by IGMS
"You have put forth this opinion enough, Mercio, enough I say! You would make our kings to be villains, and have us tear down the statues of our revered generals? It is a malicious lie. If you dare to place another report on my desk with the intent to undermine our proud nation, you will be through here! Your father's wealth cannot shield you, sir."
The minister stormed out and Kato jumped back, shutting the door. He waited until the minister's bellow had faded down the hall, then squared himself and strode to Johan's office.
Johan sat very still behind his desk, his face unnaturally calm. By God, forget the curls and the lace, in that moment Johan looked too much like himself.
Kato pointed in the direction the minister had gone. "What was that about?"
Johan's mouth edged tight. "That is a man who is scared of the truth."
"And what is the truth, Master Mercio?"
Johan's eyes lit like coals fanned to flame.
"You have read the reports of this war, our Victorious War as we call it, fought two hundred years ago. It is what has defined Venton, it is part of our national pride," he spat that in the pompous tone of the minister, "to have unified so many smaller states into this grand and peaceful nation."
Johan cut the air with his hand. "It is a lie. We glorify our conquering generals, we praise them for bringing the surrounding kingdoms into enlightenment. But these men tore into lands that were at peace with them, ravaging farms and estates and villages, killing tens of thousands of soldiers and as many or more civilians. What Venton is today was won by greed and blood."
"It was a war," Kato said evenly. "Yes, I have seen your reports. There are always casualties in war. Your country is stable. There aren't soldiers in the streets, there aren't people going hungry --"
"There are more poor in this city than there have ever been," Johan said. "We pretend not to see them. We keep them out of our wealthy districts, and they starve in their hovels. I go to them, and they believe me when I say that it was Venton's greed that got them there --" Johan clamped his mouth shut.
Kato eyed Johan warily. "There are poor in every city. Starvation is hardly new."
Johan shoved a paper across to Kato. "Here. Read this. You haven't seen this one yet."
Kato took the sheet of parchment and scanned the text. It was part of an eyewitness account of a battle to take a city. The witness saw three street children, none more than eight years old, cut down by Ventonese soldiers when they tried to attack them with knives and sticks. Brave lads.
"And this one."
The next was an accounting of supplies gained from the forced taking of an enemy lord's estate. A footnote listed the weaponry and goods taken from the dead, among them a double handful of dresses and shoes that could only have come from women and children.
Kato handed both back. He had seen such reports before. Most of these matters were handled on a lower level, but if the event was significant enough, the report made it into his hands.
"I have never liked it," he said, "but it is simply a part of war."
Johan shook his head and his lips pressed tighter. "My family gained our wealth through the trading of such stolen goods. We were only small merchants in Tentek, but then we saw the opportunity for profit and joined with the Ventonese. We rose quickly. We sold out our people."
Ah, then it was personal. Kato had dealt with plenty of junior officers, and even some of his field generals, who came to him at one time or another in a lathered moral rage. He'd heard them out, and then pointed them, slowly but surely, to the reasons why they were men of war. To their duties to their oaths, to their king and their country.
"Master Mercio," Kato said, "I understand. But this guilt is not yours, you did not do these things yourself --"
"Yes, but I still profit from them! We all do, and this blindness is tearing apart our humanity --"
Kato held up his hand. "What has happened is in the past. Your government is stable, and I will hazard that it is stronger now than it ever was before the war that united it. You have a duty to maintain that stability --"
"I have a duty --"
Johan stood, his face red and blotchy. "Leave."
Kato hesitated, then bowed and left the office.
The next day, Kato went straight to the study room. He went through the stacks of books and ledgers again and began a new report.
Venton's Victorious War had stabilized the nations in this region, had vastly improved the lifestyles and lifespans of the inhabitants, and had even improved morale and brought in new relations and trade with foreign powers. None of this would have been possible if Venton had not taken the initiative two hundred years before. He had to make Johan see this before the man got himself hanged.
Kato left that evening satisfied he would have a full report the next day. He walked down clean, cobbled streets and breathed in the musk of horse and cinnamon of pastry vendors on the street corners.
Around him, street lamps flared to life, then settled to a warm glow. Houses rich in scrollwork spilled light through many windows, their inhabitants moving to a leisurely dance. A carriage pulled up to one entrance and spilled out laughing, glittering young people.
How could Johan not see this was a paradise? How could he possibly want to bring it down? If this was what Kato was building, he wasn't sure he wanted to stop his wars. Maybe it was worth the price.
Johan felt Kato working down the hall in the tightness of the air. He didn't know what the general was doing after he'd shattered the benefit of the blind analysis, but he doubted he would like it.
Kato was too much a military man. He would never understand the heart of Johan's theories: that a nation born of atrocities, that would not acknowledge its crimes, would never rise above those origins. The corruption would only turn inward and fester.
A knock came on his door and one of the gangly office messengers handed him an envelope before rushing out again.
Johan broke the seal and pulled out a single sheet of paper, not signed. But there was nothing mysterious about this invitation. He read the lines again and his lips compressed.
Now he would see what all of this was about.
