Taji From Beyond the Rings

by R. Cooper

  He didn’t know what it meant, in fact, and had no one to ask.

  His awe of his surroundings had started to fade the moment he had been placed behind the ambassador on a cushion on the floor, near the table but not at the table. The ambassador could lean back to speak to him if needed, but so far hadn’t. Tsomyal’s translation device was on and in place, so translation was not Taji’s purpose in being there today. His real purpose was to listen, to make notes, and to mark down anything that they ought to look into later.

  He was spying in plain sight, which was ridiculous. He was no more qualified to be a spy than run a country. But he glanced up once in a while and otherwise kept his gaze downcast as he listened to the back and forth flow of words.

  His hip hurt, his knees were not happy, and his lower back ached. His stomach had started to complain an hour ago, quietly, at least. His head was beginning to pound as his pain pills wore off. Or maybe that was the strain of listening intently for hours to a conversation in another language while his translation device murmured in his ear.

  The assembled Koel and the ambassador had chatted pleasantly about meaningless topics for some time before the servants had brought the food. The sheer amount of platters had been almost boastful, or torturous. They weren’t going to eat all that food, not these controlled Shavian nobility.

  The waste was especially irksome once Taji realized that a lot of this display was to impress the ambassador, who wasn’t going to eat much either. According to Taji’s DD, hours had passed before servants appeared to take away the plates and trays of unfinished food. He tried to distract himself from his growling stomach by studying their feet. The Koel servants went barefoot, which was fascinating, especially since the ambassador had pointed out the nobles’ obsession with shoes.

  Shavians didn’t really need shoes. For space travel or mining work on the moon, sure. Perhaps for trekking across a hot desert. But on Mirsa, in the temperate zones and in their everyday life, they did not. Shavians had big hands, proportional to their bodies, but their feet were something special. Shaped not unlike human feet, but larger, with sturdy pads, toes that could grip, and strong toenails that were possibly the remnants of claws.

  Those would not be fun to encounter under bedcovers, at least if left untrimmed.

  The silent way the servants moved was all the more interesting, and made some murals Taji had seen make a lot more sense. Early Shavians, the ones who had crossed the ocean in their quest to take this land, must have fought barefoot. In armor, according to the murals, but barefoot. And yet now the nobles and most of the other citizens of the capital wore slippers and boots.

  Taji did not glance back toward Trenne, standing guard on the other side of the partitioned wall that led into this room, but he did think of him barefoot on the sparring mats. He wondered how much of Shavian culture Trenne had absorbed while growing up in this city, even though he wasn’t treated like one of them.

  He’d love to know what the I.P.T.C. had been thinking to send Trenne here, but based on the limited information early IPTC reps had bothered to gather, the I.P.T.C. probably had no idea that Trenne would not be treated kindly in his home country. They had probably thought having a Shavian on the team would appeal to the locals.

  That lack of thinking—or concern—was why IPTC sent people like Taji to the places they did business with. But whoever had been here before, Taji’s predecessor and his predecessors, hadn’t done their jobs properly. Putting Trenne in the capital, in addition to being insensitive to Trenne, could have been viewed as an insult or a challenge. Taji wasn’t a diplomat, but he knew context was important.

  Fuck. All those times he’d caught people staring at Trenne and assumed it was for the same reason that he stared at Trenne. Those interfering Shavians from the night before had been shocked to see Trenne in an I.P.T.C. uniform, and not in a ‘that soldier should fuck me’ way.

  The noble to Taji’s left abruptly sat up. Taji jerked his attention back to the conversation as people gasped in approval for the bottle of midye being placed in the center of the table. One of the servants began to pour, while another handed out each tiny cup one by one. Taji did not get one, and today he was fine with that.

  “Surprised to see you out of the house, Phyta,” Koel Gia offered, after reaching for her cup of midye a little too eagerly. Gia was Eriat’s cousin. They were all cousins, to some degree. Most of them lived, or had a house, on this estate. Gia looked to be middle-aged, perhaps slightly past it, but Taji could have been wrong. Her soria was a gorgeous red, but undecorated, and her hair was plaited tight and close to her skull.

  Taji’s translator insisted that the word used by others about her, heh, meant either he or she, but Gia had no visible knife and none of the identifying as male figures in the room used heh. The other gender option mentioned so far, tahl, had so far only been used to describe Koel Talfa. Taji had finally made a bunch of confused notes to himself and settled on she to describe Gia.

  Taji looked up from his DD and his notes on Sha gender to find that Koel Phyta, considerably younger than the others, had frozen at the attention. Phyta, Taji had been delighted to see, wore the tight pants so despised by the older generations. He had paler coloring, enough for Taji to notice the violet flush that probably embarrassed him more than whatever his cousin was trying to say.

  “Why would I not leave my house for a meal with my cousin?” Phyta inquired coolly.

