In simple terms, a subject nation may be one of two things: The first is an ally, which pays tribute and homage to Rome, but retains the right to govern itself. They engage in diplomacy with all nations on their own terms, set their own taxes, and negotiate tariffs independently. Examples of this form of subject nation include the Iroquois Confederacy and the Comanche Alliance in Caesaria Aquilonis.
The second type of subject nation is closer to provincial status. They retain local authority like an autonomous province, but also have much more active Roman governors. By and large, they are considered to be more 'distant' from Rome, and their citizens tend to have fewer rights as Romans. They are typically strong nations who were brought under the governance of Rome by the sword or by treaty.
The distinction between 'subject nation' and 'province' is often highly politicized, and a matter of perspective. A Carthaginian nationalist will likely refer to his native region as a 'subject nation,' implying that his people are not a part of Rome, and that they are subjugated under the rule of Rome. In terms of how Rome's laws describe Carthage, including its holdings in Tyre, each region is considered a province of the Empire, with Roman governors in each of the various cities and regions. Carthage has never won the self-rule of provinces like Judea or Britannia . . . . but Carthaginians, as provincials, have more rights and protections under law than relative newcomers to the Empire, such as the Quechan provinces.
As a counter-example, consider Britannia. It was once a province, but has petitioned for, and been given, autonomous provincial status. They retain a Roman governor to represent the whole island, and remain a part of the Empire, but while they have dozens of petty kings, they have no 'high king' or 'emperor' of their own. These petty kings assemble once a year for a Congress; laws are then passed and judges and magistrates are appointed for the next year. Cases that have proven insoluble for local magistrates are presented before a high court, which holds power for one month a year. This is not so much monarchy, as a sort of feudalism, though Britannia, like Novo Gaul and Nova Germania, has outlawed the custom of thralldom.
Regions like Nahautl, Quecha, and Tawantinsuyu face similar problems of terminology. All three are ruled by Roman governors. Tawantinsuyu came into the Empire purely by treaty, and thus has a status between that of a province and an allied subject nation. Nahautl began paying tribute some six hundred years ago, and moved from a tribute-paying ally to formal subject kingdom, to its current status, which is closer to that of a province. Quecha was repeatedly chastised by Rome for its bellicose behavior towards its neighbor, Tawantinsuyu, and was annexed by force three hundred years ago. All three have been invested in heavily by Rome, with the extension of ley-power and other such technology, and their citizens are accorded Roman rights-and protections.
We would like to propose the formulation of an alternate term: affiliated nation. This would be used to describe nations that hover between the status of subject nations and provinces, and would remove the confusion which dogs the issue in all scholarly journals and governmental publications. This might have the added benefit of improving relations between Rome and these affiliated nations, since they would no longer be forced into an unduly subordinate role, and would not be trapped in some lingering shadow of times past.
-Erastus Collonus, "Sociolinguistic Problems in World Politics," in The Roman Journal of Political Science, vol. LXXVI, Spring, 1953, pp. 57-58, University of Lorium Press.
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Iunius 11, 1954 AC
The engine’s roar was a dull and constant drone. The smell of its exhaust was foul, and tore at the lining of Adam’s throat. No sight; the canvas bag over his head let him breathe, but even peering down at himself or the floor wasn’t an option, unlike a mere blindfold. His hands were tied behind him, with rope, and every bounce and jostle over the rutted, uneven road threw him into Sigrun, with not much hope of holding his balance. “Sorry,” he muttered, for the twelfth time, as his shoulders slammed into hers.
He knew they were in the back of a kerosene-powered truck, one that had a raised bed, slab-like sides, and a canvas tarp thrown over the top to keep the sun and the rain out. He’d seen that much before their captors had pulled the bag down over his head. He’d even recognized the type of vehicle . . . it was a hundred years and more out of date. Kerosene-fueled motorcars were kept in museums in Judea; he found it almost difficult to believe that the damned thing ran.
“At least the others will be able to track us by the sound, right?” he told her, above the sound of the engine, trying to keep their spirits up.
“If not that, then by the smell,” she agreed, her voice tight.
