Paksworld

The book continues to throw surprises at me, though not fast in the last couple of days as the International Gut Bug has reached our house.   But leaving that unsavory subject aside…it dawned on me last night, working on a scene between Dorrin and some of her cohort, that this continues a conversation begun in the first Paks book, and resulting (ultimately) from a very old schism in human behavior.

What is loyalty?  Who or what can be the object of loyalty?   What are the theoretical and practical and ethical boundaries of loyalty?   Heavy stuff for New Year’s Eve…

Most of the time, most cultures (including this one) view loyalty as a good thing…friends should be loyal, members of a group should be loyal to the group, citizens/subjects should be loyal to their nation or realm.   Yet most cultures also recognize “mistaken” loyalty (being loyal to the wrong person, group, idea) and “excessive” loyalty (being loyal to the point that loyalty conflicts with another cultural ideal.)

Years  back, in ancient history classes (ancient history, not the classes themselves being ancient, don’t be silly…)  both my profs were interested in how codified law interacted with human behavior to shift loyalty from the personal to the abstract–loyalty to an idea, a code, rather than loyalty to a person.    Without digging too deeply into the neurology involved (at least, not now) humans are, like other social mammals, hard-wired to form certain kinds of groups, and to be “loyal” (in the biological sense) to the group they’re in, but the cultural concept of loyalty does not exactly correspond to the biological wiring.  And no other mammal, as far as we know, has “loyalty” for abstract concepts like flag, country, “way of life,” religion, “law and order.”

Humans generally fall into one of two groups–either they privilege personal relationships, or they privilege a cultural concept (their religion, their country, their legal code) though few are purely in either camp–and this creates conflict (internal as well as external.)    I saw this firsthand growing up on the Mexican border, where in certain situations those of one culture would invariably choose personal loyalty over “the law” and those of the other would invariably choose “the law” over personal loyalty.   (Neither culture was devoid of personal loyalties *or* respect for law–but there were situations in which they divided sharply.)

Where formal law prevails (and this may be good or bad formal law), citizens/subjects will be loyal to the legal code and report breaches of the law, even if the lawbreakers are their friends or relatives.    Where personal relationships prevail, citizens/subjects aim their loyalty only at persons–individuals, in a series of concentric rings of loyalty–greatest at the center, less at the outskirts.

Bringing this back  to Paksenarrion’s world–one way Paks organized her decision-making, as a young soldier, was by loyalty–she was loyal to friends, to her sergeant, to her captain, and to the Duke.   What they told her became her measure of right and wrong…up to the point where the “glue” lost its grip.   At that point she had only intuition to guide her (hence her mistaken loyalty to Macenion)  and though she was innately ‘good’ she could easily fall into evil.     She had to overcome her tendency to be too loyal before she could become a paladin.

This world was set up to have feudal (in the true sense) bits and less feudal bits…feudalism is built on a cascade of personal relationships, personal loyalties, in a sense very tit-for-tat.   “I grant you this land, and you will support me with x-number of soldiers when I ask for it…and you have these other duties as well…and I also swear to you this level of protection.”

At each level, the lower swears loyalty to the higher, right up to the monarch; there’s a chain of personal relationships from top to bottom.   Everybody has duties–to those below, to those above.   Possibilities for trouble are rife: what if the lower is disloyal?  What is the upper is disloyal?

In the present case, who gave an oath to whom, and when, and under what circumstances, has become a live question.   As readers of the first Paks books know, Duke Phelan of Tsaia is now King Falkieri of Lyonya.   He has released his former vassals from their oath of loyalty to him,  just as the Crown of Tsaia released him from his oath of loyalty to the Crown, so that he could take up his kingship without owing anything more to Tsaia.  His former vassals include his mercenary company, of course, as well as the people who live on the lands he held as a duke.   But one cohort of that mercenary company went with him to Lyonya (and helped save his life when he was attacked.)  What is their status?  They’re foreigners, and no longer oathbound (though still emotionally bound) to him and the same is true of their captain, Dorrin Verrakai.

In an emergency move to restore the feudal order, the senior captain remaining at what was Phelan’s northern stronghold has the troops and residents there swear an oath to him–a provisional oath, since he does not have the right, at that time, to ask a permanent one.   (This is right at the first of the first book of the new group, so no big spoilers here.)

But Dorrin’s cohort isn’t there–it’s still in Lyonya, adrift.   Its connection with her is closer, and at least as strong, as its connection to Phelan.   Leaving out a lot of spoilerish stuff (that is, the rest of the first book) we come to the situation in the second book where the person who  is now granted Phelan’s lands wants that cohort to return and swear loyalty to him.

Some will.  Some won’t.  What happens next may be very interesting, for some definitions of interesting.     Tsaian law is an interesting mix of old feudal law and somewhat newer (not new in our sense) Girdish law.   Fintha is the only realm ruled wholly under the Code of Gird; in Tsaia, the Code has been adapted to a monarchy with strong feudal traditions.   Girdish people may feel more loyalty to Gird and the Code of Gird than to their feudal lord–and there are townships which have no feudal lord, though all landholdings other than towns are held that way.   Under Tsaian law, those who are part of a feudal domain (for instance, Phelan’s  mercenary company as a whole) are unable to just up and leave without formally renouncing their oath of loyalty with permission of their  lord.

Kieri Phelan always released those of his soldiers who wanted to leave (after the initial term of service) and did not have a formal ceremony for renouncing their oaths in most cases.   He wanted only soldiers who wanted to fight for him.  But though a lord might be more lenient than the law, a lord could also insist on it being enforced.   Newly created lords, taking control of lands formerly held by someone else, are on the whole more likely to be sticklers for protocol.  They feel the need to prove their authority.

And so the eight soldiers who do not want to return to the stronghold and swear loyalty to the new lord…who believe their earlier oaths are now dissolved, and that their long association with Dorrin means they can choose to be her vassals,  are a problem.   For everyone.

I’ll find out what happens when I get there.