Xiatokja poked at her dinner. It was a perfectly nice bit of cabbage, having been correctly blanched and it added a wonderful sweet crunch to the steamed fish. Which she also poked. Xiatoktok could spot her mood with his eyes closed. He suspected he could have spotted it from two blocks over.
“Just get it out dear. What is it?”
“You aren’t sleeping with your secretary. You didn’t even make a pass.”
Xiatoktok managed to choke on air, sputtered and drank a gulp of tea.
“I’m doing what now?”
“If you were “doing,” I wouldn’t have a problem. Didn’t you think it was strange that your duty secretary was female today? Given that your secretarial pool is almost entirely male?”
“I honestly did not notice. I have an insane life at work. What does this-”
“Exactly! It’s not healthy. You come home so stressed that we hardly have sex any more. A little office treat during the day would be just the thing.” ’Tok was eerily reminded of how she tried to persuade their kids that they really did want to eat their vegetables.
“It. Absolutely would not. I need my secretaries to be secretaries. They are busy. Also, I think we have had the Monogamy conversation before. Several hundred times.”
“You would be monogamous. You aren’t having a relationship with the woman, beyond the transactional.” Each and all of their children had been victims of the “Carrots are natures’ candy.” lie.
“That is not how that works, and you know it.”
“I know that I spent a week getting her into your office, and I’m honestly a little hurt that you didn’t even look at her.” She did always get them to eat their vegetables eventually.
“I looked at her! She looked fine!”
“What did she look like? Go on, describe her.”
Xiatoktok frowned fiercely. He had seen the new secretary. He was just mildly horrified to learn that he didn’t really “see” her. She just made a sort of female shaped blob in his awareness.
“Exactly.”
“This proves nothing!”
“It proves that you didn’t see the very nice young lady I spent ages training and planting in your office.” She looked genuinely hurt. “Her name is Gentian, by the way. I know you didn’t know.”
“You did what? ’Ja, seriously, why? Our marriage isn’t strictly conventional, but it has worked for fifty years. Why all this? Why now?”
’Ja made a frustrated growl. “Because it has been fifty years! Because we are now the third generation of the Main Line in seniority and we should have a hell of a lot of concubines. Because half the continent is on fire, and our half looks about to blow up too! You are president of the single most valuable Xia enterprise west of the Mud Dragon River, and let's not mince words here, I am the best godsdamn botanist outside the Bo Clan anywhere on the continent! AND I run a major business group too, or do you think all those damn greenhouses the Clan owns just work by themselves?”
She took a big gulp of tea to calm down. It only marginally helped.
“I have bent over backwards trying to accommodate you. I kept putting it off for years. Decades. Decades of stiff arming all the snide remarks. All the looks. The hissing fathers and mothers when we didn’t even glance at their debutantes. I can’t count the number of times we were snubbed before we got real power. I haven’t even looked for male concubines because I knew you would lose your damn mind.”
Xiatokja leaned forward. “I found someone who is basically a prettier not-Xia version of your first crush. Who was Xiawo. Oh yes, I do know about her. And I don’t care even slightly, beyond seeing if her granddaughters were available for concubinage.”
“They aren’t.” Xiatoktok said with a brittle brightness.
Xiatokja froze, then deflated.
“No, they aren’t. Sorry. That was in very poor taste. I never… Well. Sorry.”
“It’s fine. I know you didn’t. Just… more of the Confed’s victims at Old Radler.”
“Yeah.”
They stared at their plates, neither wanting to eat any more.
“Look. It’s one of those not-written-down-rules for a reason. We have a responsibility to the Clan and to the world. We can easily afford to keep a dozen concubines, twice that with a bit of budgeting. And this is with you funding a dozen projects. When they start paying off? One concubine. One single concubine is nothing. It barely qualifies as pretending to do the responsible thing. I am just… trying to ease you into it. Ok? I have worked really hard on this. Gentian is wonderful. She is bright, cheerful and a joy to be around. And no, I haven’t taken her to bed or anything. I want us to do this right.”
Xiatoktok stared at his plate. He had never been able to articulate why he was against having concubines personally, despite supporting it generally. He just knew that he wanted ’Ja, and didn’t want to share her. Once they were married, he… it’s not that he stopped looking, but he stopped caring. Beauties were like flowers on the roadside. To be appreciated, not plucked.
“’Tok, this has to stop. We are just too rich and too powerful to not have concubines. It makes us look greedy and afraid. It wasn’t really acceptable when you were running a department in the Bank. But now? Now it’s venal. Petty. Frankly, it’s beneath you. It’s certainly beneath me.”
“I just want you, ’Ja. And for you to just have me. Is that really so wrong?”
