by Matt Weber
“With whom does this friend of your patrol?” said Datang.
“With Colonel Torma, betimes,” said Lin Yongten, “and betimes elsewhere. He is a skilled boxer and has other talents of military use.”
They were at the midpoint of the bridge, just passing the icon of the Discernment of Unlikely Truth from Plausible Falsehood. Datang looked down the river, hoping to see some trace of the Iron Eunuch’s army, but she could see nothing beyond the crosshatched Chusrin Gate. “Is he so skilled as to outrank us?”
Lin Yongten gave another of his thin smiles. “He is a corporal in the ranks, like you and me, but that may not be as telling as you might think.”
That reminded Datang of something. “The master-at-arms called you Scholar-Corporal. Why?”
“He’s more observant than you,” said Lin Yongten, and put his first two fingers on the collar of his jacket. Datang leaned in and squinted. In thread just barely a lighter green than the battered green of the jacket, two tiny hummingbirds were embroidered.
Lin Gyat leaned in as well. “Ah, I see,” said the huge fighter. “Eager Edge is an aficionado of the elusive needle-beaked bat.”
“The hummingbird signifies a scholarly rank, does it not?” asked Datang.
“Only the eighth, I fear,” said Lin Yongten. “A corporal in the academic ranks, one might say. I do possess regalia with my scholar’s rank more boldly blazoned, but I prefer not to draw attention to myself in military contexts. Worse, there are some who cannot be induced to offer satisfaction to a scholar, whatever his martial rank or skill.”
“What was your specialty?” asked Datang.
“As I indicated to the master-at-arms,” said Lin Yongten, “military history. Here we are.”
They had arrived at a small rowhouse in a rough-and-tumble district not unlike Ogmin in West Rassha, although Datang had not failed to notice the frequency of cerulean brassards and, unaccountably, of flower shops. Lin Yongten tried the door, which was open. “Netten!” he announced in the foyer. “I come to replenish what the Hill of Faces has taken from us.”
Datang opened her mouth to protest that their visit was provisional, then fell silent. In truth, the camaraderie of Lin Yongten portended a friendship whose nature and quality were new in her young life, and his influence tempered Lin Gyat’s more odious eccentricities while highlighting what she admitted to herself were amusing ones; the three of them seemed natural allies, personally as well as professionally. Had it been Lin Gyat’s associate who would occupy the fourth room, or a stranger, she might not have been so sanguine about the society; but she could not help but trust a friend of Lin Yongten’s.
The thought distracted her enough that she missed the approach of the second resident of the house, who had come silently down the narrow stairs. The sight took her aback. Lin Yongten’s neatness of dress and bearing had led her to assume this Netten’s mien would be similar, but the smell of his dirty boxer’s blacks preceded him; his hair was a wild eyrie as knotted as that of a Grassland cavalier, and the hairs on his long-unshaven face clearly strove to achieve the same state, though they were too sparsely distributed to succeed. Both hands and bare feet sported jagged nails, split from hard use and unfiled. But his compact frame moved with a grace and power as bright as the sun, and the Abasement to an Unknown Equal that he offered to Datang and Lin Gyat was crisp and perfectly measured. “My name is Netten,” he said, “and I am the fruit of a disordered lineage.”
“My name is Lin Gyat jiao Envied of Snakes,” said Lin Gyat, “and I am barely literate. Come, Ape’s Left Hand, I think I like this custom. What slight flaw perceive you in your character?”
“My name is Datang of Shrastaka, whom those insensitive to my wishes call Ape’s Left Hand,” said Datang, “and whom the poets will one day name Whirlwind of Tigers, and I am wounded and fatigued.”
“That seems less a flaw than a circumstance,” protested Lin Gyat.
“If we are to live in close quarters, we will all know one another’s flaws in due time,” said Netten. “I know a few of mine are evident already, not the least of which is to have left a lady standing in my doorway. Will you come to the dining room and drink?”
