- Pronouns
- They/Them
Remember, vote closes tomorrow.
Behind the Serpent Throne (CK2)
- Thread starter The Laurent
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
- Location
- Iceland
[X] Plan Random
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Vote closes tomorrow morning!
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
[X] Plan Gingganz
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Alright then, that's enough.
Tally please.
Tally please.
Vote Tally : Original - Fantasy - Behind the Serpent Throne (CK2) | Page 47 | Sufficient Velocity
##### NetTally 1.7.5
[X] Plan Random
No. of Votes: 5
Plan: ◈Random
Crowhunter
Muer'ci
Neptune
Random Member
Zeitgeist Blue
[X] Plan By The Power of Youth
-[X] Every Special Little Snowflake
-[X] Young Snakes, Sharp Fangs
-[X] To Protect...
-[X] Building the Case, Part 1: I'm Good Enough
-[X] Doctor, Doctor...
-[X] Perhaps A Wrong Foot? - 2 Influence
-[X] The New Emperor's Boys...Part 1 - 2 Influence
-[X] At the corner of Empire.
-[X] I have a List
No. of Votes: 3
Plan: ◈By The Power of Youth
Bozwevial
veekie
wingstrike96
[X] Plan Gingganz
-[X] Every Special Little Snowflake - 2 dice
-[X] Doctor, Doctor - 2 dice
-[X] To Protect...
-[X] A Survey of Military Preparedness
-[X] Building the Case, Part 1: I'm Good Enough -2 dice
-[X] Yanmae's Seclusion
-[X] Between South and North
-[X] I have a List
No. of Votes: 2
Plan: ◈Gingganz
Gingganz
Terrabrand
[X] Plan mori
-[X] Doctor, Doctor
-[X] To Protect
-[X] Going South
-[X] To the West
-[X] A Survey of Military Preparedness
-[X] Building the Case, Part 1: I'm Good Enough
-[X] Every Special Little Snowflake
-[X] Outcasts in the Society
-[X] An Unfinished Play
-[X] A Stirring in the South, Part 1
-[X] Between South and North
No. of Votes: 1
Plan: ◈mori
mori
[X] Plan: In martial arts, martial comes first.
[X] Every Special Little Snowflake
[X] Doctor, Doctor
[X] A Survey of Military Preparedness
[X] A Survey of Military Preparedness
[X] Building the Case, Part 1: I'm Good Enough
[X] The New Emperor's Boys...Part 1
[X] Largess of the Emperor
[X] Largess of the Emperor
[X] Outcasts in the Society
[X] I have a List
[X] Between South and North
No. of Votes: 1
Plan: ◈In martial arts, martial comes first.
Bakkasama
Total No. of Voters: 12
##### NetTally 1.7.5
[X] Plan Random
No. of Votes: 5
Plan: ◈Random
Crowhunter
Muer'ci
Neptune
Random Member
Zeitgeist Blue
[X] Plan By The Power of Youth
-[X] Every Special Little Snowflake
-[X] Young Snakes, Sharp Fangs
-[X] To Protect...
-[X] Building the Case, Part 1: I'm Good Enough
-[X] Doctor, Doctor...
-[X] Perhaps A Wrong Foot? - 2 Influence
-[X] The New Emperor's Boys...Part 1 - 2 Influence
-[X] At the corner of Empire.
-[X] I have a List
No. of Votes: 3
Plan: ◈By The Power of Youth
Bozwevial
veekie
wingstrike96
[X] Plan Gingganz
-[X] Every Special Little Snowflake - 2 dice
-[X] Doctor, Doctor - 2 dice
-[X] To Protect...
-[X] A Survey of Military Preparedness
-[X] Building the Case, Part 1: I'm Good Enough -2 dice
-[X] Yanmae's Seclusion
-[X] Between South and North
-[X] I have a List
No. of Votes: 2
Plan: ◈Gingganz
Gingganz
Terrabrand
[X] Plan mori
-[X] Doctor, Doctor
-[X] To Protect
-[X] Going South
-[X] To the West
-[X] A Survey of Military Preparedness
-[X] Building the Case, Part 1: I'm Good Enough
-[X] Every Special Little Snowflake
-[X] Outcasts in the Society
-[X] An Unfinished Play
-[X] A Stirring in the South, Part 1
-[X] Between South and North
No. of Votes: 1
Plan: ◈mori
mori
[X] Plan: In martial arts, martial comes first.
[X] Every Special Little Snowflake
[X] Doctor, Doctor
[X] A Survey of Military Preparedness
[X] A Survey of Military Preparedness
[X] Building the Case, Part 1: I'm Good Enough
[X] The New Emperor's Boys...Part 1
[X] Largess of the Emperor
[X] Largess of the Emperor
[X] Outcasts in the Society
[X] I have a List
[X] Between South and North
No. of Votes: 1
Plan: ◈In martial arts, martial comes first.
Bakkasama
Total No. of Voters: 12
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Plan Random seems to have won. I'll get to at least making rolls now, and start to think about how to present it all.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Huh, not bad.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
...what in god's name?
Bakkasama
There is always a greater fool
- Location
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Pronouns
- He/his
What in the Emperor's name, you heretic!
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
Yay, everything will be fi-
Or maybe not. Well, may Kiralo live in interesting times.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
You're the heretic. The Emperor is a revered figure, but the Gods do exist as well.
Anyways, I'll hopefully maybe have it out by Sunday morning?
Word of warning, next week is going to kick my ass.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Rumors turns are fun to write, because I'm actively being a liar and purposefully seeing just how far I can stretch the 'completely out of touch' perspective.
I mean, if you haven't realized, most of the things the Rumors-Turn dismissed are actually really important.
"Oh no, a famous Yeadalt rebel heretic leader escaped, I wonder how this will impact the marriage of the Governor's daughter!"
I mean, if you haven't realized, most of the things the Rumors-Turn dismissed are actually really important.
"Oh no, a famous Yeadalt rebel heretic leader escaped, I wonder how this will impact the marriage of the Governor's daughter!"
Turn 4--Results
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Turn 4--Results
Winter has cast its silken shroud over the world, and though its hand is not heavy, it is enough to startled Kiralo. The days are shorter than they ever were in the Southlands, this time of year, and snow and ice gets everywhere. Even though his house is internal, nestled in the belly of a building, surrounded on all sides, snow and icy soot contrive to track themselves in, no doubt causing problems for the servants.
He's had an earful from housewives often enough, and servants sometimes as well, though less often, to know just how much work it was to maintain a household. It was times like this, in the belly of the beast, when he remembered his mother.
That, of course, was a lie. The idea that there was just a single moment where Jia drifted into his mind was something a man told himself because while filial piety was always respected, dwelling on the dead was thought to be a waste of time, lest their spirit-forms rise up to comfort those who needed to, by stages, move past death.
But when he walked inside and saw the maids scrubbing the floor, he remembered just how much work it must have been to tend to him. It made him feel cosseted, in his private rooms. Kiralo, for all that he'd never been poor since he'd been a mercenary, not really, wasn't used to the sort of service that rich Csirtans had as a matter of course, though it was not far different than in the Southlands, really.
He thought he'd come to something of an understanding, of course, and he made sure that Arimi and Vedal understood that to take advantage of the servant's vulnerabilities was a mistake they'd not be able to make often.
Of course, he could hardly keep them from frequenting the courtesans, let alone the prostitutes, that clustered in the palace here and there, even on the coldest nights. It wasn't the streets, of course, women walking shiftlessly and exhausted, it was far more ritualized, with specific locations they slept that could be purified and penned off, as if they, those who did not pose as courtesans, were a pollution.
And this certainly was a season of pollution, people staying indoors or going out, all hunting done, his riding reduced to short and brisk trots.
It was cold, and perhaps he was not used to being so confined, as the poems didn't write themselves for the banquets. He wasn't going to abandon going, but he wasn't sure they were his best work, and as he wrapped jacket after jacket over his courtier's clothes, he found they still weren't enough.
At least there were enclosed areas for exercise, something that he never would have believed before coming to the court. Entire buildings that were open to allow training and practice. It was always a little startling to find that yet another desire was fulfilled here, that this palace city seemed not to lack for anything.
It was there that he tested the candidates to be his guards. Arimi and Vedal joined in, and they tried to run through scenarios.
What would they do if two swordsman came at them from different directions? How would they go about telling whether a room was secure.
"Can you ride?" Arimi asked one candidate.
"Not...well," the man admitted, standing there in his armor.
