"Sorry, but not at all. Why so bad? Why deem it such a wretched existence? It is the life of all peasants. When you're poor, you go hungry. That shouldn't be news to you. But why can't you bear to be reminded of it? That's what I don't understand."
Rakushun stopped and glanced to his right. "How about there?"
It was a small inn that would hardly be high up on anybody's travel itinerary. Several tables were lined up on the dirt floor of the narrow, one-story storefront. Were it not for the sign advertising rooms, it would have struck her as nothing more than a shabby food stall.
"That? Places like that don't even have beds. In the first place, nobody dressed like me would ever stay at a place like that!"
"If that's the way you feel, then go buy something else to wear." Rakushun took a few coins from his pocket and pressed them into her hands. "That's where I'm staying. You can buy yourself some more appropriate dress or take the money and run. It's up to you."
"I--!"
Rakushun wagged his tail at the speechless Shoukei and walked over to the inn. Shoukei watched dumbfounded as he called out to the proprietor. With this amount of money, she could only afford the meanest quality of clothing, the kind of plain garb she'd worn at the orphanage, not to mention that it'd be secondhand at best. In this winter weather, there wasn't anything she really needed other than a coat or jacket. But she'd have to sell her silk outfits to buy those kinds of clothes. And that meant going back to the way she was before.
But, Shoukei thought, she had no money of her own. If Rakushun abandoned her here, she'd end up selling her clothes, anyway. And even then, it was hardly likely she'd have enough to take her all the way to En. Eating the cheapest food in the cheapest inns, could she even make it to the border?
Live with it, she told herself. But when she thought of returning to wretched life of a girl on the lam, she wanted to weep. Continuing on in this state, in the company of a hanjuu, and no suugu to boot, it was simply infuriating.
She swallowed her pride and went looking for a used apparel shop. She picked out a change of clothes. When the pedestrian outfit was ready to her satisfaction, only her shoes were out of character. She'd sold off everything down to there. The only thing she hadn't purchased was peasant-grade footwear. So now her shoes didn't match. At any rate, the only thing left to do was go behind the screen in the shop and change.
Pulling on the starchy garments, she wanted to cry. Right now in Kei, a girl is draped in a luxurious silk kimono of the most amazing quality, wearing a brocaded, embroidered fur coat heavy with pearls.
Biting her lip, she returned to the inn. It was mortifying enough to have to tell the proprietor that she was with the hanjuu, and just as miserable being shown down the moldy old hallway.
"Here," he said, abruptly.
When she opened the door, there was the hanjuu, sitting nonchalantly on the floor in front of a brazier. He looked at Shoukei and scratched his ear. "I don't understand girls. What's so embarrassing about going into a rundown inn wearing silk clothes?"
"You're the one who gave me the money and told me to."
"Yeah, but I didn't think you'd actually change into them. Well, that's what you should wear from now on. That's about the class of travel we'll be engaged in."
"It stinks." Shoukei sullenly sat down on the floor.
Rakushun gazed at the brazier. "No matter how many times you say it, it doesn't change the fact that that's how most people get by. How inconvenient bringing up a princess must be."
"Inconvenient?"
"Inconvenient to treat the ordinary as extraordinary. As surely as you get used to luxurious attire, you start to think that that kind of clothing, as you put it, stinks. So you want to wear silk. You're not the only one who thinks that way. Every girl wants to wear beautiful silk clothes and live a dressed-up life. Perhaps it's in their nature. Who wouldn't want to live the life of a queen or empress or princess?"
"Well, unfortunately, not everybody is a princess."
"No, indeed. But you are."
"I'm… " not the princess royal, Shoukei started to say, but Rakushun wagged his tail. "You are the princess royal. That fact notwithstanding, I'm not saying this with any ulterior motive in mind. The people of Hou sure didn't like you, though."
"Why… ?"
"I've met my fair share of refugees from Hou. They all hated the late king. Not a one of them had a good word for you, either. You are a very unpopular person."
"It wasn't my fault!" Shoukei shouted. She couldn't for the life of her understand what everybody had against her.
"It is your fault. Because you were the princess royal."
"Because of my father."
"Your father became king. So you became princess royal. That, indeed, was not your fault. But when a man becomes king, the mantle of responsibility falls upon his shoulders, and upon the shoulders of the princess as well, like it or not."
Shoukei gaped at the rounded back of the rat.
"There are two kingdoms with a princess or prince, Ryuu and Sou. The empress of Sai had a son, but he died before her coronation. The prince of Ryuu is a minister of state, working on behalf of the kingdom. The prince and princess of Sou also assist the king. The princess is the director of the national health service. Before, the sick were treated at homes, and the doctor visited them there. Nowadays, they are admitted to a hospital where doctors can care for them. That system was initiated by the princess royal of Sou. So, tell me, Shoukei, what did you do?"
"What?" Caught off guard by the question, Shoukei just stared at him.
"There once was a princess who remonstrated with her faltering king and was killed for it. And the word is that after the king of Kou died, the princess of Kou and her brother joined the work brigades along with everybody else. The kingdom collapsed, and they could do nothing to stop it. So they took responsibility. They volunteered. Until the next king is chosen, they'll work to save their ravaged country. So, what did you do?"
"But… my father never asked me to do anything."
"You're missing the premise of the question. That is something you should have addressed."
'But… . "
"You knew nothing? Nothing of what the princesses in other kingdoms were doing?"
"I didn't know!"
"Then you should have informed yourself. I know Hou better than does Shoukei, Princess Royal of Hou. Don't you find that more embarrassing than your tattered wardrobe?"
"But… " she started to say, and swallowed the rest. She didn't know what to say next.
"Does wearing wool embarrass you? Most people in the world wear wool. No one should be embarrassed to wear the best that their hard work could afford them. Then there are those who do no work and wear silk. Nobody much cares for them. Nobody likes a freeloader who, without raising a finger, gets something they could never afford with a lifetime of labor. That should be obvious. If you know someone who got all that you had lost without an ounce of effort, you'd resent her, wouldn't you?"
Shoukei shut her mouth to keep from saying anything. In fact, there was a certain empress whom she deeply resented.
"Something you've been given through no effort of your own demands nothing of you in turn. You never understood that. Hence, your resentment."
Shoukei struck the floor with her fist. "So you're saying that everything is my fault? Everything happened because I was bad!" She couldn't admit that. Neither did she want to. "My father never asked me to do a thing! My mother said the same thing! What was I supposed to do? They didn't let me go to university. I didn't have the chance to learn anything. And that's all my fault? There are lots of people like that, lots of people who live rich and comfortable lives. Why does it all have to come down on me?"