That day was what Yuka had come to call a Culture Day and it was one of the rare treats she had to look forward to over the course of the year.
:I don't know whether to say it is pathetic or admirable that I have such a strange event held,: she thought to herself.
Because neither she nor Taiki were natural citizens of Tai, and yet they both held the fate of the kingdom together, the two of them had worried that the impact of the decisions that they had to make would not take the people who were affected by them in to good enough account. With only a basic high school education, Yuka could point out at least a dozen hitorical incidences in which well-meaning decisions made by foreign powers (like many of Great Britains "colonies" in other countries such as India and China) that had not taken the deep-rooted culture, social mores and beliefs into account had ended in disaster. Since neither she nor Taiki had known all that much about Tai except what they were able to read in books, they both had felt that they lacked a true understanding of the lands and people they were set up to rule.
:And since the situation prevented either of us from walking around and visiting with people, we had little choice but to bring the people to us if we were to be able to meet with them and understand them, even just a little bit.:
Since the end of the winter wars when bringing about economic stability and ridding the land of Youma became thier primary objectives in order to stabilize the government they had held this particular bit of strangeness. Yuka and Taiki had ordered that the soldiers stationed in peaceful (and even some hostile if they could manage it) provinces would politiely request that a few people from different classes and backgrounds, from all walks of life, from farmer and fisher to merchant and aristocrat, would take some time out from thier lives to travel t the capitol and meet with "someone." It was never exactly specified who that someone was, and the people were never told that they had met with the Taiho and the acting queen-consort of Tai to hear about their lives. They even held the meeting in a non-descript house down in the capitol city of Kouki, Yuka dressed in plain clothes and ferried down there by one of her guards. It was the only time at all during the year when she got to leave the palace.
They tried to get a pretty good sampling, all occupations and ages, genders and hanjuu as well in order to get the widest perspective possible. Taiki and Yuka just listened to them, they asked questions about what thier lives were like and what thier homes were like, anything from questions about architecture to weather and climate conditions to what an average day in thier lives might be like. They listened to thier concerns (and there were a great many of them) and thier unsettled feelings over how the world was changing, and how some of them thought the changes were good because of the upward mobility or bad because of thier traditional values.
:I think we have a pretty good cross section of the population this time,: Yuka thought as she looked down at the list of people she was supposed to meet with.
She had fishers from several different areas around the coast, each from a different province, there were farmers, of both genders and of varrying age-groups from all around, even from what Yuka had come to think of as enemy territory.
:It will be even more important to listen and understand them,: Yuka reminded herself. :After all, they are the ones who will be and have been most affected by the decisions Taiki and I have made.:
There were what Yuka still thought of a miners (though could you call them that when what they did was more along the lines of harvest rather than dig in the earth to wrest out treasure?) and of course merchants of the south, but a few from the north. There were shepherds or whatever the local equivalent was, and some butchers, there were also students, and traveling minstrels, youma-slayers, a few nobles from old families in a scattering of the provinces, vinters and cheesmakers as well as several people who worked in some of the newer crafts that had cropped up.
What Yuka found out over the course of the day did, as usual, increase her understanding of the kingdom she was supposedly supposed to be running with the help of Taiki. She learned that the farmers of the north were having just as hard a time of things as she had feared they would be; there were less migrant workers to help them take in the harvests because everyone had moved down south for jobs in the towns. In addition, crops were harder to plant with less people to plant them. She learned that some of the ones who had emmigrated down south for jobs were actually having trouble finding work in some places and that many of them missed thier old homes but knew they would not be able to return because if they did, the provincial governor and his armies would take all of their food that they needed to survive in order to feed the belly of htier troops at lesser expense to themselves. She also learned that sap-glass was technically considered to be a part of glass-work, though there were comming to be specialized apprenticeships for it. The waterproof cloth was naturally part of the textiles, but also required specialized training and materials, they'd had to reinvent the loom in order to manage the strange fibers that fed into it. The fishers of the coast were about the same as they ever were though they complained about the greater amount of merchant-traffic along the sea-ways disrupting thier fishing spots. Yuka heard a lot of complaints when she didn't manage to gently steer the conversation to the speaker to talking about his family and his ancestors and what his sort generally believed about the world.
