The Traitor Baru Cormorant

The Traitor Baru Cormorant tells the first chapter of a story about identity and betrayal, with a protagonist that is willing to do anything to change the system from within: it’s a fantasy novel concerned with political change, and the sacrifices necessary to propel it.

The story starts when Baru is a little girl on the island of Taranoke, living with her two fathers and her mother Pinion. One day, Taranoke is visited by the Masquerade Empire, which proclaims to have come in peace, offering progress instead of war. But Baru quickly learns that dominion can occur without violence, as the subjective progress came with political and social control attached. Vowing to avenge Taranoke, Baru concocts a plan: she is to pretend to be faithful to the Empire and rise within its ranks until she has amassed enough power to topple it from within.

The beginning of the novel focuses on the ways the Empire shackles Taranoke, disguising its power as benevolence: how it introduces paper currency to create debt, how it builds schools to indoctrinate its ideology, how it kills with disease and sells medicine for profit. Baru’s time in the new school, when she is still mesmerized by the comforts of the Empire, is described as such:

“She went into the school, with her own uniform and her own bed in the crowded dormitory, and there in her first class on Scientific Society and Incrasticism she learned the words sodomite and tribadist and social crime and sanitary inheritance, and even the mantra of rule: order is preferable to disorder.”

When Baru realizes what’s happening, it’s already too late, for the Empire has already got complete control over Taranoke. One of her fathers has been taken to be “corrected”, and even her mother, once a proud and fearsome warrior, is now reduced to her hurt: “Baru looked at her mother, at Pinion’s eyes red with fatigue, her shoulders bunched in anger, and wondered what had happened to the woman who was a thunderbolt, a storm cloud, a panther. Of all things Pinion looked most like a wound.”

The Masquerade Empire is defined by its use of masks – even the Emperor wears one at all times, hiding his true self from the world. A mask is a perfect symbol for how it operates, as the Empire’s every action hides an ulterior meaning. Take the witch-hunt against same-sex couples, for instance: the Empire preaches the concept of tribadism and sodomy only to fabricate a justification for control. It needs a reason to turn people against each other, making them agree to the formation of a state of vigilance and punishment – and, being a taboo, there’s no better candidate for chastisement than sex.

But Baru’s intelligence and proficiency with numbers get her the attention of Cairdine Farrier, a conspicuous wool merchant from the Empire who decides to take her under his wings. It’s not her mathematical prowess alone that fascinates Farrier, however, as Baru’s willingness to play the Empire’s game is fundamental for his patronage. When a friend tells Baru that her old tutor wants to touch her, Baru goes to Farrier, who talks at length about the consequences of angering a powerful man. Baru understands, then, that the Empire’s society is based on a system that rewards silence and conformity, where abusers can flourish. And Baru chooses silence: “It’s not worth losing his patronage over this. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Forget I asked.’ Cairdine Farrier smiled in pleased relief.”

This scene is key to understanding Baru – the lengths she’s willing to go to stick to her plan of rising within the Empire’s ranks. This won’t be the last moment she will opt for turning a blind eye and betray her beliefs, and then frame her decision as a sacrifice necessary for the greater good – believing it will allow her to climb to a position from where she’ll be able to stop these horrible things from ever happening again. Cairdine Farrier, of course, witnesses all of this with a smile on his lips. Tension, therefore, arises from this crucial question: is Baru truly deceiving Farrier about her intentions or is he using her to do the Empire’s bidding until it’s time to clip her wings?

As a test, Carrier sends Baru – only eighteen years old at the time – to the province of Aurdwynn as an Imperial Accountant, after the previous two died there. The region – ruled by warring dukes – has a past marked by rebellion and she is tasked to rekindle its flames once more. Baru’s time in Aurdwynn makes the bulk of the novel: this is the story of how the Empire asks Baru to infiltrate the dukes’ rebellion just so she can deceive it at a crucial time – hence the novel’s title.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant is at its best when developing its title character. The things she sacrifices to become a servant of the Empire, for example, grow exponentially with each passing page, which starts to affect her identity. Baru’s mother warns her, before she leaves Taranoke, “Go, then. Learn all their secrets. Cover yourself in them. You will return with a steel mask instead of a face.” And it doesn’t take long for Baru to realize the meaning of these words. She has to shut down her feelings so often – lest they betray her plan –that she starts to become the cold machine she pretends to be: “When she was alone again Baru snuffed out all the candles and thus hidden from herself she tried to let herself weep in fear. Still it would not come. She had built the dams too strong, polished the gears too perfectly.”

