"And men like you, Father," I would have said, had I been as bold then as I am now.
In those days I was barely bold enough to return to the emperor's hall on the morrow. The soldiers at the door seemed giants to me when I approached them and gave them my name. I thought them more astonishing when one of them led me into a smaller chamber off the main hall in which the emperor was addressing an eclectic group consisting of young officers, members of his son's entourage, and a few generals' children like myself. Unlike the elitist scholars in the Empire's universities, Mathias thought all learning should be open to everyone, regardless of the scholars' age, class, sex, or party affiliation. I was embarrassed beyond my powers to express my emotions when the emperor spoke my name as I entered the room and pointed to an empty place I was supposed to sit. More amazing than his casual manner was the extraordinary class Mathias was conducting for his pupils. Like Epicurus, the ancient philosopher I had quoted when I met him, Mathias believed a life worth living was one given to pleasure. He went beyond the Philosopher of Samos and asserted that the only true pleasure was found in leading a moral existence. A happy man, said the ruler of half the world, was necessarily a humble, kind, self-restrained, and generous man, for that was the sort of man partaking of the greatest pleasure the world could offer.
"Forgive others," Mathias said. "Forgive, forgive, always forgive. Even forgive those who hate you."
"What about the Chinese across the river, my lord?" asked one astonished junior officer. "Are we to forgive them?"
"Especially them," said the emperor.
"Then, my lord," said the confused junior officer, "should we-and I ask this with the greatest respect-should we ... fight them? Seeing as how we forgive them, I mean, my lord?"
"Our duty as citizens of Pan-Polaria demands we fight the Manchurian rebels," explained Mathias. "They have made raids across the Amur and have killed people living under our protection. We must chasten them or they will cross the river again and slay more of our citizens. Once we have beaten them and peace is again restored, we have a second duty, as men, to forgive them and to lead them to the true path of life. They are men like us, equal to us in every aspect, except in that they live in the darkness of ignorance, as all outside the Empire do. In the better days to come, we will show them the light of understanding, of that you may be assured."
If a holy man had spoken those words, I would have long ago forgotten them. That they were said by the most powerful man alive, a man who could extinguish the life of any other human as easily as I might strike at a fly, not only seared them in my memory, it made me wonder if I were really hearing what my ears were telling my mind.
Handsome Luke Anthony and his companions were seated at the front of the room. When Mathias had turned to address the young officer they had been skylarking among themselves and making faces while the emperor spoke his solemn words. As Mathias finished his response to the officer's question, the young coemperor coughed into his hand the word "Christer."
This was a deadly insult in the imperial court. Mathias's old tutor Frons had taught him that the Christians were not good people, as they acted morally to gain heaven rather than for the sake of being good. Moreover, they, like the Jews and the Muslims and unlike the new religions, did not recognize the divine natures of the dead emperors and their Empire. During the previous summer the emperor had yet again suppressed the Christian movement by killing five hundred thousand of that antique sect in Europe and North America. Mathias was not alone in his disdain for the once-dominant religion that had been forced underground three generations earlier; Christians (and the Jews and Muslims) had loyalties that were not connected to the Empire and thus were suspect citizens. The imperial agents who spied upon the outlaw sect had spread the rumor that Christians practiced incest between brothers and sisters, as they called each other by that title even if they were married to each other. They were outlaws in an Empire that tolerated nearly everything else. Everyone knew these same outlaws proclaimed a doctrine of moral living that, except for their belief in heaven, seemed to be much akin to Mathias's theory of the good life. No one was more sensitive of that fact than Mathias himself. The emperor eyed his impertinent son, and the small room was completely silent while Mathias the Glistening fought against his anger. When the emperor's self-restraint had triumphed over his wrath, he continued speaking to the class as if nothing unpleasant had happened.
