Hank face goes entirely still, and Hank’s mug of water gets set down on the floor of the parapet. Hank straightens slowly. “We ain’t proper siblings.”
Chert makes a dismissive gesture.
“Wapentake’s a promise to do the dying.” Hank’s face has lost the careful attempt to resemble someone from a social ilk. “Got a delegation of those in authority from the First when the Fifth was authorized. Wanted to be sure I knew.”
Hank makes a formerly liturgical motion another Regular One would recognize as an acknowledgement of necessity. “Chert, look: Contextual politeness don’t mean they’re going to rip your arms off. They’ve had the Creeks for five thousand years, and half of them at least are angry at circumstances. They’re not angry at you. Do anything other than defend the Captain, they will be angry at you.”
Chert takes a slug of brandy, nods.
“The last traditional commander of the Wapentake was a sergeant named Radish. They declared the Captain a Creek.” Hank says this as though it is in no way astonishing.
“It stuck?”
“Couldn’t not. Would have stuck on a whim. With the March?” Hank’s head shakes. “Everybody means it, it’s not something there’s factions about. That one graul is a Creek for all social purposes.”
“The other eleven graul we’ve got want them dead.” Chert sounds frustrated. Less frustrated than they are, even considering the moment of illusory flames.
“Think they can manage it?” Hank doesn’t think so, but Chert’s a sorcerer. Hank is not.
“Not until after.” After, when the new graul are numerous and the Captain has taken up their standard. “If they’re indifferent to their own survival — ” trying to get through the protection around the gestation ponds and the Captain and the standard of the First with copper chains and grave dust is an argument for graul who wish desperately to die — “they’ll probably manage it. And then Slow takes the Wapentake west over the mountains to execute all the graul in the Army of the Western Hills.”
Political violence is entirely forbidden, and the Line maintains justice among its own. It would, in a specific and particular way, be an entirely just act. An entirely just act even without considering an arguable genocidal intent involved in killing the Captain now.
“If it gets to there, it’d happen,” Hank says. “You’ve seen the output.” The Army of the Iron Bridge retreated on the not-quite-yet Second Commonweal intact. That doesn’t mean the Second Commonweal could support it, or that ten years doesn’t take away half your troops. The Line uses twenty year enlistments, and has not recruited on the scale of its battalions because it could not. Lack of food and an immediate need for work has taken more; there are mostly single-company standards in the Folded Hills. Only Chert’s pennon and the Fourth of the Twelfth, assigned to defend Parliament, have been maintained active at full strength.
“I don’t understand the problem.” Chert’s frustration gets into their voice. “I’ve talked to a bunch of clerks, I’ve tried getting an individual graul to explain. They won’t.”
“Does it matter?” Hank sets their mug down. It takes practice to tell when Regular Ones mean to be more serious than their habitually serious state. Hank’s had practice conveying they mean to be more serious and right now Chert could not mistake it. “The attempt’s still the issue in law, not whether or not there was a success. The attempt’s been made. The Wapentake’s demonstrating forbearance.”
“If I ask which two,” Chert says and stops. Hank nods. All the graul will say it was them. Executing all of them is unjust. Executing the two involved might itself be unjust. Much depends on what precisely they sought to do. Murder is presently a strong surmise, but only a surmise.
Chert gives their brandy bottle a sour look, and drains it. “By Wapentake, Slow meant the whole thing. Senior in authority, your senior battery commander, the Captain’s provisional ensign.”
“My senior battery commander’s why I’ve got demon-scars instead of a memorial,” Hank says. Their statement carries the implication that however provisional the Fifth might be, Captain Blossom is not and cannot be. They turn to face Chert directly. “One in fifty. When there’s eight millions in the Second Commonweal, we’ll have brigades enough. Until that day, if we need the help, we need the help.”
“Tradition,” is all Chert manages to say, because the Line does need the help and tradition says they must not take it.
