Matters of Fact

There were two clans party to that contract, and I am aware of only one of them commanding the divorce. It does not appear that Ikoma Anakazu is divorced at all.

Doji Setsuna spent the morning refusing to dismiss a claim and the afternoon asking, very politely, for paperwork. By the end of it the Lion delegation had realised that the marriage their whole war rests on may never have been legally dissolved, and had stopped arguing that the question was irrelevant.

The military position underneath all of this has not moved. The Lion are surrounded — the Unicorn army in the woods, the Battle Maidens in the castle in front of them, Moto Gaheris at their back. If the forest moves and the gates open at the same time, there is no version where the Lion survive it.

Over the tea break, Ikoma Ujiaki came to her. He wanted to know what standard of proof she would require on the Unicorn's claim that the Lion had made war improperly — which is a courteous way of asking her to throw it out on the Lion's word.

She knew the ground. There is an older standard the Lion prefer, in which a person of sufficient status asserts a thing and that is the end of it, and there is the Kitsuki method, which wants a preponderance of evidence and which the Lion regard as a modern affectation.

Her answer was not what he came for. Pressed to rule on it now, on standing and testimony alone, she would rule for the Unicorn — and she did not think that fair to either of them. So the claim stands where it is. If the whole matter cannot be settled here, her recommendation will be that the Unicorn bring a full case, with evidence and witnesses, to Winter Court, and the Lion can answer it there.

That is clear, he said. It is not desirable in any situation.

She pinned him on the facts as he tried to close it down, and he chose to take the punishment rather than be silenced by it — and took more than he bargained for. He absorbed it, said as you will, Arbiter, and withdrew, visibly angry, having conceded nothing and won nothing.

Elsewhere in the tent, Shiba Midori's own delegation were pleased with her and confident of the outcome, because her friend Doji Setsuna will rule for them. They said so out loud.

Ide Subane gave Shiba Midori the Unicorn's real floor. Most of what was read out is negotiable. Three things are not. The marriage must not complete — the Champion is particularly slighted at having been asked to destroy a family to make it. No territorial concessions, none, this time. And no indemnity for the privilege of having their own land handed back; if the Lion want paying for leaving, they can be told to go pound rice. Beyond that: the status quo is acceptable, their pride can be salved with a few concessions on the historical grievances — and the horses come back. All of them.

Shiba Midori, meanwhile, took the Lion's account of their own conduct apart looking for the seam, and found it. Their whole defence is that they struck only military objectives and killed no one they did not have to. But harm done by negligence is still harm, and taking a clan's warriors and its horses away has consequences that run on after the taking. And she has personally seen things on this campaign that do not fit the tidy version the Lion are presenting.

Doji Setsuna sent her scribe quietly to Akodo Kage with a request, phrased so that he could prepare rather than be ambushed: who were the lords who agreed the marriage of Ikoma Anakazu to Asako Ikari, and who authorised the divorce? In writing, by testimony, or requiring research — whichever it is, she would like to know. Akodo Kage agreed it was an important point and undertook to make the information available.

Somebody in that tent was reading her, and got two things. That she is haunted, by a Matsu ghost of her own blood. And what she is actually doing here: that the thing everybody believes they are arguing about is not the thing they are arguing about, and that there is a question upstream of all of it which, answered, settles everything below it. The dissolved marriage.

Then the tea was cleared and she called them back to order and said that before they got to what each side needed, there were a few matters of fact she wished to be clear on.

Akodo Kage produced the betrothal contract — Shinjo Altansarnai to Ikoma Anakazu — out of the Champion's own keeping. She read it with her scribe at her elbow. It is in perfect order. Every form observed.

The earlier marriage he did not have. But the Lion keep good records, and he produced a scribe who could attest to it: Ikoma Anakazu's marriage to Asako Ikari was agreed between the father of Akodo Arasou and Akodo Toturi and a lord of the Phoenix, with a dowry.

Ikoma Ujiaki objected again. He did not see why any of this was relevant.

Doji Setsuna looked up from her papers.

What they were doing, she said, was making certain that whatever was decided here could not afterwards be overturned by either side on the grounds that the process had not been followed thoroughly. And then, mildly, the thing she had been walking toward all day.

This was not a marriage inside one clan. It was between two. Two parties made that contract. She is aware of only one of them commanding the divorce.

Had the dowry been returned to the Phoenix — to the woman, whose it was? Had the Lion petitioned the Emperor, which would have let them dissolve it without the other clan's consent? Because two clans of appropriate standing may agree together to end a contract, or one may breach it and have a war, and neither of those appears to have happened.

Which means it does not appear that Ikoma Anakazu is divorced at all.

The Lion delegation understood, all at once, what she had been doing since breakfast, and objected strenuously. Of course the forms were followed. They can produce the records. Very well, she said: who is the Phoenix lord who authorised it?

They would find out and come back to her.

Then she turned to Akodo Akihito and asked whether she had his position right — that the breaking of the engagement by the Unicorn justified the Lion crossing the border. He confirmed it. So she asked him what he thought an appropriate response would be for the Phoenix, to have one of their own dishonoured without a lawful divorce — or for the Unicorn, to be offered a marriage to a man who was not free to make one.

His face, by report, was a lion with its paw in a trap. He answered that they would be justified in pressing such breaches if they felt it necessary.

She asked Akodo Kage for a word, in the open, in front of everyone. He assured her the documentation would show that Akodo Arasou had discharged every obligation, and asked what resolution she was hoping for.

Get the documentation, she said, and bring it to Winter Court. In the meantime a provisional agreement. And this, which was the real message: if it is not ironclad by Winter Court, come prepared to make very heavy concessions to the Unicorn — and Shiba Midori might be a useful ally in making recompense to the Phoenix. This can be settled gracefully, and the Lion would have to be the ones to begin that. If it becomes a ruling instead, it will be a great deal harsher.

