The Wedding Feast (2)
The wedding feast was held not in the Imperial Palace, but in another building altogether.
Though that "other building" was, in the end, merely one of the estates that had long belonged to the imperial family anyway.
I had no idea who had commissioned the place, but one thing was certain: they had been dead serious about revelry. It was a colossal hall, large enough to seat every civil and military official in Luoyang and still have room to spare. Frankly, it was not a building that inspired fond feelings. One glance told you it had been raised with nothing but extravagant partying in mind. In a way, it stood as a monument to just how far the old royal house had decayed.
Not that the palace itself lacked the space. Emperor Ling, the sovereign before this one, had spent his days and nights drowning in wine and women—what would one banquet in the palace have mattered? And yet throwing a feast in the very halls where one worked every day was, shall we say, a bit of a mood-killer. The palace simply carried that air about it: the moment you stepped inside, even a complete stranger felt obliged to stiffen up and mind his etiquette. Hence the change of venue—a deliberate effort to drift the evening's atmosphere somewhere other than solemn.
There was the matter of security as well. A few villains nursing ugly intentions might lay hands on things that had rightful owners, or worse, go digging through state secrets—so the cautious course had been chosen, or so I was told. Since the imperial household had administered the building from the start, arranging the seating posed no difficulty whatsoever. Had it been otherwise, one murmured word from Her Majesty—"I shall borrow it briefly"—and the owner would have prostrated himself and surrendered the keys on the spot.
"You have arrived."
For some reason it felt as though an age had passed since I'd last seen her. The black-haired woman greeted us from deep within the building. Liu Bei Xuande—the one who commanded my bugok and handled a full portfolio of military affairs in my name. No doubt she had been standing guard in cooperation with the Imperial Guards.
Back when Her Majesty had been wholly consumed by the wedding preparations, a report on the arrangement had come up through official channels. What exactly had it said again... something about the Imperial Guards who shielded the throne and the bugok who attended the General-in-Chief joining hands, and thereby showing the whole realm a single meaning? One thread among the many meant to proclaim that the Emperor and I now stood entirely on the same side.
"……"
When Liu Bei appeared and offered her courtesies with flawless deference, the Empress studied her in long silence.
At that look on Her Majesty's face, I asked, unable to contain my curiosity.
"Your Majesty, is something the matter?"
"It is nothing. Merely one thing that caught Our attention."
The Empress, who had been boring a hole straight through Liu Bei, continued.
"So she is the woman who once campaigned at the General-in-Chief's side."
"……"
"A fine figure... and not an unlovely face, either."
Why was Her Majesty suddenly conducting an appraisal of looks?
My hand still firmly captive in hers, I voiced my puzzlement. The Empress smiled as she answered.
"A battlefield is a place where nothing that happens ought to surprise."
"...Your Majesty?"
"Drunk on that heat, a man and a woman entwining their bodies would surely be no great matter at all."
I held my silence at that staggering remark.
That was phrasing that all but jabbed at whether Liu Bei and I had ever "entwined bodies," was it not?
That Liu Bei could go on smiling so serenely through it left me genuinely in awe.
Was this, too, some species of the art of survival?
Then the Empress spoke.
"As one who shares the name of Liu, allow me a single word of counsel."
"Please, speak."
"Do not let yourself be swept away by idle lust for power."
"……"
Liu Bei kept her silence, her smile undisturbed.
The Empress, wearing a smile remarkably like Liu Bei's own, went on.
"If quarrels were to break out within the family, would that not grieve the General-in-Chief as well?"
"...I shall bear it in mind."
The two women, whose similar faces might as well have been proof of shared blood, regarded each other.
If there was a difference between them, it would be that Liu Bei's eyes were the gentler of the pair.
Ah, and the curves of her figure were on an entirely different...
Crrrk.
Before the thought could even finish forming, the Empress's grip on my hand clamped down with crushing strength.
"General-in-Chief."
"Y-yes?"
"You were not entertaining some... irreverent thought, were you?"
"How could I possibly entertain such a thing."
I answered in a great hurry, a cold sweat pricking out.
Was sensitivity on the subject of a woman's chest a constant shared by all nations under heaven?
But how on earth had she seen straight through me?
"Hmmm... Is that so."
"……"
"We only thought it strange, seeing as you were drilling a hole through her chest with your stare."
...So I was, in fact, doing exactly that.
Having promptly resolved my doubt, the Empress broke into a beaming smile.
Why was that guileless smile so terrifying?
Apparently, Liu Bei and I being already past the point of no return, I had gazed upon her chest without the slightest shred of restraint.
It was, in its own way, a sorry thing—how faithfully a man serves his instincts.
Having blasted the solemn mood to pieces in an instant, I could do nothing but let my eyes slide away from the Empress's gaze.
"……"
"……"
How long did that silence stretch?
"Hmph, enough. Let us simply get moving."
Voice gone sulky, the Empress hauled me firmly along and set off.
The fault was mine beyond argument, so I let myself be towed away, shooting Liu Bei a look that said, thanks for your hard work.
