The Wall of Storms, page 16
“That doesn’t sound very fair. You have to have money to go to school—”
“The point is: It’s possible to think of the laws as a complicated machine, and by adjusting the right levers and dials, you can make people do anything, just as dialing up the heat on the stove drives air out, causing the balloon to rise, and dialing down the flame creates a vacuum for the cold air to fill, causing the balloon to fall.”
“This philosophy sounds very . . . harsh.”
“It can be. The greatest Incentivist was actually Lügo Crupo, Emperor Mapidéré’s Imperial Scholar and later Emperor Erishi’s regent. He carried Gi Anji’s ideas to extremes and enacted harsh laws that finally led to the rebellion of the Scroll in the Fish.”
“Like a pot boiling over if you set the heat too high.”
“Exactly. But Incentivism is not, by itself, evil. It’s just a tool to understand the world. There’s a quote from Lügo Crupo, Mirotiro ma thiéfi ro üradi gicru ki giséfi ga gé caü féno, gothé ma péü né ma calu, goco philutoa rari ma ri wi rénroa ki cruéthu philutoa co crusé né othu, which means ‘Men are only motivated by profit and pain, but that is no sin, for all such desires are the shadow of the desire to transform earth into heaven.’ ”
While Luan Zya lectured on, Zomi noticed a seagull, who had been flying right in front of the balloon, suddenly drop off before catching itself by flapping its wings vigorously. A tiny smile crept onto her face as she braced herself against the wall of the gondola.
“. . . in fact, another of Gi Anji’s students, Tan Féüji, managed to extend Incentivism with Moralist—”
The balloon lurched as the crosswind that had blown the seagull off course struck, and Luan Zya stumbled and grabbed onto the side of the gondola, his lecture cut off.
“You should have seen your face!” Zomi’s laughter was as wild as the wind. “I saw a pattern, and I used it.”
Luan Zya shook his head, but Zomi’s joy was infectious. “You’ve been introduced to two schools of philosophy. Bored yet?”
“Are you kidding? This is fun! Teach me more philosophy about how to fly the balloon!”
“You see, you enjoyed my lectures on the Incentivists and the Patternists because I dressed them up as lessons on how to fly a balloon. A good idea is more easily absorbed if it is given the right expression, and that is why even when you have the right answers, you’ll convince more people when you present them with good handwriting and proper sentence construction.”
Zomi sighed. “Does this mean I need to practice more handwriting?”
“If you finish writing the Hundred Names fifty more times—to my satisfaction—we will look for more crubens.”
Zomi sat back down, picked up her slate, and eagerly began to write.
“Wait—” She stopped, looked up at the smirking Luan Zya, and stuck out her tongue. “I do not like it when you practice Incentivism!”
The banter between teacher and student was interrupted by laughter from time to time as the balloon continued to head for Crescent Island, the sun dappling the gentle waves below them.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE CRUBEN-WOLF
PAN: THE THIRD MONTH IN THE SIXTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF FOUR PLACID SEAS.
Instead of launching into an impassioned speech, Kita Thu turned around and clapped his hands together. “Quick! Go, go!”
And a group of servants who had been sitting behind the two rows of pana méji got up and started to unpack the trunks they had taken into the Grand Audience Hall. Swarming into the empty space between Kita Thu and the throne dais, they put on costumes, set out props, assembled elaborate paper-and-bamboo sculptures, put together intricate machines . . .
They were trying to put on a play for the emperor.
The Lords of Dara watched the proceeding with great interest while Kita Thu strode around, giving orders like a stage manager.
Since many of Kuni’s most trusted generals had been men of little learning, many of the pana méji had figured—correctly—that a flowery speech that recited the points made in their essays would be of little interest. Given that the emperor himself was said to have little patience for scholastic rhetoric, it was crucial that the Palace Examination presentations by the candidates take a more dynamic format.
And they had only had less than a month to prepare the presentations.
Once his servants had completed the preparations, Kita nodded and gave them the signal to begin.
The Lords of Dara and Emperor Ragin were then treated to a spectacle both amusing and horrifying.
Two servants stretched out a piece of shimmery blue water silk to represent the sea. As the waves parted, a monster rose out of the depths—portrayed by two players wearing a costume. The front half of the monster was a cruben, while the back half was a wolf. The monster lurched and struggled, as its legs could hardly propel the beast forward in the water. From time to time, the player in the front lifted the cruben-head out of the silk sea and sprayed fragrant rosewater into the air to simulate the gasping of the monster. The pleasing aroma gradually suffused the hall.
Titters could be heard around the hall and in the balconies. Even the empress and Consort Risana were charmed by the display.
Two more players came forward and placed a low platform laden with model mountains and valleys next to the silk sea to represent land. The cruben-wolf launched itself onto the platform, where the wolf legs finally found purchase. But now the heavy front half of the monster, no longer buoyed by the water, became a burden, and the monster still could not move effectively, as its fins flapped uselessly against the land and the wolf legs pushed the monster forward slowly, like an inchworm.