The great Mathias had written a peculiar book during the previous year, a tome that was part autobiography and part a series of high-minded statements on anything that had crossed his mind. During his gatherings at Progress he would often read to us a short passage from this book of his, expound upon the meaning of what he had read, and next allow anyone to ask questions pertaining to the reading. The words he chose to read to us on my first day in his group were: "One can live well even in a palace."
"Why do we say: `even in a palace'?" asked Mathias. "Because the opportunity to do evil is greatest for those who live there. The stockbroker working on the exchange in Garden City can do more harm to others than can the janitor who sweeps the exchange every evening. The sergeant can do worse than the individual soldier of the line. The ruler, who makes choices that touch everyone, can do more mischief than anyone. Thus, the higher our station in life, the more difficult it is for us to be good men and women."
Mathias spoke as if he were a detached observer of the world and not one holding half the world in his hands. His objectivity made everyone present apprehensive-everyone other than his son Luke Anthony, I should say. That young man pretended to yawn as his father spoke, so familiar was he with the emperor's discourses. Mathias told the story of his predecessor, the deified Pius Anthony, the palace dweller Mathias held to be the example of one who used power wisely. Next he told of the emperor Marcellus Darko, who he said was the example of one who did not live well in a palace, one who in fact burned his palace and the city around it to the ground.
"Forty-eight years ago, the citizens of Washington, where the capital once was," narrated Mathias, "believed that the newly crowned Marcellus Darko would be worthy of the title emperor, for he was an athletic, handsome youth, and the people, being shallow thinkers, believed the inner man would mirror the outward appearance of the young man they saw each evening on their interactive screens. They did not know that long before he ascended to the throne Darko had been corrupted by his degenerate companions and, more significantly, by his indulgent, evil mother, the disgraceful Angelina. From the beginning of his reign to his last sad day, when he was murdered in the bedroom of his country estate, Darko surrendered himself to his baser inclinations; he committed murder, theft, rape, and every manner of carnal act decency forbids me to name in mixed company."
"Plus he was a lousy poet," chimed in young Luke.
For the second time in that session the father turned his eyes upon his wayward son. The officers present fidgeted in their chairs and wished they were somewhere else. I was a child and was ignorant of important matters; the officers from Garden City knew the references to Darko and his mother were Mathias's way of speaking of Luke and his corrupt mother Gloriana. The young coemperor's companion Sao Trentex giggled at the senior emperor's disapproving frown, an indiscretion for which any other ruler of Pan-Polaria would have removed the fat toad's head.
"Must you, sir?" asked Mathias of his son. "Of everyone here, you, young man, need to learn the truth concerning palaces."
"Why?" asked Luke. "We never live in one. We are vagabonds, we in this royal house, 0 great teacher." (Sao Trentex and some of his other young companions snickered at the son's grandiose title for his father.) "We move from place to place, from war to war on the Empire's frontiers, sleeping by campfires like savages, eating bread and corn cakes the peasants in India wouldn't touch. Constricted by such austerity, we have to be moral, sir. There are no temptations where we live. Back in Garden City there are people confronting their desires every day; some days they abstain from doing as they would, and
some days they surrender themselves to what you, sir, call their baser natures. They do not pretend to be holy eunuchs, sir. They are not hiding themselves out here in the wilderness while real life goes on."
Two members of Luke Anthony's entourage shook their heads enthusiastically. They had second thoughts about their actions when the emperor glared at them.
"Young man," said Mathias, "you should not challenge me in front of others."
"Am I not emperor with you, sir?" asked Luke Anthony, the pitch in his voice rising as he rose to meet his father's challenge.
"You have a title," said Mathias. "I think, young man, the world recognizes one of us as superior to the other. Should we ask some of the soldiers inside and see which one of us they will obey?"
