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“Actually,” Tang Ning said, “Nui has an interesting story.”

“I really don’t.” Nui Ping said.

“If I must command you to speak, I’ll order you to use the voices.” Meng Wa said.

Don’t ask me; to this day I don’t know about the voices.

“All right, I’ll tell it again.” He took a breath, as though before walking across a path of hot coals. “I was born to the farmer caste; mother wove baskets, and mats, and the like. She trained me on jute. That’s a plant that most regard as a weed. People don’t work with it because it creases easily and has no structural strength. Also, the fact that the stalks are irregular means that it’s just terrible for fabric.”

“Anyway, jute is regarded as a plant to train on so that you can work with other, better, materials later in life. But, you see...”

“Each woman is allowed three husbands, and six consorts, to bring the total up to nine, or three sets of three. For a noble woman to take those from castes other than the nobles, one of her husbands has to be from Farmer caste.”

I blinked. “This is the first I’ve heard of any of this. How are there anywhere near enough men to go around? Do the women share?”

.....

“Women often share.” Meng Wa admitted. “And others of us choose to have children without marrying.”

“Although that’s unpopular, unless one is a willow woman.” Tang Ning said, folding her hands protectively over her belly.

“But yes, men are allowed three wives and six consorts as well.” Meng Wa said. “The whole thing is so much more reasonable than trying to match a single couple up for life, and then punishing them if they drift apart.”

“Although it does lead to shameful things,” one of the new soldiers said, “such as men marrying men and women marrying women.”

Tang Ning took a controlled sip of her tea. “An issue which was legalized by the Shining Empress over six hundred years ago. Many of her rulings were overturned over the years, but that one has become accepted. By all but the most devout of traditional sects.”

Meng Wa had donned a gauntlet, slammed it into the table before her. “Enough! Nui Ping, please continue.”

“Yes, anyway, selling me in marriage to Shigata Sukako for her first husband helped my siblings go to university. Only – she didn’t understand about jute, you see. Shortly after our honeymoon, when we returned to her household, she already had three sections of land converted over into nothing but growing jute.”

“A weed, and here she was having entire farmlands planted with it, to show how much she loved me! Of course, I couldn’t find the words to break that to her gently, so I said only that maybe something like cotton or flax might be good for next year. And she agreed, but...”

“I don’t need to tell you how guilty I would feel if I let the farmers grow all that jute without me. So I rotated through the farms, trying to be friendly, and treating it as a joke. But when harvest rolled around... It would take me years to get through all of the jute she had ordered planted.”

“I didn’t have years, as it turned out. My dear Sukako had a rivalry with Din Ma, something about the uncertain lineage of one of her dolls. But it escalated a bit every year, each of them working to shame the other in ways they could claim innocence about.”

Like planting three fields with a weed. Okay, insane yet powerful women. Got it.

“Only Din Ma went too far, or Sukako did. Either way, a man professed that my wife had hired him to slay Din Ma, before being executed for the crime of attempting that. Anyway, nobles aren’t just slain, not on the word of merchants. The provincial capitol dispatched an imperial magistrate. Or, officially, it asked her to look into the matter and she accepted.”

He shuddered, looked like he was going to weep for a moment or two before continuing. “Oh, Sukako was found innocent, of course. Of that crime. But the methods imperial magistrates use... Other crimes were discovered, and punished. Her family, the local Din branch, six or seven other local families were put to death for crimes as minor as...”

“Ours is not a draconian justice system. Not unless it is enforced, to the letter. Because I had not been a part of the Shigata family at the time of their sedition... A childhood rhyme, common in the region, and it was called sedition...”

One of the female soldiers reached out to grip his arm above the elbow, and he placed his own hand atop hers.

“I was given the option of life, but only if I returned my name to Nui. Sukako was dead, our unborn child with her. Only my mother... there was still great stigma attached to all of those who survived the purge. Once I understood that returning home was not an option, I chose to serve as far away as I could. There was a need for farmers here, and it was so far away from the rest of the Empire that there has never been a magistrate here.”

“Ah-Ah. THAT will change, once the government hears about what has happened here. Anyway, I arrived with papers and seeds that sealed my fate. Jute seeds, from the same fields I was speaking of earlier. Honestly, my hope had been that they’d gone stale over the seasons. But within a few months, my entire back yard was overgrown.”

“Until the time of the fire, I made bags, satchels, and sacks. And then, the next day, I had neither a house nor any of the tools of my trade. You know what survived?”

“The jute?” I guessed.

He nodded. “That damn jute. When the option came to be a temporary soldier, I took it. Gives them time to rebuild my house. I requested the outer wall, rather than the middle, where they offered us positions. I told them I wanted to be where the action was the most like a fire but...”

Meng Wa took her gauntlet off. “We still catch him, looking where his homestead was. But for now, he’s one of us.”

“Wow.” I said. “Both up and down one caste. And you’re what, twenty?”

“Twenty-four, this coming fall.” He said. “If it ends here, it has still been an interesting life. I just... I’m not certain if I loved her, but Sukako made me happy.”

“Oh gods, not this AGAIN.” Tang Ning said. “Show of hands, all who say he loved her. See? Majority of hands. You loved her, just admit it and move on with your life.”

“Ah-Ah, I see that we are attracting gazes for having lingered so long. Let us return to our section of wall, and pray for nothing more than dueling fireworks tonight.”

We said our polite goodbyes, and I again couldn’t commit to joining them on the wall.

“Nope, too late, come back tomorrow.” The soldier guarding the Rice Gate told me.

Fine. I understood they weren’t to blame, just following orders, yada yada.

“So, you ARE joining us on the wall?” Tang Ning asked. “At least for tonight?”

I shook my head. “Just to the top of the wall, then I’m climbing up the side of the gatehouse.”

“Eh, your loss. Bunch of stuffy champions or us.”

“No, there is something I must verify in person. Perhaps after, but also perhaps not.”

Incidentally, I don’t recommend climbing up the side of a fortified gatehouse. Especially not one crewed by vigilant champions, who know they can die at any moment.

A halberd, swung blindly, caught my nose hard enough to swing my entire head to the side.

[You have taken twelve points of damage. After armor, six points have been received. 18/80 health remain.]

I screamed, of course.

“That was not a human scream... Can someone bring one of those torches?”

I closed my eyes. Sunlight is bad, but I had some experience with sudden torchlight as well.

“Little Monitor? Is that you?”

“It is me. Could I trouble you for a hand up?”

“I suppose. Here, grab Swan’s Wing.” He extended the halberd to me, still dripping with my blood. Whatever I may say against Zi Huang, he had strength in abundance; I was soon atop the Rice Gate.

“That wound doesn’t look that bad up close.” He said.

“It is my fault. Next time I’ll raise more of a ruckus so everyone knows I’m climbing up.”

“Why was there even this time? Is this not your duty station?”

“That is something I need to take up with the guards at the base level. I trust Captain Feng is still awake?”

“Both he and Wa Fenya are in the medical zone, getting new teeth installed to replace those they are missing. But I am certain Lieutenant Leng is still awake, he checked on us just a little while ago.”

And he was, at Captain Feng’s desk, looking at a message scroll as though it might bite him.

“I was not expecting you for two days yet, Little Monitor.”

“I heard something that I must verify with you.” I said. “Are we falling back to the middle wall?”

A look of shock and rage crossed his face, but only for an instant. “Step inside and close the door.”