  “Newly tied to his isica, and able to leave the house. I am so proud, Phyta.” Gia was possibly roasting her cousin. Isica could mean happiness, which was how Taji’s translator interpreted it. Saying Phyta was newly tied to his happiness was like saying he was newly married to his sweetheart. Leaving a honeymoon for a family meal was a big deal, Taji supposed. But Phyta hadn’t brought his spouse with him.

  “No children yet?” Gia needed to slow down on the wine. Taji blinked at what seemed like an intrusive question, but the others at the table looked to Koel Phyta with piqued interest.

  “How blessed you are, to have persuaded someone like Tir Quida to give you her honor.” Koel Endri, sitting close to Eriat at the head of the table, seemed to approve of Phyta and his happiness.

  “I miss her. She was spirited,” Gia sighed.

  Phyta did not appear to be bothered by any of that. He bowed his head. “I have been blessed many times over. They say it is still soon for the possibility of a child, but I have heard from a human in the service of the I.P.T.C. that there are ways to speed the process along. Quida was heartened to hear it.”

  It could have been any other family discussing pregnancies and fertility issues, if other families had them in rooms filled with weapons meant to kill. Eriat was leaning in to listen intently.

  In the equivalent of his fifties, by Taji’s best guess, Eriat was a dignified figure in black and lavender. He had two adult children, although he had never tied to a spouse, even briefly. Which made his having offspring all the more remarkable. Children outside of committed relationships were rare. Some cultures were like that about sex and reproduction, placing more value on marriage or the local variant. Others did not worry about social rules, but required the sort of chemical bond that came with commitment in order for sexual reproduction to occur. Taji didn’t know which applied here.

  Eriat’s children were not his heirs, which was puzzling. Taji absently noted that in his DD.

  “Shame to disappoint her,” one of the older cousins—Talfa, who was quite tall, even by Shavian standards, remarked. Actually, they were all older. Phyta and Taji seemed to be the youngest people in the room, outside of the servants. Talfa was probably Trenne’s age, or close to it. Talfa wore no knife and was referred to as tahl, which Taji assumed was a gendered pronoun, and which Taji’s translator would only insist was they or them even when it obviously wasn’t.

  His predecessor had either been lazy or very distracted.

  Phyta turned sharply, his ears up, and then flat. “Do you imply I cannot make my shehzha happy?�
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  Taji perked up.

  Talfa sat back and lowered their eyes. “Apologies. I do not.”

  “Phyta.” Eriat extended a hand to calm the situation. “Talfa is Talfa. You know not to mind their foolishness. You would have laughed before. Are you troubled with the longing? Can you no longer fight it?”

  “No,” Phyta denied quickly, without giving Taji any explanation about what he was longing for or why he had to fight it. “You are right. I spoke harshly.” Phyta looked to Talfa, then took a sip of his wine. The Koel to Taji’s left, whose name Taji hadn’t caught, released a small, relieved breath.

  “If there is anything we can offer to assist you, please let us know,” the ambassador spoke warmly, extending an offer to Phyta that seemed to relax him. His ears went back to normal. The ambassador spoke ‘Asha, though Taji was not sure how much of that conversation Tsomyal had followed.

  “May you be blessed with children.” Talfa seemed to be trying to apologize for whatever faux pas they had made. They also seemed sincere.

  Phyta accepted that, or so it seemed to Taji, although he ducked his head, as if shy, before straightening again. His attitude was determined. “I will honor her.”

  Tir Quida, Taji noticed, was referred to with a slightly different sounding her than Gia.

  “Ah!” Gia lazily swirled the midye in her cup. “Look at him. So happy he is almost wild.”

  Taji looked from her to Phyta in amazement. Phyta stiffened as if this had been a rebuke, and Talfa gave Gia a thoughtful glance.

  Ambassador Tsomyal cut in once again. “Koel Phyta, I met with Tir Quida when I was first assigned here. I’m sorry to find her absent from the table, but pleased to know she is being cared for.”

  “I will pass on your words.” Phyta’s ears flicked up. He might as well have been beaming a smile at the ambassador. Trenne would probably be scandalized at such a display of emotion. “I am sure she would like to see you again.” Phyta hesitated, “Perhaps, in a less public gathering…” He trailed off as he looked to Eriat, and then sighed. “Perhaps not.”

  Taji lowered his gaze to his data device before anyone saw anything untoward on his face, such as a vague but real concern that Phyta’s spouse was trapped in their house. Several of the Koel at this table were married—tied was the direct translation of the word—and they were out in public. Taji didn’t see why this one should be kept away, unless it was some kind of superstition or belief about pregnancy. Although she couldn’t be pregnant if she and Phyta were curious about newly available fertility technology.

  “Phyta!” The Koel to Taji’s left was apparently appalled. “You know better than to suggest such a thing.”

  “Quida is perfectly capable of sitting here with us.” Phyta managed to keep his tone measured, and yet Taji got the full sense of his frustration. “You worry so much about the emperor’s disrespect, and yet you allow unnecessary sacrifices—”

  “Phyta.” Endri made the name a warning.

  Phyta, who was Taji’s favorite at the table so far, slowly lowered his cup. “Perhaps I will stay home more often, since it is no longer wise to move around the city.”

