The Twelve Kingdoms - Novel 5 - The Wings of Dreams Read online

  The dry winter wind whistled among the peaks and hummed across the ridges, soaking like rain into the cracks and fissures, raising a constant, humming chorus. The winters in Renshou were accompanied by what sounded very much like the distant call of the ocean.

  Where the sunlight slanted into the streets, the constantly blowing wind and the gusts tumbling down the bare face of the mountains whipped up little whirlwinds, one of which tossed the hems of a young girl’s kimono.

  “Oh, bother.” The girl clutched her bag against her side while slapping down the dancing hems. “It’s cold,” she muttered.

  Behind her a voice called out. “Hey, Shushou, you going home or what?”

  She glanced over her shoulder as a boy emerged from deserted courtyard of the prefectural academy.

  “Of course I am.” Leaning against one of the gate’s pillar, Shushou pointedly averted her gaze.

  “Yeah, but you’ve been standing there forever.”

  “And you’ve been watching me the whole time?”

  The boy blushed a bit and glared at her in turn. “Doesn’t meant I’ve been watching you the whole time. I happened to catch sight of you now and then. Like I would look at you even if you asked!”

  “And I would be the last person on earth to ask you. Thank goodness.”

  The boy scowled at Shushou’s prim profile, turned on his heels, and started up the stone steps in front of the gate. He whirled around and said, “Are you coming or not?”

  “I am. You are, aren’t you? Then why don’t you hurry it up?”

  “Same goes for you. If you’re going home anyway, why don’t you hurry it up?”

  Shushou answered with a small sigh. “My bodyguards haven’t arrived. I don’t know where they’re off wasting time, but I cannot very well leave without them. So I am going to wait.”

  “Ha!” exclaimed the boy. “You’re scared of going home alone.”

  “What have I got to be afraid of? It’s a straight walk from here.”

  “Tell the truth. A little princess like Shushou is scared to go anywhere without somebody accompanying her.”

  Shushou set her mouth and glared at the jesting boy. “You are correct. I was brought up to be a proper young lady. A proper young lady like me should not be seen walking around without an attendant. Were I to do so, I would not be the one taken to task, but my attendants.”

  “Still doesn’t mean you’re not a fraidy cat. Send them home ahead of you, then.”

  “You aren’t listening to a single thing I’m saying.”

  Just then three burly men came running up the road, the bodyguards employed by Shushou’s father. Slouched against the pillar, the impatiently waiting Shushou straightened and said, her voice rising slightly, “What happened? Is that blood?”

  The bodyguards exchanged glances. Their leather armor was spattered with tiny red splotches.

  “Please excuse the delay. We heard a scream from over there.”

  He pointed down the main thoroughfare that ran straight south from the main gate. Approaching dusk, the wide boulevard was thronged with the usual crowds. But among them were apprehensive faces, and where the bodyguard was pointing, people in a great hurry.

  “What happened?”

  “A mushi swarm. We took care of ’em. Sorry for making you wait.”

  Shushou furrowed her brows. Twenty-seven years had passed since the demise of the empress. Even here in Renshou, the capital city, youma outbreaks were becoming more and more frequent. As youma went, “mushi” referred to a variety of small and relatively benign creatures. But they were also a harbinger of worse things to come. When a swarm of mushi appeared, much bigger youma often followed soon after.

  “We’d better hurry,” the bodyguard urged.

  Shushou nodded, and stepped quickly down the stone staircase, the boy bringing up the rear.

  “Hey, Shushou, do you think it’d be okay?”

  “What?”

  “To come with you?”

  Shushou cast a peeved look over her shoulder. “What good would that do? As soon as we got home, the bodyguards would have to turn right around and head back out with you.”

  “But—” The boy hesitated then smiled. “This is the last time, after all. So I might as well keep watching out for you until we’re all done here.”

