"Here is the room."
The room he stopped at was in a wing in the back of the hotel. The beautiful fretwork on the door was glazed with glass, revealing the interior of the room. Behind the door was a living room arranged with furniture of above-average quality.
Opening onto the living space were two wide doors. These led to the bedrooms. The key fitted the bedroom door. There was no key for the door into the living room, as it was not considered a private room. This was how double-occupancy was accommodated.
"Thank you."
She handed some change to the bellman who delivered her luggage to the room, and sat down in a chair in the living room.
"What a stupidly prosaic room." A smirk came to her lips.
She didn't feel even a twinge of guilt. The Royal Kyou had it in for her and had driven her to this, and so what was so bad about giving her a taste of her own medicine? The Royal Kyou could lose any number of her personal accouterments and hardly notice a thing missing. At any rate, she'd probably inherited most of it, and so Shoukei had "inherited" it in turn from her.
"If I take it easy on this trip, I should get to Kei in six days."
The capital of Kei, Gyouten. The capital of the eastern kingdom that the Royal Kei now occupied. Once she got there, then what? She had to start somewhere. In order to get close to the Royal Kei, she had to get into the imperial palace. And that wouldn't be easy.
Shoukei didn't have a passport that could vouch for her identity. She'd left behind the papers given her in Hou. She'd heard that there were officials who would forge passports for a price, but she had no idea where to find the kind of corrupt bureaucrat who could do such a thing.
Getting into the imperial palace in Kei with only a passport was far from impossible. The empress had only recently acceded to the throne and so there was likely a considerable turnover in the staff. Shoukei was cultured and educated. If she expressed a desire to serve the empress, the odds of her getting hired were good. At the same time, after so short a time on the throne, the empress would no doubt be lonely. No matter how many officials and bureaucrats she was surrounded by, somebody genuinely nice would no doubt catch her eye. She was perfectly capable of sucking up to the Royal Kei. She'd wait for the chance, and strike.
And besides, she knew the workings of an imperial palace inside and out.
"But maybe I should go take a look at Tai."
In a kingdom that had lost its king and was in chaos, you probably didn't need a passport.
The Royal Tai had acceded to the throne two years before Hou changed governments. Not more than half a year later, an imperial rescript was issued to all the Twelve Kingdoms announcing the king's death. The rescript was delivered by the new king. But an imperial rescript was hardly required when the king of another kingdom died. A phoenix bird in every imperial palace would sing forth, making the announcement. The phoenix birds had remained quiet in regards to the Royal Tai. There was no doubt about it: when Shoukei was living at Youshun Palace, the phoenix bird hadn't uttered a peep about the demise of the Royal Tai.
If the king lived, there was no reason for a new king to arise. Clearly, this was a pretender. In fact, nobody really knew what was going on in Tai. Kingdoms tended to keep their internal affairs to themselves.
If they had lost their king, then Tai was in the same predicament as Hou, and there was no way she was going back to Hou. For the time being, she muttered to herself, Tai it is.
"So, where are you headed?" asked the waiter who brought dinner.
Shoukei looked down at the dishes being placed there and furrowed her brow.
Oh, great.
The table was being set for two. She'd be eating with some complete stranger. She made a face. Answering the waiter's call, she saw someone came out of the other bedroom--apparently they'd been in there all along--and lowered her brows. Bad enough that she had to eat with a stranger, but he was a--
Hanjuu.
A person born half a beast. There weren't a lot of them, but neither were they scarce. In Hou, a hanjuu would never be caught dead in an establishment like this. And in beast-form, certainly would never be allowed into the courtyard.
As if he did not see Shoukei sitting there, brows fully furrowed, he bustled into the room and said to the waiter, "Thank you!"
He had the voice of a child. In the form of a rat, he was no taller than a human child, as well, but was wearing a man's tunic. He tipped the bowing waiter and sat down.
As if finally seeing her there, he said, "Hi."
"Hello," Shoukei replied under her breath.
"Surprising at how many guests there are. I wonder if these arrangements are common in Ryuu?"
Shoukei didn't answer. It was bad enough, simply having to sit at the same table with a hanjuu. She averted her gaze.
"Today is unique," said the waiter. "A ship arrived from En. Were you aboard that ship?"
The hanjuu said, "Oh, gotcha."
"About half of our guests disembarked. And about half will be reboarding. And where are you headed?"
"I thought I'd see the capital."
"Ah," the young man smiled. "Wonderful place. The lilies are beautiful. Though you've chosen to travel during the cold part of the year."
"It's not so different from En."
"Is that so?"
"En is pretty cold, too. It's further south than Ryuu, but catches the seasonal winds."
The young man turned to Shoukei. "And where will you be going next?"
"Tai," she said shortly.
The waiter's eyes opened wide. "But Tai--"
"Is in turmoil, I know. That's why I'm going. People I know live there. I've been worried how they're doing."
"Where in Tai?"
Shoukei's heart skipped a beat. "And why should you want to know?"
"Oh, no reason," the young man answered, with a nervous laugh. "I was originally a sailor on a ship that sailed between Ryuu and Tai."
"Really?"
"We shipped grain to Tai, carried gemstones on the return voyage. Tai is pretty short of grain. But we didn't make it last time around. There were so many youma, we never got near the place."
"Huh."
"It's pretty scary when a kingdom surrounded by the Kyokai falls into chaos. The youma who live at the bottom of the ocean rise to the surface, and before you know it you're completely isolated. In fact, this winter, I have no idea how the people of Tai are going to eat."
He didn't pose the question as if expecting an answer, so Shoukei instead thought about Hou. Hou was in the same predicament. Even after cultivating the land, the harvest yielded only enough for people to scrape by on. If a harvest failed for any reason, there wouldn't be enough to go around.
"Was your friend able to get out of Tai?"
"I hope so."
"So many people are trying to flee Tai. Most of them come to Ryuu. Our last cargo was mostly people. There were so many people flooding into the port, wanting to leave Tai so badly they were clinging to the gunwales. We had to take them on board. If we didn't, they would have capsized the boat."
"Wow."
"Long story short, it's a dangerous place. Sea traffic is closed. I got my parents to help me come here. There are colleagues of mine there still waiting for a ship."
"I see."
"Good thing you've got a kitsuryou. It looks like no ships are sailing for Tai. The news from En as well is that sea traffic to Tai has been suspended."
Shoukei's eyes opened wide. "You heard I came on a kitsuryou? Already?"
The young man laughed. "A rare thing it is for one of our guests to arrive on such a splendid pegasus. Well, not really, I guess." He turned to the rat, who was politely finishing his dinner. "Your suugu tiger is even more impressive. It's the first time any of us have seen a suugu, so we've all been stopping by the stables to take a look."