"Then out you get," Arimi said, then paused, running through the words. "That is: get out."
The man turned, outraged, to look at Kiralo, who was nodding thoughtfully.
Certainly, on his budget there was a limit to just how picky he could be, but he wanted three skilled guards. They could rotate in shifts, but that meant he'd have to have good, dedicated men. It was strange, thinking of hiring people to watch his back. Arimi and Vedal, and those friends he'd had back with the Wind-Dancer Rassit, had watched his back well enough, but this court could be quite different.
Not that he didn't finally have word back. And what a word it was.
*****
"Dearest Kiralo.
I do hope that the endless pampering and prissiness of the viper court has not slain you, and that if it has not, then the treacherous and base nature of it hasn't taken you out either. I'm writing this quite pleasantly drunk, right smack up near the border.
What am I doing here? Well, what are we doing here, that's the question. It's a long story. First off, the men, well, they seemed quite alright with you being gone, or at least they understood it. I mean, everyone talked about how you were the son of the biggest git in Csirit. That's a rhyme, and I know how you like those."
Kiralo rolled his eyes even just reading it.
"I have begun to learn Csiritan, but I shall not disgrace myself by writing in it, not when you could no doubt pick out all of the flaws and errors. Your father, certainly, has a reputation as a critic of the written word, even this far south, and I have now had the no-doubt-great pleasure to read several works by him.
He is a blowhard, though he seems charismatic even from a distance.
Either way, why are we here? We received an offer to deal with a problem of bandits on the border, slipping from one side to the other with impunity, and with ties to be Arnaris and various little pisspot Csiritan cities. It was a proper contract, too, for a rather rich sum. It seems that somehow the idea was spread around by someone, probably a gloriously handsome man with impeccable taste, that your absence was not a sign of abandonment, but rather proof that soon the Wind-Dancer Rassit would soon have even greater power and influence.
So we wound up on the border, hunting bandits. And do you know what? That special unit you spent so long preparing has turned out brilliantly. It's so popular I've thought about expanding it, and we've recruited about a dozen new riders so far, while losing only one or two to sickness or the call of the cities. I was thinking of expanding the elite scouts and training more of our officers in Csiritan.
As it is, just a week and a half ago, we captured a famous Csiritan bandit who was fleeing across the border. The man was of little import, in my mind. He didn't even put up a good fight, and seemed surprised that we could so easily track him, as if his spirits were enough to fool the keen senses of a Rassit.
Speaking of keen, I have been speaking with some of the commanders of the border forts, and it seems as if there is something going down there. The commanders are quick to complain that they have been denied the glory that others are seeking, for it seems as if the Governor, under the influence and pressure of the leading nobles, is taking charge to wipe out major bandit strongholds that had previously been unassailed.
Notably, all along the line there's been talk of the ruined fortresses, and the bandits hiding in old battlefields. Hari-Su's been creeping up right to the border, as always. Fake borders, you know?
You can't cage the wind, you can't hold a Rassit, and if you draw a line on the map, nobody who lives there will care unless you put a fort down and regularly patrol it.
So, we might have even slipped over the line and back again a few times in doing our duty, and by now I think they're starting to trust us. Certainly, they weren't doing much with their winter.
I think I could convince them to put in a good word for us, if you were making a run to try to get us in. Either way, take your time. We're enjoying ourselves. I've had the run of merchants' bored wives and even more bored daughters, and the back and forth is quite remarkable.
From town to city to wilderness, and a fight every few weeks, more than you'd expect, and a lot of time spent driving the bandits like they're nothing more than cattle.
With greatest regard, and hopes that you're having as much fun as I am,
Kueli.
*****
Hari-Su certainly was a mystery, but Kueli's letter and another letter he received helped to give it context.
Hari-Su was preparing for war. But this didn't mean it knew where it would stand, or where the dice would fall. In fact, the more Kiralo looked at the situation, the more he understood that, like Hari-Nat, they were faced with a set of choices where there was not an obvious solution.
If war came, Basrat would stand with Prince Jinhai, and unless something was done soon, Hari-Os would also fall easily into his lap.
So long as Irit was capable, they would stand with the Emperor, as would Csrae for obvious reasons.
And others were influenced in their decision by distance or closeness. Even Hari-Bueli was more bound into its past.
But Hari-Su? With the borders safe and growing safer by the minute, they had decisions to make, but in the civil war they could stand with either side easily. If war it was, they'd be vital for striking a blow against Hari-Os, if they were on the side of the Emperor.
As to their borders? There was a debate raging. Should they build more forts and maintain them to tamp down on any and all cross-movement and bandit activities, especially since those involved people of Southland blood or origin, people who couldn't be trusted as citizens of the state. There were degrees, of course, and there was no way to bar anyone with Southland blood, but Hari-Su was a place where it paid to be noticeably Csirit, not merely in appearance--though that helped--but in acts as well.
Like every land on every border, it was two-faced, and that was always a source of both derision and worry, of strength and complexity.
Build forts, or open up borders? And Hari-Su was, the Governor hinted, going through some level of economic crisis. The lords of the long manors, as they were called, were failing and after a century of increasing irrelevance, the Governor was driving for greater authority, greater power over his province.
But he was opposed on two sides. First, by those who wished for the Imperial Throne to have more power in these matters. There was always the desire to spread the bureaucracy as far and wide as possible, to attempt to in some way grasp the reins of the empire rather than merely trusting that others will steer their horses to your command.
Kuojah's daughter, Song, of course supported this line of reasoning, and they were joined by those who wished for the local nobility to have more of a say. The notables were in a way after the same thing, and it made sense that they stood together.
After all, what the imperial seat feared most of all was, even more than a lack of control, a strength of control in others.
If there was one Emperor and a thousand feuding minor nobles, that was better than one Emperor and ten or eleven different men who each might call themselves King and rebel or overthrow his power at their own whim.
The stances all varied. It was something Kiralo understood, ambiguity. What was best for the people in this case? Who knew? What was best for the crown? It depended. What was best for any one group was not only murky and clouded, it was positively invisible.
Each group was acting to ensure that its power and prestige were as protected as could be, and that meant, he thought as he leaned over the writing desk and wrote a simple, noncommittal reply to Song, that he'd have to take his position carefully.
But if war was coming, if Hari-Su was preparing for it, what mattered was which way they jumped.
And Kiralo had learned far more about the state of the army than he'd ever thought he would. It was a separate concern, and yet intimately linked, because what little and very inadequate cavalry the Csiritan army had all came from Hari-Su, and Hari-Su's own army was rather heavier on cavalry than any other army, even Hari-Bueli's.
If war came, whichever side could sway Hari-Su would have an undeniable cavalry advantage. There were generals who could laugh that off. After all, weren't the Tarnarins ultimately beaten by crossbows? Sometimes, in some cases, but cavalry were the eyes and ears of any campaign, and the fast sweeping blows that brushed aside obstacles.
He was a cavalry general, and if his pride told him that nothing could be Southland cavalry, that even the best of Hari-Su were probably barely competent, that wouldn't matter when the only people facing them were even worse horsemen.
It galled him, to think that he'd neglected that element, and the more he thought about just how much work would have to be done to get the army ready if there really was a war, the more he realized that even as he worked and carefully bent over the desk and tried to avert war, he needed to be ready for it.
And there was a lot to be ready for.
******
Snow fell, and in loud banquets he thought, his mind on a thousand other things. They were long banquets, and so there was a lot of time for thought. He needed to gain power and prove himself, and yet at the same time, there was only so much he could do in the winter.
But do it he did.
The letter from that old fraud certainly tickled the back of his brain as he went walking in the now quiet and peaceful gardens. The lakes were frozen over, but he repeated the old man's words in his head again and again, puzzling through them.
'I think, if you're not too busy writing that dreadful noise you call poetry, that you might listen to what I have to say. The Southlands has changed greatly already. Peace has brought prosperity, and prosperity means there are a lot of Tarnarins and Rassit sitting around with nothing to do. I've heard that your rag-tag force of third-rate bunglers, as my Prince called you right before you won a great victory, is doing well, though don't ask me how or what. Violence is the wrong solution to most problems.
Except critics, and I'm too old to chase people who hate my verse around with my cane. I couldn't club them all down if I wanted to, though I have had a number of very interesting discussions with a granddaughter of mine. I might yet be a great-grandfather before the Great Spirits bear me off to their realms.
