Violya

Chapter 5 Violya-1

5

VIOLYA

V sat quietly on a stool in the council room. Her back straight, one hand resting on the hilt of her sword, the other flat on her thigh. She had asked Lizya to come in with her, and the warrior now stood just behind V’s left shoulder. Ramya’s old councillors, who had witnessed Sybilya’s proclamation shuffled into the room, unsure as to whether to sit on their old stools or not.

Everything was in disarray.

No Melokai Choosing Ceremony, none of the usual customs. They weren’t following procedure and nobody, V included, knew what to do next. Clevercats and assistants came and went delivering messages.

V studied the table in front of her, carved in the shape of Peqkya’s natural form. Mountains, rivers, lakes and settlements. This country is now mine to rule. V’s nerves spun in her chest. And I must rule. And rule well. Think, V, think. What do I need to do first?

“Amya,” V said quietly.

The ginger clevercat bounded towards her, jumped on the table and leaned in close. V spoke a message in the cat’s ear and the large feline hurtled down the table, leapt from it and darted out the door.

V took Emmo off her shoulder and placed her on the table. The caterpillar immediately flopped on her side and stretched out. V caught a glimpse of red. She put her hands in her lap and turned them palm up. Believe in yourself, V.

She blocked out the chatter and the bustle and focused on an image in her mind of the Sarenky Sea. The view from Chaos Cliffs in Majute, where one of the leaders, Potenqi Utuli, had been blown off his little feet. The endless blue, the jumping fish, the crashing waves.

“V?”

Joz’s voice startled her from her reverie. V smiled at her. The little trader stood beside her, open-mouthed and lost for words.

“Councillors,” V said. “Please, take a seat. Lizya, Joz, Brin, please take a seat. Everyone else, please leave us.”

The councillors shot each other confused looks but then took their places. Lizya hustled people out of the room and gave orders for two novices to stand guard before closing the door. She took a seat and gave V a wink.

“One of the Stone Prophetess’ sayings, that our great nation is founded upon, is, ‘Embrace change, for when it comes you cannot stop it’,” V said, looking at each of the councillors in turn. “We are experiencing great change. So rather than fight it, let us embrace it. I was not expecting this. I am as shocked as you that there was no Melokai Choosing Ceremony.”

Head Scholar Chaz cleared his throat. “I believe that perhaps the people would not have made the best decision as to what Peqkya needs at this moment in time, my Melokai,” he said. His arm was in a sling due to a shoulder injury inflicted by traitorous pleasure giver, Ferraz.

“And what does Peqkya need?” the Head Teller Omya asked. She sat bolt upright, squinting at them.

“A warrior with a heart,” Joz said, beaming at V.

Lizya clapped V on the back. “Sybilya’s picked the wrong woman here then.” And laughed heartily.

Brin and Joz laughed along, but the old councillors remained mute, still shocked. V smiled, but any light-heartedness snagged behind the weight of new responsibility.

Chaz cleared his throat once more. “My Melokai, you must receive a new council. Each of the council professions will vote for their next leader and that person shall be your councillor. We will organise a vote, but it will take some time, and then of course they’ll need time to settle in and learn everything…”

Sybilya’s words rung in V’s mind: customs must change. V considered her options, reached down into her gut, into the fibre of her being, to see what it told her. Evolution, she heard, for the survival of Peqkya.

“There will be no need,” V said. “We do not have the luxury of time. Chaz, Omya, Naomya and Zecky, you all know how to rule this country in your honoured professions, and I’d like for you to continue. Melokai Ramya trusted you, and I trust you. Will you serve me as you served Melokai Ramya?”

There were surprised mumbles and gasps as the councillors digested this.

Naomya, the small, acne-scarred Mother of Mothers replied first, “It would be an honour, my Melokai.”

Three more voices echoed that sentiment.

“Thank you,” V said, relieved. “Please call me Violya, or V. The ‘my Melokai’ formality makes me uncomfortable.”

“Ah, yes of course, V,” Chaz answered.

Zecky pulled out a stack of parchment and a pencil and scribbled a note to herself. When she noticed V looking, she explained, “Just making notes as to what to tell the people, my Mel… er, V.”

“And I would like to ask you, Jozya, if you would be my Head Trader?” V said.

“Issee!” Joz exclaimed and then clapped excitedly. “I’d love to.”

“Lizya, you will be my Head Warrior.”

Joz clapped even more excitedly. “Oh, Lizzy, well done you!”

A short intake of breath betrayed Lizya’s surprise but then she grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“I believe the seventh councillor is of the Melokai’s choosing, often a courtesan? Well, I have no friends who are courtesans, but I do have you, Brin. Brinjinqa of Majute, will you be my honoured advisor, when I call upon you?”

“I am yours to command, V,” Brin said with a flourish and kissed the vial of red liquid that hung from a chain around his neck. Joz clapped again.

Zecky frowned and scribbled. “Well, I suppose Ramya brought a man,” she flicked her eyes pointedly at Chaz, “and then a Trogr to this council, so what’s a pygmie?”

“He’s a Jute,” Joz told her sweetly and Zecky made a show of crossing out a word and rewriting another next to it.

V’s councillors turned to her, waiting for her to speak. What usually happens at these meetings? V considered what she wanted to say, as all in the room stared at her expectantly. Apart from Lizya who rolled and stretched her shoulder, accustomed to V taking her time to think before speaking.

“Melokai Ramya did much to improve the city and the country, the wellbeing of the people and for that she will always be remembered,” V said after a while. “Melokai Ramya ruled over a peaceful and prosperous Peqkya. But Peqkya is no longer at peace with its neighbours.

