by David Weber
Ohgylsbee nodded slowly, without saying another word, but his expression spoke volumes, and Sahnchyz found himself trapped between resentment and agreement. Kickbacks, graft, even outright bribes had become part of the Siddarmarkian business world in the superheated, credit-fueled bubble that had followed the Jihad. He didn’t like it, and he liked it even less when an outsider like Ohgylsbee saw all the dirty linen. But that didn’t mean he appreciated the way he was sure most of Charisians thought about the Republic these days.
And you appreciate it least because you suspect they’re right to think that way, he told himself. Too damned bad you can’t do a frigging thing about it besides write reports that arsehole Kartyr will sit on.
.II.
Royal Palace, City of Cherayth, Kingdom of Chisholm, Empire of Charis.
“So, what do you make of Sahnchyz’ analysis, Ehdwyrd?” Cayleb Ahrmahk asked.
He was tipped back in his rattan chair with a straw hat pulled low to shade his eyes. He was also simply dressed, in clothing that was well-worn—indeed, Sharleyan was fond of calling it “ratty”—and comfortable. In fact, he looked like any commonly born angler as he talked quietly to the empty space about him.
There was quite a bit of that empty space at the moment as he sat on the private dock, shaded from the westering sun by a gently flapping canopy while the striped float of his fishing line bobbed on the gentle swell. Seijin Merlin was “temporarily away,” but the other members of his personal detail had closed off the end of the dock from the landward side, leaving him its entire length as a welcome bubble of privacy. With his eyes closed, the contacts he still hadn’t had the time and opportunity to exchange for implants relayed the SNARC remotes’ view of the riflemen perched up on the nearest rooftops with rifles and telescopic sights.
All right, maybe not “any commonly born angler,” he thought wryly. But I can at least pretend.
“I think he knows what he’s talking about,” the Duke of Delthak said grimly over Cayleb’s com earplugs. “And I think it’s going to get worse.”
“Really?” Cayleb looked at his float, then twitched his rod a little. Not that he really anticipated attracting any of the harbor’s fishy denizens. Any true angler knew that wasn’t the real object of the exercise, anyway.
“Really.” Delthak didn’t sound any more cheerful. “In fact, I could lay pretty good odds I know who he was talking about.”
“Ah?”
“It’s not that hard, Cayleb. Wouldn’t be even without the SNARCs! He’s absolutely right about Inosyncio Hymphyl. That man’s a corner-cutter to the core, and he never found an opportunity for graft or bribery that he didn’t take. But he couldn’t be getting away with this where Trans-Siddarmark is concerned without what Nahrmahn and Owl call an ‘enabler.’ And that’s got to be Kartyr Sulyvyn.”
Sulyvyn’s name came out in exactly the same tone Delthak used whenever Stywyrt Showail’s name entered a conversation, Cayleb noted.
“The name’s familiar, but I can’t quite place it,” he said. “From the direction of this conversation, should I assume he’s associated with the Trans-Siddarmark Railroad one way or another?”
“Oh, yes. You certainly should.” Delthak swiveled his chair, looking out his office window across the vista of blast furnaces, cranes, tram lines, canal wharves, and an ever-growing number of steam dragons—what someone from Old Terra might’ve called a steam-powered truck or lorry.
“I know you haven’t spent as much time looking at the nuts and bolts in Siddarmark as Nahrmahn and Nynian and I have,” the duke went on, “but you’ve at least got the general picture.”
“I believe you may safely assume that,” Cayleb said dryly.
“Well, I was struck by a couple of terms Merlin and Nimue have taken to using in their discussions with Nynian and Nahrmahn, so I went and did a little research. And, as usual, our seijin friends have come up with useful labels.”
“Which would be?”
“‘The Wild West’ and ‘robber baron,’” Delthak replied.
“I think I can guess what ‘robber baron’ means. ‘Wild West,’ though?”
“It’s a reference to a wide-open frontier that existed once back on Old Earth,” Delthak said. “One where ‘law and order’ hadn’t caught up with the people expanding it and the only real limit was what you figured you could get away with until someone shot your sorry arse, and I’m afraid that describes the Republic pretty damned well, in a lot of ways.
