But even left penniless was many times better than being sent back to Kyou, or so she told herself as she adjusted her leather overcoat and wrapped her shawl around her neck.
But what do I do now?"
In her bags she had a change of clothes and some jewelry she had bought the other day. If she hocked it all for cash, just how much further could she go? In order to get to Kei, she'd have to go to Tai and get her hands on a passport. But to get to Tai in the first place, she'd have to board a boat from Ryuu bound for Tai. And she didn't have enough to cover her travel expenses for more than five days.
What if she traveled on foot and stayed in the cheapest inns? And if that didn't work, she'd have to travel while groveling for free lodging along the way, begging for day labor, and generally relying on the kindness of strangers. It wasn't something she had ever believed she could do.
At a complete loss as to what to do, Shoukei exited through the gates of the town hall, hanging her head.
"So you're all right, then," a voice called out to her.
Shoukei looked up in surprise and saw the rat there holding the reins of the splendid suugu. "You… . "
"I was wondering how things turned out and came over to see how you were doing. It looks like you cleared everything up."
"Not necessarily."
Shoukei spun around and walked off in the other direction. The sound of footsteps soon came pattering after her.
"Not necessarily?"
"What it came down to was, I pay a bribe and all is forgiven. The result was, they took everything I had." Shoukei spat on the street. There was no sense in taking it out on the rat, but the happy-go-lucky expression on his face irritated her.
"Strange," he said in a low voice. Shoukei turned to him. He said, "To think that the government officials of Ryuu would even make such demands."
"These ones did. There's nothing unusual about it. In every world and every kingdom there are people who brandish power to line their own pockets."
"But Ryuu is renown for its constitutional government. The Royal Hou also tried to emulate Ryuu in the creation of the national polity."
Shoukei stopped walking.
"Far more laws were promulgated disciplining the bureaucracy than the citizenry, though Hou differed a bit in the actual implementation. The public servants of Ryuu should not act corruptly. Laws forbid it. And you're saying that a county court judge so brazenly asked for a bribe? It does all begin to make sense."
"What does?"
"That the system charged with monitoring the bureaucracy is itself breaking down. Shoukei, you said you wanted to go to Tai? And you intended to depart from a port in Ryuu?"
Shoukei laughed derisively. "I don't have enough money to travel directly to Kei."
"I would advise against it."
"Why?"
Amidst the hustle and bustle of traffic headed toward the main gate, the rat lowered his voice. "Youma are appearing in the Kyokai."
"I heard that yesterday."
"Half of them are coming from Tai, but the other half are coming from the shores of Ryuu."
"What?"
Shoukei stopped again and looked at the hanjuu. His black eyes looked back at her. He said, "Ryuu is on the decline."
Shoukei thought this over for a minute. The Royal Ryuu had ruled his country longer than the Royal Kyou. Already, his reign had passed a hundred and twenty years, and he was said to be an enlightened monarch. Shoukei had always thought of the nearest three kingdoms, Han, Kyou and Ryuu, as inviolable. These had been stable kingdoms since the time she was born.
"So what's your next step?"
Suddenly asked this question, Shoukei turned to face Rakushun. Without really knowing what she was doing, she stepped out of the pedestrian traffic moving along the street.
"My next step?"
"Didn't you say you wanted to go to Tai? And all your stuff got ripped off. So you've got no travel money, right? I'm going to wander around Ryuu for a bit and then return to En. If that's okay with you, want to come along?"
Shoukei gaped at him. "You're kidding me. You mean, take me to En?"
"To Kankyuu, if you don't mind. But I am going to have to ask you to hoof it for a while."
"Are you stupid? Didn't I almost get you framed for theft?"
Rakushun laughed. "Not at all. I didn't think I was going to be charged. The endorsements on my visa do carry a bit of weight."
"That's not the problem."
He laughed again. "These kinds of fortuitous encounters seem to be my destiny."
8-2
The new year began.
In half a month, Suzu and Seishuu had come to Shisui Prefecture at the western fringes of Wa Province. If they kept on along this road, heading west, they would enter Eishuu, home province of Gyouten, the capital.
They'd covered this much ground in a fortnight by horse cart. Nevertheless, they'd only gotten this far because Seishuu's condition had worsened markedly. No matter what she did, his difficulties began as soon as he woke up. Sometimes he would spend half the day in pain. On such days, and often the next, they couldn't really travel.
Midway through their journey, they welcomed in the New Year.
Seishuu's eyes hadn't improved. His vertigo was as bad as before, making it difficult for him to travel on foot. His headaches began to be accompanied by convulsions and then by vomiting.
"Sorry, Suzu."
He was lying in the bed of a swaying horse cart. The tarp over the wagon covered the bed of the cart. When they had the room, farmers in the outlying villages made a bit of money giving rides to people walking along the road. Officials traveled in stagecoaches, but they were reserved for the wealthy, and didn't give rides to people like Suzu.
"How's the money holding out? I could walk if we had to. Though not very fast."
"We're doing okay. You don't need to worry about such things." Suzu gave him a playful rap on the forehead.
Seishuu laughed and then pouted, "Don't treat me like a pissant little kid."
His smiling face was drawn and thin. He was sick so often that he couldn't keep anything down. The way he spoke was strange as well. Because Suzu was a wizard, she could understand everything he said, but to everybody else, like the horse cart driver, he only spoke gibberish. His condition had reached the stage where words like "Go" and "Listen" were the only intelligible things they heard.
"If you've got the time to waste mouthing off, then go to sleep."
"I do worry, Suzu. You can be so unreliable."
"Oh, shut up," she said, but had to smile. She no longer got angry when he needled her. There was no malice in his words. It's true that sometimes people would say things that would set him off as well. When he'd say something like, "I'm in pretty bad shape, aren't I?" It was easier just to tell him, "Oh, no you're not."
Suzu looked at Seishuu. "Perhaps it was like that for Riyou-sama as well."
"What was?"
"Everybody at the Grotto hated her. But when asked, nobody ever said they did. We'd all shake our heads and say, 'Of course not!' Still, Riyou would always have some sarcastic comeback."
"Nobody likes to be told people don't like them. At the same time, nobody likes to be told that they're liked by everybody when they know they aren't."
"In that case, it's better if you're not a disagreeable person to start with."
"Yeah," said Seishuu, staring up at the tarp tented over the bed of the cart. "People will be irritating. People will get under your skin. People know they shouldn't do stuff like that, but you know they will."
"Yeah, they will."
"At times, it may occur to them that they did in fact do something wrong. If they then ask if there are people who don't like them, and they're plainly told that there aren't, obviously they're not going to be satisfied. Even if they're told that there are, they're not going to like it."