David Durham - Acacia,War with the Mein

Igguldan answered the leagueman with a reluctant nod.

Pleased, Sire Dagon folded one long-fingered hand over the other and rested them on the tabletop. The jewel on one large finger reflected fractured shards of light for a moment. “With time and reasoned thought, all peoples have found our system agreeable. All have seen the benefits of what we offer. But because of that we must protect what we already have established. We have achieved an equilibrium. We would not want to upset this. Because of this, new parties are not entirely welcome at this moment. I am sure I speak for the king in mentioning this.” Sire Dagon nodded to Leodan without ever looking fully at him. Then he seemed to change tack. “On the other hand…Tell me, are your women fertile?”

Igguldan guffawed, but then caught himself as nobody else followed his lead. He glanced around and then back to Sire Dagon. His face showed the recognition that whatever bawdy joke he thought the leagueman was making had been a misunderstanding. There followed a discussion that Igguldan clearly found as strange to listen to as Aliver did. The Aushenian aides had come prepared for the question. They quoted statistics on the ages at which Aushenian women mature sexually, on the frequency of their pregnancies, and the rate of mortality of their young.

For a moment Aliver thought he saw amusement lift the corners of Sire Dagon’s mouth, but then he was not sure if that was the right interpretation of the expression at all. The leagueman held back whatever response he might have made and simply withdrew once more into hooded silence. The meeting proceeded without another word from the league’s representative.

Leodan seemed happy to take the conversation in a different direction. “I hear your conviction, Prince, and I admire it. But also I have long admired your nation’s independence. You are the last in the Known World to stand alone; for some of us your people have been…well, an inspiration.”

“My lord,” Igguldan said, “one does not feed and clothe and provide for a nation simply through inspiration. We Aushenians have nothing to be ashamed of, but it is clear to us that the world has moved away from the model which we so long wished for.”

“Which is what?” Thaddeus asked. “Refresh our memories.”

“Aushenia has on occasion been ruled by women of stature and wisdom. Our Queen Elena, in her decrees, proposed that the Known World be composed of a federation of free and independent nations, none subservient to another, all trading the goods they best produced, each keeping to ways true to their national character, honoring old traditions and religions while extending the hand of friendship to others. This is what she proposed to Tinhadin.”

A council member remarked that such a system might work at a subsistence level-each nation might make do and stay largely on equal terms-but none would achieve the wealth and stability and productivity the Acacian hegemony had created with the aid of league-managed commerce. They would have remained squabbling islands of national fervor, just as they had been before the Wars of Distribution.

Igguldan did not try to dispute this. He nodded and gestured that the palace around them was testament to the truth of that argument. “The queen would have answered you by saying that the grandest is not always the best, especially not when the wealth is held by few, fueled by the toil of the many.” Igguldan ducked his head and ran a hand through his hair. “But this is not what I came to speak about. Elena is of the past; we look to the future.”

“At times I can still envision the world your queen wished for,” Leodan said.

“I can as well,” the prince said, “but only with my eyes closed. With open eyes the world is something very different.”

After the meeting adjourned an hour or so later, the king took tea with Aliver and his chancellor. The two older men spoke for some time, letting the conversation drift from one aspect of the meeting to another. Aliver was surprised when his father asked, “What do you think of all this? Speak your mind.”

“I? I think…the prince seems a reasonable sort. I can speak no ill of him yet. If he represents his people truly, this is good for us, yes? Only, if they hold us in such high regard why haven’t they joined us sooner?”

“To join us means a good many things,” Leodan said. “They are right to have hesitated, but for some time now they have made it clear they would be our friends if we would be theirs as well.”

Thaddeus motioned with his hand that it was not as simple as that. “As ever, your father is generous with his words.”

“No, what I say is the way it is. They have held a hand out to us in friendship for years now. We simply have not grasped it.”

“And it is well we did not. Our patience has paid off.” The chancellor spoke as if he were addressing the king, but his eyes touched on Aliver long enough to indicate that he was drawing out the issues more completely for his benefit. “What the prince did not admit is that Aushenia must be suffering greatly. I marvel that they remained outside the empire for so long without collapsing under the financial burden of it. They have some mineral wealth, yes, harvestable forestlands and several fine ports and the amber and pitch Igguldan spoke of, but without the league to trade with, they have been able to do little with it. They are a proud people, but they have been forced to sell their goods on the black market, to traffic with pirates. This does not sit well beside all that idealism. They are making this overture so directly because they need us more than we need them. If we accept them, it will be a delicate matter working out their status within our empire. There are many burdens placed upon a new Vedel, a conquered member of the lowest rank. They must accept this without insult, although in truth a Vedel suffers much insult.”

“What if they do not enter as Vedels?” the king asked.

“They must, though. By the old laws there is no other category. Tinhadin was clear that all the world had the choice in his time to join him or to fight against him. When Aushenia declined to accept Acacian hegemony, they decided their fate.” Thaddeus paused only long enough to sip his tea, and then he raised his voice to answer the argument he anticipated. “The generations between then and now change nothing. Any leader of any nation understands that his decisions ring down through all future generations. When Queen Elena rejected Tinhadin’s offer, she knew that her people would forever after live with the consequences.”

Leodan said, “Thaddeus speaks of black and white in a world of a thousand colors. In truth we neither conquered nor defeated Aushenia in the old wars. Had they not been likewise an enemy of the Mein, we may not have prevailed at all. They have for hundreds of years lived neither as allies, vassals, nor enemies.”

“Yes, for hundreds of years,” Thaddeus said, “and that cannot be changed overnight. In truth, Aliver, of course your father would welcome the Aushenians. He is an idealist. He wants a peaceful world in which all are welcome at the table. He does not like to acknowledge that for there to be a table at all many must be excluded from it. This is something the league, however, bases all its decisions on. That is why it is unlikely that Aushenia will be allowed in. The league has a veto on any such expansion. I get the feeling that they are tempted by Aushenia but yet hold back for some reason that they will probably never explain to us. Something your tutor may not have fully explained to you yet, Aliver, is that the empire is as much a commercial venture as an imperial one. In this area the league holds the place of ultimate prominence. We know only a portion of how the league conducts its business, but if they do not want Aushenia in, then Aushenia will remain without.”