He tried to edge his head closer to hers, risking—and receiving—a direct clash as his forehead slammed into her temple as they hit another bump in the road. Adam swore under his breath, and finally got close enough to ask, more or less in her ear, through the bags that covered their heads, “Can you get free of your ropes?” This, in Hellene. He didn’t trust his incredibly poor Gothic for passing messages in the back of the truck.
“Yes. Not a problem. But we should wait and we see before we make any sudden moves, yes?”
“Agreed.”
“They took your weapon, correct?” Sigrun’s choice of words was very careful.
“They found the pistol at my back, yes.” He didn’t know if their captors spoke Hellene, and he wasn’t about to volunteer that they’d missed the smaller revolver in an ankle holster.
“Ah. Understood.”
Impossible to tell how much time had passed as they bounced and jostled, sweated and seethed. Adam pulled at his wrists, trying to work some sort of slack into the sisal, but knew, grimly, all he was managing at the moment was to rub his wrists raw. Like the ligature marks on the tea-dark skin of the half-mummified man they’d pulled out of the earth under the ley-power station.
A mantra began to beat in the back of his mind. Trennus, commenting on how, if this were a sacrifice, they’d disturbed the terms of the contract, and whoever had struck that bargain would be looking for an appropriate sacrifice to set the balance right again. This was a bad idea, Adam thought, and began to work at his wrists again. He’d be damned if he were going to have his heart torn out of his body, or die this far away from home.
They’d gotten a message the previous afternoon from the priest of Chaac that Sigrun and Ehecatl had spoken to a few days ago—the one who was supposed to be a contact for the leader of the local rebels, the mysterious ‘Smoke Jaguar.’ The priest had asked for Ehecatl and Sigrun to meet him the next day—dies Saturni—not at his temple, but at the city’s tiyanquiztli, or marketplace, after local curfew. “Because this doesn’t sound like a trap at all,” Adam had commented, sardonically.
“Of course it is,” Livorus had told them. “It may well be the only way to get in touch with the rebels, however. We must go to them on their terms, so that they feel safe. But we will arrange to ensure that we can turn the situation around on them.” He’d smiled faintly, as he looked up from his usual pile of documents. “They won’t know what you are, my dear.”
“Hopefully not, sir,” Sigrun agreed, grimacing. “We’ll need an extraction plan, as well. I’d be happier if Eshmunazar and Matrugena were with us.”
That, however, hadn’t been an option. Livorus had sent Kanmi and Trennus, hours before, back north to Tenochtitlan, to help the gardia up there go through Gratian Xicohtencatl’s house.
“None of you can remain unseen the way I can. I’m better for a backup, and, if needed, extraction team,” Ehecatl had told her, thoughtfully. “I’ll make myself invisible and shadow you. I’ll stay in radio contact with the other Praetorians, so if and when your radios are taken, we’ll still have a line of contact.”
“She can’t go alone,” Adam objected.
“Of course not. You would be her escort.”
“Won’t the fact that the newlywed Sigrun suddenly has a different male escort be suspicious?” Livorus asked, raising his eyebrow
s.
“We, ah, didn’t go with that particular story, dominus,” Ehecatl admitted, chuckling faintly. “No matter how doting Sigrun tried to look, we both kept winding up laughing. We went with how she and her actual new husband were friends of mine, and were here looking into the possibility of moving her husband’s business here. Lower wages. And apparently, Sigrun was a scholar of other cultures, and wanted the grand tour while her husband was engaged in business meetings . . I thought that she and Trennus could pull off the newlywed act fairly well, but in his absence . . .” Ehecatl shrugged and looked at Adam. “Congratulations. I’m sure you two will be very happy together.”
Adam kept his lips in as straight a line as he could manage. Sigrun sighed. “Very well. We’ll say that Ehecatl couldn’t make it to this meeting, and that my dear husband did not wish for me to be out wandering a strange city alone, after dark, should it become an issue.”
They’d arrived at the marketplace around midnight—fully on dies Saturni—and Adam had been glad that Ehecatl was close by, hidden by his shroud of invisibility. This was the defining mark of a Jaguar warrior; they specialized in stealth tactics from their earliest training at age fifteen in the calmecacs, or houses of lineage, where young nobles or exceptionally gifted commoners were educated. Only at graduation, at the age of eighteen, were they given the tattoos that allowed them to turn truly invisible . . . and then they entered the elite ranks of their nation’s military forces.
