Bassen
He was walking along the corridor. It was a muggy season, but this wing bordered the courtyard and enjoyed good ventilation. The willow trees swaying gently in the breeze lent an air of coolness to the surroundings simply by existing.
The corridor transitioned from stone flooring to wooden planks partway along. When Bassen walked, his footsteps made no sound. However, the slightest lapse in concentration would cause the floorboards to creak. In principle, there should be no deficiencies in places where nobles passed.
The corridor was deliberately designed so that sound would carry. The creaking was engineered to be clearly audible in the office at the far end.
Bassen knew this, which was why he muffled his footsteps. In a sense, this too was part of his training. If he made too much noise, later on his father—
Gaoshun
—would land a fist on him. His father was a man of exceptional talent in both scholarship and martial arts, and had lived apart from Bassen since the boy was small. This was to serve as bodyguard to the imperial prince, Bassen's milk-brother—the one person whose true name could never be spoken aloud. Since childhood, Bassen had harbored a wish to one day become like his father.
At present, Bassen served in his father's stead as bodyguard to the imperial prince. He had an older sister and an older brother, yet it was he, not his brother, who had been chosen—and though it filled him with a degree of bewilderment, he threw himself into his work with genuine enthusiasm.
And where he was heading now was that very workplace.
When Bassen turned a corner in the corridor, he spotted a small cluster of sparrows—or rather, a group of young women. Court ladies who worked in the palace. Those noisy girls were skulking about in front of the office where his lord was.
He knew exactly what they were up to. They intended to catch a glimpse of the imperial prince, even through a crack in the window.
Too bad for you, Bassen thought.
Even if there were gaps in the windows, proper sealing had been applied behind them. Measures had been taken to prevent sounds and voices from leaking outside. This made the room stuffy with poor ventilation, but in that case, windows near the ceiling could be opened instead.
The noisy sparrow-girls showed no sign of having noticed Bassen. Their minds were presumably occupied with nothing other than the person behind the wall—the one whose rank, power, and appearance were all beyond compare.
This was a problem for Bassen.
Bassen was no good with women of this sort.
No, not "no good"—he simply didn't want to go near them.
But he had business beyond them.
Bassen reluctantly positioned himself behind the noisy court ladies and gave an exaggerated cough. The girls ignored him. He coughed again, this time louder.
The girls, who had been pressed flat against the window, flinched and turned around. Their faces were grotesquely twisted—though only for an instant. In the next moment, they had rearranged their features into smiles so bright they could put flowers to shame.
"Bassen. Good day."
"Ah—ah…"
Ideally, he should have pressed them about what they had been doing here, but Bassen was still not accustomed to that sort of thing.
"Well then, if you'll excuse me."
The court ladies departed with brisk smiles.
"..."
He reached out as if to stop them, but it was already too late.
Even approaching twenty years of age, Bassen was no good with women. In particular, he found women like the ones he had just encountered—the very embodiment of femininity—especially trying.
Still, he preferred the apothecary's daughter his master was so fond of. She was neither particularly feminine nor particularly unfeminine. Technically she fell into the category of "woman," but she herself never used her gender as a tool—if anything, she seemed to regard the distinction between male and female the way one might distinguish between animals.
That was why he was fine around her.
What he could not stand were women who wielded their femininity like a weapon.
And the reason for that was simple: there was someone like that in his own family.
In other words, watching his mother and older sister had made him this way.
Bassen pulled himself together, set his expression into a firm composure, and entered the office.
When he bowed and stepped inside, a peculiar sight greeted him.
His master sat surrounded by towering piles of documents. Most of them should have been work-related materials, but the one he was reading at that moment was something else entirely.
Lately, novels had been making the rounds in the capital. Apparently, the trend had started in the rear palace, where reading novels was fashionable, but it had since spread to the general public. Court ladies who had learned to read during their service eventually returned to civilian life and brought the trend with them.
The prevailing attitude was that novels were frivolous creations, yet that hadn't stopped a not-insignificant number of people from reading them in secret.
Bassen was somewhat shaken to realize his master might be one of them.
And what he was reading was, of all things, a romance novel.
No—that couldn't be right. Of all people, surely not him.
Bassen shook his head.
Even with that scar on his cheek, there was no man in this country more handsome than his master. The man's radiance was said to remain undimmed even when surrounded by the blossoms of the rear palace.
Besides, there was no way he would be reading something like this during work hours, Bassen told himself.
In the first place, the spread of novels had been something his master promoted, centered on the rear palace, in order to improve literacy rates. The book in his hands now was probably a reference for that purpose. It was exactly the kind of content court ladies would enjoy.
"He's already overworked as it is, and he's still thinking about rear palace affairs?" Bassen clenched his fist.
"I have returned, Lord Jinshi."
Bassen knew he shouldn't be using that name anymore. However, he could not bring himself to utter the imperial brother's true title, and his master seemed to be fond of this name, so those close to him used it.
His master—Jinshi—slowly raised his face. There, between his brows, was the same crease he always wore, just like his father Gaoshun.
Ma Shan pulled a letter from inside his robe and held it out. It had been sent to him, addressed to Ma Shan, and the sender was an apothecary who lived in the pleasure district.
Normally, when something was urgent, it would be delivered to Gaoshun. But that was no excuse for delivering something clearly addressed to Jinshi so late.
Jinshi took the letter. Something small was tucked inside it. It appeared to be some kind of seed, and since there was no particular danger, he accepted it as-is.
Jinshi read the letter, then examined the seed.
"What does it say?"
He asked almost involuntarily. That apothecary was always up to something ridiculous. Was this time the same?
"Apparently, it's a tobacco seed. Unfortunately, it doesn't mention anything about cultivation methods."