Kita whistled to indicate that a new scene should start. And the players rushed around to change costumes and props. The Lords of Dara were treated successively to the spectacle of a falcon-carp, a stag-worm, a turtle-elephant—the trunk and legs could not retract into the tiny shell—and most amusing of all, a mushroom-shark that floundered in the sea, unable to eat.
“Emperor Mapidéré had divided all the Islands of Dara into provinces and ruled them directly through a bureaucracy loyal only to himself. Before his conquest, the Tiro kings had relied on enfeoffed hereditary nobles to handle the duties of administration. You took a path different from both of those systems. Half of your lands have been given to the nobles, who maintain some measure of independence, and the other half you administer directly through your governors. In this way, you have gained the disadvantages of both, and the advantages of neither.”
As his servants cleaned up and packed everything back into trunks, Kita strode back and forth before the emperor, gesticulating passionately as he made his speech.
“If an Imperial edict announces a new tax, a governor must implement it while a neighboring duke or king might choose to ignore it. This leads to nonuniformity of laws and rewards the cleverly unscrupulous, who take advantage of such disparities to profit.
“You have created a monster that is neither fish nor fowl, and at home nowhere.”
“A most impressive—and, I might add, entertaining—presentation. I don’t fully agree, but do you have a solution?” asked Kuni. “Let the assembled Lords of Dara hear it.”
Kita Thu took a deep breath and spoke deliberately, making sure that his voice carried throughout the hall. “Rénga, I propose that you restore the Tiro system in full.”
The children had been mesmerized by the show put on by Kita Thu. The door to the changing room was to the side of the throne dais, and the seam in the door lined up with a few holes in the tapestry. By putting their eyes against the peepholes, the children could observe what was happening in the Grand Audience Hall without being seen.
“I want to try to play the cruben-wolf,” whispered Phyro. “Will you do it with me, Rata-tika?”
“Only if I get to be the cruben part,” said Théra.
“You always get the best part—”
“This Kita brought up the most complicated problem right away,” interrupted Soto with a whisper. “That’s a mathematician’s mind-set all right.”
“What do you mean?” asked Phyro.
“The nobles and the governors have been complaining about each other for years,” said Soto. “The latest gossip is all about how several barons have had their fiefs taken away from them due to slight acts of insubordination that the scholars blew out of proportion. Have you been so busy playing that you haven’t paid any attention?”
Théra came to the rescue of the embarrassed Phyro. “I’ve overheard Mother complaining about Imperial edicts not being obeyed. She thinks Father was too generous in awarding so much land to those who followed him and in giving them too much authority.”
Soto nodded. “Your father was in a difficult position. Men and women who risked their lives for him needed to be rewarded, but having so many semiautonomous nobles makes it difficult to push uniform policies.”
“But there’s also possibly an advantage,” offered Théra. “If an order from the Harmonious City is wrong, at least the lords of the fiefs could adapt it for the conditions of their realm or refuse to carry it out. Dara is large and varied, and maybe it’s better to leave some room for the nobles to experiment in their own domains.”
“I had not thought of such a justification. . . .” Soto looked at Théra with admiration. “But it is possible your father meant the parallel system to serve the purpose of counteracting against too much centralization, as you suggest.”
“But surely he wouldn’t approve of restoring the Tiro kings of old!” said Phyro.
Soto chuckled. “No, that he would not. But the fallen House of Haan has only one tune. I knew Kita’s grand-uncle, Cosugi, and he was the same way. All he ever wanted was to be back on the throne in Ginpen. It seems that his dream lives on in a new generation.”
“The Tiro states should be revived, and men from noble lineages installed as kings,” Kita continued. “However, the Tiro kings should acknowledge you as the sovereign and honor you as is your due, though they will administer each kingdom fully autonomously.”
“How does this benefit Dara?” asked the emperor, his expression hidden by the dangling cowrie veil.
“In a thousand ways, big and small. While the bureaucrats, as men who serve at your pleasure, are inevitably motivated by thoughts of personal gain and will deceive you by exaggerating their accomplishments and hiding their errors, the Tiro kings will be men of noble character motivated by superior moral considerations. As they will not depend on your pleasure to maintain their hereditary positions, they will be motivated solely by honor and the good opinions of their fellows.”
“Am I supposed to be content as a mere figurehead?”
“Not at all. Freed from the minutiae of administration, Rénga, you will roam from Tiro state to Tiro state and act as the conscience of the realm. With more time to devote to the contemplation of virtue, you will elevate the level of ethical thinking across the Islands. The Tiro kings will seek to emulate you, and their nobles will seek to emulate them, and so on down the line to the meanest peasant, who will wish to imitate the behavior demonstrated by his lord. With time, we may yet return to the golden age spoken of by the Ano sages in the sunken land in the western oceans, when people slept at night without locking their doors and those who lost goods in the streets might still expect to find them there untouched in the morning.
“The greatest rulers should be philosophers, not mere bureaucrats.”
“This is an exceedingly pleasing vision,” said Kuni, his tone still serene.
Practically everyone was now staring at Gin Mazoti to see her reaction to this proposal. Gin was no friend of the old nobles of the Seven States, but she was also known for pushing the boundaries of her own authority the furthest of all of Kuni’s new nobles. But Gin sat still, her face betraying no hint of her emotions.
