Speaking Bones, page 96
Cogo nodded. Empress Jia had long harbored suspicions against Kuni’s generals and nobles. As regent, her campaign against them would only accelerate. It was wise of Naro to sense the developing political currents and fade away before the empress’s baleful gaze fell on him and his young son. Cogo had only known Naro as a beautiful man who captured his friend’s heart; he had not expected him to possess such good judgment. In Naro, Cogo almost sensed a kindred soul.
The Prime Minister helped Naro draft the petition to the empress to yield up Mün Çakri’s hereditary title and to donate the benefice to the Imperial Treasury. Then he made Naro the librarian of Zudi, Naro’s hometown. It was supposed to be a sinecure that involved little challenge, but in this, the Prime Minister miscalculated.
Zudi, though a backwater compared to the grand metropolises, held a special status in Dara as Emperor Ragin’s hometown. The Inner Council and the Governor of Cocru wanted to ensure that Zudi was managed well—otherwise, the political symbolism would cause great embarrassment to the Imperial family. To that end, the city received all sorts of tax relief, collected generous development and infrastructure aid from the provincial capital of Çaruza as well as Pan, and was often assigned top-ranked firoa (or even sometimes pana méji) as administrators. Cities of Zudi’s size rarely got such talent.
However, to these ambitious and inexperienced men and women, fresh from success in the Imperial examinations or a stint in the College of Advocates, being assigned to sleepy Zudi instead of a more prominent post felt almost like an insult. (The top administrator of the city even had the title of “mayor,” a relic of the days of the Tiro states.) Eager to prove themselves (so they could be promoted away) and encouraged by Zudi’s full treasury, they tried to show off their cleverness by devising all sorts of newfangled policies for the city. Their bold enthusiasm for change would then infect and incense their subordinates, and lead to waves of reforms and counter-reforms.
For instance, one mayor decided to turn Zudi into a Moralist paradise by implementing universal mandatory education, forcing all children to go to government academies and disregarding the fact that many of the city’s poorer inhabitants needed the labor of their children to survive. Angry petitioners soon made their displeasure known to the circuit intendant; the mayor was unceremoniously transferred away.
His successor, a pious firoa, decided that the way to appease the poor and return Zudi to greatness was to assess a new property tax on the wealthy, the proceeds of which would be used to renovate all the temples in the city to glorify the gods (and to encourage more charitable acts by the various clergies). To further enhance Zudi’s esteem in divine judgment (and her own reputation), she ordered all pubs and indigo houses shuttered for the duration of the renovations. The gentry flooded the College of Advocates with complaints; within the month, the mayor was “promoted” to overseeing the Hegemon’s Shrine in remote Tunoa.
Her successor, a Fluxist, then criticized both of her predecessors for excessively intruding into the lives of the people and furloughed the entire city government staff to realize the ideal administrative state envisioned by Üshin Pidaji: the Null State. The subsequent howls of protest from minor clerks and low-level bureaucrats… well, your imagination wouldn’t need the help of teahouse storyteller to fill in the blanks.
The Fluxist’s hostility toward her inherited staff wasn’t really unexpected. Each time one of these air-dropped genius mayors launched a campaign of massive reform, they were inevitably met with great resistance from the local bureaucracy, composed of career civil servants with deep roots in the city. In order to push through their agenda, the mayors then had to apply a strategy of divide and conquer, winning the support of some local power brokers by promising to implement their own pet projects. Officials grouped into alliances and factions, backed by powerful patrons at court, and politics in Zudi soon rivaled Pan for its cutthroat intensity.
To be sure, the tension between reform-minded Imperial appointees and status-quo-preserving local career functionaries was a persistent feature in every city in Dara. The beneficial conflict, intuitively grasped by Kuni Garu, was later codified into the system by Empress Jia and the Inner Council. Besides striking a balance between centralization and preserving local character in a federated empire, the push-and-pull between representatives of the capital and local elites had the virtue of reducing corruption, enhancing stability, and preventing stagnation. But Zudi’s special status and excessive solicitousness by the court pushed the system out of balance, like a body that had turned against itself as a result of too-rich food.
