Fall of a Kingdom (The Farsala Trilogy) (13 page)

“My tent, I think,” said Patrius. “We can find both dryness and quiet there.”

Patrius’ tent was only a bit farther away, multi-roomed, like Garren’s, though smaller. It was still far larger than the tents of the common soldiers.

“You talk fine about just laws for the…common citizens, but you’re not exactly being one yourself, are you?” Kavi looked at the well-made chairs and a traveling desk that looked very like the one belonging to the substrategus.

Patrius shrugged. “I’m a tactimian. That means I lead a company of a thousand men. This is what the army provides for tactimians. But my father was a wool merchant, and his father was a butcher.”

Kavi felt his jaw drop. He almost exclaimed in disbelief, but the leader of a thousand men was blowing up the coals in his brazier and adding more charcoal as if he did it every day.

“How does a merchant’s son become a warrior?” he demanded, shedding his damp cloak.

“By rising in the army,” said Patrius. He seemed to be trying for Garren’s cool indifference, but he couldn’t quite bring it off. There was a man under that officer-to-spy demeanor. Perhaps a good one. “I should tell you that everyone qualified to serve is required to enlist in the army from age eighteen to age twenty-three. I understand that’s not true of your Farsala.”

Qualified to serve. Well, that leaves peasants out.
“Only the deghans fight,” Kavi confirmed. “And their half-blood bastards and their descendants serve as foot soldiers and archers. My folk don’t have it in them to be warriors. But there were women in the troop that brought me in, and that’s something even deghasses don’t do. Though I’ve met one who had the temper for it,” he finished ruefully.

“Women aren’t required to serve in the army,” said Patrius. “Though they aren’t turned away, as long as they can pass the physical challenges. If they can fight, and want to, the empire sees no reason not to let them.”

“That seems…odd to me.”

“There’s a lot about the empire that may seem strange to you,” said Patrius. “At first.”

At first it did. Miracles of engineering, like league after league of raised, paved roads. Aqueducts that carried streams through the air and even furnaces that poured hot water through pipes inside a house were marvels, true enough. But a tax system that was consistent and fair to all? Laws that applied equally to the imperial governor and the lowest beggar?

Kavi was peddler enough to recognize a pitch when he heard it. But he’d heard some of the same things from the traders he’d spoken to—and, unlike Patrius, they had no reason to lie to him.

“The laws even apply to conquered people,” Patrius added. “The moment we establish sufficient control of the countryside to begin collecting taxes, you become a citizen of the empire, with all the rights, and obligations, that entails.”

“Aye,” said Kavi skeptically. “But I’ve heard of how armies go ‘collecting taxes’ unofficially, before law comes. And they do things worse than looting, too.” He met Patrius’ eyes directly—no army in the history of the world conquered without rape. If Patrius claimed that the Hrum never raped conquered women, then Kavi would know he was lying.

Patrius sighed. “Some looting goes on, but it’s illegal; if the person who’s been robbed goes to the unit commander and complains, his goods will be restored to him and a fine levied. As for rape…I can’t say it never happens, but first offenders are beaten and fined. Second offenders are beaten again and cast out of the army, and a third offense of that nature is punished by death.”

Kavi rubbed his chin. “Among my folk it’s much the same. Among deghans…well, they don’t approve it, but they can get themselves off of charges by claiming that Drazan possessed them.”

“Drazan?” said Patrius curiously.

“The djinn of violent lust,” Kavi told him. “They’ve a djinn for every crime, the deghans.”

Patrius shook his head. “I can’t imagine basing any kind of legal system on…Well, there are different customs among many of the lands of the empire. Your deghans’ djinn may survive as a local custom or faith, but they’ll have no more force in law.”

“But if a man’s been cast out of your army, how could you recognize a third offender?” asked Kavi.

Patrius snorted. “You won’t ask that when you know us better. First, we tattoo them. There’s a different mark for every crime for which keeping track of offenses matters. And we find out a lot about anyone’s legal history, even if they’re not marked. The empire keeps more records than any people in the history of the world. They say that the empire rests, not on the swords of its soldiers, but on the pens of its scriveners. When I’m signing five sets of requisition forms, I curse them for it.”

“You said some local customs survive,” said Kavi. “Tell me, how do the Hrum feel about entering a man’s house?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you rap on the door or just be going in?” Kavi knew his voice was too intense, but it mattered.

Patrius frowned, obviously not understanding why the question was important. “We follow local custom in such matters. In the army you stand outside the tent and announce yourself, but outside…In some of the empire’s lands people open the door and call to the inhabitants; in others they just enter. In Brishat they hang a stick on a hook beside the door, and you tap the door with the stick. They’ve got a code: Two raps, pause, two raps means it’s a business matter; three without pause indicates a social visit. People who come to a house often will devise a personal knock, so the inhabitants know who’s there. Outside of our own camp we follow the local cus—”

“Tactimian Patrius?” called a voice from outside the tent.

Patrius responded. Kavi recognized the Hrum word for “yes,” though the babble that followed defeated him. But for once he was to get a translation. Patrius turned toward him in bemusement. “They’re looking for you,” he said. “It seems there’s a…problem with your mule.”

“YOU HAVE A DUCK POND?” said Kavi incredulously. “In the middle of an army camp?” He stared at the lapping water and the flapping, quacking inhabitants.

“We keep them for eggs,” murmured Patrius absently. “If they’ve got a pond, they scatter less than chickens do. Your mule thinks she’s a duck?”

