Chapter 569: Chapter 553 – A Rhetorical Debate

“Few realize how lonely it is to be at the top.” - Saying attributed to Xaliburnus the Conqueror, First Emperor of the Elmaiya Empire.

“An interesting opinion to have, Young Lady,” said the chubby man dressed in fine silks. The man looked almost like a figure straight out of a popular Caracanese fable that featured a kindly Djinn with similar features, just more richly dressed. “Alas, I feel that to put the fault of a dysfunctional nation solely on the shoulders of the ruler is a bit too narrow-minded. The people also shared some responsibility for allowing their nation to degrade to such a state, in my opinion.”

 

Aideen and the girls were attending the Prince’s wedding at the bride’s invitation that day. Much as could be expected from the wedding ceremony of a personage of his status, the ceremony itself was lavish and opulent. The groom first fetched his bride to be from her residence – in this case the brothel she worked at – in full wedding livery, riding atop a magnificent white elephant bedecked in gold and jewels.

 

It was to raucous cheers and more than a few ribald jokes that the Prince thus fetched his bride from the brothel, though the jests were well-minded and done in good fun. After all, it was not everyday that the people were allowed to make fun of royalty without consequences. Most just cheered as they saw a fellow commoner raised to high status before their eyes, which the Prince symbolically did as he daintily guided his bride to the platform on the elephant’s back.

 

The process itself was quite a sight, as the well-trained elephant had created a platform for the bride and groom to stand on using its trunk and carefully lifted them to its back in a smooth movement. To the Prince’s credit he neither faltered nor lost his balance and even helped his bride keep her balance throughout the process.

 

Both of them were then wed in Caracan’s largest temple, one devoted to Vitalis, for long life and fertility, Aistrofuri, for good wind in one’s sails, and Remidis, for calm oceans during one’s travels. All three high priests and priestesses presided over the ceremony before the young couple was brought away once more to the wedding feast.

 

The main feast itself took place in the courtyard of the Sultan’s mansion, though apparently similar feasts were held throughout the entire city, all at the Sultan’s expense. Aideen and the girls had an invitation from the bride, so they were eligible to join the main feasts, which mostly had the local minor nobles and wealthy personages as well as other officials.

 

As was to be expected from a feast hosted by the Sultan himself, the food was excellent and entertainment was plentiful. Still, as was the norm in such parties, after a while the guests started chattering with one another. Some made use of the chance to form connections with people of the upper class, others sought out business opportunities, nothing out of the ordinary.

 

Kino happened to catch the middle-aged chubby man at the end of a conversation about rulership with another while she was refilling her plate, and engaged him in another conversation of that topic out of curiosity. The two had exchanged their opinions for a while now, as the middle-aged man seemed to be quite interested in talking about the topic in question himself.

 

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“You see, Young Lady, while sometimes a nation might devolve under a single generation when a bad egg gets to sit on the throne, that is far from the norm,” continued the middle-aged man as he helped himself to some sweet cakes filled with nuts and drenched in sugar syrup. “More often than not, such a degradation happens over multiple generations, and in those cases, the people are equally to blame as the rulers themselves.”

 

“How so?” asked Kino with some curiosity in her voice. “In most cases the rulers held all the power, and the people usually only manage to create any changes when they work together due to the dire conditions, no? Why would they share the blame for such conditions?”

 

“You said it yourself. The people tend to only band together and rise up in revolt under dire conditions,” said the middle-aged man. “All too often, corruption and tyranny did not come all at once, but little by little over many generations. Maybe a little bit more tax here, perhaps a touch less privileges there… The thing is, during the first few times they do this, the people would often see it as a minor issue and endure it, thinking it to be a temporary whim, something that would better itself over time.”

 

“That right there is their mistake. When they accepted such minor degradations to their quality of life, all a corrupt ruler would see is a precedent,” he continued. “A precedent that as long as they did not take things too far, the people beneath them would passively endure it. This emboldens them to continue taking more and more, and their successor to continue down this path until eventually everything breaks apart when the pressure becomes too much for the people to endure.”

 

“So you’re saying that the people should have put their foot down and risen up at the first indignity they suffered, Sir?” asked Kino. “I mean, the idea is definitely sound, but in practice it would be difficult to convince most people to risk themselves over what they view as minor issues like that.”

 

“And there you have it, Young Lady, why I said that the burden of responsibility lies on both the rulers and their people,” said the man with a triumphant smirk. “Far too many people hold a blind loyalty to their nation, no matter whether it was in the right or wrong. That is folly, one I always loathed in particular. Instead, the people of a nation should help preserve a nation’s heading when it is going the right way, and correct it should they stray from that path.”

 

“The old man Kino is talking to seems to be pretty knowledgeable,” noted Eilonwy who watched over Kino from a distance. “Think he’s some local magnate or noble?”

 

“Well, I guess,” replied Aideen with some suppressed laughter at Eilonwy’s question. “I mean, that right there is just the Sultan himself.”

 

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