Flags of Sin (6 page)

The man
bowed even deeper, and backed away, not turning until he had reached the door.
His footfalls could be heard tapping down the stone hallway as the Emperor
waved Mei over.

“Let Us see
Our boy,” he said with a smile, his hands held out. She handed the child over,
herself still in a deep bow, then began to back away when something that had
never happened in her entire time at the palace sent her heart racing.

“Sit
with Us, Mei.”

Mei felt
the blood rush to her ears, suddenly becoming lightheaded. As if under the
control of some conjurer, she found her feet shuffling her to a seat indicated
by the Emperor. She sat, her head so low her chin threatened to push a hole
into her ribcage.

“We are certain
as a true loyal servant you would never dare to overhear a conversation between
your Emperor and his mother, however We are also not a fool, and are fully
aware that the ears cannot be made to ignore what they are exposed to, nor the
mind feeble enough to not listen to what the ears present. But let us pretend
that your ears are weak, for We know your mind is not in any fashion feeble.”

He
paused and she wondered if he expected a response. She bowed in her seat even
lower than she already was.

He
continued. “You of course will repeat none of this, and if We trust you with our
son, and your future Emperor, then We must trust you in this matter, as it
concerns the very life our Little One.” She heard the baby gurgle as the
Emperor did something to amuse him. “We fully believe Our mother intends to
have Us killed, perhaps as early as tomorrow.”

Mei
nearly passed out, her head spinning, her heart slamming against her chest.
How
could this be? Weren’t her words simply an idle threat?

“We can
see you are shocked. You shouldn’t be. Our mother is a wicked woman, who will
stop at nothing to maintain power. Her forces are strong, stronger than Ours, as
Ours do not fear Us as they fear her.”

He
sighed.

“You
need not worry yourself over this. But there is one thing you need to do, and
you need to do it very quietly. You must, tonight, prepare to take Our son away
from here. Inform whatever staff you may feel are essential that We will be
departing tomorrow morning, and to have all of the provisions required for a
two day journey packaged so they can be carried on one’s back. Have everyone,
and everything, assembled outside this room when the sun rises.”

She felt
a hand on her shoulder and she jumped in her seat.

The hand
remained.

“Do you
understand Us, Mei?”

She
nodded and bowed several times, a confused, scattered mess of acknowledgement.

The hand
left her shoulder.

“Very
well, take Our son, and make the preparations.”

She
stood and took the baby, hurrying out of the room as the Captain of the Guard, Fang
Zen, entered the room at a bow. They exchanged a short, curious glance, and he
gave her a quick smile from the half of his mouth facing her, and a slight
wink. He had always been sweet on her, and she had to admit, she too was
attracted to him. He was incredibly handsome, very well respected, and would
make a fine husband to any woman.

But that
was forbidden amongst palace staff. Families meant your loyalty couldn’t be
relied upon, lest they be threatened in some way, an otherwise loyal servant
blackmailed into performing some vile act in exchange for not harming his
family.

It made
sense to her, but like anyone, she had her fantasies, and at night, she
sometimes found herself hugging her pillow, dreaming of what it might be like
to walk through the gardens, hand-in-hand with Fang Zen.

Somebody
hissed nearby, and her reverie was broken, snapping her back to the reality of
her current situation. A situation in which she would never see Fang Zen again.
One where the precious package she carried was covered in common mud, and her
own face smeared with the combination of dirt and dung.

She
looked and saw Jun motioning with his head from a doorway and she walked over
as naturally as she could manage. She stepped across the threshold, and the
door closed quietly behind her.

She
collapsed on a nearby chair, her shoulders slumping, her head dropping forward
as she lost all strength. Yu rushed over and took the baby from her arms, and
with her final responsibility addressed, she gave in, and let the darkness take
over.

