PREVIOUSLY.
["Do you truly plan to reorganize the regions of the kingdom?"
Zasaba knew that touching the borders of the Governors could invite trouble, especially for certain peoples who had gained relevance within the kingdom due to these territorial limits. But he, better than anyone, knew my obsession with efficiency over tradition.
I held his gaze, letting the silence confirm what his pragmatism already feared. The true battle was not on the Mexica front, but on the maps, we were about to redraw.]
----
Year 13 of the SuaChie Calendar, Third Month (May 1495).
Dawn City (Cuba), Federal Region of Floating Islands (FRFI).
Chancellor's Office, Council House.
The silence that followed my response was not empty; it was a heavy thing, laden with the weight of maps yet to be drafted and ambitions soon to collide. Zasaba remained standing by the great window, watching the raindrops strike the glass in a steady rhythm, blurring the landscape of Dawn City into a smear of grey and green.
The air in his second-floor office felt colder than in the great hall below, permeated by the scent of beeswax and the sharp, metallic tang of fresh ink.
"It is necessary," I repeated, more to myself than to him. "If the Suaza Kingdom is to survive the centuries, we cannot depend on the haphazard borders dictated by ancient traditions or fleeting pacts."
I sank into the carved wooden chair, letting my mind roam the territory we had forged. From the beginning, when the Muisca people began to peacefully absorb other cultures, I had eschewed direct tyranny. I knew, from the echoes of my past life, that an empire maintained only by the sword soon bleeds to death.
Instead, I played a game of diplomatic chess. I built institutions, fostered trade, and established technical dependencies. On parchment, the Central Government held total sway, but in reality, control was an invisible thread. We gave them the tools to prosper and, in doing so, tethered them to our fate. The kingdom was not a prison, but a paved road that all wished to walk—even if it was I who held the reins.
Zasaba turned toward me. His eyes, ever analytical, caught the fading light of the afternoon.
"My agents among the retinues have sent detailed reports," he said in that low, precise register that cut through the air like a blade. "The governors do not know what you intend to announce, but the Shadows have detected a divided mood. Their minds are already spinning scenarios for events that have not yet come to pass."
"And what do they see?" I asked, feeling a faint prickle of curiosity. "What do the men who rule my lands fear?"
"There are two sides to this coin, Leader... On one hand, there are the local regional governors, those who joined us from other cultures. Xiua, Nyia's father, in the northwest, and Chuhis in the south-central region. They arrive with chests swollen with pride. Their reports are polished, their delegations impeccable. They do not fear the meeting itself, nor the new policies that such gatherings invariably bring. They see this as an opportunity to showcase their achievements and tighten their bonds with the center. However, …"
Zasaba paused, weighing his words.
"The leader of the Chibcha Federal Region is different. His retinue moves with a caution bordering on paranoia. He fears this reorganization is the scythe that will separate him from his station. He comes to Dawn City expecting a reckoning, not a reform."
I listened to Zasaba as my mind drifted to the figures of Nyia and Umza. I thought of how fortunate I had been to meet them years ago.
At the time, making them my betrothed was a fortuitous strategic move dictated by my circumstances, but today it was the foundation upon which the loyalty of men like Xiua rested. That connection of blood and affection was stronger than any royal decree; it was the proof that my preparations were not merely technical, but human.
On the other hand, the anxiety of the Chibcha leader fascinated me. His fear was a byproduct of the kingdom's success: he knew I valued efficiency above all else.
"This dedication, this desire to excel... is it widespread across the regions, Zasaba?" I asked, seeking to feel the pulse of my creation.
"Entirely, Leader," Zasaba replied with a hint of satisfaction. "An atmosphere of fierce competition has taken root. No one wishes to be left behind. Seeing the growth of neighboring regions, the new technologies, and the comforts your 'divine' knowledge has brought to their lives has awakened an ambition that was previously nonexistent. They all strive to be the most distinguished pupil of your vision."
I allowed myself a moment of complacency. The engine of human ambition was grinding in our favor.
"And what of our own blood? How do the governors of Muisca origin move?"
"For them, there is only one truth: your orders are destiny," Zasaba declared. "Your sister Chuquy in the east, Fagua in the southwest, and Foza here, in the islands—they are in a state of absolute waiting. They do not suspect; they do not compete; they simply await the instructions they will execute with precision."
The name Fagua triggered a memory of a report that had been haunting me since the last dispatches arrived from the southern frontier.
"Fagua..." I murmured, leaning forward over the desk. "Zasaba, the intelligence he sent regarding the southern tribes... is it verified? What is happening beyond our borders in the southwest?"
Zasaba fell silent for a long minute, the air in the room seemingly growing heavier. His face shed every trace of diplomacy, revealing a raw gravity.