“Hammer didn’t get everything right in their own day, and then ain’t now.” Captain Hank’s voice has every bit of a Master Gunner’s professional certainty in it.
D-Day Minus 345
Year of Peace 546, Thermidor, Second Day (Summer)
The Shape of Peace
The Independent Ongen has been the Maintainer of the Shape of Peace for five centuries and two Shapes. In that time, they have had few students of their own and few publications. Once every ten years, they present an analysis of the Shape of Peace’s weighting of the views of the citizenry to Parliament. Twice, once during the False Peace and once just after the Turbulent Century, Parliament responded by requiring the maintainer to make a change in the specifics of Shape of Peace’s optimism.
The Second Commonweal has had its Shape of Peace as they made it since they made it, though they have not had it long.
Ongen, so far as anyone can tell, views their quiet office and quiet service as a pleasant retirement. They paint in a particular spare style with impeccable technique; they have at some times kept bees and bred flowers by means absent the Power. They maintain a correspondence, only some of which is technical. They are not militant. For an enchanter with a considerable talent and above a millennium of age, they are considered nearly harmless.
Before there was a Commonweal, Ongen was Laurel’s servant, and Ongen’s chief responsibility was the production of graul. The graul in the long tent do not look at Ongen as though Ongen is harmless.
“The Line is outside the Peace,” General Chert says. “Yet the offence of which you are accused is against the Peace.”
Simiform graul faces do not show much to other ilks of people even when the graul would wish it, and these have no such wish.
“Some of you,” the Peace-gesith says, “have engaged in an act which affronts the Peace. Though there are no other simiform graul in this Commonweal, and those responsible were recognized as belonging to the Line of the Second Commonweal, you have individually and severally refused to explain your purposes.”
Silence, before General Chert turns their head to look at the Independent Ongen.
“Speak or be transcribed.” Ongen says it pleasantly. The Peace-gesith, accredited Clerk this half-century, looks just slightly offended.
What one of the graul says translates, roughly, as “Lord, the heretic must not have descent.”
“Must not?” Ongen says in the same language.
“The heretic has abandoned service.” There are several hand motions and a tipping of the spine. “The heretic has adopted nefarious arts. If we were insufficient, we may hope to improve. If we permit failure, we do not maintain that hope.”
“Should the Wizard Laurel return to either Commonweal,” Ongen says, “they should not come with authority.”
The eight graul look at one another, before looking back to Ongen.
“You were not made to serve Laurel’s name.” Ongen says this just as pleasantly. “Once the recipe was settled, I made all of you who were made, and I know. You were made to serve with loyalty and conviction the first considerable and militant sorcerer you encountered.”
Two of the recording clerks have stopped writing; one is writing faster, and grabbing filled pens from their fellows at need. It is difficult to write both the words spoken and a useful translation sufficiently quickly, switching scripts and alphabets.
“You were not told this. It would lack utility or kindness to tell you without cause.” Nothing about Ongen’s voice changes. “To make you to serve Laurel and no other would have made you i
ncapable of the degree of initiative Laurel desired that you should possess.”
“Initiative you have recently seen fit to demonstrate.” The Peace-gesith’s voice is not as even as Ongen’s. The Peace-gesith has been reading the translated notes as the clerk with the necessary knowledge of language takes them. “An assertion that you hold a fellow-citizen forbidden descent does not explain.”
There’s a pause. One of the graul goes set of face, and draws breath. Another moves too swift to see, and stops, the knife in their hand nearly to the first graul, who would have spoken.
“This,” the Peace-gesith says, “is a court of law.” None of the simiform graul can move more than just what is required to breathe shallowly. “The law requires that you explain, and does not permit that you act with violence toward anyone.”
“If we die, we die in service.” The graul who drew breath to speak. “If we permit the heretic to depart from service, when Laurel returns we will be cast out.”
Ongen carefully says nothing. The Peace-gesith says “Should Laurel return in forceful array, would you seek to serve Laurel?”
