This time, her whisker-waggling was almost flamboyant. “Ha! As every veteran has taken great pleasure in informing the newly arrived troop contingents. Wrot even says they are acting almost like humans. Something called ‘Grimm’s Fairy Tales,’ which were used to frighten crechelings into proper attitudes.”
Caitlin burst out laughing. So, a moment later, did Kinsey.
Even Kralik managed a grin. A rueful grin, to be sure. “I guess we’ve got a reputation,” he muttered. “Gawd, to think my life would come to this—reduced to being a troll in a fairy tale.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Caitlin said firmly. “Anything that will lead the Naukra to avoid mistakes is fine with me.”
A young aide came up and handed Kralik two steaming cups of coffee. The aroma of fresh-ground beans filled the air as he passed one cup to Kinsey, then offered the other to Caitlin, who shook her head. With the state of her nerves, caffeine was the last thing she needed.
Uncertainly, the aide looked at Tamt. He’d had little close contact with Jao, apparently. She wrinkled her snout, indicating that whatever human attitudes she’d picked up, Tamt still retained the normal Jao distaste for coffee. Any kind of caffeine-containing substance, in fact.
“I need nothing,” she stated. The aide hurried off.
“What is the Naukra, exactly?” Kralik asked. “I tend to think of it as roughly equivalent to what we’d call a ‘congress,’ but I don’t think that’s really right.”
“No, it isn’t,” Kinsey replied. “Close, as they say, but no cigar. For starters, it does not meet on any regular schedule. It’s more akin to the medieval assemblies, in that sense, than a modern congress or parliament. It meets whenever it’s summoned, to deal with specific issues, the way the old English Parliament only met when the king called for it. Except the Jao have no equivalent of a king, of course. Any great kochan—or the Bond of Ebezon—can summon a Naukra. Secondly, it’s not elected by anyone you could characterize as a ‘constituency.’ The Jao who form the Naukra, when it convenes, are those representatives whom each kochan—taifs too, I think—select to speak for them. Thirdly, decisions of the Naukra once it convenes aren’t made by a vote, as would happen with a congress or parliament. Apparently, they just keep talking until a consensus emerges.”
“And what if it doesn’t? They can’t always agree.”
Kinsey took a thoughtful sip of coffee. “Well . . . that brings up still another difference, which is the peculiar role of the Bond in Jao politics. Apparently, if the Naukra can’t reach a consensus, the Bond just goes ahead and imposes whatever decision it chooses.”
Kralik frowned. “I though the Bond was under the authority of the Naukra.”
Kinsey smiled. “Not exactly. You’re thinking too much like a human, General. A modern human, I should say. I suspect our medieval ancestors would have understood the Jao better, in many ways.”
He paused for a moment, choosing his words. “Probably the nearest human analogue to the Bond of Ebezon—in western history, anyway—are the old militant monastic orders. The Templars, Hospitalers, Teutonic Knights, that sort. They were also, technically, under the authority of the Church. But as any medieval pope could have told you—with considerable exasperation, heh—the militant orders often did pretty much as they chose. Hard to keep them from doing so, of course, since they were often as militarily powerful as any king or prince.”
Kinsey finished his coffee and studied the bottom of the cup. “But don’t read more than there is, General, in these little analogies of mine. There’s something else about the Bond . . . I can’t tell what it is, because it’s very elusive in the historical records I’ve seen. There are some ways in which, obedience aside, they remind me more of the Jesuits than any militant monastic order. For one thing, insofar as the Jao ever seem to think very much about their basic attitudes—call it their ‘secular theology,’ if you will—it’s the Bond that does the thinking.”
“Of course,” Tamt interjected. “That is their use, other than to keep the kochan rivalries within proper bounds. What kochan will think about the Jao as a whole?”