St. Paul’s University, Maryland

One week ago

Professor James Acton pressed the button on the remote control he
gripped in his left hand, and glanced to make sure the image he was expecting
appeared. He looked out at the class of several hundred students. His
Introduction to Archaeology was one of the university’s most popular courses
since he had become big news after recent events. He hoped the attention would
die down sooner rather than later. It wasn’t that he didn’t love teaching these
young, fresh minds, but he feared many of them were here for the wrong reasons.

But it
was out of his control, the past couple of years being more eventful than the
first forty years of his life combined, a life that had included serving in the
First Gulf War, and traipsing around the globe on one archaeological expedition
after another, doomed to the single, lonely life that necessitated.

Until
two years ago, when everything had changed, and his life hadn’t slowed down
since, the most recent events at the Vatican probably his most harrowing
experience yet.

And
because of this new, sometimes public, life, far too many times a camera flash
went off, or a hand was raised with a question about the Pope or some other
thing related to one of his misfortunes over the past couple of years. It
usually lasted the first week, and once people realized he wasn’t going to
respond, it settled down. A few dropped the course, but most stuck around,
which he took as a hopeful sign that he might actually teach some much needed
history, our high schools doing a dismal job of it.

He
pointed at the flag emblazoned on the screen behind him.

“Easy
one. Who can name it?”

A bunch
of students yelled out, “Germany!”

“Correct.
Now, who can tell me what the colors represent?”

Silence.

He
expected that. Unlike some modern day creations, flags of old actually meant
something.

“Nobody?”

Again
silence.

“Very
well. Black, Red and Gold. The colors were chosen from the uniforms of German
soldiers during the Napoleonic wars—our topic after the break!—and were
described with this phrase: ‘Out of the
black
ness of servitude through
bloody
—as
in
red—
battles to the
golden
light of freedom’.”

He
clicked the button.

“Union
Jack!” yelled a voice.

“England!”
yelled another.

Acton
smiled. “Union Jack, yes. England, no.”

“Aw,
come on, Professor, we all saw the Olympics.”

“Yes,
which were held in the
United Kingdom.
A
united
kingdom implies
more than one, doesn’t it?”

Murmurs.

“The
United
Kingdom was actually the union of two kingdoms, in eighteen-oh-one. Can
anyone name them?”

“Great
Britain and Ireland,” yelled a voice with a Cockney accent.

“Hey,
that’s cheating!”

The
class laughed.

“Yes,
Chuck, you’re right. It’s since been renamed to the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland, and is actually made up of four countries:
England
,
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It happened so long ago that they are
effectively one country—although there are some Scots who’d like something to
say about that—but when the flag was adopted, it represented the merging of two
symbols. That of the red cross of Saint George, the Patron Saint of England,
and the diagonal red cross of Saint Patrick, the Patron Saint of—”

“Beer
lovers everywhere!”

“—
Ireland.”

The
students roared with laughter as Acton lost control momentarily. He clicked the
button and took a glance over his shoulder, the shimmering gold background with
the distinct blue dragon emblazoned across it brought a smile to his face as he
thought of the vacation he and his fiancée were about to take.

He
calmed the still snickering class with his hands.

“So, who
can name this one?”

“Looks
Chinese,” piped up a voice.

“And
you’d be right. This was the flag of the Qing Dynasty, the last dynasty to rule
China before political reforms effectively removed the idea of an emperor. Then
the Japanese kind of moved in uninvited, and after they were defeated, another
brief stint at political reform, then the communists took over under Mao Zedong,
and have ruled ever since.”

“It’s
beautiful,” whispered one of his students closest to him. He looked over his
shoulder then back at her.

“It is,
isn’t it?”

“Aren’t
these all just flags of sin?”

Acton
looked at the student who had just made the comment. All eyes were on him and
he shrank a little in his chair.

“I mean,
not ours of course.”

“And not
the UK!” piped up the Cockney accent.

“Yeah,
I’m from Canada. No way you can call ours that!”

Acton
held up his hand before the poor kid sunk to the floor.