Johan tugged himself into his jacket. He paused by the mirror propped on one of his bookshelves to adjust the folds of lace at his throat. Satisfied and thus armed, Johan swept out.
He rapped on Kato's door. "We are required in the minister's office."
Kato frowned, glanced at his book-stacked worktable, and then stepped into the hall. He closed the door before Johan could see more of what was inside.
When they arrived at the minister's office, an aide ushered them inside. Sunlight streamed through tall windows, framing the minister behind his massive, vine-carved oak desk. The minister glanced up from his work and regarded them, pen poised in bloated fingers.
"Master Mercio. Master -- Kato, is it?"
Kato nodded.
The minister motioned with his pen at two chairs in front of his desk. "Please, take a seat."
"Is this about Master Mercio's theories?" Kato asked. "I have written my own report that highlights the benefits of your Victorious War."
Johan clenched his hands on his knees and did not look at Kato.
The minister paused. Johan watched mental gears so obviously scrape before the minister scowled again. He had been surprised by Kato's comment.
Johan's stomach churned.
"That is well, Master Kato," the minister said, "but I do not believe your word is valid at this point, and much the pity." He held out his hand. "May I see your travel permits, entrance documents, and permission to be in these offices?"
Kato stirred and handed over his portfolio. The minister studied it for a moment, and then sniffed.
"It is a good forgery," he said, "but the High Minister's office has no record of an application by a Marcus Kato."
Kato went rigid.
"Minister," Johan said, but then stopped. Was he going to defend Kato? Wasn't the man working for the minister?
/> But the minister had been surprised by Kato's siding against Johan.
Too many thoughts had tugged at Johan's mind these last few days for him to continue to ignore them. Kato was -- something else. He almost checked around him for the brightly colored robes of the monks.
"We do not begrudge visitors to our nation, or even advisors in our capitol," the minister said in a tone of false amiability. "But you see, the proper procedures must be followed. If you are here from another nation, you must have permits for travel and residency in our lands. If you are here from another parallel, well, there are other protocols to be followed by the Accords of the Parallels."
The muscles in Kato's neck stood taut and corded, but Johan read confusion in his eyes. He didn't know, did he, these specific laws in the Accords? He'd had secretaries for such legalities. He didn't know that to cross parallels without documentation was to forfeit any and all rights, and be subject to the will of the nation he'd crossed into.
Johan stood. "Sir. Minister. I will see that this is sorted out."
Kato and the minister stood as well, the minister with his too-wide smile.
"What is the name of your parallel, Kato? I will need that for the paperwork."
Kato opened his mouth, closed it again, and looked to Johan. Then he looked past him, scanning the room.
The door banged and guards spilled in, helmets and breastplates gleaming ornate silver, long knives held ready.
Kato blurred and two of the guards fell before he rounded on a third.
Johan fumbled for his belt and a dagger, but he had not carried one since his boyhood days with his family's caravans.
Johan rounded on the minister, who stood pale, his eyes catching glints from the guards' knives.
"Stop this," Johan hissed.
"You had it coming, Mercio," the minister said in a smug voice. "I warned you --"
Johan punched the minister in the face. Cartilage gave with a satisfying crunch, and the minister toppled backwards.
Johan yelped and tried to shake out the pain in his hand.
A shout behind him made him turn, just in time to duck the knife swipe of a guard.
Kato jabbed his knife under the man's chin. Johan watched as red bloomed there, the guard's hands coming up and then spasming as he fell. Red sprayed across the front of the desk, painting the carved vines.
"Johan!" Kato yelled, and tossed him a knife. It nicked his sleeve and clattered on across the room.
Johan had seen so many battles in his mind. He had read so many reports, and he'd thought he'd understood the smell of blood, but it was nothing like this. Nothing like this tang that got in his mouth and throat, sharp and cool as iron.
There were four guards on the floor, and Kato's sleeves bled red. Kato grappled with one guard, then spun him to use as a shield against another.
This wasn't war. This was a group of ceremonial guards, and the minister wanted Kato and him to fight them. He wanted blood stacked against them. Kato was the means to silence Johan.
The corruption continued.
Johan shook his head sharply. "Kato, stop!" He turned to see another guard lunging for him and jumped back, stumbling into the chair. "I surrender! I surrender!"
The guard grabbed Johan and yanked his hands behind his back, clapping on the manacles.
The minister was just now getting to his feet. He held his red-soaked handkerchief to his nose. "Good man," he said to Johan.
Johan's whole face puckered in an effort not to spit at him. The guard shoved his head down.
Johan was jerked sideways, and then the guard cried out and let go. Kato crashed the guard into another chair, splintering the wood. Two more hustled in to take the first guard's place.
Kato grunted and staggered as one scored a cut to his shoulder. The guards closed in, and Kato raised his knife.
"Kato, stop!" Johan yelled.
Kato wobbled back. It was enough for the guards to knock the knife from his hand and force him to the floor.
They thunked Johan down beside him, the plush wool rug pressing into his cheek. He met Kato's eyes. They were bright with rage. And then the guards stepped between them. Pain exploded in Johan's head and everything else faded to darkness.