"It is real, Leader. The Inca are on the move. Their northward expansion is no longer a theory; they are demanding tribute from the border tribes we once considered neutral. They are moving toward our southwest with an organization that rivals our own."
I felt a weight settle in my chest. The reorganization of the regions was no longer a mere matter of internal efficiency; it was a matter of military survival. The clash of two organized worlds was beginning to materialize on the horizon.
One day later.
The dawn humidity in Dawn City clung to the skin like a second layer, but today I did not wear the fine silks or the gold ornaments that usually marked my rank. Instead, I felt the coarseness of undyed cotton and the rustic fiber of a tunic such as any merchant's assistant or passing traveler might wear.
Beside me, Quemuen—nephew of Michuá and one of the most capable men in the Explorer Division—seemed to simmer with discomfort in his own civilian garb. His shoulders, accustomed to the weight of armor, moved with a rigidity that betrayed his lack of practice in the art of anonymity.
We walked through the city's main arteries, leaving the Explorers' barracks behind. The air smelled of woodsmoke, fresh fish from the boats, and the heavy, sweet scent of tropical fruits ripening under a sun that was beginning to bake the pavement.
"Is this truly prudent, Leader... I mean, Sansua?" Quemuen whispered, using the alias we had agreed upon. His eyes scanned every alleyway, searching for invisible threats.
"Prudence is a luxury I cannot afford if I wish to know the truth, Quemuen," I replied without looking at him, savoring the brief moment of anonymity.
My feet, clad in simple sandals, felt the irregularities of the stone I myself had ordered to be laid. The year before, under the name Lion, I had immersed myself in the mud of the trenches and the chaos of the Mexica front.
There, I learned that a soldier's steel glitters very differently when the Leader is not watching. But Dawn City was not a war front; it was my most ambitious social experiment, and I needed to know if the gears I had designed were grinding down the spirit of my people.
"You are descending to the level of the dust, my Lord," Quemuen insisted, stopping just before we entered the harbor's busiest zone. The roar of wooden cranes and the shouts of stevedores filled the air. "You are the axis of the realm. If you need to know what occurs, you need only demand a report. Zasaba will deliver the truth, and I myself can draft whatever is required. It is beneath you to be here, breathing the sweat of men who know not who you are."
I stopped and turned toward him. Sunlight filtered through the masts of ships under construction, casting long shadows over his worried face. I smiled, an expression that felt strangely liberating under my disguise, though my words carried the weight of centuries of historical observation he could not fathom.
"Quemuen, reports are mirrors polished by the hand that writes them," I said, my voice soft but firm. "You are loyal, Zasaba is efficient, but bureaucracy has a natural instinct for survival: they always deliver the 'good news.' Problems are minimized, complaints are dismissed as irrelevant noise, and injustices are filed away as 'necessary sacrifices.'"
I saw Quemuen stiffen. His eyes widened slightly, and a flush of color rose up his neck. He was a writer of reports himself. His mind was likely racing through the scrolls he had delivered to Zasaba.
"I hide nothing in my reports," he muttered, though his voice lacked its usual certainty.
"I did not say you lied," I replied, patting his shoulder as we resumed our march toward the docks. "But tell me... those incidents you deem 'minor'... how many of them ever reach my ears?"
Quemuen remained silent for several paces, the crunch of his sandals against sand and stone the only sound between us. Finally, he sighed.
"Sometimes..." he began, looking down, "there are foremen who lose their patience. A verbal slight, a shove to quicken the loading, or shifts that stretch beyond what the Council laws dictate because the ship 'must sail today.' I handle it most of the time; I give a warning and ensure the flow does not stop. I did not think you should waste your time with the minutiae of labor management while the Inca move in the south and the Mexica strike from the west."
I stopped in front of a stack of cedar timbers waiting to be processed. The smell of resin was intoxicating.
"To the man who receives the shove, Quemuen, that is no minutia. The man who arrives home late to his family because of a long shift misses the growth of his children. These are their lives, and if we do not protect them, we are no different than the kingdoms across the sea. That is the difference between loving the Suaza Kingdom or simply fearing it."
I looked at him with a defiant glint in my eyes, and an idea formed in my mind—a way to break his military rigidity and connect him with the reality of the streets.
"Let us make a friendly wager, nephew of Michuá," I proposed, crossing my arms over my civilian tunic. "If today, on this walk through the port, we find a single case of evident mistreatment or a flagrant breach of hours that has gone unreported... you yourself shall train the recruits of the Explorer Division. Personally. For an entire week."
Quemuen paled. Training recruits was a tedious, grueling task he usually delegated to lower-ranking subordinates.
"And if everything is in order?" he asked, trying to recover his dignity.
"Then I shall accept that your reports are as perfect as you believe, and I shall buy you the finest jar of fermented chicha sold in the filthiest tavern this port has to offer."