Baru is also often tempted by power – she enjoys its intoxicating effect – which is possibly why Farrier put her still so young in a position of so much prestige and influence in Aurdwynn. There’s this great scene where she meets a man conditioned to be a slave, a man who was tortured and brainwashed to the point where he is now grateful for any opportunity to serve his masters. Baru has the chance of becoming such a master, so it’s telling how she tries to make up excuses to seize the opportunity: “Was it really slavery if the slave was grateful? If that gratitude had been hammered into the alloy of his being?” she questions.

The novel’s main theme arises precisely from the questions related to Baru’s arc. Is there a difference between a traitorous servant and a loyal one if they all still serve in the end? If Baru, with all her plans of treason, is more efficient in her job than even the most loyal of officials, isn’t she more useful to the Empire than them? As Baru’s plan is to rise in the ranks, she forces herself to remain silent before injustice, becoming complicit to it – sometimes she even becomes the very agent of injustice, perpetrating it with her own hands. Baru is willing to sacrifice not only her soul, but also the lives of countless others to achieve her goal, but that may end up being just for the benefit of her enemies.

The narrative, however, succeeds in making Baru’s plan make sense from a practical point of view. The Empire is built as not only a cunning, rich, and ruthless force but also one in possession of a fearsome military power. Therefore, open revolt, such as the rebellion in Aurdwynn, seems hopeless: this is why Baru’s task is to make it come out, so the Empire can single out each traitorous individual in a controlled scenario, for it sees much more danger in the shadows than in open defiance.

And it’s not an easy job for Baru, as Aurdwynn is framed as a very dangerous place: of the two prior accountants, one was executed for giving in to the rebellion, and the other was assassinated for refusing to give in. Baru’s task feels more like a trap than a test, then, even if she seems capable of handling it, using her new job to the fullest effect: “She would open the books and search for signs of seditious behavior – enthusiastic loan taking, aggressive investment in old coin or hard resources, purchases of weapons or grain to feed and fight a rebellion.”

The narrative only falters when it comes to building the dukes of Aurdwynn: even though they are key players in the rebellion, they remain mostly distant and elusive. Unexekome, Lyxaxu, Nayarru, all these dukes, they are more enigmas than anything: we know they possess hidden agendas, but not what these are until they decide to make their move. Unfortunately, this means that these characters remain one-note for the most part of the novel: we have the duke who is a pirate, the one who likes philosophy, the one who is an ambitious woman, and so forth.

At first, this approach works because it contributes to the feeling of unease and paranoia in Aurdwynn, with Baru not knowing who to approach and who to avoid, as everyone appears to be an enemy disguised as a friend – the “Judge” figure, Xate Yawa, is the character that most benefits from this ambivalence. Later on, however, when the focus turns to the rebellion itself, these characters are supposed to become tragic figures – if the Empire has its way, that is – but it’s hard to mourn or cheer the fate of enigmatic people.

The notable exception is the Duchess Tain Hu, who can shift from being a fearsome enemy to an unwavering ally in the blink of an eye – depending on what side she believes Baru’s on at the moment, if Aurdwynn or the Empire. Tain Hu tries to get close to this foreign, young, and beautiful accountant to discover what motivates her, and she’s mostly successful: “A people can only bear the lash so long in silence. Some things are not worth being within,” Tain Hu warns Baru early in the story. “Order is preferable to disorder,” Baru responds, “speaking words she had mocked on Taranoke, under the dark hangings of the school beds.”

However, what starts as a cold political move – Tain Hu needs to know if Baru can be trusted – starts to grow into something more personal. There’s always a hint of desire in their interactions, which makes the prospect of Baru’s potential betrayal much more hurtful: “Baru squeezed her shoulder, comrade to comrade. For a few moments Tain Hu leaned against her, in acknowledgment, or to get a little warmth.”

This potential relationship is crucial for Baru because it also represents what the Empire would deny everyone to have. If they knew what she feels for Tain Hu, they would punish her severely. The Empire operates in the realm of repression – social repression, but also repression of feelings and desire –, so Baru’s growing affection towards the duchess becomes an ambivalent symbol: it is what she’s fighting for, but also what she must be willing to sacrifice.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant is a powerful first chapter to Baru’s story, successfully creating a complex and tragic protagonist, who finds herself caught in an inscrutable web of political intrigue, but believes she must sacrifice everyone at her side just so she can become the next spider.

September 20, 2023.