"……"
A superb retainer to the last, Liu Bei caught the meaning in my eyes and dipped into a slight bow.
And look at that sway. Don't tell me that was deliberate?
"...General-in-Chief."
Oh, no.
Startled bolt upright, I devoted every second of the short walk to coaxing the Empress's mood back to life.
"Big or not, they're nothing but a clumsy burden anyway..."
so muttered Lü Bu, guarding my flank.
"……"
Seo Yeo pinned me with a glance in which an awful lot of meaning had been compacted.
For those two careless slips, I spent the whole brief walk into the building crushed under the weight of their stares.
The next time our bodies crossed, I decided, I would have to demonstrate, thoroughly, that I love small breasts too.
Directly in front of the great hall chosen as the banquet venue, at the gathering held to celebrate the Empress's wedding, a bevy of women blessed with remarkable beauty had assembled.
Another woman slipped up beside the black-haired one and spoke.
"...She's in?"
"She is. Just now."
At Liu Bei's answer, the red-eyed woman—black hair gathered off to one side, Zhang Fei—let out a sigh that fairly dripped with relief.
"Phew, thank goodness. She popped up out of nowhere and scared me half to death."
"And just how long do you intend to carry on this way?"
asked the azure-eyed woman beside her, in a tone of gentle needling.
Zhang Fei turned to her sworn sister Guan Yu.
"Oh, come off it, Yunchang—you're one to talk. You go stiff as a plank the moment you're anywhere near the General-in-Chief."
"...I have always been thus."
answered Guan Yu, after a peculiar beat of silence.
Zhang Fei puffed up in triumph.
"Heheh. After all the years the three of us have lived together, you think I can't tell that much?"
"……"
"I know you put on that stern face out of pride. But between a man and a woman, the more you act untouchable, the less you appeal. That's just how it works."
Hearing her out, Guan Yu raised her hand on reflex for the customary knuckle-rap—then stopped mid-swing.
Grating as the words were, on slow reflection they were, infuriatingly, not wrong.
Confucius said in the Analects that there was something to learn even from the lowly and from children. "Do not scorn to ask those beneath you," had it been called?
A younger sister whose conduct was frivolous enough to earn her constant rebuke—yet surely even in such a sister there was something worth learning...
"Yeesh, what would you even do without me, Yunchang?"
"……"
"Right, Xuande? Once you scratch the surface, Yunchang's a regular klutz— OW!"
Unable to stomach that particular look of hers a moment longer, Guan Yu finally brought the rap down on her head.
There it was, the time-honored spectacle of earning oneself a thrashing by sneaking in exactly one line too many.
Watching Zhang Fei crouch and cradle her head, Liu Bei offered a wry smile.
"This once, Yunchang is in the right."
"...Huh?"
Zhang Fei twisted around to look at her.
It must have stung rather badly; with tears welling at the corners of her eyes, Zhang Fei drew a soft laugh out of Liu Bei.
"Keep drifting along like this, and all the ground you fought so hard to gain may yet melt away into foam, you know?"
"...Really?"
When Zhang Fei echoed the words back in a startled voice, Liu Bei nodded, calm as still water.
Regrettably, no new life had taken root in her the last time—which meant the track lay wide open for any other runner who cared to surge ahead.
"Or do you mean to write it off, Yide, as a single night's idle play with fire?"
"L-like I'd ever do that!"
Zhang Fei, who almost never dared talk back to Liu Bei, shot the words out in open rebellion.
"Good. Then there is nothing to fret over."
Liu Bei smiled as she watched her.
"If you wish for a deeper bond, then the General-in-Chief's child—"
"...Mmph."
"...?"
At that faint, strangled sound from somewhere nearby, Liu Bei and Zhang Fei whipped their heads around in the same instant.
"...Ah."
Guan Yu, black hair bound in a high ponytail, had clapped her weaponless hand over her mouth as though she had just committed the blunder of her life.
"N-no... it cannot be..."
"...It is a misunderstanding. Yide."
"Misunderstanding, my foot!"
Zhang Fei shrieked at the top of her lungs.
"We swore to die on the very same day—and you'd go charging ahead all by yourself?! That's cheating!"
"W-was it the sort of thing that would come to this?!"
Guan Yu turned to Liu Bei with eyes silently begging for rescue.
But at this moment, Liu Bei was no ally of hers either.
All smiles, Liu Bei clapped her hands together.
"Remarkable. At this rate, I suppose it will be Yunchang who becomes the eldest of us?"
"X-Xuande?!"
From that remark on, Guan Yu's eyes quivered as though an earthquake had broken out inside them.
"Xuande's right! The one who got ahead of us has been standing right beside us all along!"
With that cry, Zhang Fei bobbed her head vigorously, as though sealing some enormous resolution.
"No time to waste being embarrassed! We bide our chance—and then we move, both of us!"
The soldiers bustling to and fro all around simply stopped in their tracks and stood gaping, no doubt wondering what on earth was happening.