerks around. He'd denied that authority to himself.

  For the first time, Gekkei was seized by the enormity of what he had rejected. Without that authority, he could do nothing for anybody. All the grief in the world wouldn't save a soul. As a marquis, his will extended no farther than the borders of his province. He could save the people of his province. But even there he'd been unable to oppose Imperial policy. The insufferable laws enacted by Chuutatsu applied as equally in Kei as elsewhere. He couldn't repeal or ignore them as he saw fit. He'd danced around them as best he could, but in the end hadn't been able to spare his people from Chuutatsu's wrath.

  And beyond the precincts of Kei Province, he hadn't saved a single person.

  You're excusing yourself to the wrong person. That was definitely the case. The person reaching out, the person making amends was someone completely different.

  Unsettled by the sudden silence, the servant asked, "Did you need something?"

  Gekkei glanced at him and nodded. "Call the chief secretary here. I'll be sending a communiqué to the Royal Kyou. We shall need to prepare a draft."

  "As you wish!" the servant answered crisply. He bowed low, then turned and rushed off.