He looked toward the docks, where hundreds of men moved like ants under the scorching sun. He knew the odds were low in a system so young and ambitious, but his loyalty prevented him from backing down.
"I accept the wager, Sansua," he said, tightening his belt. "But if we lose our cover because of a tavern brawl, Zasaba will hang me from a mast."
"Then ensure we are not discovered," I laughed, heading into the heart of the port, where the reality of the kingdom pulsed with strength, far from maps and crowns.
We pushed through the human tide flooding the plaza adjacent to the port—a space I had designed to be the city's commercial lung, but which in practice had become a vibrating cacophony of ambition.
The limestone ground, still damp with dew, reflected the silver morning light. It was a spectacle of controlled chaos: men from the Council House shouting edicts on docking taxes, merchants from distant lands offering spices that stung the nostrils, and local criers announcing vacancies for the construction of new dikes.
"Look there," I said to Quemuen, nodding toward a central fountain where the water could barely drown out the shouts of a man with pale skin and heavy clothing, clearly out of place in this climate.
He was an English merchant. Beside him, a young translator from the middle school was sweating profusely, trying to pour the foreigner's rough English into Muisca and Taíno. The poor boy was overwhelmed; the words tripped over each other in his mouth while the Englishman gestured furiously toward the docks.
I approached with a purposeful stride. Quemuen, by pure bodyguard instinct, tried to step ahead to intercept any potential danger, but I placed a soft hand on his arm. His muscle was as tense as a bowstring.
"Easy, 'friend,'" I whispered. "We're just looking for work."
I reached the foreigner just as he hurled an oath regarding local incompetence.
"We can help you with that. My friend and I are looking for a day's work," I said, letting my English flow with a naturalness that, in this place, was nothing short of a miracle.
The merchant froze. He looked me up and down, lingering on my cheap tunic and then my eyes—or rather, the one that wasn't covered. His perplexity transformed into a grin of pure greed and relief.
"Good Lord... Where did you learn to speak like a man of London?" he asked, though he didn't wait for an answer. "If you help me unload and guide these savages who don't understand a single order, I'll give you two silver coins."
Two silver coins for a day's labor was a small fortune for a civilian, at least for one day's work, but for him, it was the price of saving his cargo. Then he scrutinized me.
"What tongues do you speak hereabouts?"
"Muisca, Taíno, and Carib," I replied, keeping my tone humble yet confident.
"Excellent!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands. "I'll give you five additional copper coins if you keep the pace from flagging." He pointed to Quemuen, who stood behind me like a looming shadow. "And him? He looks like he could pull down a mast with his bare hands. He'll be a porter. By the by, is your eyepatch a hindrance?"
I caught Quemuen's sidelong glance. He looked annoyed at being treated like a common laborer and concerned at the mention of my eye.
"A birth defect," I lied with a lopsided smile, "but it makes me look fiercer, don't you think? It keeps the men from getting distracted."
The Englishman let out a raspy laugh that smelled of tobacco and gin, beckoning us to follow him toward Pier 3.
As we walked, the dock transformed. The smell of pitch and saltpetre was replaced by the warmer, dirtier stench of live animals and the dry dust of grain. There sat his caravel, a sturdy construction of English oak proudly flying its banners.
"I bring fine wool, breeding stock, and hundreds of sacks of the finest wheat from my land," the man bragged. "But those men there... they are a disaster."
Stepping onto the deck, the scene was Dantesque. Workers from all the ethnicities of the Great Quyca—copper-skinned Taínos, Muiscas with severe features, and even some Black men from the Guanza Quyca (Africa), former slaves I had liberated who now sought their own destiny as free men—ran to and from without order or purpose.
I saw a young pig scurrying across the deck, dodging the hands of a worker shouting in a language no one understood. An English officer barked orders from the bridge, but to the workers, they were merely senseless barks. The animals, spooked by the shouting and sudden movements, were on the verge of a stampede in the cramped space.
The merchant, losing his patience, drew a metal whistle and blew with a force that made my ears ring. The blast was so shrill that for a second, even the animals stood still, petrified.
"Now, tell them!" the merchant shouted at me, beginning to bark his instructions.
I moved to the center of the deck. For a moment, I forgot I was Sansua and allowed the authority of Chuta to seep into my posture.
"Listen!" I roared in Muisca, then repeated it in Taíno. "If you want your pay, stop running like children! Animals first! Flank the pigs, do not chase them head-on! Guide them toward the ramp with calm!"
The translation acted as a balm. The workers stopped, looked at me, and seeing the clarity of the instructions, began to move with efficiency. Quemuen did not lag behind; with a single gesture of his hand, he brought order to a crew of stevedores who were mishandling the wool sacks.
The work flowed. The disordered shouting turned into a steady rhythm of labor. I moved between the groups, translating, correcting their lifting posture to avoid injury, and ensuring the English officers did not overstep with their body language.