  “Hardly necessary,” Shushou muttered. “Besides, isn’t it about time you headed home too? Well, then—”

  Her words trailed off as Shushou skipped down the stone steps of the main gate. The boy watched her leave, his sigh swept away by the swirling wind.

  Chapter 2

  [1-2] Shushou’s house was located in the northern outskirts of Renshou, a stone’s throw from the prefectural academy.

  Renshou sat at the foot of Mt. Ryou’un, facing north along its rising slopes. Ascending the angled streets to a quiet neighborhood lined with monasteries and shrines, then following the city walls surrounding the city higher until obstructed by the northern barrier wall, a magnificent, multistoried gate came into view.

  The gate was two stories tall, the buildings to the left and right three. Further inside, the expansive roofs of the main wing of the house became visible, the tiles finished in bright green enamel. Multicolored ornamentation decorated the ridges of the roofs and hung from the eaves.

  The loop road was slightly wider in front of the main gate. A large privacy wall stood in front of the gate, carved with bas-relief symbols petitioning for divine protection. Finely engraved tracery windows were set into the fence on either side of the wall, through which the branches of a stately arbor could be seen.

  There was probably not a finer manor house in all of Renshou. The house was owned by a man named Sou. Because of the renown gardens covering the hillside, the estate came to be known as Sou Park or Sou Gardens.

  Shushou was born there. Her formal given name was Sai. Her father’s name was Sou Joshou, though he also went by “Sou Banko,” a name that meant there wasn’t a business he would not engage in.

  Starting out in the forestry business common throughout Kyou, he pulled himself up by his bootstraps to earn a reputation as a merchant of considerable means in Renshou.

  It was said in Renshou that one could only hope in vain to exceed the riches and honors of Banko. Because greater riches and honors simply did not exist. That did not extend only to his material blessings. Hajou, his wife, was known for her wisdom. He had three sons and three daughters who each possessed a strength of character to match their brilliant business sense.

  And a much younger daughter.

  Joshou ran as tight a ship inside the home as outside it. The large staff of servants revered him. So with good reason was it was that one could only hope in vain to exceed the wealth and honor of Joshou.

  All the windows and openings in the gate towers, the physical symbols of that wealth, were covered with delicately-shaped iron latticework. Passing through the gate Shushou shook her head and murmured to herself, “Bloody fools.”

  They could build the strongest buildings in the world, surround themselves with the most devoted bodyguards, and the breath of one hippou—a winged, fire-breathing youma—would reduce the place to cinders. When it came to droughts and floods, cold waves and typhoons, all of Banko’s wealth couldn’t begin to combat the damage wreaked by youma and natural disasters.

  “Hoh, I can’t let myself be called a fool without comment.”

  Shushou raised her head to the unexpected interjection. Seeing the figure standing there in the courtyard, her bodyguards all kowtowed at once. Everyone in Renshou knew the face of this genial, middle-age man: Joshou.

  “My youngest daughter needs to watch her tongue.”

  “Do I?”

  Joshou smiled and gave her a hug. “Word came that there was a mushi outbreak near the prefectural academy. I was about to hurry to meet you, and here I run into Shushou cursing to high heavens.”

  Shushou acquiesced with a meek shrug, making Joshou smile again. He turned to the bodyguards
and thanked them for their efforts. “It looks like you dealt with those mushi. Good work.”

  The bodyguards bowed their heads to the cool ground of the courtyard.

  “That settles it, Shushou. I’m pulling you out of the academy. It’s not only your well being that I’m concerned about, but that of your bodyguards as well.”

  “You don’t need to worry about it. The academy closed on its own.”

  Shushou strode to the inner gate. Waiting for her bodyguards had chilled her thoroughly. The walk from the academy to her house had done little to warm her up.

  “Closed?”

  “Yeah. The headmaster died.”

  There was one prefectural academy—also known as a shougaku—in each prefecture. The district academies, or joushou, matriculated the best students from the various shougaku who had received a recommendation from their headmaster. Shushou had been about to receive that recommendation.