:Give a person an ear to complain to and they'll certainly talk a mile,: Yuka thought with a wry grin as the kijyuu that had taken her down to the small, neat house she had set up to meet people in (a comforatble place that was not threateneing in any way) took her back up to the palace.
Once she shed her relatively plain civilan clothes, the ladies who attended her room all but shoved her into the bath and scrubbed her down. It was like they were afraid the common dust she brought in from the streets might contaminate thier precious palace or something. Next she was arrayed in one of her more elaborate court robes with beading and embriodery everywhere. Her maids dressed her hair, which Yuka had allowed to grow out for the whole time she'd been acting consort as a symbol of her will to see things through (she planned to cut it all off when she was finally free of the palace), was coifed in an elaborate style with combs and jeweled hairpins.
Yuka examined herself in the mirror, sometimes it still surprised her not to see an ordinary schoolgirl looking back at her but a fine lady wearing ancient-style hanfuu and jewels and looking like a doll from out of a display or painting.
:And I'm ready for battle,: she thought with resignation as she straightened her spine and put her game face on.
A cabinet meeting to discuss the on-going affairs of the kingdom could be chancey at times. While Many of the ministers were on her side, there were some that were left over from the usurpers reign that Yuka could not remove from office and replace with another, and one that was left over from the previous king that always seemed to inadvertantly be causing troubles for them, though he was in fact well-intentioned.
The daishito and the soushito (prime and vice ministers respectively) of the Ministry of Earth (interior and census bureau) were, thank the mercy of Tentei, still left over from Gyousou's tenure as king. They had been firm and staunch allies to her and Taiki as well as excellent advisors. They had not, of course, always agreed with the dicisions that she and Taiki had made between them about the necessity of changing the rules of the game, but with thier help (once they knew that neither the consort nor the Taiho would change thier minds on a point) the transition for the population was made much less painfully and with less confusions than it would otherwise have been. Now, each family that moved to a new province could check in at a census house, give thier names, former province and occupation and whether they had held land or not for recordkeeping purposes, and hear about any good opportunities for them nearby hopefully. The records were so that, when the land hopefully did eventually stabilize, their family might be able to reclaim thier ancestral lands without trouble. Hopefully.
The daishiko and soushiko of the Ministry of Fall, the judiciary, had been put into place by Asen and had been so firmly entrenched that Yuka and Taiki had been all but forced to accept them. They were not quite corrupt, that was, they did not allow the laws to be mocked or broken with impunity, but then again they let so many technicalities through that it made the regulatory authority of the laws look like a sieve. Yuka and those two were not openly at war but they had a mutual dislike for each other. The Choushi (the person who reported the activities of the other officials) was at least a fairly decent sort, his morals were a bit flexible but he did not allow excessive abuses of power within his sphere of influence. He too had more or less become an ally of Yuka's in her war against the northern officials.
The Ministry of Heaven was one that Yuka had not really seen as great a use for until she came to grasp the fact that the imperial palace was, in essence, one giant city. Maintenance of the Royal Palace meant more than just replacing roof-tiles and scrubbing floors. It was also maintaning the records in the library, making certain that the palace budget balanced, paying the staff, ordering all the neccessary goods and supplies to keep the place running; sheets and cadles, brushes, imperial armor and uniforms, paper, ink, soap,... it went on and on. Yuka was actually really good with numbers so she and the clerk-like ministers; the Taisai, the Sousai, the Shousha and Shikyuu (who were in charge of palace maintenence and uniforms respectively) all got along rather famously. Yuka even almost thought of them as friends because the work they gave her to sign off on and the few closet meetings required of her to keep thier ministry running were cake-walks compared to the rest of what she had to deal with. Numbers were easy, it was when people got involved that things got dicey.
