The Mandate of Heaven - 2
It took only a few days before we found the territory of the Kaitana tribe.
Honestly, I wasn't sure "found" was even the right word. The Empire had been standing still, and the nomads had shoved themselves into our faces of their own accord. If these bastards had gunpowder, they would have put on a fireworks show just to advertise their location.
Still, we had their position, so we moved at once. The Kaitana tribe's will to surrender and the Empire's willingness to accept it had already been made fully public at the Hitra front. Playing coy and testing each other at this stage would only be a mutual nuisance.
"I've never done diplomacy before. I'm getting a little nervous."
While traveling with Mukgwangdae, I tossed the remark sideways at the Fourth Division Chief walking beside me.
Mukgwangdae was reassuring to have around, but they were such solemn, serious kids that the road felt oppressively quiet. If I tried speaking first, they reacted as if the honor was too great for them, which only made me feel bad. The only one who responded like a normal person was the Fourth Division Chief.
"If it is you, Master, you will succeed at anything."
See? Even now he was doing his clumsy best to offer ordinary comfort and encouragement.
"And if they dare look down on you, Master, we will annihilate the Kaitana tri—"
"Don't."
Of course, "normal" was still a relative term.
I looked at the Fourth Division Chief with a faintly bitter feeling. Maybe it was all the ugly missions he had been given, but the first option that sprang to his mind whenever things went wrong was to wipe the problem out by force. The world was a place that could be won with soft words and a sincere heart as well as with violence.
I should have kept them with me the whole time.
This was all the fault of the Ministry of Special Affairs for snatching away children someone else had raised. The order had come from the Imperial Family, but it was still the Ministry's fault.
Would the day ever come when these kids left their stepfather's arms and returned to mine...?
I was reminded that if you were going to humble yourself, you might as well make an art of it.
"Welcome. It is an honor to receive such distinguished guests."
The moment we entered Kaitana territory, an unarmed nomad approached us as if he had been waiting. His clothes were relatively splendid and he wore several ornaments, so he was clearly a high-ranking figure within the tribe.
The gentle reception from a high official who had come out in person left me briefly speechless. Seeing a nomad friendly toward an Imperial citizen was simply too unfamiliar.
"Thank you for the warm welcome. I was worried we might turn out to be unwelcome guests."
"Not at all. If anything, we have been waiting for you with burning impatience."
When I finally pushed past the awkwardness and opened my mouth, the reply came back even more blatant. If I thought I could hear the Kaitana chieftain's anguish in the word "burning," was that just my imagination?
"Come, allow me to guide you. If I monopolize such valued guests by myself, the chieftain will be most put out."
"We appreciate the courtesy. Where should we surrender our weapons?"
"Your weapons?"
The nomad, who had been turning to lead us, tilted his head, then burst out laughing.
"Haha, just come right in! Why go to the trouble of disarming?"
What.
The sheer audacity of not even collecting our weapons left me speechless again. Even when visiting a friendly camp, the usual practice was to confiscate or isolate weapons except for a minimal escort. The Kaitana tribe was taking no measures whatsoever.
Whether it meant they were confident enough to let an armed mission walk in, or that they trusted us that much—either way, these were not normal people.
"You must have had a hard journey coming all this way. Truly, meeting such distinguished guests under these rough circumstances is embarrassing beyond words."
"The worse the situation, the more a good connection stands out. Think nothing of it."
As we followed the nomad, I answered his banter with something suitably polite.
He looked even more pleased by the reply. After all, I had just said that meeting during a war was regrettable, yet because of the war the Kaitana tribe's desire to surrender looked all the better.
"I have learned something from Your Excellency. 'The worse the situation, the more a good connection stands out'—how true."
And the better the Empire looked upon the Kaitana tribe, the higher the ransom the Empire would have to pay them.
The nomad, still smiling, seemed to recall something and spoke again.
"Come to think of it, I have not even asked your honored name. I am Kzan Bete, younger brother of our chieftain, Kaitana Kzan Daran."
"Karl Crassius of Wiridia. By the grace of His Majesty the Emperor, I hold the rank of Count."
Hearing my name, the nomad—Bete—smiled even more deeply.
"A truly distinguished guest has arrived."
I smiled back without a word.
That much information was plenty to hand to a guide who was not even a negotiating party.
The chieftain himself was not greatly different from Bete. If anything, as the man who bore the tribe's fate on his shoulders, he was even more so.
"The Gaar tribe are villains who disturbed the order of the North and of all under heaven. Thanks to the Empire's majesty those villains were put down and we could finally breathe, yet who would have thought their remnants would reappear after only three years."
"You must have suffered greatly."
"It was hard, but what choice did I have? Many of my people trust and follow only me, so I had to endure. Thankfully, thanks to the Empire we were able to escape those villains' clutches—"
With exaggerated tone and gestures the chieftain cursed both Kagan and the Khan in one breath, while also appealing that he had made a tearful decision for the safety of his tribe. He seemed determined to brand into my mind the fact that We have nothing to do with those bastards.
