The Eighth King (The White Umbrella Testament Book 1)

by Matt Weber

  “In that case, one might expect an ape to exercise more circumspection in the presence of tigers.”

  “Well, ancestry beckons there too.”

  “What,” said Datang, “are you part tiger, then?”

  “It was a mistake to bring up family matters,” said the Glib Ape. “Do you have a plan to skirt the crown-seeking army that now plagues the Great South Plain?”

  “Nothing could be simpler,” said Datang. “I have studied maps of the Plain, and I know the main mass of the insurgency will sit astride the Silver Dragon. That is where the richest farms are, and the best way to block water traffic from Rassha. The Dragon flows through the Chusrin Gate, of which the Wind Horse Gate is east, whereby I surmise that the preponderance of the Pretender’s army—”

  “Please,” said the Glib Ape, “not every man here is for King Tenshing.”

  “—very well, the crown-seeking army will sit to the west, so that the river will slow General Gyaltsen if he attempts to take them in the field. Accordingly, I shall stay on the east side of the Dragon, which neatly solves the problem of how I might pay for crossing, and make my way through the farmlands in the eastern foothills, where troops will be scarce or absent and the balance of sentiment will be against the—” Datang caught herself and grimaced. “Pardon me, the claimant.”

  “Interesting,” said the Glib Ape. “But consider this: The rich farms by the Dragon have been badly taxed already, and as you keenly observe, local sentiment is unfavorable toward the claimant. Further, the Dragon can be blocked by a token force if chains and mines are used. By contrast, the eastern foothills have largely escaped the depredations of war, and their position is more defensible if Gyaltsen does opt to take the field—which he would do, in your scenario, via the Bat Gate, west of the river, precisely so as not to be slowed down by the crossing. Perhaps, then, the east side of the Dragon is not such an unlikely site for the crown-seeking force.”

  Datang nodded in rumination. “I will consider your reasoning. What about the western foothills?”

  “There is nothing in the western foothills but bears and hedge-wizards,” said the Glib Ape. “And not enough of either to provision an army, even if they ate the bones.”

  “Then it seems a traveler to Rassha would be well advised to take that route.”

  “If she has no fear of bears or hedge-wizards.”

  “She has not.”

  “The Lotus, what valor!”

  The Glib Ape’s tone was mocking, but only gently. Datang raised her wine bowl with a solemn stare. “To valor, then, in apes and women.”

  That toast, she would realize later, had been an opening, an avenue by which the Ape might return to the elision of combat and the congress of the sexes that he seemed so eager to apply to her. She would conclude that the Ape, a nimble interlocutor with both the flesh tongue and the steel, could not possibly have failed to notice such an avenue; but, whether he had declined to take it out of disinterest or respect, and what she, Datang, felt about either possibility, she would not soon resolve.

  “And tigers,” said the Glib Ape, raising his own bowl.

  “And bears and hedge-wizards—may they sleep valorously, and valorously ignore passersby.”

  “And bats—may they flee from their foes as valorously as their wings can carry them!”

  The toasting continued, stretching the definition of “valor” to the snapping point, then past it, then tying the snapped ends together and carrying on well into the night.

  Dawn breaks over the Orchid Throne

  lthough a direct threat to his sovereignty, the Therku insurgency evaded the attention of King Tenshing Astama for several retrospectively predictable reasons. First, Therku was then a territory of no account, and a region of Uä’s far-flung periphery rather than a pillar of the nation’s core; the trappers and lumberjacks of the region did not think much of the Orchid Throne, and barely a winter went by without one village or another declaring independence, to be confiscated by the crown’s troops in the middle to late spring. Second, the humble origins of the insurgency and its gradual escalation lulled the Ministry of Domestic Affairs well past the point of actual crisis. Had the self-titled Chief-Marshal Kandro who led the rebels been a member of the elite, or had he secured an impressive amount of critical territory quickly, the Ministry’s response might have been swifter. Third, after realizing that they had badly underestimated the enemy, the Ministry’s mandarins responded in the way of all functionaries ambushed by failure: They concealed the gravity of the problem while trying desperately to fix it. Concealment robbed them of necessary resources; desperation robbed them of their already taxed competence. Fourth, the King’s romantic life, never simple at the best of times, had of late assumed additional dimensions of complexity, on which more later. Fifth and finally, the gods were not forthcoming about the gravity of the rebellion—although this would have gone without saying at the time.

