The room given to Lian for her adjudication was cold and palatial, and also her sleeping quarters. Her bed was against one wall, adorned by four posts and draped by green silks embroidered with gold. Seventy feet away were arched windows fifteen feet tall that looked into the inner courtyard and the final wall that led to the castle. The room was on the third floor and the windows faced east, and when the sun crept out from behind the Wamaian mountains dozens of miles away, they bathed the room in a warm, pleasant glow.

That first day though, Lian had already been awake for hours before the sun appeared. Agitated, she’d practiced her sword techniques in her own clothes before changing into the courtiers clothes provided to her, only to change back and go through the first twenty sword sequences all over again.

Lian hated when she had a task that went along someone else’s schedule. She had wanted to start studying the Wamaian legal texts the previous night, but Ida had insisted she would require a staff of experts and translators, all of which was true but none of which made Lian any less restless. Instead of repeating the same movements a third time, she wandered the length and width of her room, observing each grey stone under her feet and in the walls, and the few other furnishings they had left her: a large desk tilted slightly to make for easier reading, a solid wooden chair at the correct height, a small chest into which she had put her clothes and sword, two small bowls of wine and water, a much larger jug for defecation, and the ten foot tall door that separated her from the rest of the world. She likened herself to a prisoner who knew she would have to get very familiar with every contour of her cell. As important a role as she was told she would play, she did not get a sense of overwhelming friendliness or accommodation from the Wamaians. She was there to do a job, and she would not be made privy to any more of Wamai than she needed to do it.

The first of the servants arrived at sunrise with tea and buns. She dismissed them at once and invited in the first of the experts and translators, anxious to finally get to work. She knew exactly how she wanted them set up – the lead scholar in the chair, a second legal scholar on one shoulder and a translator on the other, while Lian paced behind them, listening first to the original Wamaian and then the translation, and absorbing. Their books arranged in order of importance, she would start with the oldest, most important texts and then listen to their advice on where to proceed next.

That was the plan at least.

Compared to Imperial law, Wamaian was simple, chaotic, and nuanced. The Imperial legal papers Lian was familiar with from the Empire were broken into four categories, each one building on the other in a pyramid of expectation: from the prescribed rites at the bottom, which were primarily proscriptive, to the legal code at the top, which described the greatest crimes that warranted specific and exact punishments. Justice, each Shuli Go was taught, flowed like water down this pyramid in a constant flow that ensured the greatest crimes were treated uniformly, while the lower levels left room for interpretation and the diversion of liquid where it was most needed.

Wamaian law was closer to an epic poem: each case wandered from statute to statute, each law interjecting its one small piece to the narrative, until the decision was arrived at not through any interpretation, but close, careful reading of the text in the correct order. Lian’s head filled quickly with cases of precedent, ancient texts which were in some cases not even legible in the modern version of Wamaian, and the overlapping claims of superiority of one law over another. Books did not pass onto the table in a linear show of importance, but were instead criss-crossed to and fro as different aspects of the law emerged. It reminded her more of the logic puzzles Imperial bureaucrats had to master for their entrance exam than anything she’d actually dealt with before.

Eight hours in, she was certain of almost nothing. She ate in silence with her translators and scholars, going over the dizzying amount of information she’d been presented. And this was only one case.

Eight hours after that meal, she had a better grasp on things, as the story of the legal situation began to take shape in her mind. However the sun had set and she had exhausted her translators and scholars, mostly old men who had expected to spend a few hours, at most, in her chambers. She sent them out as the third meal of the day arrived. Ida arrived with it.

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“So have you solved it yet?” Ida laughed, sitting across from Lian on the ground and pouring her tea in an intricately detailed set of ceramic cups.

“Not quite…” she let her sigh dangle across the food between them as they held their tea cups aloft and then sipped them in time. The food in the palace was significantly better than what they’d eaten on the road: the King had good taste for food at least. Not least of which was beef, which was grazed infrequently in the Empire owing to the large amounts of land cows required – the grass in Wamai was evidently more robust. The dish she shared with Ida was a thick slice of that beef, fried and mixed with vegetables and sauce, then poured atop a type of thick noodle she had not had before. It was delicious. She grunted.

