The Peasant (22 page)

“I hadn't considered that. You might be right,” Bubbling Water admitted, mulling it over. “Anyway, in less than a year's time, he defeated Lofty Lion's armies. Already, Lofty Lion and Guarding Bear had dueled, and the Northern Emperor cleaved his nose in half—the only duel to date my mate didn't win.

“Guarding Bear was laying siege to the castle when Flying Arrow came north. Until someone duels and defeats the Emperor himself, of course, the war continues. Flying Arrow issued the usual challenge, and the two Emperors fought on the plains of the Northern Empire for three days and nights. On the third night, Lofty Lion wounded Flying Arrow, a cut across the muscles of his upper left arm. Despite the wound, Flying Arrow disarmed Lofty Lion, capturing him.

“During the war, the Northern Heir Sword disappeared. Flying Arrow was livid when he learned no one could find it. He personally questioned Lofty Lion. The former Emperor remembered destroying it, but Flowing Mind found traces of psychic signature in the memory. The signature was Lurking Hawk's.”

“
That's
why Flying Arrow made him Sorcerer!” Snarling Jaguar said.

“Exactly, Lord—so Lurking Hawk will eventually lead him to the Heir Sword, if he knows where it is. Some whisper that the information was so deep in Lofty Lion's mind he didn't have access to it. Only the Infinite knows the truth. Lofty Lion died during the interrogation, unable to endure seeing his people slaughtered.”

Snarling Jaguar nodded, frowning. “I felt appalled when I heard Flying Arrow executed every Northerner in front of Lofty Lion, one by one.”

“I felt sick that a boy I'd reared was capable of such inhumane brutality. He'd always been a difficult child. As young as I was, without children yet and not much beyond childhood myself, I was ill-prepared to rear him. As Matriarch and Steaming Water's sister, though, I had to care for him as my own. Oh, Infinite forgive me my inexperience.” Bubbling Water sighed quietly, feeling anew the guilt with which she'd so long lived.

Snarling Jaguar held her. “I can see how you might feel responsible for a child you reared, Lady Water, but he's not of your flesh.”

In a society that acculturated people to think faults genetic, Bubbling Water nodded, her head buried in his shoulder, still feeling she'd failed somehow. A child she'd reared had exterminated an entire people. It was unconscionable: She literally couldn't keep the idea in her conscious mind. Defense mechanisms soon repressed the internal conflict until she could function once more.

“Our society values a woman's ability to bear and rear children. I've known women to fall on their knives because they felt responsible for their progeny, especially for daughters. Smoking Arrow compromised my authority in rearing Flying Arrow. He implicitly forbade me to discipline his son and Heir. Any child with few limits grows into an adult without a sense of morality. If I'd been older and more assertive, and Smoking Arrow more interested in the welfare of his only child, Flying Arrow might have received better guidance.” She shook her head. “ 'Might haves' are the worst of illusions.”

Snarling Jaguar nodded. “They keep us from seeing what's true.”

“Indeed,” Bubbling Water said, sighing. “Flying Arrow's a true tyrant.”

T
he custom of killing all male descendants of a vanquished enemy evolved during the Sovereignty of the Swords. The original reasoning was that sons sought revenge upon their fathers' murderers. The reason for continuing this custom differs from its origin. No matter what the father's offense, the trait passed from father to son—in effect a genetic flaw, despite scientific evidence that the genes don't encode such flaws. Such fallacious reasoning exemplifies the psychology of the Swords themselves.—
The Fall of the Swords
, by Keeping Track.

The matriarchies are a law unto themselves. We vehemently oppose the interference of men and honor canons sacred only to women. According to Matriarchal Law, a woman and all her daughters belong to only one Matriarchy. Although blood-lines run strong, a woman can change matriarchies with the approval of both Matriarchs involved. While custom decrees that children have matronyms and patronyms according to gender, the members of a matriarchy needn't all have the same matronym. In fact, for all members to have the same matronym is unusual. Whatever matriarchy to which a woman belongs, she does the will of the Matriarch. To mate whom the Matriarch says. To dissolve a mateship as the Matriarch says. To carry to term or abort a pregnancy as the Matriarch says. To fall on her knife or not as the Matriarch says. Or to accept a younger sister as the new Matriarch.—
Matriarchal Law: Precepts and Canons
, by the Matriarch Rippling Water.

