The Emperor (2)
I already knew there was someone feeding even this sort of trivial information to the Emperor—and I knew exactly who that person was, too. After all, my own camp had no shortage of people glaring about with eyes peeled, dead set on flushing out spies.
Every general and strategist within my direct reach, and even the soldiers whose loyalty to me bordered on the eerie, would file a report the instant anyone showed the faintest sign of suspicious behavior. For a spy to function in that environment, they'd have to be a movie protagonist. You know the type—your 007 series, your Mission: Impossible.
So how did the person carrying the Emperor's orders pass along her intelligence? Simple.
"I have come by the command of Her Majesty the Emperor."
"...By the Emperor's command, you say?"
"Yes."
She revealed her identity to me of her own accord.
"My orders are to report should any mishap befall the General-in-Chief, or should anything out of the ordinary catch my eye."
"......"
"But before doing so, I was instructed to first ask for your permission."
And so a truly absurd situation had come into being: a spy asking her surveillance target for leave to spy. At that point, is she even a spy anymore?
"Her Majesty said she merely wished to know how the General-in-Chief was faring."
I held my silence for a moment, then gave a small nod.
"...Very well. I'll speak to the others myself."
"I am grateful for your gracious handling of this."
Strip away the niceties, and this was imperial surveillance in all but name—so what would happen if I waved her off like it was nothing? Tongues would wag at once. People would mutter endlessly about how the General-in-Chief had no respect for the authority of the throne. Of course, with the Emperor so conspicuously on my side, no one would dare say it to my face...
I simply disliked handing anyone a pretext. Someone was bound to read it as one more round in the political struggle—a contest of nerves between a throne desperate to seize the initiative and a military establishment armed with overwhelming force. Friction of that sort was utterly routine in the monarchies of old, so no one would find it strange. If anything, they might decide the Emperor and I had drifted apart, and start pulling something foolish.
But that wasn't why the Emperor had sent her at all.
This took place not long after I had accepted the person the Emperor assigned to me.
"Your Majesty, you called for me?"
"Ah, there you are."
The Emperor, who had summoned me to the Imperial Palace as usual, flashed me a smile.
"We intend to hold a banquet today, and I hear a dish you are particularly fond of will be served."
"...Is that so?"
"Your duties happen to be light today, I am told. You will join Us at the banquet, won't you?"
"The honor would be mine."
At first, the fact that the Emperor had learned my tastes made me wonder only whether I'd been showing my hand too freely.
"Far too many medicinal herbs have piled up of late. Take them for yourself."
"But are these precious herbs not tribute offered to the throne by Your Majesty's own subjects?"
Gazing at the box heaped full of herbs, I let my bewilderment show.
"Too much of even a good thing is as bad as too little. Our own share has already been seen to, so do not make Me say it twice."
"Even for me, this many herbs is..."
"Then give them as a gift to someone dear to you."
Having said that, the Emperor continued without missing a beat.
"Your mother, perhaps."
"......"
Her tone made it plain that she knew my mother—feeling her age of late, perhaps—had taken an interest in one medicinal herb after another. By this point, something smelled distinctly off. So I secretly searched the quarters of the person the Emperor had placed at my side.
Having considered the General-in-Chief's diet, I believe he favors the following dishes.
I hear the General-in-Chief has been seeking out rare medicinal herbs of late. It appears he intends them as a gift for his mother.
...But I never expected anything like this. I'd assumed she would file reports along the lines of "the General-in-Chief is doing well," yet this was disturbingly professional. She had catalogued my every move and distilled it into a staggeringly thorough playbook for winning my affection—honestly, I half mistook her for some lovesick Cupid.
So who was this woman?
"...I hadn't realized you had such a side to you."
This was the woman who had once been taken captive by Gongsun Zan and owed her bare survival to Liu Bei's intervention.
"Heh heh. How could I possibly pretend not to know Her Majesty's troubles?"
It was Liu Yu, courtesy name Bo'an—hailed as a pillar of the imperial house and revered by all.
There I stood, cold sweat running down me, still holding out the Imperial Seal in the very posture in which I had offered it, when the Emperor murmured in a level voice.
"I have heard reports that a strange rumor has been making the rounds through the military camps of late."
"......"
"What was it again... Ah, yes. That the women near the General-in-Chief have been behaving rather peculiarly."
No—Master Liu Yu, what on earth possessed you to file a report like that...