No, don't argue with me about it. Either way, there are a lot of mercenaries down south, and they don't have anything to do. But at the same time, there's nowhere for them to go except farther south. They're bottled and that means hard times for them unless they can find a niche.
But I've seen men going among them, or heard stories.
Someone wrote a poem about it. Pale, yellow-skinned Csiritan-looking officials talking to anyone and everyone.
It was a very bad poem, but he was also a very dumb young man.
However, the thing to note is that these people are quite secretive, and the second thing to note is that they are rich.
Rich and secretive buys quite a few tongues wagging...and also wins quite a few tongues to be silent.
I do not know what nonsense is going on.
But I would advise you to have better gossip in the future, what you said was…"
It was a long letter, many thousands upon thousands of words of carefully written Southlandish.
But that little passage was the one that got Kiralo to thinking.
If that was Prince Jinhai, then...then.
It was the start of a thought without an end, but it was a thought that might yet be useful.
*****
Meanwhile, the Governor of Irit was proving to be even cagier and more careful than the Governor of Hari-Su, who perhaps saw certain opportunities in explaining himself.
And more than that, attempting to control Kiralo.
His descriptions of the suffering that was being felt in Irit might have been more effective if Kiralo had not already heard the stories in the words of people who were clearly far more sympathetic, far more connected than the misery. There had been villages on the verge of starvation, reduced to eating nettles and grass, who had been saved by a sudden arrival of alms.
At that point, Kiralo didn't care that plenty of the villagers were probably also bandits.
He knew the way it worked.
Bandits weren't vicious outsiders, at least not unless they were in the employ of a lord, they were your neighbors and friends, preying on, you liked to think, outsiders. Plenty of the bandits 'merely' robbed traders or anyone from another village, and then went back to their own village to lord it over everyone else. The richest and best off of them, but not the enemy of the village.
It wasn't as simple as merely driving them off, then.
After all, Kiralo decided as he lay in his bed and thought, if all of the villages and towns and even cities (though there were precious few that weren't under severe strain, and those cities would be the biggest source of any support) completely rejected the bandits, they would wither on the vine. Everywhere.
But banditry was part of how one survived.
Except, Kiralo thought looking at the letter, when it was a tool, a weapon in the hands of ambitious lords looking for an advantage.
Each lord knew that bandits could steal the taxes and drive merchants away from an area, and there were always greviances, always reasons to be angry at one lord or another. And so a bandit might rise in 'protest' of one lord's misrule on the cash of another, and the coins would flow and flow until the problem grew out of control.
What Kiralo suspected that the Governor didn't understand, though, is that peasants weren't stupid. They'd know they were being used, and while some of the lords might still be riding the tiger, the bandits weren't going to go away merely by removing the lords. But without the lord's interfering, then perhaps they wouldn't be so well-armed, and they wouldn't have so much shelter.
The names were extensive, but one thing that Kiralo was able to tell right from the start when he looked at the map was that some of them couldn't be behind the bandits, or at least, they can't have been key figures.
The Governor had sent him a list of enemies, and while there was seemingly damning evidence for all of them, at least some of them were guilty of no more than being his political enemy. Others were clearly guilty of far more, and there was at least one lord, the Lord of Ashio Pass, who seemed to have gone so far beyond the others in perfidy.
He was not responding to the letters the Governor was sending, not even to protest his innocence or feign ignorance as to how exactly their lands had slipped so entirely beyond their control. All of South Irit was riding a tiger or swallowed up underneath the waves, and here he was, completely disappeared, and yet there was word that had placed him and his honor guard, including several wizards, at some of the bandit hideouts.
Because of course they had talked, and of course they had gathered together, and what had started as a method of noble infighting had turned into something that was edging up towards an uprising of some kind.
Was, in many ways, already an uprising, except for the lack of goal, the lack of purpose. They weren't coming to burn the manors and the castles and destroy the records of the taxes they were owed, they weren't declaring a religious revival…
But all it'd take is a single mistake, a slip on the ice, and Irit would fall into complete chaos.
The alms were holding it off, drawing out some of the poison, but this list of names...whichever of them was actually guilty, it could do more than that. Yet every step forward seemed to indicate that if the problem got any worse, then it would take major military intervention to solve...intervention in a time when war was looming.
What a mess.
*****
"I did what was proper," the old man said. Oshi's room was quite lavish, and there were several side-rooms as well. On the table was a book of astrology. A useful thing for a doctor to know, in order to take star signs. Of course, in the South doctors preferred to cast omens into the fire, but Csiritan doctors swore by astrology and rolling the knucklebones of an ass as the most proper method to know the signs without examining the body, which of course would also give pressure points and its own fortune.
The body, as everyone including Kiralo knew, gave its own signs of its demise or wellness, hidden where only the careful and spirit-touched could truly divine them.
"I am not questioning that," Kiralo said, shifting from where he sat, looking at the doctor. The most important of the Imperially licensed doctors. A pious man who knew the proper prayers to ask the Gods for aid in his surgery and examination. Said to be a learned man, who had written several well-received papers on lung diseases, the casting of bone fortunes for those born under certain signs that were often regarded as inauspicious and, notably, a rather controversial discourse on women's health.
It was a subject usually reserved for wise-women or at least midwives. An interesting figure, and one secure enough in his position that he could stir up trouble and then sit back and watch what happened. And yet now he was being as proper and controlled as possible.
"Then why are you talking to me, Cs-Kiralo?"
"I am curious," Kiralo said, "About the old Emperor. You treated him, correct?"
"He was the man I treated most, yes." The old man reached down to brush the book aside and then from under the table he drew a pipe and began to fumble with it, eyes hard and flinty, looking at Kiralo as if daring him to accuse the doctor of neglect or some failure.
"How did he die?"
"He fell. Stumbled, and hit his head. There was bleeding into his head, and his essence seemed changed, the spirits could feel it. He was gone, was the problem."
Kiralo nodded. Sometimes a soul and mind died before the body did. When that happened, there wasn't much you could do. "There was no chance of surgery, I assume?"
"No. And the omens were not reading well in any case. The signs of the lines of his hand when he was laying there matched up to the star charts. Eight of the Ten Judges."
Kiralo let out a breath. That was pretty conclusive proof, the sort of evidence that would clearly absolve the doctor of any and all guilt for failing to save an Emperor. At least, the guilt that would lead to his execution for failure.
His career, if it was not already so close to over, was probably ruined, but it wouldn't effect the old man, not really, and he knew it.
Kiralo thought about it, sitting there drinking tea as the old man began to smoke, but the more questions he asked, the more he realized that Oshi wasn't the right person to talk to at all.
If one wanted to know about the state of the whole army, then the five commanders were a decent start, but they didn't personally work out the logistics and provisions, they didn't do more than oversee certain things.
Just like the head doctor.
So Kiralo searched for the man who had overseen the daily care of the Emperor, far lower in the political water.
It was on the third floor of a batch lot of rooms for various hanger-ons, and there was a baby crying in the other room.
Hisao's, Kiralo supposed. The man was a quarter sea-raider, married (not auspicious in a doctor of such high standing) and so of course he had a child.
Hisao was glaring in the direction of the room, and the spirits around him had gotten up and moved towards the other room, through the sliding door. One looked like a bluish fish without eyes, and another was merely the suggestion of green, of life itself, a third a verdant flowering plant clinging to the side of the room, shimmering and shifting into other shapes. And there were dozens more.
He was spirit-haunted, as they sometimes called untrained but skilled masters of spirit-lore.
"I am sorry for any imposition that she has made, Cs-Kiralo," Hisao said, bowing deeply, all but prostrating himself, "My wife cannot quiet her. I shall, I can--"
He trailed off. He was prominent and important, yes, but from the asking around Kiralo had done, the man was inexperienced, young for his position, barely thirty.
"You need not worry, Hisao. I merely wish to talk to you on something. You treated the Emperor, did he not, from day to day?"
"I-I did."
"Did he ride often?" Kiralo asked.
"Yes, he did. At least twice a week."
"How often did you have to treat him for riding injuries?"
Hisao hesitated, and Kiralo understood where the difficulty was. So he talked to the other man a little about medicine, and his past. Tried to ease him up and then moved slowly back towards the topic at hand.
"So I've been part of a mercenary company for a long time, and cavalry at that. So I know that all sorts of injuries can be had, even with an experienced rider," Kiralo said, finally returning where he started.
Hisao had drank a little rice wine and the baby had calmed down, and so finally he was ready to answer. "Not often. He was...well, I don't know what he was like as a rider, though I am sure it was excellent for he was the Emperor, but...well, not often. I think he knew his own skill and acted in accordance with it, as the philosophers say."
