The Emperor's Men 8

by Dirk van den Boom

  And yes: Inugami would be outraged.

  “We’re sending search teams,” he said hoarsely. “We ask the Maya for help. Sawada – we will return to the council meeting immediately.”

  “But Captain Inugami …”

  “He has to wait. We mustn’t waste time now.”

  Sawada was silent, bowed his head, rose with Aritomo.

  They hurried away. And both of them already suspected that all their actions would be in vain.

  8

  Inugami looked at the worm consisting of soldiers that was moving out of Saclemacal before his eyes and felt a great satisfaction as well as anger. His satisfaction was fueled by the fact that the occupation of the city had developed very well, the population was ready to accept the new rule without complaint, and Balkun, his governor, after he had overcome his surprise, proved to be active and sensible. Inugami didn’t trust the man for a second and had made it clear to him that any failure, any appearance of betrayal would result in his death and that of his family in Yaxchilan, a city he was planning to conquer as part of this first campaign.

  Balkun would be very careful, eager to fulfill his new master’s wishes. His family was his weakness; he had spoken of them and expressed his longing once too often. Inugami was excited to see how this experiment would develop. He had to learn how to draw loyal servants to him, and he really didn’t care what motivation led to their loyalty as long as it worked. Saclemacal was relatively insignificant as a city. He would be ready at any time to make an example of it if something went wrong.

  Unfortunately, Inugami was bothered by the fact that Chitam did not want to participate personally in the continuation of the campaign and had already started the return journey to Mutal a few days ago was certainly one of them. Inugami knew that the King was unpredictable. As soon as he heard of his wife’s death, which Inugami had threaded to fuel the Mutalese’s anger at the enemies in Yaxchilan, his own suspicion would stand in the way of drawing the right conclusions and driving the war forward. In addition, the captain was not sure whether Aritomo Hara would be able to keep the king sufficiently under control. Aritomo might have been a decent officer, but he lacked bite, toughness, ruthlessness, and the self-driving discipline that every day helped Inugami focus and do the necessary things, including those that were a bit uncomfortable.

  Hara, on the other hand, was not able to do this, at least not as the situation sometimes required. He had too much sympathy for the Indians, even took them really seriously, much more seriously than they were entitled to. They were children who needed guidance and a strong, punishing hand. Aritomo Hara, however, seemed to show more than reluctant respect for some aspects of their culture. That made him vulnerable. A clever Indian could take advantage of this to sneak into his trust. And then there was the Brit, this Lengsley, who had made friends with him. He didn’t understand the kind of discipline Inugami thought necessary, and he infected Hara with European ideas that would only keep him off the right path.

  The captain had therefore decided to do something about Lengsley. The Briton had valuable knowledge, so it would not be appropriate to simply eradicate it. But he would find employment that was appropriate to his abilities and far away from Aritomo Hara. The more his empire grew, the easier it would be to find a good opportunity to do so.

  Everyone belonged in his place. And it was Captain Inugami who determined where that was.

  To achieve this, Inugami first had to position himself in the right geographic position – and for that he had to push his conquest plans faster and more intensively. His devoted troop of warrior slaves would help him. Their loyalty had increased. He had allowed them to acquire personal wealth from this city’s loot. He gave them young women for pleasure. They now realized that devotion and bravery paid off for them, and when one of theirs was appointed governor of this city, the bond of loyalty was tied even closer. You could go up high if you served the divine Inugami, you could be like one of the kings, achieve a position that for most of them was beyond imagination. And if the campaign went on like this, there were still many towns and villages to be distributed that needed the zealous, the submissive and above all the absolute administration, and who would Inugami entrust with these tasks other than his most loyal warriors and followers?

  That’s how Inugami planned it, and that’s how he implemented it.

  Now it was Tayasal’s turn.

  It had been quite amusing so far.

  He had a messenger from this city executed as soon as he heard that the new king of this city asked for peace and agreed to pay great tribute. Inugami didn’t care for tribute. He wanted power, and every other king was just in his way. If Tayasal surrendered without a fight and completely submitted, he would prove to be merciful and thus send a message to all other Maya: You do not have to suffer and bleed for your king. Give up, surrender and nobody should die. He was even ready to spare the king himself. In Saclemacal, he had shown that he was tough. He also had to show his mild side every now and then.

  The news would make an impression, he was absolutely certain of that.

  Inugami was not bloodthirsty. Unlike his general, he wasn’t particularly happy about killing people. Since he would be forced to take part in the fighting himself until further notice, there was always the risk of falling victim to a lucky thrust with a spear. This was something the Captain was happy to avoid. After the conquest of Yaxchilan, he calculated, he would no longer have to lead from the front. Then his nimbus, his reputation, would be so strong that he could afford to truly take the commanding position and direct the army instead of going to battle himself.

  But first of all Tayasal, which, if everything developed positively, should fall into his hand like a ripe fruit from a tree.

  “My lord!”

