“I will discuss it with my daughter Fara when I put her to bed tonight.”
Scattered laughter from the assembled ministers and generals echoed around the hall.
“This Kita is an exceedingly silly man,” whispered Théra.
“What makes you think he has failed?” asked Soto.
“It’s such a ridiculous suggestion! Father just compared it to a fairy tale!” Théra said.
Phyro agreed. “This is his chance to impress the emperor, and he completely botched it. Everyone knows how much attention my father pays to the army—”
“And now he’s ruined this one precious opportunity that he got after years of study, something that others who have worked equally hard will never get!” finished Théra.
“I thought what he said was reasonable,” said Timu hesitantly. “Master Ruthi’s glosses on Kon Fiji’s Morality said—”
“You do remember that Father used to call the One True Sage the One True Sap, don’t you?” said Théra. Phyro started to laugh and had to cover his mouth with his hands until his face turned red from the effort to be quiet.
“A dutiful child does not repeat the opinions of a parent given after an evening of drink and revelry,” said Timu, his tone rather cold. “The emperor also said—”
But Soto cut in. “Do you think any of the pana méji are the children of simple peasants?”
Timu, Théra, and Phyro peeked through the seam in the door at the ten figures sitting at the center of the Grand Audience Hall. All of them were young, good-looking, and dressed in fine silks—except for the young woman kneeling at the end of the last row, who was dressed in a plain hempen robe dotted with patches like a map of Dara.
“Hey, that’s Zomi!” Phyro whispered.
“Yes! I knew we were right to help her!” said Théra, her face flushed with joy.
“Except for her,” Soto said, “all the rest of them come from big, important clans, families with power and money and the best tutors, families that could count on many future pana méji among their ranks. They’re playing the long game. When these examinees speak, you can’t interpret what they’re saying as the words of an individual.”
“Why don’t they just deliver a petition to the governor or noble in their region if they have something to say to Da?” asked Phyro.
“Because… they already know how Father will react to the message,” said Théra. “Don’t they? It’s more about the forum.”
Soto nodded approvingly. “How often does anyone get a chance to voice an opinion directly to the emperor as well as all the Lords of Dara? The Palace Examination is a rare opportunity for these families. You’ve just heard what some of the deposed old nobles of the Tiro states think of your father’s reign.”
Théra nodded. It was as if a veil had been lifted from her eyes. “So that fairy tale from Kita was really a threat. A threat of treason.”
Timu looked at her, shocked. “Théra! If that were true, the emperor would have had the guards seize him instead of making a joke. How can you say such outrageous things?”
Soto sighed inwardly. Not all of Kuni’s children had the same natural instinct for politics as their father. Patiently, she explained, “The emperor’s joke was not directed at Kita. It was certainly not the spoiled princeling’s reaction that your father cared about.”
“What do you mean?” Timu asked, his expression still one of bafflement.
Soto tried again. “When your father sits down to share a meal with one of his advisers, do you think they’re really interested in the food? When your mother invites Consort Risana to attend an opera, do you think they are really interested in the performance? Sometimes the show that is on the stage is only an excuse for a conversation among the audience that would be too awkward without the distraction.”
Théra peeked through the seam in the door again. While most of the ministers and governors on the west side of the Grand Audience Hall chuckled, only a few of the generals and nobles on the east side were laughing. Some of the nobles even looked… tense.
“Do you think many of the newly enfeoffed nobles are growing restless? Would they ally with the old nobles of the Seven States against my father?” asked Théra. The idea seemed so far-fetched. Queen Gin and Duke Kimo and Marquess Yemu… they are all friends with Father, aren’t they?
“Or perhaps your father thinks they are growing restless, which is and isn’t the same thing,” said Soto. “It’s no secret that the empress sides with the governors and the bureaucracy and suspects the nobles and generals. Your father respects her opinion. The joke was the real test.”
“I don’t understand—” began Timu.
“Or”—Théra bit her bottom lip, deep in thought—“perhaps some of the nobles think that my father suspects them of ambition, and they are testing my father by laughing or not laughing.”
“Argh!” Phyro wrapped his arms around his head dramatically. “You’re making my head hurt. Why do you have to make everything so complicated, Rata-tika? If anybody really dared to rebel, Da would just ride out with his army and fix it, the same way he fought the Hegemon. Auntie Gin will teach them a lesson they won’t forget!”
Soto smiled. “It’s possible to be too clever. In any case, nobody knows the truth in the hearts of these nobles, but that is what everyone is trying to find out. The message delivered by Kita Thu is a stone tossed into a pond, and now everyone in the Grand Audience Hall is trying to read the ripples.”
“I don’t think we should be discussing such things,” said Timu. He looked distinctly uncomfortable.
Soto looked at him pityingly. “What if the emperor makes you crown prince? Then it would be your job to think about such things.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
CRESCENT ISLAND
CRESCENT ISLAND: THE FIRST YEAR IN THE REIGN OF FOUR PLACID SEAS (FIVE YEARS BEFORE THE FIRST GRAND EXAMINATION).
Except for a few coastal towns and trading ports, Crescent Island was largely unsettled.
The landscape was a patchwork of shield volcanoes with miles and miles of frozen, ropy lava flow on which barely anything grew—as though the gods had carved ruts into a muddy road with massive carriages—and dense forests divided by rugged mountains, where the fauna and flora between neighboring valleys were as different as two islands divided by the open ocean.
In the days of the Tiro kings, the southern part of the island was administered by Amu, and the kings of Amu used it as a royal hunting preserve, though foreign kings and nobles from all over Dara were sometimes given license to hunt there as a reward or gesture of friendship. Mountain deer, lava fowl, white-cap monkeys, and parrots with bright plumage were all favored quarry, though the most prized game of all was the boar, which seemed to develop tusks of different shapes and sizes and coloration in each of the hundreds of valleys on Crescent Island. Some of the kings of old Amu became obsessed with collecting them all and spent more time hunting than administering in Müning, and the Amu poet Nakipo, who was also renowned as a lady of fashion at the Müning court, once wrote:
The policy of keeping Crescent Island largely wild was maintained under Emperor Mapidéré, and then later, under Emperor Ragin. Initially, Kuni had tried to settle some of the veterans from his wars on new land claimed from the wilderness, but the soil turned out to be mostly poor, and few wanted to be so far away from the rest of civilization. The scattering of coastal settlements were populated with families who found employment as guides and porters for the trophy-hunting parties of the nobles, supplementing their income by fishing in other seasons.