This plan was acceptable to all, so they filed up the stairs. The dining room was open to the air. Netten swiftly replaced the books and scrolls covering the table with a jug of wine and four bowls, and all four sat down, Netten putting down a half bowl almost before his flesh made contact with the chair. Lin Gyat grinned at this and drank a whole bowl at a pull, which Netten at once refilled with a small smile. “Ape’s Left Hand and Envied of Snakes,” said Netten, “not only have you joined the Cerulean Guard—and one at the rank of corporal, no less—but you also purpose to join our household. I am disposed to think this excellent news. Let us toast it.” Lin Yongten and Datang raised their bowls and sipped; Netten and Lin Gyat drained theirs.
“I am in the lead, you know,” said Lin Gyat when the toast was finished. “Two to one.”
Netten shrugged, filled his own bowl, drained it, and filled both. “Now we are even, though I would hardly have thought this mild spirit warrants scorekeeping. But,” he said before Lin Gyat could break in, “you chastise me well, Envied of Snakes—precision is vital in matters great and small.”
“We will be joining your patrol as well, Netten,” said Lin Yongten, and he quickly recounted Datang’s victory at the Bat Gate and what had followed at the Logistics Bureau.
“Well!” said Netten. “To the memory of Colonel Lamto, the security of King Tenshing Astama, and the Crane’s Migration Step!” And he drained his bowl. Lin Gyat hastily followed suit, then took the jug, poured himself a bowl, and drained it before refilling everyone’s.
“Wine wants meat,” said Lin Yongten, and he got up to go to the kitchen. Datang followed.
In the kitchen wasThere, they found a big pot covered with a knife-scarred cutting board; Lin Yongten removed the board to reveal a mess of beef with scallions and some brown sauce. It smelled delicious. Without looking at Datang, he began tossing her bamboo leaves folded in fat triangles. “Rice,” he said. “Bowls and chopsticks are in the cabinet above the meat.”
Datang reached up to pull them down; Lin Yongten rummaged for a long spoon, which he used to taste the sauce on the meat. His thoughtful expression did not put Datang at ease. But she had other questions. “The truth now, Eager: Is it a drunkard you’ve domiciled me with?”
“No,” said Lin Yongten, “but he has sounded the depths of our friend’s character. Warriors the size of Envied of Snakes are always proud of their fortitude at drinking, and they relish confrontation when they think they can win. You spurned him—thus his manhood stings; and I delivered him from leaden perforation—thus he cannot harass me without pretext, at least until he forgets his debt. But he owes Netten nothing. Netten sees this, for his part, and would prefer to meet Envied of Snakes on the field of the jug, under the pretext of camaraderie, rather than a test of martial skill where all must acknowledge a winner and a loser.”
“Ah,” said Datang. “So Netten is sacrificing a day’s health for a more long-lived peace.”
“No.” Lin Yongten smiled. “Netten is having a little drink. Whether Envied of Snakes exceeds his own limits is up to him.”
Datang scooted a bowl of rice over to Lin Yongten and began to fill another. “You are confident that Netten will prevail in this contest. What trick has he got?”
“No trick,” said Lin Yongten. “Merely an unusual constitution.”
Datang scooted him another bowl and noticed steam rising from the pot of meat. “The Lotus,” she said, “is that meat still cooking?”
“Nothing of the sort,” Lin Yongten said. “It was cold. Now it is hot.” He turned the pot around to show his hand resting on it, then moved the hand away. There was a red-hot handprint on it that began cooling as Datang watched.
She smiled as he spooned meat into the bowls. “Well, Corporal,” she said. “I had begun to wonder when you would unveil your talent.”
“I have yet to master the martial applications,” said Lin Yongten. “For a fencer, there are few in any case. I can only heat myself and what I can touch, and a hot blade is more apt to bend than brand. If I could fling fireballs, now, that would be another thing. But the Logistics Bureau recognized my little talent as the Four Conflagration Touch, and thus you and I are coequals in rank.”
“Ha.” Datang scooted him the last two bowls. “Wait and see.”
