Turn 12: After the Battle--Part 2
Kiralo gathered his thoughts, looking at the regal--and that was the word, not imperial but regal, a King of old, not an Emperor now--man before him. There was something oddly intimate about the very act of finally facing each other.
Prince Jinhai would be dead soon, and perhaps that focused his thoughts, made him consider the man as he might not have before. As a human being, soon to be dead. As an enemy who he was at last through with. There was something cruel in this evaluation, of course, something cruel in the sweeping of him from Kiralo's attention, from the fact that at last he was a human--and yet that meant no more kinship and no more sympathy than he'd feel for any human.
Kiralo took a breath. "It has been so strange, to fight against you for an entire year without seeing you plain. As you are here and now. You come to negotiate, and yet… do you have some sort of plan or?"
"Plan?" Jinhai asked, calmly. He looked at Kiralo, and Kiralo could see the distance yet separating them, the way that they were still two people on opposite sides of a war. It was necessary, and perhaps even right, but it would make any negotiations difficult. "I come here to negotiate."
"For what terms?"
"First, the lives of my followers family under sixteen. Perhaps I'd want for more, but…"
Kiralo considered it. There were some traditions of sparing children in such purges, but other traditions that children of such tainted houses would only grow up to be rebels. And more than that, the age itself was asking more than most did. Sparing babies was easier than sparing children was easier than sparing teens.
He frowned.
"Consider when you were sixteen," Jinhai said.
"I'd just become a Rassit," Kiralo said.
"And at fifteen, you could not have been so," Jinhai said. His voice was calm, his tone reasoned, but he seemed aware of how much he was playing for. He seemed aware that this was serious, and that the lives of more than a few people rested in his hands.
"Fifteen year olds grow up to be sixteen."
"Yet the seed might grow better if planted in better soil," Jinhai quoted.
"And he was right, is that your argument?" A famous act of mercy, many hundreds of years ago, one that had paid off within a generation. The councilor was known as the wise, and it had been the actions of the grandson of the spared man that had led the drive that had forced out the Southlander dynasty of Emperors and restored the center of the world to its rightful place.
"He could be. All such wisdom is eternal."
"So quotes many men," Kiralo said, itself a quote. "But the barbarian clothed is a barbarian, and the fool clothed in the sayings of the wise…"
"Do you believe that?" Jinhai asked, his tone growing almost conversational. "Surely a barbarian in clothes is no barbarian at all?"
Kiralo let out a breath and stepped forward. "Do you want to sit down? This might yet take a while." Because Jinhai was taking the personal moment, taking the distance away, and Kiralo was letting him, because at the end of the day, one of them was going to be executed for treason, and it was not Kiralo.
"Are you offering a chair?" Jinhai asked.
"Yes. You know, even if this is done, they will need to swear loyalty to the empire, and their lives will be that of hostages, their property forfeit. If they are to be enemies of the empire, they are not going to be allowed to be powerful enemies."
Kiralo gestured, and one of the guards, but no more, left, as they talked.
"I know this. I have to try. I have to win their lives, and I have something I can offer that is quite useful. Compliance, yes. I have bribes as well, no doubt. I could tell you secrets, and promise you all manner of things, but what secret would you believe, and what gift could I grant that you could not take? Ask if you want, or do not. I can at least offer to go easily. To slide my way into the land of the dead with less desperately flailing."
"It seems odd, to act with so little power, does it?" Kiralo asked, on a hunch.
"Of course. All that's left is you, and that's not a comforting feeling for me." Jinhai let out a breath. "But will you send out a declaration… considering the matter?"
"I might," Kiralo said. "What else do you want?"
"I assume you will be pardoning all of the common soldiers their faults?"
"Of course, they aren't to blame."
"You'd be surprised who would think that. You know who suffers when war happens," Jinhai said, with a dark, sarcastic lilt.
"Everyone," Kiralo admitted, as the guard stepped back in with a chair, which he placed behind Jinhai. "Sit."
Jinhai sat down, almost collapsed into the seat, in fact, his face drawn with pain and exhaustion, as if he no longer feared to show it. "It feels more real now, my defeat. Seeing you. You're a general and a half. If there is justice in this world, you won't be executed and sidelined, as I'm sure you're aware could happen. After all, a victorious general brings a present of a silver sword, sharpened for war."
War beget war, or so most philosophers agreed, and thus a victorious general was often as feared as a traitor was. Kiralo knew those fears were not always baseless. Even when a general dared not overthrow the Emperor, far too many were willing to purge the courts in the name of justice, killing hundreds and replacing them, and making the Emperor nothing more than a puppet, and more than that, a puppet for a tyrant.
