The Sack of the Summer Palace

Mountain men without the wit to do aught but extort from honest craftsmen

One advantage of the court’s northerly summerings was the ability to receive visitors who could not, due to some constraint of politics, be granted the legitimacy of a reception at the Orchid Palace. During the reign of Cold Tenshing, of course, audiences of all kinds were understandably reduced, but the Summer Palace remained a useful means of propitiating a certain class of allies to the throne. The first such occasion came with a visit from the Frontier Gagers' Consortium, a trade guild described over the noon meal as "mountain men without the wit to do aught but extort from honest craftsmen" by the Iron Rhetorician. Lin Ben leaned over to a fellow novice, an archer of Imja by the name of Lin Lagba, and asked "What is a gager?"

Lin Lagba shrugged, but Gregarious Lin turned from the bench behind them and said "An enforcer of liquor taxes. Customarily betruncheoned or otherwise girt for dispute."

"What has Iron got against taxes?" asked Lin Ben. "They pay his stipend, do they not?"

"Ah, the gager gives with one hand and takes with the other," said Gregarious. "From where do you hail, stripling?"

"Lin Ben hails from the Great South Plain, handmaid province to our shining capital," Lin Ben said stiffly.

"A farmboy, then. Does the excise-man come to your father's barn with his sack of takings in one hand and death in the other?"

"Citizens of the Royal Province do not require such tart inducements to do our part," said Lin Ben.

"Well, the hairy moonshine-runners of the logging colonies do," said Gregarious. "Which would trouble Iron not one bit, save that they pass their costs on to their customers." 

"I begin to apprehend,” said Lin Ben, who had never tasted aught stronger than rice wine with water. "Gregarious, what do you rate his prospects of suing the Gagers' Consortium for mercy? Surely a man of Iron's charisma can make a plangent case.”

"Ha!" said Gregarious. "I rate it poor and poorer, like Iron himself—and me as well, make no mistake! But fear not, young Ben. We have obtained an alternative supply."

Lin Ben concealed his interest. Lin Lagba did not exercise the same decorum. "What supply, Gregarious?"

The senior boxer gave his subordinates a smug smile. "Alas," he said, "it comes to us on condition of secrecy. Perhaps, when trust increases, we may more broadly disseminate our source. For now, though..." He shrugged in a nearly sincere apology, then returned to his lunch.

To Lin Ben, there seemed pomp enough to the gagers’ fête. They processed behind banners of red and silver—“blood and money," Gregarious Lin would later explain—preceded by heavy-bearded dancers in long coats, who slashed the air with sabres, and followed by a women's chorus with high-slit skirts, who sang a folk song to the beat of golden tambourines. This all occurred before the person of King Tenshing Panchama, who had entered the throne room shuffling and leaning like an old man on the arms of Queen Charvi and the King’s Lama, flanked by Gregarious Lin and the Iron Rhetorician. After the gagers' display, the King stood, unassisted but not without trembling, and carefully recited an eloquent statement on the deep and abiding bonds of amity that joined the Orchid Throne and the Frontier Gagers' Consortium, and the personal joy that he himself took in the prospect of sharing rice and salt with the eminent—indeed, storied—leaders of the organization. The delivery was both clear and sincere, but the effect was colored by the king's habit of periodic contemplation of a particularly interesting word, seeming to roll it around in his mouth like a hard candy while the gagers waited for the sentence to continue. 

After the speech, the summer court and the gagers repaired to the banquet hall, allowing the performers to make a discreet exit to the soldiers' mess—which was vacant, as the fighting men not on patrol were engaged with the festivities, ensuring that any roistering remained benign. Lin Ben was stationed near one end of the royal table, not far from the king and the three present queens, who ate with the Summer Palace’s handful of reluctant mandarins and the headmen of the Frontier Gagers' Consortium. The King ate and spoke with the same doddering hesitancy he had displayed in the throne room—yet Ben could see the power in his frame: The hardness in his hands, the strength in the arms and shoulders whose muscles bunched and elongated under the loose-hanging white coat. His attending lama did not eat at the table, but arrived twice to administer a dose of some stinking tea. The king made perfunctory responses to the gagers and barely acknowledged the junior Queens, Sarisha and Mani, the latter of whom picked at her food and, after rushing from the table for a long absence, returned only to excuse herself. He did not look directly at Queen Charvi, but muttered phrases to which she responded in low, short sentences, and plucked at her sleeve as a nervous child might at a parent's.