338 - Something to really put fear into them

“It’s just a matter of making the threat severe enough,” said Arzaktaj. “You go under the ivy branch, all polished and civil, and tell them that if they surrender you’ll let them go about business as usual and perhaps even make some civic improvements, and if they don’t, you’ll kill all the men, sell all the women and children into slavery and raze the place flat.”

“That’s how we always did it,” Misiali added with a helpful tone. “Think of Asinanai, in 14... ehh, I should say...” He glanced at Arzaktaj, making it clear he’d thought of a Lakan city next. “Well, there are many examples.”

“I hope they decide to stand firm,” Peyepallo said wistfully. “I’ve always dreamed of razing an Arkan city.” Chalk signs and sounds of assent came all around the table, from those whose people had been hurt by Arko the worst. The whim had wandered through my mind at some point that since all nationalities fighting for us were represented here, Minohaier should be in the command council. I wondered what he’d say to this.

I was at a loss for words, and the look on my face must have been clear. “You already decided to take the surrender-I’ll-love-you-resist-I’ll-destroy-you course, J’vengka,” said Arzaktaj. “This is the full embodiment of that.”

“Sievenka, you haven’t read Amasdi’s Campaigns of Curlion yet, have you?” Misiali said. “Or Curlion’s own writings… you should. He had a very clear notion of how the best conqueror makes himself appear, to the enemy, to his underlings, to the people of the lands he’s conquering. He has to seem more than human to them, infallible, unstoppable, somewhat God-like… held in such awe that they have no more right to deny his will than to fight a storm or earthquake—he must seem like a force of nature. In this way, he becomes a force of history.”

I glanced at the Yeolis around the table, thinking Please don’t let this get back to Assembly. It was something of a comfort to know that Assembly must be heading back to Vae Arahi, further away. “You’re off to a good start, actually, in my opinion,” Misiali added, “with how this army worships the ground you walk on.”

“But if we threaten something like that, and they don’t give in, then we have to carry it through,” I said. As if six years were reversed in an instant, I remembered a night on a hill near Kantila, the unhuman sound of ten-thousand men dying beneath me, and my hands in the darkness looking as if the shining of tears was blood.

“Yes,” Arzaktaj said with his salt and pepper brows peaked quizzically, as if wondering what my point was.

“Else your threats have no teeth from then on,” said Eretrard. “You usually make us forget you’re only twenty-three, J’vengka. You’re reminding us now.” He said it too fondly for me to get angry, though.

Well I am only twenty-three! I stifled the voice, which sounded like twenty years younger even than that, and tried to harden my mind. Semana kra… “If this all goes off, I’m going to be their Imperator,” I said. “In other words, they’ll be my people. They should not have an Imperator they hate.”

Several of my generals answered this at once. “They already do!” —“They should have an Imperator they fear.” Speaking over the rest, Misiali prevailed. “Sievenka, they’d hate you less than you think. They’re Arkans; they know how it works! They lose a war, they get what they deserve, no point in grudging the one who was better than them.” Might makes right, I thought. What I hated so much, in Arkan culture. “You know the Arkan saying yourself…”

“Tzen kellin ripalin,” I said. “Who kills becomes.”

“You are dealing with Arkans, now. You can use that for your own ends, for the first time.”

“But who’s going to make the decision in Osijitz?” I said. “The people don’t get to vote on it. It’ll be Barakas, and he doesn’t give a gnat’s fart about them; only about how he’ll look in Kurkas’s eyes. It’s him, and the solas, we have to threaten. The governor, if there is one, or the mayor, too; he’ll have a say.”

“Threaten just them, then; you have a point there, that it’s them who decide,” said Arzaktaj. Had he only invaded countries that voted before? “But make it a threat with teeth: you’ll torture them or send their stones to their wives or do them like you did Abatzas, or… em, maybe not that, I’ve never seen a double-charcoal that looked so much like two blades… but something to really put fear into them. Ai Kraj, you were in Arko, getting done to; you learned the tricks!” Fear right into their muscles… I remembered standing frozen in the Ring when the Ikal man told me they were springing me, so unable to act towards my own freedom that they’d had to Accede me. I remembered how they’d anticipated they might have to.

I learned to my bones, had it seared on my soul, why it is so wrong. I took a sip from my water-cup as a pretext for my wordlessness. What’s come over my generals? They never spoke like this in Yeola-e… I realized; there, they had been honouring my ways and Yeola-e’s. Now Yeola-e had departed from its ways. What have we unleashed?

No. I. What have I unleashed… I should not pretend I had not swung the vote. I wanted to run up a mountain, or hide in my bed, or bury my face in my mother’s neck, or all three, crying my eyes out. Or jump off a cliff. But when that was done, I, or someone else, would still have this cursed Arkan city to take.

“There’s an advantage to bring suasion to bear on one or two people,” said Lurai Roranyel, my commander of siegecraft. “Our chest’s good; you can sweeten the pot much more, offer a fortune that you never could to each person in a whole city. You can offer them considerations for the future; they are not only safe, once they’ve made their land ours, but in good positions, having your ear and your favour, so long as they stay loyal—which will become the Imperator’s ear and favour.” Of course there was that side of it; that made me feel better.