An older man, or one more a scholar, would of course have cited sources no doubt, rather than falling back on the general understanding. Kiralo was not a scholar as his father was, but he'd remembered reading that at some point. It had seemed good advice in general.
"Did he ever get saddle sores? That sort of thing?"
Hisao grunted, "Yes. And constipation and do you really want to start in on the history of a man's bowels? It is hardly a fitting subject for such an important man as you."
"But never a hard fall?"
"Never before. It only takes one."
Kiralo mused on this point and asked, "Was there anything different? Had he been drinking?"
"He had. His blood was all but soaked in the stuff. Dead drunk." Hisao paused and said, 'Not that there is anything, I mean--"
"You don't need to worry," Kiralo insisted, again. "Did he drink often?"
"I wouldn't know," the doctor said, and then he stood up, "Cs-Kiralo, I was not his minder, I was his doctor."
"Did he come to you often for hangover treatments?"
"No, but he's an Emperor. There are spirits that can ease that, and there were other doctors and men who had such skills. I assume he dealt with it himself."
Kiralo nodded, but something stuck out to him. "Did he ever seem drunk when he was--"
"You are speaking of the dead," Hisao said, "I cannot say more than I have said. He was white and he was dead, and now he is passed on and the Ten will no doubt judge him a great emperor and a great man. And we're left to deal as we can with his demise."
"You fear for your job?"
"The new Emperor is a youth, and my daughter aside, and probably not even that, I know nothing either about handling or treating a child." The spirts bunched up, though one or two defied his will and swarmed over Kiralo, curiously, as Kiralo muttered names that might have meaning to them.
"I understand."
"Do you? You're Cs-Kuojah's son. Whatever estrangement you have, you're far more secure than I'll ever be."
Then the man paused, hand over his mouth, horrified.
But Kiralo merely shook his head as one of the spirits whistled out a strange, unearthly tune.
*****
The boy was glaring at him defiantly, and then when he saw that wasn't working, he turned away. Kiralo was a little baffled by this sequence of events. He'd been meeting with or hearing about a lot of children in the past month, when he wasn't deep in the bowels of the military bureaucracy.
Dai'so had, of course, had companions. Any young prince would, and his sisters had had girls around them as well, no doubt. But ever since his father's death, while he had been surrounded by people, they were adults. Officials, functionaries, servants.
His isolation from children his own age was meant to be a sign of the austere dignity of his position, and, Kiralo assumed, meant to stop there from being quite so many distractions and competing voices as Kuojah tried to shape the perfect Emperor.
But the nobles and bureaucrats of the court were eager to reinstate these ties and bonds. Not that, of course, the boys were exactly part of the scheming. They weren't going to ply the Emperor with policies, since they were boys within a year or two of his age.
The boy in front of him somehow had contrived to look slightly scruffy despite wearing formal robes. Kiralo had said that he could talk to Kuojah on the matter, and at once it had opened all sorts of doors, and so everyone wanted access, and at least for the moment they believed he could grant it.
The boy looked quite charming in purple and grey, perhaps the colors of his house, but he was also clearly not someone who wore robes all the time. His hair was done up in braids that were proper for a boy his age, yet the way he fidgeted seemed to suggest he was used to having his hair loose.
He was the son of a Hirand noble of moderate prominence, and his brother was here to supervise him. "Le, look at Cs-Kiralo when he speaks to you."
"Why?" Le asked, and then he crossed his arms, "He's just an Ainin or whatever. Just like Old Man Jerkhead."
Kiralo blinked. Well, that was certainly a new name for him, and Kiralo smiled and said, "I won't be making you memorize and recite any passages of holy teaching, Le."
"That doesn't matter," Le said, hiding his hands in his sleeves as he looked over at his hapless brother. "I don't wanna talk to you."
"Why not?" Kiralo asked.
"'Cause," the seven year old boy said, sticking out his tongue.
"Cause why?" Kiralo leaned down a little. It wasn't exactly something he had a lot of training with, dealing with kids, but he had at least not given off a bad impression, before.
"Cause you took Prince Dice away."
"Prince...Dice," Kiralo said, and then thought, "Emperor Dai'so?"
"That's what I said. Dice." The boy crossed his arms. "Give him back."
"Give him...back?" Kiralo asked, then he added, "I was not there when the decision was made to isolate him."
"I haven't seen him since last summer. What if he betrayed all my secrets like he was Yiying?" Le asked, then turned his head away and said, "I mean, not that he would, he's Emperor, but…"
Yiying was the best friend and fellow hero in one of the ancient stories of the first conquest, who betrayed his Kingdom for the friendship of Xissand and was struck down in glorious battle. It was quite the epic, if something bordering on heresy, and exactly the sort of action-packed poem which young boys were wont to like.
Kiralo had certainly loved hearing the stories again and again. "I understand," Kiralo said, thinking of his own friends.
"You...what?" Le asked.
Kiralo smiled and realized that there was at least one person that would be looking forward to seeing Emperor Dai'so again, unless it was an act.
*****
The Emperor initiated the ceremonies, and some of the major feasts, with a drinking of the small glass of rice wine, heavily watered, and the traditional words of greeting, and yet it wasn't the banquets that Kiralo was focusing on. The sound and sight of crowds hurrying and scurrying this way and that, of endless food before him only made him think of the work he had ahead. He'd been talking and talking all month long, and more than that he'd been gathering together evidence and looking deep into a system that was endlessly complex and undoubtedly flawed.
For all that he'd spent the month talking, he felt even more than that that he'd spent the month reading.
******
The logistics system of the army was complex and still in progress, but it seemed as if it would function reasonably well for gathering the core army and Csrae and Irit without any more strain than any army would put on the area. But beyond the bounds of the roads, they'd have to either forage or rely on a long supply train.
More than that, it was quite evident that there was corruption and inefficiency on the logistics side, and the soldiers themselves, while quite grateful for the rations and well aware of who they had to thank for that, were clearly under-trained. And this was the core, not the periphery. There was no reason that they should be so inexperienced.
Their loyalty, at least, was quite clear, and his constant movement had endeared Kiralo with many, or at least convinced them that Kiralo was not a tyro, that he knew how to deal with the army. But the growing list of contacts didn't change the fact that the more he learned, the more Kiralo was frustrated.
The army clearly could be better, and there was not time to effect major change, even if he wasn't done with his examination of the system. Knowing it would let him use it as a tool to best effect if there was a war, but the sort of large-scale reforms required to create the kind of army he would have wished to have if there was going to be civil war...would take far too long.
The loyalty of the soldiers was the best news he had, because that meant there was something to build on. More complex was their loyalty to the upper generals, the five heads of the council. When tested, where would they stand? Well, Kiralo got the impression that it was best not to test things.
By the end of the month, the impression he'd gotten was that there was a lot he had yet to learn, but that the situation might be able to be managed...even if it couldn't be controlled.
Of course, the arrival of the delegation, rather late and rather too impudent, even bold, changed that at least a little.
To be continued in Interlude: Chira Fallen
*****
A/N: So, here we go!
Winter has cast its silken shroud over the world, and though its hand is not heavy, it is enough to startled Kiralo. The days are shorter than they ever were in the Southlands, this time of year, and snow and ice gets everywhere. Even though his house is internal, nestled in the belly of a building, surrounded on all sides, snow and icy soot contrive to track themselves in, no doubt causing problems for the servants.
He's had an earful from housewives often enough, and servants sometimes as well, though less often, to know just how much work it was to maintain a household. It was times like this, in the belly of the beast, when he remembered his mother.
That, of course, was a lie. The idea that there was just a single moment where Jia drifted into his mind was something a man told himself because while filial piety was always respected, dwelling on the dead was thought to be a waste of time, lest their spirit-forms rise up to comfort those who needed to, by stages, move past death.
But when he walked inside and saw the maids scrubbing the floor, he remembered just how much work it must have been to tend to him. It made him feel cosseted, in his private rooms. Kiralo, for all that he'd never been poor since he'd been a mercenary, not really, wasn't used to the sort of service that rich Csirtans had as a matter of course, though it was not far different than in the Southlands, really.
He thought he'd come to something of an understanding, of course, and he made sure that Arimi and Vedal understood that to take advantage of the servant's vulnerabilities was a mistake they'd not be able to make often.
