The Twelve Kingdoms: Dreaming of Paradise

told him.
    "No matter how many explanations or apologies I offer, His Highness will not be there to offer absolution. No matter how well I understand this, it is still the justification I wish to offer, probably nothing but a way of explaining myself to myself. If I add to that an actual usurpation of the throne, those explanations as well would be pointless. And now Shoukei-sama—the last person on earth who would ever forgive me."
    If anything, the Princess Royal would have a good laugh at his expense. You are the traitor who killed the King and stole the throne. She'd already concluded that he'd taken everything that had once been hers out of spite and jealousy.
    Sei asked in obvious confusion, "Shoukei would never forgive you? Why?"
    "Are you serious?"
    "I don't see how it is important whether Shoukei forgives you or not. But now that you mention it, I would ask you to keep in mind that I did come here to see you. Shoukei was the one who identified you as the ruler of Hou. There was no provisional king when she last resided in Hou, but she was sure that by now the position would have been filled. That is why Her Highness addressed her correspondence to you. Shoukei was sure that as long as the Marquis was in change, things in Hou wouldn't spin out of control."
    Gekkei stared at Sei in amazement.
    "That's why Her Highness told me to come here and see what was going on, in order to find out what the Marquis was doing to keep the kingdom intact." Sei smiled at the speechless Gekkei. "I understand how you could hate yourself for striking down the man you revered. Yes, a crime is a crime. However, keeping chaos at bay is as much according to the Way as is repentance."
    Sei looked up at the hazy moon rising over the garden. "When the sun sets and the roads are shrouded in darkness, the moon appears to show us the way."
    There was a halo around the moon and the faint light shining down on them was tinged with a cold and melancholy gloom. Hardly an equal with the noonday sun. But enough to serve as a guide.
    Next to him, Sei raised his voice. "What about a moonlight court?"
    Gekkei blinked, not getting what he meant. Sei grinned. "It's inconvenient speaking only of a 'provisional court' or a 'pretender's court.' Say we call a court where the king occupies the throne a 'daylight court' and a court without a king a 'moonlight court.' Working by the light of the moon, we await the dawn."
    "Of course," Gekkei said, smiling in turn.

Chapter 7
    T endrils of mist crept through a ravine. The faces of rocky ridges jutted out of the smoky haze. Here and there a mountain stream coursed down the slopes to a small pavilion, where it emptied into a deep pool.
    Gekkei sat by himself at his desk in the study and studied the scene that appeared to him inside the box.
    It was etched onto an inkstone the size of his two hands put together. The stone was a celebrated product of the Shun Kingdom. It was laced with lines of jade and embedded with a marble-like mottling that resembled scattered clouds. The valley descended beneath the shrouded skies and the pavilion watched over the deep, dark waters of the well of the inkstone, where a setting moon peered back.
    The mottled, cloud-like patterns seemed to float in the channel of the inkstone where the ink stick was scraped back and forth. On the opposite side was etched a poem lauding the craft of calligraphy.
    But it—and the stone itself—was neatly split in two.
    Gekkei examined the fissure running through the stone. He could still remember the sound of the shattered stone, a sound so beautiful it was painful.
    The inkstone was a gift from the Royal Hou Chuutatsu on the occasion of Gekkei being appointed Province Lord of Kei. Some ten years later, he broke the stone. Now useless, ruined even as a centerpiece, he'd set the fragments aside. It was the same as discarding it, as there was no way to return it to its original form.
    He'd known that and destroyed it anyway upon receiving the news that in excess of one hundred "criminals" had been executed at the castle gates. Most of these "sinners" were guilty of nothing more grievous than "sloth," of shirking their duties or abandoning their fields. Their individual circumstances—an illness in the family, a friend in need—was never taken into account.
    In order that sin be truly shunned, the sin must truly be despised. The citizens of the capital were ordered to gather at the city gates and stone the sinners to death. Then the corpses