Speaking Bones, page 33
Empress Jia glared at Cogo and spoke slowly, enunciating each word carefully. “Are you telling me there will be mutiny if I refuse their demands? Is this a threat of rebellion? That’s an act of treason.”
Cogo shook his head. “The protests have remained peaceful. If this is considered rebellion or treason, then it’s rebellion within the lines, treason by the book. The people are not threatening, but pleading for you to heed your own pronouncement: When the interests of the few are weighed against the interests of the many, the few must yield.”
Jia closed her eyes.
And who belongs to the many, who the few?
Can the suffering of the people be weighed like fish?
Who is speaking for the voiceless people of Unredeemed Dara? Who is advocating for the interests of the hostages who are about to be sacrificed in the name of “justice”? They cannot march through streets or sing patriotic songs; they cannot make rousing speeches or debate legal precedents. All they can do is survive, and hope.
Many are speaking, but many more have been silent. The voice of the people is as hard to discern as the will of the gods.
It’s easy to say that those living in freedom have a duty to fight for those under tyranny and bondage—but what good is freedom when those you aim to save are dead?
She tried one last time. “You know as well as I do why peace is the only course. It’s why you’ve backed me against Phyro for so many years. What has changed?”
“The voice of the people,” said Cogo. “You and I have tried to maintain this peace, thinking it’s for the greater good. But we are old, and perhaps our wisdom has grown outdated.
“Could you have predicted that despite all our attempts at suppressing the sentiments of patriotism, it has flared into such bright flames? Would you have believed that despite our plans at building an all-encompassing machinery of state, the people have framed their own institutions outside the bureaucracy? The world continues to surprise us because it is eternally young, while we march closer to death with each passing day.
“So how can we be certain of the future? How can we know the Lyucu will never surrender? How can we know that the enslaved people of Dasu and Rui will not succeed in an uprising when we attack? How can we be so sure that Phyro, because he is inexperienced, must be wrong, and that we, because we have seen much, must be right?”
“Phyro wants to gamble with the lives of the soldiers,” said Jia, “and the lives of the people of Unredeemed Dara. Do we have the right to make that choice for them?”
“But how can we know they do not wish to gamble on their own? To deny them that chance is also making a choice for them.”
“This is sophistry!” said Jia. “You have converted entirely to Phyro’s idealized militarism, and now you’re finding reasons to justify that leap of faith.”
“It isn’t Phyro’s opinion that matters,” said Cogo. “No single person, whether emperor or regent, can stand in the way of the voice of the people of Dara, channeled through their own institutions.”
“The people do not understand the horror they are about to unleash! Those who are speaking are but a hotheaded minority as rash as the emperor. I’ll send the navy to scatter the fishing boats; I’ll order the army to break up the protests; I’ll arrest any scholar, monk, peasant, laborer—the treaty must be delivered—”
“Your Imperial Majesty!” Cogo’s words pounded against her heart like angry waves against the shore. “You have always wanted a Dara in which it doesn’t matter who holds the Seal of Dara, because the hand that holds the seal must be guided by the voice of the people. Now that your vision has been realized, will you embrace it or shrink back in fear? The people do not wish to live like cattle and sheep, to be milked and fleeced by the Lyucu. If you defy the will of the people, then you’ll be a sovereign in name only, a mere tyrant.”
The words of Gin Mazoti came to her mind unbidden.
“You say that the price of confronting evil is too high. But if in your peace, the people of Dara devolve to be all like Mosoa, is that not also too high a price?”
You should be comforted, Gin, Jia thought. The people have decided that they prefer a bloody war to a soul-bleaching peace.
Jia began to laugh, a sound more horrifying than sobs.
Cogo remained in mipa rari, his head bowed. But it was a posture more of defiance than respect.
If only I had a little more time. The amount being shipped by Tiphan Huto still isn’t enough, though I’ve come so close.
But the people have spoken.
Abruptly, she swept her hands through the pile of scrolls and tossed them far away into the corner, where they slammed against the wall of the shrine and fell in a jumble.
“Summon Phyro from Tiro Cozo.”
CHAPTER TWENTY OPENING SALVOS
A FEW DAYS’ SAILING OFF THE SOUTHERN SHORE OF RUI ISLAND: THE SEVENTH MONTH OF THE ELEVENTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF SEASON OF STORMS AND THE REIGN OF AUDACIOUS FREEDOM.
