The Twelve Kingdoms: Dreaming of Paradise

presence, does he come to Youshun Palace. It works out to him spending about half his time here. And yet—"
    Youshou didn't finish the rest of the sentence. This traveler from Kei had no connection to Hou and certainly no connection to himself. Youshou knew better than to let his emotions get the better of him in such a situation. He simply shut his mouth to keep things under control.
    "And yet?" Sei pressed gently. "Would it be rude of me to ask for more details? I came here bearing correspondence from the Empress. I cannot leave until I have delivered it."
    Shouyou grasped his knees. "The Marquis is returning to Kei Province. His intention is to leave here for good."
    "Which has the rest of you at loose ends."
    "To say the least. No one else is qualified to govern Hou. And yet the Marquis orders me to make it so."
    Four years had passed. The chaos was under control. The right people had been placed in the right positions. The Imperial Court was functioning as it should. Steps were being taken to provide help for the people. Goals were being accomplished. And if to end these accomplishments with an emphatic bit of punctuation, Gekkei broached the subject of a Chousai for the first time.
    Youshou and the other enthusiastically agreed. Up till now, Gekkei had acted as the Chousai in all but name. Filling the position in name as well as reality—a leader to lead this leaderless regime—would be far more appropriate. Or so all the ministers believed. Instead, Gekkei nominated Shouyou.
    "The Marquis ordered me to become Chousai. Why should it be anyone but him? No one agreed with that decision. But we suppressed our outrage and did what he wanted. We had assumed—wrongly—that the Marquis was at last prepared to sit upon the throne."
    Up till then, Shouyou and his colleagues had repeatedly entreated Gekkei to fill the empty throne. The Royal Kyou of the neighboring Kingdom of Kyou had recommended the same. But Gekkei soundly rejected the proposition. Now it seemed that he had at last changed his mind.
    "If the Chousai was supposed to run the kingdom, then the Marquis ought to be doing so instead. But if he was to recommend someone like myself to be the Chousai, then I believed he must take the higher position for himself. He never explicitly denied that he might do so. Yet today, out of the blue, he stated he was leaving the capital and returning to Kei Province!"
    Gekkei should have understood the extent to which the other ministers had misunderstood his recommendation. But he never once sought to correct those mistaken assumptions. When he thought about it now, Gekkei must have known this all along. Had the ministers grasped what was going on, they never would have agreed to appoint Shouyou Chousai.
    He had not only failed to correct these mistaken beliefs, but from the start he had done his best—by omission—to foster them.
    "He says that he is a Province Lord, not an Imperial minister, and his job is to govern his province, not the kingdom. While it may have been necessary to trespass upon that authority in order to calm the chaos, it would be impermissible for him, as a Province Lord, to trespass upon that authority in order to rule the kingdom. He's still sticking to that same old argument!"
    Tears of rage and disappointment fell on the hands grasping his knees. Shouyou knew that he could not fill Gekkei's shoes. Gekkei had slain Chuutatsu and stopped the slaughter. The faith of the ministers and the people in him was absolute. To retreat to his province, even after appointing Shouyou Chousai—both the people and the government officials needed someone to bind them together. All the more so there being no king to keep the kingdom from sliding into oblivion.
    Shouyou couldn't deny the expectation that this was something only Gekkei could do, that they needed him to do. The same year they had struck down Chuutatsu, he had executed at least three-hundred thousands of his subjects, perversely spurred on by the shitsudou afflicting Hourin. Even then, Shouyou and his colleagues had hemmed and hawed. They pitied the people, they lamented the state of the Kingdom, but couldn't muster the courage to mention the word "regicide."
    Gekkei was the only one who voiced the possibility, who took action. They saw nothing wrong in placing their faith and expectations in him. They believed that he would continue to lead them as he had during the insurrection. As far as the people were concerned, no matter what became of the