Naro, though not a ranked scholar himself, proved to be both adept at administration and politically astute—the consummate bureaucrat. He was kind to his subordinates and respectful to his superiors, never flaunting his status as the widower of one of Dara’s most legendary generals. He bobbed and weaved, dodged and danced, careful to avoid being drawn into the increasingly treacherous political maneuvering among his colleagues. Incredibly, as Zudi was embroiled in alternate sessions of upheaval and paralysis due to bureaucratic infighting, the library system, his charge, remained an island of stability.
Eventually, the stream of petitions from city elders, guild heads, venerable abbots, and hereditary nobles, all complaining about the local government, forced the Inner Council in Pan and the governor of Çaruza to re-evaluate their approach. The best-ranked fresh examinees, their ambition and intellect untempered with experience, were not the best choices as top administrators, not right away, and not for a small but politically treacherous city like Zudi. Far better to find someone with roots in Zudi, preferably with little ambition, to handle this hot taro. It went against the empress’s ideal of discouraging entanglements between Imperial appointees and the local gentry, but compromise was the soul of a good bureaucracy, wasn’t it?
That was how Naro Hun, librarian, became the multi-term Mayor of Zudi.
The years since then had been good to Naro and Zudi both. Naro’s youthful good looks had faded, to be replaced by a steadfastness and maturity that continued to draw admiring glances. Open to advice from his subordinates and the city elders, he administered the city cautiously, resistant to grand, sweeping changes, but open to small, gradual tweaks and compromises. There were public schools, but attendance was not mandatory and poor students’ families received a stipend in addition to waived tuition. The temples were well-attended, but so were the pubs and indigo houses. The staff was small, but the salaries were high to prevent the temptation of corruption. Zudi had prospered and grown, and was often mentioned as a model for good governance.
* * *
In his long tenure as mayor, Naro had weathered countless political storms. Whether it was the struggle between Zomi Kidosu and Cogo Yelu, the intrigue between Empress Jia and Emperor Monadétu, or the many debates over war or peace with the Lyucu, he had resolutely attempted to stay out of court politics, focusing only on Zudi and its people.
This latest mystery, however, was unlike any challenge in his memory.
First of all, there were as many books on his desk as could be found in one of Zudi’s public neighborhood libraries. A collection like this was worth a fortune.
Who put it here and why?
Naro opened a few of the plain wooden cover-boxes. The silk scrolls were filled with neat, dense columns of Ano logograms composed in authoritative clerical script. To his practiced eye, the script posed a second oddity.
As handcrafted artifacts, each book should be unique. Even two copies of the same book produced by the same scribe revealed a thousand differences when examined closely. Collections of books, unless they were all personally written by the owner, tended to show great variety in material, size, cut-and-fold, and above all: the scribe’s calligraphy.
But these mysterious books were all written on the same kind of fresh silk, and cut and rolled the exact same way. The logograms inside showed the identical hand: neat, restrained, trustworthy. The faint fragrance of fresh wax and coloring ink suggested that the books were very new, perhaps not more than a couple of months old. All the evidence pointed to these books having been written by the same scribe within that time frame, but that was plainly impossible. A lifetime of tireless toil by one scribe could not have produced such a quantity of books.
How?
Naro’s hands settled on one box, different from all the others. Made of sandalwood, the exterior of the container was not plain, but covered in intricate carvings of chrysanthemums. He opened it and gasped: the silk scroll was woven with golden threads, a most rare and luxurious bookmaking medium.
In contrast to the handwriting in the other books, which seemed to emphasize legibility above personality, the Ano logograms on this scroll proclaimed the work of a skilled calligrapher tutored by the masters of old Cocru. Though not formally schooled, Naro had picked up quite a bit of esoteric philological knowledge as a librarian. He recognized some of the logograms on the scroll as variants that had been outlawed by Emperor Mapidéré. The calligraphy also showed a defiant spirit with unbeveled edges and rough-hewn corners, features that only those most confident in their own place in the world would leave in formal writing.