"When it comes to tobacco, only imported varieties are available on the market right now, aren't they?"
There were only a few seeds, and it was unclear whether they could even be successfully grown. The apothecary had likely sent them with that very expectation. Ma Shan reported that he had received the seeds, but the implication was that actually growing them would be an entirely separate matter.
That apothecary, the shrewd madam at the brothel — the pleasure district was nothing but misers, Ma Shan thought.
"If tobacco cultivation becomes possible, we could obtain it more cheaply than before. But what of it?"
If it could be produced cheaply within the country, they could impose a heavy tax on it as a luxury good. Was that the purpose?
"It apparently has an effect on pest extermination."
"That's—!"
"But even if we started growing it now, it wouldn't be ready in time."
So that was why the letter had been sent not to Gaoshun but to Ma Shan.
"He says it's also all right to use tobacco ash as an ingredient in insecticide."
It would probably be only marginally effective. But anything was better than nothing.
Besides, even if there was no locust plague this year, it could come next year, or the year after — there was no telling when.
The thinking was that it would be wise to know how to make use of tobacco in advance.
"He really leaves no stone unturned."
While grumbling, Jinshi's mouth still curved into a gentle arc.
After placing the letter and the seed in the document box, Jinshi restored his expression to its usual composure.
His look was perfectly serious, yet what lay on the desk was a romance novel.
His gaze fell upon it, and a complicated expression crossed Jinshi's face.
"Maoken, there's something I'd like to ask."
"What might that be?"
It was rare for his master to address Maoken like this. What could it possibly be about?
"Is there anyone you want to beat — specifically, someone you feel you absolutely must defeat?"
It was a remarkably vague question. If pressed, the answer could go either way — yes, there was, or no, there wasn't.
Ever since he was a child, what the training drills had taught him was self-discipline. And so, he had long been told that the only opponent one should want to surpass was one's past self. Jinshi, too, must have learned the same thing — martial arts from Gaoshun, no less. And yet, here he was, bringing something like this up now.
Gaoshun had told Maoken that Jinshi was more skilled. Maoken understood this well enough. He knew he was still lacking in many areas, and there were times his shortcomings had led him to make mistakes.
But if it were anyone other than himself, that was one thing. If it was Jinshi who had been on the receiving end, then the opponent in question couldn't be someone to dismiss lightly.
Maoken swallowed hard.
"Lord Jinshi. Is the opponent truly that formidable?"
"Formidable is putting it mildly. Like a willow in the wind — no matter how I charged, it was like pushing against a curtain. Not so much as a sign of strain."
Between Maoken and Jinshi, their overall abilities might differ, but in terms of pure technique, Jinshi was considerably superior. To think that someone could dodge Jinshi's attacks — what kind of warrior would that make them?
Was there really someone like that in the palace right now?
It could be that Maoken simply didn't know, and such a fighter existed somewhere out of sight.
Maoken clenched his fist tight.
He had always thought of them as milk-brothers, bound since infancy. Regardless of the gap in their stations, regardless of the master-and-servant dynamic, Maoken had believed that aside from Gaoshun, he was the person closest to Jinshi.
The fact that such an opponent existed in Jinshi's life — the fact that he had known nothing about it — filled Maoken with a furious indignation.
He felt shame at his own failure to notice.
"If you'll forgive my presumption… would I be inadequate as a sparring partner for this training?"
Maoken's offer drew a wide-eyed look from Jinshi.
"That is… I'm afraid it would be beyond you."
Jinshi turned away with an awkward, evasive air. At the sight of it, Maoken felt a sudden rush of heat flooding through his entire body.
"I'm sure I don't command the same trust from you as your father does. But am I really so unreliable that you would write me off without even giving me a chance?"
"Maoken… if you're willing to go that far—"
Jinshi rose slowly to his feet and stood before Maoken. Maoken was roughly three sun shorter than Jinshi — though it wasn't so much that Maoken was short as that Jinshi was tall. That someone of such stature could still be mistaken for a woman spoke to features so refined they could only be a gift from the heavens themselves.
"Could you bend down a little?"
"Like this?"
He lowered himself into a half-crouch just as Jinshi instructed. The difference in their heights now approached nearly a shaku.
"Good. Now look up, just like that."
It was an uncomfortable position, but he looked upward as instructed.
And then, Jinshi's face slowly drew closer.
The face descending toward him was so impossibly perfect that he nearly fell into a daze before catching himself.
Instinctively, he raised both hands to block the approaching face.
"What are you trying to do?"
"That's my line. What exactly are you doing?"
He managed to retort despite his confusion, though that took all his effort.
But Jinshi looked at him with an oddly satisfied expression.
"Indeed, that's exactly the reaction I'd expect. Impressive."
"A-Ahem. What exactly are you talking about?"
Still in his crouch, Maseki had his shoulders firmly gripped and could only fluster. Was this some grappling technique he didn't know about? But if so, why did it require their faces to be so close?
"This might be surprisingly useful, you know."
"Um, what exactly are you talking about?"
With Jinshi attempting to execute this bizarre grapple while Maseki still had no idea what was happening, he could only try to dodge from his disadvantaged position. He couldn't generate any real power and was purely on the defensive.
And before he knew it, he had been driven into a wall.
"You won't be able to escape from here. But even so, that fellow slips right through."
"...Wh-What? Um, Lord Jinshi, Lord Jinshi—!"
His chin was tilted upward, and all he could do was blush.
As he stared with a panicked expression, not knowing how to respond, the entrance to the office opened as if timed perfectly.
There were only a handful of people who could walk through the hallway without making a sound, and naturally, the person who appeared was someone Maseki knew well.
"...I didn't see anything."
With those words, Gaoshun quietly closed the door behind him.