* * *

“How could you let the Usurper escape, you fornicating imbecile?” Flying Arrow bellowed at the prostrate man in the eastern hall.

“Forgive me, Lord Emperor Arrow!” wailed the Lieutenant Tumbling Pigeon, his forehead against the cold, blue-and-white stone.

“Only those who don't know what they're doing deserve forgiveness, you despicable droppings of diseased dog!”

“How could I have known of the crack in the city wall, Lord Emperor Arrow?” Tumbling Pigeon asked, looking up. Drops of sweat poured down his alabaster face and pooled under his quivering chin.

“By expecting any hint of subterfuge, Lieutenant!” Flying Arrow yelled, rubbing his upper left arm with his bandaged right hand. “Especially from that Imperial Whore!” He secured the sheathed Imperial Sword to his left side with his blue and white sash. Standing, he descended to the first step of the dais. A shiver shook him. On impulse, he glanced left and right at the two statues standing at the forward corners. For a moment, he'd thought they were watching him. Silently, he vowed to get rid of them. The statues had been gifts from Guarding Bear.

“Bring his mate and children!” Flying Arrow yelled. Blast those lazy Arrow Warriors anyway! he thought. They couldn't capture a single Bear Warrior for interrogation!

* * *

Tumbling Pigeon shuddered at the Emperor's order, fearing now not for his own life, but for the lives of his children. “Lord Emperor Arrow, I beg of you to spare my family. Hurl me onto my own knife and toss my body to the dogs, but please let my children live!”

“Silence!” the Emperor spat.

Tumbling Pigeon was desperate for some artifice to save his three sons. “Lord Emperor Arrow, they're your blood relatives!”

“Indeed—I should have long ago corrected whatever madness possessed the Matriarch to mate her daughter to
you
! Now be still!”

Pacing back and forth on the lower step of the dais, Flying Arrow kept his gaze on the prostrate man. Tumbling Pigeon shuddered. The Emperor's expression, fraught with contempt and anger, made his visage wholly inhuman. In this mood, he was Steaming Water resurrected, his mother renown for her wrath and tyranny.

The Lieutenant had heard tales of the Empress who'd died giving birth to Flying Arrow. While a young woman, Steaming Water mated the Emperor Smoking Arrow and ruled Emparia Castle and the Water Matriarchy with an iron fist. Not long before her death, Steaming Water ordered five of her six younger sisters to change their names to Stream. Leaving only Bubbling Water with the matronym, Steaming Water declared this youngest sister of seven the Matriarch, abdicating the title.

Much displeased with Steaming Water, the five sisters had welcomed Bubbling Water's appointment to the Matriarchate, thinking her easier to manipulate. Having to change theirs and their daughters' names had pleased them less. They'd liked the influence inherent in sharing a matronym with the Empress. Steaming Water had ordered her sisters to adopt a different matronym to prevent a future claim on the Matriarchate, strengthening the youngest sister's hold on the position.

The Sisters Stream, however, had mistaken the new Matriarch's sparkle for weakness. Like her sister the Empress, Bubbling Water also ruled with an iron fist, but tempered it with a velvet glove. Under the young woman's management, the Matriarchy had grown, and was now the most prolific and extensive in all four Empires.

A year after making Bubbling Water the Matriarch, Steaming Water had died giving birth to the future Emperor, and never knew how astute her choice had been. Afterward, Bubbling Water had cared for the motherless child while not much more than a child herself. The ignorant and superstitious said that Steaming Water's spirit had entered her son. This belief had a basis in truth, mothers bestowing upon newborns half their psychic reserve. The Infinite had taken Steaming Water before she'd given the child this psychic gift. As a result, Flying Arrow was significantly lacking in talents.

