Sky Pride

Chapter 43- What Everybody Understands, Except You

The Yuu set camps around the city, a few miles out. They didn’t bother with trenches or siege works. What would be the point? They could wait. At night, they would pick their way towards the city to try and shoot the guards standing in the light. The guards, for their part, quickly learned that the brasiers were Not Their Friends, and stayed away. Then an enterprising young man from the city suggested an idea that had his elders seriously questioning what they had been doing with their lives. “Why not wrap the brazier in a reflective metal shell, and point it away from the wall? It could have a hatch on top so you could dump fuel in without blocking the light, but otherwise all the light would be aimed out, not around.”

The elders got their own back a bit when they pointed out that, instead of expensive, long-manufacturing-time metal, they could achieve much the same result with wood, cement and a layer of high-lime white paint. There was a problem with smoke staining the plaster and turning it back, but the young man had a solution for that too. The wood smoked because it wasn’t burning cleanly. By a crafty redesign of the brasiers, you could draw air up from the bottom and out through the top in a way that made the wood burn brighter and hotter. It ran through fuel faster, but it was considered an acceptable trade off.

“Young man, where have you been hiding all these years? The Army’s workshops are always open to bright minds like yours.” A smiling captain patted his shoulder.

“Been getting the shit kicked out of me, Sir.”

“Eh? Merchant guard? You don’t look like a warrior.”

“No, Sir, I’m a pacifist. I think it’s only right to defend yourself if you are getting attacked, of course, but I am deeply opposed to aggression, and the cruelty we show to our human brothers and sisters. It’s not a popular opinion. So I’ve been working whatever odd jobs I could scrounge up, then getting the shit kicked out of me. Usually when I come looking for my pay. Sir.”

It was a tiny story, in a city filled with them. Crime had always been understood in two ways- things that violated social harmony, and things that were “understood.” The meat seller ripping you off might be a crime, but it was “understood” and could be resolved informally with a bit of compensation… if your fist was big enough, or you had enough status that the magistrate would take your case seriously if you petitioned him. You dragging your butcher out onto the street and beating his teeth out because he was using a rigged scale would see you hauled off to jail in a real hurry. Public violence, disorder, spreading distrust and lowering morale? That was a real crime.

Everything ran that way. Everything could be “understood” provided it didn’t make too much of a disturbance. Things could be resolved without the draconian power of the magistrate. Power that included the use of torture, and indefinate imprisonment tiny cells filled with reeking straw on the floor and as many prisoners as they cared to cram in together, as basic investigative tools. Punishments were severe, ranging from beating with a judicial cane (which was only occasionally fatal, but almost always left people bedridden for days and carrying scars), family-destroying fines, penal labor for a period of years, the imposition of the cangue, tattooing, branding, mutilation, and executions of varying degrees of pain and humiliation. As an extra incentive to behave, the more socially disruptive the crime, the more likely it was to implicate your family and friends. Even mere acquaintances might find themselves branded and exiled, if the crime warranted it.

Most people would go their entire life never setting foot in the magistrate’s court. Almost everything, even rape or murder, could be resolved informally if the parties, their families, and their social networks, all agreed. Misunderstandings, accidents, don’t listen to rumors, just slander… The magistrates understood, the city lord understood, it was just how things worked.

Even if someone was sent to the magistrate, they would very likely be protected by the privileges of their networks, their class or their wealth. Social ties were vital here. A patron or a friend who could intercede with the magistrate, perhaps accompanied by a generous gift, could see a big problem turned into a small problem, and a small problem turned into nothing at all.

The law was plain and strictly enforced, just to everyone… when understood in the context of maintaining order and social harmony. In the case of specific individuals, it might well seem otherwise, but that was a known feature of the system. It was all understood. It was all how things worked. Normally.

Han lived in constant motion. He shuttled between the military and the magistrate’s office, and both threw problems with the grandmaster martial artists and mercenary cultivators into his lap. Not because he could beat them in a fight. He couldn’t. It’s just that they all understood that standing behind Han wasn’t the City or the Army, it was the Mountain.

