A Pet for the Emperor (1)
I made my way to the imperial palace upon receiving the Emperor's summons.
What could it be this time? Curious as I was, she pulled stunts like this so often that I didn't think much of it. Still, as my footsteps carried me forward, my mind drifted back to the very first summons I had ever received.
"Your Majesty. Your General-in-Chief has come in answer to your summons."
"Good."
Having hastened to the palace at her behest, I exchanged greetings with the Emperor first of all.
"……"
"……"
And then came the unnatural silence that followed.
The Emperor, entirely unbothered by it, simply gazed at me for a long, long while.
"...Your Majesty?"
"What is the matter?"
When I spoke up, puzzled, the Emperor answered with a beaming grin.
"May I ask why you have summoned me?"
"Because We wished to see you, that is all."
With that, the Emperor slowly studied my face for a time.
A strange interval—too short to be long, too long to be short.
"Enough. You must be busy, so be off now."
"……"
Having thoroughly picked me apart with her eyes, the Emperor at last donned a contented smile and told me I was free to go.
I remember being unable to process the absurdity of it at first, wearing a baffled expression for quite a while afterward.
Watching me, the Emperor smiled slyly and said:
"What, are you reluctant to leave? If so, you may stay a while longer."
"Not at all, Your Majesty. May your precious person enjoy long health and peace."
Any longer and I genuinely felt I would be detained, so I scurried away as fast as my legs would carry me.
The look of disappointment she had worn that day remained vivid in my memory even now.
Even after that, these summons of the Emperor's never stopped.
...And the vast majority of them, it turned out, were simply because she wanted to see my face.
Truly, abuse of power in its most unreasonable form.
The Emperor never kept me for long, but this flagrant abuse of the royal summons could easily look bad to an outside observer.
What kind of sovereign summons the General-in-Chief—a holder of the empire's highest offices—on a whim, just because she missed his face? It was the sort of behavior that might lead any onlooker to wonder: was the Emperor putting her General-in-Chief in his place?
But that was never her intent.
This little Emperor genuinely called for me because she wanted to see me.
Even had I refused, she would only have shown a flicker of disappointment; there was little chance of any reprisal.
So what on earth was I to do about this hopelessly dependent Emperor of mine?
Back when the coalition forces stormed Hulao Pass, I had been away from Luoyang for a long stretch.
How many times had they hurled themselves at those walls...? Even now, the memory made me shudder.
In any case, as I stayed away to hold back the coalition's offensive, the Emperor reportedly showed worsening signs of anxiety as the days went by.
She had been fine at first, but as time wore on, her strange behavior steadily deepened, I was told.
Being too lost in her own thoughts to focus on state affairs was the least of it. She barely slept, and though she showed no sign of illness, she trembled all over.
She must have been in serious psychological torment, and yet—so I'm told—she never once called for me, so that I could give my full attention to repelling the offensive.
Withdrawal symptoms, in the most literal sense.
Had I known, I would have carved out the time to visit her at least once, somehow.
But the Emperor, mature far beyond her years, imposed a gag order on her close attendants and sealed every mouth so the matter would never spread beyond the palace walls.
Seeing that, I became certain the Emperor carried a sickness of the heart.
She said as much every single day.
That if I were to vanish one day without warning, she would not be able to endure it.
And it was no idle remark—she meant every word.
Truthfully, there was nothing surprising about the Emperor's wounded heart.
Ground down by political intrigue since childhood, her spirit must have been worn threadbare—and then, one after another, the very family she leaned on died in a line before her eyes.
The throne grants Liu Bian no rest, however much she might long for it.
She had not even reached her twentieth year.
Trials that would push a grown adult to the breaking point—and a child had endured every one of them. How could her heart not have buckled under the weight?
Really, what was I supposed to do? Then again, I was no psychiatrist—how would I know how to fix it?
Lost in worry, I walked on toward the imperial palace.
"What is there to worry about?"
"...Your Majesty?"
Alone with the Emperor in the palace, I had voiced the worry that had been weighing on me.
I had been sure she, too, must be troubled by how much she depended on me.
But her reaction was nothing I had expected.
"If I grow strange whenever you are gone, then need you not simply stay by my side to the very end?"
"……"
The Emperor wore a proud, matter-of-fact expression, as though stating the obvious.