“When the House of Qwentyn went down, it did even more damage than we thought at the time. Not immediately, and not in and of itself. It was more like … opening a door, and all of the social unrest from the Jihad’s displaced refugees, coupled with the possibilities—and challenges—of the new technology, crashed right through it. It was every man for himself and there really wasn’t any governing law about patents or usury or commercial law in general. The legal aspects had always been provided by the Church’s law masters, and the law masters didn’t have a clue how to deal with all the new concepts we’d introduced here in Charis. Not just the ones since Merlin, but for the last forty or fifty years. I don’t think any of us, including Merlin, realized just how significantly our law codes and commercial practices differed from those of the Mainland even before he and Paityr got hold of them.
“After the Jihad, the Church found itself displaced from its traditional role of lawgiver and the Qwentyns had effectively disappeared as the governor that moderated the … ferocity of the Siddarmarkian financial sector. I’ll be honest, some of the practices that got by were enough to curl my hair, and there are actually more than a few subterranean faults in the Republic’s economy even Henrai Maidyn hadn’t identified.
“One fault Maidyn did identify are the ‘robber barons’ who took advantage of that ‘Wild West’ window to build their own empires. Some of those empires are built on foundations of sand, and someday soon, a lot of them are likely to come crashing down. The Republic’s going to get hurt when that happens, although I do think the Bank and the Asset Guarantee Trust are huge steps in the right direction. I can’t tell you how much I wish Henrai hadn’t gotten himself killed before he’d had time to put through the stock trading regulations he’d wanted, as well, and the fact that he didn’t could be a very bad thing in the end. But overall, Siddarmark’s economy’s in a lot stronger situation than it was two or three years ago.
“Unfortunately, a lot of those fly-by-night operators are still out there, and Kartyr Sulyvyn’s one of them—one of Merlin and Nimue’s ‘robber barons,’ which doesn’t have a damned thing to do with titles of nobility. Sulyvyn owns bits and pieces of dozens of manufactories or other businesses—including Hymphyl Ironworks—but what he really does is … facilitate transactions. He specializes in putting together deals, acting as other people’s agent to organize complex, large-scale operations. Which is how he became one of the General Board’s senior purchasing agents.”
“I thought I knew that name,” Cayleb said.
“In some ways, it’s hard to blame Nezbyt and Hahraimahn for giving him the slot.” Delthak, Cayleb noted, sounded like he didn’t find it difficult at all but was doing his damnedest to be fair. “Nezbyt’s basically a bureaucrat, without a lot of marketplace experience of his own. And Hahraimahn’s always been a manufacturer. He sells stuff to other people. Aside from raw materials, he certainly doesn’t buy stuff—finished product, stuff I mean—in enormous quantities. Or such diverse kinds of stuff. Worse, before he ended up on the General Board, he’d never dealt with anything remotely as big as Trans-Siddarmark. I mean, we’re talking about millions of marks here, Cayleb. That’s serious money, and nobody in the Republic was ever involved with anything this big before, even during the Jihad. The Council of Manufactories coordinated scores of smaller suppliers for the Army, but no one ever imagined a single entity this size.
“So it’s not unreasonable for Nezbyt or Hahraimahn to look for someone who’s spent years ‘facilitating’ large-scale purchasing an
d supply agreements. The fact that Sulyvyn and Nezbyt worked together during the Jihad and Sulyvyn figured out how to stroke Nezbyt’s ego only made that an even more comfortable fit. But what neither Nezbyt nor Hahraimahn have realized, I think, is that eighty or ninety percent of the time when Sulyvyn ‘facilitates’ a deal, he does it by buying from one of the enterprises he owns a piece of, through another one of the enterprises he owns a piece of, for delivery to a third enterprise he owns a piece of. And at every stage in the process, he rakes a little ‘finder’s fee’ off the top. You don’t need to take a really big percentage of a couple of hundred million marks to start racking up some big totals, Cayleb. And the son-of-a-bitch isn’t shy about spreading some of those totals around to protect his cash cow.”
“We have proof of this?”