“We must.” The graul takes half a breath, and twitches. The Shape of Peace will not permit them enough movement to move as they would like. “The Shape of Peace is of Laurel’s making, and will like us obey.”
“Even were that factual of the First Commonweal,” Ongen says, “it is in no wise true of the Second.”
“Laurel shall be your master always,” the graul with an outstretched arm and a knife in that hand says. “You see what you may see, and nothing that you may not.”
“My name was in the Shape of Peace, because someone’s had to be. Laurel departed. At no point did Laurel enquire after my wishes in this matter. Should you not regard my own concern for my entire agency and the various works of theory which provide for distinguishing the bound will, consider that in the Year of the Peace Established Twenty Three — ” five years after Laurel departed — “Parliament asked me what might absent, compel, ignore, or replace my will, with a thorough and specific list of possibilities.” Ongen’s even tone does not alter. “Before the first alteration of the first Shape, Parliament bid Halt ask me the same question.”
The Peace-gesith carefully and politely says nothing. General Chert’s face does not move while an extremely sardonic shade of yellow passes down the left side of their face. There remains debate about the propriety and legality of having Halt ask such questions, and Parliament has done it only thrice and not in three centuries.
Ongen says, “The Second Commonweal’s Shape of Peace is Lim’s work, as chiefly enacted by the Independent Blossom.” It is just possible these graul will think Goddess of Destruction and consider that Laurel’s sway may not hold. “The third knowledgeable party said ‘Oh yes that will do nicely’ — ” Ongen sounds eerily and terribly like Halt, quoting Halt — “and I should not plan on Laurel having the greater wisdom there.”
The silence is uncomfortable, and shorter than it feels like to any of the witnesses.
“Three of the graul who serve the Army of the Western Hills,” General Chert says, “said that they must do as they have sworn, and obey their orders in the Line. It troubles them and it grieves them, but they will keep their oath. By that token do I not believe you incapable of other choices or of change.”
“The heretic,” another graul says, “took a warrant of commission. When they did that, all the graul in the Commonweal determined to make plain that graul as a people understood such acknowledgement of other authority was not permitted us. So did we all change their name to ‘Faithless’.” The word is a graul word, and requires subsequent translation. The one clerk who speaks that language can write down the sounds, but does not know the word. It is too dire a pronouncement to be included in the recorded vocabularies. “They had departed Laurel’s service, and we could not kill them where they were without risking everyone. We thought there was time. Laurel could judge them when Laurel returned.”
A slow discourse of twitches passes among the eight graul. The Peace-gesith waits for it to happen.
“It is wrong for graul to serve any other than Laurel,” the oldest of these graul, old enough that they had indeed served Laurel, says at last. “We did not think that a sorcerer so young could do so much.”
The Independent Ongen, narrowly and perhaps involuntarily, smiles. It is an expression entirely arrived from other days than Peace.
“And after finding that protection you got ophidiform graul who would not listen and Full-Captain Slow in an approximation of wrath.” General Chert sounds almost sympathetic. “I do not see how it is not what Slow called it, when you set out to murder a fellow citizen to secure your preference of social outcomes.”
“Our least necessity, General,” the oldest graul says and Chert’s face softens into an even shade of grimness.
“Are you all agreed in this?” The Peace-Gesith does not sound especially interested in the answer. Two of the three clerks look ill, and the third looks distressed.
The nods are single, and distinct, and pass down the line of graul from each end.
The Peace-gesith draws themself up a little, and their face settles into an expression some distance past the stern look it has had throughout the trial. “The law must rest on material facts without exception; that is the Ur-law. Thereby, belief excuses you nothing and permits you nothing; nor may the Commonweal make law or regulation to judge belief nor prefer one belief to another. Thus the accumulation of precedent, that if belief compels you to unlawful deeds, you are tried for those deeds.”
There’s a short pause. No one is surprised, or moved to say anything.