He could break up a duel between “Nine Deaths One Life” Saber King Yan and “Lone Sword of Hebei Mountain” Wei in complete safety. Trying to stop a weeping, furious father from settling accounts with the neighbor’s boy over what he did to his daughter left him with wounds deep enough to show white bone beneath the red muscle. It would have left him permanently scarred, possibly dead, were it not for his teachers. He hadn’t thought the older man would dare swing his hatchet with soldiers present.

It was not the bitterest lesson Han learned, as he raced across the city. In another case, a merchant was caught adding sawdust to the barley used by bakers. He didn’t add it to the fine ground stuff, just the rough, brown grind that was destined to fill the bellies of the poor. A moderately serious crime in peacetime. In a siege?

“But don’t you see? This way the flour stretches further. More people are fed, keeping bellies full and morale higher for longer.”

“It’s not food. It’s wood.” One of the solders growled.

“It’s food when you bake it. You think people haven’t eaten sawdust bread before? Ayah, this is why I don’t like talking to you common soldiers. Where is Hundred Man Commander Xiao? He’s got some sense. Don’t make trouble here, run and fetch him if you must. But don’t even think of disturbing my business or spreading slanderous rumors about me! I have connections with the Seventh Street Chamber of Commerce, to say nothing of the Millers and Flour Merchants Association. I can have you ruined with a snap of my fingers.” The merchant jabbed his finger right at the soldier’s nose, his face turning red with righteous outrage.

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Han stepped forward. He’d had to make a special card since he started assisting the army. “You can’t ruin me. Obediently come with us, and accept the Magistrate’s judgement.”

The merchant glared at him. “Boy, I don’t know you, and that means you aren’t someone that matters. Pretty little boys who stick their noses where they don’t belong find themselves in chains looking at a horse’s ass as they head into the steppes. Nothing to do with me, you understand. It just kind of happens. All. The. Time. Now get your hand off your sword and get the Hell out of my shop!”

Han nodded slightly. The soldiers later reported that they managed to stop his sword arm just before he took the merchant’s head off, and it took four of them to subdue him long enough for the fifth member of the squad to manacle the grain merchant and drag him away. They reported, honestly, that the only reason they could subdue him was that he wasn’t trying to fight them. He just kept trying to kill the merchant. Han received a dressing down, first from the company commander, then the City Protector. He was fined a month’s salary, and sentenced to home confinement for three days.

Everyone understood, except Han, so it was made plain to him. Everything can be discussed between people, but between a person and the kingdom, there is nothing to discuss. When the sword rises and falls, it is by the Emperor’s will, transmitted through those entrusted to make such decisions. That wasn’t Han. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

When his confinement was over, Han spent a full day walking the city. In the evening, he came to his teacher’s courtyard, looking like death warmed over. The young man reached into his robe and pulled out a little manual.

“Three Character Fencing? Atrocious handwriting. Just awful.” Tian started flipping through it. There wasn’t much to flip through. His eyes narrowed slightly, and he read through it again slowly. “Hey Sis, take a look at this and tell me if it is what I think it is.”

Liren stowed her spear and walked over. She too quickly flipped through the manual, her eyes narrowing even more than Tian’s had. “Why did you want to show us this?”

Han pulled out a card, now worn almost to uselessness. “I am a swordsman.”

Instead of snorting or making their usual snide comments, his teachers waited, silently urging him to explain. He pulled out his slate, knowing they could read it in the dark better than he could.

“I could always tell what was a lie and what was true. I get so mad when people lie. I’m better at controlling it now, but I was an awful kid until Mom figured out what was happening.”

Liren and Tian just nodded, encouraging him.

“I wanted to be a scholar-official, a magistrate, punishing the liars and criminals. I know the world isn’t fair and doesn’t give a damn about true and false. But someone has to hold the line! Too many people get hurt. Too many cases get swept under the rug, too many criminals with friends living better lives than honest folk. I thought I could make things better, even just a little. But after what I have seen here…” The brush trailed off, dragging a line of water across the slate.

