Pastors of Tesk who serve the church of Christ and love the Lord our God. Has the lampstand been removed, or is it merely that you sleep? Wake up, we beg you. Our fight is not, mostly, against flesh and blood, but it may be that some will be counted worthy to share in Christ's sufferings. We can make no promises, but we would like to share with you the signs of the times. Will you stand firm with us, armoured with the full armour of God, warning and exhorting all even if only to save but a few? We hope at least some of you can come to the chamber tomorrow at one pm, probably finishing around five. We hope there'll be snacks at three-ish.
The high council.
“Men and women of the press,” Rena said, “For some reason the other members of the high council have appointed me as spokeswoman. We have, you might notice, returned early. There is a very sad, a shocking reason for that. But first let me give some background. We spoke a lot about history and lies and truth while we were in Caneth, and also about the different roles in which the government of Tesk is divided into. And some things happened that made us look at some very dusty volumes in the royal library of Caneth. One of those volumes turned out to be a little booklet that you'll see in large piles at the door, for which the plates were also preserved. The author clears up the mystery of why there are two very different stories about the end of the windward emperor. Surprise surprise, when the old emperor was shoved off the boat marking the trigger for the revolution, his son became emperor after him. And then he got stabbed in the middle of the revolution. So both stories are in fact true. While we were learning such gems from history, all of us candidates developed the gift of Tesk.
Tesk once more has a high council, and we have proven our possession of the gift of Tesk to the satisfaction of the politicians and parents who came with us. Now there are thirty-six members of the high council. Some of them are not here, some because they stayed for the wedding, others because the law as it stands forbids the presence of the royal family of the Three Isles. One stays with her mother who's unable to travel at the moment. There has been a lot of rubbish spoken about the catalyst and how we obtain the gift, so I'll tell you what we did. We sat in the same smallish conference room with prince Hal of the Three Isles, his fiancee crown-princes Esmetherelda, his two sisters and her two sisters, and the honourable Hayeel, ambassador from Dahel. We talked. Some people say I did a lot of the talking, but I'm sure I let others get a word in edgeways occasionally. That's it. We sat, we talked, we chatted, we learned history, and we got scared. Scared? Why would we get scared? The honourable lady Hayeel, on her journey to Caneth, was faced with a terrible reality: the religion of the doom-guard is not gone. She, the group of soldiers who were her body guard, and the other travellers with them heard a scream, and went to investigate. In that out of the way place near the border of Tew, a priest of the doom-guard's religion had just finished tattooing the marks of an acolyte in that illegal religion on the skin of two men, and celebrated it with the death of a farm-worker who'd upset one of them.
The doom-guard's priests are not gone, and that's why we looked in the Caneth library. What we learned there made us scared, because one of the sayings of the doom-guard was very familiar to us. The doom-guard were sought out and tried by the women of the harem, the emperor had made his wives top administrators, and when they rebelled against him, they helped plot and organise the revolution, and sought to destroy the power of the doom-guard and its teachings. Their children continued that work, becoming the nobles — those whose judgements were unsullied by the corrupt practices of the doom-guard. And so it was that the doom-guard started saying that the only good noble was a dead noble. That saying does not originate with the second revolution, that saying originates with the doom-guard, whom nobles inherited the duty to prosecute under the constitution. The nobles of Tesk weren't story-book nobility living from the taxes of the poor, they were civil servants earning about the same as a teacher. Fine, we kicked out the king, but why did the mobs attack the nobles? Who fed them such a pack of lies? So we came home concerned: why are our schools teaching children doom-guard propaganda? Why do so many of us have personal stories that seem to involve corrupt judges or untouchable civic leaders? We came home, because we feared that maybe without the nobles left to prosecute them, the doom-guard have been secretly regaining power. Tesk may not have many nobles with the constitutional power to judge members of the doom-guard, but it has a high council once more, and we mean to find out if there is a problem, and if so, how big the problem is. We came home early, because we didn't know what kind of lies and propaganda might be being prepared against us. If any of you have faith, please pray for us.”
“Do you deny, then, that you've agreed to hand Tesk over to this confederation of the Isles and Caneth?” a reporter asked.
“Anyone know what that's actually going be? Before we left, we heard that Crown princess Esmetherelda has asked the academy to think about how that confederation (or whatever it will be) might be structured. As far as she knows, they're either still thinking or have forgotten they need to send the answer. She had planned to talk about some vague ideas the day after we left, but a ship under sail goes fairly fast and her voice isn't that loud. She was perfectly happy for us to leave without discussing her ideas.”