Concealing my dismay as best I could, I held my silence until the Emperor finished speaking.
"That the temper of the Peerless Under Heaven has grown ever so much softer—and that the Match for Ten Thousand warriors who once barred her way at Hulao Pass now flinch and stiffen at the mere sight of the General-in-Chief?"
"......"
"Why, they act for all the world like shy maidens the morning after their wedding night."
She sees straight through it in one stroke.
Of course, openly agreeing with her would set off a bomb, so clamping my mouth shut was the only course available.
"And..."
The Emperor's words did not end there.
"So you have formed an attachment to the Governor of Yanzhou?"
She even knows about that.
Oddly enough, once I concluded that everything had already been laid bare, my heart grew calm.
"...Whew. Pregnant, of all things."
The Emperor murmured it flatly while I was still nodding along inside.
How long did the silence stretch after that?
"General-in-Chief."
Her voice calling my name rang through the audience chamber, where the two of us stood alone.
The Imperial Seal was heavier than it looked, so I set it down in a suitable spot and opened my mouth, keeping my posture deferential.
"You called for me."
"Your choosing not to deny it means that what We said was true, does it not?"
"......"
To the Emperor's confirming question, I answered in an even voice.
"...It is true, Your Majesty."
"At least five, We would reckon... And that girl who always stands guard at your side—did you take her to your bed as well?"
"Yes."
Discussing the women I had held, in front of my sovereign no less, was an embarrassing business.
At my answer, the Emperor showed a puzzled expression.
"...And yet, having embraced that many women, your body hardly seems the worse for wear."
"I find it rather astonishing myself."
I couldn't tell whether I was monstrously strong or the women were simply frail. The one thing I knew for certain was that Hua Tuo's medicine had proven terrifyingly effective.
"Hmm..."
The Emperor let out a sigh, as if deliberating something.
Watching her, I couldn't help mirroring her puzzlement.
Her reaction is far tamer than I expected?
I had braced myself for everything up to her lunging at me screaming that one of us had to die, yet she seemed altogether too composed. Had her feelings simply cooled at the news that I had embraced as many as six women in so short a span? It certainly stood to reason, so I nodded along silently in agreement.
I worried for nothing, huh.
This had been something I could have relaxed about from the very start.
Just then, the Emperor's voice brushed my ear.
"...You are not entertaining some strange notion that Our affection for you has faded, are you?"
"......Your Majesty?"
When my eyes widened slightly, the Emperor smiled.
"If you truly believed that, then We shall have to correct you."
Rising from the throne, she came toward me slowly.
"Who was it that became a pillar for Us, when We had not a single soul in this world to lean upon?"
"That would be..."
"Who was it that lit the road ahead, in a darkness where We could not see an inch before Us?"
"......"
Reciting this as she walked, the Emperor came to a stop directly in front of me.
"It was you. You and you alone."
Bringing her eyes level with mine, she reached out her arms and drew me into an embrace.
"You pulled Us out of the abyss of despair and gave Us a reason to live."
"......"
"So is it not only natural that We should look upon a single person alone?"
A voice calm in one light, and burning in another.
"To Us, you are everything in this world."
The Emperor whispered it into my ear.
"We were merely surprised that you—who once fumbled so helplessly at a mere kiss—had grown so very bold."
Having said that much, she drew back from me, an arc curving at the corner of her mouth.
"So long as you do not neglect Us, nothing will go awry."
In other words, the moment I stop paying her proper attention, she can go off the rails whenever she pleases?
Her Majesty the Emperor, gone twisted... Yeah, that's still plenty terrifying.
One worry gnawing at me, I asked Her Majesty:
"...But for a man with so many lovers to bind himself to the Emperor..."
"So that is what you were worried about?"
Still smiling, the Emperor said:
"Those who object can simply be banished to some distant post, can they not?"
"......"
"If We decree it, what can those insignificant wretches possibly do about it?"
...Well, she has a point.
The Emperor was the very symbol of absolute power, which meant her word was as good as law. She hardly lacked for military strength either, so dissent could simply be crushed flat beneath her authority.
I opened my mouth to ask.
"Your Majesty, are you quite certain it will be nothing more than a demotion?"
"...Hm."
"Your Majesty?"
"We shall try."
...Yeah, there is absolutely no retiring from this job.
All I could do was dread where Her Majesty might bolt the moment I was gone.