Of course, he could hardly keep them from frequenting the courtesans, let alone the prostitutes, that clustered in the palace here and there, even on the coldest nights. It wasn't the streets, of course, women walking shiftlessly and exhausted, it was far more ritualized, with specific locations they slept that could be purified and penned off, as if they, those who did not pose as courtesans, were a pollution.
And this certainly was a season of pollution, people staying indoors or going out, all hunting done, his riding reduced to short and brisk trots.
It was cold, and perhaps he was not used to being so confined, as the poems didn't write themselves for the banquets. He wasn't going to abandon going, but he wasn't sure they were his best work, and as he wrapped jacket after jacket over his courtier's clothes, he found they still weren't enough.
At least there were enclosed areas for exercise, something that he never would have believed before coming to the court. Entire buildings that were open to allow training and practice. It was always a little startling to find that yet another desire was fulfilled here, that this palace city seemed not to lack for anything.
It was there that he tested the candidates to be his guards. Arimi and Vedal joined in, and they tried to run through scenarios.
What would they do if two swordsman came at them from different directions? How would they go about telling whether a room was secure.
"Can you ride?" Arimi asked one candidate.
"Not...well," the man admitted, standing there in his armor.
"Then out you get," Arimi said, then paused, running through the words. "That is: get out."
The man turned, outraged, to look at Kiralo, who was nodding thoughtfully.
Certainly, on his budget there was a limit to just how picky he could be, but he wanted three skilled guards. They could rotate in shifts, but that meant he'd have to have good, dedicated men. It was strange, thinking of hiring people to watch his back. Arimi and Vedal, and those friends he'd had back with the Wind-Dancer Rassit, had watched his back well enough, but this court could be quite different.
Not that he didn't finally have word back. And what a word it was.
*****
"Dearest Kiralo.
I do hope that the endless pampering and prissiness of the viper court has not slain you, and that if it has not, then the treacherous and base nature of it hasn't taken you out either. I'm writing this quite pleasantly drunk, right smack up near the border.
What am I doing here? Well, what are we doing here, that's the question. It's a long story. First off, the men, well, they seemed quite alright with you being gone, or at least they understood it. I mean, everyone talked about how you were the son of the biggest git in Csirit. That's a rhyme, and I know how you like those."
Kiralo rolled his eyes even just reading it.
"I have begun to learn Csiritan, but I shall not disgrace myself by writing in it, not when you could no doubt pick out all of the flaws and errors. Your father, certainly, has a reputation as a critic of the written word, even this far south, and I have now had the no-doubt-great pleasure to read several works by him.
He is a blowhard, though he seems charismatic even from a distance.
Either way, why are we here? We received an offer to deal with a problem of bandits on the border, slipping from one side to the other with impunity, and with ties to be Arnaris and various little pisspot Csiritan cities. It was a proper contract, too, for a rather rich sum. It seems that somehow the idea was spread around by someone, probably a gloriously handsome man with impeccable taste, that your absence was not a sign of abandonment, but rather proof that soon the Wind-Dancer Rassit would soon have even greater power and influence.
So we wound up on the border, hunting bandits. And do you know what? That special unit you spent so long preparing has turned out brilliantly. It's so popular I've thought about expanding it, and we've recruited about a dozen new riders so far, while losing only one or two to sickness or the call of the cities. I was thinking of expanding the elite scouts and training more of our officers in Csiritan.
As it is, just a week and a half ago, we captured a famous Csiritan bandit who was fleeing across the border. The man was of little import, in my mind. He didn't even put up a good fight, and seemed surprised that we could so easily track him, as if his spirits were enough to fool the keen senses of a Rassit.
Speaking of keen, I have been speaking with some of the commanders of the border forts, and it seems as if there is something going down there. The commanders are quick to complain that they have been denied the glory that others are seeking, for it seems as if the Governor, under the influence and pressure of the leading nobles, is taking charge to wipe out major bandit strongholds that had previously been unassailed.
Notably, all along the line there's been talk of the ruined fortresses, and the bandits hiding in old battlefields. Hari-Su's been creeping up right to the border, as always. Fake borders, you know?
You can't cage the wind, you can't hold a Rassit, and if you draw a line on the map, nobody who lives there will care unless you put a fort down and regularly patrol it.
So, we might have even slipped over the line and back again a few times in doing our duty, and by now I think they're starting to trust us. Certainly, they weren't doing much with their winter.
I think I could convince them to put in a good word for us, if you were making a run to try to get us in. Either way, take your time. We're enjoying ourselves. I've had the run of merchants' bored wives and even more bored daughters, and the back and forth is quite remarkable.
From town to city to wilderness, and a fight every few weeks, more than you'd expect, and a lot of time spent driving the bandits like they're nothing more than cattle.
With greatest regard, and hopes that you're having as much fun as I am,
Kueli.
*****
Hari-Su certainly was a mystery, but Kueli's letter and another letter he received helped to give it context.
Hari-Su was preparing for war. But this didn't mean it knew where it would stand, or where the dice would fall. In fact, the more Kiralo looked at the situation, the more he understood that, like Hari-Nat, they were faced with a set of choices where there was not an obvious solution.
If war came, Basrat would stand with Prince Jinhai, and unless something was done soon, Hari-Os would also fall easily into his lap.
So long as Irit was capable, they would stand with the Emperor, as would Csrae for obvious reasons.
And others were influenced in their decision by distance or closeness. Even Hari-Bueli was more bound into its past.
But Hari-Su? With the borders safe and growing safer by the minute, they had decisions to make, but in the civil war they could stand with either side easily. If war it was, they'd be vital for striking a blow against Hari-Os, if they were on the side of the Emperor.
As to their borders? There was a debate raging. Should they build more forts and maintain them to tamp down on any and all cross-movement and bandit activities, especially since those involved people of Southland blood or origin, people who couldn't be trusted as citizens of the state. There were degrees, of course, and there was no way to bar anyone with Southland blood, but Hari-Su was a place where it paid to be noticeably Csirit, not merely in appearance--though that helped--but in acts as well.
Like every land on every border, it was two-faced, and that was always a source of both derision and worry, of strength and complexity.
Build forts, or open up borders? And Hari-Su was, the Governor hinted, going through some level of economic crisis. The lords of the long manors, as they were called, were failing and after a century of increasing irrelevance, the Governor was driving for greater authority, greater power over his province.
But he was opposed on two sides. First, by those who wished for the Imperial Throne to have more power in these matters. There was always the desire to spread the bureaucracy as far and wide as possible, to attempt to in some way grasp the reins of the empire rather than merely trusting that others will steer their horses to your command.
Kuojah's daughter, Song, of course supported this line of reasoning, and they were joined by those who wished for the local nobility to have more of a say. The notables were in a way after the same thing, and it made sense that they stood together.
After all, what the imperial seat feared most of all was, even more than a lack of control, a strength of control in others.
If there was one Emperor and a thousand feuding minor nobles, that was better than one Emperor and ten or eleven different men who each might call themselves King and rebel or overthrow his power at their own whim.
The stances all varied. It was something Kiralo understood, ambiguity. What was best for the people in this case? Who knew? What was best for the crown? It depended. What was best for any one group was not only murky and clouded, it was positively invisible.
Each group was acting to ensure that its power and prestige were as protected as could be, and that meant, he thought as he leaned over the writing desk and wrote a simple, noncommittal reply to Song, that he'd have to take his position carefully.
But if war was coming, if Hari-Su was preparing for it, what mattered was which way they jumped.
And Kiralo had learned far more about the state of the army than he'd ever thought he would. It was a separate concern, and yet intimately linked, because what little and very inadequate cavalry the Csiritan army had all came from Hari-Su, and Hari-Su's own army was rather heavier on cavalry than any other army, even Hari-Bueli's.
If war came, whichever side could sway Hari-Su would have an undeniable cavalry advantage. There were generals who could laugh that off. After all, weren't the Tarnarins ultimately beaten by crossbows? Sometimes, in some cases, but cavalry were the eyes and ears of any campaign, and the fast sweeping blows that brushed aside obstacles.
He was a cavalry general, and if his pride told him that nothing could be Southland cavalry, that even the best of Hari-Su were probably barely competent, that wouldn't matter when the only people facing them were even worse horsemen.
It galled him, to think that he'd neglected that element, and the more he thought about just how much work would have to be done to get the army ready if there really was a war, the more he realized that even as he worked and carefully bent over the desk and tried to avert war, he needed to be ready for it.
And there was a lot to be ready for.