“I
assume you mean because killing has been done in the name of the flag of every
country in the world?”

The boy
nodded.

“Then,
yes, these are flags of sin, as you call them. But only if you take things out
of context and ignore the broader meaning of a flag. Are flags used at the head
of armies, proudly displayed on our uniforms, draped over the coffins of our
fallen? Absolutely. But flags are also held high at sports events to instill
pride in a nation, as beacons in foreign lands to symbolize our embassies and a
refuge for our diaspora, as symbols of who we are, and what we believe in. I
think the vast majority of people think of their country’s flag as something
that symbolizes them as a people—their beliefs and values, as opposed to the
wars they have fought, or acts carried out by their governments that they might
not agree with.

“Most
countries, if not all, have committed atrocious acts against their own
populations, or the populations of others, through history. Unfortunately
that’s the way the world was, and still is in some cases. Are some of these
acts sinful? Absolutely. Has the United States committed sinful acts in the
name of the flag? In some people’s minds, absolutely. Some people think any war
is unjustified, which is why we had a pacifist movement before and during World
War Two. Should we not have fought? I doubt there are many people who know their
history who would think we shouldn’t have fought that war. Were sinful deeds
committed during that war by individuals—absolutely. Did our country do sinful
things—absolutely. But one thing that needs to be asked is, were they
considered sinful at the time?

“Carpet
bombing civilian populations to try and destroy the will of the people, to
destroy the factories they worked at, today we would consider horrifying. At
the time, it was part of war. Today we have options, back then we didn’t. Today
we have smart bombs, cruise missiles, and other advanced weaponry, where we can
be very precise in our targeting, but back then? No. You needed to drop a
hundred bombs in the hopes that one of them would hit your target.”

“But
some are definitely flags of sin, aren’t they, Professor? I mean, the Soviet
Union, for example. Or China?”

“You’d be hard pressed to get me to disagree on the
Soviet Union, having grown up during the Cold War, that’s for sure. I wonder
however if you were to ask a Russian how they felt about that flag, without
fear of repercussions, what they would say? And as to China, if we look at the
history of that country under the Communists, especially the early days, I’d
have to agree as well. Mao killed millions, by his own admission,
after
he had won the civil war. Mao is blamed for as many as eighty-million deaths in
his time, a number even Hitler and Stalin can’t measure up to.”

“What
about China today?”

Acton
shrugged his shoulders. “Do they do things there that we wouldn’t? Absolutely.
Is it as bad as it used to be? Absolutely not. I think the question for China is
where are they headed? Where will they be in ten, twenty, fifty years? Right
now I think China is in a race with itself. Their burgeoning middleclass are
demanding more freedoms, thus weakening the regime. But the economy fueling
that middleclass, is also fueling the growth and modernization of their
military to the point where we, the United States, can no longer be guaranteed
to stop them. So, where’s it all heading?”

“What do
you think, Professor?”

Acton
smiled.

“Luckily
for me, I’m an archeologist, so don’t need to answer questions about the
future.” He held up a finger. “But, I’ll be there in a few days for a two week
vacation, and I’ll give you my opinion when I get back.”

“Hey,
China’s about to get Actoned!”

Acton’s
eyebrows shot up.

“Huh?”

There
were snickers and a few bouts of laughter cut off abruptly.

“Actoned?”

Chuck
raised his hand. “It means when you go on vacation, and like everything gets
bolloxed up, you know, mate?”

Acton
chuckled and shook his head.

“
Please
tell me
you
guys made that up, and didn’t find it somewhere on the
Internet.”

Shrugged
shoulders.

“Oh
well, hopefully my fifteen minutes of fame will soon be forgotten.” He pointed
at the Qing Dynasty flag. “Now, for when I return in two weeks, I want a paper
on who the true power was in China during the end of the reign of the Qing
Dynasty, and whether or not it may have continued had it been someone else.”