  In any case, the rise of Chief-Marshal Kandro ceased to evade anyone’s attention after the battle of Goat Ridge, when his dragoons—principally farmers and small-time artisans, mounted on underfed horses and armed with unreliable rifles enchanted by the very lowest echelon of hedge-wizards and sorcerasters—destroyed not one but two tank columns on successive uphill charges. It was this event that led the gallant fraternity to style him “the Rough-Hewn Torch,” a nod to both his origins and talents. At one stroke, this upstart commander and his swarm of unbathed irregulars seized the nation’s entire supply of ivory silk and, not coincidentally, provided conclusive proof that the revolution was backed by an influence, if not divine, at least strongly supernatural.

  At this point, speculation began to spread that King Tenshing’s failure to master the Reflecting Pool Mind might arise not from his youth (recall, please, that no man of Uä before or since has mastered the other seven of the Rigors Martial by his thirty-fourth year) but rather from a defect in his lineage, one perhaps not shared by the man who tore the tanks of Uä to shreds with whips of white fire. Eight generations is a long time, the murmurs went; is it so difficult to imagine that, at some point since White Tenshing’s death, the eighth son who took the crown might in fact have been a seventh, or a ninth?

  In the shadow of the rout at Goat Ridge and the succession debacle, those mandarins of the Ministry of Domestic Affairs who had not yet fled or killed themselves were, naturally, rapidly imprisoned to await execution. Unfortunately, the damage to the King’s claim had been done. The ranks of the Pretender doubled on the advance, then doubled again.

  And so it was that King Tenshing Astama, eighth son of an eighth son and unto eight generations, came to his throne room on a cold morning in early autumn, well before the sun had crested the horizon, to spend some quiet hours contemplating the army slouching toward his doorstep.

  This summary of the testament’s opening omits much, for three reasons. First, we have omitted the view from the insurgent army and from Kandro himself, of whom the Thousand Arm Testament has much to say. We have not presumed on the omniscience that is the signal talent of the Thousand Arm Deity, whose twenty-two eyes see all and whose five hundred right hands transcribe it without error; our vantage point is restricted according to our interests at the time. Second, we have omitted the slow festering and sudden tumefaction of the insurgency, a matter whose analysis has housed and provisioned an ever-growing battalion of military historians since even before Pongyo Gorge. In defense of this omission we can only say that the work has been done; what is knowable is known. Third, we have omitted many other events of which the Testament treats, and on which we might credibly be said to harbor insight. On this matter our argument is lexical: The reader here beholds a comment, not a concordance. As to the specifics of what is and is not treated here, and why, we offer no defense, which is the privilege of gods.

  After three hours of contemplation, King Tenshing opened his eyes to the entry of General Gyaltsen, the leader of his armies—a shed-shaped man, no longer young, with a beard blacker than
that of most men half his age and a scalp that gleamed in the soft candlelight of the throne room. If his worn leathers and disordered facial hair were gently mocked by the chamber’s clean-lined austerity, or made faintly ludicrous by the compact serenity of the King who meditated lotus-fashion on its spotless granite floor, it could be no discredit to the general, who was Tenshing’s hand in the world of war as much as Tenshing was the gods’ in the world of men. Tenshing rose, smiling, and Gyaltsen abased himself with customary efficiency. “It is my joy to serve His Grace,” the general said.

  “I have a question and an order for you today, General,” said Tenshing. “The question is the same I have asked you every day at a somewhat later hour.”

  “As matters stand, we can survive a siege,” said Gyaltsen. “We are provisioned for the winter. The Pretender’s supply lines are already insufficient to feed his men; the stores will grow yet shorter as winter nears, and the lines will break entirely when the first snows block the pass.”

