They all did—but after that, Param was quite sure that they still tried to guess what her questions meant, which way she was leaning. They simply became more subtle about their responses.
It was annoying that, as Queen-in-the-Tent, at least for this corner of the realm, she had to be so scrupulous about even the slightest utterance. How constraining it was to have authority!
Yet she also remembered Mother’s powerlessness in the pleasant prisons in which Param had grown up. Mother also had had to watch every word she said, but not because others would over-obey her, trying to anticipate her decisions. Mother’s constraints came from fear that the People’s Revolutionary Council would suppose her to be trying to assert royal authority. So Mother, too, had to learn to speak far less than she thought.
It turned Mother into a monster of deception. What is it doing to me?
In private, she could ask Umbo. But she knew his answer: You’re doing a perfect job of saying the very least that you can say. Yet when you do speak, it’s always sensible and when you make decisions, everyone can see the justice, the wisdom in your words.
And then Param would wonder if Umbo said this because it was true, or at least he believed it was true; or did he say these things only to reassure her and make her happy? And if she ever made a decision that flatly contradicted the clear will of the council, would she be obeyed? She tried to rule by persuasion, by creating consensus, but that only worked when the decision had no urgency. As they prepared for the full-fledged all-out war, the clash of great armies, decisions would need to be made quickly, and she was quite aware that it was not just the Queen-in-the-Tent—herself—who had no idea what she was doing. Olivenko was well-read and clever, but no one knew what their army would do in real bloody combat, so he might be wrong about everything. So might Loaf. So might any of them.
“We can always go back and try again,” said Umbo at such times. “Have I come to you in a vision and warned you not to decide in a certain way?”
“Well, not yet,” said Param.
“Then your decisions obviously work out perfectly well.”
“Or I haven’t made any decisions with consequences that matter.”
“That should ease your mind even more,” said Umbo.
“Or whatever went wrong killed you and me and Rigg, and so there was no one to come back and prevent it all from going wrong.”
“And if that happens,” said Umbo, “then the Destroyers will come and wipe out all our mistakes.”
“Unless Noxon succeeds in saving us,” said Param.
“He hasn’t yet,” said Umbo.
“That we know of,” said Param.
Then Umbo glowered and fell silent. It was obvious that even though Noxon was gone—millions of kilometers away on Earth, or else lost in the oblivion of some crack in spacetime—Umbo was still envious of the many weeks Noxon had spent in Param’s company while they were teaching each other to use their timeshaping talents with more range and expertise.
Umbo’s resentments were the worst thing about him. But in this case, Param had to admit that he was not so very wrong. It was irrational that even though Noxon was the very same person as Rigg, prior to the division between them, Param did not hold him responsible for all the annoyances Rigg had caused. Nor did she think of Noxon with the same sisterly affection she had for Rigg. There really were times that she wished Noxon were still here.
Though, to be fair, Umbo was a very kind and sweet husband, and he made no effort to interfere with her authority as Queen-in-the-Tent. If anyone spoke less at these war councils than Param, it was Umbo. He would not offer an opinion or even ask a question unless she commanded it, or so it seemed.
His diffidence was, of course, annoying, especially since it extended into the bedroom. Into all their time alone. He never even asked for intimacy. Never even waited around as if hoping. If she said—or implied—that she wanted him to share her bed, then there he was, always compliant, and in the moment quite enthusiastic yet also gentle. Always careful of every sound, every flinch, every cue she gave, whether it meant anything or not. This made him in some ways the perfect husband, the perfect lover—and in other ways, completely annoying. Wasn’t there any moment in which he would step up and be her equal? Assert himself?
How could he? She had spent so many months openly disdaining him, before they married, and she was sure he remembered every slight, every offense. Umbrage was his normal state, and she had given him so much cause to doubt that she had or could ever have any respect for him that she could hardly expect him to behave otherwise. Loaf, Leaky, Olivenko, and Ramex had all explained to her, quite kindly, that any strangeness between Umbo and her was entirely the result of the way they had been reared.
“Actually, you’re quite compatible,” said Olivenko. “Now that you’ve stopped picking at him, he seems to be nearly perfect for you.”
“Tiptoeing around me as if I were a sleeping lioness is not ‘perfect,’” Param had replied.
“You are a lioness,” said Olivenko, “and most definitely not asleep. I think he’s doing very well, and for you to be impatient with him is not just unreasonable but destructive. He knows he’s displeasing you but since the thing you’re displeased at is how perfectly he avoids displeasing you, it’s hard to imagine how he could act differently without, well, without displeasing you even more.”
Thus they stood around the table, around the map, contemplating various potential battlegrounds. South of General Haddamander’s main army was a place where the ground would favor Param’s army—but, as both Loaf and Olivenko pointed out, victory would leave them no better off than before, since Haddamander would still be between their army and the capital. But if they simply took possession of the capital, it would be an easy matter for Haddamander to besiege them, leaving her to feed hundreds of thousands of citizens as well as her army.
“We could do it,” said Rigg. “The way we feed our army now—by making purchases in the past.”
“We’re already buying up surpluses from five hundred years ago,” said Ramex. “Not that there aren’t plenty of other good years to buy from. But every purchase of grain improves the past economy, which changes history.”
They didn’t want to do that. Couldn’t afford to find themselves facing a much more popular or powerful enemy than Haddamander as the general of Hagia’s army. What if they changed history so the Sessamoto Empire was much better governed? So there had never been a People’s Revolution? So that Haddamander was, not the scion of a persecuted noble family, but the pampered, celebrated son of a great house? Might he not have been married to Hagia in the first place, instead of Rigg’s and Param’s own father? Just how much could they meddle in the past without causing vast, confusing changes?
Yet they had to feed their army—and, if their army suddenly appeared in the streets of Aressa Sessamo, all the citizens of the city as well.
What they needed was a quick, decisive, irresistible victory. Param had expected Rigg to argue against something so violent, but he surprised her. “I know you think I’m a pacifist of some sort,” said Rigg, “but that isn’t so. What will save the most lives is to have a quick, brutal, thorough victory, so the war ends with the one battle.”
“True,” said Loaf. “No matter which side wins, a decisive battle would definitely shorten the war.”
“I’d like us to win,” said Olivenko.