50 - The war was over

“A good chance, but not the certainty—don’t break out the peace-flasks yet.” That was the gist of Emao-e’s speech to the army. Astalaz might ask for something we would rather fight than agree to.

The news did come, from Ikal people with the Lakans. Astalaz, supported by enough of the nobility that he could make it stick, as that’s who counts in Laka, had overthrown and executed his father.

How much disagreement about the war against us was part of it was hard to say; of course Astalaz would keep his lips tight about that until the peace was signed and sworn, so as not to give away his position at all. But their defeats at our hands, and even their victories, had been costly, for not that much land, really; you need only add up the death-counts. Because the war was being fought on our land, we’d lost more than they, counting those who were not warriors, but we’d still made them bleed a lot for what they’d gained, and if they tried to keep it we’d make them bleed more.

The ideal for us, of course, was the return of all those captured, all our land back and some of Laka as well, in compensation for our lives lost. But with everything in the valley up to Kantila in their hands, we weren’t in a position to press for that. Tyeraha felt the best we could hope for was a return to the borders as they had been before, and perhaps the return of captives. That was my first lesson in the greater unfairness of aggression; we would have to agree to injustice, and perhaps even to allow them to have gained by their wrong against us.

I remember lying awake burning with anger that first night, and wanting to agree to nothing, but go on fighting them until they begged for any terms we set out. In the sweating dark, I tried to thrash answers out of my own mind, while my friends snored: how could we have been stronger? How could we have fought better? How might our strategies and our tactics be improved? How could we make sure this never happened again? I was going to make a study of it, I decided.

We had to stand pat, waiting for Astalaz to get here, so I had not much else to do. Then I thought, why study secretly; why not pick the brains of my teachers, the generals? So long as I was civil and clear that I was looking to the future only, not pointing fingers, they had no true reason to be offended. I went to the one with whom I was least shy, Hurai. “Excellent,” he said, laughing. “I was going to assign you to do exactly this, because it’ll make you think like a semanakraseye.”

I’d been right; if any were offended, they didn’t show it. My aunt gave me the best advice: “Don’t tell anyone their mistakes; instead ask them what they were, saying you want to learn so as to be a better semanakraseye.” It worked perfectly; they were forthcoming to a person, starting with her.

I won’t go into detail, as those conversations were private. Putting it all together, I envisioned an impossible yet beautiful thing—the war as if it had been tactically-perfect on our part—and learned a great deal.

A surprisingly-large dust-cloud heralded the coming of the new Lakan king; naturally he had a substantial escort, about two hundred, plus two mamokal, in red, black and gold tapestries for headpieces and saddle-cloths that seemed dotted with stars as bright as the sun; the cloths had thousands of tiny bits of mirror sewn onto them. Astalaz himself, however, rode the finest of Lakan black destriers, with a cape so thickly gleaming with mirrors it was hard to look at.

As well as a wish to negotiate the peace himself, Astalaz’s presence meant he felt himself firm on the throne; one thing I’d been taught about monarchies is that kings won’t leave their capitals if there’s a substantial threat there. It seemed he had purged his father’s supporters fairly thoroughly, every prominent noble among them, and even his own two younger brothers. The rest of the nobility didn’t count this as madness or cruelty, according to our spies, but thoroughness, and cause to respect and obey him.

They arrived in the late afternoon, and we went through the first formalities, exchanging greeting-gifts and so forth, but did not begin discussions or even share a meal with them that night; there is an order to these things, and no peace had been made yet. The next morning we began the discussion. With his permission, and wearing the peace-sigil but none of my decorations, I sat in.

Astalaz was in his mid or late twenties, I guessed, a tall, broad-shouldered and thick-armed man, thoughtful of face, with the long straight square-ended hawk-nose that is classic of Lakan nobility, and thick black hair. His full whiskers hung fine and straight as they do on Lakan men, scented with oil. He had a hidden knife, though by the parley-oath we were all unarmed, but from how he moved and the softness of his arms, his war-training had ended years ago and he hadn’t particularly excelled, so I knew I could make short work of him if he drew it. Arzaktaj, who was acting as his aide, was unarmed.

With any luck Astalaz would feel some of the shyness that is natural for people never blooded in the presence of those who are, with me there. Of course I could wear no weapons, nor impress with my string-bean barely-seventeen-year-old muscles by taking off my shirt, ostensibly because of the heat; but an elite warrior moves like an elite warrior, so I decided I’d get up and pace, or offer some service in aid of the talks that would let me move.

He spoke perfectly unaccented Enchian, and was very formal and painstakingly polite, which we answered in kind. His offer was to set the border where it had been; I think he knew we would fight for anything less. “Some might say that is generous, I respectfully note to the Regent Queen,” he said, “since it means we Lakans will have fought, and lost many lives, for no gain.”

“Other than what I might most modestly draw the Lakan King’s attention to: our people sold into slavery in Laka?” my aunt asked. “That was done with such dispatch that it was clearly part of the plan. By our count it is some fifteen thousand, mostly non-warriors. In Lakan currency, if it pleases the King that I may ask, how much would they be worth, in total?”

“Well, the Regent Queen and I might speak of exchanging captives for captives,” Astalaz answered smoothly, “had the ten thousand seized in Kantila been kept, rather than massacred.” That made me itch to get up and pace, but now was not the time.