******
Snow fell, and in loud banquets he thought, his mind on a thousand other things. They were long banquets, and so there was a lot of time for thought. He needed to gain power and prove himself, and yet at the same time, there was only so much he could do in the winter.
But do it he did.
The letter from that old fraud certainly tickled the back of his brain as he went walking in the now quiet and peaceful gardens. The lakes were frozen over, but he repeated the old man's words in his head again and again, puzzling through them.
'I think, if you're not too busy writing that dreadful noise you call poetry, that you might listen to what I have to say. The Southlands has changed greatly already. Peace has brought prosperity, and prosperity means there are a lot of Tarnarins and Rassit sitting around with nothing to do. I've heard that your rag-tag force of third-rate bunglers, as my Prince called you right before you won a great victory, is doing well, though don't ask me how or what. Violence is the wrong solution to most problems.
Except critics, and I'm too old to chase people who hate my verse around with my cane. I couldn't club them all down if I wanted to, though I have had a number of very interesting discussions with a granddaughter of mine. I might yet be a great-grandfather before the Great Spirits bear me off to their realms.
No, don't argue with me about it. Either way, there are a lot of mercenaries down south, and they don't have anything to do. But at the same time, there's nowhere for them to go except farther south. They're bottled and that means hard times for them unless they can find a niche.
But I've seen men going among them, or heard stories.
Someone wrote a poem about it. Pale, yellow-skinned Csiritan-looking officials talking to anyone and everyone.
It was a very bad poem, but he was also a very dumb young man.
However, the thing to note is that these people are quite secretive, and the second thing to note is that they are rich.
Rich and secretive buys quite a few tongues wagging...and also wins quite a few tongues to be silent.
I do not know what nonsense is going on.
But I would advise you to have better gossip in the future, what you said was…"
It was a long letter, many thousands upon thousands of words of carefully written Southlandish.
But that little passage was the one that got Kiralo to thinking.
If that was Prince Jinhai, then...then.
It was the start of a thought without an end, but it was a thought that might yet be useful.
*****
Meanwhile, the Governor of Irit was proving to be even cagier and more careful than the Governor of Hari-Su, who perhaps saw certain opportunities in explaining himself.
And more than that, attempting to control Kiralo.
His descriptions of the suffering that was being felt in Irit might have been more effective if Kiralo had not already heard the stories in the words of people who were clearly far more sympathetic, far more connected than the misery. There had been villages on the verge of starvation, reduced to eating nettles and grass, who had been saved by a sudden arrival of alms.
At that point, Kiralo didn't care that plenty of the villagers were probably also bandits.
He knew the way it worked.
Bandits weren't vicious outsiders, at least not unless they were in the employ of a lord, they were your neighbors and friends, preying on, you liked to think, outsiders. Plenty of the bandits 'merely' robbed traders or anyone from another village, and then went back to their own village to lord it over everyone else. The richest and best off of them, but not the enemy of the village.
It wasn't as simple as merely driving them off, then.
After all, Kiralo decided as he lay in his bed and thought, if all of the villages and towns and even cities (though there were precious few that weren't under severe strain, and those cities would be the biggest source of any support) completely rejected the bandits, they would wither on the vine. Everywhere.
But banditry was part of how one survived.
Except, Kiralo thought looking at the letter, when it was a tool, a weapon in the hands of ambitious lords looking for an advantage.
Each lord knew that bandits could steal the taxes and drive merchants away from an area, and there were always greviances, always reasons to be angry at one lord or another. And so a bandit might rise in 'protest' of one lord's misrule on the cash of another, and the coins would flow and flow until the problem grew out of control.
What Kiralo suspected that the Governor didn't understand, though, is that peasants weren't stupid. They'd know they were being used, and while some of the lords might still be riding the tiger, the bandits weren't going to go away merely by removing the lords. But without the lord's interfering, then perhaps they wouldn't be so well-armed, and they wouldn't have so much shelter.
The names were extensive, but one thing that Kiralo was able to tell right from the start when he looked at the map was that some of them couldn't be behind the bandits, or at least, they can't have been key figures.
The Governor had sent him a list of enemies, and while there was seemingly damning evidence for all of them, at least some of them were guilty of no more than being his political enemy. Others were clearly guilty of far more, and there was at least one lord, the Lord of Ashio Pass, who seemed to have gone so far beyond the others in perfidy.
He was not responding to the letters the Governor was sending, not even to protest his innocence or feign ignorance as to how exactly their lands had slipped so entirely beyond their control. All of South Irit was riding a tiger or swallowed up underneath the waves, and here he was, completely disappeared, and yet there was word that had placed him and his honor guard, including several wizards, at some of the bandit hideouts.
Because of course they had talked, and of course they had gathered together, and what had started as a method of noble infighting had turned into something that was edging up towards an uprising of some kind.
Was, in many ways, already an uprising, except for the lack of goal, the lack of purpose. They weren't coming to burn the manors and the castles and destroy the records of the taxes they were owed, they weren't declaring a religious revival…
But all it'd take is a single mistake, a slip on the ice, and Irit would fall into complete chaos.
The alms were holding it off, drawing out some of the poison, but this list of names...whichever of them was actually guilty, it could do more than that. Yet every step forward seemed to indicate that if the problem got any worse, then it would take major military intervention to solve...intervention in a time when war was looming.
What a mess.
*****
"I did what was proper," the old man said. Oshi's room was quite lavish, and there were several side-rooms as well. On the table was a book of astrology. A useful thing for a doctor to know, in order to take star signs. Of course, in the South doctors preferred to cast omens into the fire, but Csiritan doctors swore by astrology and rolling the knucklebones of an ass as the most proper method to know the signs without examining the body, which of course would also give pressure points and its own fortune.
The body, as everyone including Kiralo knew, gave its own signs of its demise or wellness, hidden where only the careful and spirit-touched could truly divine them.
"I am not questioning that," Kiralo said, shifting from where he sat, looking at the doctor. The most important of the Imperially licensed doctors. A pious man who knew the proper prayers to ask the Gods for aid in his surgery and examination. Said to be a learned man, who had written several well-received papers on lung diseases, the casting of bone fortunes for those born under certain signs that were often regarded as inauspicious and, notably, a rather controversial discourse on women's health.
It was a subject usually reserved for wise-women or at least midwives. An interesting figure, and one secure enough in his position that he could stir up trouble and then sit back and watch what happened. And yet now he was being as proper and controlled as possible.
"Then why are you talking to me, Cs-Kiralo?"
"I am curious," Kiralo said, "About the old Emperor. You treated him, correct?"
"He was the man I treated most, yes." The old man reached down to brush the book aside and then from under the table he drew a pipe and began to fumble with it, eyes hard and flinty, looking at Kiralo as if daring him to accuse the doctor of neglect or some failure.
"How did he die?"
"He fell. Stumbled, and hit his head. There was bleeding into his head, and his essence seemed changed, the spirits could feel it. He was gone, was the problem."
Kiralo nodded. Sometimes a soul and mind died before the body did. When that happened, there wasn't much you could do. "There was no chance of surgery, I assume?"
"No. And the omens were not reading well in any case. The signs of the lines of his hand when he was laying there matched up to the star charts. Eight of the Ten Judges."
Kiralo let out a breath. That was pretty conclusive proof, the sort of evidence that would clearly absolve the doctor of any and all guilt for failing to save an Emperor. At least, the guilt that would lead to his execution for failure.
His career, if it was not already so close to over, was probably ruined, but it wouldn't effect the old man, not really, and he knew it.
Kiralo thought about it, sitting there drinking tea as the old man began to smoke, but the more questions he asked, the more he realized that Oshi wasn't the right person to talk to at all.
If one wanted to know about the state of the whole army, then the five commanders were a decent start, but they didn't personally work out the logistics and provisions, they didn't do more than oversee certain things.
Just like the head doctor.
So Kiralo searched for the man who had overseen the daily care of the Emperor, far lower in the political water.
It was on the third floor of a batch lot of rooms for various hanger-ons, and there was a baby crying in the other room.
Hisao's, Kiralo supposed. The man was a quarter sea-raider, married (not auspicious in a doctor of such high standing) and so of course he had a child.
Hisao was glaring in the direction of the room, and the spirits around him had gotten up and moved towards the other room, through the sliding door. One looked like a bluish fish without eyes, and another was merely the suggestion of green, of life itself, a third a verdant flowering plant clinging to the side of the room, shimmering and shifting into other shapes. And there were dozens more.
He was spirit-haunted, as they sometimes called untrained but skilled masters of spirit-lore.
