Nanman (12)
Since ancient times, it had been a thoroughly common affair for the high-born to be joined in marriage when two powers wished to bind themselves more firmly together.
If I had to name someone I knew this from all too well, it would be Wang Geon of Goryeo. There was Gung Ye, who plunged headlong into tyranny, ranting day after day about smashing "maggots" dead with his iron mace. Wang Geon joined hands with the great clans who had come to despise him and drove him out — and then, so that such madness would never repeat itself, he took the daughters of one noble house after another as his wives.
I couldn't recall exactly how many women he thus took in as wives, but I remembered it being at least twenty, if not more.
And there was no need to reach all the way back to distant Goryeo. Shu and Wu alone had seen Liu Bei wed to Lady Sun. Sun Quan, evidently pleased with how that had turned out, later tried to arrange a match between his own son and Guan Yu's daughter — and earned himself nothing but the insult of being called a dog.
Whatever the parties themselves thought of it, once the union was made, any onlooker would naturally come away thinking, my, those two powers must be on excellent terms.
Still, I had to say — wasn't this all a bit too sudden?
I addressed Meng Huo, who stood there proudly with both arms flung wide.
"…Uh, Meng Huo."
"Yes! You called for me!"
Meng Huo answered before the sound of my voice had even faded, in a tone that fairly crackled with force. Truly a voice I could hear a hundred times over and never grow used to. I could not, try as I might, imagine the woman before me ever wilting.
"I will see to matters myself, so there is no need for you to worry so much about Nanzhong."
"No! I wish to be of help — even if only in some small way like this!"
Meng Huo pressed on without a shred of hesitation.
"After thinking it over for quite a long while! This is the only path open to me for repaying the countless debts of grace I owe the General-in-Chief!"
"…Grace, you say."
"Yes!"
Meng Huo — who with her words just now had wiped away every last trace of distance between us — carried on with plenty of wind in her lungs.
"How you indulged my outrageous sophistry and granted me chance after chance!"
So she had known all along that it was sophistry. That she had argued her case so shamelessly despite knowing it was nonsense was, frankly, astonishing.
"How you treated the prisoners not as chattel but with honor!"
That much was fair. Meng Huo had released every last one of them when she surrendered, but the Nanman prisoners had put away a truly staggering amount of food while in our care. It got bad enough that even Zhuge Liang set them to digging earth, declaring they would work off the price of their meals.
"How you noticed Zhurong's condition — which even I had not known — and saw her treated!"
Apparently she meant the medicine I had handed to Zhurong as she lay groaning, her wound gone bad and death creeping close. Fair enough; Zhang Jue, too, had called it a blessing that the medicine I gave her slowed the march of her illness.
…
…Is something the matter?
It is nothing.
Hua Tuo — who had pressed that medicine into my hands with strict instructions to save it for the moment of true danger — had worn a faintly ambiguous look at the time. I suppose she was surprised to hear I had handed so precious a thing to someone else without a second thought. These days Hua Tuo was roaming the countryside gathering this plant and that, declaring the Nanman full of interesting specimens. I had assigned her an escort against wild beast attacks, so nothing untoward should befall her.
"And last of all — how you took our people in not as slaves, but as your own subjects!"
…
At those words, I fell silent. So that was why Meng Huo had thrashed and resisted so viciously. Like every state that had ever stood against Wei, the greatest power of them all, Wu too had been plagued by a shortage of people, much like Shu. Honestly — all that land, and no one to open it up? However you looked at it, they were short on people.
So what decision did Sun Quan, lord of Wu in just such a predicament, reach? A simple one: slave hunting. He hammered away at the Shanyue tribes, that perennial thorn in Jiangdong's side, and treated every Shanyue captive as a slave. And apparently even that failed to satisfy him, because he then sent soldiers far across the sea toward Japan with orders to seize people and bring them back. Naturally, that reckless expedition was a resounding failure — and when the men dispatched to capture slaves returned mostly as corpses, a furious Sun Quan lopped off the head of the general who had commanded them.
Beyond that, when Shi Xie, who had governed Jiaozhou, died, he pounced as though he had been waiting for precisely that moment and put every one of the old man's sons to death, then went on to invade Jiaozhou — the region that would one day be known as northern Vietnam. A man who took his slave-hunting dead seriously.
You could call that the height of rat-bastard excess, but in that era, this was simply how things were. It was an age that called foreign peoples "barbarians" and scorned them. Come to think of it, the people now known as the Han were themselves a blend of Qin, Chu, Yan, and every other stock under heaven, so their standards never quite sat right with me. If anything, it was Zhuge Liang — who extended a policy of conciliation toward other peoples and took them in — who was the exceptional one. Truly befitting the great administrator whom everyone acknowledges.