They brought the bowls out to the table, two each, with Lin Yongten carrying another jug of wine under his arm. Lin Gyat eagerly wolfed down the rice and meat, then downed another bowl of wine, after which he began to look sick. Netten ate and drank calmly but quickly, spilling not a drop or grain but keeping decorously ahead of Lin Gyat’s drinking. The four eased into a pleasant conversation on nothing in particular, but Datang filed away a fact about Netten that she had noticed on leaving the kitchen. She had been struck by his smell and his disheveled demeanor when he had come down to meet her and Lin Gyat, but every word and gesture did in fact, as she had first expected, recall Lin Yongten, announcing great grace and economy in speech and action. And like Lin Yongten, Netten dressed in garments of one color, and thus—recalling the hidden embroidery that Lin Gyat had named a “needle-beaked bat”— Datang had looked for subtle patterns on those garments. What she found was better hidden even than Lin Yongten’s hummingbird, since Netten’s entire outfit was in fact decorated in an abstract black-on-black pattern—but in the negative space crosscutting that pattern, she saw the insignia: The graceful figure of a slim crane, standing one-legged in an almost martial pose with its beak poised to stab into a river.
To be sure, a vintner’s daughter from the Plums had no great knowledge of the iconography of the civil service, for in the countryside one mandarin was much the same as another—but in every fairy tale, the crane’s mark was the sign of a sage, denoting a scholar of the very highest rank.
The perils of relying on gifts
t can come as no surprise to the thoughtful reader that Tenshing’s youngest wife had spoken disingenuously when she had offered to help him sleep; and, indeed, he had slept no more than fifteen minutes when it came time to see the two remaining select-petitioners. Kamala encouraged Tenshing to stay in bed, and he gave serious thought to breaking the appointment, but he knew the petitioners would have been awakened well in advance of it to ensure their prompt arrival, and it seemed a cruel thing to amplify their discomfort by delaying their audiences yet further. Tenshing allowed himself an extra five minutes to finish a few simple stretches and breathing exercises, then donned his ceremonial attire and made his way to the Orchid Throne, on the way passing several of the steward’s workers, bloodstained and bleary-eyed, making their way to bed after a night’s hard sanitation. It cannot be denied that Tenshing felt some small jealousy for these men (although they would doubtless have traded their nights for his—for men are single-minded on the whole, and although the King had been required to endure great hardships of the flesh and spirit in those small hours, his wife Kamala was beautiful enough to stun a blind man); but when he entered the throne room and found it immaculate, he knew the error of his heart, for even the concentration involved in coaxing sun-hot flame from nothing but the rlung of the spirit is rivaled by that required to expunge every flake of blood from rough stone by torchlight. King Tenshing Astama sat the Orchid Throne secure in the knowledge that he was supported by a competent staff, and the selectors (who had been standing silently in the throne room the whole time) left to summon the next petitioner.
This was a man dressed roughly, much like the plowman Thogmey, but there the resemblance ended; for where Thogmey had the classic Uä’n physique, as brown and gnarled as a cliffside tree in winter, the morning’s petitioner had the height and pallor of the Verdant Peak lineage—the pallor from mixed ancestry, of course, and the height from the consumption of great quantities of rice, which the Garden then traded for services from their cautious neighbors across the border—and where Thogmey had groomed himself meticulously for audience, this man was garbed in torn coveralls and crowned with thick black hair whose length varied irregularly and, especially in the clean lines of the throne room, most unpleasingly. “Kalsang,” announced the legalist, “free machinist of Gyachun, petitions the King.”
Kalsang approached the throne and abased himself in simple but elegant fashion. “Your Grace,” he said. “I thank you for your indulgence.”
“State your petition, Kalsang freeman,” said Tenshing.
“I will attempt more directness than the man who preceded me, Your Grace. I own my freedom, as your selectors have said, but the balance of my commerce comes from the baron of Dergyal. He has an ambitious project, Your Grace.”
“I know it,” said Tenshing. “He pretends that he can grow rice on his estates, and has plagued the royal corps of surveyors with last-minute requests while dawdling in compensating them for their time. I know you are not responsible for the baron’s affronts, Kalsang freeman, but you must understand that I cannot be too generous with his requisitions.”
“My grasp of Your Grace’s political concerns is necessarily limited,” said Kalsang. “For the small worth of my opinion, though, the baron’s project is meritorious, which perhaps counts in his favor even as his methods count against. But, in truth, my petition does not turn on the merit of planting rice in Gyachun.”
“Then I may be freer with my interest,” said Tenshing. “Please continue.”
“Once the feasibility of rice cultivation in Gyachun is confirmed,” said Kalsang, “the Duke will wish to mechanize it.”