“Different from what you saw with Hanshen, isn’t it?” Liren didn’t smile, but her eyes were understanding.

“Yes. Very. But while I had that dream, I also had the dream of the chivalrous swordsman, roaming the country, fighting bandits, righting wrongs. Befriending the heroes of the age. Loving beauties.” Another day, Han might have blushed writing that. Now, the exhaustion was too deep. There was bitterness there that hadn’t existed a few months before.

“Now you have seen those people up close. Seen who they were when they stop pretending to be civilized, revealing the animal in the human animal. And now you are wondering if those dreams are still worth pursuing, or if you should ‘wake up.’” Tian nodded. He didn’t smile either.

“Yes.”

Silence settled over the courtyard. Tian shared a glance with Liren, then looked back. “This was your first manual on swordsmanship. It forms the core of your swordplay, and your faith as a swordsman.” Liren said.

“Something like that.”

“Good choice.”

Han looked up, briefly catching her eyes and seeing the truth there. He glanced over at Tian, who faintly nodded.

“I don’t follow a weapon dao, but this is good. Too many arts are loaded down with nonsense, half truths and fake profundity. They make little tricks seem like deep secrets. This is heroic swordplay, something a soldier might adapt once he left the battlefield. Cut, thrust and parry, with everything necessary to support those three things. The author didn’t know it, but he was expressing his life path. His dao.”

“He did a better job of it than a lot of immortals I could name.” Liren managed to keep from growling, just.

Silence filled the courtyard again. Tian smiled, his face lighting up. “Do you want my answer as a man, a daoist, or your teacher?”

That made Han’s mouth twitch. His brush blurred. “Could I get all three in one answer?”

“Sure. Keep dreaming.” Tian beamed.

“Maybe as my teacher.”

“Keep dreaming.” He waited just long enough for Han to start twitching, then continued. “Student Han, you were born in this life with an unreasonable number of gifts and a few burdens. As daoists, we understand that every gift comes with an obligation, every blessing hides a curse, and every burden contains a seed of release. Now you wonder what your blessings and burdens tell you about where your life should take you.”

Tian tapped the manual. “Whatever life you lead, it is a journey, one with a beginning, an end, and all the bits in between. If you lead a worldly, mundane life, accepting that the things which make you mad are just too big for you to change, then that will be your path. If you say that you will live a life struggling against it, accepting the blessings and the burdens, then whether it is as a magistrate or a chivalrous hero, that is your path as well. But how do you pick a destination to walk towards on your path? You must have a dream.”

Liren nodded. “Yes. I agree. Keep dreaming, Student Han. What you call the waking world is an even greater illusion. Only those with a strong dream can pierce it.”

“‘Real life’ is a lie we teach each other. What is ‘real’ is what everyone agrees on. Why should a few stamped bits of common metal decide if a man starves? Well, that’s ‘real life.’ Why is an innocent man in possession of a treasure guilty? Damned if I know, but it apparently is ‘real life.’ Did a murder happen? No, he just fell and hit his head. Did this city grow on the back of the slave trade? No, the merchants just traded for salt the nomads coincidentally had on them. There isn’t a brine spring within five hundred miles of here, but they were trading salt. Only a criminal would dare say otherwise. That’s what ‘reality’ is.” Tian’s smile didn’t have a shred of warmth in it.

“Until someone with a dream came.” Han wrote, his brush strokes tentative.

“More than one person. That’s the thing about dreams. They can be shared, and if they are strong enough, and shared by enough people, what is ‘real,’ changes. You can ask Wuusan if you don’t believe me. His dream is so big, all of the Yuu are dreaming with him.” Tian gently took the manual from Liren and handed it back to Han. “This isn’t a whole dao, it’s a signpost to a path you could choose to walk down. It will be a tiring walk, whichever direction you go in. You can’t know if the road is long or short, rough or smooth, narrow or wide. But as a man, a daoist and your teacher, I hope you pick a path that heads towards your dream and that your dream is a mighty one. I hope you have room on your path for others who share your dreams. I couldn’t imagine walking alone.”