If Yuka liked the Ministry of Heaven, then Taiki liked the Ministry of Spring, the ones in charge of ceremonies, rites, festivals and the school system. They were still left over from the king who had been on the throne before Gyousou. In fact, Taiki once told her that he had been responsible for the Daisouhaku (the Prime Minister of Spring) retaining his position. The Taiho actually had a great deal of personal authority with regards to rites, so that ministry was more or less sort of his homeground. Yuka did not dislike the man, though in truth he was a bit of a pain in her neck. The Daisouhaku had a taste for extravagance that had been encouraged by the previous king and the usurper. Left to his own devices, the Daisouhaku might just spend the slender Royal Treasury dry again on festivals and holidays. However, Yuka knew that with things as bad as they were, people needed some "bread and circuses" to relieve their troubles and stress; to give them hope for the future, so she always left money in the budget for the festivals and set aside nearly a weeks worth of time to argue with the minister about why they could not have this or that extravagance and talk him down to a reasonable festivals-expenditure for people to have fun with. The Daisouhaku needed careful watching because the wiley old man was a peerless manipulator and Taiki was easy to manipulate (sweet boy) with the phrase "the people would be so happy if...". Yuka had to keep a sharp watch on him, but fortunately had been able to win over (or bribe on occassion) enough of his staff that she got a pretty fair warning when he was up to something.
The ministries of Summer and Winter she always had gotten confused at first, because what thier titles were and what they were in charge of always seemed like they should be reversed. The Ministry of Summer,(Yuka thought of summer as a happy time where everyone was carefree,) was in charge of the military, and Yuka thought of the military as being very serious and rigid. Winter was serious business in Tai so she thought that winter should be for the military. The Ministry of Winter was in charge of economic affairs, and since that was something that Yuka discovered she had a talent for dealing with she always looked forward to meeting them the way a student would look forward to summer vacation.
The Ministry of Summer's Daishiba and Soushiba had been appointed by Asen. Fortunately when Yuka (in her nominal husband's name) had used the borrowed armies to reconquer the kingdom, nearly all of the soldiers and officers loyal to Asen had fought against her and been rounded up. Only the ministers, whom Yuka did not have the authority to fire or re-appoint them, (she could only execute them if they offered physical harm to the royal consort and they had at least been smart enough to treat thier new leader with kid gloves) remained in place. However, Yuka knew that they were enemies, as such she had used Taiho's power to reassign them to useless busywork in the palace (where she could keep an eye on them) making thier positions entirely ceremonial. In thier place, the trusted General Risai was the acting-Daishiba.
The Ministry of Winter (still a weird title because no-one really traded in winter) was the other minister who was firmly in Yuka and Taiki's camp. Yuka even sort of considered the Gishi (the minister in charge of reserching and developing new technologies, who had worked diligently with her to complete the skyway system, Tai's new infrastructure) and the Shoushi (who produced goods, and helped her spread the word and find markets for them) to be sort of friends, at least as much as Yuka could afford to consider any of the ministers her friends. It was by working with that particular ministry that Yuka had been able to bring economic stability enough to begin addressing some of the kingdom's other issues.
The end of the year the meeting was little more than a recap of the preceeding year with regards to each of the ministries and a "wish you luck and please take care" before the royal court went on a breif hiatus for the New Years holiday. The ministers would go home and see their families while Yuka and Taiki got to deal with the offical visit and report (in her case, diplomatic and political manuvering) of the Provincial Lords. She was not looking forward to that meeting, and it was supposed to happen tomorrow.
She was seated on a cushion on the smaller dais in front of the empty throne, slightly to the left. The taiho stood in his place to the fore and right of the empty throne and the six ministers and thier vice-ministers were arrayed out on either side of the blue carpet that rolled down the center of the lesser audience chamber. The meeting was held there because preparing the throne room with all of its attendant ceremonies was simply too much of a bother for what was in truth a minor event.
:To think,: Yuka thought with a lifting feeling of optimism. :This may be the last time I have to do this!:
The king would recover quite quickly and Taiki had said that he and Risai were already bringing him up to speed on everything that had went on in Tai while he'd been out of commission. In a matter of a week Yuka might find herself freed from the burdens of limited rule.
:And after that... vacation!: she thought, practically wriggling with anticipation.
The daisouhaku of spring urged them all to find just a little more room in the royal budget to support a grand feast for the royal court on the day after New Years. Taiki was across from her, giving her puppy-eyes. He wanted that feast because the minister had promised how happy it was going to make everyone. Yuka knew better, that minister wanted that feast partly to increase his own prestige and partly because (unbeknownst to him, she was sure) several of his under secretaries had a rather profitable trade in graft and had urged him to urge the Taiho to increase thier festival budget. Yuka had tried to reasonably tell Taiki this but the sort of suspicion that came naturally to her was a closed book to him.