“You have all sworn these acts are yours, though four of the attestations register as false.” The Peace-gesith pauses. Neither Chert nor Ongen are surprised that the young ophidiform graul did not find all the simiform graul who came. Centuries of practice is centuries of practice.
Centuries of practice means unmoved faces among the graul as the Peace-gesith goes on. “You are further free from imposed compulsion in so much as the Shape of Peace may determine. You are all thereby found guilty of political violence,” the Peace-gesith says. “General Chert?”
“They’re ours,” General Chert says. “We’ll hang them.”
Thread 4
Slow’s memoirs
It is not especially difficult to use a focus. One must be born, as most are born, with a sufficiency of talent; one’s acquaintance with the remainder of the focus team must suffice to trust them; there must be an opportunity to practice. This is very commonly done throughout the Commonweal, for all purposes from dredging canals to washing clothes. There being an entirely factual way in which a battle-standard is a focus, it is often necessary to explain why the Line must drill so extensively.
A focus for general use has been made so that it recognizes a single member of the team as the team lead; the focus will act solely as that person directs, and not otherwise. In all but a markedly small number of cases, it will have been made so that no more Power can be drawn by the focus than it is safe for each member of the focus team to contribute. It will do a singular thing, or perhaps a thing with a small number of parts as when a dredge or digging focus contains a capacity for sterilizing the spoil.
None of these things are true of a banner nor of a battle-standard.
To have a single fixed executive would be disastrous should that person die in battle. So while the standard-captain assigned has an absolute authority within the focus of their standard and any linked banners, any person latched to a banner or a standard may take direction of it, in whole or in part. ‘In part’ is within the regular function of a company or a battalion; persons component of groupings as small as individual files may act to direct their own or a greater portion of the focus to some particular purpose, whether this is to destroy an enemy or to set the camber of a road.
The standards are made from designs which have supposed since Laurel’s day that the death of
participants to over-exertion is entirely preferable to their death due to defeat. The shades of those dead by any cause may, and indeed most often do, pass into the standard and continue their contribution. The dead by over-exertion do not always notice they have died, and are nearly certain to remain latched as a shade. As useful as this might be during a battle, it is an undesirable outcome during training.
To make a focus perform a single operation saves complexity and thus expense; a community may sooner have all the focus-tools they require if these are made by single functions. A standard is useless if it cannot do several things at once, and is more useful in proportion to the capabilities it contains. Opposition faced by the Line will involve the full breadth of talent and creativity possessed by all the opposing sorcerers, and what there is not capability to answer will necessarily prove effective. A battle-standard in consequence contains many capabilities with a tendency over time for the count of these to increase. An effective battalion must be facile with the whole range of capabilities in their standard. If this could be done by learning a capability in a single day, a new battalion should require several years to achieve a knowledge of the whole.
Established battalions seldom recruit so much as one-tenth of their number in a year. The habits and reflexes of their familiar standard are carried forward as active custom. To begin from nothing is a matter for drill, and drill not well-established; the Line of the Old Commonweal has not raised a new battalion in above one hundred years. The most that has been done is for an established battalion to receive a new standard or for a territorial battalion to move to the regular Line. Either process consumes by custom and necessity twelve years.
These things in part explain why a battalion requires regular and thorough drill. They do not explain how the drill must be conducted because Line drill must address in its forms and conduct the great weakness of battle-standards.
If we may trust old records, graul may sustain full metaphysical output for about three days. As we are not graul, we do not entirely participate in Laurel’s design for the standards. A hale, fit battalion can sustain full output for perhaps four hours without casualties from exertion. Six hours will result in casualties, though with no decrease in output. Somewhere around ten hours, output will drop. The times may vary somewhat with specifics. It is a matter for the manual that a battalion of Typicals may last as much as six hours longer, though it will not ever achieve an output of the same magnitude as a battalion of Regulars. The expected times for a Creek battalion were not then known to us, and to discover them we expected would be expensive knowledge.
A Mist of Grit and Splinters Page 13