Shuli Go Stories Vol. 1: Beyond the Mists

Part 8

Lian sat behind her table – well ordered and with the applicable tomes atop – facing the entryway, her hands clasped on top of the table and her face set in the calm and attentive mode she reserved for trials and combat. Her translator stood at the door and opened it at her command, as the first of the two families entered to present its case.

Five days she had studied the texts and worked with the translators to build an understanding of the legal precedent. Five evenings she had eaten and traded combat techniques with Ida. At night she slept in the happy exhaustion of a hard day's work.

Over the five days she had pieced together the basic shape of the law. Under the reign of his father, and at the age of six, the King had been betrothed to a daughter of one of the smaller Clans, who was herself only two years old. They were to marry on his twentieth birthday, which was considered late for such an important position, but necessary given the level of education the King was set to receive. The original Clan's name was Korosura, and they owned land to the far northwest corner of Wamai – a small strip of land rich in both farming and fishing rights. As seemed to be the Wamaian way however, the Korosura lands were engulfed in war, their clan completely defeated and their land confiscated, by the Suru Clan.

"The honorable Lady Kaoru and Lord Tokugawa of Clan Suru," her translator announced as the man who had stood before the King in red armor and pained face walked through the archway and made his way towards Lian. At his side was a small, plump woman in an elegant dress, also the rich red of the Suru Clan.

One of Wamai's oldest laws clearly stipulated that the property acquired through warfare was the legal right of the victor. In this case, the marriage agreement could be considered property, and the victorious Suru clan inherited the right to marry the King when they defeated the Korosura. This was the case Lian expected Kaoru to present.

"My lady," Lian greeted her from behind the table with a slight nod of the head. Lian had been coached in the expected customs in the five days.

"My...lady...judge." Kaoru responded in a sweet, soft, and melodious voice, accompanied by the appropriate bow. Her awkwardness came from the fact that there was no appropriate word for female judges in Wamaian.

"Please, my lady, present your case," Lian said in Imperial, prompting the interpreter to step in and begin the proceedings.

A longstanding tenet of marriage disputes was that the women to be married always presented their own cases. Lian had not been surprised to find Wamaian law held women just slightly above property in most cases, and the role they played in court proceedings was minimal except for the fruits of matrimony: the marriage, the divorce, and the children. Lian knew Lady Kaoru would have been coached in every detail of what to say that day, to a fault. The words would not be Kaoru's at all, but those of her uncle: Tokugawa. Normally Lian would cut out the middleman and deal directly with the Clan patriarch, but she was playing the Wamaian's game, and had been warned repeatedly about breaking the formal procedures set out for this kind of case.

"My lady judge. A thousand graces on you and your family. I am here today to assert my and my family's true claim to the right of marriage with our illustrious King Hojo. Sixteen years ago, Clan Suru brought justice and stability to the lands formerly owned by the Clan Korosura..."

The Korosura lands' troubles were not finished after the Suru clan invaded however. Later, after Suru had grown and conquered other Clans, they had lost the Korosura lands in a short war with the Odo Clan. Which meant that the Odo could claim that the original agreement for the hand of the King was made with the land, and that Odo should claim it, rightfully owning the land as they did. The contract for the betrothal was simplistic, and written in personal terms between the then-prince and his future wife. The tie to the land, however, was generally understood to be implied, albeit not expressly stated in any of the Wamaian legal texts.