“But beware the man,” Abgarthis stated (thinking of some of those in Council, and others in the world) “who sees the past in terms of himself and appeals to the emotions: he will do people injustice. We must trust those who see the future in terms of all of us, who appeal to our best selves. The first excludes; the second includes. The first reduces us; the second enlarges us. The first man is a shadow; the second is daylight, and warmth, like a good sun. Remember the parable of Bithitu? ‘Is the shadow I see not that cast by myself? Why, then, should I fear it, or think it more than it is? But does not the light of life cause that shadow to be? The light will ever return, to burn away the shadow. We can burn away our own shadows with the light that dwells within us.’ That’s what I mean. If we misunderstand where the shadow comes from—we will destroy the light.”
* * * *
In Hilum, where his ship docked to unload passengers, take aboard new ones, and replenish itself with supplies, Thytagoras took the time to visit the city, which he remembered from only a few short, previous stays. He learned that Governor Abadon, who had succeeded Governor Bothin, was sending forces north to the Emarian border in an attempt to contain acts of subterfuge and pillage by Emarian soldiers. This was enlightening. As he reboarded his ship late in the afternoon, Thytagoras noticed a royal carrack make port farther up, and he wondered what the reason for it might be. Military advisers?
But as he watched it closely, Thytagoras’s suspicions were confirmed: for he saw Queen Salia (whom he knew only by description) come up on deck to observe the city of Hilum from the larboard rail. The cautious guards surrounding her, and the many menials, confirmed Thytagoras’s instantaneous impression that this was, indeed, the empire’s new queen. Obviously, because Salia did not disembark, this stop in Hilum was but an interim. For where, then, was she bound?
A chill came to his stomach, and Thytagoras frowned as the most obvious possibility suggested itself to him. When other passengers bound west came aboard, he asked whether they, too, had noticed the royal ship and if any of them knew its significance. At last a new hand having something to do with steerage told him, “Aye, that’s the queen. Bound for Erusabad.”
“Bound for Erusabad?” Thytagoras repeated. “Why?”
The sailor shrugged. “You tell me, brother, why them people do whatever it is they do.”
Thytagoras leaned on the rail as his galley moved out. He kept his eyes on the carrack as he worked this puzzle over in his mind.
* * * *
On the twelfth of Barl, Lord Thomo in Erusabad received a messenger in his offices in the old Authority Building. The man was a courier dispatched two days earlier from Abustad; the letter he carried was marked with the imperial seal. Thomo arranged for the messenger to have a bath, a meal, and sleep before returning to Abustad; and, once the man had left, he stared for several long moments at the roll on his desk.
It bore all the marks of something tremendously important. A single courier out of the last major port city in the West bearing a message from the king meant that the dispatch had come by a complicated, speedy route: from boat to rider, from rider again to ship—a relay process the emperor used only for the most urgent of reasons.
Thomo settled his nerves with a cup of wine, then opened the scroll and read it.
It was not what he had expected. Dire anticipation gave way to outright astonishment. But when at last Thomo had assured himself that the king meant what he had written (and that the message was not in code!), he drank another full glass of wine and changed his clothes, went out of the Authority, and took a civil carriage to the Salukadian palace.
He knew that the imperial family had only just returned a week earlier from the funeral service for Huagrim the Great in Ilbukar; no doubt his intrusion was ill-timed. To his surprise, Lord Thomo found himself received after only a short wait by the estimable bin-Sutus. Once he was ushered into the aihman’s office and offered tea, Thomo pressed into the matter that had caused his unheralded visit.
“You will recall, sir,” he said to bin-Sutus, “that I mentioned to you some time ago that I had alerted my lord, King Elad, as to the passing of your master; the most-honored Huagrim?”
bin-Sutus nodded politely.
“You recall that I suggested then, to my lord, King Elad, that it might be in the best interests of my people and your people to arrange a visit by high authorities of my empire, to meet with your new master, the honored Agors mu-ko-Ghen?”