Luke Anthony would in time show himself to be a monster, but he was always more a coward than a monster. The possibility of his father bringing a squadron from the storied Tenth Division into the room quickly brought the more powerful aspect of his personality to the forefront. His face turned ashen, and so did those of his companions, as he and they considered what might happen to them if the young emperor continued to confront his father. Luke's friend and fellow coward Sao Trentex likewise had a change of heart and decided mocking absolute authority to its face was not the wisest course of action. The fat fellow whispered something to his young friend, and Luke Anthony said to his father, "In the spirit of debate, sir, I was suggesting some alternative possibilities to your-"
"Young man," said the emperor, "I know what you were doing. You and your companions may leave us for the day."
Luke and his friends scrambled for the exit, bumping into each other in their rush to reach safety. At the doorway they turned to bow to Mathias before they disappeared into the hall outside. A couple of them tried to speak a few words of apology to the emperor before they left, but Mathias waved them on their way.
"We are young and foolish, my emperor. This is the unfortunate inclination our formative years have given us," pled Sao Trentex. "You must not think we-"
"You are indeed young and foolish," said Mathias. "In time, you will no longer be young. Now, go or the soldiers come in."
The members of Luke's entourage literally knocked each other aside as they charged out the door.
The emperor held his hand to his forehead for a moment, much as ordinary people do when they suffer severe headaches. When he put his hand down, he continued to instruct the remaining students while he maintained the same detached mood he had before he had been interrupted. Before the session ended that day he engaged a young officer in a lively exchange concerning the origins of private property, and he seemed his normal self again.
"Did you say anything?" Father asked me over dinner that evening.
"No, the emperor talks enough for everyone, sir," I told him.
"Very good," said Father. "Let him talk. Like most bigshots, he loves to ramble on. Good. As long as he's only talking, nobody can get hurt."
"Sir, does Mathias get along with his son?" I asked.
"How would I know?" growled Father. "You are asking a foolish question. Shows you're becoming a woman. That's the only kind of question women ask. Look, Mathias made that pup of his coemperor, so he must like the boy in some way. Why would a person give a gift like that to somebody he doesn't like? You've got to think about these things, girl."
"Did the Greeks like the Trojans, sir?" I asked.
"That's from a book, isn't it?" said Father.
"Yes, a really old one."
"It may surprise you, Miss Genius, but I happen to recall that comes from a rotten long poem written by that Homer fellow."
"That's right," I said. "So tell me, sir: did the Greeks like the Trojans?"
"It's another foolish question, Justa," said Father, and set aside his fork for a moment. "You must practically be a woman to talk like that. You need to have a talk with Helen. Anyway, as I recall, the Greeks hated the Trojans. They were fighting a long bloody war, weren't they?"
"Then why did they give the Trojans a gift, sir?" I said.
"Well, they gave them that big horse full of bloody soldiers, didn't they? That is the right story, isn't it?" asked Father. "This doesn't have anything to do with that other old story about the man in the red suit?"
"Yes, it's the wooden horse story."
"Then that was not a real gift, was it?" said Father. "Honestly, Justa. You are bad as the emperor. You think so deeply you confuse yourself. You see, there are two types of things in the world: those that are simple and those that seem not to be. The simple ones are easy to understand, and the other ones are really simple matters disguised as complicated ones. It's like what happens in battle: there are brilliant generals and there are slowwitted ones; in the end it's always hit them on the left, hit them on the right, soften them up with rockets and aerial bombardment, and finally attack down the middle. You see?"
"Yes, sir," I said, and ate my chickpeas.
I attended the emperor's symposiums throughout that cold first winter in Progress. I said nothing during class time and grasped what I could. Every day Mathias was more attentive to me than I could have rightfully hoped. He addressed me by the pet name "the Most just" and would speak individually to younger students such as myself at the end of each session.
"What did you learn today, Most just?" he would ask me as I crept toward the door.
"I learned, my lord, that I do not know what the transmigration of souls is," I told him one day.