“So you deny it?”
“What is it? How could we agree to anything we didn't even discuss in vague outline? And anyway, the high council has no power to negotiate treaties, that's the role of the government. Please feel free to read the constitution yourselves, and then call your sources ignorant dupes or outright liars, you know which.”
“And you claim that there was no kind of orgy.”
“I already said that, didn't I? We talked, and we sat in our seats, oh, and we also drank tea on the palace lawns. Perhaps I should also say that Ambassador Hayeel is an unmarried duchess of the Dahel empire, who wears a sash that says she is a noble and a virgin and if anyone allows an insult to her purity or her honour — for instance printing anything insulting about her — then they are issuing a direct challenge to the emperor of Dahel, and full scale war will be the result. You reporters have press freedom, but if you have any love for your countrymen or sense in your skull you'd rather jump up and down on a hilltop during a thunderstorm insulting God than insult Ambassador Hayeel. God is more likely to be forgiving than the emperor.”
“All right, all right, calm down,” the reporter replied.
“Why should she?” Yana asked, striding forward with her daughter on her hip. “You've just proved yourself unthinking enough to repeat an insulting and physiologically impossible lie about a crown prince, five princesses and one duchess of somewhere in Dahel the size of Tew, and thirty other girls and women who form the upper chamber of the government of Tesk, some of us who went there with our babies and husbands, fathers and mothers. If you're gullible and stupid enough to do that, a little remedial lesson in international relations doesn't seem amiss, does it? OK, I suppose that so far you've not insulted anyone from Tew yet, those countries I can never remember on the far side of the Dahel empire, or that guy who's claimed that rock off the Caneth coast and lives off seaweed and raw fish, but maybe you were just winding up to that. How many independent countries and empires do you want to trigger a war with?”
“None, madam. None at all.” the reporter said.
“Good.” Yana said, “Now if you can please all ignore the pre-prepared insulting questions you came with, and actually look back at the notes you were taking while your minds were on other things, you might find something worth asking about.”
“The shocking reason is the perceived return of the doom-guard?”
The minister for fashion and tourism stood and said “The shocking reason is that whatever we might have been taught in schools, the reality of the second revolution was that it was not a revolution against the laws of Tesk or the rule of the King of the Isles. Read the records of parliament, the break with the Isles happened a month before the first mob attacks. No, the second revolution was aimed against the hereditary wing of the civil service intended to prevent corruption and the spread of doom-guard teachings. The second revolution shouted doom-guard slogans and it ended up with the public sacrifice of men and women, boys and girls by hooded figures, some with strange tattoos. Sound familiar? The day we left I found an ancient document talking about the way the doom-guard seekers found their victims using the evil attunements of causing terror, dread, pain and suffering in others. A hand-written footnote in another document states these methods are how the mobs found their victims so easily. So I ask you, members of the free press, are you truly free? Will you check up in libraries and historic records? Do you dare label the second revolution as a counter-revolution against the one that brought the fall of the doom-guard?”
Rena said, “I hear some people wondering if others have heard of unexplained stories of disappearances or mutilated bodies they were told not to investigate. I hear others saying 'me too'. So I also ask, reporters of the free press of Tesk, how free are you? Are you free to swap stories? Can you discuss such things among yourselves? Will your editors allow you to publish such things? And if they will not, will you be free to report it to the high council?”
“And what will the high council do?” a reporter asked.
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“The high council will do its duty under the constitution,” Rena said. “We will listen, we will express concern, and we will accept oaths of office from others willing to do their duty under the constitution. We will accept sworn testimony, and if perjury is committed in front of this council we will apply the punishment that the law demands: exile or death. We have already sworn some to office. The other thing we will do is maintain a presence here day and night until this national crisis is resolved.”
“What national crisis? All I can see is some girls getting hysterical and a junior minister playing along!”
“The high council of Tesk is still in in quorate session.” Rena said, “Let the record state that concern has been raised regarding the validity of the state of national crisis, contrary to the earlier assessment of the high council. Let the witness state his name, and place of residence, and swear to tell the whole truth on pain of death or exile.”
“What? What do you mean?” the reporter said.
“You raise an issue of utmost importance. The high council will listen to your statement under oath, and question you regarding how you reached it. Name?”