“Yes, and no,” Delthak said unhappily. “Yes, Nahrmahn and Owl and I have proof. And, no, I can’t present it in court. It’s that sort of evidence. You know—the sort that comes from our mysterious seijin friends.”
“And we really don’t want Myllyr to think we have our seijins spying on him,” Cayleb observed glumly.
“That’s one way to put it. Daryus and Samyl Gohdard would probably take our word for it, at least enough to open an independent investigation of their own. Myllyr won’t, not without Nezbyt’s signing off on it. Because Myllyr trusts Nezbyt, and Nezbyt trusts his cronies.”
“Is that because Sulyvyn’s paying Nezbyt off?” Cayleb’s tone was considerably grimmer, but Delthak shook his head.
“As far as we can tell, no. Not directly,” the duke said. “During the Jihad, yes, Nezbyt did skim a little. It wasn’t a huge amount, and overall he did a damned good job, so Nynian and Nahrmahn didn’t worry about it at the time. They had a lot bigger and more dangerous krakens to deal with. Since the Jihad, it doesn’t look to us like he’s still on the take. But what he did do was establish wartime relationships with a lot of people, including Sulyvyn and a couple of others who are at least as shady as he is. They worked with him, he came to know them, and he’s … comfortable around them. And they, by and large, are smart enough not to offer him explicit payoffs, because that would probably set off his own internal alarms. So instead, they give him ‘gifts.’ One of Sulyvyn’s manufactories re-coppered his yacht for just the cost of the copper … and discounted that pretty steeply. Another one introduced his wife to one of the most exclusive milliners in Siddar City … and quietly arranged to pay a third of her expenses without ever mentioning it to her. She thinks she’s just a really good shopper who finds better deals than any of the other women she knows and prides herself on it.”
“That sounds like ‘explicit payoffs’ to me,” Cayleb growled.
“Nezbyt doesn’t actually know about some of them—like the one with his wife’s milliner,” Delthak pointed out. “What he knows there, is that one of his ‘friends’ guided his wife into the store where she finds exactly what she wants at the price she wants, but then she pays for it … so far as Nezbyt knows. So what these guys are doing is they’re building this relationship of friendship and trust with him, which leaves him disinclined to go looking for anyone else, and the fact that the Trans-Siddarmark’s charter doesn’t require a bidding process for most of its transactions keeps anyone else from crowding their way in into that relationship.”
“What about Zhasyn Brygs?” Cayleb asked.
“Brygs is too busy,” Delthak said flatly. “Just being Governor of the Central Bank and director of the Asset Guarantee Trust would be more than enough to keep anyone running twenty-six hours a day. With the role of secretary-treasurer for Trans-Siddarmark thrown onto the stack, he can’t possibly look at everything he ought to be looking at, and guess which one of his hats gets the shortest shrift? You may recall that we both suggested to Myllyr as firmly as we could that this might pose some small problems farther along the line? Well it turns out we’re very smart people, because that’s exactly what it’s doing. He doesn’t have the time to peruse every contract and every major deal, so some of them don’t get reviewed at all and others get reviewed by his or Nezbyt’s clerks, not all of whom are as honest and upright as Brygs.”
“Crap.”
“One way to put it,” Delthak acknowledged.
“How bad is it, really?”
“Not good, but I have to admit it’s not catastrophic … yet. The rats in the woodwork are probably increasing Trans-Siddarmark’s costs by around fifteen percent, maybe a little more, but that’s not a lot, by Mainlander standards. Like I say, with this many millions of marks floating around, even relatively low levels of graft and kickbacks rake in buckets of money. By and large, though, the service aspects of their contracts get discharged effectively and on time—it’s kind of like it was in Harchong before the Jihad. Once the right palms get greased, things can be accomplished with amazing efficiency. It just doesn’t come cheaply.
“So I’m not really concerned about whether or not Trans-Siddarmark can get the job done. Our inspectors have to downgrade and reject more and more substandard supplies, but so far, I think they’re staying on top of that. Mind you, if it continues to get worse, that may not be the case forever.