  The moment of silence that followed that statement said more than yelling could have. Taji wondered if Phyta had also been instructed not to mention the riot and had decided to do it anyway, because he was pissed off about whatever it was they all weren’t talking about.

  “What is there to see outside our walls? Not even a single garden,” Endri huffed, as if the lower classes didn’t like trees and flowers and had purposefully wound up in houses without gardens.

  “My assistant was quite taken with The Fires, but some interference was necessary with some of the population to ensure his safety.” The ambassador, despite all their instructions, despite the warnings, had apparently been waiting for a chance to mention the events of last night. “I had thought it confined to the other districts. I do not recall ever seeing the Civil Guard so far into the Gardens.”

  Taji inched closer, fascinated despite his jolt at being mentioned. Diplomacy was like a sublanguage. The words were important, but less than when and how they were said.

  “They should not be necessary, and would not be if—”

  “Many things have changed,” Eriat interrupted Gia in the mildest of tones.

  “It is a long time since the conquest, Eriat.” Koel Tule, who had so far been silent, spoke up. He had not touched his midye.

  “I am aware of that, Tule.” Eriat appeared unconcerned. “It has been a long time since the empire spanned the seas. But we remain, and our ideals remain. They will guide us as they did them.” He gestured upward, as though the weapons on the walls, or the walls themselves, were the personifications of their ancestors.

  Gia’s tone was suspiciously flat. “None of us could hope to wield those, Eriat. We are not the conquerors. We can only hope to honor them.” Gia turned toward the ambassador. “Understand, Tsomyal, that my cousin is very proud of our history.”

  “As he should be.” The ambassador inclined their head. If Ambassador Tsomyal had any thoughts on the conquest, or the empire, or the current state of affairs, it was not in their tone. “Your family helped take this land and knew the original emperors?” Neither did the ambassador indicate that they only learned these facts on the ride over here.

  Tule spoke again, his tone a lot like an aging IPTC officer. “The Koel numbered among the original emperors, before the capital city was moved from across the ocean. We have been generals, and battle leaders, and consorts. A Koel was sheh—”

  “Tule. Enough.” The Koel at Taji’s left spoke the way people often spoke to white-haired, shaky old relatives, softly but impatiently. If Taji talked to his dad that way, his dad would waste no time calling him out for the disrespect, university-educated professional or not.

  “The family Koel has much to be proud of.” Ambassador Tsomyal’s throaty voice did not convey flattery or insincerity. “My assistant has been trying to learn all your history.”

  That was an odd comment. Taji glanced over, but could only view the side of the ambassador’s face. Then he realized he now had everyone’s attention on him and did his best to seem officious.

  “Perhaps….” Gia spoke first. “Perhaps he can walk through the first floor of Tule’s home. His is the oldest, and has some of the best murals. We could arrange that. Eriat is also very knowledgeable on our family’s part in the conquest, if your assistant should wish to hear.”

  She was looking at Taji, but not addressing him. Taji realized his annoyance was probably visible, and dropped his head to stare at his lap. He pretended to type something into his device.

  The ambassador spoke for him. “He would like that.”

  Taji would like that, but was still irritated. Thankfully, the Koel forgot him in favor of returning to the subject of their ancestors’ greatness.

  Eriat raised his voice slightly. “The Koel have a glorious history of battle and service to Sha. We helped end early uprisings and fund the building of this city. Galya Temple was the work of a devout Koel, and the first priests were members of the family.” The temple was beautiful, Taji had to admit, although he had only seen the exterior. “The great hall of the Aza estate contains a mural of the Siege of Ka’asro, led by a Koel general. We are tied to the capital, and to the nation. We welcomed the second expedition from the Interplanetary Trade Coalition when they arrived and invited them for talks with Iost Emperor.”

  The first IPTC expedition to Sha had been held in the dungeons of the Olea estate and then executed. The second expedition, sometime later, had shown up with greater numbers and more obvious force. The Shavians had little choice in welcoming them by then.

  Taji was mostly amazed that the emperors had dungeons. Not jails, or a military brig, or something temporary, but prisons explicitly for political enemies. He couldn’t imagine a great empire building rockets to explore space and colonize a moon but locking up and possibly torturing opponents in a dungeon. Although,
in their defense, a group of puny creatures called humans had shown up in their country, claimed to be part of a larger alliance of countries, and demanded things. Taji might have locked them up, too.

  “The Koel have a history of acting when necessary and adapting to changes,” Eriat added, as if he and the others didn’t hide here on their estates most of the time. He was listing his accomplishments to the ambassador as if he was applying for a job.

  Taji nearly rolled his eyes. Then he stopped and looked up again. This time, he took in the serious expressions on every face, the mostly untouched cups of midye. He didn’t know why the younger members of the family were not here, but he wondered what it meant that the head of the house of Koel was here, and why he had invited the ambassador to a midday meal when many of the noble families had been doing their best to ignore IPTC’s expanding presence in their country for as long as they could.