The Death of Nnanji Read Free Page B

blissfully unaware of economics and caring less, had failed to notice any conflict of interest.
    Thana ran Katanji a close second in avarice, though, and the next block of land beyond the new lodge grounds had turned out to be in her name, and there she had built the liege’s palace, a cross between Versailles and the Taj Mahal. Nnanji never cared where he slept; he was happiest on campaign, in a tent or under a hedge. Wallie himself had built another palace beyond that, a much more modest one, but still a palace. He needed too many servants and guards to get by with a more modest home… had to keep up his status as vice-emperor… entertained a lot…. All true, but he still felt guilty, knowing that the Tryst’s enormous wealth came from taxes paid mainly by the poor of the World, as taxes always were in agricultural societies.
    And what of all the great reforms he had planned to make? Some had worked, yes. Slaves’ babies were born free now, no longer disfigured at birth with slave mark tattoos. Children were not pressured quite so hard into following their fathers’ trades. Vacancies among city elders must be filled by election, although the results often verged on chaos. Trial by jury was being brought in. Other good ideas had failed miserably. Medicine, like every other craft, was frozen by hundreds of sutras handed down from the Goddess a thousand years ago. No sutra mentioned bacteria or asepsis. As for sewage… Almost every city in the World stood on the banks of the River. Where else could you run sewers? The basic creed of the world religion was, The River is the Goddess and the Goddess is the River. No sewers.
    He had done some good, though, and the People mostly approved when Nnanji or other Sevenths arrived in their town with the Tryst’s impeccably honest legions. Swordsmen, being both police and military, had far too often been bullies and crooks as well. Honest kings or elders tyrannized by corrupt swordsmen had welcomed the rescue, and honest garrisons were glad to be relieved of the duty of upholding bad laws. As the Tryst’s borders kept expanding, the only serious resistance had come from tyrants and corrupt garrisons in combination, and there the citizens themselves often provided the necessary support.
    Crowds parted for the liege, people bowing, saluting, smiling: naked children, scantily clad adolescents, decorous adults, all the way to the ancients robed from head to toe. The colors were common to all crafts, for all had exactly seven ranks: white, yellow, brown, orange, red, green, blue.
    Everywhere there were swordsmen. For sixths and sevenths—greens and blues—Shonsu had to stop and accept formal salutes. Salutes from lesser folk he just acknowledged by thumping his chest with his fist.
     
    So he came at last to the lodge, being saluted as he marched through the high gate. The din in the great central quadrangle was deafening. On the well-trampled grass under the shade trees at least two hundred swordsmen were fencing, leaping around, bellowing instruction, banging steel. Their ponytails flapped like banners, they streamed sweat, and they made him feel old. He was old, for a swordsman. Whenever Shonsu had been born, he had seemed about in his mid-twenties when he died and the Goddess gave his body and skills to Wallie Smith. Physically he must be around forty now, and mentally even older. Once he had been the greatest swordsman in the World, but Nnanji had overtaken him, and he knew there were younger men who could beat him now. So far none had been brash enough to do so.
    Most days he liked to linger for a while to watch the training, mentally noting newcomers moving up the promotion ladder. Today he had too much on his mind. He carried on around the perimeter to the grandiose edifice that he thought of as the Executive Block. Nnanji called it the Tivanixi Building. To the rank and file it was the Lions’ Den. It flaunted pillars, gargoyles, balconies, and turrets in the currently