  She hadn’t had to attend the shougaku. Her father urged her to quite after finishing preparatory school (jogaku). She’d pitched a royal fit, only to see it all come to naught.

  Joshou’s eyes widened in surprise. “Haku Sensei?”

  “His house was attacked this morning by youma. They say a bafuku ate him.”

  “Shushou—” Joshou ran over and knelt down next to her. “This is terrible news!”

  “You don’t have to make a big deal over it. This is the second headmaster in a row. When you include the students who’ve died and all their relations, it’s getting to be a pretty run-of-the-mill kind of thing.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Shushou.”

  “It’s the truth!” She shrugged. “But hardly all that surprising. The headmaster’s house didn’t have bars on the windows.”

  Shushou looked across the courtyard. All the windows and doors facing the courtyard were protected by beautifully designed iron latticework. Additional layers of coat of fresh plaster were added to the walls on a daily basis. The doors were reinforced with iron rivets. Watchmen stood guard day and night.

  “The father of a boy from a nearby town died. His father traveled a long distance taking orders and delivering barrels. At sundown he hadn’t returned. The concerned neighbors went looking for him, only to discover that the people wintering over in a hamlet three miles away were all dead. They found his head there.”

  “Shushou—”

  “But what can you do? The boy didn’t have any bodyguards at his house. In the fall, locusts destroyed the whole crop. If his father didn’t deliver the barrels, they would starve. Payment for an order was found in his mouth. When the youma attacked, he probably worried about dropping it while running away.”

  Joshou patted his daughter’s back in a consoling manner. As if escaping that reassuring touch, Shushou set off to the main wing of the house. “I am fine. I’ve gotten used to it, don’t you know. People dying isn’t so frightening anymore. Grandmama died when I was young. It seems foolish to be afraid of anything after that.”

  “Shushou, enough.”

  Joshou ran after her and hugged his arms around her shoulders. He all but carried her into the parlor and set her down in a chair. “These are hard times.”

  “That’s what everybody says.”

  “I understand the pain you must see in the people and the world around you. But you mustn’t allow thoughts of resignation to take hold of your mind.”

  “I am hardly resigning myself.”

  “Shushou—”

  Shushou looked up at her father. “Aren’t you going on the Shouzan?”

  Joshou’s eyes opened a bit wider. “The Shouzan?”

  “These are hard times because an emperor does not sit upon the throne. If you became the emperor, that would solve the problem, wouldn’t it?”

  Stroking his daughter’s hair, Joshou shook his head and said with a sad smile, “Blessed though I may be, Shushou, I am nothing but an ordinary merchant.”

  Chapter 3

  [1-3] Keika called from the living room. “Miss, supper is served.”

  Shushou put down her writing brush. She glanced over the sheets of seemingly random scribbling, gathered them up, and stuffed them into the bookcase. She was cleaning the ink stone when the door opened and Keika stuck her head into the room.

  “Miss, is it true the headmaster was killed?”

  “Um, yes.”

  “And yet you continue to study! School has been suspended, has it not?”

  “True.”

  Keika was a live-in maid, a year older than Shushou. She was one of a class of servants that weren’t paid a salary, but were reared as members of the family. In exchange for a minimal guarantee of room and board, they were granted a minimal but real standing. This wasn’t to say that none of the servants in Shushou’s house were paid a wage, but the gap in social status was considerable.

  Keika was the child of such a live-in maid. Installed in the Sou estate by her parents, she’d been working there as a maidservant since she was little. Despite her status, having been raised together from a young age made her presence a relaxed and familiar one, and being so close in age to Shushou, all the more so.

  “Such turns of events are becoming commonplace to an unsettling degree. But we cannot allow ourselves to mope.”

  “I’m not moping about anything.”

  “That may be so, but you said you wished to take your dinner in your room.”