“Kem,”
“Kem son of Temb, where were you born?”
“Karet,” Kem said, not believing what was happening, but deciding to play along with their little game.
“Kem son of Temb, born in Gamb road, Karet. Are you sure you were born in the Karet portion of the road?”
“Urm, I think so.”
“The record is to state that Kem son of Temb now lives on the border of Karet, on Gamb road, and believes himself to have been born in Karet, but his parents lived a few houses away and might have lived the other side of the border. For the purpose of this hearing, Kem son of Temb are you fully content to be considered a resident of Karet?”
“Urm, yes, sure.”
“Do you recognise the ability of council members to hear your thoughts, as we've just been doing regarding your name and parental home?”
“Yes.”
“Do you vow to tell the truth to this council?”
“I vow to tell the truth,”
“Do you understand that the least punishment that can be handed down for perjury before this council is life-long exile, and that if you knowingly lie we must sentence you?”
“Urm, yes.”
“You are thinking of legal processes to quash such a conviction. Do you understand that there is no law, no judge that can overrule the decision of this council, only the council itself can overturn its decisions, and that only when someone believed they were lying but actually were not?”
“What? No appeal?”
“On what basis? We know what you're thinking, but only what you say is minuted. If you choose to lie, you choose to die. Or go into exile, but that doesn't rhyme nearly so well. Just don't lie.”
“Can I withdraw my vow?” Kem asked.
“No.” Rena replied.
“Is there any way I can get out of this?” Kem asked desperately.
“Tell the truth, and remember that we are not trying to get you in trouble. You are scared.” Rena said.
“I am,” for his sister, the one who wasn't in Caneth.
“Do you think it is right for a reporter to be threatened?”
“No.”
“Do the laws of Tesk promise protection for journalists?”
“Yes,” Kem said.
“Do you feel sufficiently protected?”
“No,” certainly not his sister, but not personally either, he thought.
“Did your fears cause you to try to undermine the authority of this council?”
“Yes.”
“Were you following instructions?”
“Yes.”
“Did you willingly put yourself in a position where you agreed you would follow such instructions?”
“Pardon?” Kem asked, “I don't understand.”
“Did you get the instructions from your normal employer or someone else?”
“Urm, someone at my place of work.”
“But not the person who normally sets your work?”
“No.”
“Did you join some special group or religion not really connected to your work which demanded total obedience in exchange for advantages and promotion?”
“No, not really. I didn't mean to, anyway. It wasn't phrased like that.”
“You were invited to join a group of friends from different walks of life who helped each other out informally.”
“How did you..? Oh, mind-reading. Yes.”
“When was that?”
“A month ago,” Kem said, it had started so small, just a little piece about the ex-ambassador to Caneth being forced out by the princess-regent throwing her weight around, and not saying that he'd been sent home for inappropriate conduct.
“Do you now believe that the free press of Tesk is being subverted by a group who feel themselves above the law and immune from prosecution?”
“Yes.”
“Your concerns are noted, Kem son of Temb, resident of Karet,” Rena said. “It may be that the duchess of Karet will eventually be contacting you about your concerns. As spokesperson for this council, I thank you for your honesty. The opinion of this council is that you would do well to limit your contact with those who put you under such pressure.” Somehow, Kem understood that she was telling him to take his sister to the port and go and visit his other sister in Caneth.
“Thank you, may I leave?”
“You may leave, ” she said, and Kem somehow understood that she suggested he seek out a particular ship. He looked at her in amazement, how was that possible? That wasn't part of the gift of Tesk, was it? Somehow, this young woman, the same age as his sister, he guessed, had convinced him that there was a better hope for himself, his family and the island than he'd ever hoped. Maybe it was her confidence.
He knew what he wanted to title his piece about this meeting, which he planned to scrawl down before he left: 'If you choose to lie, you choose to die. Or go into exile but that doesn't rhyme.'. The editor was used to getting pieces of news via messengers, so that shouldn't be a risk at all. He expected the editor would shorten it. But still, it was a good title, and it was more his than anyone else's.
“Father, you expressed curiosity about what Hayeel looked like. Princess Bethania has provided us with some unposed pictures, the first without her realising at all, and the second with her knowledge but not expecting it to be on the back of these pictures of ports windward of Caneth.”
“Ah, now we see the face that draws my son across the continent. Is her letter characteristicly long?”
