(Is this old man really going to be all right?)
Even as she immersed herself in her reading, Maomao kept stealing glances at the trembling
Lord Lin.
From time to time, the man attending him would moisten the old man's lips with cotton dipped in water. Once, he even lifted him up and walked him over to the privy.
From his age, he must be a son or perhaps a grandson.
That the old man was still alive at all was no doubt thanks to that devoted attendant.
Sure enough, after waiting a full
hour,
even Suzume's stomach seemed satisfied, and now she was playing
Lihaku
and
Onsou —
the three of them together —
with paper cards.
Maomao had been invited too, but she'd refused, saying reading suited her better. Small coins kept flickering in the corner of her vision, but she chose not to see them. As long as the stakes were cute and modest, there was no problem. Suzume aside, Onsou needed a distraction.
(But I doubt anyone can beat Suzume-san.)
And sure enough, Suzume was winning every hand. She was the woman who pulled flags out of thin air. Even knowing it was cheating, Maomao felt sure she'd never be able to spot the trick.
While Maomao was lost in idle thought, Lord Lin's body slumped forward.
Startled, Maomao rushed over to the pair in the middle of their match.
"Oh my, Maomao."
The eccentric strategist gave a slack, foolish grin.
Maomao shoved the eccentric strategist out of the way — you're in the way — and reached out to touch the old man.
And then——
"There's no problem!"
The one who raised his voice was the man tending to him. He supported Lord Lin's body and brought his ear close to the old man's mouth.
Lord Lin seemed to be saying something.
"……"
"Mm…… Mm."
The sound didn't reach Maomao's ears. The attendant caught the old man's faint whispers and wrote them down. Maomao peeked at the writing and tilted her head — it was just a string of nonsensical words.
The old man's murmuring must have come to an end. The man rubbed his grandfather's back and once again moistened his lips with the damp cloth.
"Are you finished,
Lin Xiaoren
?"
the eccentric strategist asked, sneaking glances at Maomao all the while.
(Xiaoren — "little man"?)
It could mean "child," but it carried much stronger connotations of "petty scoundrel." Even pairing it with "Lord Lin," the eccentric strategist was being quite plainly rude — that was just how he was.
"He's tired, so I'll let him rest a while."
Lin Xiaoren didn't seem to mind, and gently laid the old man down. Then he began recording the game's moves.
"Caregiving must be hard work, hm."
Suzume said it as though it were someone else's problem, cheeks stuffed with steamed buns.
Gaoshun's
and
Taomei's
old age — what would that look like?
"Maomao~"
A lukewarm, oozing voice — Maomao twisted her face in disgust.
"Do not come any closer. You smell like a wet dog."
"That's pretty harsh just to hear out loud,"
Lihaku cut in.
But no matter what anyone said, this gentleman was not one to listen.
"You said you like salty things, so I had plenty of salty
dim sum
prepared. What about drinks? Will you have some sake?"
"Sake……"
Her heart wavered for a moment, but she shook her head — no, no, absolutely not.
However, perhaps because Maomao's grimace was simply too severe, Suzume slipped in between them.
"If we're talking sake, then Suzume-san would like some of the local fruit wine. Also, since we do technically have a job to do, please tell us more about that old man's situation."
After firmly stating her own demands, Suzume managed to do the job at the same time. From the side, Lihaku turned it down with a "Sake later, all right?"
As for the eccentric strategist, he looked at Suzume and tilted his head.
"A knight, is she?"
He seemed to perceive her as someone who made irregular, off-pattern moves. His aesthetic eye, at least, was reliable.
"I will explain about Grandfather."
Lin Xiaoren came over. Lord Lin was sleeping with soft, even breaths.
Almost naturally, they gathered into a circle around the food. Suzume prepared tea and passed it around. Maomao set a small plate in front of each person.
"What have you all been told about my grandfather?"
Lin Xiaoren asked in a calm voice, looking around at Maomao and the others.
(Grandfather, huh.)
He must be in his forties. His hair was black, but it had a curl to it, and his eyes were pale in pigment.
(Old man Lin does have a somewhat foreign look to him, after all.)
For a man of this age to so devotedly nurse his grandfather struck Maomao as unusual.
He used polite speech even with her and Suzume.
(Is he the youngest child, perhaps?)
She had heard that among the nomadic peoples, there was a custom of leaving the youngest child behind to care for the parents. If Lin Xiaoren had grown up in such a culture, his bearing made sense.
"We were told he is the living archive of the Western Capital."
"That is what he used to be called, but now, as you can see. Up until the incident seventeen years ago, his memory was still sharp."
"Seventeen years ago — that would be…"
"The purge of the Clan of the Dog."
(So it comes back to that.)
Maomao suppressed the urge to slap her own forehead.
Lin Xiaoren brushed back the thin hair of his sleeping grandfather. A surgical scar stood out clearly, stitched lines visible.
"At the time, my grandfather bore the duty of
compiling
the historical records of the Western Capital. However, during the purge of the Clan of the Dog, he too was apparently seen as a traitor. We were fortunate the suspicion did not reach the family. That was a mob that had merely claimed the righteous cause of a purge. My grandfather was seized, and the records he had been compiling, along with all the source texts, were burned. Several months later, when he was returned to us, he was already as you see him now."
