Lian and Ida rode side by side from the edge of Hona and into the mists of the Wamaian mountains, their horses close enough for Lian to reach out and grab Ida by the shoulder. Their pace was quick and they stopped only twice a day – one meal at midday, and one at night when the darkness combined with the mist and snow rolling off the mountains to make the path dangerous, even by torch. It was the first night’s stopping point when Ida explained what Lian’s task really looked like.

“You must know, Shuli Go, that I am not a natural politician. Few of us in Wamai are. I am Foreign Minister, but that post is largely ceremonial. We have little to do with the rest of the world. You will be more of the outside world than most of the court will have seen their entire lives. I was well educated as a child. I was the fourth son, and my father thought I would never inherit our lands. He assumed I would enter a career as a courtier, so he directed my training to that particular battlefield. My brothers had tutors in swordplay and warfare. I was taught Imperial and bookkeeping. It turned out our true paths were reversed – my brothers made poor warriors and were dead by the time I was twenty, and I make a poor politician. When my father died, I inherited all our lands, and I was forced to learn the craft of my ancestors in practice. A twenty year old leader of a major clan with more practice in poetry than battle tactics is a prime target in Wamai.

“I did lose my father’s land, in the end. But not for forty years. And even then, it was through deceit away from the battlefield. My men were betrayed as I rode into my final battle, our archers directed to fire into my backside and our reinforcements sent to their death. I survived that day with my honor intact only because of the sheer number of men I killed. I was beaten, but not on the battlefield. I lost, Shuli Go, because I had forgotten the lessons my father had arranged for me. The lessons of the far more dangerous battlefield: politics.

“You are entering that field. To put it simply, the King of Wamai has been reduced to a ceremonial role. He is a figurehead. When my great-great-grandfather ruled the Ida clan, the King still had sway over the major clans, and army enough to enforce his rule should one clan step out of its proper role. But these last hundred and fifty years have destroyed the King’s power. Your Empire has not troubled us in two hundred years, and we have had nowhere to look but inwards. The leader of each clan rules over his dominions like petty kingdoms, and the King and all the laws he is charged with enforcing, are paid lip service only. The clans move closer to war between one another each day, and the preparations for this war are not only material. Alliances and politics are underway that confound me and would have left my father, who was a warrior above all else, completely confused. A warrior seeks certainty and the chance to test steel. The leaders of clans today are more concerned with gold for bribes and horses for a final, unnecessary rush of cavalry after the field has already been covered in corpses.

“The King is new – twenty years old – and unmarried. Above all else, an alliance of blood with the King would benefit a clan deeply. Amongst the peasants the King is still revered as a God, and there are men, even amongst the warrior caste, who devote themselves and their loyalty to him above their clan lords. There are soldiers and farmers who will not raise a stick against a clan in a formal alliance of marriage with the King. I am one of those. I once swore this King’s father an oath to serve his family until I died. And I will not break it. Hence, this position of Foreign Minister.

“In centuries past the King would have chosen his own wife, but as the position has weakened, each generation of King has been forced to adopt new laws that eroded his choice. First the marriage needed the approval of at least three clan leaders. Then it needed a majority of clan leaders to vote for it. Now, the King has no choice whatsoever – his father signed away his marriage rights when the King was but a child. His father did this to avoid a war, but it has only delayed it.

“There are now two clans with claims to the King’s marital bed. The competing claims have come about because the contract the King’s father signed was iron-clad, and full of redundancies. He agreed to marry his son to the first eligible daughter of one of the weakest clans alive at that time. Yet as often happens in Wamai, that clan’s lands did not remain their own for very long. And so two claimants have now risen out of the ashes of war to marry the King.

“You, Shuli Go, will decide which of the clans will marry into the royal family, and be given an insurmountable edge right as our country enters the brink of war.”

Lian was sitting next to Ida beside a camp fire, a bowl of rice in her hands and a blanket wrapped around her. She stared at Ida for a moment, then shoveled a load of rice into her mouth. “Ok,” she said calmly between chews, devouring the information just as slowly as the food.

“Ok.” She repeated, slightly more confident.

“Do I need to repeat it?”

Lian shook her head. “No. But back in Hona you said you wanted a peacemaker.”

Ida was a direct man whose years of combat were layered atop the cheerful, intelligent face his childhood had granted him. As Lian had listened, she’d seen the mix of competence, passion, and bravery that had obviously made him one of Wamai’s more respected clan leaders, and now, a Minister to their King. That he spoke Imperial with such a clean accent – cleaner even than Lian herself, who had had her own regional accent beaten out of her during her years in the Shuli Go school – was indicative of his skill and dedication to a craft. Lian knew he was selling himself short as a diplomat, and likely as a politician as well. If Ida led men down a course, they were likely to follow him to the end.

“Yes, peace. But a short one,” he responded. “I do not have any preconceptions about the longevity of any peace we find.”

“Why?”

“One of the two clans: they are not, by nature, peaceful. If they end up on the wrong side of this marriage, they will not continue to play political games to expand their power. I fear they will go straight to war.”

Lian nodded, continuing to eat, “which of the two? Tell me about these families.”

“No, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“You are a judge of sorts, aren’t you, Shuli Go?”

“Please, Minister, call me by my family name at least. Call me Zhao.”

“Very well Zhao. You are a judge?”

“I was. Shuli Go are many things, but yes, part of them is judge.”

“And would a judge make their first impression based on one person’s word alone, without hearing both sides of the dispute first?”

Lian smiled, “I’ve found the first impression is far less important than the final one. And a good judge can take information from any source and find the truth or lies in it.”

Ida returned her smile, “A good answer. But this is not my role. I am to deliver you to the capital and give you a summary of the problem. The specifics will have to wait until we arrive. Then you will hear both sides, and you can begin your deliberations.”

Lian nodded and finished her rice. Her stomach full, she decided to try to reach Ida another way. “If you won’t talk about the case, then perhaps you’ll fill me in on that sword of yours.”

Minister Ida was dressed in what Lian now saw to be the warrior gear of Wamai. A layer of tough leather armor, plated with small squares of overlapping metal. It covered the torso in one smooth piece, with skirts that fell down to the knee in quadrants, providing protection for the legs. His shins were likewise covered in a metal plate, while the sandals he wore were tied tightly and wrapped over in another layer of thick leather. The sword, a traditional Wamaian blade of curved steel, was the same as what every other warrior in the caravan wore. Ida was taken aback by her question, enough for it to register on his face. “What do you mean?”

“Show me how it works. How do you use it?”

“It’s a sword, it cuts.” He seemed genuinely confused by her question. “I use it the same way I have since birth.”

Lian couldn’t tell if his resistance was from disbelief that someone didn’t know how the sword worked, or if he was unprepared to hear a woman ask about a sword at all. Lian decided to take the last part out the equation. “Shuli Go are also warriors, you know. I’ve used most kinds of weapons you can think of, but I’ve never seen a sword like yours before.”

“Ah. I knew our weapons were different than yours, but I’d assumed the Empire would have invented something similar. Shall we compare?”

Lian smiled and they both removed their swords over the campfire. Then they spoke of the craftsmanship that had gone into each – of which Lian was embarrassed to admit, was not much for hers, an imitation Shuli Go blade she’d made do with for over a year. Then they talked of the grips and the weighting. Then they showed the basic techniques all young warriors were taught in their respective countries. Then they spoke of the methods those young warriors used to train and become slightly older warriors. And they talked, on and on, well into the night, until finally they collapsed onto rolled out mattresses on the cold earth, a fire kept roaring by Ida’s men and a path towards friendship laid out before them.