{"id":21567,"date":"2022-12-09T14:00:31","date_gmt":"2022-12-09T19:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=21567"},"modified":"2022-12-07T18:09:04","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T23:09:04","slug":"the-kingdom-of-tokavsk-session-8-the-confession-of-a-traitor-to-the-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2022\/12\/09\/the-kingdom-of-tokavsk-session-8-the-confession-of-a-traitor-to-the-king\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kingdom of Tokavsk, Session 8:  The Confession of a Traitor to the Court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Tokavsk has a tradition of forcing those convicted of high treason to confess their crimes.\u00a0 The reasons for this tradition are unclear, and some argue it is unwise to disseminate the internal logic of the condemned.\u00a0 The below confession is different in that, in addition to being the only letter we have retrieved from the current King\u2019s reign, it is hardly a confession at all.\u00a0 Rather, it reads more as a rant.\u00a0 It also makes attempts to level accusations against the King, though it provides no specific examples, perhaps due to the intense fury of the author.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Iron-blooded is an apt sobriquet for him, more than apt.\u00a0 They might as well have told me he was a fiend outright and shown me the antlers upon his head.\u00a0 I\u2019m laughing at the irony of it.\u00a0 I was warned never to cross him, but I never thought his reaction would be as extreme as this.\u00a0 To be a courtier is to serve the King, but it is also to fight for your House and your province.\u00a0 That is what the system has always been, what I have been told.<\/p>\n<p>I did what was within my limits.\u00a0 I never meant to tear the hide, but by the time I realized I had it was too late.\u00a0 You want me to explain why I did what I did.\u00a0 You want me to glorify the King, but I will not, will not, will not with my dying breath.\u00a0 Let me fall into the Iyentsh River and never feel anything again but cold.\u00a0 You have already condemned me to the eternal chill.\u00a0 Nothing I write will reverse my fate.\u00a0 See, I laugh\u2014I laugh as I\u2019m writing this, laugh to keep from screaming.\u00a0 \u2018Tis a cruel joke bestowed upon me.\u00a0 The end was obvious from the beginning.\u00a0 There is no freedom, not for anyone who does not agree expressly with the King, His Royal Majesty Stergye Tallat the Iron-Blooded, Short May He Reign.\u00a0 Anyone who shows his dissent will end up as I have.\u00a0 Let them know my name\u2014let they who inhabit this cell after me feel it in the cold stone walls, taste it in the gruel meant to keep them alive until their execution.\u00a0 Let them remember my essence, even if everywhere else the memory of my existence is stricken.\u00a0 I know what happened to the ambassador.\u00a0 I know what the King does to keep you close to his torch.\u00a0 Those secrets will not die with me\u2014someone else will find them\u2014I promise you that.\u00a0 Promise you with the same fervor with which you love your king.<\/p>\n<p>Signed,<\/p>\n<p>[Name stricken]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tokavsk has a tradition of forcing those convicted of high treason to confess their crimes.\u00a0 The reasons for this tradition are unclear, and some argue it is unwise to disseminate the internal logic of the condemned.\u00a0 The below confession is different in that, in addition to being the only letter we have retrieved from the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2243,"featured_media":21358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1852,1943,1221,1611,1257,420],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21567"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21567"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21581,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21567\/revisions\/21581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}