“As I recall, my friend, I agreed with your wise decision.”
“I have heard from my king and he, too, is in agreement.”
“This is splendid.”
“He has lately dispatched an imperial emissary from the Athadian court to greet the honored Agors mu-ko-Ghen as a friend.”
bin-Sutus nodded. “And when may we expect his arrival?”
“Honored bin-Sutus, my lord, King Elad, sends his wife.”
The aihman stared at him.
Thomo swallowed a deep breath. “I hope that neither you nor your esteemed court nor the royal sons of the House of Huagrim will be in any way offended by my lord’s discharging this duty upon a woman.”
bin-Sutus smiled slowly. “Your…King Elad…does not understand, I presume, that his gesture of goodwill could be interpreted in another way altogether by my master, Agors ko-Ghen?”
“I assure you implicitly that he does not. I give you my hands, honored sir, that he does not. And…if you would be good enough to do so, I hope you will make this matter quite clear to the ghen.”
“Of course, of course.…” bin-Sutus’s smile broadened, and he wiped his eyebrows. “Your people and mine—we have much to learn about one another!”
“I simply wish to make clear to you that, by sending his queen to you, King Elad means absolutely no disrespect. Please assure the honored ghen, furthermore, that my lord loves his wife very deeply and looks upon her as his equal, and he would in no way jeopardize her dignity by using her to offend your court.”
“I am certain of that, yes,” bin-Sutus agreed. “And I am certain that Agors will understand this, as well. But I thank you very much for alerting me to it.”
Thomo nodded and rubbed his hands together “I surmised it might be best to do so—immediately.”
“Very true. Very wise.” bin-Sutus moved to allay his guest’s anxiety. “I must tell you, now that any potential misunderstanding has been averted, not to worry about this any longer, Thomo-su. Please—put it out of your mind. Agors understands that these oversights occur. When may we expect your queen’s arrival?”
“Next week; perhaps within a week and a half.”
“Excellent; my heart leaps with joy. We will prepare ourselves to greet her with all honor. Thomo-su—please, have some more tea,” bin-Sutus smiled. “Or would you prefer some of this wine?” He indicated a bottle on the table.
“My friend, I thank you. I believe I would prefer some wine!”
* * * *
In Lasura one evening, a soldier who had just come into the city sat drinking with six others. The solitary rider was in from the field lands; the six were personal guards to King Nutatharis. They spoke quietly, these seven, although there were no others in the tavern save for the keeper, who was asleep in a chair at the other side of the room. The public room was only partially lit. Outside, the silence of the summer night was complete, the streets desolate.
“More of them today,” the rider told the others. “One of the villages halfway to Lake Kilham. Someone had tried to hide some meat and bread. A farmer. A whole mob of them cut him to pieces; killed his wife and children, too. Then, when they tried to get at the food—why, they started killing each other.”
Silence, as the imperial guards shared glances.
“What’s he going to do about it?” the rider asked, desperation in his voice.
One of the guards shrugged. “He’s doing nothing. He’s hiding. Won’t come out. He’s afraid. Do you believe it?” He chortled grimly. “Nutatharis—afraid!”
> “I spoke with Sir Jors earlier today,” a second put in. “If anyone’s still ruling in this country, it’s him. But he swears he doesn’t want any part of a plot to overthrow Nutatharis.”
“Then he’ll die with him,” commented a third.
The first looked at the rider. “Have you heard anything from Captain Kurus?”
“He’ll be coming. He’s making sure that word of mouth gets around before he arrives. It won’t do to have him take the throne with half the army against him. Then everything falls apart.”
“He’d better get some food in here before he does anything else, or he won’t be king for very long, either.”
A fourth guard shook his head. “I don’t trust him.”
“Kurus?”
“I don’t trust him. He knows the people can’t do anything. The people of this country are nothing but serfs. Living year to year. They’ll kill each other, or starve to death, before they’ll move against the government—any government. They don’t have the spines for it. They don’t know anything except planting and drinking and living by the day. We’re the power in Emaria. The army.”