Naro nodded to himself. During his time living in Pan with Mün, he had seen samples of handwriting from many great lords and ladies. The scroll before him was the work of Lady Soto, the empress’s confidante.
Finally, his head filled with questions and his heart pounding with trepidation, he began to read.
Like hundreds of others all across Dara.
* * *
“Father, why are you doing this?” asked Caya Çakri. The teenaged boy had been dutifully helping Naro pack up the family’s personal effects, which filled only two chests. He and Naro were now in the process of pasting paper seals over the cabinets and closets in the mayor’s manor—Naro insisted that they take nothing that hadn’t been bought with his personal funds, not the formal robes, not the fine tea from Pan, not even a single sheet of paper that was meant for official business.
“Haven’t you always told me that we should stay out of court politics, that the duty of those in the lower echelons of the bureaucracy is to carry on serving our neighbors no matter what storms roil Pan, to be content as the reef-dwelling shrimp rather than seeking to attach ourselves to crubens and whales roaming the seas? You were so cautious that you never sought to reclaim my name-father’s title for me. What has changed to make you want to risk everything?”
Naro looked at his son affectionately. The boy was hardworking and kindhearted, but he had no aptitude for books or politics. Knowing that there was no future for Cacaya-tika as a scholar, Naro had apprenticed him to a butcher, a choice that he thought his dead husband would have approved.
“You’re right, my child,” said Naro. “Much of the time, it’s wiser to stay focused on the soil at our feet than to imagine grand palaces in the sky, to interfere in the affairs of great lords. But the present matter is different from the title that should have been yours: One is about benefit to a family, a single lineage; the other concerns the fate of the whole nation. There is also a duty we all owe to the truth, to justice and the grandness of every human spirit.”
“You’re speaking of mutagé,” said Caya.
“Yes, I suppose I am,” said Naro, a little surprised at this display of erudition from his son. He pointed to the pile of new books on his desk. “Now that I know the truth, it would be a betrayal of mutagé to continue as before, pretending that I don’t.”
“But to challenge the Throne and the regent…,” said Caya, his voice faltering. “How do you know you’ll succeed? Maybe the farseers will arrest you for treason! Maybe the end of the regency will bring much more suffering. Hasn’t the empress been good for the people?”
Children always grow up faster than parents would like to believe, thought Naro, glad but also a bit sad. “The empress’s good deeds cannot erase her crimes. When your name-father charged at the fiery maws of garinafins, he knew that there was no chance he would slay Pékyu Tenryo. He persisted because he believed in the ideal of a better Dara, and it was an ideal worthy of the ultimate sacrifice, enough for him to give up the chance to ever see you again. How can I shrink back from my duty and stain his good name? We do what is right not because we think we’ll succeed; we do so regardless of the consequences, good or bad.”
“I understand,” Caya said. Then, after a pause, he added, “I’m not afraid.”
The pair returned to their packing and sealing, working in companionable silence. As they finally departed the mayor’s manor with the setting sun, Naro hung the mayor’s seal from the lintel above the front gate.
He had resigned as the Mayor of Zudi, and now he would join a revolution.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE BOOKMAKING
THE SECLUDED SEASIDE VILLA BY LUTHO BEACH: THREE MONTHS EARLIER.
The estate, a vacation villa belonging to the Wasu clan, now served as Phyro’s refuge when he wasn’t traveling across Dara to plot against Jia. It also sheltered Soto, Savo, and Fara.
“Stay as long as you want,” said Widow Wasu. “Back in the day, Kuni Garu basically lived on free handouts from my pub. If I could fill the bottomless pit that was his expanding beer gut, I certainly don’t mind feeding you and your young man.”
“Thank you, Granny,” said Fara, blushing.
“What about me?” asked Soto. “I’m a fugitive running from the empress’s wrath. It’s treason to harbor me.”