"No one does, Most just," he said. "That is an idea that first appears among the Pythagoreans, although they probably borrowed it from the Egyptians, and perhaps it was current in the Indus Valley long before that. Those who believe in it lack imagination, you see. They can envision no other world other than this one. Old Pythagoras and his kind believed the soul would return again and again to this realm in different forms. The Hindus think something similar even today. They did not know the soul is made to live a thousand times ten thousand years, but only once will our souls know this world."
I comprehended a small fraction of everything he said, yet he was, I reminded myself every day, the emperor, and he must know what he was saying.
"You are very wise, my lord," I said.
"So everyone tells me," he said. He bent his head to my ear-so close was he I could see the separate segments of the flexible metal casing on the back of his neck-and he asked me, "You would not be flattering me, would you, Most just?"
"Perhaps I was, my lord," I said.
"Don't do it, pretty one," he told me, and stood straight once more. "I have a mob of flatterers about me. I want you to give me honest answers, my dear. The emperor demands that of you."
One thing Mathias had in common with his criminal son was that he too had seen some master actors in the cinema back in Garden City, and he too could act if he wanted to-just not as well as his boy could. When Mathias pretended, the real man always shone through his pretense. On the day I mention here, he had meant to sound stern with me. I could detect the gentle smile within the hard man he was pretending to be, for he could not keep his goodness from shining through.
As much as I loved him, I do confess Mathias was a man with his faults. I do not refer to the brutal deeds he did, for his position and the chaotic state of the Empire demanded he do many horrible things. Nor do I refer to the mistress he kept in his household after his wife's death, as lust is a weakness known to humans in general. When I speak of his faults, I mean that he enjoyed his wisdom and his own sonorous voice more than a man should. Worse than that was his love of his own virtue. Mathias had condemned the Christians for being good in order to please God. I have since come to think such religious folk are at least wiser than those who love virtue in order to please themselves, and Mathias, the finest man of his age, was often too pleased with himself.
On the second day of spring, when the snows had begun to diminish, the emperor took me aside after one of his symposiums and gave me a composite hand mirror as a going-away present. He
told me the time for the campaign against the Manchurians had arrived.
"Look within, Most just," he told me as he handed me the gift. "Make your soul as beautiful as the face you see in the mirror. One day in the distant future, the face you see here will disappoint you. Do not despise your looks for being a passing circumstance. Take pleasure in everything that will not harm you; enjoy the small diversions of this physical plane, for nature put those things here to give us intimations of the perfections which forever lie beyond our reach."
On the following morning he was gone, as were my father and the rest of the army. The combat engineers had built bridges of black carbon filament across the swollen Amur to allow passage to the southern shore. The troop carriers passed two abreast across these black sections straddling the brown water and into the sparse, sandy hills on the opposite bank. Select men in silvery helmets and body armor carried the banners of the separate divisions before the ranks of trucks and armored cars while drummers from the emperor's marching band marked the even cadence as the traffic crept across the composite planks of the bridges. Mounted infantry from Mexico, recruited after mechanical problems had rendered so many troop carriers unusable, each of them wearing a long wool coat to shield his body from the cold, crossed in double lines behind the Pan-Polarian regulars. Siberian auxiliaries sporting long black beards came after the Mexicans; they shouted to the jet-streaked skies as they proceeded, and a camp follower told me the men were calling to their gods to grant them good fortune on the long trek that lay ahead of them in the hostile Chinesecontrolled lands. Last to make the crossing was the grinding baggage train-the ammunition carriers and the heavy trucks with wheels as tall as a man's head. The entire procession needed a full day to exit Progress. Helen and I watched their movement during the daylight hours from the doorway of our stone hovel. While we lay on our beds at night, we could hear the engines growling on the undulating bridges during our slumbers. Whenever a truck with an infected engine ground to a halt, a group of soldiers would put the machine in neutral gear and shove it out of the army's path. I counted twenty-six such stricken vehicles within sight of the encampment on the first day of the march toward the south.
The Martian General's Daughter Page 4