Even knowing that Ehecatl was around somewhere, Adam hadn’t dared to look for the man as a priest of Chaac had materialized from behind a closed shop . . . followed by eight or nine other figures, all male, and wearing little more than what jungle workers might—heavy boots and loincloths, their faces swathed in light scarves. And all of them armed with jungle knives, at the very least.
“And who is this?” The priest had challenged Sigrun, but he’d been staring at Adam.
“My beloved, Adam ben Maor,” Sigrun answered, her accent thickening slightly over the lie. “Our friend could not be here tonight. You may say anything to him that you would say to me. I have no secrets from him.”
“Your friend wore the tattoos of a Jaguar warrior,” the priest had muttered. “You and he both gave a . . . certain passphrase to me the other day,” he’d gone on, staring at Adam still. “I don’t know if we can trust you or not, but that’s not for me to decide. Smoke Jaguar . . . will see you now.” The priest’s teeth had bared briefly in a humorless smile, his words a parody of the receptionist at a doctor’s office.
And then the various men had moved in around them. Had relieved Adam of the gun at the small of his back, and had taken Sigrun’s knife and spear from her. The latter was a potentially wasted effort on their part, Adam knew. Sigrun spent time with every new spear—even if all she was replacing was a broken haft. She carved runes into the wood to match the ones on her skin, and rubbed her own blood into the wood. The weapon was therefore blood-bound to her, and she could call it to her hand whenever she needed it. She’d told him that the weapon couldn’t be locked inside of anything, and there couldn’t be walls in between her and it, but even so, calling Sigrun ‘disarmed’ because she wasn’t carrying a weapon was mildly ridiculous. She was a weapon, made incarnate.
None of it made him feel any better about surrendering his gun, or allowing himself to be bound, hooded, and shoved into the back of a truck by people whose faces were hidden, and dragged somewhere so deep into the jungles that they could wander for weeks on foot without finding a way out. Well, all right, Sigrun can fly, but I suspect she’d get rather tired of carrying my carcass around, wouldn’t she? Of course, I could also look at it this way: they actually care that we can identify them. That might mean that they don’t actually plan to kill us. Adam shifted again, pulling at the ropes . . . .
. . . and the truck finally slowed to a lurching halt, sending him slamming into Sigrun’s form again. “Sorry.”
“It will heal.”
Squeak of the rear gate being lowered. Shaking as feet trod the bed of the truck. Rough hands on his elbows, hoisting him up, and then they walked him to the back of the truck. “Sig?”
“I’m with you.”
Stumbling, fumbling, pushed and prodded along, feeling the pre-dawn coolness on his body. The footing changed, from gravel to something smoother . . . slabs of stone, perhaps. Sound of a door opening, being propelled inside. “There’s a stool here,” one of their captors told him. “Sit.”
Adam did what he was told, his stomach churning. He didn’t handle being helpless well, and at the moment, there was nothing he could do. They could, if they wanted to, take one of their jungle blades, of either obsidian or of steel, and cut his head off, and he’d never even see it coming. Every part of him rebelled at that thought; every part of him resisted the notion of being at the mercy of someone else’s will. He’d go out fighting, if he could.
It made him feel indefinably better, however, as their captors pushed Sigrun to a stool beside him; he could feel the cool rush of air from the movement, the press of her knee against his.
Rustling, and then, finally, a voice spoke, in heavily-accented Latin, “So. What would you have Smoke Jaguar hear?”
Sigrun shifted slightly, but remained silent. Livorus had directed Adam to do the talking when they met with Smoke Jaguar, if at all possible. The propraetor did not wish anyone to know that he had a god-born in his entourage. Sigrun was the weighted die in their cup, and Livorus wanted her to remain so. Thus, Adam spoke up. “Let me ask that question a different way. What would Smoke Jaguar have the propraetor of Rome hear?” he asked, trying to sound as calm and relaxed as possible, as sweat trickled down the hollow of his back. “We are his ears. What you say, will be carried to him.”