:Ah, corruption and graft, the true hallmarks of civilization!: Yuka though with an internal sigh.
"Minister," Yuka said turning to adress him with her serene smile. "We have discussed this matter previously. While it makes Taiho and I both glad to hear that you wish everyone to have plenty of fun this season, I am afraid that there is simply no room in the palace budget for the additions to the ceremonies you wish to make. If you do not believe me you are free to consult with the minister of Heav-"
Due to her inattention and the general hubbub of the season, ministers and their entourages getting prepared to leave, the province lords and htier entourages arriving and getting situated, the palace prepared for the various rites and ceremonies that were part of the New Year, Yuka had been so busy that she'd relaxed her usual vigilance. Thus she was not prepared and was caught completely by surprise when a sudden attack occured without warning.
The cavernous throne room abruptly erupted into violence when several wild youma, a vicious one about the size of a lynx, smaller winged one with four legs and twice that many sharp talons, and a large skinny one like a lizard on its hind legs but with a maw more like a crocodile, all burst into the room. A nearby candelabra full of burning candles fell onto some nearby hangings, causing a fire race up the cloth and spread. The ministers scattered, screaming and running in panic while the gaurds descended to subdue the creatures and put out the fire. Taiki was frozen in fear at all the frightening things happening around him and Yuka rushed over to push him behind the throne away from danger.
"It's alright," she reassured him with a smile, prepared to wait with him and keep him calm until all the pandemonium had passed. "Everything is-"
Yuka only had the widening of his eyes and the quick intake of breath to warn her and she reacted before he could even get out a shout of warning. She spun around, pulling her "decorative" court fan out of her sash to block the downward swing of the sword. There had been attempts on her life before this, and also on Taiki's life as well, so both she and Risai had decided that Yuka should never go anywhere unarmed, even to bed. Yuka had developed an image of herself as a "mere consort" a somewhat weak woman who was too delicate to real fighting, carrying a dagger or a sword would clash with her image so Risai had trained her in the use of the fan as a weapon as well as unarmed combat. She had several special fans, each accessorized for different outfits, but all of them with metal blades and woven wire mesh for paper in them. The attacker was dressed in dark but non-descript clothing and his face was covered by a wrapped cowl so that all she could see were his eyes.
He attacked quickly, lunging at Yuka with a stabbing maniver that she easily deflected with the flat of her fan. Rather than close on him, Yuka attempted a knee-strike to his extended knee, hoping to unbalance him. He rolled with the balance but recovered to swing around at her in a slicing pattern from the side. Yuka snapped open the fan and pressed her hand against the wire-mesh side "catching" the blow. Instead of engaging her for his next manuver he leapt past her and Yuka saw her mistake almost too late; his true target was Taiki, and she had allowed him to manuver herself out of the way for him to strike at her friend. Quickly, Yuka kicked up into the air and landed on his back, encumbering him with her many layered court robes so that he had to struggle with her skirts blinding him.
"Taiki, run!" Yuka commanded.
Taiki's clothes shredded as he assumed his kirin form and bolted for the nearest window, crashing through and letting in the cold air of night. His primary prey escaped, the attacker decided that Yuka would do just as well for his purposes. He stabbed his sword downward to pin her sleeve but Yuka wrapped the silk of her wrap-over-skirt around his blade and pulled hard on it, hoping for a disarm. Another swing of his sword sliced off her belt she caught it his reverse-swing with her fan before it could do lasting harm. He lunged again and Yuka just barely managed to dodge back out of the way of the sword, through her clothes were beginning to come unraveled around her.
:Curse the imperial court and thier inconvenient fashion for elaborate, many layered robes!:
Yuka pulled out a hairpin from her elaborate cioffure, tested it for balance and threw it at him. Risai had armed her with throwing weapons disgised as hair-pins. The attacker batted it out of the way and lunged in again, Yuka dodged backwards but luck and the terrain were against her this time, the hem of her robe caught on part of the stairwell and she lost her balace, falling backwards but the uneven steps made her attempt at a roll go wrong and she wound up on her back. The blade descended and she pulled her fan up to block... too slow! The blade bit painfully into her right shoulder.
:He's in range for an attack!: Yuka thought triumphantly even through the pain of her wound.
