The Hands of the Emperor, page 97
The elderly Duke of the Isolates, whose mother had been an Islander, lifted a beautiful voice to sing, “I sing the ship Huai’a-ve. I am Ela, and I sing for Those Who Went Farthest.”
And so it went, ship by ship, until eleven of the ships of the original settlers and the core families descended from them were sung out.
Cliopher realized he was holding his breath again, this time in wonder, as half the room lifted their voice to cry the name of the twelfth: “I sing the ship Ouvaye-ve. I am Mdang, and I sing for Those Who Hold the Fire.”
There was an undercurrent of laughter in the sheer number of those singing for the Mdang family, but it quickly transformed into polyphony as the descendants of the twelve ships sang out the next passages of the Lays. Cliopher stood there listening in astonishment, facing Jiano down the long axis of the hall, his Radiancy a glowing golden figure on the throne above all the rest.
These songs were as familiar to each member of his family, each Islander in the room, as they were to him. These passages were sung at least once a year, at the Singing of the Waters, when the young men and women raced outrigger canoes across the lagoons and the families strove to out-sing, out-dance, and out-feast each other. The polyphony was partly traditional and partly spontaneous, each singer riffing on the ancient melodies. Some percussionist from Vinyë’s orchestra in the corner started to play accompanying drums, another lifted a deep horn in place of the traditional conch, and the deep familiar pattern of wave over wave filled the room.
Buru Tovo had told Cliopher stories of the great sea-going ships setting out to see what was behind the sunrise. They had come (so said the Lays) from a land no longer to be found, which had lain between the Isolates and Amboloyo. Some stories said they had sailed from another world altogether to find the Wide Seas of Zunidh; others that the land had fallen in some cataclysm forgotten long before the coming of the Empire and its scribes.
Wherever exactly they had first come from, they had brought with them their wealth in knowledge and adventure, and sought new islands and new homes, singing the songs of their people all the way. They had crossed first to the north, then turned back again at Nijan across the southern ocean to find at last the Vangavaye-ve.
Cliopher half-recognized a number of voices and knew that some of his cousins had left the part of Ouvaye-ve to shore up the thinner representations of the other ships. He stood there, listening to the tale of the crossing, listening to the catalogue of the families and the names of their dances. Jiano took up the part of the mafa, singing each bridge between the Lays before the audience-become-participants sang the fuller narrative.
Jiano sang:
Over the Wide Seas we sailed
Learning the ways of the winds
Speaking to the waves
Learning the ways of the birds
Speaking to the sky
Learning the ways of the Islands
Speaking to the land
And someone—it might be Uncle Haido or Aunt Malania, lead singers at the Opera, or it might be someone with an untrained but enthusiastic voice, or it might be some cousin or friend or minor aristocrat of Princess Oriana’s court who had never before declared his knowledge of the Lays—would respond with the name of the islands or the winds or the waves that the Wayfinders had found, and others in the room, in trios or quartets or great floor-shaking masses, would sing forth the replies.
Over the Wide Seas we sailed
Ai! In our ships which we built with our own hands
Over the Wide seas we sailed
—The names of our ships are our families
—The names of our families hold our ships
—We sing the Aio-aiatē, fair as a leaping dolphin
—We the Varga
—We who Touch the Water
—By our hands in the water
—We feel the shape of the water
—We know the ways of the water
Over the Wide Seas we sailed
Ai! In our ships which we built with our own hands
Over the Wide Seas we sailed
Learning the ways of the winds
—Ai! We sing the name of the winds of the Wide Seas
—The winds the come in the morning
—E’ta the wind of the morning sun
—Out of the east she called us
—We the Kindraa
—We Who Know the Wind
—By the shape of the invisible
—We learn the shape of the unknown
—We know the ways of the winds
—Ai! We sing forth the way to the morning and the evening
Learning the ways of the winds
And so the song went, voice over voice, wave over wave. Cliopher stood listening, half-vocalizing the words, half-hearing his Buru Tovo’s voice (gruff but true) singing the Lays over and over again, some days not saying anything else but the Lays, until Cliopher went to sleep with the songs of his ancestors in his ears and woke to the songs of the islands they had come to know so deeply. And still his Buru had sung the Lays, over and over again, until Cliopher was able to reply to any question suddenly thrown at him with a line or a passage or a phrase from the cycle of songs.
He stood there at the threshold of the hall, at the edge of his community, feeling the song rise up out of the deep core of his being.