Looking at her, I had no choice but to open my mouth.
"Your Majesty. That is impossible."
"Why so?"
"How could I possibly remain at your side at all times?"
The Emperor asked back, utterly untroubled. I pressed on.
"If I must be away for a long stretch again, as before, your symptoms will—"
"I can endure that much."
The Emperor cut me off, barging straight in.
"Knowing that you would return, We endured—hard though it was."
"……"
"Did I look like so petty a soul, unable to grant you even that much understanding?"
"No, Your Majesty."
It was true. When I had gone to Hulao Pass, the Emperor had endured her anxiety to the very end.
That was not something possible without truly extraordinary willpower.
Surely it had been hard to bear at her tender age—and yet the Emperor readily declared she would bear it again.
"Then all is settled. Is this not a matter that needs no worrying on your part?"
"Your Majesty. How is that not cause for worry?"
"……?"
At my objection, the Emperor looked genuinely puzzled.
"It is a matter of none other than Your Majesty suffering in your own person."
Her mental state deteriorating badly every time I left her side—was that not a serious matter? Who in their right mind would nod along calmly and accept it?
"And if, in the course of it, grave harm should come to Your Majesty's body and mind, I would not sleep a wink at night."
"U-um. Is that so?"
Emperor Ling—the father of the current Emperor, of Emperor Shao—had met an early death in this world at the mere age of thirty-one.
Emperor Huan, Ling's predecessor, had died at thirty-six, and Emperor Zhi before him had been outright poisoned by his own vassal, perishing at the tender age of eight.
Call them Han emperors all you liked—the Eastern Han emperors were, in practice, a school of sunfish, a lineage liable to drop dead at the slightest shock.
Excepting Emperor Guangwu, founder of the Eastern Han, and Emperor Xian, its last, not a single Eastern Han emperor ever lived past fifty.
Come to think of it, that was odd. How on earth did Emperor Xian live so long?
The little Emperor before me had escaped death at Dong Zhuo's hands, but without proper care for her health, the odds were high that she, too, would not live long and would die young.
And every time I was absent from her side, the Emperor would suffer enormous stress—and stress, as it happens, is poison to the body.
For some reason I couldn't quite name, the Emperor's cheeks had flushed faintly red. I looked her squarely in the eye and said:
"Please bear in mind that Your Majesty's precious person is worth more than anything else in this world."
"...Yes. I understand."
The Emperor nodded with a slightly dazed air, as though she had taken it in.
Now, time to ease into the heart of the matter.
"Your Majesty. Out of concern for your health, I have come up with a fine idea."
At my words, the Emperor's eyes sparkled with interest.
"Oh-ho? And what might that be?"
"How would you feel about trying your hand at keeping a pet?"
"...A pet?"
The Emperor echoed the word, puzzled. I nodded.
"You keep no animals at present, do you, Your Majesty?"
"That is so."
I had turned the problem over the whole way here, and it seemed to me the Emperor's real trouble was that she had no one she could open her heart to and grow close with.
The Prince of Chenliu, her only living kin, kept her distance, and her ministers, held at arm's length by the very fact of her station, could never grow truly close to her.
Hence my reasonable suspicion: that was precisely why she had come to lean on me all the more.
And so I thought: why not have her keep a pet?
Royal families had kept pets since ancient times; it was hardly unusual, so nothing about it would raise eyebrows.
The benefits pets bring to a person are considerable. To sum them up briefly: they ease negative emotions, improve one's health, and do a great deal for one's social skills.
And weren't all three of those benefits exactly what the Emperor desperately needed right now?
Even now it struck me as a fine idea. Silently singing my own praises, I continued in a calm voice:
"Any animal at all will do. Simply tell me what you would like, and I shall see it prepared."
"...Since you say this out of concern for Us... hmm..."
The Emperor showed no particular sign of objecting to my suggestion.
"I have never kept a pet, so I know little of the matter. If you come by whenever you have the time and care for it alongside me, I shall accept."
"That much is no trouble at all."
"It must be you who comes. Not anyone else."
"...?"
At the Emperor's emphatic insistence, I tilted my head in puzzlement but kept my manner respectful.
"Understood."
"See that you do not break your word."
Still, the Emperor seemed pleased, and so I chose to take it as a good sign.