“Let me think…. Lurusén wrote it after the King of Cocru signed a treaty of nonaggression with the King of Xana, which he opposed. My father explained to me that it was a veiled political pamphlet in which Lurusén criticized the King of Cocru’s shortsightedness. Though Cocru at the time was at peace and prosperous, he hinted at the oncoming storm from overseas.”
“From Xana’s ambition?” asked Ra Olu. “But Xana was dominating through airpower.”
“True, but the political climate made it impossible to speak too openly, so he used ‘sovereign of the seas’ as a veiled reference to the Xana threat.”
“I’m still not sure how that applies here.” Ra Olu was disappointed.
“There are more layers to the poem.” Lady Lon paced as she tried to recall the details of literary lessons from long ago. “I remember researching the poem in detail because I liked it, and coming upon a bit of ancient history that Lurusén also likely had in mind. Centuries ago, before the stability of the Seven States, there were many more Tiro states in Dara all fighting against each other. One of these states, Keos, was locked in a cycle of warfare with a state named Diyo. Keos was the stronger, and managed to breach the capital of Diyo, taking the King of Diyo prisoner. Only after the King of Diyo pledged fealty to the King of Keos was he allowed to go home.
“But the King of Diyo was not content to live out his days as a vassal of Keos. Secretly, he initiated a program of vengeance. He let it be known that the court of Diyo coveted a kind of oyster that grew only near the shores of Keos, and was willing to pay a high price for it. The people of Keos soon realized that they could make far more profit by diving for oysters and selling them to Diyo than by working the fields, and many in Keos abandoned their farms and headed for the sea to dive for gold.
“At the same time, the King of Diyo encouraged his own population to reclaim more land for farming and to plant varieties of rice, wheat, and sorghum with high yields. Claiming that Diyo was poor, he paid the tribute he owed Keos in kind, in the form of grain shipments. As a result, the King of Keos wasn’t concerned that so much of the farmland of his domain was wasted because the tribute grain from Diyo kept everyone fed. Indeed, his subjects were growing rich from the exorbitant sums paid by Diyo for those silly oysters.
“Five years later, Diyo suddenly stopped paying tribute. The granaries of Keos were empty because the people of Keos had not been farming for several years. While the population of Keos starved, the army of Diyo swept across the border and conquered it easily. The King of Keos hung himself in shame before the army of Diyo breached the capital.”
“This is a tale of the dangers of pride and arrogance, of dependence on a source of food you do not control,” mused Ra Olu.
“I think Lurusén was using the tale to argue that the King of Cocru had been lured into a sense of complacency while Xana plotted Cocru’s downfall,” said Lady Lon. “That last line is also a veiled dig at Xana, for it was popular among the core islands at the time to describe Xana peasants, who often suffered famine, as plagues of locusts.”
“Keep your silos filled and sealed… plagues the wind may bring…,” Ra Olu muttered to himself as he pondered the poem’s many layers. A vague idea was starting to form in his head. “Lon, did you ever share your interpretation with anyone in the Imperial household?”
“Now that you mention it, I do remember discussing the poem with both the emperor and the empress when we visited Pan years ago. Both of them were enthusiasts for Lurusén’s work and seemed to delight in novel interpretations.”
Ra Olu nodded. “I think I know what the empress really meant.”
He explained his theory to her.
Lady Lon looked at him. “Do you mean to do as she asks?”
Ra Olu locked gazes with her. “You and I have both done what we could not just to survive, but to live up to the ideals of the Moralist scholar who, even when captured by the enemy, never stops serving his true lord.”
Lady Lon sighed. “And the empress obviously intended this message for you, as only you and I could have understood it. It’s good to know that all our efforts to sneak coded intelligence to the empress through the pékyu’s letters and other means have not gone unrecognized. If we survive, I’m certain the empress will be grateful.”
Ra Olu shook his head. “Lon, I don’t wish to give you false hope. There is a duty placed on those who have been elevated above the base crowd by studying the words of the Ano sages. Lurusén was willing to die not for the king, but for the people of Cocru.”
“And you mean to emulate him.”
Ra Olu nodded resolutely. “If you renounce me now and seek a Lyucu thane who desires your beauty, it might still be possible for you to save yourself. Love makes us do strange things, Lon, but you need not die for my decision.”
Lady Lon stood still, a frown on her face. “Our love has weathered torture and degradation, but my choice now isn’t guided by blind romance. Lady Zy stood by her husband Lurusén and dove into the Liru River with him not for love, but for a shared ideal. I may not be her equal in talent, yet I do not think I lack her courage. I have read the same Moralist treatises as you, and there is no monopoly on virtue by those who wear the robe as opposed to the dress.”
The two embraced and said no more.
With the cooling weather came the time for the High-Autumn Festival.
As the Lyucu invasion of the Big Island was imminent, security in Rui and Dasu was even tighter than usual. Local families were told to stay indoors after dark, after completing chores assigned by the Lyucu foremen, and even the traditional celebrations and banquets were canceled.
Ra Olu went to Pékyu Tenryo and asked for an exemption. “It’s not a good idea to press the people too hard. If you allow some private celebrations, the people will be thankful for your generosity, and later, when many of the Lyucu warriors must leave with you to conquer the Big Island, they’ll be less likely to make trouble.”
“Large gatherings in public are always dangerous. They’ll whisper to each other, and troublemakers will spread rumors. Besides, such celebrations take time away from their work for us.”
“We can prevent that while still giving the people something to celebrate. It’s our custom for families and neighbors to share a banquet of moonbread on the night of the High-Autumn Festival. If we gather a small number of people to prepare the bread ahead of time under your watch, the rest of the people can keep on working for your benefit. We can then have the bread distributed to each family so that they can celebrate privately on the night of the festival. This will prevent the spread of rumors, avoid wasteful sloth, and still mark the occasion as festive.”
Pékyu Tenryo thought about the proposal and granted it. Ra Olu was always so good at coming up ways to guide these Dara sheep.
And so, as Lyucu warriors watched over the proceedings, Ra Olu and Lady Lon gathered the deci-chiefs of the various families of Rui and Dasu into Kriphi and turned them into a moonbread factory. The dough biscuits were packed with different flavored fillings—lotus seeds, taro paste, candied monkeyberries, chopped seaweed, diced bamboo shoots, and many others—as well as small slips of paper bearing simple phrases spelled out in zyndari letters. The Lyucu guards examined the slips of paper and had multiple collaborating scholars translate them to be sure they contained nothing suspicious.
All the slips contained only stock phrases wishing for good luck or clumsy attempts at praising the Great Pékyu. The Lyucu warriors laughed and shook their heads—these people truly were silly and natural-born slaves.