* * *

At swordpoint, four guards in blue and white herded a woman and three boys into the audience hall. Despite the steel at her back, the woman walked erect, without a sign of submission or fear. At ten paces behind the Lieutenant, the guards stopped them and shoved the children to the floor. While her progeny whimpered at her feet, the woman made her obeisance, then spoke without a quaver. “Lord Emperor Arrow, I don't object to this treatment, but my children don't have the understanding to see it in its proper perspective. If the Lord Emperor would be so kind as to explain—”

“Shut up, woman!”

“Lord Emperor Arrow!” she said indignantly. “I will not—”

“Trickling Stream, please!” Tumbling Pigeon pleaded into the floor, his forehead against cold stone.

Frowning toward her mate, she sighed. “Forgive me my outburst, Lord Emperor Arrow.”

“I'll report your disrespect to your Matriarch and recommend that she remove your tongue!” Imperial law forbade Flying Arrow to punish a woman without her matriarch's explicit consent. Trickling Stream's Matriarch would never relinquish such a duty to someone else. Bubbling Water enforced her own discipline.

“Thank you, Lord Emperor Arrow, on behalf of the Lady Matriarch Water,” Trickling Stream said, bowing. “My faults are intolerable, it is true,” she added, her composure as solid as rock. “However, after these curmudgeons who profess to be guards treated me no better than a slave, I have a right to know the reason.”

“The Lady Trickling Stream demands an explanation, eh?” Flying Arrow sneered, pacing again. “Tell her, Lord Lieutenant Tumbling Pigeon!”

“I didn't carry out my orders, my mate,” Tumbling Pigeon said into the floor.

“What were your orders, honorable mate?” she asked.

“To turn away all those seeking to leave the city and to—”

“To seal off the gate!” Flying Arrow interrupted, stepping off the dais toward the prone Lieutenant. “You've shamed your Emperor before all the peoples of the four Empires! You've failed in your duty to your Emperor! You've besmirched your family name and spat upon the Imperial banner!” The Emperor drew the Sword with both hands and swung it in a mighty arc, splitting the Lieutenant's skull from crown to neck.

Blood gushed, gushed, gushed from the wound with each of the man's last heartbeats. The body twitched and was still.

Trickling Stream shuddered and bit her lip on a scream.

His robes spattered, Flying Arrow jerked off the sash and lovingly cleansed his blade. Sheathing the Sword, he glared at Trickling Stream with a smile that looked insane. “You!” he spat at a guard, “obliterate the body!”

The guard approached and Flying Arrow backed away. As the guard methodically hacked the corpse into tiny pieces, the Emperor watched closely, as if to insure that no piece too large escaped the guard's attention.

Their clothes soiled with vomit and excrement, the children whimpered, their faces buried in their mother's robes. Trickling Stream regarded the Emperor with an impassive face, refusing to let him see her pain.

“Bring the youngest child!” Flying Arrow ordered, the boy not older than five. Of the six guards in the room, not one moved toward the huddled children. “You!” he singled out a guard. “Flatulating idiots! I'll break the sleeping fast on your brains if you continue to disobey!”

* * *

Crushing Mace tried to step toward the children. His feet stuck to stone. Feces ran unnoticed down his legs.

“Haven't you any spine, you cursed invertebrate?!” Flying Arrow raged. “Fall on your knife for your incompetence!”

Relieved, Crushing Mace knelt in his excrement and unsheathed a knife. From earliest childhood, he'd prepared for this ultimate moment. A warrior prayed the Infinite took him onward on the point of his knife or on the sword of an enemy. Crushing Mace had often sought death in this most honorable way, but he couldn't have killed a child even to defend himself. “With my insignificant life I, Crushing Mace, formally protest this inhuman barbarity, Lord Emperor Arrow. Before these witnesses, I say—”

“Get on with it, or I'll—”

“By custom he can say what he wants, Lord Emperor Arrow!” another guard interrupted. Since a person died only once, the ritual of suicide—voluntary or otherwise—permitted a person to speak freely and to commit his or her words to the permanence of parchment for any to read.