  Inugami felt startled from his daydreams. He didn’t particularly appreciate that. When he worked intensively on his plans, it was sometimes like falling into a trance in which everything he was going to do became very clear. He enjoyed the anticipation of his triumphs, and then being confronted with the not so advanced reality from outside was sobering. He had to control himself not to react gruffly. He stood here watching his troops leave for Tayasal, and it was his job to be inspiring and focused, to be with his men, and not to let them see that they were little more than slaughter animals to him.

  The noble who had approached him had been appointed commander of a group of messenger runners by Inugami, the core of a signaling company he was planning to set up, a special unit whose sole task was communication. It was imperative to incorporate into the new army the level of division of labor and specialization that was necessary for effective warfare, as measured by Japanese imperial standards.

  “My lord!”

  It was a little embarrassing that Inugami’s imagination was wandering again. Oh, there was so much to think about … “What is it?”

  “A message from Mutal, my lord, from your servant Aritomo.”

  He was given a paper. It came from the submarine’s meager supply. He stripped the leaves. The narrowly written lines in Japanese, in Aritomo Hara’s well-known handwriting, were a comfort to him, simply from the sight of them. But when he started reading, his expression darkened visibly. It was not the death of Lady Tzutz that made him angry. It wasn’t even the failed assassination attempt on his deputy that got him going. That was to be expected. Whoever exercised power became a target, especially when others saw their position at risk. The security measures had to be tightened and he trusted the first officer to do so, out of self-interest.

  It was the last, the most important message that made Inugami’s blood boil. That this warped, unwilling, stupid, characterless brat had dared to stray from the predetermined path of his life and actually believed that it had something to decide for himself – that was what shook Inugami and made him really angry.

  Outwardly, he showed a mask of absolute self-control.

>   “Go!” he told the man. “Leave me alone!”

  He was obeyed. And in this the savage was better than the noble-blooded offspring of the Emperor, who did not want to accept that his life meant accepting obligations. Obligations! What did Sawada have, what had the other teachers taught Isamu? Did nothing of it stuck in the little idiot’s head? Hadn’t he understood that he was a tool of higher powers, that he was the basis of a new empire, that the journey through time, their appearance here in Central America, was predetermined by the spirits in order to achieve great things?

  How dare he! How dare he!

  Inugami clenched his fists, crumpled the paper of the letter in his hand, and suppressed a tremor. He would teach Isamu a lesson as soon as he found him. If the animals of the forest hadn’t eaten him beforehand or if an illness hadn’t taken him away, which wasn’t even a bad prospect anymore. And he wouldn’t lift a finger to help him if the enemy got hold of him and turned to him with blackmail. No mercy for stupidity, no help for lack of discipline, no understanding of romantic ideas of freedom. He hadn’t been like that at that age, his father and after him his uncle had already taken care of it, and the two strictest regiments had hardened his mind and body. There was no other way, there was no better way. He had expected nothing less from a prince of the highest blood and that was what made the disappointment he now felt so strong and penetrating.

  But Prince Isamu would sooner or later learn this lesson, and it would be a very, very painful learning process, Inugami would make sure of that.

  But just the thought …

  Inugami took a deep breath. He couldn’t let himself go like that. Anger should not take possession of him this way. He resisted the first impulses, such as immediately traveling to Mutal himself to see that everything was done right. He had understood something very early on once he started to cement his plans for this country: he could not be everywhere. He couldn’t handle everything himself. He had to surround himself with loyal followers for lower responsibilities, for the delegation of tasks, and as much as he was hurt by this knowledge, it could not only be his fellow Japanese. On the one hand, their number would be far too small if his empire continued to grow, on the other hand, despite their racial superiority, they were simply overwhelmed with tasks of rule and administration in terms of education and origin. He had to carefully select, test and deploy from the Mayan noble families, from the prudent and capable men of his warrior slaves. Inugami wanted never to lose sight of the big picture and not to get lost in small things. Isamu’s disappearance was certainly not a petitesse, but on the other hand, it was just a boy who, like the captain himself, was beginning to detach himself from the habits of the time where he started this journey.

  Seen in this way, Inugami stated with a certain irony that the boy’s behavior was similar to his own. The captain created something new, and Isamu wanted that, too, but only for himself. The two of them were not dissimilar.

  That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to spank the boy hard as soon as he got hold of him, prince or not. Nobody snubbed him in such a way. He found it remarkable that he also resisted the spontaneous impulse to punish Sawada or Hara. He hadn’t given any special instructions to guard Isamu, which might have been a mistake.

  Nobody did what you didn’t do yourself. And yet he had to delegate. It was a permanent contradiction that he would never be able to resolve.

  He left the roof of the building from which he had watched the marching troops. His own departure could no longer be postponed, and Tayasal was a few days away. It would be a long time before the fight for the city could begin seriously, and he couldn’t go back now. He considered writing a letter to his deputy immediately but rejected the thought. Only if he returned to Mutal with the strongest prestige and the highest legitimization, before his decisive campaign against Yaxchilan, would he personally take care of this concern, and then with determined hardness and the strongest will. At that time, he had decided, the task was to eliminate Chitam and finally put Mutal under his rule, if not as a shogun then as an emperor.