  “I don’t particularly want to look at my father’s face right now.”

  “Ah,” Keika said with a dubious expression. She hauled Shushou to her feet and marched her into the living room. The evening meal was already set out on the dining table.

  “Your father has been delighted with your progress. And to think he once mightily objected to your going onto the prefectural academy.”

  Shushou sat down and surveyed the table settings. “That he did.”

  “Does it really matter all that much? You can study here at home, can’t you? Your father can always hire a tutor.”

  Shushou went to pick up her chopsticks and sighed instead. “The tutors my father hires teach nothing but etiquette and business. Besides, without a recommendation to the district academy, the whole matter is moot.”

  The prefectural academies prepared students for the district academies, which prepared students for the provincial colleges. College graduates were pretty much guaranteed a position in the civil service. In short, her merchant father could never quite grasp that Shushou wished to try for a career in government.

  “It’s so frustrating! I was that close to becoming a district scholar,” as students who’d received a recommendation to a district academy were known.

  “But you’ve come so far already! Not only your father, but even your brothers and sisters were perfectly satisfied with a preparatory school education.”

  “I don’t think were so much satisfied as they didn’t have the brains to earn a recommendation to the prefectural academy.”

  Keika gave Shushou a surprised look. “That again. Certainly you cannot begrudge the knowledge and skills that made this fine house possible. Why in the world would you want to become a civil servant?”

  Shushou took a sip of tea and stared out the window. “Rise high enough in the government and you will never grow older.”

  “My, my. What a childish aspiration.”

  “What wrong with not wanting to die? To live forever and not turn out like your mom, all baggy and wrinkled.”

  “Don’t be mean. Leave my mother out of this, if you please.” Keika frowned, then peered at Shushou’s face. “Are you going to eat?”

  “I’m not in the mood. I lost my appetite.”

  “What are you going on about?” Keika picked up the chopsticks and thrust them into Shushou’s hand. “Such persnicketiness invites the wrath of the gods. Food is getting more expensive by the day. The average household cannot even afford the meager meal spread out before you.”

  Shushou looked at the array of dishes. “That’s just silly,�
� she said, putting the chopsticks down.

  “Miss—”

  “I have no illusions about how wealthy we are compared to everybody else. No ordinary family could afford something like this. But whether I eat or not is neither here nor there.”

  “You’re just going to leave it there? There are so many who would love to partake of such a feast and cannot. And not only that, there are people who won’t even be able to eat dinner tonight!”

  “And?” Shushou looked up at Keika. “I know that. As my father likes to say, if you stay shut up inside the house and never venture outside, you’ll never learn anything about the world. Going to school and meeting different people makes it painfully clear that other families aren’t like ours.”

  “And so—”

  “And so nothing. The one has no relationship to the other. Will eating this meal cause equal portions to rain down on those who go without? If the hungry are so pitiful, then take this food and give it to them.”

  “Pardon me for saying so, Miss, but even this is far more luxurious than what I will ever eat.”

  The kitchen workload had only increased of late. Keika and the rest of the live-in servants had seen cutbacks in their own meals. She was a growing girl, and the portions had never been generous to start with, so it was not unusual for her to wake up at night with an empty stomach these days.

  She glared angrily at Shushou, who raised her cool countenance to Keika and said, “It’s all yours, then.”

  “Miss!” Keika exclaimed in a shrill voice.

  “Look,” Shushou said, a chastening tint darkening her eyes. “The headmaster’s house had no bars on the windows. He was attacked by a bafuku youma and devoured. A child fed himself for three days with the money he plucked from the mouth of his dead father, money earned delivering buckets. You sleep safely in your bed. You eat regularly and do not starve. I hope you appreciate how blessed you are.”

  Keika bridled. “What are you trying to say?”

  “If you are going to feign ignorance of the obvious, then at least spare me the hackneyed moralizing. I don’t want it. Take it away, all of it.”