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“...Does... does Cao believe that Your Majesty gave Dong Cheng that edict...?”
Empress Fu asked timidly.
“It... it doesn’t matter,” Emperor Xian replied. “What is done is done,
and he will never outright ask or accuse me, and his ‘opinion’ on the matter
will vary according to convenience. What matters, my lady, is that I have very
few allies at court now, and... and now I am told that independent sources have
confirmed that Liu Bei was leading
that attack on Xuchang.”
Empress Fu was initially taken aback, but once she regained her
composure she asked, “Might it have been a necessity...?”
“I tire of people passing off evil acts as ‘necessity’,” Emperor Xian
replied. “Nothing wicked is ‘necessary’, only easier. If Liu Bei really did
march against this city with an army of Yellow Turbans, then... then either he
had no choice in his alliance with Yuan Shao, who would then be the one truly
at fault, or he has lost his mind, or he is the worst of them and every bit as
wretched as his disinherited ancestors. I... I just wish that I could talk to
him, hear his explanation... my heart craves an explanation, something that
returns him to the fold, so that I am not isolated and... and...”
“...What about Yuan Shao...?” Empress Fu wondered.
“A lost cause,” Emperor Xian said dismissively. “He’s no better than his
brother; he forges alliance with rebels, bandits and cultists, and he has not
once pledged allegiance of late, sent tribute or given written assurance that
Bing, Ji, Yòu and Qing were taken in the name of the Han and not his own. Oh, I
know that Cao might be withholding correspondence from the court, but there are
ways... he got that letter of condemnation distributed easily enough.”
“But he fights in the name of the Girdle Edict,” Empress Fu noted.
“...So he says,” Emperor Xian replied.
“But he has long contested my
place; I do not know what happened to Governor Liu Yu’s son, Liu Hè, but I was
told that he travelled northward to aid Yuan’s ‘reclamation’ of Yòu Province
from Gongsun Zan. If that’s true, and he lives, then Yuan might want to
supplant me: remember, my lady, that Yuan’s Eastern Pass Coalition fought for
the restoration of the glory of the Han, but not for my place on the Han
throne. I do not believe that his stance has changed, and cannot until he makes
it explicitly clear.”
“...So nothing has changed for us, then,” Empress Fu sighed.
“No... we are where we have always been,” Emperor Xian replied. “That
being the case... what use is talking...?”
Empress Fu nodded agreeably, and Emperor Xian called for his servants to
return; the young monarchs spent the remainder of the day in near-total silence.
*************