Ai! We sing the Islands of the Wide Seas
The coming of the ships across the sea
What we found there on the other side of the morning
Ai! What we found when we were called by the wind of the morning
When the wind of the evening filled our sails
And sent us to find the Mother of the Islands
The singer of the first song
Jiano guided them to sing the whole of the first sequence of the Lays, the coming of the ships to the Vangavaye-ve and the settlement of the Ring. When they had sung the naming of the islands and the first villages, he slowly lowered the ngali staff to indicate that they would not be going immediately into the second sequence.
The hall slowly fell silent as each voice in the polyphonic chorus finished her part. When Jiano finished the last line the room was silent, but with a quality of silence totally different from those it had earlier held. This silence was alive with expectation and attention, each person focused on Jiano at the foot of the throne of the Sun-in-Glory.
In the moments of the silence as everyone waited eagerly for what Jiano would choose to do next, Cliopher thought very clearly that this was true government.
Jiano bent his head over the ebony staff. A slight sheen of sweat on his torso was the only indication that he might be nervous or exhilarated from leading an extended choral celebration of the culture and history of his people.
Cliopher had no idea how long the first of the Lays had taken. There were no bells here to mark the hours and divide up the day. There was the song, and the singing, and the feast that would come in its time, and that was all that mattered.
Jiano lifted his head. He lifted the staff, and made a wide sweeping gesture to encompass the room. Then he took a breath, and Cliopher prepared himself for the shift from the traditional to the court ceremonies that would come next with the fealty rituals.
Satisfied he held the room, Jiano looked down the axis straight at Cliopher. He held Cliopher’s eyes long enough that the audience turned in their seats to see what he was looking at. Cliopher braced himself for the murmurs, the attention, the looks, and hoped he had not forgotten everything Lord Lior had so thoroughly instructed him in.
Jiano pointed the staff at him. Cliopher took a deep breath.
“Who is this that comes out of the sunrise?”
Cliopher’s heart turned over with an incredibly painful thump.
The response was quicker this time, as everyone but him had been waiting for the next sequence of the Lays to begin.
—Who is this whose ship comes across the Wide Seas?
—Who is this?
—Who is this that comes out of the sunrise?
Cliopher knew this. He and his cousin Basil had run around play-acting it out. In those games Cliopher had always been the Paramount Chief, Elonoa’a.
Who is this that comes out of the sunrise?
—Who is this?
—Who is this whose ship comes across the Wide Seas?
—Who is this that comes?
Who is this that comes from the house of the sun?
He held Jiano’s eyes. And then, the motion coming from his childhood, he raised his hands in the open-palmed gesture that tradition said was that made by Aurelius Magnus, the Emperor of Astandalas, when he beseeched Elonoa’a’s permission to land.
—Let him approach
—O let this stranger from the sun approach
—We would have news of the other side of the sunrise
—O let him come
Cliopher swallowed. He did not properly know the dances that went with the part. He had never studied any of the dances but those of his family; he had never thought himself a good enough dancer, nor had he felt much of a need to display himself like a cock bird-of-paradise. He had not been a solo singer, either, content to be part of the chorus.
He took a deep breath.
Jiano sang, “Come, then, stranger, and be welcome.”
Cliopher stepped across the threshold of the hall. He was very conscious of the wooden floor against his bare feet, the bobbing of the two Glorious Imperial tail feathers in his headdress, the sound of the leaves of his skirt, the brush of his thighs against each other, the scents of all those people not wearing courtly perfume.
Every instinct in him called for him to dance.
He and his cousin Basil had played at Aurelius Magnus and Elonoa’a, had played at this dance. His feet went into the forgotten steps, the music calling him; when he would have faltered, unsure of how next to move, he found a sequence from the fire dance starting, and so he danced from island to island across the room, the choral questioning rising up around him like a cloud of butterflies.
Who is this that comes out of the sunrise? —Who is this whose ship comes across the Wide Seas?
—Who is this?
—Who is this that comes?
Who is this that comes out of the sunrise?
Cliopher followed the route taken first by Princess Oriana and then by Jiano. They had come with silent witness; he came with a cloud of song.
At the foot of the stairs he bowed over his hands to Jiano, who in this moment represented the government. Jiano made the gesture of welcome. Cliopher climbed the stairs and stood before him as his equal, as Aurelius Magnus had stood before Elonoa’a.
The questions, and their answers, were traditional, sung sometimes by Jiano alone, sometimes by the whole chorus or any part thereof that felt like participating.
—Who is this that comes out of the sunrise?
Cliopher could not remember the last time he had sung in public. He hoped he would not disgrace his family. “I come in the name of the Sun.”
—Ai! He claims the name of the Sun.
—And why have you come?
“I come seeking those who know their way.”
—Ai! He has heard of our songs.
—You have come yourself from the sunrise.
—Why do you need our songs?
—What way have you lost that we know?