“Yes father, and scandalously uncensored and open, alternately hoping that we will marry, and threatening to insult me in every language and dialect she knows if I marry her in disobedience to the prophecy.”
“Doesn't she know the penalty for insulting you?” the emperor asked, with an amused smile.
“I don't think she'll care, father. She's as certain as I am that I must marry in accordance with the prophecy.”
“But she's not as sure she's the one as you are?”
“She hopes she might be, but he didn't tell her, not until he was feverish and dying. In letter four, she says desperately hopes we'll marry because she sees her sister growing large with her second child, in the next one she corrects that, realises that she's not actually desperate to marry and is entirely used to turning away admirers, it's much more to do with her wanting to make sense out of her life's pain, and about seeing how God meant it for good.”
“Ah, the face of your duchess?” the empress said, coming in, “An unusual beauty. But a little forward to send you pictures with you her hair loose.”
“The other side was a gift for me she'd already accepted, mother. Then Bethania wanted to sketch her again, and didn't know what it implied.”
“You sent me a picture with your hair down, Hayeela,” the emperor said.
“I'd already accepted your proposal.” the empress shot back.
“Hayeel accepts mine if the prophecy says we should marry, and if I should let her appearance sway me to bend the prophecy and I marry her under false pretences, she threatens to unleash on me a torrent of abuse in as many languages and dialects has she has learned from growing up near a port. Speaking of which, in her fourth letter she says that just in case I'm entirely desperate to see her, she can recommend the captain who delivered the letter as an honourable man, a friend of her late father, averse to taking risks, and very familiar with the route. He was becalmed on the way here, and wishes to leave in three days, four at maximum.”
“So you're leaving?” the empress asked.
“In her fifth letter she worries that princess Yalisa has seen in her father's hands a document showing rifling on canons, worries that he has obtained a military secret, and worries whether with extended range and accuracy Tew will be thinking of starting a war with Caneth or the Isles. Part of that worry is that it might mean she ought to recommend that I not come, and she writes that she's too quote 'insanely optimistic' about our meeting to want to do that. So she recommends that I seek my parents' advice.”
“And are you going to take her advice?” the emperor asked.
“Insanely optimistic as I am... I suppose so.”
“It will take a long time to rifle all the guns in the Tew navy, longer when they realise that while you can shoot round shot from a rifled gun, it doesn't benefit from the rifling, and damages the rifling and does no good. So, I predict a frustrating time for the king of Tew in the next two or twenty years while he tries to replicate our success. And in what your Hayeel's royal friend has seen, we have the evidence, finally, that the king of Tew has been trying to steal our secrets, which will be useful; most useful.”
“In other words, go soon,” his mother said.
My Hayeel, guess what? I got two letters today. What a pair we make! Desperately longing to know how well we get on and how long we should wait before marriage! Your father's friend has decided that he won't look for much cargo, and you have almost told me what to buy you with your money. If only you had given exact dimensions! So, I must guess, and make choices. But, of course, there is the slight problem that if you decorate the embassy with your own money, what then happens to the embassy when we marry? So I have changed my mind. I will not be buying you carpets for the embassy with your money, but I will buy some carpets you might decide to display at the embassy, but for sale. I will also make some guesses with my own money.
My Hayeel, today my parents advised me to not delay for fear of war with Tew, there are more changes needed to obtain the range than just to the barrel, and it seems most unlikely that there has been time to remake or replace enough guns for the whole navy. Also, the captain has agreed to fly the flag of the empire as well as of Tesk, which ought to give pause for confusion if not for thought.
Speaking of confusion, Naneela and Kahlel are spending a lot of time together, but I think it is too early to call it romance. His burnt hands still need care, and she still gives it, and in the mean-time they talk of technology, and the design of circuits. Kahlel still wears a look of confusion on his face, and Naneela dismisses any suggestion that his mother or sister could treat his wounds at home with 'And how would you get there without getting them mucky? And if you were gone who would help me with this radio design?' His mother and sister visited yesterday, and my mother spoke to his mother about some 'what if's. It is rest-day today, by the way. I went to your sister's church once more, and told them that I would be coming to see you and her. Everyone sends their love.. Fortunately I wasn't asked to say anything, as all I would have thought of was how important it is to obey God when it looks like the end of the world is coming and it not being good for man to live alone. I do hope I don't get sea-sick.
Salay