Kiralo didn't wince, he kept his 'face' on, because this was a courtly scene, but he did respond. "Perhaps so. What else do you want?"
"Promise them their lives."
"In your name?"
"My name is worth nothing," Jinhai said. "No. In your name. May it yet be respected for ages to come."
"... I can do the latter, certainly. I do not wish to be a butcher, and never have. What other demands do you have of me?"
"Oh, do not be so angry," Jinhai said. "I have only two more. Well, and then one personal request. First, my royal regalia is all in my camp or in one of my castles. Make sure to retrieve it, because do you know what will happen if you don't?"
"It belongs to the imperial line, and to the imperial line will it return," Kiralo said. The swords, the crowns, the jewels, the titles, all of that which had created a side line of the imperial family in order, it was hoped, to control the east, was going to revert to the Imperial Family now.
"Unless someone, anyone, decides to secret away some small objects, some sign or symbol, in case time calls at last for a pretender. Perhaps I will be his father, having somehow faked his death, alive in some older form to declare that my son is the rightful Emperor, as I was before my time had passed. Even your closest allies might want to have a tool ready for the possibility that it might be needed."
Kiralo considered this, and realized that of course this might happen. He closed his eyes, his spirits keeping watch, and thought. If this were the cities, it would have occurred to him at once. It was the kind of scheme one did, down south. The courts were very dangerous places, and Kiralo was trained in their ways. "I can do so, if you give me a list of them. I am aware of just what my enemies and so-called allies might be plotting. They aren't, in any case, my allies."
"Your father's. I've been told that you hated your father, and I'd hoped that would hold you back. and yet, he didn't. I do trust one thing about him: he would never countenance such a move. He would feel, rightfully, that it would weaken the dignity of the Imperial Seat."
"Why are you doing this?" Kiralo asked.
"I've raised one Civil War. I do not want to raise a second from the grave by my negligence. If I had won, I would be a hero, but what good does leaving even a little room for some pretender to claim that the man killed in public was a double? And if they have the right Imperial signs and symbols, they might even pass as it to some fools and peasants. Though it is said that repetition is folly."
Kiralo did not visibly bristle, but his own opinion of peasants was certainly a little bit less negative. But it was true that they were not in a position to know the truth in many cases, and more than that, that they would be riled up by someone or other, if they needed an army. How many of the peasants in either army were truly motivated by a righteous desire to save the Empire, as opposed to every other human motive.
Too few, or perhaps as few as expected.
"That is said, yes," Kiralo said. "I understand your fears. I share them."
"We find more in common when we finally talk?" Jinhai asked, sounding almost amused as he rubbed his eyes. "I've heard a lot about you, so it is odd…"
"What is odd?" Kiralo asked, smoothly.
"Your actual presence versus that in tales my spies tell. Similar, but not the same. I've read a lot about you, ever since I realized what your father had planned. A clever man, acting in a cause he finds righteous, and yet…"
"I can criticize my father. I have cause," Kiralo said, trying to get away from the biting commentary. "You do not."
"Perhaps that is so," Jinhai said with a shrug. "My fourth request is rather greater than the third, which is in your interest anyways. My brother is twelve. I want him to live."
"I am sorry, but that's impossible," Kiralo said. "Surely you understand the politics as well as I, or anyone else."
Jinhai sighed. "Yet, there must be a way."
"He is a traitor, and will give birth to traitors. That much is evident. Those far away from you might be spared, but your own brother? I do not see--"
"Castration. He is young enough yet to be easily castrated, and as a prisoner with no way to carry on the bloodline, what threat is he?" Jinhai asked it coldly, almost absently, and yet Kiralo felt the emotion.
What sort of brother suggested the castration of his kin? And yet… it was an act that could not be seen as mere care for the bloodline. He was offering to cut it off here and now, as it would be cut off either way.
It was an act of love, Kiralo decided. A cunning one, too, for it could conceal baser motives. After all, so long as Jinhai's brother lived, he might yet be a figure of some small import as a tool against the right person.
Surely Jinhai knew that, and yet it was also something requested in all good faith, and if Kiralo did not feel for Jinhai--he was a man, and he'd made his decisions--then how could he deny the life of a young man?
Kiralo bit his lip, and then his mask came up again and he showed no emotion as he said, "Perhaps this is reasonable. It also might not be."
"I could ask you: what do you want? Do you want me to get down on my knees and beg for the life of my brother? Do you want me to admit that I'm not even trying to save the lives of my uncles, of my cousins, who will die for what I've done? As if they were nothing at all."
The men and women would die. The women were but accessories of the men, in legal terms, and so their deaths would likely be of suicide, suicide carefully provoked and carefully approved of, rather than anything so messy as execution, unless the government saw fit to punish her more than that.