Cliopher found he did know the right gestures. He was making them half-unconsciously; like rigging his boat (his little Tui-tanata!), they came so long as he did not think about them. “I wish to know ways that I do not myself know.”
—Ai! He comes with true questions.
—Where shall we guide him?
—What song does he know?
—What does he bring?
His voice nearly broke as he sang the words that Aurelius Magnus had sung. “I bring the wide world.”
—Ai! We know the Wide Seas.
“I bring good laws.”
—Ai! We know the ways of the sea and the sky.
“I bring new songs.”
—Ai! Our songs are the songs of the mother of music.
“I bring a new fire.”
His voice did break on that line. Jiano waited—the whole room waited—while he swallowed down what were almost tears, until his jaw firmed and he was able once more to form words. He sang the line again. “I bring a new fire.”
—Ah, came the softer response to his words. He offers a new fire?
Cliopher waited while the chorus repeated and parsed out the offerings of Aurelius Magnus to the Vangavaye-ve and, eventually, decided they were good. He realized at one point that he was clenching his teeth in dread that the chorus would decide against him.
Was that the power of the music, he wondered, or the fact that everyone singing knew that the questions were more than traditional? That on this occasion, as perhaps never so explicitly in all the years the exchange was performed in the Singing of the Waters, this was a true renewal of the vows between Vangavaye-ve and Emperor?
That on this occasion, as never before, the person who stood in the place of the Emperor in this traditional performance, was in the wider world one who sought to bring good laws and new songs and a new fire; and even more, one who officially did stand in the place of the Emperor?
He was the Hands of the Emperor.
This was his family asking him these questions.
Finally the chorus decided that they wished to know more of the one offering these things to them. They sang their questions of identity again, this time not the general who is this out of the sunrise but who are you?
—What is your name?
—In whose name do you come?
—What is your island?
—In whose ship did you come?
—What are your dances?
—In whose steps did you learn?
The song went on, spiralling up and down, call-and-response like in the kotua challenges at the end of the sugar-cane harvest, like the challenges from boat to boat in the festivals, like the songs that must once have been sung from ship to ship on sunny days or to keep heart in storms across the Wide Seas.
And finally it spiralled down again to one voice, to Jiano lifting the staff and singing, What is your name?
In the usual run of the festival the performer would be wearing a mask and would claim the name of the Emperor.
Cliopher turned to the hall—for it was not Jiano who was asking these questions, and if Jiano wished to indicate by every means possible that he spoke for and of and from his people, Cliopher was not the one to insist otherwise. He lifted his hands and made the gesture that indicated he wore no mask for the dance and spoke in his own right.
He took a deep breath and waited. Like Jiano calling the opening line of the Lays and waiting for the response, Cliopher made that gesture and that turn and waited.
He waited.
He waited.
Out of the hall he heard the superb tenor of his uncle Haido sound forth: What is your name?
His own voice sounded harsh next to it. “I am Cliopher Mdang of Tahivoa.”
From another corner of the hall, a dozen voices lifted up: In whose name do you come?
“I come in the name of the Emperor over the sea.”
Aunt Malania asked the next: What is your island?
“My island is Loaloa.”
He did not recognize the next voice, a deep bass: In whose ship did you come?
Cliopher took a breath. He had crossed the Wide Seas in every possible form of transportation. Only one was significant. “I came in a ship of my own hand’s building.”
It was customary to go on to the next question; but it was a far older custom to ask the name of a ship when someone claimed to have built one according to the ancient tradition.
He did not know the voice that rang out, a loud and pure alto: What is the name of your ship?
“The name of my ship is Tui-tanata.”
He was so glad that Cora had found it still moored where he had left it behind the warehouses and had decided to restore it. Standing there with the Lays filling the air like a thunderstorm around him, he could not imagine how he could ever have simply walked away from it.
—Ah! The name of his ship is the Tui-tanata.
—The Song of the Home Fire
—The Song of the Home Fire
—Ah! The name of his ship is the Tui-tanata
—He is Mdang
—He is one who Holds the Fire
—Does he hold the fire?
The spontaneous chorus stabbed him. He found his hand lifted involuntarily to the efetana necklace. Jiano, who was standing now beside him, looked at his hand at the movement. His eyes widened slightly as he took in the necklaces Cliopher wore. The efani, the efevoa, and the efetana. Three necklaces of the greatest significance.
—What are your dances?
The question spun out from the single voice who asked it to the full chorus of the room. Cliopher waited, knowing he was shaking, until the chorus narrowed, and narrowed again, and finally returned to the first single voice.
—What are your dances?
“My dances are Aōteketētana.”
He could feel the surprise in the room when he claimed the greater dances. But he did know those dances. He had danced them from necessity, and when he had been asked, and now he claimed them as his own.