Lord Lin's dementia — whether it came from being stripped of his
life's calling,
or from terrible violence inflicted upon him. Either way, it was unbearable to think about.
"The historical records of the past contain many invaluable things, and even now, we mourn that they were burned."
Lin Xiaoren struck the carpet in frustration.
(Burning is easy. Restoring is hard.)
But then, did the murmurings Lord Lin had been making earlier have some meaning? Surely it was impossible to reassemble historical records out of that string of nonsense words.
"So — what is it that you would like us to do?"
It seemed quicker for Maomao to take the lead, so she spoke up. As for the eccentric strategist, it had become his naptime, and his head had begun to nod. Looking closely, Suzume was smiling broadly and pointing alternately at the sake bottle and the eccentric strategist.
(She drugged him.)
Suzume had done excellent work. She must have slipped sake into the tea she'd handed out. Maomao thanked her with a glance.
"My grandfather was a cautious man. He was not the type to keep flammable documents all in one place."
"Which is to say — there were libraries other than the one that was burned?"
"Yes. When he acquired a new book, he was the sort who would read it and make a copy of anything important as he went."
If the copies were kept somewhere else, then a record would survive. However——
"The fact that they haven't been found means no one knows where that library is, correct?"
"Exactly. Which means there is a possibility that an entire collection of books remains, undiscovered by anyone."
Maomao looked at the snoring old man. The eccentric strategist was nothing but a troublesome geezer when he wasn't useful, but troublingly enough, he was occasionally of help.
"And so, when he occasionally comes to his senses, you try to draw out the
location
of the library from him."
It sounded like a maddeningly long shot.
"Can you really find it that way?"
Suzume cut straight to what Maomao wanted to ask.
Lin Xiaoren looked troubled but sipped his tea.
"Actually, we have found something once before."
Maomao's eyes went wide.
"Really?"
"Yes. Based on something my grandfather suddenly recalled, we apparently searched a house he used to live in long ago. And then——"
"And then——?"
"It was there. A collection of game records my grandfather had hoarded long ago. We found them beneath the floorboards of a shed."
"Game records……"
Honestly, they didn't sound terribly valuable.
"You were disappointed, weren't you? Given how elaborately they'd been hidden."
"Yes. Apparently they were used as kindling for the stove."
To Lord Lin, they must have been treasures. The cruelty of differing values.
"What a waste. They might be worth something now, you know~"
Suzume said, helping herself to a noodle dish. Just moments ago she'd looked stuffed, but apparently more room had opened up in her stomach.
"Indeed. And just now, someone caught wind that my grandfather was skilled at shogi, and we've had people coming to us saying they'd buy any game records, if we had them."
"They want to buy game records……"
Somehow, this rang a bell.
"It seems that in Kaou Province, Go has become all the rage, and books compiling game records are selling well. Hence the proposal that perhaps shogi might do the same."
Maomao glanced over at the snoring geezer. He really kept making his influence felt in the strangest places.
"Hearing that there's money in it, the family is in a frenzy over it now."
"Well, well. But if it's shogi, surely there should be plenty of game records from after that, no?"
His shogi skill itself didn't seem to have dropped, so Maomao figured it should be fine.
"That's the troublesome part — they want the old game records specifically. To be exact, they want the records of games played against Lord Rakan."
"Huh?"
Maomao looked at the eccentric strategist again.
(Now that I think of it.)
She had heard that when his uncle
Luomen
was expelled from the Rear Palace, the eccentric strategist had been ordered by his birth father to travel as an envoy. Where he'd gone was of no interest to Maomao, but for several years afterward he couldn't return home.
(The timing matches up.)
"So — Lord Lin is an old acquaintance of that drunken creature collapsed over there?"
"You put that rather indirectly. Yes, that's what I've been told. Unfortunately, my grandfather doesn't seem to remember."
Maomao looked at Onsou.
"Um, Lord Onsou!"
"Now that you mention it, Lord Rakan did say something like, 'His style of play looks somehow familiar.'"
The eccentric strategist couldn't tell faces apart, so he wouldn't remember whether someone was an old acquaintance.
"I believe my grandfather is more energetic than usual because he was able to play shogi against Lord Rakan for the first time in so long. Um, this may be an impertinent request, but — would you allow us to have the records of today's match?"
"That's fine."
"Then — if my grandfather's mutterings happen to lead us to the hidden books and game records——"
"All the game records, you may have."
"Lady Maomao……"
Onsou looked at Maomao with concern.
"The eccentric strategist couldn't possibly care less about old game records."
"But if something is said later——"
"Just say I did it on my own authority."
"I'll do exactly that!"
Onsou said, his voice firming up at the end. Which meant all he'd really wanted was a clear statement he could use to lay the blame on Maomao.
And so, that brought them to the key matter — the possible location of the books.
"Do you have what you were writing down earlier on hand? Would you allow us to look at it as well?"
"Yes, here. These are from the past few days."
"……Aren't these game records themselves?"
Maomao tilted her head. Looking at it, she saw notations like "59 silver" and "83 horse." Even Maomao, who had no interest in shogi, could tell these described the movements of the pieces.
(Do these really have any meaning at all?)
Maomao felt the urge to groan.