“And if we all side with Kurus, then—”
“Listen to me. After a week or two, enough of the men will become dissatisfied with Kurus and shove someone else onto the throne. Then in another week or two after that, it’ll be someone else. Pretty soon we’re just cutting each other’s throats, like the peasants. Then what happens? Pretty soon Athadia or Omeria moves in, or Salukadia—”
“Salukadia,” the first guard said, and heads turned. He faced the guard beside him and said, “Tell them what you told me. About Nutatharis’s letter to Salukadia.”
The soldier shrugged. “Their king died; the son’s taking over. Nutatharis wrote him a letter. Remember that agreement they came to? You know what good it’s done Nutatharis?” He gestured behind himself with his right hand, as if he were wiping himself clean.
A few heads nodded; cups of ale were lifted.
The fourth man continued, “We need a leader, not a rabble-rouser. We need someone who can do something, and Kurus can’t get food in here anymore than Nutatharis can. And if he can’t get food, the serfs starve or kill each other, or they move off, and all of us starve or kill each other or move off— It won’t take long.” He swiped a hand across his throat.
Another of them reached for the pitcher of ale. “Just because of the spring floods!”
“No. There was more to it than that. As long as Nutatharis thought he could get away with it, he gave away everything. He kept nothing in reserve. You know how much he was borrowing? And he was promising to pay it back with crops three and four years from now! I’m not even that stupid! And you have any idea how much food and goods we lost last winter in the lowlands? It’d feed everyone in this country, all of us, right now! He traded food and gold for Athadian weapons, Bithiran weapons, Insarian steel.… Do you have any idea how many merchants got wealthy off him, delivering Nutatharis all kinds of things every day! You ought to talk to Jors. Do you know how many weapons we have? Storehouses—buildings—full of arms! For who? For us? We have more weapons than we have food! Why? Because Nutatharis—hold on!—because Nutatharis had to be king, that’s why! It wasn’t enough to have an army—he had to have more weapons than we could use in a lifetime! And he kept nothing in reserve! Coffers are empty—always more where that came from! Gold…food…work…serfs—and one good flood, one military jab to your left nut, and it’s gone!”
“Can an entire nation,” one of them asked, “fall apart like this?”
Grim stares answered him, and a cold, “We’re not falling apart. We’re sinking under the weight of all those weapons and horses and—steel!”
“Did you ever think you’d see the day when soldiers’d think there were too many weapons?”
“Too many weapons, not enough food. Soldiers have to eat to use weapons.”
Silence prevailed. The seven slurped their ale, then listened to the sounds of footsteps in the street. They heard boots at the tavern door, and mistrustful stares agreed: heavy hands dropped to weapons. If Nutatharis had gotten word of this meeting, of the rebellion—
The tavern door opened. The empty smells of the street blew in, and the newcomer stepped slowly into the room, his eyes lingering on the seven in the corner. He glanced to the proprietor asleep on the far side.
“I realize it’s late,” he apologized, “but could you possibly see about getting me something to drink?”
The keeper did not move. The stranger disregarded him and carefully approached the soldiers’ table. As he came into the light of an oil lamp hanging from a ceiling beam, one of the guards gasped.
“Do you know who he is?” he whispered tensely to the man next to him.
“No. He’s just a—”
“He’s the one who brought a full sack of grain to Nutatharis!”
* * * *
Three weeks of debate in the High Council chamber had made it apparent to Lord Rhin and the others on the investigating committee that, not only was King Elad absolutely sincere in his decision to set up workers’ sirots throughout the country, but also Prince Galvus and Count Adred’s preposterous plan for a gradual redistribution of some of the enterprises in the empire would actually proceed with the consent of the throne. Not that Elad had approved every proposal Galvus had raised: far from it. There were compromises to be reached and complex plans to be organized.