  For Inugami that was ultimately the same.

  9

  “We lost them, but we’re on course.”

  Langenhagen dropped the binoculars and handed them to Köhler. Both had struggled to keep an eye out for the other ships in their small fleet, looking in all directions for the past half hour, and neither had seen anything.

  “We will try to contact them as soon as we have the shortwave transmitter back in operation,” Köhler said confidently. “If they all pass on their location, we can arrange a course that will bring us back together.”

  The storm had not only torn off the antenna of their radio, the entire, complicated structure had been dismantled by the two radio operators before the start of the heaviest waves and stowed in boxes lined with wool. The extremely sensitive tubes in particular, which were currently handcrafted with a reject factor of 90 percent, were almost irreplaceable, so that their fate was not left to chance. It took a while for the device to be reassembled and tested, and it would be no different on the other ships of the expedition. The storm had swept them apart, despite the better controls the steam engines allowed. Köhler and Langenhagen only hoped that all ships had survived this hurricane without major damage.

  In any case, the Gratianus had proven to be stable, the crew professional and disciplined. There had been minor injuries to the ship and seafarers, but nothing that could not be remedied quickly using on-board means. The calmer weather, the occasional sunshine, and the realization that the storm would only add a few more days to the crossing, which they had estimated to be around twenty-five days, had contributed to the overall positive mood. Everyone congratulated themselves on their bravery. The relief was almost palpable. The storm had welded crew and ship together, especially integrating the many newcomers on board. Seen this way, the hurricane had been a good thing, Köhler was ready to admit.

  But one shouldn’t wish for too much of a good thing either. If the journey would now end without further problems, Köhler would not complain. Although he was now convinced of its effects, he felt no need to taste the murderous herbal drink of the ship’s doctor again. He wanted to keep this pleasure for very special occasions.

  “Then we should hope for good weather for the rest of the trip. We can’t do anything else anyway,” said Langenhagen, packing the valuable binoculars into the leather case. The development of the optical industry had made a really big leap with the arrival of time-wanderers. The glass that was made in the empire was no longer a privilege for the super-rich, but was increasingly becoming the everyday commodity from which windows and containers were made. Small businesses founded by graduates with excellent training had settled near the Ravenna Academy, and two of them had specialized in the manufacture of binoculars, primarily for military purposes, as well as spectacle lenses. So far, not many people with short-sighted or far-sightedness could afford a corrective lens, the production was still too complex for that. But here too everyone was confident that developments in the future would make this blessing generally accessible to all those with poor eyesight. Köhler knew that Langenhagen put on such a glass when he had to read longer texts, and otherwise kept it carefully padded in his cabin. As someone who had grown up near the Academy with his father and who had trained in it as a naval officer, Köhler was used to always being confronted with the latest developments. Others, especially those in the more remote provinces of the empire, were only gradually enjoying these changes. This led to resistance and fear, and persuasion was not always successful. It was an arduous process that faced many challenges.

  That would change once the railroad started operating. When Köhler left the empire, the first track from Ravenna to Rome was about to be completed. A second from Ravenna to Milan was planned. It was probably already in operation when he returned home. Once the provinces were connected to this new form of transport, social and economic change would take pl
ace very quickly.

  And, Köhler was also certain: the empire would start to stink badly. As someone who ran a steamship, he knew pretty much what to expect.

  He took a deep breath and took in the spicy sea air. Better to enjoy this while he could. He cherished the blessing of the steam engine, but anyone with any degree of observation had to acknowledge that as soon as the cities were full of them, they would pollute the air. Even his father, a great fan of progress, had enough in the last years of his life. They had left the growing industrial belt around Ravenna and bought themselves a beautiful house in the country, peaceful and secluded, calm – and without any stench other than the exhalations of humans and animals.

  Köhler, who had inherited the building together with his siblings, quickly decided with them to keep the beautiful country house. It was now used by the whole family as a refuge from the rampant conglomerate of Ravenna, where most of them, however, continued to make their living. Horst’s older sister Annelie worked as a teacher at the Academy and was considered a great specialist in plants, married to another master of the same specialization. They had a graduate of their studies on board this expedition. And his brother Josephus had gone into politics and was currently serving the empire as ambassador in Aksum, the empire in northeast Africa, which had proven to be a very reliable partner of Rome over the past decades – and whose upswing was almost as meteoric as Rome’s, partly due to this friendship. The officer hadn’t seen his brother in years. He hoped he was fine. He heard that Aksum had also started to stink since the first Roman steam engines were put into operation there. It was obviously a process that no one could stop.

  “Is your stomach okay?”

  Aedilius had joined him while the captain had gone below deck. The doctor seemed to enjoy the fresh breeze and the pleasant weather as much as the first officer, and he was long through with his first round of treatments for the injured. Köhler admired the medicus’ stamina. He had worked hard the whole time and hardly rested, and yet he was not only in a good mood but also exuded untamed energy. Köhler could only show respect for the older man.