As she surveyed the silhouettes of the opposing fleet from the crow’s nest of the city-ship Péa’s Beak, Goztan Ryoto felt no fear, only pity.
The Dara invasion armada consisted of more than thirty vessels, but even the largest warships on the horizon had less than one-fiftieth the displacement of a city-ship in the Lyucu fleet. It was like watching a school of tuna trying to challenge a pod of whales—the outcome was so obvious that the contest seemed hardly honorable.
“As you can see, the intelligence I derived from the Dara envoys has proven true,” said Noda Mi, standing next to Goztan. “The Dara-raaki haven’t been constructing city-ships of their own. The Great Lyucu will surely dismantle these toy ships as easily as wolves feast on mere bleating sheep.”
Goztan didn’t acknowledge the simpering man with so much as a nod. The Loyal Hound’s efforts to ingratiate himself with the Lyucu thanes at every turn—going so far as to pepper his own speech with the most extreme anti-Dara slurs employed by Cutanrovo and her party—nauseated Goztan. She found his attempt to out-Lyucu the Lyucu almost laughable, except she could derive no pleasure from the slaughter she was about to commit—if his advice turned out to be right.
“One wonders what kind of rotten dream herbs that usurper, Jia the Whore, had smoked that made her dare to challenge the perspicacious, the merciful, the fair Tanvanaki!” Noda Mi declaimed, waving his arms about excitedly, oblivious to the growing disgust of his commander. “She’s throwing away the lives of all the poor sailors on those ships with this mad venture! I’m ashamed to think that I once called her my empress. Oh, if only the Dara-raaki had been wise enough to accept the compassionate terms of our omnipotent pékyu! I weep with sorrow, thinking of the blood about to flow! But then I tremble with admiration as I imagine the pity that would have been on Pékyu-votan Tenryo’s face—”
“That’s enough,” said Goztan. “Your patter grows wearisome.”
Noda Mi jackknifed into a bow so deep that his buttocks stuck out over the side of the crow’s nest, making his form resemble that of a chicken ready to defecate. “Oh, I do apologize, votan! I’m beyond embarrassed. Of course I didn’t mean to lament the loss of Dara-raaki sheep lives. I only wanted to express my sincerest regret that brave Lyucu warriors would have to dirty their awesome weapons with the unworthy blood—”
“Silence!” Goztan took a deep breath and turned away from the odious little man. “Let me focus on the battle at hand. Dara commanders have always been resourceful, and there may be a trick here. We must tread with caution.”
Noda Mi shut up, but he bowed again and again, abjectly knocking his head against the mast.
Goztan ignored him. The tactical situation had to be analyzed carefully.
To counter the Dara armada, Goztan had under her command five city-ships, escorted by ten smaller warships that formed a defensive line ahead of them. The formation was designed to prevent mechanical crubens from sneaking up on the city-ships, which carried the primary weapons of the Lyucu: garinafins.
A second line of Lyucu defenders floated in the air above the calm water between the fleets. These silk-and-bamboo airships, propelled by feathered oars, had been seized from the natives during the Lyucu conquest. Instead of the banner of the House of Dandelion, a blue breaching cruben on a red field, they flew the ensign of Ukyu-taasa: a string of wolf tails flapping in the wind.
Goztan was grateful that Tanvanaki, despite fierce objections from Cutanrovo, had authorized her use of these airships to augment the Lyucu fleet.
* * *
“Votan, how can you ask our brave warriors to fight with the feeble weapons of the vanquished?” Cutanrovo had demanded of Tanvanaki.
“Airships are not feeble,” said Goztan. “They complement garinafin riders and city-ships. Besides, we already use airships to patrol the coasts. It hardly seems radical to add them to the fleet against the invasion.”
“You remain as blind as ever, enamored of native ways,” said Cutanrovo, her voice dripping with contempt. “You are even tainted with their muddy patterns of thinking!”