“Much happened whilst we were in Majute and much is unknown. The warriors who came with us to flush out the Dromedars told us of events in the north-east, where Sybilya’s Strongcats forced back the wolves. In the east, where five of our women were kidnapped by Trogrs and a violent, deadly clash with our warriors proved unsuccessful. And in the south-west, the Dromedars lick their wounds after an attempted invasion.”

It felt good for V to say these thoughts out loud. Those in the room listened intently.

She continued, “It seems to me we have two allies left. Majute and the Ferts. One of our skilled captains is in Fertilian with one thousand of our warriors fighting an internal war in that country.”

V placed her palm on the table, carved in the likeness of Peqkya. “My priority is to protect our country from its enemies. To keep our people safe, fed and watered. There will be no more grand social schemes. These were important and appropriate for a country at peace. But not now.”

V raised her voice and slapped the table once for emphasis. “We are at war.”

She paused to allow the words to penetrate. “We must channel funds and effort into necessary food, homes, healing centres. Into rebuilding an army with weapons, cloth, armour. Stockpile. Prepare. Get the medicinal quarter functioning again. Train more steelmakers to make swords and more carpenters to make tent frameworks and carts to transport everything an army could need.”

“‘Food is bountiful if we all share,’” Joz said, repeating one of Sybilya’s Sayings. “Well, I’ve been chatting to my fellow traders. It’s no surprise that trade with Troglo and Drome has come to a halt. Trade with Fertilian has also stopped, I’m guessing the internal conflict is holding things up there. But trading with Majute is picking up. They love our vegetables and clevercat messengers and we’ve been getting nuts in return. They last forever, taste delicious and sustain you for hours. Be good for the warrior’s diet, I should suppose.”

Brin reached into his pocket, and then put his fist, knuckles down, on the table. He unfolded his three fingers to reveal a nut. “This is my last one. I’ll be glad to eat them again. We call them…” And he proceeded to speak an unpronounceable word in his singsong language.

“And we shall call them Jute nuts,” Joz said with a bright smile.

“We have plenty of money,” Omya said squinting in V’s direction.

“Omya, where are your eyeglasses?” V said.

“They came from Drome and I smashed them. I would rather be near blind than see through something made by those cockfaces.” She sneered and slapped her hand on the table. Naomya jumped at the rare show of emotion from the Head Teller. Omya collected herself. “The Ferts paid us in advance for a year’s supply of birds’ nests. The money arrived before the Dromedars, thankfully. Along with five hundred of the one thousand Fert horses Queen Jessima Cleland of Fertilian promised Melokai Ramya.”

“I will leave it to you, Omya, to allocate the funds as you see fit.”

Omya nodded curtly and folded her arms.

Chaz leaned forward, careful not to knock his sling. “V, the House of Knowledge was destroyed. All our history records, all our library. I understand we cannot rebuild at this time, but we cannot simply neglect to record that which is around us. And attempt to salvage and reproduce some of the most important tomes.”

“Find somewhere suitable, Chaz, to accommodate the House of Knowledge for the time being,” V said.

“Why not that traitorous warrior Ashya’s apartment? I’ve heard it’s going spare,” Lizya said.

V nodded and Chaz dipped his head in agreement.

Zecky looked up from her notes. “I’ll organise the burial of Melokai Ramya, and the announcement of her successor Melokai Violya, who also has The Sight. The people will want to celebrate after so long with no new magic.”

“I entrust that fully to your care, Zecky,” V said. She was pleased at how this meeting was progressing.

“Well, if everyone else is saying their bit, then so will I,” Lizya said. “The Dromedar invasion exposed vulnerabilities at the border. It’s the first time a foreign army has ever crossed into our land, and it will be the last. I will make some changes.”

“Thank you, Lizya,” V said.

“And you’ll need a guard. I’ll assign you Monya. She might be a youngblood, but she’ll keep you in order.”

V smiled.

“And we need to talk about you know what,” Lizya said.

V’s smile faded. “We have a new threat. One from the inside.”

As her councillors crunched their foreheads, she gestured to Lizya.

The new Head Warrior said, “The stone army, for one thousand years rooted to the ground, is coming alive. As Sybilya’s power wanes, the stone males are starting to move. We witnessed it on our return from Mlaw.”

“Coming alive?” Chaz repeated, “Remarkable. I should like to study this occurrence… these… stone creatures…”

“Oh my,” Naomya uttered.

“Zhaq,” Zecky blurted and scrawled a note on her parchment.

“We’ll send Daya with some fresh warriors to assess and report back,” Lizya said. She rolled her shoulder and a dark cloud passed across her features. “Our warrior numbers are diminished and stretched thin. We suffered many losses with the wolf war and the invasion. We need to bolster our force, and rapidly. Any bright ideas?”

The question hung in the air as all considered this.

V collected her thoughts. Customs must change if the nation is to survive. This was a matter of survival, of life and death. What custom had served Peqkya up until now but was now redundant?

“The peons,” Sybilya’s voice blurted in V’s mind and then was silent.

The peons. When Sybilya created Peqkya, from the ashes of the country of Xayy, she punished the surviving males for their atrocities, renamed the male children as peens and adults as peons. She set quotas on the number permitted to live from peen to peon, devised strict usefulness tests that must be passed at fifteen. Life and death. Life or death. Life. V had to be bold. Had to choose life to continue living.

‘There is no use for useless peons’, the saying went. But what if they could be valuable? Peons were not permitted to become warriors, but the peon rebellion had proved that they could – and would – fight for a cause.

The red-haired warrior cleared her throat. “I appreciate many Peqkian customs have changed this day. But I have one more. All peons are to pass into peonhood. Those who would’ve been ended at fifteen will be trained to fight. Both girls and peens will learn basic combat training from childhood.”