Harry Turtledove - Down in The Bottomlands (and Other Places)

Park grinned at him. “No, it didn’t, did it?” He worried a little when he saw the look the foreign minister was giving Ankowaljuu. If Maita Kapak went along, though, the tukuuii riikook couldn’t be in too much hot water. If…

The Son of the Sun had screened out the byplay. He was like Allister Park in that: when he was thinking, he let nothing interfere. Finally he said, “Very well, Judge Scoglund. If the Emir thinks you have terms that will satisfy both him and me, I too will put myself in your hands. How shall we become friends?”

“I doubt you will,” Park said. “Being able to live next to each other is something else again. Your becoming People of the Book will go a long way toward solving that, as the Muslims will lose their ritual need to persecute you out of existence.”

“What about our need to show them the truth of our religion?” Kwiismankuu said.

Park scowled; he’d forgotten that Patjakamak had his holy terrorists too. After some thought, he said, “I do not know, sir, if you have heard that, before I became a judge, I was a Christian bishop, a senior priest. I am not trying to change your religion — you and the Muslims have both had enough of that, I think. But I will tell you one of the things we Christians try to live by. We call it the Rule of Gold: do to others what you want them to do to you.” For once, he thought, the real Ib Scoglund would have been proud of him.

“There are worse ways to live than that, perhaps,” Maita Kapak said. “So. Have we heard all your terms of peace? If we have, I tell you I am well pleased.”

“Not quite all,” Park said. “I was summoned to give my judgment on where the border should lie between Tawantiinsuuju and the Dar al-Harb, especially in this disputed sector. My judgment is that the best line between you is the Ooriinookoo River.” He walked over to a map, ran his finger along the river, and waited for hell to break loose.

The Tawantiinsuujans did not keep him waiting long. “You thief!” Tjiimpuu cried. “Did you bother to notice that we are east of the Ooriinookoo now, and in territory that has been ours for a generation?”

“Yes, I noticed that,” Park said. “I-”

“It cannot be, Judge Scoglund,” Maita Kapak interrupted. “Were this land I myself had won in war, I might think of yielding it. But I would be forfeiting my inheritance from my father Waskar if I gave it up. That Patjakamak would never suffer me to do.”

When the Son of the Sun said it cannot be, his subjects heard and obeyed. He turned back in astonishment when Allister Park kept arguing: “Radiance, I have good reasons for proposing the Ooriinookoo as a border.”

“What possible reasons can there be for giving up a third of what Waskar won?” Maita Kapak said in a voice like ice.

“I’m glad you asked,” Park said, pretending not to notice the Son of the Sun’s tone. “For one thing, the Ooriinookoo is a wide, powerful river. That makes it a good border between countries that do not get along well — it keeps them apart. I think Kwiismankuu would agree.”

The Tawantiinsuujan marshal jerked as if poked by a pin, then nodded as both Park and Maita Kapak looked his way.

“Not only that,” Park went on, “but having such a border would make it harder for Muslim zealots to get into Tawantiinsuuju to work harm on your people.”

Kwiismanknu nodded again, this time without prompting. Tjiimpuu, however, said, “I thought you told us we would be free of Muslim zealots if we became a People of the Book.”

Damn the man for listening, Park thought. Aloud, he said, “Your problem with them will certainly be smaller. No one can promise to make all fanatics happy, though: if they could be made happy, they wouldn’t be fanatics. Having the Ooriinookoo as a border will help keep them out of Tawantiinsuuju, though, because they won’t be able to sneak into your land so easily as they can now.”

Maita Kapak started to say something, stopped, looked annoyed at himself. Park doubted the Son of the Sun often found himself of two minds. When he did speak, it was to ask his aides, “What do you think of acting as the judge suggests?”

“Militarily, it makes good sense, Radiance,” Kwiismankuu said.

“Even from the religious point of view, it could be worse; so many of the people on this side of the Ooriinookoo are still Muslims, despite our best efforts to bring them to truth.” Tjiimpuu did not sound happy about what he was saying, but said it anyway. Park admired him for that. The foreign minister went on: “If Your Radiance is able to reconcile a withdrawal with your principles-”

“No!” said a man who had been quiet till then. His tunic bore a large sun image, picked out in gold thread. From the size of that sun, and from the way he had dared interrupt Tjiimpuu, Park figured him for a high-ranking priest.

“Tell me why you say no when these others agree, Viiljak Uumuu,” Maita Kapak said.

“Because, Radiance, you were right when you first rejected this mad scheme,” Viiljak Uumuu said. “Patjakamak would turn away from you, reject you, cast you from his grace, should you decrease his realm by so much as a clod of river mud.” The priest burned with outrage at the idea.

Well, there goes the ball game, Park thought. Religious fanaticism had started this idiot war, and religious fanaticism would keep it going. Just when he was beginning to think he’d talked Maita Kapak around, too. But fire and brimstone — or whatever their Tawantiinsuujan equivalents were — could drive out logic every time.

Then Maita Kapak said, “Viiljak Uumuu, do you presume to expound the will of Patjakamak to me ?” If his voice had been icy to Park, now it was somewhere around the temperature of liquid air.

The priest turned as pale as a Skrelling could. “N-no, Radiance, of course not. I–I only thought to remind, uh, to remind you of what you yourself always, uh, sometimes said.”

“Enough,” Maita Kapak said. “ I am the Son of the Sun, and I am the instrument through which Patjakamak expresses his will. Do you doubt it?”

Viiljak Uumuu went down on his belly. “No, Radiance, never!” He sounded horrified. Arguing with the Son of the Sun wasn’t merely lиse majestй, Allister Park saw — it was a lot more like blasphemy.

“What is your will, Radiance?” Park asked into the ringing silence that followed Maita Kapak’s outburst.

“Let me think,” the Son of the Sun said, and silence stretched again. At last the Tawantiinsuujan ruler gave his decision: “The benefits that will come to us as a result of improving our standing with the Muslims outweigh, I think, the loss we suffer from restoring to the Emirate this land east of the Ooriinookoo. Therefore Patjakamak must be seeking our acceptance of the terms Judge Scoglund has presented. Should the Emir keep the promise he made the judge to honor those terms, Tawantiinsuuju will also cleave to them. Let there be peace.”

“Let there be peace,” his aides echoed, Viiljak Uumuu loudest among them. Park wanted to go over and shake the big-mouthed priest’s hand. If he hadn’t got Maita Kapak angry, the Son of the Sun might have come down the other way. On some different turn of the wheel of if Park thought, blinking, maybe he did. He deliberately turned his back on that thought. He liked the way things had turned out here just fine.

“No one will be waiting for us, Judge Scoglund,” Eric Dunedin said, a little wistfully, as the train pulled into Kuuskoo.

Park shrugged. “I didn’t want a brass band.” He wouldn’t have got a brass band anyhow; the Tawantiinsuujans greeted their returning heroes with reed pipes, flutes, and drums made from gourds. It wasn’t what Park liked in the way of music, but then it wasn’t for him, either.