In any case… no matter how kindly you treated a slave, a slave was still a slave, and being worked ruthlessly until they dropped dead was everyday fare. Meng Huo must have resisted with everything she had, terrified that such a fate might one day befall her own people. As I'd said before — for all that she seemed to act without a thought in her head, Meng Huo possessed, surprisingly enough, the virtues befitting a king.
"So many graces that even a lifetime of labor could never repay them all! Please, I beg you — relieve even a little of the burden upon my heart!"
Having made her plea, Meng Huo dropped flat into a deep bow.
Mmm… still, this was a bit much for me. I was, how should I put it, a conservative sort who believed a man and a woman needed genuine mutual feeling before sharing a bed. Buying it with money, or doing it by putting someone under a debt of the heart — the aftertaste would be sour, shall we say. After a moment's deliberation, I put a single question to Meng Huo.
"Before I grant your request, just one question."
"Yes! Ask away!"
Looking into those pure green eyes that seemed utterly incapable of telling a lie, I asked:
"Do you harbor romantic feelings for me?"
"Haha! So that's what you were curious about!"
Meng Huo, having caught the intent behind my question, laughed heartily.
"You must have known ever since I spoke of being a body that has never known a man — I am hardly one to be particular about men!"
…
"Have no fear! I haven't the slightest intention of letting this end as a mere matter of official duty!"
Tremendously honest, truly. Was there anyone alive to whom the phrase reckless headlong charge fit so perfectly?
W-well, you see, umm…
Ma Chao — who whenever she stood before me could do nothing but stammer through a trembling voice while her eyes darted every which way — really ought to learn a thing or two from this.
Having heard Meng Huo's answer — an answer that knew nothing but the straight line forward — only one course of action remained to me.
"Very well. After a speech like that, backing out now would hardly look dignified."
"Mmph—! Pwah!"
At that moment, Lü Bu — just freed from her restraints — spoke up, looking utterly bewildered.
"W-wait, hold on! You're seriously going to do this?!"
"I am."
"Ugh… even beasts aren't this bad…"
Lü Bu shot me a vicious glare, then let out a sharp "Pfft!"
"Fine! Do whatever you want! I'm not going to care anymore!"
For all her words, she would absolutely keep caring from now on. Lü Bu shouted as though she meant to storm out of the room that very instant, yet her feet, as if magnets had been fastened to them, did not budge an inch.
Meng Huo, who had been watching the whole spectacle, asked:
"Um… everyone? Were you perhaps planning to stay in the room?"
"…And what if we are?"
So they had settled on a new tack now — shaming Meng Huo? Naturally, I was not about to be the one standing there watching her.
"Seo Yeo. Take her out."
"Yes."
Seo Yeo gave a single nod, then seized Lü Bu by the scruff of the neck and began dragging her away. With her nape in an iron grip, Lü Bu thrashed and howled:
"Hey! What if some strange woman tries something on Jeong Reung while you're busy doing that?!"
…
"You have to be right nearby to respond!"
What the — since when was Lü Bu so logical? Admittedly, a man is at his most defenseless precisely when he's… doing that sort of thing. Just as Lü Bu had argued, some fearsome woman really could do me harm in my bed.
To Lü Bu's shout and my puzzled gaze, Seo Yeo answered in an even, unhurried voice:
"It is fine."
"Hm?"
"One who means harm to another inevitably carries killing intent."
…
Turning her words over in my head, I at last arrived at a single conclusion: Seo Yeo was saying that she could sense the killing intent of anyone who meant to harm me. …Was that even possible? I would have believed it if someone told me she had leapt straight off the page of a fantasy or wuxia novel.
"Seriously! Why are you so strong!"
Lü Bu wriggled desperately to break free, but strength spent crudely, without technique, was simply crushed beneath even greater strength. At last abandoning all resistance, Lü Bu — still being dragged along — jabbed a finger at Meng Huo and yelled:
"Argh, damn it! Hey! I'm going to watch and see just how long you last!"
"…Yes?"
"If you flop over like a wet rag, I won't forgive you! Got that?!"
No matter how I turned it over, those hardly seemed like words one said to a maiden. Meng Huo showed not the faintest glimmer of comprehension as to what Lü Bu was talking about, and I, gazing at that pure-hearted bafflement, spoke up.
"…So — are you ready?"
"Yes, yep! Please take good care of me!"
Meng Huo, finally collecting herself, answered with all the vigor in the world.