Since returning from the Wall of Storms with the terrible news that no reinforcements had come through, Cutanrovo had become even more dedicated to the project of eradicating all native influence from Ukyu-taasa. She held more rallies, launched more campaigns to destroy farmland and convert it to pasturing, revived the ancient custom of human sacrifice for more celebrations, and stepped up efforts at total militarization of the state. She dispensed tolyusa at every ritual and gathering. (Goztan wondered where Cutanrovo was finding so much wild tolyusa, but so long as Cutanrovo didn’t endanger the military supply, she couldn’t really accuse her of impropriety.) Lately, Cutanrovo’s anti-native diatribes had grown so extreme that sometimes Cutanrovo sounded to Goztan like a parody of herself.
At first, Goztan had been hopeful that Ukyu-taasa’s increasingly untenable strategic position would finally force Tanvanaki to turn away from the hard-liner party. After all, much of the justification for Cutanrovo’s rise, that Cudyu would be sending more Lyucu to join them in Dara, had turned out to be a mirage.
But Tanvanaki continued to accede to Cutanrovo’s demands. When Goztan finally found a chance to confront the pékyu in private, her answer was brief.
“When gash cactus juice has been poured over the eyes of the garinafin, there’s nothing the pilot can do to stop the frenzy except hang on.”
In a flash, Goztan saw Tanvanaki’s dilemma. The pékyu was trapped.
Tanvanaki, no less than Cutanrovo, had shaped the policy of Ukyu-taasa around the expected arrival of Cudyu. She had ceded more and more control to the hard-liners in order to secure her own power against the assumed challenge from her brother. To admit now that the forecasting of more reinforcements was an error, that the blind faith in the reopening of the Wall was unwarranted, would be to cast doubt upon Tanvanaki’s judgment, to erode the myth of the pékyu’s infallibility.
She had no choice but to go along with Cutanrovo’s explanation: The reinforcements had been withdrawn because the gods were testing Ukyu-taasa; the pékyu and her warriors had to triumph, right here, right now, by manifesting the self-reliant destiny of the indomitable Lyucu spirit.
During the intervening years, Cutanrovo had unleashed a self-reinforcing mass movement among the Lyucu, and the madness was no longer confined to a few thanes or even one party. The killing of natives who showed the least sign of defiance had become so routine that the court re-rememberers had ceased to keep track. Lyucu and togaten youths as young as ten participated in competitions to hunt native villagers for sport. Step by step, Cutanrovo’s vision of Lyucu supremacy, founded upon the complete subjugation (and eventual elimination) of the native population, had become an article of faith among the naros and culeks, as revered as the tales of the adventures of Kikisavo and Afir.
Indeed, the culeks and low-ranking naros, despite their lives being noticeably worse as a result of hard-liner policies, were among Cutanrovo’s most ardent supporters. Though Goztan had no access to the census records and reports from the remnants of the native bureaucracy—Cutanrovo classified all such information as state secrets and controlled access strictly—she could tell anecdotally that the economy of the Lyucu-conquered islands was weakening. Only tribute from Dara proper allowed Ukyu-taasa to maintain the appearance of prosperity. Farms were failing; new pastures were unproductive; herds and flocks were collapsing; culeks and low-ranking naros had lost what little wealth they had as everything became more scarce and expensive. As their lives worsened, they clung even harder to the ideal of Lyucu supremacy. Only by slaughtering the natives and by committing atrocities against them could they maintain the feeling that they were stronger, fiercer, better.
Cutanrovo knew how to take advantage of their state of desperation. She distributed to the culeks and low-ranking naros more tolyusa and kyoffir than they had ever gotten from Tanvanaki. She was celebrated as the great kyoffir-giver, the reviver of the Lyucu spirit, the best and most loyal thane of them all.
Even the least sign of disapproval of Cutanrovo from Tanvanaki led to howls of protest at court and beyond—and a full-scale civil war would no doubt flare up if the pékyu actually attempted to move against the garinafin-thane. Ukyu-taasa had become so dependent on the tribute fleets that their absence for an extended period would lead to the total collapse of Ukyu-taasa, and the only way to keep the tribute flowing was to maintain the hard-liners’ relentless policy of threats and intimidation against Dara proper.
“When you’ve gone down one path far enough,” said Tanvanaki, her voice weary, “it’s no longer possible to turn back and pick another. You think I wield Power, but it’s Power now that wields me.”