  “Without supplies, he will turn to the farms to feed his men.”

  “An army experienced in procurement and negotiation would find profit in that tactic. His is but a host of hunters and trappers; they live by wresting what they need from the resisting land. That approach will not reward them on the Great South Plain.” Gyaltsen did not mention the wrack and slaughter likely to follow. He never mentioned casualties unless they were of tactical importance. The King’s moral judgment was perfectly educated; he understood the consequences of his actions.

  “As matters stand,” the King repeated thoughtfully, “because our citizens may convert to Kandro’s cause, and overwhelm us before they can starve, or break us open from within.”

  Gyaltsen nodded.

  “Do you understand why they have converted?” asked Tenshing.

  “No.”

  Tenshing’s look of inquiry was almost gentle in its sharpness, like a shard of glass or a well-honed razor. “The question is not a test of your loyalty, General, and incomprehension of your enemy is not a virtue.”

  “I have the luxury of imperfection, Your Grace,” said Gyaltsen. “My understanding of the enemy’s strategy and tactics cannot be improved. To dwell on other questions would rob me of that focus—and, in any case, it would be an usurpation of the duties of others.”

  The Thousand Arm Testament implies, by omission, that King Tenshing endorsed this view, but in fact, at the word “usurpation,” faint lines seemed to etch his smooth face. “I will phrase the question more precisely, then,” the King said. “Do you think there is any merit to this Rough-Hewn Torch’s claim?”

  “The manner of the claim negates its substance,” said Gyaltsen. “The truth is enough to claim the throne. With that, no army would be necessary.”

  “I think you have denied your own vocation, General,” said Tenshing.

  There was a moment of silence in the throne room. “If we knew what god or demon guided him—”

  “That,” said Tenshing, “you may leave to others.”

  Gyaltsen nodded once, with vigor—perhaps too much. “You did me the honor of mentioning an order,” he said. “What is it?”

  “You will not like it. It will go against your instincts.”

  “Then I cannot imagine my instincts are relevant to the matter.”

  “You would say they are not,” said Tenshing. “I am not so sure. In any case, this is the order. Kandro’s army will be here in a matter of days, hours if the gods speed them. Watch them, but do not harry them. When they reach the Great South Plain, withdraw your troops into the city. If they attempt a siege, repel any bid to breach the walls, but make no counterstroke.”

  Gyaltsen’s face remained impassive, but it was impossible not to see the knuckles of his huge hands whiten at his sides. “Once again Your Grace humbles his general. I had thought you uncharitable to say I could resent a disagreement on a matter where your wisdom so clearly prevails over mine. But you were not uncharitable, for I do resent it.” It is for more than poetic logistics that the Thousand Arm Testament calls Gyaltsen “copper-lipped and golden-tongued,” but we will pass over the stanza of praise there offered, adding only that the pleading expression in his eyes was much like that seen in injured dogs and livestock who have apprehended their fate and wish to face it quickly.

  “I must value your intentions more than your feelings in this matter here, General.”

  “And in every other matter, Your Grace.”

  “I thank you for your counsel,” said King Tenshing. “Please await my further orders.”

  “May they reach me swiftly, that swiftly I may please Your Grace.”

  King Tenshing nodded, and Gyaltsen abased himself and withdrew.

  The King had planned to leave several minutes for contemplation of his general’s responses, and he found he had succeeded in this aim. We will not here furnish the substance of his contemplations, which consisted mainly of the abstract mental exercises beloved by monks and which are, in any case, rather well summarized in the Thousand Arm Testament, whose compressed and stylized language is a near-ideal tool for their rendition—but we will mention that this small victory over time and chaos was the sort of achievement that put King Tenshing Astama at perhaps his greatest possible ease. In the fullness of time, though, with the sun yet barely above the horizon, the King’s Lama entered the throne room, his forearms crossed in front of him in the customary posture of passivity. His abasement before the King was, of course, less elaborate than the general’s, as befit the higher spiritual attainment concomitant to his office; the ritual pleasantries passed between the two men were likewise more intricate. The King’s question, when it came, was sudden but not unforeseen, as a thousand subtle marks of his preoccupation had permeated even the most ossified of social reflexes—and the King’s Lama, who had known him deeply since confirming his suitability for the kingship when Tenshing was barely a week out of the womb, had read those marks as clearly as the villagers of Chmang had read the burning runes on the Brow of the Sky on the night that the King’s great ancestor, Tenshing Prathama, died in battle. “What news,” asked Tenshing, “of Chief-Marshal Kandro’s claim?”

