Why was this happening? Youko desperately searched for an answer. No matter how she thought about it, there was no clue in anything she had heard up to now that explained it.
"Out of the frying pan, into the fire, that was me. We made all the sacrifices during the war and you got to live the easy life! Why is that?"
"I don't know!" Youko shouted back.
A voice asked from the hallway outside the door, "Is there something wrong?"
The old man hurriedly put his finger up to his lips. Youko turned towards the door and said, "I'm sorry, it's nothing."
"There's people here trying to sleep."
"I'll be more quiet after this."
From the other side the door, the sound of footsteps trailed away. Youko sighed. The old man looked at Youko with an amazed expression on his face.
"You understood what he said?"
The language they were speaking, he meant. Youko nodded. "I understood it."
"You was speaking our language!"
"Whose language was I speaking?"
"You was speaking Japanese!"
"But, the man I was speaking to, he understood me."
"So it seems."
Youko had spoken the same language she always spoke, she had heard the same words she always heard. What could account for this strange phenomenon?
The old man's expression softened somewhat. "Fact remains, you're no kaikyaku. Not in the slightest. You not just some ordinary kaikyaku, that's for sure."
The way he said "kaikyaku," it wasn't just the intonation he used, now that Youko had become accustomed to his voice, the way he pronounced the words was a bit different as well.
"How is it that you can understand them words?"
"I don't know."
"Don't know, huh?"
"Honestly, I haven't got the slightest idea. I don't know why I came here in the first place, or why we're different from each other."
And why had her appearance changed? As she asked herself this question she touched her dyed hair, now hard to the touch. She said, "How are we ever going to get back?"
"I been searching for the same thing. All they say is, can't. That's the only answer."
He gave Youko a dispirited look. "If there was some way to go back, I would've done it a long time ago. Now, even if I did get back somehow, I'd be like old Rip Van Winkle. So … miss, where you are headed?"
"No place in particular. Can I ask you something?"
"What's that?"
"Did you get arrested when you came here?"
"Arrested?"
Seizou gave her a wide-eyed look, and then a thoughtful expression. "That's right. They arrest kaikyaku here. Nope, not me. I washed ashore in Kei."
"What? What difference does that make?"
"It's because different kingdoms treat kaikyaku different. I arrived in Kei, got my papers there. Lived there until last year. Then the king died and the whole place went to hell. Living there got to be impossible, so I got out, came here."
Youko recalled the refugees she had seen in the city. "So … you can live in Kei without anybody arresting you?"
Seizou nodded. "True enough, but you can't live there now. There's a civil war going on, the whole place is a mess. The town I was living in got attacked by youma and half the people was killed."
"Killed by youma? Not because of the war?"
"When a kingdom goes to hell in a handbasket, that's when the youma show up. And not just youma. Droughts and floods and earthquakes, too. Nothing but bad things happen. So I left there in a hurry."
Youko turned away. So you could live in Kei without people chasing after you all the time. Staying a fugitive in Kou or risking it in Kei, which would be the safer course? She was pondering this when Seizou interrupted her.
"The women, they left a long time ago. Who knows what the king was thinking, but he drove 'em all out of there."
"You're kidding."
"It's the truth. There was this rumor going around that if there was any women left in Gyouten--that's the capital city--they'd be killed. It wasn't a good place to be anymore and most people I knew got out while the getting was good. You don't want to be anywhere near it. It's a hornet's nest of youma. At one time, lots of people was trying to leave, but that's died down recently. They been closing down the borders."
"So that's the way it is," Youko muttered.
Seizou snorted derisively. "I don't know a thing about Japan without asking, but I go on telling you about what goes on here. Looks like I'm becoming one of them, after all."
"You surely don't mean that."
Seizou held up his hand. "Compared to Kei, Kou is a much better place. But, let on that you're kaikyaku and they slap you in irons. Better or no, not much you can do in either case."
"But I … . "
Seizou laughed. When he laughed it almost sounded like he was weeping. "I know, I know. It's not your fault. I know, but it still stings. No need to take it out on you. You having to stay on the lam, that's got to be tough, too."
Youko only shook her head.
"I got to get back to my job. Breakfast to get ready. You take care, wherever you're going, okay?"
With that he slipped out of the room and was gone.
Youko was about to call him back, but stopped herself. "Goodnight," was all she said.
4-4
Youko pulled the futons down from the shelf. With a sigh she resigned herself to making her bed there. It had been a long time since she'd slept on a futon and she was still wide awake. So many things weighed on her mind.
Why was it that the language didn't confuse her? If she hadn't been able to comprehend what people were saying, she couldn't begin to imagine how things might have turned out. She couldn't begin to imagine why things had turned out the way they had.
If the lingua franca spoken here wasn't Japanese, then there was no way she should be able to understand anything. When she spoke to that person outside the door, what possible language could she have been using? The old man heard Japanese and the other person heard the language they spoke here.
The few words that the old man could speak in the language sounded only slightly different to her ears. Even that was a curious thing. And then saying that there was no such word as "governor." If that was the case, then what had she been hearing every time someone said the word?
Youko stared up at the low ceiling. A translation. The words were somehow being translated so she could understand them.
"Jouyuu? Is this your doing?"
Of course, in response to her murmured words, she felt nothing at all.
As she always did, she slept with the sword clasped to her chest. When she awoke, the rucksack she had deposited in the corner of the room the night before had disappeared. Youko jumped to her feet and examined the door. The lock was fastened soundly.
She caught up with the manager and explained what had happened. The door and room were examined by two men who both regarded Youko with suspicious looks.
"Are you sure you really had your luggage here?"
"It was. My purse was inside it. Somebody stole it."
"Yeah, but the door was locked."
"What about a master key?"
The men again exchanged suspicious expressions. "You trying to say that one of us stole your stuff?"
"We couldn't do it if we wanted to. Or were you intending to blame us and run out on the bill all along?"
The men sidled up to Youko. She put her hand on the hilt of the sword. "Not true."
"At any rate, you still owe us."
"I told you, my purse was stolen, too."
"Let's take it up with the cops, then."
"Wait a minute." Youko started to undo the covering of her sword. She said, "Call that old man who was here last night." It occurred to her that he could put in a good word for her.