At one point, I approached a group of workers from Guanza Quyca struggling with a pulley net. I dropped a few short phrases in a mix of dialects I remembered from my studies and from what I had implemented in the kingdom for those newly arrived from Africa.
The English merchant, who was nearby checking a manifest, looked at me with renewed suspicion.
"Was that Ethiopian?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. "How is it that a dock-side porter speaks the tongue of the East African realms?"
"I only know a little, sir," I replied calmly, slipping back into the role of Sansua. "One hears many things in this port if one knows how to listen."
The man didn't seem convinced, but the time he was gaining thanks to my efficiency outweighed his curiosity. Just as we were finishing with the first hold, a Taíno worker emerged from below, his face pale.
"Sansua..." he called in a low voice. "There is a rodent. A large one. In the animal hold."
My curiosity spiked. In a Suaza port, a rodent was not just a pest; it was a sentence of quarantine or a massive loss of cargo if reported to the health authorities I myself had created. I noticed a port supervisor from the local government on the deck. The man had seen the worker's agitation and was already signaling to his companion on the dock to bring the port authorities.
I leaned in and whispered to the English merchant's ear.
"Sir, they've found a rodent among the livestock cargo."
I watched the color drain from his face. The joy of the quick unload evaporated, replaced by genuine anguish. But what he did next caught me off guard. Instead of attempting to bribe me into silence or hide the animal, the Englishman adjusted his coat and walked directly toward the port supervisor already approaching the ramp.
"Master Inspector!" the merchant shouted in broken Muisca, before switching to English. "I have a problem! I have seen a rat in my hold and I need the cleaning protocol applied before we proceed!"
I froze. The supervisor, far from being aggressive, nodded professionally and began barking orders to seal the section and bring in the disinfection specialists.
I felt a presence at my side. It was Quemuen. His arms were crossed, and a look of absolute mockery was etched upon his face. His gaze locked onto mine, savoring my surprise.
"It would seem, Sansua," he whispered with a note of victory, "that not everything is done poorly in the realm. The fear of fines and respect for your health laws are stronger than this man's desire to save a few coppers."
I remained silent, watching the officials of my own government manage the crisis with an efficiency I had only seen in my reports. For the first time today, I felt that Quemuen's wager was not just about training recruits, but about how much I truly trusted the structure I had built.
"A point to you, Quemuen," I admitted, never taking my eyes off the inspector. "A point to you."
.
----
.
[A/N: CHAPTER COMPLETED
Hello everyone.
Thank you all for your support, let's get straight to the chapter comments.
CHAPTER COMMENTS
First, we see Chuta undercover again, this time, however, he didn't need a squad of soldiers to protect him. Hahaha.
By the way, I'm presenting this as the typical plot of disguising himself as ordinary 'civilians,' but it's really about Chuta's search for normalcy in his life. After all, he previously lived a quiet life with mundane problems, and now he has a heavy burden to carry.
That said, he's not looking for 'real' love like Jasmine did in Aladdin. After all, except for Nyia and perhaps the future Margaret, his other two wives came from humble backgrounds. Umza was an orphan protected by priests, and Turey was also an orphan protected by her people and the Taino chief.
Second, the map is still in preparation, but as a preview, geographical elements will be used to delimit the regions.
I have studied the local geography of each South American country extensively and even analyzed the geography and political boundaries of the rest of the world to 'inspire' me in the future regional division.
By the way, this clearly won't be the smallest division; there will be provinces and municipalities.
AUTHOR'S COMMENTS
I couldn't understand why this chapter turned out so long. At first, I expected less than 3,000 words, but out of nowhere, between interactions and descriptions, I got lost. Hahaha.
That said, it's packed with information, as always.
By the way, the English merchant acted this way because he knows that they, the English, have certain 'privileges' regarding this because of their princess's possible future relationship with Chuta. They won't be affected by a total loss of merchandise and might even receive 'praise' for their good behavior.
PS Someone asked about the shocking number of poultry obtained in 3 years, and to be honest, I did too.
At first, I researched the current numbers for uncontrolled growth, just to get an idea, and the numbers are frightening.
Then I investigated their controlled growth, allocating birds for consumption, along with a large and increasing percentage of egg consumption.
Finally, I had to factor in the mortality rate and the low hatching rate to reduce the numbers, using the same increasing consumption model so that the number would be representative of the reality of that time.
By the way, the number rose so high because all the first generations had to be allocated to the growth of the bird population; consumption was limited to Chuta and other high-ranking officials and merchants. At least at the beginning.
----
Read my other novels.
#The Walking Dead: Vision of the Future (Chapter 91) (ON HOLD)
#The Walking Dead: Emily's Metamorphosis (Chapter 34) (ON HOLD)
#The Walking Dead: Patient 0 - Lyra File (Chapter 14) (ON HOLD)
You can find them on my profile.]