  “The messenger you sent to Kandro was well treated,” said the King’s Lama, “and reports that his conversation with the enemy illuminated much. In particular, the enemy has dismissed most of the more ludicrous causes of action.”

  “He does not claim to be my father’s son?”

  “No, Your Grace.”

  “And he does not claim that any of my brothers, uncles, or cousins is secretly a woman, or that any of my sisters, aunts, or cousins is secretly a man?”

  “He was careful not to endorse the attested sexes of your relatives too strongly, Your Grace, but he did not dispute them.”

  “A bastard, then. Does he claim my grandfather’s blood?”

  “No, Your Grace, the enemy claims the honor of descent from your noteworthy great-grandfather, King Tenshing Panchama.”

  At this, a great stillness veiled King Tenshing’s face. An astute observer, or one long trained in observing stillness as monks and lamas are, would have sensed beneath or throughout this stillness a deep vibration with some small kinship to the ineffable sensations that augur an earthquake or an avalanche, or the greathorn blasts that echo across the Rafters of the World to welcome spring and autumn. “He claims that two generations of this alleged bastard’s descendants each yielded eight sons?”

  “He so claims, Your Grace.”

  “That is improbable enough that it should be easily verified.”

  The King’s Lama offered no opinion on this matter.

  “My grandfather was a kind and dutiful man,” Tenshing continued. “He sometimes told me that he deemed it a reaction to his own father’s wildness. He thought that the fifth generation was in a uniquely difficult position—too young to have seen the first generation establish its promise, too old to see the last fulfill it.”

  “Your memorable great-grandfather was a troubled man,
Your Grace, and our power over him was limited. In truth, once he had given life to your illustrious grandfather, we were glad to release the reins.”

  Tenshing gave the slightest, kindest of smiles. “You speak as though you were there, lama.”

  “I am not so much younger than your lucent grandfather, Your Grace. When I was growing up, your remarkable great-grandfather’s reign was still at the very prow of the public mind. And our order has taken some care to record the difficulties posed by that reign, in case they might be faced again.”

  “I must ask, lama—you say your power over him was limited, but had you no way to curb his potency, if it came to that?”

  The King’s Lama shrugged. “Of course, Your Grace—there are herbs and enchantments and rituals, all of which are known to blunt a man’s virility, and all were applied against just this eventuality.”

  If Tenshing’s gaze now lacked its full measure of gentleness, he surely cannot be faulted for it. “I imagine you would have described those measures with more confidence had this matter not arisen.”

  “His Grace recalls, perhaps, the battle of Goat Ridge.”

  King Tenshing had, in fact, listened to twelve hours of testimony from spectators and survivors of Goat Ridge, all to very similar effect—plumes of white fire arcing like the gods’ rage from superannuated muzzle-loading rifles, lashes of blinding radiance tearing tanks apart as casually as a bullwhip tears flesh. “The lamas are for the Rough-Hewn Torch, then?” Tenshing’s voice hardened. “You owe me candor on this matter.”

  “The lamas are for His Grace the King.”

  “And is it before the Orchid Throne he stands, in your estimation? Or out on the road to Khodon Pass?”

  The lama merely raised his still-crossed arms an inch.

  Tenshing sighed and ran a hand over his scalp, which felt rougher than usual, perhaps because he had shaved it earlier than usual or perhaps because of some heightening of the King’s sensitivity that day. “I should know better than to press you.”