And truly, they didn't. During Kagan's time they had watched from a third camp, and even now they had only been dragged out against their will by the Khan's fiery fist. They had inflicted no harm on the Empire, so there was nothing to hold them accountable for.
"With a chieftain like you present, even the chaotic North maintains at least a minimal order. I truly consider it a blessing from heaven."
"Haha, you flatter me."
When I spoke with a slight smile, the chieftain laughed heartily and raised a leather flask to his lips.
"Ahh. Must be because valued guests have come—Bete brought good liquor. Usually the brat nags me so much to cut back on drinking."
The sight of the chieftain then digging into the meat on the table was a far cry from noble etiquette, yet for that very reason it looked rough and honest.
I drank a few mouthfuls myself, just as he did. I had never really thought the Kaitana tribe was plotting something, but once they had even provided food there was nothing left to worry about. For a nomad to violate the customs of hospitality was as good as asking to die.
Maybe I was fretting over nothing.
I was almost ashamed of myself for having talked about never having done diplomacy and so on earlier.
I had expected it to be easy, but I hadn't expected it to be this easy. Even automatic doors open slower than these people.
"His Majesty grieves over the chaos in the North."
"A mercy as vast as the heavens. That he would even concern himself with lowly ones such as us—we are moved beyond words."
At any rate, when I brought up the Emperor in order to gradually wind down the conversation, the chieftain's atmosphere shifted. When an envoy representing the Empire spoke the Emperor's name, it meant he was about to state his business.
"His Majesty's mercy does not end with mere concern. He wishes to take this North into his embrace and care for the good subjects who long for peace."
"A beautiful tale."
Having said that, the chieftain pressed his lips tightly shut. He was probably calculating how far the Emperor intended to exert influence over the North, how much matériel would flow into the region, and how much profit and security the first tribe to surrender—the Kaitana—would be guaranteed.
There was no need for complicated calculations. I was about to tell him right here.
"Yet the North has its own ways. His Majesty wishes to respect the existing order. There are already those who keep their distance from the villains for the sake of Northern order—how could His Majesty turn his back on such people?"
At those words the chieftain's face brightened again. If the Empire respected the existing order, then at the very least the title of chieftain and the Kaitana tribe's influence would remain intact. Protecting just that much was already plenty attractive from a chieftain's perspective.
"Of course, Count Kaitana is one such person as well."
"I am embarrassed by such an excessive evaluation...?"
The chieftain, who had reflexively begun to show humility, belatedly sensed something off and went stiff as a board. Only his eyes rolled as he scrutinized my expression, as if checking whether he had heard correctly.
He had heard correctly, of course. Starting today, you are a Count.
I can't just casually throw a marquisate at him.
At first I had considered tossing the Kaitana a marquisate, but there were still many tribes we hadn't even made contact with. If I acted rashly and then ran into a better tribe, things would get awkward, wouldn't they?
So for now, Count it was. If he thought he was a Count and then got raised to Marquis, he would be delighted. The reverse would be a nightmare.
My thoughts would not settle. Amid the excitement and confusion, a single word kept thrashing around inside my skull.
Count.
I, I was a Count. A mere tribal chieftain like me, a noble of the Empire.
I carefully lowered my trembling hands beneath the table. I ran my tongue lightly over lips that were drying out.
A nomad... a noble?
I could not believe it. A nomad who was nothing more than a target for subjugation—or at best lived off the matériel the Empire tossed down like charity—was to become an Imperial noble? And not a Viscount or Baron, but a high noble like a Count?
When they said they would respect the existing order, I had thought they merely meant they would supply us with goods first and use us to control the other tribes. That was the method the Empire had always used. Anything beyond that was something I had never dared hope for.
Yet the Empire had dangled before my eyes a treasure I had never even dreamed of. The alluring treasure of incorporating nomads into the Empire's ruling class.
It can't be a lie.
An envoy would never lie so openly. He might talk in circles to dodge responsibility, but an envoy did not speak falsehoods. Even a nomad like me knew that much.
And the man they had sent as envoy was a heavyweight. To mobilize someone like that just to tell a lie? That would be an absurd waste of personnel.
This won't be an offer only for me.
Once I took the Empire's words as truth and started turning them over in my head, my thoughts branched in another direction.
In this vast North they would not plant only a single noble. They would scatter appropriate titles among the tribes that surrendered like mine. Countless nomad nobles would be born.
The current balance of power will change.
From now on, rank in the North would no longer be decided by a tribe's strength. It would be decided by how high or low one's title was.
Of course a strong tribe would receive a high title, but differences in strength could be made up for by other means.
For example, active cooperation. Active loyalty.
To put it more bluntly: the favor of the Empire—of the Imperial Family.
...Well now.
If they threw a treasure like this, no one with any sense could sit still.
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