“In good faith, we had already offered them to Laka, for what might have been a fair exchange, had the King of Laka of the time been willing to negotiate,” my aunt said. “May the semanakraseye of Yeola-e also make note that we have neither captured nor killed nor thumbed a single Lakan who never raised a weapon against us.”

Something in that gave Astalaz pause; I got the sense it was the mention of his father’s recalcitrance. I also sensed he didn’t like to make decisions fast; there was a trace of awkwardness to him that I had a feeling came from the position being new to him, as if the king’s mantle was still a little stiff on his shoulders.

Still, the justice of the matter is in truth window-dressing in such a negotiation; what would truly determine it was how strong they still were against us, and us against them, and our respective estimations of that. “The Regent Queen asks that Laka draw all the way back to the border, giving up the walled cities, which we might otherwise hold, and return all captives as well?”

“I hope the King of Laka and my aunt the semanakraseye of Yeola-e will pardon me,” I said, and got up and paced, keeping an appropriate distance from the Lakans, of course. Now was the time. Of course I’d move most smoothly if I did not think about how smoothly I moved or how I looked or about moving at all. I did my best not to.

“I most respectfully note,” said my aunt, “that the warriors of Yeola-e have proven their capability in recapturing our walled cities even without a great advantage in numbers. I note also, and it is most striking to me, that the King of Laka speaks of holding walled cities rather than of the strength Laka traditionally relies upon, its magnificent horse and impressive mamokal, an admission, if I may be so bold, that we have succeeding in countering those strengths.”

“If I may painstakingly observe,” said Astalaz, “Laka retains the strength of its numbers, which when combined with walled cities, I imagine might prove a daunting barrier.”

So it went, all day. I got up to pace three times in all, and when we broke for noon meal I took the trays from the servers and laid them out, moving as much like an elite warrior as I could; whether it was making a difference I could not tell.

Of course Tyeraha and Astalaz both had in their minds the line they would not allow the other to cross; for peace, of course, we had to hope the two lines were close enough. It came down to the number of Yeoli captives they’d release, for all it rankled me that this meant some would be freed and some not. I decided to speak up, sensing Astalaz would not be offended.

“If the King of Laka and the semanakraseye will pardon me for interceding,” I said, “how is it decided which captives get freed and which don’t? And”—I surprised myself—“what of captives forced to breed; what considerations might there be for their children?”

Astalaz made something of a scoffing sound, albeit in a polite way. Before I could stop myself, I was staring at him, my fists curled and my lips hardening into a line. Catching myself I took my eyes off him, turned away and took a deep breath, cursing myself inwardly. “I ask the pardon of the Regent Queen, to ask the Prince, if I may,” said Astalaz, “as I know he himself was once captured. Did that happen to him?”

Kyash, kyash, kyash, I thought. Now my kevyalin children, if I have any there, are pawns in the negotiation. I’ve just given them to him as hostages. But when I faced him again, his eyes seemed, to my amazement, sympathetic. “Yes,” I said.

Astalaz had paper, on which he’d been taking the odd note. He picked up his pen now. “I abjure you, Prince, to tell me all the particulars. I’ll look into it and remedy the situation—as a favour to you, not part of the peace-agreement at all.” I stood frozen, and he added, “My oath on it, Parshahask strike me down, second Fire come if I am forsworn.”

I came to understand later. He was a king; on the scale which he lived, it would cost him little more than nothing to set free one or two or three babies, even if he compensated the owners. A slight cost, against the benefit of how much I would appreciate it and thus how much he’d gain my good will.

And yet he’d decided to do it so instinctively, without even a thought, as if he was setting a wrong right, even though he was a slow-choosing man; I was baffled by that until I came to understand more about cultures with aristocracies, later. In short, he couldn’t help but translate his own habits of thinking onto us. To his mind I was a prince, albeit a Yeoli one, the children of princes should not be enslaved, and so as one royal doing a favour for another, he’d correct that.

I told him the Yeoli dates I’d been in captivity—he’d have to translate them into Lakan, because I didn’t know how—and that my owner had been Klajen son of Kla-something, the dates I’d been made to do it, and the names and owners of the two women for whom I knew them. He wrote it all down carefully. I remembered what Mirasae had said, that things could change and avenues open. I’d had no idea it could happen so fast.

I didn’t realize it until later, but by doing that, he countered entirely what I brought to the talks.

In the end, the agreement was a return to the previous border, and the last seven thousand Yeoli captives freed. That meant leaving the rest, but it was as good as we could get. It was most likely we’d be able to retrieve none at all by fighting, even if we fought them back to the border and even beyond. The war was over.

But Astalaz wanted to seal the bargain, by an exchange of fosterlings. All three of his sons, he proposed, in return for me, in respect of my warriorhood.

Some might say even three to one it was a bad trade; the oldest was six, so it wouldn’t take him as long to replace all three as it would Yeola-e to replace me, if that were even possible. Afterwards some people whispered that Tyeraha had been taken for a fool, and the whole peace negotiation had been a sham on Astalaz’s part to take me captive again. But by the way he spoke of them, when Tyeraha asked him to say more, we could tell how much he loved them.

“It’s a risk, Chevenga,” my aunt said to me in Yeoli. “I won’t send you without your consent.”

As if she didn’t know what my answer would be; still, she had to ask. “I give my consent,” I said.

“Done,” she said in Enchian to Astalaz, and it remained only to celebrate.

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