Apoplexy filled Flying Arrow's face. A lance of white-hot light electrocuted both guards. Smoking corpses fell to the floor. The Emperor absently rubbed his left palm against his robes. The fetor of frying flesh floated upon the air. “You!” Flying Arrow said, pointing at a third guard, “Bring the youngest child! Bring him here!” He pointed at the gore in which he stood.

This warrior tried to drag the boy away from his mother. Trickling Stream withered him with a glance, desiccating him with her dehydration. Flying Arrow hit her with a bolt of electricity not strong enough to kill. Trickling Stream convulsed, gritting her teeth but letting forth not a squeak. The Emperor gestured at another guard. Advancing cautiously, the warrior sneezed when he disturbed the pile of dust that had been a fellow guard moments before. Separating the boy from his mother, the guard carried him to the puddle and set him there. He turned to retreat, having carried out the Emperor's order.

“You haven't finished, Lord Microscopic Mind!” Flying Arrow beat his limp left arm against his side.

“What are your orders, Lord Emperor Arrow?”

“Kill the boy, imbecile!”

Turning green, the warrior swallowed his vomit and drew his sword. Kneeling, he bowed to the child. “Forgive me, Little Lord.” Turning him face down, he rested his foot on the child's back and swung, beheading the boy flawlessly.

“Well done, bilious one. Now obliterate the corpse.”

The sword like a pendulum, the guard mechanically cut up the body.

“Bring the next oldest,” Flying Arrow ordered, sneering at the mother.

“No!” Trickling Stream howled, her composure finally breaking. “Please, Lord Emperor Arrow, give me a knife to slit my belly, but spare my innocent children! Oh, merciful Lord Emperor Arrow, please!”

A slow smile spread across Flying Arrow's face. He ordered the guard to continue. Ritually, granting the child the same honor as his younger brother, the warrior decapitated the second child and cut up the body.

Trickling Stream wept.

Flying Arrow ordered the same fate for the last child, the ten-year-old Diving Pigeon. The guard reached for him, then burst into flames. The smell of sizzling skin suffused the air. Flying Arrow snarled, a snake of lightning struck, and Diving Pigeon writhed. The numbness spread upward into the Emperor's left shoulder.

* * *

Infinite help me, Trickling Stream thought as the electrokinesis ceased. What would the Lady Matriarch or the Lord General do? Oh, Lord Infinite, help me to find the strength to face this as they would. Acceptance flowed into her heart as her tears flowed from her eyes. “Go with dignity, my son,” she whispered. The serenity of the Infinite upon her, Trickling Stream straightened. “Lord Emperor Arrow, I request that you allow the Little Lord Diving Pigeon to take his own life, with honor.”

“What's he done to deserve an honorable death, eh?”

“He meets the Infinite willingly, Lord Emperor Arrow.”

“Give him a knife,” Flying Arrow ordered. “We shall see if the boy has the fortitude to do what's beyond many men twice and thrice his age.”

Kneeling, Diving Pigeon bared his stomach. The haft in both hands, the blade toward his lower bowels, he looked at Flying Arrow. His eyes never leaving the Emperor, Diving Pigeon thrust the knife deep into the lower-left groin, and yanked it across and up toward the right kidney, spilling his bowels into his lap. Just before he fell forward, a guard leaped over and beheaded Diving Pigeon so the throes didn't dishonor the death.

A long silence followed, all but the Emperor admiring the boy's courage.

“Thank you for your bravery, my son,” Trickling Stream whispered.

“Cowardice, you mean!” Flying Arrow spat, scowling at her. “Confiscate Tumbling Pigeon's home and its contents, take what's left of the bodies, mix them with piss and shit, and sell the concoction to a farmer as fertilizer!”

“Lord Emperor Arrow, what about the woman?” asked one of the two remaining guards.

“Remand her unto the Matriarch Water with my recommendation that she die the most ignominious death possible.” Flying Arrow's gaze bore into Trickling Stream. His left arm hung at his side, as though paralyzed.

“The Matriarch shall know my wrath!”

Then, as on countless earlier occasions, the Emperor kicked the corpse. It was smaller and lighter than most the corpses he'd kicked, and on the floor was more blood than usual.