“It’s very sweet. And yes, it is very wrong. We indulged ourselves for fifty years. Now it’s time to bring in new blood and make them part of the Eternal Lineage. I want to make her a Call to the Blood Concubine. I am really serious about doing this right, for all of us. You make investments every minute of every day. Make one more. Her name is Gentian. And she is a very lovely girl, who I like very much and went through a lot of trouble to find.”
’Ja changed tack.
“How many concubines did ’Lu have?”
“Registered with the clan? Thirty. Mostly female or femme.”
“The Patriarch?”
“Nobody actually knows. In excess of a hundred. Mostly male or masculine.”
“’Mia- wait, no scratch that.”
’Tok grunted. “Best to pass by her, yes. Unless we are using her negative numbers to subtract from ’Te and ’Tam’s total.”
“They have four, right?”
“Five.”
“What? This is a scandal! When did they add a fifth to their marriage? I would have sent a present.”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Two months ago.”
“So, who picked them out?”
’Tok shook his head ruefully. “In a very, almost classically, ’Te and ’Tam move, rather than flip a coin for who got to pick for the other next, they decided to jointly pick together. They found a non-gendered person who was masculine enough for ’Tam, femme enough for ’Te and made them both laugh. Apparently the whole family is now incredibly sweet on them.”
“Oh, that is so precious!”
There was a quiet pause.
“Her name is Gentian?”
“Yes. Smart enough to hold a real conversation, pretty enough that I can just look at her and be happy, and not a drop of Xia blood in her. A true Call To the Blood concubinage. And her background is perfectly clean, according to the professional paranoids I hired.”
There was another quiet pause.
“I’ll meet her. Properly, this time. No promises.”
’Tok and ’Mia met for their usual morning meeting in the President’s office. The light cores were unhooded and delicate paper shades covered them- dawn had only just broken and the world was still dark and quiet.
“What have you learned about the Greenvale branch?”
“We have verified parts of Xiaponmi’s story. We haven’t had time to get our own people down there, but we have gotten reports about the raid from other sources. I can’t imagine the Sky Runners haven’t heard as well, so I intend to liaise with our local factor on the investigation.”
“Bring cake. He’s got an enormous sweet tooth.”
“Huh. Skinny guy like that?”
Xiatoktok stared flatly at ’Mia. “He runs a lot.”
’Mia winced at the statement of the obvious and hurriedly changed the subject.
“Unfortunately, we have also started getting reports of similar raids all across the north west. Currently we stand at eleven over the past week, and the only reason that we’d catch it is the pattern is near identical with the Greenvale case. As far south as God’s Bowl, and as far east as Swift Current. Greenvale is, ironically, the northernmost raid. It’s not just us, either. It sounds like a widespread campaign of commerce raiding focused on destroying infrastructure rather than just looting.”
“When you say it’s not just us-”
“Sky Runners are getting hit hard. Caravans, caravansaries, people who supply caravans, all getting hit. Some of our branches are getting hit too, though there aren’t that many of them comparatively, so we present a smaller target. Unfortunately, we don’t send guards to most of the branch offices because, well what would be the point? Would four well armed, well trained guards have stopped what happened in Greenvale? No. And we can always manufacture more money.”
“I am painfully familiar with the debate. Without going down that rabbit hole, it sounds like they are attacking communications, logistics and finance. Basically crippling an economy before troops can even be mustered.”
“Pretty much.”
“But all these entities exist outside the Five City Alliance. Some of us are literally transnational entities. And it sounds like a lot of the attacks are taking place outside the territory of the Five City Alliance.”
’Mia nodded. “We don’t have enough data to make a reliable analysis, but at a guess, the Alliance isn’t the target, or not directly. This is about disrupting supplies into the Disputed Territories. It won’t touch the Langpopo too much, but it will severely damage the ability of the Dusties and the Collective to resupply. It will really cripple any independents that might have moved in.”
“I would expect the Collective to mostly use their own logistics and communication though. They certainly don’t use our banking.”
“Yeah, for their armies and major settlement efforts, but if they want to send a letter or package anywhere outside their zone of control, they have to use non-collective parties. Their strength is that they are incredibly cohesive and unified. Their weakness is they really can’t operate as independent units.”
“Huh. So this doesn’t directly benefit anyone that much, because the Dusties are famous for two things-”
“Being broke and being proud of it. Sorry, ‘Community Self Reliance.’”
“Hilariously, we do have some modestly healthy Dusty accounts. But yes. So why do it?”
“Two reasons. One- the Five City Alliance, such as it is, is currently neutral in the conflict. Our stated ambition is to earn off everyone involved, which means that no one is particularly happy with us. This could be an attempt to nudge us out of neutrality and towards the protection of a strong military power. The positional advantage for the Disputed Territory conflict is obvious.”
“They are going to have to try a lot harder than that!”