"I am sorry for any imposition that she has made, Cs-Kiralo," Hisao said, bowing deeply, all but prostrating himself, "My wife cannot quiet her. I shall, I can--"
He trailed off. He was prominent and important, yes, but from the asking around Kiralo had done, the man was inexperienced, young for his position, barely thirty.
"You need not worry, Hisao. I merely wish to talk to you on something. You treated the Emperor, did he not, from day to day?"
"I-I did."
"Did he ride often?" Kiralo asked.
"Yes, he did. At least twice a week."
"How often did you have to treat him for riding injuries?"
Hisao hesitated, and Kiralo understood where the difficulty was. So he talked to the other man a little about medicine, and his past. Tried to ease him up and then moved slowly back towards the topic at hand.
"So I've been part of a mercenary company for a long time, and cavalry at that. So I know that all sorts of injuries can be had, even with an experienced rider," Kiralo said, finally returning where he started.
Hisao had drank a little rice wine and the baby had calmed down, and so finally he was ready to answer. "Not often. He was...well, I don't know what he was like as a rider, though I am sure it was excellent for he was the Emperor, but...well, not often. I think he knew his own skill and acted in accordance with it, as the philosophers say."
An older man, or one more a scholar, would of course have cited sources no doubt, rather than falling back on the general understanding. Kiralo was not a scholar as his father was, but he'd remembered reading that at some point. It had seemed good advice in general.
"Did he ever get saddle sores? That sort of thing?"
Hisao grunted, "Yes. And constipation and do you really want to start in on the history of a man's bowels? It is hardly a fitting subject for such an important man as you."
"But never a hard fall?"
"Never before. It only takes one."
Kiralo mused on this point and asked, "Was there anything different? Had he been drinking?"
"He had. His blood was all but soaked in the stuff. Dead drunk." Hisao paused and said, 'Not that there is anything, I mean--"
"You don't need to worry," Kiralo insisted, again. "Did he drink often?"
"I wouldn't know," the doctor said, and then he stood up, "Cs-Kiralo, I was not his minder, I was his doctor."
"Did he come to you often for hangover treatments?"
"No, but he's an Emperor. There are spirits that can ease that, and there were other doctors and men who had such skills. I assume he dealt with it himself."
Kiralo nodded, but something stuck out to him. "Did he ever seem drunk when he was--"
"You are speaking of the dead," Hisao said, "I cannot say more than I have said. He was white and he was dead, and now he is passed on and the Ten will no doubt judge him a great emperor and a great man. And we're left to deal as we can with his demise."
"You fear for your job?"
"The new Emperor is a youth, and my daughter aside, and probably not even that, I know nothing either about handling or treating a child." The spirts bunched up, though one or two defied his will and swarmed over Kiralo, curiously, as Kiralo muttered names that might have meaning to them.
"I understand."
"Do you? You're Cs-Kuojah's son. Whatever estrangement you have, you're far more secure than I'll ever be."
Then the man paused, hand over his mouth, horrified.
But Kiralo merely shook his head as one of the spirits whistled out a strange, unearthly tune.
*****
The boy was glaring at him defiantly, and then when he saw that wasn't working, he turned away. Kiralo was a little baffled by this sequence of events. He'd been meeting with or hearing about a lot of children in the past month, when he wasn't deep in the bowels of the military bureaucracy.
Dai'so had, of course, had companions. Any young prince would, and his sisters had had girls around them as well, no doubt. But ever since his father's death, while he had been surrounded by people, they were adults. Officials, functionaries, servants.
His isolation from children his own age was meant to be a sign of the austere dignity of his position, and, Kiralo assumed, meant to stop there from being quite so many distractions and competing voices as Kuojah tried to shape the perfect Emperor.
But the nobles and bureaucrats of the court were eager to reinstate these ties and bonds. Not that, of course, the boys were exactly part of the scheming. They weren't going to ply the Emperor with policies, since they were boys within a year or two of his age.
The boy in front of him somehow had contrived to look slightly scruffy despite wearing formal robes. Kiralo had said that he could talk to Kuojah on the matter, and at once it had opened all sorts of doors, and so everyone wanted access, and at least for the moment they believed he could grant it.
The boy looked quite charming in purple and grey, perhaps the colors of his house, but he was also clearly not someone who wore robes all the time. His hair was done up in braids that were proper for a boy his age, yet the way he fidgeted seemed to suggest he was used to having his hair loose.
He was the son of a Hirand noble of moderate prominence, and his brother was here to supervise him. "Le, look at Cs-Kiralo when he speaks to you."
"Why?" Le asked, and then he crossed his arms, "He's just an Ainin or whatever. Just like Old Man Jerkhead."
Kiralo blinked. Well, that was certainly a new name for him, and Kiralo smiled and said, "I won't be making you memorize and recite any passages of holy teaching, Le."
"That doesn't matter," Le said, hiding his hands in his sleeves as he looked over at his hapless brother. "I don't wanna talk to you."
"Why not?" Kiralo asked.
"'Cause," the seven year old boy said, sticking out his tongue.
"Cause why?" Kiralo leaned down a little. It wasn't exactly something he had a lot of training with, dealing with kids, but he had at least not given off a bad impression, before.
"Cause you took Prince Dice away."
"Prince...Dice," Kiralo said, and then thought, "Emperor Dai'so?"
"That's what I said. Dice." The boy crossed his arms. "Give him back."
"Give him...back?" Kiralo asked, then he added, "I was not there when the decision was made to isolate him."
"I haven't seen him since last summer. What if he betrayed all my secrets like he was Yiying?" Le asked, then turned his head away and said, "I mean, not that he would, he's Emperor, but…"
Yiying was the best friend and fellow hero in one of the ancient stories of the first conquest, who betrayed his Kingdom for the friendship of Xissand and was struck down in glorious battle. It was quite the epic, if something bordering on heresy, and exactly the sort of action-packed poem which young boys were wont to like.
Kiralo had certainly loved hearing the stories again and again. "I understand," Kiralo said, thinking of his own friends.
"You...what?" Le asked.
Kiralo smiled and realized that there was at least one person that would be looking forward to seeing Emperor Dai'so again, unless it was an act.
*****
The Emperor initiated the ceremonies, and some of the major feasts, with a drinking of the small glass of rice wine, heavily watered, and the traditional words of greeting, and yet it wasn't the banquets that Kiralo was focusing on. The sound and sight of crowds hurrying and scurrying this way and that, of endless food before him only made him think of the work he had ahead. He'd been talking and talking all month long, and more than that he'd been gathering together evidence and looking deep into a system that was endlessly complex and undoubtedly flawed.
For all that he'd spent the month talking, he felt even more than that that he'd spent the month reading.
******
The logistics system of the army was complex and still in progress, but it seemed as if it would function reasonably well for gathering the core army and Csrae and Irit without any more strain than any army would put on the area. But beyond the bounds of the roads, they'd have to either forage or rely on a long supply train.
More than that, it was quite evident that there was corruption and inefficiency on the logistics side, and the soldiers themselves, while quite grateful for the rations and well aware of who they had to thank for that, were clearly under-trained. And this was the core, not the periphery. There was no reason that they should be so inexperienced.
Their loyalty, at least, was quite clear, and his constant movement had endeared Kiralo with many, or at least convinced them that Kiralo was not a tyro, that he knew how to deal with the army. But the growing list of contacts didn't change the fact that the more he learned, the more Kiralo was frustrated.
The army clearly could be better, and there was not time to effect major change, even if he wasn't done with his examination of the system. Knowing it would let him use it as a tool to best effect if there was a war, but the sort of large-scale reforms required to create the kind of army he would have wished to have if there was going to be civil war...would take far too long.
The loyalty of the soldiers was the best news he had, because that meant there was something to build on. More complex was their loyalty to the upper generals, the five heads of the council. When tested, where would they stand? Well, Kiralo got the impression that it was best not to test things.
By the end of the month, the impression he'd gotten was that there was a lot he had yet to learn, but that the situation might be able to be managed...even if it couldn't be controlled.
Of course, the arrival of the delegation, rather late and rather too impudent, even bold, changed that at least a little.
To be continued in Interlude: Chira Fallen
*****
The Letter 1: Kueli
How are the Wind-Dancers doing?:
1d100=100+1d100=198+1d100=260.
Effect: Oh. Well.
The Letter 2: A Poet Friend
Rolled: 45
Effect: Average results.
