The Twelve Kingdoms: A Thousand Leagues of Wind

by side with the prosperity and liveliness of En, the Kei side of the city looked a wreck.
    The group of people continued on down the street together and entered a cheap inn. She finally found a three-story building with vacancies. Big rooms, but you had to share accommodations.
    The refugees staying at the inn expressed a variety of sentiments: from those happy they were able to return to their home country, earnestly optimistic about the future, to those nursing the broken dream of moving back to a blessed, wealthy kingdom and living the easy life.
    "You hear that about the empress?"
    Shoukei overheard several people talking together in a corner of the guest quarters.
    "An empress? Again?"
    "If I'd known that, I would have stayed in En."
    "Empresses are no good. They don't have what it takes. It's all going to hell in a handbasket soon enough."
    "The minute it starts heading down that road, we're hightailing it to En."
    "I'm telling you, the next time we leave, we're never coming back."
    Yeah, it really was a mess. Shoukei sighed. For some reason, the Royal Kei didn't seem like a stranger to her. When she thought about what it must be like to be the Empress, she had to sigh in sympathy.
    And right now she's probably in the palace thinking the same thing.
    "I wonder if we just should head back now."
    "Never happen. There's nothing left for us in En. No matter how you slice it, we weren't born in En."
    "Yeah, but we can't go back to where we was born, neither."
    "Hopefully something's left of our hometown."
    "Forget it." One of the men leaned forward. "You know anything about ships leaving from Goto?"
    "What's that?"
    "Warships headed to Tai. One of the governors in Wa Province been dispatching them, or so's I hear. Seems they're picking up refugees in Tai and bringing them here."
    "News to me. You gotta be crazy, heading off to Tai, now? Put a cork in it."
    "Not, I'm not talking about that. Let's see, where was it . . . yeah, Shisui. The governor of Shisui, he sends out these boats 'cause of how sorry he feels for the refugees and all. If you get on board and make it to Shisui, he'll give you a plot of land and register you on the census."
    "Shisui, Wa Province . . . that's right on the border of Ei Province."
    "Hey, if they can take care of refugees like that, Shisui's got to be doing great, right? If we ask, they got to welcome us in, right?"
    "Nonsense." A woman waved her hand dismissively. "It's all sweet talk. People pulling the wool over your eyes."
    "It ain't. I heard the same from other people as well. Right?"
    There was a lull in the conversation.
    "They got you believing in tall tales, all right. That's all they are."
    "That can't be true. C'mon, no one's heard of it before? Really?"
    In response to his query, Shoukei raised her voice. "I have."
    The tight little group suddenly opened up, its attention falling on her. The one man approached her. "It's true, isn't it? I knew it!"
    "Well, um, I heard about it in Ryuu. I heard about it from a sailor who worked on ships that sailed from Ryuu to Tai. He said there were ships like that."
    A flurry of conversation followed, all of them arguing at the same time about how well off Shisui must be, and how their hometown might not even exist anymore.
    "So why don't we just go see for ourselves?"
    "My village got destroyed when the river flooded its banks."
    "I'd still rather go back to where I was born."
    They ended up split down the middle, between those who wanted to start for Shisui right away, and those who thought it all a pack of lies and argued that nothing good would come of it.
    "Where'd you come from?" one of them asked Shoukei.
    She tilted her head to one side. "I'm from Hou. You know, I'd like to get a homestead of my own, but I'm not old enough." She could always fib about her age, but she wasn't sure about how to carry it off. "But if Shisui really is that wealthy, I don't see any harm in finding out for myself." She nodded to herself as she spoke. "I figure I've got to get a job somewhere, and it might as well be Shisui as anywhere else."

    The next day, Shoukei started her journey to Shisui. She'd gotten used to traveling by wagon in Ryuu so that was how she'd decided to proceed. Unlike Ryuu and En, there were many people walking along the roads. In fact, it wouldn't be too cold to walk. The work of walking alone would keep you warm enough, aside from the tips of your feet and hands, to be tolerable.
    The road headed south toward Meikaku, the capital