“Near as I can figure it.” Kavi sighed, eyeing the one inhabitant of the pond who wasn’t quacking. The square pool was obviously artificial. Duckie was only belly-deep in the water, though perhaps the rain made up for it; she looked ridiculously content, ears flopped forward, as she watched the fleet of ducks maneuvering around her. Three perched on her back.

“A local custom?” Patrius’ face was commendably grave, but his eyes were alive with laughter. The scarlet-cloaked soldiers who’d braved the rain to see the show were grinning.

“No.” Kavi sighed again. “It’s just her. Or, no, it’s not just her. Watch.”

He pulled off his boots and waded into the pond, knowing from long experience that not even honeyed oatcakes could tempt Duckie from the water. The mule waited till Kavi was almost within reach of her halter, then she spun and splashed away, followed by a flotilla of chuckling admirers.

At least the pond’s bottom was level and regular. Kavi managed to corner Duckie and catch her lead rope without falling in, though in this rain it hardly mattered. He led Duckie out amid a chorus of indignant quacks and sloshed up the muddy bank to pick up his boots.

“Where do you want her?” he asked the snickering herdsman.

The man gestured for Kavi to follow him. Most of the ducks abandoned the parade as the pond fell out of sight, but four of them, deeply smitten, followed the mule right into the corral. One determined duck, with brown-and-white speckled feathers, maintained its perch on Duckie’s rump, complaining loudly about the motion.

“Hold,” said the herdsman in heavily accented Farsalan. “Will not they be stepped upon?”

“Not likely,” said Kavi. “Most mules and horses just avoid them. They sometimes get kicked. You can chase them back to the pond if you want, but they’ll just be coming back—and bringing a friend or two, like as not. Your best bet is to let them be.”

“You sound as if you’ve had this problem before?” Patrius turned to lead Kavi back to the tent. Kavi was glad to go. He was soaked top and bottom by now, and the mud was cold on his bare feet.

“Oh, aye. Every village where there’s a duck pond. Folk are mostly used to her by now, so it’s not much of a problem. The worst is if we’re near a swamp or a lake. It can be cursed hard to catch her there, and the ducks…Have you ever been pecked by a duck?”

“No.” Patrius gave up the battle and started to laugh. “No, I haven’t.”

“Well, it hurts,” said Kavi, beginning to grin himself. “They like her as much as she likes them, you see.”

“I begin to think,” said Patrius, holding the tent flap aside for Kavi to enter, “that Farsala will be an interesting addition to the empire.”

PATRIUS SENT A MAN—a
slave
?—for a basin of warm water and dry clothes. As Kavi cleaned up and dried off, Patrius explained that the Hrum didn’t attempt to banish or change local customs in any matters except those covered by the law. Customs of marriage and courtship, of inheritance, of religion and holiday, would all remain the same, and the Hrum occupying force would be forced to conform to them. The exceptions, in which imperial law prevailed over local custom, were crimes of theft or violence, which Patrius said were generally held to be crimes in all the lands the Hrum had conquered. They had taken twenty-eight countries and independent city-states in their centuries of expansion. Patrius went on to talk about how these countries had thrived under the empire, how their trade had expanded, and how their people—now citizens of the empire—had been endowed with all the rights, duties, and taxes that citizenship entailed.

“Taxes aren’t always low,” Patrius admitted. “But they are fairly levied as a proportion of a man’s wealth. They may rise in those years that the empire needs more funding, but they usually fall in the next. And they’re never high enough to cripple a business or a farm—the emperor knows full well that money begets money, and the government only consumes it.”

“So all citizens pay your taxes,” said Kavi. “Rich and poor?”

“Yes, and in the same percentage. It’s one of the obligations of being a citizen.”

“What about those who aren’t citizens?” Kavi asked. “At least, I’m told your folk keep slaves.” And surely that was a thing no righteous folk could justify.

“We do,” Patrius admitted. “It’s how we deal with those we capture in battle. They’re enslaved and sent to other lands. But even though they aren’t citizens, the law still protects them. There are legal limits, strictly enforced, regarding how much labor can be required of them, how they can be punished, and no child can be taken from its mother before the age of thirteen.”

“We send boys to be apprenticed at twelve often enough,” Kavi murmured. Could there be differences in slavery? Hrum slavery sounded very different from the tales told by escaped Kadeshi slaves, who were often horribly abused and had no protection at all. And the Kadeshi peasants weren’t much better off. From the sound of it, a Kadeshi peasant might welcome the life of a Hrum slave.

“They can also earn their freedom,” Patrius added. “Though it takes years and much labor, and many never do. And even if they win their freedom and become citizens, they’re never allowed to return to their own land. It sounds harsh, but removing those who might rebel is our way of keeping the peace for those who remain. Can you understand that, peddler?”

They went on to talk of how the Hrum governed. Kavi wasn’t pleased to learn that the commander of the army who conquered a land became its governor and that Garren, as substrategus, would command the army that would march into Farsala.

“There are reasons for it,” Patrius explained. “It’s held that in order to conquer a land within the time allowed, a commander will be forced to learn to understand the people. And if a commander, or even an imperial governor, abuses his power, the emperor will appoint another in his place.”

Kavi shrugged. Farsala had had bad gahns in the past. And those gahns hadn’t been checked by any law.

Patrius questioned Kavi as well, about his past, his feelings toward his country, but Kavi thought the questions he asked the tactimian revealed more about what he was thinking than any answer he gave.

The lamps were guttering when Patrius yawned and rolled out a bedroll on the floor, leaving Kavi to think things over.