“Agreed, but, reason two- reducing legitimacy. Right now we have Five Cities, each with their own fairly limited spheres of control, surrounded by much larger powers. The ability of any of the cities to mobilize a field army is… not zero, certainly, but limited. By regularly raiding smaller settlements inside the city’s spheres of control, they immediately and severely reduce the legitimacy of the cities. So much so that some villages may “spontaneously” decide to defect to a power that can actually protect them. And since the cities know that, they have to deploy what limited soldiers and resources they have to stabilize the home front, rather than involve themselves actively in the Disputed Territories.”
“So the raids on communication, logistics and finance outside the Cities’ zone of control is a sort of test run for raids inside their zones?”
“Less a test run and more of laying a foundation, I would say. They also want to gauge our response. Us the Bank and Us the Five Cities.”
“Well let's not keep them in too much suspense.” Tok grinned nastily. “I have been waiting to use this particular privilege. Duty!” ’Mia noticed a micro flinch when ’Tok called for his secretary. He said he was going to see someone about the trauma. Had he? She would bet he didn’t.
The duty secretary, a dapper young man clearly trying to imitate ’Tok’s aesthetics, hurried into the office. “How may I serve, President?”
“By the authority of my office, under the regulations set down by my Cold Garden Xia Clan House, I declare that our dignity has been grossly offended. Mud must be washed away with blood. I therefore call for the Hundred Blades.” The secretary looked stunned and clearly didn’t know how to respond.
“Secured file room, ask the clerk for it. It will be a red chest with ten bundles of blades printed on it. You will need an order with my seal to withdraw it. Here.” He handed the paper over to the Secretary. “I made up a bunch of them a while back. Very soothing.” This was directed to ’Mia.
“At. At once, President.” The secretary scurried away.
“You can issue a Hundred Blades bounty?”
“Yep. Comes out of our budget, but Central House covers half of it. Still have to account for it during the end of year review, so not something to play with. One and Ten Blade bounties we can do whenever, but we cover one hundred percent of the cost.”
“That is… kind of wild. Do all business directors- No, that would be impossible.” She shook her head. “It is also not enough. But I did have a thought about that, that would work with the Hundred Blade order.”
“Oh?”
“Light raiding forces are an absolute bastard to try and intercept, let alone capture or kill. Ten raiders on good cheves? In open country? Forget it. Unless…”
“You send even more people on equally good or better cheves after them?”
“Such as, and I am picking an example totally at random here, some of the local tribal bands who are starting to feel the winter’s pinch a bit.”
Xiatoktok frowned slightly at that. The Langpopo covered a huge range of the planes, but they weren’t very cohesive. Each band operated mostly independently, united by language and culture more than hierarchy. It was the reason everyone was very curious where they suddenly managed to acquire advanced weaponry from. Weaponry that hadn’t existed since the last apocalypse. But all the captured Langpopo could say, even under the harshest interrogation, was that they got it from another band.
It would not be inconceivable that some Langpopo wintering nearby could be persuaded to do some counter raiding work, even if it was a little politically tricky.
“How certain are we that the raiders are not, themselves, Langpopo?”
“We aren’t. On the other hand, Greenvale is Langpopo territory, effectively, and our witness said they weren’t Langpopo. For whatever that’s worth. And none of the other witnesses thought they were Langpopo either. Could be some other tribal groups from a different part of the continent. Could be people disguising themselves as Tribesfolk. Wouldn’t be unprecedented.”
There was a frantic pounding at the door. A muffled “Expert Xiatokmia! Expert Xiatokmia! Urgent news!”
“Get behind the desk!” Xiatoktok snapped. ’Mia was already moving, pulling a dense little melter from inside her robe and crouching behind the armored desk. Xiatoktok had one hand on the bomb cord and the other had pulled the heat weapon that his last assassin had used. Seemed fitting.
There was muffled nose outside, and a series of thumps.
The bell rang twice, then thrice, then twice, then once, then four times. The timing of each was very slightly off. One would have to have an almost supernatural grasp of time to spot the difference.
’Mia and ’Tok immediately sighed and relaxed, putting away their weapons. Tok pulled the lever to open the door. A battered and somewhat bloody clerk, looking very sorry for herself, was holding a sheet of paper.
“I apologize for the disturbance, President, Expert, but Expert Xiatokmia did say that she was to be immediately informed if there was any news regarding sudden raids within village or urban areas on caravans, the Sky Runners, or any of our offices.”
“What happened?” ’Mia asked.
The clerk sniffed hard, making sure the blood stayed in her nostril and not on the carpet. “Flash signal from Vast Green Isle Clan House. Someone tried to raid a caravansary in the Foreign Quarter. Turns out some caravan guards were more alert than expected and fought them off.”
“Oh? I think that might be their first complete failure that we know of. But if that is all, we are going to have a private discussion about decorum.”
“Yes Expert. I mean, no Expert! There is more. They caught one of the raiders alive.”