Kato had only been in the cell a handful of minutes, almost long enough to bring some wits back into his ringing head, when the iron door grated open. The guards came back, half-dragging Johan.
Kato jerked against the chains bolting him to the floor, slurring every curse he could think of through puffing lips. The manacles bit into his wrists, and cuts that the surgeons had hastily sewn and bandaged after the prison guards had given him a thorough beating started seeping blood.
The guards fixed Johan's manacles to the bolt in the floor, kicked Kato in the knee, and left.
Kato leaned his head back and waited for the dizziness to pass. Nausea crept up his throat and he breathed in deeply, gagging at the lungful of piss and shit.
He looked over at Johan. There were no windows this far down in the prison, but some light filtered through the high barred opening in the door. A bandage wrapped Johan's forehead, already half-soaked with blood. Two fingers were bent in the wrong direction, though nothing else seemed broken.
"Johan?"
He didn't stir.
Kato rattled his chains. "Johan!"
Johan twitched, too long of a second after, and groaned.
"We'll get out," Kato said. "We'll find a way out."
Johan's jaw worked a moment before words came. "They're going to kill us." Johan sniffed. His cheeks streamed with tears.
Bile flared back up Kato's throat. He wanted to shout at Johan to pull himself together, but the rage died quickly and left him panting.
Surely Li Sha could see him here, in her viewing crystal. Surely she would get him out.
"I'm sorry," Johan said. "My theories."
Kato barked a laugh. Maybe Johan's theories of Venton's corruption had been the issue, but Kato knew that he had been the lever the minister had used.
"Alright, how did the minister do it?"
"Your papers," Johan coughed. "You're not from this parallel."
Kato bared his teeth. He didn't know the Accords as well as he should; they had never been relevant on the battlefield, and Li Sha knew that. She had watched him for years.
And she had sent him here.
If he died here in this parallel, his offensive would fall apart in months. Resistance in the nations he had already taken would broaden the chaos, and his king would be overthrown. The monks would bring in another man, someone who could, eventually, bring peace. Marcus Kato would never have to break his oaths.
"Damn," Kato said softly.
In all of Johan's work, he'd somehow never thought he'd end up in prison. He hurt everywhere, though in the hours he'd sat here, most of it had dulled to a steady throbbing. He tried not to think about his fingers and the crooked garlic sneer of the guard as he'd held Johan's hand against the stone wall.
"Kato," he croaked. He tried to swallow, but he hadn't had a drink for hours.
"Uh?" Kato said.
He needed to think of something other than the fire in his throat, the cold in his bones, and how he would probably not leave here alive.
"Why did you come here? Did you somehow sneak through the Monastery?"
Kato barked a laugh. "No, but I would like to see someone try."
"Then gods, man, what did you do to them? Did they want you to get caught?"
Kato grimaced, and then stared at the wall. Johan wanted to prompt him, but maybe in this place it was best to let the man have his peace. He shifted against the wall and tried to will himself to sleep.
"I am High Marshall of the armies of Naraken," Kato said. "And the Monastery sent me to you to help stop my wars."
And Johan learned how Kato, a son of his kingdom's minor nobility, had risen quickly through the ranks. When he had helped turn the tide in a battle for another nation's capital, his king had made him a general.
"He tasked me with planning his next campaign. He wanted more, more more more, and I gave it to him. I gave him a weapon, and the sharper it became, the more he wished to cut."
He looked at Johan, and the pride on his face warred with shame.
What did Kato want from him? He knew who Kato was. Kato was himself, in another parallel. And Kato was everything he despised.
"They sent me here to die," Kato said, "because it solves all problems. Except for getting you caught up in this."
Johan should have never accepted that invitation to the palace reception.
"I want peace," Kato said. "I am tired of the wars and all of the deaths."
Did Kato want Johan to absolve him? Kato had tried to undermine his theories, and it had been Kato's mess that had made the Monastery meddle in Johan's affairs.
But Kato had fought for him in the minister's office. And maybe Kato had thought he'd been helping Johan in writing that report, regardless of how wrong it was. Kato was a man of honor, in his own way. And Johan could feel a sameness there, like a cord thrumming to a matching note inside himself.
"Maybe the Monastery will come to claim you in a few days," Johan said.
Kato snorted. "That I can hope for, but not bet my life on."
The sentence, when it arrived, was death. Bolstered on either side by hulking guards, the messenger wheezed out the charges of espionage and treason in a flat, bored voice.
They took Kato first. Johan croaked his protest, but the guards shut him up with a casual, heavy slap.
They marched Kato up three stories and into a cramped room that smelled of damp and rotten meat. The guards locked his chains into a chair in the center, then left.
Kato waited. Every few handfuls of breaths, he heard footsteps in the corridor. Or occasionally a scream. He closed his eyes and willed his breathing to slow, to keep himself in focus. Waiting was part of the breaking.
Had the Monastery truly been silent, or had they told Venton to have their way with him? Was this their method of forcing atonement for his many sins?