Her left foot shot up to catch him under the chin while her right hand grabbed his sword-arm by the forearm and she used the momentum of his downward stab to roll him over onto his back. In a practiced, lightning quick movement she had him pinned with another of her shapened hairsticks at his throat.
In the breif time she had been engaged with her attacker, the throne room had filled with palace guards. The youma were dispensed with and her attacker was quickly surrounded. Sadly when Yuka got off him, before they could restrain him to be questioned, the attacker took his own life. A whole contingent of guards personally escorted Yuka back to her quarters across the imperial garden from the Emperor's rooms. The spot had been chosen by Risai in the interests of defensibility.
"Your Grace!" one of her room maids said, when she saw her mistress limping into the room (the fall on the steps had bruised her thigh) with her robes and hair disheveled and herself holding the remains of her obi to her chest to stop the bleeding on her shoulder. The hue and cry spread about the room as more of the younger maids saw her in such a state. Some of the older maids who had been there longer had seen her in the days of the reconquista, when she had fought regularly and just as regularly been injured. Seeing that thier mistress was pained but not unduly concernd, the older ones calmed the others down by ordering a bath and hot drinks and hot bricks for the bed and some should send for the healer. Risai appeared at the door a moment later, another contingent of guards with her.
"Your grace," she said with her customary calm efficiency. "Captain Mizuru has reported that you were injured, are you well?"
The healer showed up hard on Risai's heels and shoved her way past to examine the wound. A medical kit was quickly produced and the lady-doctor stripped Yuka down without a thought to her modesty and began the cleanse and banadge the wound.
"It's relatively shallow for a stab wound though the edges are abraided," the healer reported calmly. "There is no sign of any of the poisons which work on immortals, so once I cleanse and bandage the wound she should recover and heal quickly after a good nights rest."
"Were there accomplices?" Yuka questioned next as the good healer bandaged her up.
"The guard has already begun a full-scale sweep of that section of the palace and there are partols in the air outside to make certain no-one escapes down the mountainside. The staff has orders to report any suspicious activity."
"Have watchers put on the provincial lords," Yuka added. "For their safety of course."
Risai nodded, understanding, by now, Yuka's double-talk. They of course suspected that one or more of them had been responsible for the attempt, and no doubt a thorough search of thier quarters and a headcount of their entourage would quickly ensue unless they caught any accomplices trying to escape.
"Already done, your grace," she replied, Yuka nodded, more and more, her orders were superfluous. "There have to have been more than just the one attacker, youma like that are not so easy to handle that a single person could bcapture, transport and then set loose three of them that size unaided. We'll find them and then nail whoever's responsible for setting them on you and the Taiho."
Yuka nodded, confident in the general's abilities. Sadly this was not thier first time at the rodeo for either of them, there had been other attempts and that had made thier system all the more effcient for it.
"Was there any attempt to breach the imperial chambers?" She asked next.
That had always been a major concern. While the king was held in sleep, he was helpless. He relied on Risai and the palace guard to preserve his life, for all it would take would be one assassin to get through and the king's life would be ended. The emperor's chambers had a round-the-clock guard of those soldiers that Risai herself would trust with her life, the few men and women whose loyalty was absolute and unquestioned. They would have been perhaps better used to shore up the various governmental positions that could use a few good, loyal men but it was commonly agreed that defending the kings life took the priority.
"Both shifts of guards have been roused and are currently in place around Seiden palace. His majesty is as safe as we-"
Risai was cut off by a noise from the doorway, a transformed Taiki in kirin form with his king leaning heavily against his side appeared in her doorway. Yuka reacted as any maiden would react to a strange man entering her quarters. She screamed a loud, surprised "kyaaaa!" and ducked down, throwing the nearest object at the intuder and covering herself.
The king blinked for a long moment and then said
"My apologies, i had not thought you would be... in a state. My kirin was worried so i came to see what had raised the alarm."
"It is not a problem, your majesty," Risai replied.
"Says you!" Yuka snapped.
The king let out a weak chuckle at that and politely exited the chamber. The healer finished her work and Yuka was placed into the hands of the maids when Risai realized the impropriety of reporting to the one she had become accustomed to seeing whenever disasters like that one occured, instead of her rightful master. Force of habit.