Goztan heard in the pékyu’s declaration a thousand-thousand unspoken regrets, but also a thousand-thousand defiant affirmations. The pékyu saw her own empathetic nature as a liability, a weakness. She could not allow her own revulsion at the consequences of the occupation to manifest as vacillation, believing it would invite rebellion, attack, the end of Ukyu-taasa. She had to look away as she unleashed Cutanrovo upon the land. Step by step, she had done what she thought was the right thing, even if she felt otherwise, and at some point, it no longer mattered what she felt.
Even after the expiration of the last peace treaty, Jia had continued to send tribute, but it was unclear how long the Dandelion Throne would do so once it realized that there would be no more Lyucu reinforcements from beyond the Wall. Tanvanaki tried to secure a future for Ukyu-taasa by demanding even more tribute in exchange for a new peace treaty, but the bluff had failed in spectacular fashion. Somehow, the young emperor had succeeded in a power struggle against the empress, and instead of a tributary fleet, Dara had sent an invasion force.
“Let me explain why these useless native gasbags must not be added to our glorious fleet.” Cutanrovo strode around the Great Tent, waving her arms about passionately. “Using airships to patrol for escaping slaves is like fashioning garinafin muzzles out of garinafin leather—there’s nothing wrong with employing the tools of the slaves to control slaves. But war is the most sacred act of the Lyucu people, a manifestation of the Lyucu spirit! Using slave weapons in war will pollute the Lyucu spirit with the contagion of defeat!”
Goztan wanted to wrap her hands around the neck of the strutting garinafin-thane and squeeze until her tongue hung limp. Instead of focusing on the practical matter of how to defend Ukyu-taasa from this invasion, Cutanrovo was obsessing over symbolism. Goztan could no longer tell if Cutanrovo was a fool who really believed the nonsense she spouted about the “pure Lyucu spirit” or a cynic trying to use this debate to advance the power of her faction at the expense of Goztan’s. Either way, Cutanrovo was going to get them all killed.
She had had enough. But before Goztan could unleash her fury on Cutanrovo, the pékyu stepped in.
“Airships can do things garinafins cannot.” Tanvanaki’s voice was calm, rational. “The flight power of our lightning-fast garinafins must be conserved as much as possible, but these native airships, though slow and cumbersome, may stay in the air indefinitely. They make ideal scouts, especially against underwater mechanical crubens.”
Cutanrovo would have none of it. “The pékyu-votan didn’t conquer Ukyu-taasa with airships. The spirit of the Lyucu, our most potent weapon, is weakened when we turn away from the ways of our fathers and abandon the practices of our mothers.”
A hint of impatience surfaced on Tanvanaki’s face. “My father’s father didn’t sail across the sea on floating wooden islands captured from the barbarians. My mother’s mother didn’t feed the tribe with meat obtained from people who dug most of their food out of mud. Circumstances change. If my father didn’t dilute the Lyucu spirit by coming to Ukyu-taasa on city-ships, then how can I be accused of straying from his path by deploying airships to defend his legacy?”
“You are not the pékyu-votan,” said Cutanrovo.
“What do you mean by that?” Tanvanaki said after a pause. She didn’t raise her voice, but there was an edge to it, as cold as a metal blade.
Cutanrovo didn’t flinch. “A great Lyucu like the pékyu-votan is born once in a hundred generations. He rode the will of the gods with as much skill as you, votan, ride Korva. Like the heroes Kikisavo and Afir, he could show the Lyucu a new way of life. But you… forgive me, votan, you do not wield Langiaboto.”
Tanvanaki surveyed the thanes standing in the Great Tent. Those who were of Cutanrovo’s party stared back, flickers of defiance in their eyes. She could not remember such an open challenge to her authority.
She leapt into motion, a blur like the flashing shadow of a garinafin diving through the clouds. Before anyone could even exclaim with shock, the fight was over. She knelt with one knee on the back of the prone figure of Cutanrovo, her war club held aloft above the thane’s head.
“You forget yourself,” she said, her voice reverberating in the suddenly silent tent. “I’ve been patient with you because I don’t wish to see votan-sa-taasa and votan-ru-taasa at one another’s throats. Perhaps, like so many of your frenzied followers, you’ve been ingesting too many tolyusa berries to think straight. But let me clear away the haze in your mind: Where I point, you go.”