Widow Wasu waved her off. “As far as I can tell, this is the story: We have a large, wealthy family with several loving children. However, the first wife is trying to keep the family inheritance out of the hands of the son of the second wife, going so far as to murder the second wife. How can it be wrong to help the son and to protect his faithful old governess?”
Soto didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Widow Wasu had reduced the fate of Dara to the plot of a folk opera. At least Widow Wasu’s view of the world had an attractive simplicity to it.
“You just stay put and do whatever you want to do. If that Jia gives me any trouble, I’ve got a good speech prepared on what Kon Fiji said about the proper role of a first wife and aunt-mother!”
Meanwhile, Savo tried to stay out of Phyro’s way. Though the young emperor was friendly and open toward his sister’s intended, Savo, knowing the role Phyro played in Dara’s war against the Lyucu, found it difficult to face the martial emperor with equanimity. He shrank back from Phyro’s embrace of violence in the pursuit of justice—first in regard to the Lyucu, and now to avenge his mother—but he was also keenly aware that his own pacifism was a luxury, made possible only because he was living under the peace of Empress Jia and shielded by Widow Wasu’s generous heart. How could he, a Lyucu thane-taasa, presume to tell the people of Dara what was justice? Or counsel their emperor to give up vengeance?
Fara, however, tried again and again to dissuade Phyro from his chosen path. “Dara must be healed, not torn asunder.”
“I’ve gone too far down this route to stop,” Phyro replied. “I’m glad that Savo, and now you, have found wisdom in the teachings of Rufizo Mender, but in the real world, a blood debt must be repaid with blood. How can I leave my mother’s death unanswered?”
No philosophy could overcome the power of a heartfelt truth, and there was a gulf between the siblings that could not be bridged by words.
Phyro departed, but left word that members of the Blossom Gang might stop by from time to time.
* * *
Soto spent much of her time at the villa in isolation, setting down in wax what she knew of Jia’s secret machinations and misdeeds. Terrified that Jia was going to find her and silence her forever, she wanted to leave behind a manuscript.
Savo and Fara, restless and anxious, came to Soto to talk.
“What Aunt-Mother did was wrong,” Fara fretted, wringing her hands. “But she should be punished according to the laws of treason, not die in an act of bloody retribution that will surely plunge Dara into chaos.”
“How can you put the empress on trial?” said Soto, shaking her head. “The sovereign is beyond her own laws.”
“What if we simply told the truth?” asked Fara. “What if you found a way to reach the Prime Minister and the members of the Inner Council?”
“That wouldn’t do much good,” said Soto. “Cogo is a good man, but… he’s a creature of the system, as are all the high-ranking ministers. Even if they believed me, they wouldn’t want to jeopardize the stability of Dara. They may even prefer to join Jia in suppressing my voice.”
“Then what if we told everyone the truth? Phyro forced the empress to go to war with the Lyucu by changing the minds of the people, didn’t he? The people can compel the empress to submit.”
Soto chuckled at this bit of naïveté. “I once thought as you do. But Jia controls the farseers, the army, the entire bureaucracy of the empire. Her iron grip on power cannot be loosened by a mere story. Rumors concerning her treachery against Rin Coda, Gin Mazoti, and others have circulated for years without threatening her position—because so many have benefited from her rule.”
Fara refused to give up. “But those were just rumors with no source. It’ll be different when you reveal the truth of what she did to Empress Risana. Testimony from you, the Hegemon’s aunt and one of my father’s most trusted advisers, cannot be dismissed out of hand.”
“Maybe,” conceded Soto. “But I’m just one woman. How can I speak to everyone in Dara? The moment I reveal myself, the farseers will track me down and silence me. And when I’m gone, my story will become just another sourceless rumor. The voice dies with the speaker.”
“That’s why you are writing it down,” said Fara, understanding dawning. “The logograms carved in your own hand, imbued with your inimitable style and individual personality, authenticate themselves.”