But the king had agreed that, once the workers had instituted their sirots in the various cities, these new organizations could begin to work with the managers and owners of certain bankrupt and foreclosed businesses to take control of those businesses for the workers themselves and operate them according to whatever guidelines and systems they might develop. Furthermore, Elad would establish an imperial office so that the sirots would have a voice in the capital, and he would allocate certain funds and order commissions to study where additional funds, gained by taxes from the formal business interests, might best be put to use to encourage the working people’s investment in the economy.
It was, then, a King Elad very much changed by the experiences of his authority who told Lords Rhin and Falen, “I think we should allow the productive citizens of this country the same benefits we have allowed our nobility in their business pursuits—the opportunity to put their ideas to the test and to fail or succeed on the merits of their ideas. Surely you would agree, Lord Rhin, that a simple one or two percent surcharge on your business investments, allocated by the throne to the working people’s organizations, will not greatly hinder your incentive to continue expanding your interests? I think it best, quite frankly, that Athadia investigate new methods—investigate them cautiously and proceed slowly and rationally—but, yes, investigate them. Is it not to our mutual benefit to have a strong economy? And thus, a strong empire?”
Lord Rhin protested as well as he could manage. “I must disagree that it is in the best interests of this nation, my lord, to disintegrate those businesses and that leadership which all of us have worked so long to centralize in these offices. A nation needs leadership, and many small leaders cannot have the force or persuasion or ability of one strong hand. I honestly believe that whatever ills may have been inadvertently created by our current system can be rectified within the limits of this same system. We have become a mighty empire by virtue of our central authority and the centralization of our businesses and banks—not because we have allowed everyone his wont.”
The council session was ended on that reminder—with the nobility against the diversification of businesses and the qualified redistribution of any interests, and with Galvus and Adred and the men from the Diruvian Valley confident that they had accomplished something initially dismissed as impossible.
* * * *
That evening, on a verandah in the palace gardens, Galvus and Adred dictated ideas to Orain, who sat on a bench with pen and tablet and composed the initial draft of the open letter Galvus intended to publish and
distribute to all the cities of the empire, augmenting the throne’s imperial scheme for instituting the sirots.
Bors and the other Kendians all contributed their opinions on what Galvus should say and how he should say it; even young Omos brought up a few fine points that Galvus and Adred had overlooked in their preliminary paperwork.
They were interrupted, in the comfortable cool of the evening, by the appearance of Lords Rhin, Falen, and three others from the Priton Nobility. Immediately Galvus and Adred stood to confront them; Bors and the Kendians got to their feet and stood behind them.
Lord Rhin shook his head sadly and thoughtfully at Galvus. “Very well,” he sighed. “So, Prince Galvus, you have gained. We must deal with you a bit more seriously now.”
“What are you talking about?” Galvus asked him.
“We will compromise with you,” Rhin averred. “We’ll allow you and the cattle you insist are citizens to purchase certain rights and certain businesses to operate as you wish.” To Galvus’s transparent reaction: “Surely you don’t believe that because the king agreed with you in principle, you can now do as you please? Be realistic, Prince Galvus. We’ll allow you to buy certain tracts of land; we will allow you to purchase deeds from us; but we’re going to need financial guarantees that—”
“You didn’t understand a word of I said in there, did you?” Galvus interrupted angrily. “For three weeks! And you didn’t understand a word I said, you lying hypocrite!”
“Of course I did. But you don’t honestly expect me to believe that you and these—” a glance at the Kendians “—these workers are capable to accomplishing this, do you? Let’s face reality, gentlemen. None of us is naive; we all know how the world operates, so let’s dispense with this charade of brotherhood and community and equality. You can be heroes to your ‘working class’ by accepting our very generous terms—”
Bors grunted and pushed his way past Galvus and Adred; before anyone could stop him, he had his hands around Lord Rhin’s throat.
Rhin squealed once, grabbed Bors’s wrists and tugged at them, twisted and turned in the man’s hold. Rhin was a stout man, but Bors had spent his life in the fields; he continued to squeeze. Lord Rhin’s face quickly began to color.
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