The men, their deaths would have to be more public.
Treason was a brutal business, and it was necessary to make the punishments harsh in order to discourage people from going against the will of the heavens and the Gods themselves, for men could convince themselves of anything otherwise.
Kiralo knew it all in his bones, the same way an animal knew its instincts: even if they were not Imperial courts, he had spent years in various courts, he had watched the ebb and flow of politics, and the Southlanders were no less capable of necessary brutality than the Csiritans.
"I can't say I understand you," Kiralo admitted.
"Do you need to?" Jinhai asked. "Anyone can kill anyone. Only the proper person can show mercy now."
"I can consider and advise it, and I might," Kiralo conceded, carefully. "I'll have to think about a number of things."
"What?" Jinhai asked.
"Any other requests?" Kiralo asked, instead of answering.
"Make it quick. I'll confess to what you need me to confess to, as long as it doesn't implicate too many innocent people. Just behead me in public. It's a personal request." Jinhai breathed out, leaning back in his chair. "It's the least important thing I want."
"That too can be considered. But, I do have a question for you."
"I'm in no position to refuse you."
"I'm always curious. I've been in the Imperial Court, and that only makes me wonder why you had such ambitions. Why you stepped from an honored and honorable path, with glory and fame already yours, to become Emperor?"
"It's not something you would wish?" Jinhai asked, with a smirk that let Kiralo knew that he knew it was a loaded question, one that no man could answer with complete honesty, not if they wanted to live.
But Kiralo had an honest answer anyways. "No. I have not the right mindset for it, even if I had any right."
Jinhai raised an eyebrow. "Not the right mindset?"
"I'm too active. I like carrying out tasks myself, rather than directing and ordering people to do so. And an Emperor must delegate everything, because his person is far too sacred. I thought you too were a man of action, and my experience seems to fit this. I would have thought that, for whatever unseemly ambitions you had, you'd not wish to be confined by necessary duties and your own power." Kiralo shook his head. "The Emperor is the fountainhead of all virtue and law. It is not a position of ease, and more than that, it's not a position that seems to…"
"Ah, so you were taking estimations of me as I was taking estimations of you. And perhaps you estimated right. But there's need for it. The previous Emperor made many mistakes, and his advisors were incompetents or, worse, competent men who were confidently marching in the wrong direction. I saw it, I heard the gossip and the rumors, and I felt I had to do something. Yes, I might have eventually moved to seize the Imperial Seat, it's not as if denying it now will mean much, you could always torture whatever answer you wished me to give. But you have been at court. What do you think of their priorities? What do you think of their decisions?"
Another dangerous question. But Kiralo merely smiled and said. "People may be foolish, but I trust the Emperor will come to the right decisions."
Jinhai laughed. "I'm not sure if they'll eat you alive, or if you'll eat them alive. Either way, I almost wish I could live long enough to see. Because I had spies ask about you, and from what little I know of your politics, you will soon fight for power. control even. With your father and with his allies and enemies. You will scramble for what you can. And you are the hero on horseback, if they don't think you a traitor for the crime of success."
"That is my problem, not yours," Kiralo said, with a slight, rueful smile. "What did you want with all of this?"
"A better Empire. I'll just tell you now, watch the Anlan. Their new… turtles--"
"Ah, you intercepted the reports?" Kiralo asked.
"I did," Jinhai said. "Those Turtles, the Hulks, the cannons of the sea-raiders, these are mechanical arts that are a threat to the Empire. If we do not adopt and adapt, then we will die. Think of what happened with the Southlanders. It can happen again." Jinhai shook his head. "And closing ourselves off changes nothing."
"I understand your point, if not your methods. If not your methods at all, or ever," Kiralo said. It would be a lot to promise, in a way. Even just sending out an advisory leter would make official this offer. "And in exchange, you surrender now? This war ends?"
"Yes. It already has ended, but… it may take some time to get worked through. But you win. You're no doubt going to be rewarded, greatly rewarded. I wonder what Imperial privileges will be granted, what titles and names."
"What happens if I refuse?"
"You will still win. But no doubt, you will kill many more people, and more than that, those that stood behind me will kill themselves, knowing that their cooperation has no worth, and will not save their sons and nephews. But if their family lives, they too might yet live, at least long enough to die in a proper way. Perhaps it will help you. Perhaps offering this might hurt you, for I do know that I tried my hardest to have you removed from your position. It was part of a scheme of mine. But you have won, and so…"
Kiralo understood. Even if the mercy he granted harmed him politically, it would certainly not be immediately fatal, not after so thorough a victory.
What does Kiralo say?
[] Agree.
[] Disagree.
[] Write-in.
*******
A/N: Here we go.