Every Special Little Snowflake
Need: 40, Rolled: 1d100+14=39, bare failure, probably won't have any negative consequences, actually. But it is a lost opportunity.
Doctor, Doctor…
Need: 30, Rolled: 1d100+7=93
Effect: Gained new options:
To Protect…
Need: 17, Rolled: 1d100+11=57
Effect: Gain bodyguards.
A Survey of Military Preparedness x 2
Need: ???, Rolled: 1d100+15=109, 42 (Reasonably strong success)
Effect: Good progress, now know more about general logistics situation, training situation. Will gain a 'Imperial Army' screen/data-sheet on the front-page next turn barring a pretty bad failure.
Building the Case, Part 1: I'm Good Enough
Need: 35, Rolled: 1d100+15=47, success, nothing special.
Effect: +15% to the odds of 'Envoy of War' action.
Rationed Off
Need: 40, Rolled: 1d100+11=74, success with a few little bonuses.
Effect: Council of Generals position weakened, gain new options.
The New Emperor's Boys...Part 1 x 2
Need: 45, Rolled: 1d100+12=63, 71. 71. success with a few frills.
Effect: Going pretty well.
Between South and North
Need: 25, Rolled: 1d100+12+5 (Letter to Hari-Su)+5 (Kueli's Letter)=78
Effect: Gained options:
I have a List
Need: 35, Rolled: 1d100+12=92, several degrees of success.
Effect: New options, bonus to 'Checking it Twice.'
Continued Alms: 29, reroll because of success last time...Natural 100+1d100=182
How are the Wind-Dancers doing?:
1d100=100+1d100=198+1d100=260.
Effect: Oh. Well.
The Letter 2: A Poet Friend
Rolled: 45
Effect: Average results.
Every Special Little Snowflake
Need: 40, Rolled: 1d100+14=39, bare failure, probably won't have any negative consequences, actually. But it is a lost opportunity.
Doctor, Doctor…
Need: 30, Rolled: 1d100+7=93
Effect: Gained new options:
To Protect…
Need: 17, Rolled: 1d100+11=57
Effect: Gain bodyguards.
A Survey of Military Preparedness x 2
Need: ???, Rolled: 1d100+15=109, 42 (Reasonably strong success)
Effect: Good progress, now know more about general logistics situation, training situation. Will gain a 'Imperial Army' screen/data-sheet on the front-page next turn barring a pretty bad failure.
Building the Case, Part 1: I'm Good Enough
Need: 35, Rolled: 1d100+15=47, success, nothing special.
Effect: +15% to the odds of 'Envoy of War' action.
Rationed Off
Need: 40, Rolled: 1d100+11=74, success with a few little bonuses.
Effect: Council of Generals position weakened, gain new options.
The New Emperor's Boys...Part 1 x 2
Need: 45, Rolled: 1d100+12=63, 71. 71. success with a few frills.
Effect: Going pretty well.
Between South and North
Need: 25, Rolled: 1d100+12+5 (Letter to Hari-Su)+5 (Kueli's Letter)=78
Effect: Gained options:
I have a List
Need: 35, Rolled: 1d100+12=92, several degrees of success.
Effect: New options, bonus to 'Checking it Twice.'
Continued Alms: 29, reroll because of success last time...Natural 100+1d100=182
A/N: So, here we go!
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Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
A good turn, too bad about that bare failure.
God damn is that a lucky roll, though I do admit to slightly thinking maybe that luck could have been better used else where. Regardless, this should make it easier for our Rassit company to enter the country and as the formal leader should aid relations with Hari-Su.
This tells us a little bit how high a DC it was, if a 109 only got reasonably strong success. I'd imagine it had maybe 30% or 40% chance? This would make sense particularly after reading the description of the action again.
Slightly dissappoitning they were so close, but two dice were essential for this action as this action directly affects the Emperor so both the bonus for success and the penalty for failure are likely exaggerted.
Generally good news, particularly with the news that they're the home of most of the cavalry in the country.
It's quite sad when you consider luck always evens out
. Anyways, another very large success means that if alms isn't finished this turn it should be next turn given it was mentioned to be 1/3 of the way complete last time. I'm not sure if this means we'll get another state action or not though, or it merely reinforces the one we have to make us highly unlikely to lose it. It's a good lead in to those Irit corruption actions though, and I imagine if we take those temple visits there would be bonuses.
Bakkasama
There is always a greater fool
- Location
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Pronouns
- He/his
So, to summarize:
1)Irit was one of the provinces that we are sure would fight for the emperor but the nobles scalated the bandit situation to make power plays, which basically armed them and made it so it is one cause away from revolt, since by this point people are integrating the whole bandit/fighting thing so it wouldn't take that much. Prince Jinn, knowing this, implied in his letter that he might lead his army to deal with the situation, giving a legitimate cause to occupy loyal territory close to the capital come spring.
2) Hari-Su is not only the place with the border our wind rassit have to cross to enter the empire but it is also the place with the most cavalry in it, which means that, since Kiralo is a cavalry commender, it will be important for his military doctrine. However, there are some problems here. For starters, they are repairing the forts in the frontier or moving to do so, which would give them further control on who enters. Also, there are Csirstians in the southlands moving to hire mercenaries. If these are working for Jinn, then whoever controls Hari-su will have an advantage when it comes to southland reinforcements. I would probably need to reread the bit about the factions within but it seems like our sister is in the one that wants both more control from the center of government and follow the policies from Kuojah. The same policies that closed borders with the southlands and killed commerce. On the bright side, it seems that the province that benefited from that will support Jinn... wait, no, that is not a bright side. Well, at least our rassit gained some goodwill there?
3)Army is a shit. However, logistics in the immediate área of the capital and Irit are superb so tropos would be raised fast and be well supplied. Further tan that... army is a shit.
1)Irit was one of the provinces that we are sure would fight for the emperor but the nobles scalated the bandit situation to make power plays, which basically armed them and made it so it is one cause away from revolt, since by this point people are integrating the whole bandit/fighting thing so it wouldn't take that much. Prince Jinn, knowing this, implied in his letter that he might lead his army to deal with the situation, giving a legitimate cause to occupy loyal territory close to the capital come spring.
2) Hari-Su is not only the place with the border our wind rassit have to cross to enter the empire but it is also the place with the most cavalry in it, which means that, since Kiralo is a cavalry commender, it will be important for his military doctrine. However, there are some problems here. For starters, they are repairing the forts in the frontier or moving to do so, which would give them further control on who enters. Also, there are Csirstians in the southlands moving to hire mercenaries. If these are working for Jinn, then whoever controls Hari-su will have an advantage when it comes to southland reinforcements. I would probably need to reread the bit about the factions within but it seems like our sister is in the one that wants both more control from the center of government and follow the policies from Kuojah. The same policies that closed borders with the southlands and killed commerce. On the bright side, it seems that the province that benefited from that will support Jinn... wait, no, that is not a bright side. Well, at least our rassit gained some goodwill there?
3)Army is a shit. However, logistics in the immediate área of the capital and Irit are superb so tropos would be raised fast and be well supplied. Further tan that... army is a shit.
Daecl
CURSED BY THE DICE
Glad to see they're doing amazing in our absence.
...yep, that's an assassination alright. Very nearly a 'hunting accident', he was assisted in going drunk riding.
This is a fine mess, but the Alms are buying much needed time. Throw the bandits into doubt, that they could feed their families without murder, and they won't be quite as enthusiastic.
It seems like at the very least we are going to get a chance to handle Irit about as well as it could be handled- target those actually disloyal and perhaps get a chance at any hidden backers.
Overall a pretty fantastic set of results for this turn so far. I would not want to be whoever got the Emperor drunk before his 'riding accident' when the Ministry finds out.
Overall a pretty fantastic set of results for this turn so far. I would not want to be whoever got the Emperor drunk before his 'riding accident' when the Ministry finds out.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Right now, you don't have any proof, just suspicions. It sorta depends on how often the Emperor got drunk. Accidents do happen to note, especially when inexperienced riders don't know their limitations or get too drunk, and more than that, it's not an accusation that can be made lightly. Like, it's the kind of thing if Kiralo makes it and cannot back it up 100%, he's tortured to death (over an extended period of time) as an object lesson for spreading such vile rumors.
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We're well aware I think, but that there's foul play honestly doesn't mean a damned thing until we can identify who did it and why.
Bakkasama
There is always a greater fool
- Location
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Pronouns
- He/his
It means we have an excuse to be paranoid and panic?
We weren't already?