“By the Lotus,” said the King, “you pretend you are not preoccupied with rice, freeman, yet it seems we can converse on nothing else.”
“If it is not a rice paddy in Gyachun he seeks to mechanize, then it will be a mine in Imja,” said Kalsang. “Perhaps that is more likely—we are already short of metals to repair our threshers. And if it is not those, then lumberjacks in Therku will wish to bend the gods’ gift toward their own trade, or builders here in Rassha will channel it toward theirs. I speak of what I know, not because it is the most important thing in the world, but because it instantiates an ineluctable generality.”
“Light, you are well-spoken,” said Tenshing. “‘An ineluctable generality’—I feel positively compelled to action. But what is it you wish?”
“To compel you further, Your Grace, before I make my plea.”
Tenshing could not conceal a flash of irritation. “A younger Kalsang spoke to me of directness.”
“We grow wiser as we age, Your Grace,” said Kalsang, a riposte whose justice the King was forced to concede. “That is, until we court senility; but I will not go on that long. Tell me, what is the state of your tank columns?”
“They are scattered in pieces over the killing fields at Goat Ridge,” said Tenshing. “It is not a congenial topic of conversation.”
Kalsang sketched a hasty abasement that struck Tenshing, if the truth be known, as insufficiently apologetic. “I confess I had forgotten that tragedy,” he said. “A regrettable consequence of my fervor for my cause. I am very sorry.” Tenshing waited for the word but. “But, in truth, it only amplifies my point. What will you do for tanks, Your Grace? Do not speak of artificer-monks.”
Tenshing, who had been about to invoke the artificer-monks, scowled inwardly at this stipulation. “Why should I not? They have learned much about the gods’ gifts. Those tanks ran well for a century and a half before the Rough-Hewn Torch saw fit to flay them like trout.”
“They are good men, Your Grace, and diligent; but they are godly men and excessively comfortable with mystery. And it is a commendable attitude. No one could commend it more than I.” Despite the King’s best efforts, he could not summon the charity to credit this claim. “The power to accommodate what cannot be understood is a prerequisite for sane living. But it breeds complacency, Your Grace. The cleric’s ease with the unknowable is a natural counterpoint to
the layman’s lust to know. They treat the gods’ gifts as miracles when they should be reading them as scripture. The world’s laws are locked in these machines. The world’s laws, Your Grace, not the gods’.”
“Not the gods’?” said Tenshing. “By all means, then, apprise me of their provenance.”
“Ah! Your incharity is trenchant!” said Kalsang. The legalist blanched in his corner. “I am no freethinker, Your Grace; the worlds’ laws are of the gods, but they surely do not bind the gods. To say they did—that would be heresy. And thus I categorize.”
Tenshing was forced again to acknowledge the justice of the objection; having been twice thus forced, he was put in an uncomfortable position, for his reluctance to entertain Kalsang’s impertinence was now exactly as strong as his obligation to take heed of his intelligence. “Very well,” said the King, “I can anticipate the coming plea: You wish to remove the art of technology from the monks’ purview. Perhaps you know of the legislation on this matter that has come to my desk?”
“I am acquainted with it,” said Kalsang. “But as to my petition—I wish to remove nothing. The artificer-monks have been invaluable, as you say. I wish only to allow others to amplify their contributions. It is a crime not to report new knowledge from the study of the gods’ gifts, a crime to resist submitting that knowledge and the artifacts that proffered it to the church at their request—”
“I know a little of the law, machinist,” said Tenshing.
“Perhaps you do not know the frequency with which the lamate confiscates our experiments,” said Kalsang. “Their record is near-perfect. They are bloodhounds for our work. In truth, I do not know where they find the time to innovate.”
“Have a care,” said Tenshing. “It is not only monks who wear the white.” He tugged his own white-on-white coat, subtly adjusting its fit.
“Good men lose their lives to threshers and tractors every month,” said Kalsang, “in numbers beyond counting. Friends of mine, some of them. The priests craft replacement parts as they write their manuscripts: slowly, caring for beauty over precision. They will not hear that the shape of an illumination is a matter of taste, where that of a cam shaft is a matter of physical necessity. They rediscover fundamental principles in the guise of special circumstances. We must lash our tanks and printing presses together with wire and twine, but men have been executed for suggesting we build new ones—”