While the resettlement policy was very unpopular with the nobles, it did have the benefit of enriching the lives of the ordinary folk of the Islands of Dara. The resettled nobles craved foods and clothes from their homelands, and merchants traveled all over Dara, transporting products that seemed exotic to the local populace but were eagerly purchased by the exiled nobles, who yearned for a hint of home and their old ways of life. In this manner, the scattered nobles became teachers of taste for the commoners, who learned to be more cosmopolitan and ecumenical.
Thus Zudi played host to exiled noble families from all over Dara, and they filled it with new customs, new dishes, and new dialects and words that had never before been heard in the city’s sleepy markets and sedate teahouses.
If you were going to give marks for Emperor Mapidéré’s performance as an administrator, Kuni thought, the improvement in the diversity of Zudi’s markets definitely had to be counted as a positive. The streets were filled with vendors selling all manners of novelties from across Dara: bamboo-copters from Amu — ethereal toys with revolving blades at the end of a stick that could be spun rapidly until the contraption took off into the air like a tiny dragonfly; living paper-men from Faça — the paper cutouts would dance and leap like the veiled dancers on a tiny stage when you rubbed the glass rod in the ceiling with a silk cloth; magic calculators from Haan — wooden mazes with tiny doors at every branch that flipped as marbles rolled through them, and a skilled operator could use them to compute sums; iron puppets from Rima — intricate mechanical men and animals that walked down an inclined slope on their own power; and so on.
But Kuni paid the most attention to the food: He loved the fried lamb strips native to the Xana home islands, especially the hot and spicy variety from Dasu. He found the delicate raw fish served by the merchants from Wolf’s Paw delightful — it went especially well with mango liquor and a dash of hot mustard grown in Faça’s tiny spice estates nestled in the deep shades of the Shinané Mountains. He salivated so much as he admired the snacks on display from the various vendors that he had to swallow a few times.
He had a grand total of two copper pieces in his pocket, not even enough for a string of sugar-coated crabapples.
“Well, I really should be watching my weight anyway,” he said to himself, and sadly patted his beer belly. He wasn’t getting much exercise these days, what with all the partying and drinking.
He sighed and was just about to leave the market to find a quiet spot for a nap when a loud argument attracted his attention.
“Sir, please don’t take him,” an old woman dressed in the traditional garb of the Xana peasant — full of knotted tassels and the colorful, geometric patches that were supposed to be symbols for good luck and prosperity, though the only people who wore them had neither — begged an Imperial soldier. “He’s only fifteen, and he’s my youngest son. My eldest is already working at the Mausoleum. The laws say that the last child can stay with me.”
The complexion of the old woman and her son was paler than most of the people in Cocru, but this didn’t mean much by itself. Though people from the various parts of Dara differed in their physical features, there had always been some steady migration and mixing of peoples, a process accelerated after the Unification. And the people of the various Tiro states had always cared much more about cultural and linguistic differences than mere appearance. Still, given the woman’s Xana garb and accent, it was clear she was not a native of Cocru.
She was a long way from home, Kuni thought. Probably the widow of a Xana soldier stranded here after the Unification. Since the kite rider’s assassination attempt seven years ago, Zudi had remained heavily garrisoned — the emperor’s men never managed to find the rider, but they did imprison and execute many of Zudi’s citizens on flimsy evidence and continued to rule Zudi with an extra level of harshness. At least the emperor’s agents administered the laws without any favoritism. The poor from Xana were treated just like the poor of the conquered states.
“I’ve asked you for the birth certificates for the two boys, and you’ve produced nothing.” The soldier brushed away the woman’s pleading fingers impatiently. His accent indicated that he was from Xana as well. The man was bloated and flabby, a bureaucrat more than a fighting man, and he stared at the youth standing next to the old woman with a cold smirk, daring the young man to do something rash.
Kuni knew his kind well. The man had probably dodged out of having to fight during the Unification Wars and then bribed his way into a commission in the Xana army as soon as peace had been declared so that he could get assigned to one of the conquered territories as a corvée administrator. It was his job to raise up the local quota of able-bodied men to work on one of the emperor’s grand infrastructure projects. It was a position with a little bit of power but a lot of room for abuse. It was also very lucrative: Families who didn’t want to see their sons conscripted were willing to pay a high price.
“I know wily women like you,” the man went on. “I think this story about your ‘eldest’ is a complete fabrication to get out of having to pay your fair share for the construction of a suitable palace for the afterlife of His Imperial Majesty, the Beloved Emperor Mapidéré. May he never leave us.”
“May he never leave us. But I’m telling you the truth, Sir.” The old woman tried flattery. “You are wise and brave, and I know you will take pity on me.”
“It’s not pity you need,” the corvée administrator said. “If you can’t produce the documents—”
“The documents are at the magistracy back home, in Rui—”
“Well, we aren’t in Rui, now are we? And don’t interrupt me. I’ve given you the choice to pay a Prosperity Tax so that we can forget this unpleasantness. But since you are unwilling, I’ll have to—”
“I’m willing, Sir! I’m willing. But you have to give me time. Business has not been good. I need time—”
“I told you not to interrupt me!” The man lifted his hand and slapped the old woman across her face. The young man standing next to her lunged at him, but the old woman grabbed her son’s arm and tried to position herself between the administrator and her son. “Please, please! Forgive my foolish son. You can hit me again for his faults.”
The administrator laughed and spat at her.
The old woman’s face trembled with unspeakable sorrow. It brought to Kuni’s mind the face of his own mother, Naré, and the times when she would berate him for not making more of his own life. The drunken stupor evaporated.
“How much is the Prosperity Tax?” Kuni sauntered up to the three of them. Other pedestrians gave them a wide berth. No one wanted to draw the attention of the corvée administrator.
The man eyed Kuni Garu — beer belly, ingratiating smile, face still red with drink, and unkempt, wrinkled clothes — and decided that he was no threat. “Twenty-five pieces of silver. And what’s that to you? Are you volunteering to take the boy’s place on the corvée?”
Kuni’s father, Féso Garu, had paid off corvée administrator after corvée administrator, and he did have the documents to show that he was exempt. He also wasn’t afraid of the man. Kuni was a pretty good street brawler and thought he would acquit himself well if they came to blows. But this was a situation that called for some finesse, not force.
“I’m Fin Crukédori,” he said. The Crukédoris owned Zudi’s largest jewelry store, and Fin, the eldest son, had once tried to turn Kuni and his friends into the constabulary for disturbing the peace after Kuni humiliated him in a game of high-stakes dice. Fin’s father was also known for being stingy and never spared a copper for any charity — but his son had a reputation as a spendthrift. “And I like nothing more than money.”