The Twelve Kingdoms: Dreaming of Paradise

and her love for him, scorning him with the same vehemence with which she delighted in his excellence, and her joy for having chosen him. She alternately lambasted him for abandoning his subjects, and Shuka for abandoning him.
    "I don't know if I can take any more of this," Shuka wept, returning to her wagon after a lady-in-waiting relieved her.
    "Shuka-sama—" Seiki placed his hand on her back. He looked up at her and said, his voice layered with concern, "I can well understand why His Highness wished to have the Taiho out of view. It is an unbearable sight."
    Sairin's illness was evidence of mistakes being made. And Shishou was not the only person making them. Shishou had appointed them to the Imperial Court. Sairin's shitsudou was the fruits of their collective effort. If it was simply the results of fatigue, or the debilitation caused by the contamination by blood, it wouldn't inflict this degree of suffering. And yet her suffering had been cruelly ignored, an indifference that was evidence of the loss of the Way.
    Now the consequences of that cruel inattention were being thrust upon them.
    "That is something we've all had a hand in. But why?" Shuka looked at Seiki and Eishuku. Up till now, she hadn't been willing to admit to any personal fault. "The fact is, we chased that dream and nothing else. We believed that the course before us was self-evident, that the goal we were pursuing was the proper ideal, and as long as we unfurled that flag with sufficient vigor, we could make anything happen.
    In the idealistic government they had founded, no one used their positions for self-interest or personal gain. When such civil servants were discovered, they were fired. But then things grounds to a halt without them so they had to be rehired. The whole affair was certainly a blunder of the first order. And it was their mistake, Shishou's mistake.
    They had actually convinced themselves that if the crimes of the corrupt were exposed and they were punished, then they really would see the light. They would reflect upon their sins, and their humiliating example would convince others like them to change their ways. They had not allowed for the fact that there existed corrupt officials who, indicted, punished and shamed, would never repent.
    If someone had pointed out to them that the real world was not the one they naively pictured in their minds, then they might have been the ones to see the light.
    "Is that where we stumbled? Just like Junko-sama said, have we been building prison walls the whole time? But we haven't been forcing people to hew to the right and killing those who did not obey."
    Even the more tyrannical of the officials had been sacked, not executed. Sentences had been tempered by compassion, and every attempt was made to be benevolent. And yet the kingdom continued to sink into chaos, just as did Sairin.
    As the journey continued, this fact became undeniable. The common people were plainly in distress. A good part of that distress was due to exploitation by local officials. But the rest was Shuka's fault. Though land management was in her portfolio, she had done little for the people who make their living from the land. Since the time of King Fu, the ministers had lined their own pockets first, and had left the foxes to watch the henhouses.
    The farmers abandoned their allotments, the fields went fallow, the canals silted in, the dikes sprang leaks, and the villages were drained of resources by political corruption. All these facts on the ground should have demanded her attention. The course of action was clear, but the Imperial Treasury lacked the funds to address these problems.
    The people impoverished by graft and corruption couldn't bear a heavier tax burden. Shishou had lowered taxes out of compassion, but had drained the treasury in the process.
    Sairin's sickness, the devastation of the land, the poverty of the people—the journey brought home to her day after day the enormity of her failings. She was mightily relieved when the peaks of the Koushuu Mountains finally came into view.

Part V
    he city of Houga was situated in Kokkyou in the eastern part of Sai. An official from Sou stood at the gates leading from Sai to Sou, along with a company of soldiers. Shuka and the other got off the wagons. Under the watchful gaze of the Sai military, they proceeded through the gates into Sou on foot.
    The young woman standing at the head of the company bowed politely. "I am Princess Bun, daughter of the Royal