“What? Not good?” Ida inquired.

“No, it’s delicious. I was just thinking about what a difference a week can make.” She examined Ida again, and considered how much to confide about her precarious position back in the Empire. His face was inquisitive, but not judgmental. He knew more than she’d meant to let on. “A week ago, I was scrounging for berries and struggling to catch enough crappy game to keep from starving. Now, I’m eating meals fit for your King.”

Ida nodded as he slurped a noodle. He chewed and swallowed before speaking. “Things are as difficult for Shuli Go as we have heard, then?”

“Well, I’m not sure what you’ve heard, but it’s not easy. We weren’t trained as wanderers. We were trained to make a long commitment to our Go – our people. Many of us lived our whole lives in a single division, a single Go. We saw generations of boys and girls grow up, get married, have children, and die. And we would watch after their children and grandchildren. Shuli Go were in a position of trust. And earning and keeping that trust was key to everything we were taught. Now we are forbidden from keeping any position, or even staying in any one place, for more than a few months. Shorter if the magistrate or prefect take a disliking to us.”

“But you are trained well. Tell me, have you learned our tongue already?”

It was Lian’s turn to nod, though more out of respect for the quality by which Ida had been informed. “A little,” she replied in Wamaian. Ida laughed.

“That is good, but your accent will need to be perfected if you’re going to present your verdict to the King in Wamaian.”

Lian chuckled – she’d underestimated Ida significantly. He’d seen this entire sequence play out before he’d even met her, and of course he’d known that one of the magic properties of the Shuli Go was a vast improvement to their memory – all the better to identify and remember the face of a perpetrator, or the scene of a crime – a skill that was also well suited to memorizing a new language. She eyed Ida carefully as she ate her food: she was glad he appeared to be on her side. So far she had the guarantee only of Hoji, back on the edge of Wamaian territory, that she would not be mistreated if she did her job well. She wanted an ally in Ida, so she thought she, too, would play a little game with him.

“And what about you?” She asked. “What’s the life like for a former Clan leader turned politician?”

“He survives, quite well. And grows fat,” he laughed, patting his belly, which was neither soft nor too large.

“And he keeps his sword well maintained, if what I saw on the way into Karuto is any indication. Do you still practice?”

“A Wamaian warrior never forgets the way of the sword. Or the thrill of battle.”

“So you train still?”

He put down his bowl, and sipped his tea carefully. He was on to Lian, but she didn’t care. She knew that he was aware of the Shuli Go prowess with a sword. He would take her bait, because to avoid it would be dishonorable.

“Of course.”

“Then perhaps you’d do me the honor of teaching me the true spirit of your country.” She sipped her own tea and smiled.

Ida chuckled. “Yes, yes, I thought you would never ask.”

And so after they had digested their food, and Ida had drank the wine left out for Lian, they taught one another the first movements of their respective weapons. The Wamaian blade was shorter, curved, and sharpened on only one side of the blade. The movements were quick, powerful, and brusque. Lian showed Ida the first five sequences of the Shuli Go, and their focus on grace and redirection. She explained how Shuli Go were first taught defense, the way to use the longsword to protect the vital organs above all else. Ida dictated the root of Wamaian training, that balance between attack and defense was the only way to achieve either. Ida had two large torches set up in the middle of Lian’s huge room, and they took turns showing the techniques they had learned as children, and perfected on battlefields, in the flickering, pale light.

When he finally left the sun was only a few hours away, but they both knew Shuli Go needed only half the sleep of a normal person to achieve the same clarity of mind. And Ida was a politician, fat and lazy and entitled to sleep in as long as he wanted. They bowed goodnight to one another, exhausted but satisfied. Lian undressed herself and fell into her large, soft bed. Sleep claimed her.