“Ahh, so my information from Tenochtitlan was indeed correct. You are not looking to move a business concern here, but actually are the lictors of a Roman dignitary. Such honesty is . . . refreshing . . . from Rome.” There was mordant irony in the voice, as the man went on, “How unusual, to have a propraetor interested in hearing our grievances and our demands. Always before, Rome has said that to hear us . . . would give us weight.”
“Times change,” Adam replied, evenly. “In truth, however, we were not sent here, initially, to deal with Smoke Jaguar. That is the concern of the Nahautl emperor, and Governor Dioscuri, and they have asked us to deal with the rebels while we are here.”
“Deal with? Does this mean to make a bargain? Or do you mean to kill us all?” The voice was lightly amused.
“The propraetor has a great deal of autonomy in his decisions,” Adam said, quietly. “He is the Imperator’s eyes, ears, and hands, just as we are his. By and large, Livorus is a good man, who prefers to err on the side of leniency. But that does not mean he lacks ruthlessness, when it is needed.”
“That is not an answer.” Scrape of metal on stone, repetitious and steady. The sound of a knife being sharpened.
Adam, under the bag that covered his face, grimaced. Psychological tactics in interrogations worked most effectively when the subject didn’t understand how they were being employed, and to what ends. But even knowing what was being done, and why, didn’t entirely eliminate the fear reactions. “I’ll be clearer, then. The propraetor hasn’t yet decided what to do about the so-called rebels in this area. What message you send him, through us, will probably make that decision much easier for him, however.” Not a threat. Just clear, plain, simple words in good Latin.
“Interesting.” The knife scraping stopped. “For what reason were you sent here, if not to deal with Smoke Jaguar?”
“We seek information on rumors of a return to human sacrifices in the region. And we intend to put a stop to it, if it’s true.” Adam’s words were blunt, now. “We found at least one body under the ley-power station. This is . . . not usual. And we understand that Smoke Jaguar and his people have, in times past, attacked ley-facilities, but have left this one undamaged. Does Smoke Jaguar stand with the people who left
a sacrificed human under the foundations of the power-station?”
Mutters in Quecha. He couldn’t tell what they were saying, but the tone was clear: consternation, and not a little fear. A few short, sharp words from what sounded to be the leader . . . and then the bags were pulled from their heads. Adam blinked, rapidly, in the sudden light streaming in through an open doorway to his right, and looked around quickly, to get a feel for his surroundings. The building had walls made of corrugated tin, and what looked to be a roof thatched from jungle leaves, and a dirt floor. A highly temporary structure, in other words, one that could be abandoned without loss . . . and the ground would soak up blood, too, if the prisoners needed to be killed here. Adam tried to keep that last thought out of his face and eyes as he looked up and met the eyes of their captor.
Smoke Jaguar, or Chan Imix K'awiil, was of about average height for a Quechan man, or just about five foot two . . . significantly shorter than Adam himself, who was an inch less than six feet in height. The man also apparently came from Quechan nobility of some sort; unlike the waitress in the restaurant at the hotel, his teeth were filed to vicious points. Adam didn’t really want to think about how much that must have hurt, and how prone to cavities teeth like that had to be. The man’s hair was dark, and worn long, tied back from his long face, and his dark eyes were cold. His skin was covered in a mass of tattoos, as well, all probably with meanings that the Judean man did not comprehend. But he wore jeans, in place of a loincloth, in spite of the heat, and solid jungle boots, though his chest was bare . . . and at the moment, he was flipping a long steel jungle knife in one hand, catching it by its hilt. “Easier to judge a man’s heart, if you can see his eyes,” the leader of the Quechan rebels said, looking right at Adam. “I swear on the bones of my ancestors, and by all the gods, I did not know about the sacrifice till you spoke of it.”
Adam met the man’s eyes, and then looked, sidelong, at Sigrun. Her uncanny talent for knowing truth was very helpful in situations like this. She nodded, curtly, once. All right. Progress. “I am glad to know that, Chan Imix K'awiil,” Adam said, carefully, hoping he didn’t mangle the name.
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 36