“And if someone you’ve done this for double-crosses you, crush him like an insect, so none of the others will,” added Arzaktaj. “The family, too—his sons, his lover. That’s the tongue Arko understands.”

All the logic of monarchy, I thought. Never mind what I felt; I had to think like a king. I took a deep breath, and hardened my mind again. “Of course we will do this, offer threat and bribe as one and fight only if we must,” I said. “It’s the obvious course.” I’d end up haggling, probably, as I had with Hamadas for Thara-e. I had to be just as strong, no matter how much my heart whispered, I do not have the right.

Semana kra.

I saw I even had to be more careful of who I picked for envoys now. It might well be an arrow through the heart of any Yeoli, even under the ivy branch. Sometimes generals have had Haians do it; that was out. I ended up sending one of the Schvait, since they’ve worked for Arko enough and are respected by everyone, with my letter. I addressed it to Barakas and the mayor both, and it said, basically, “Meet with me and I will tell you what your and Osijitz’s fate will be, depending on your choice. We may meet secretly, if you prefer; let my envoy know.” All in a very civil way.

They did indeed ask for it to be secret. Probably there was at least one Mahid in this city. We arranged to meet that evening in an inn, which was deserted like everywhere else, about half-way between my camp and the gate, with escorts of twenty per side.

“I have enough to hold you off for long enough for an army three times as big as yours to get here, Shefen-kas,” Barakas said, with something of a growl in his voice, before I could even utter niceties as Arzaktaj had advised. He was another of these large Aitzas with bull necks, but he gave less of an impression of having fought than Larianas. He had a penchant for thick gold chains around his neck.

“Longer than a day or two?” I said. “I’ve broken every Arkan siege right when I willed to. I thought you’d have been informed of that. Besides, longer than a day or two and you’ll have people starving.”

“Kallijas would have had you if he hadn’t turned traitor. And we brought in enough grain for two months after your raid.”

“You cannot know how I know you are lying, but I do know,” I said. The A-niah—and the woolbirds, too, they were scouting now—had spotted no such movement. “And Kallijas didn’t get me; notice we are here. Look, if you think you can do better against me than Triadas, Perisalas or Larianas did, let’s make it a fight, certainly. But I’d prefer to take Osijitz bloodlessly enough that I am willing to make it very sweet for both of you, personally.”

Barakas said, “Don’t even bother opening your mouth!” and the mayor said, “How sweet exactly, Shefen-kas?”, both at the same time. Then gave each other looks. I couldn’t help laughing. “Well!” added the mayor, who was more of a spindly man, bespectacled and paperish, with a nervous grin. “We might as well know what we’re rejecting, General… just for the record… you know.”

“Two thousand gold chains apiece, for swearing personal allegiance to me, surrender of the town, the town treasury, and the army with their gear, the army treasury, no thumbings, they either stay prisoners or swear allegiance to me—officers over centurion under truth-drug—plus town and tax revenues redirected to me,” I said. Swear allegiance to me, I thought. When I was a child, I never imagined I’d say such words in my life.

“You bribing wool-hair,” said Barakas. “You think what worked on those base cowards at Tharia will work on me—and at that price?”

“Four thousand,” said the mayor. He had his gloved hands half-clasped on the table in front of him; I noticed one finger was trembling. “And—the town treasury is administered by the town… collected by the town, expended by the town; it stays within the town and the Marble Palace has nothing to do with it. So I can’t agree to that part.”

“Skiras, you traitor…! You’d sell Arkan rej—Shefen-kas…”

“The two of you need to talk privately; I understand.” There could be no agreement between three if there wasn’t between two. Barakas stood up, Skiras followed, a sheen of sweat on his nose. They stepped towards the door.

I had brought Misiali and Reknarja both, as aides. Reknarja moved to nudge me in the back; turning, I saw Misiali mouth the words, ‘the threat!’ Kyash.

“Gentlemen, you have not heard me out entirely.” They both froze mid-stride, in a way that let me know Barakas, who’d otherwise hid it well, was nervous too. “You are surely wondering what will happen if you refuse to surrender?”

Barakas drew himself up and said, as predictably as the heroic Aitzas in an Arkan war-history play, “That does not concern me.” Skiras opened his mouth, then glanced at Barakas and closed it again. A drop of sweat rolled out from his hairline and ran down his temple.

“Just for the record, I will tell you anyway,” I said. How to set my teeth and then speak without it sounding as if my teeth are set… I swallowed, hoped they could not see me take a deep breath. “Army gets executed, to a man. The two of you…” Something to really put fear into them… “I will give to people of mine who have been tortured by Mahid.” I took a second deep breath, through my nose. “All kin of yours in the city, too.” Nausea curled in my stomach.

“My kin are in the City Itself,” said Barakas. “Where Kurkas can punish them for my treason.” Kyash… The sickness worsened. I can send people to extricate them… or hold off while you send them warning to get out… don’t be ridiculous, I told myself. I’d be handing him a fine and easy way to stall me, and I couldn’t know whether it was even true he had kin there.

“Well, war makes for hard choices,” I said. All-Spirit, does it. “Go ahead, discuss it between you.” They went out, and Misiali patted my back. “Well done, Invincible,” he said. I wanted to crawl into one of the rooms and slither under the bed.