The Twelve Kingdoms: A Thousand Leagues of Wind

that is useful to someone. But as for me, him being alive makes me tired."
    "Makes you tired?"
    "I'm a simple guy. When I hear about kids getting killed who did nothing wrong, I get mad. And getting mad makes you tired. It's hard to forget something that just rubs you the wrong way. Sekki's better at it than me. He went right from the county to the prefecture school, and even got into the district academy. His elementary school principal gave him a recommendation. There was nothing stopping him from becoming a government official. I gotta think he's got a bright future ahead of him. But I really can't say that makes me happy. So he becomes a government official, then what? If he gets into the government, is he gonna get used by Shoukou? Fall in with Gahou? I can't get excited about my little brother hanging around with people like that."
    "Koshou . . . . "
    "Sekki doesn't like it either. Even though he was interested in it, he quit. There are bad things you can't forget even if you want to. Things you can't be happy about even if you want to. Being that way wears me out. I hate it. Being alive is not enough. You want to feel good about life, right? You want to believe, hey, I'm glad I was born, I'm happy to be there. But as long as there are people like Shoukou around, I can't feel that way. That's why I gotta do something about it."
    Suzu took a breath and let it out. "That's it?"
    "That's it. If I thought I could storm the prefecture castle and kill Shoukou and put my mind at ease, I'd do it. But it wouldn't put my mind at ease. In the first place, I never could do it. When it comes to dealing with Shoukou, the only way I can think of is to approach him in numbers and force him from office. And if he said, over my dead body, well, then we'd have to oblige him. Anything I came up with on my own would be a waste. I haven't got enough self-discipline."
    "Really."
    "I've got a temper like a kid. Sekki's the one to think things through."
    Suzu laughed. "I perfectly understand where you're coming from."
    "Yeah?" the big man smiled.
    "Is there anything I can do?"
    "Well, we need to borrow your sansui. We're collecting weapons. We can't go up against Shoukou and his bodyguards with shovels and hoes."
    "So you need to transport some cargo?"
    "Rou Hansei, a long-time friend of mine, is getting a shipment ready for us. Would it be okay for you to take your sansui there and back?"
    Suzu nodded firmly. "Sure. No problem."

Chapter 50
    " T his is Meikaku."
    The driver dropped Shoukei off at the gates to the city. She looked at the ramparts in surprise. The haphazard state of the walls alone was a shock.
    "What a strange city," she observed as she paid the driver.
    He laughed scornfully. "That's what everybody says."
    "I thought city walls were supposed to run in straight lines."
    "Yeah," the young man said, gazing up at the walls.
    The walls of a city as big as a provincial capital were normally wide enough to post sentries along the top. Merlons in the battlements provided cover for archers posted behind the parapets. Here and there structures called bastions ("horse faces") jutted out from the walls. Bastions were built in all shapes and sizes, but for no particular reason they were usually rectangular and of a fixed height.
    But here at Meikaku, such regularity was hard to find. The wall would run along for a while at an impressive height and then suddenly dip down so low you could see the wall opposite. Some bastions were joined together by wall walks hardly wide enough to walk over. These structural undulations continued on like the untutored scribblings of a child.
    Shoukei looked over her shoulder at the young driver. He again laughed sarcastically. "The only inns are in Hokkaku or Toukaku. Originally, the inns were in a bunch of warehouses outside the Boar Gate. They built a big wall around them and every year it gets bigger. Kind of a mess, huh? It's even worse inside, because the old walls were left in place. Try not to get lost."
    "Thanks," Shoukei said.
    The driver regarded the city walls with a nonplused expression and returned to the horse cart. Shoukei peered at the main gate. A big tunnel was carved into the wall. The gates were adorned with nothing more than a plain-looking pair of doors. The plate above the gate simply read, "Meikaku."
    Like the driver had said, a crude rock pile of a wall obstructed the way. At the base of the wall, canvas tarps were stretched over jumbles of wooden planks to form a tent city