“You have explicated the essence of Moralism,” said Zato Ruthi with a sigh. “Even Kon Fiji could not have envisioned a better future.”
“No, he could not have,” said Kuni, and those closest to him could hear a hint of a smile in the voice. “But I do have a question for you, Kita. Who is in charge of the army in your proposal?”
“Each Tiro king will be in charge of the defense of his state, of course. And should rebellion against your person arise, all the Tiro kings will come to your aid.”
“I will have no army of my own?”
“A moral ruler should not resort to arms.”
The emperor turned to his right to look at Consort Risana, who was staring at Kita intently. Carelessly, she waved her hands, as though to dissipate the faint haze of the smoke from the censer at her foot. Then she raised her right hand to gently touch the tiny red coral carp dangling from her earlobe.
Kuni turned back to Kita, his posture relaxing slightly, and nodded. “Thank you. The sincerity of your belief is commendable.”
“I have come to this conclusion after much reading and thinking,” said Kita, who straightened his back proudly.
“I have just the right post for you, I think. Your moral rectitude, mathematical aptitude, and affinity for coordination and management—that was a thrilling show you put on!—will make you an excellent fit for the administration of the Imperial laboratories in Ginpen.”
Kita looked at the emperor, stunned. The post was of high rank, but far from the center of Imperial power.
The dream of every firoa was to be appointed to the College of Advocates, a new creation of the emperor. Composed of junior scholars who did not have specific areas of responsibility—and thus vested interests—the College of Advocates was charged with evaluating new policy proposals by the emperor’s ministers and criticize them—all of them—by offering an opposite opinion.
The emperor had described it as a way to prevent ossification of ideas and practices in the bureaucracy by encouraging debate. Though the ministers had opposed the idea at first—having young people with no experience criticizing the policy suggestions of their elders seemed fundamentally wrong—the empress had persuaded Zato Ruthi and the other scholars that the College of Advocates was actually a way to implement the concept of the philosopher-king, and now a position in the College was deemed the best assignment.
But Kita’s conversation with the emperor had not earned him the honor he craved. Time passed as he stood rooted in place, trying to process this assignment.
Zato Ruthi stepped forward and broke the uncomfortable silence. “Thank the emperor!”
Embarrassed, Kita bowed. At least I will be close to family back in Ginpen. But he wasn’t sure whether they would view this outcome as a success. He gritted his teeth and tried one last time before stepping back to sit among the ranks of the pana méji. “Rénga, I hope you will give my proposal due consideration.”
“I will discuss it with my daughter Fara when I put her to bed tonight.”
Scattered laughter from the assembled ministers and generals echoed around the hall.
“This Kita is an exceedingly silly man,” whispered Théra.
“What makes you think he has failed?” asked Soto.
“It’s such a ridiculous suggestion! Father just compared it to a fairy tale!” Théra said.
Phyro agreed. “This is his chance to impress the emperor, and he completely botched it. Everyone knows how much attention my father pays to the army—”
“And now he’s ruined this one precious opportunity that he got after years of study, something that others who have worked equally hard will never get!” finished Théra.
“I thought what he said was reasonable,” said Timu hesitantly. “Master Ruthi’s glosses on Kon Fiji’s Morality said—”
“You do remember that Father used to call the One True Sage the One True Sap, don’t you?” said Théra. Phyro started to laugh and had to cover his mouth with his hands until his face turned red from the effort to be quiet.
“A dutiful child does not repeat the opinions of a parent given after an evening of drink and revelry,” said Timu, his tone rather cold. “The emperor also said—”
But Soto cut in. “Do you think any of the pana méji are the children of simple peasants?”
Timu, Théra, and Phyro peeked through the seam in the door at the ten figures sitting at the center of the Grand Audience Hall. All of them were young, good-looking, and dressed in fine silks—except for the young woman kneeling at the end of the last row, who was dressed in a plain hempen robe dotted with patches like a map of Dara.
“Hey, that’s Zomi!” Phyro whispered.
“Yes! I knew we were right to help her!” said Théra, her face flushed with joy.
“Except for her,” Soto said, “all the rest of them come from big, important clans, families with power and money and the best tutors, families that could count on many future pana méji among their ranks. They’re playing the long game. When these examinees speak, you can’t interpret what they’re saying as the words of an individual.”
“Why don’t they just deliver a petition to the governor or noble in their region if they have something to say to Da?” asked Phyro.
“Because . . . they already know how Father will react to the message,” said Théra. “Don’t they? It’s more about the forum.”
Soto nodded approvingly. “How often does anyone get a chance to voice an opinion directly to the emperor as well as all the Lords of Dara? The Palace Examination is a rare opportunity for these families. You’ve just heard what some of the deposed old nobles of the Tiro states think of your father’s reign.”
Théra nodded. It was as if a veil had been lifted from her eyes. “So that fairy tale from Kita was really a threat. A threat of treason.”
Timu looked at her, shocked. “Théra! If that were true, the emperor would have had the guards seize him instead of making a joke. How can you say such outrageous things?”