Akodo Kage said that in the very likely event that Akodo Arasou had done everything properly, they would concede nothing on this point or any other, since the mere implication that the Lion had been improper is itself an insult. She acknowledged that the Unicorn had not yet answered for their own part — that there are questions about the timing and the circumstances of the offer to Shinjo Altansarnai, and that the breaking of a formal engagement is a heinous thing which she would treat with the full seriousness it warrants.

And Akodo Kage said: quite clever, Crane. And that he hoped she appreciated that there are limits to everything. And that if she continued as arbiter in a balanced and thorough fashion, he was sure the result would be mutually satisfactory.

Then he moved to table the question of the divorce's formalities until it could be answered by a proper inquest at Winter Court — and Ikoma Ujiaki withdrew his objection to its relevance.

Afterwards Akodo Akihito found Shiba Midori. Do you really intend to preside over a second embarrassment to me? I know you and Doji Setsuna put me up to this. You only did it to make sure I would take the fall for my clan. You only set this up to ruin me.

She told him it does not matter, because the Emperor insists on justice. And then: his clan will find that his was the only mettle that could survive this, and a lesser integrity would have broken. Consider it a compliment.

Which is very nearly the truth. The Lion agreed to Akodo Akihito because if he wins they win, and if he fails nobody important is destroyed by it — which means the people who chose him were the ones who did not want the chair themselves.

Far to the west, Bayushi Monban got the water spirit released by finding the fire spirit somewhere else to live, and is now walking toward the mountains with six fire spirits behind him who want to burn everything they pass and who have been promised trolls.

Wind spirits found them on the ridge and began playing through the fire, delighted, and the fire delighted back, and he watched two elements he cannot control get along splendidly and was horrified by it. He found a cleft to bring them up rather than felling a line of evergreens as a ramp, which was their suggestion.

At the ridge's edge the mountain itself stood up. Man-shaped boulders came out of the stone — the Earthen Court — and told him to take his fire back to the plains or be scattered by it. The cave he had promised the fire spirits is in their realm. He had offered away a piece of somebody's kingdom without asking, and said as much, and was told: you should have been aware, human. Everything is someone's realm.

He asked to see their Queen. They took him at his word and pulled him through the rock, which is several minutes of the worst confinement of his life, and dropped him gasping into a vast chamber that lit up all at once like a thousand stars — a geode the size of a hall, and in it a woman made of uncut jewels holding the only light.

He argued balance. The river is dying because a fire spirit sits in a water spirit's place; the imbalance will run from the water into the mountains and the air; and Trappers are coming, who do not care what kind of spirit they catch. Fire in that cave would turn them back. It could even become her protection.

She was not moved by any of it, and she saw straight through him. You are both a cause and an advocate of imbalance. You offer a piece of my realm to the Lord of Fire. You offer yourself to the Lady of Water. What are you offering me?

He offered his silence. If I wanted your silence, I would tell my guard to bury you under the mountain.

But she did not refuse. She will let them climb and look at the cave. And then he must give her a reason to shelter them, and secure the fealty of their leadership in some form. Only then will she permit it.

Setsuna

She found the thing under the thing. Everyone in that tent believes this is an argument about a border and an insult. It is an argument about whether a contract was lawfully ended — and if it was not, then Ikoma Anakazu was still married when he was offered, the betrothal was void from the start, the Unicorn broke nothing, and the entire justification for the war evaporates. She did not accuse anybody of anything. She asked who signed, and whether the dowry went back, and whether the Emperor was petitioned, and let the Lion hear the shape of the answer in their own silence.

And she framed it as protecting them. So that no decision here can afterwards be overturned for want of thoroughness. Which is true, and which is also why Ikoma Ujiaki could not object to it without arguing for a sloppier process. The Lion gave ground because refusing would have looked worse than conceding.

Akodo Kage saw all of it and complimented her, which is not a good sign. Quite clever, Crane. There are limits to everything. He then did the one thing that blunts her — he moved the question to Winter Court himself, on his own motion, before she could be seen to force it, and had Ikoma Ujiaki withdraw the objection so the retreat looked like good faith. He conceded the ground she wanted in a way that makes it his concession rather than her victory, and he did it in about a minute. She should assume he now regards her as an opponent worth preparing against, and that she has one clever move per session against him at most.

She has also just done to Akodo Akihito exactly what his own clan did to him. They put him in that chair because if it goes well they profit and if it goes badly nobody important is ruined — and she and Shiba Midori worked to get him into it. He has now been humiliated twice, once with a blade and once with a question he could not answer, and he thinks it was arranged. He is not wrong that it was arranged. He is wrong that it was meant to ruin him, and Shiba Midori's answer to him was the correct one and should be made true: he must come out of this with something. Otherwise the party has spent a decent man to win a procedural point.

The Unicorn are counting on her, out loud, because Shiba Midori is her friend. That was said in her hearing by people who expect her to rule their way for reasons that have nothing to do with the merits. It is the single most dangerous sentence spoken in that tent today. Akodo Kage very probably heard it too.

And the Unicorn floor is narrower than it looks. No marriage, no land, no indemnity, all the horses. The first three are principle and the fourth is practical, and the horses are the one thing on that list she can hand them at no cost to anybody's honour. That is where a settlement starts.

The upstream question now sits at Winter Court, where she has already put Toshi Ranbo, where the Phoenix claim will be heard, where Asako Ikari must be found and produced, and where — since two eligible Champions are tied up in this very negotiation — the choice of the next Emerald Champion may also be waiting. She has spent the whole campaign moving things to Winter Court. It is going to arrive.