“What I’m really worried about?” The duke puffed his lips and shook his head, and his eyes were dark as he looked out over the bustling industry around his office. “What I’m really worried about is the knock-on effect if—when—the Republic hits another recession. The amount of corruption inside Trans-Siddarmark’s growing steadily, and it’s a private-public corporation, Cayleb. If the shit hits the fan, as Merlin is fond of saying, where the Republic’s economy is concerned and people in the business community find out the level of corruption their own government’s apparently winked at, public trust in all of Henrai’s reforms will take a serious hit. And the one thing all of my research’s convinced me of is that economies depend a lot more on perceptions than realities. Consumers make purchases based on their perception of their need and opportunity, but also on the basis of their optimism about the future. Manufactory owners do the same thing. When that optimism evaporates, drops to the kind of level we’re still seeing to some extent in the western provinces, the entire economy tanks. And if that happens, and evidence of widespread corruption—and God knows, there’s plenty of it outside Trans-Siddarmark!—hits the newspapers and broadsheets, the consequences could be … dire.”
“In that case, we need to tell Myllyr about it now,” Cayleb said. “I mean, I know the circle’s delegated this to you, Nahrmahn, and Nynian, but it sounds to me like we don’t have much of a choice!”
“I’m already making my concerns known, Cayleb. I’ve sent Myllyr and Chancellor Ashfyrd several memos detailing concerns of my own inspectors and supervisors, like Ohgylsbee. And I’ve shared as much evidence of what’s going on with people like Sulyvyn as I can without getting into any of those sticky questions about just how I acquired it. And it’s not doing much good.”
“Why not?” Cayleb demanded.
“Because Nezbyt trusts Sulyvyn—and all the other Sulyvyns he’s doing business with—and Myllyr and Ashfyrd both trust Nezbyt. And the hell of it is that in terms of anything overtly illegal, or even significantly and knowingly corrupt, Nezbyt really is an honest man, so it’s hard to fault Myllyr and Ashfyrd for trusting him. The problem is that they’re also trusting Nezbyt’s judgment, and I don’t think they can separate personal honesty from judgment and realize Nezbyt can possess one without necessarily having the other.
“In Ashfyrd’s case, that’s because he was never really a politician until Myllyr tapped him to head the Exchequer. He’s always been a nuts-and-bolts fellow, a lot more comfortable dealing with numbers than people, mostly because he understands numbers … and he’s not so sure he understands people. I guess I’m saying he’s got really good bureaucratic skills but not very well honed political instincts, which makes him a bit like Nezbyt, in a way. He trusts people, Cayleb, at least until they damned well prove he can’t, and that can be a good thing. Or
not.
“And Mylyyr’s like Ashfyrd, in a lot of ways. He never really wanted to be a politician, either, and he only ran for Lord Protector in his own right because he thought he owed it to Henrai and the Republic. He’d a lot rather be back at the Exchequer himself … or at home, raising petunias or something. But that means that despite his office, he’s not a skilled political operator, either. He’s got some good advisors, and he listens to them, but he not a political animal at heart. Worse, in this case, he’s known Nezbyt a long time. He considers the man a personal friend and a colleague from his own Exchequer days, and the truth is they always worked well together there, so he doesn’t see any reason they shouldn’t now.”
The duke paused, glowering out his office window. The vista didn’t have its usual encouraging effect today.
“At any rate, Myllyr’s not prepared to question Nezbyt’s honesty—or judgment—without more evidence than we can plausibly give him. And, to be fair, so far despite the graft and all the … irregularities, Trans-Siddarmark’s growing like a house on fire. It’s far and away the most successful project in Siddarmark and there are a lot of other infrastructure projects and manufactories riding its coattails. Nobody in Siddar City—or Protector’s Palace!—wants to do anything to kill the golden wyvern.”
“Crap,” Cayleb repeated, and Delthak chuckled harshly.
“Look at the bright side,” he suggested.
“What bright side?” Cayleb growled.
“So far, Trans-Siddarmark is being successful. Not as successful as a fullbore Ahrmahk Plan might have been, but still pretty damned successful. So, despite any apprehensions I may nurse, it looks like we’re getting the job done.” Almost despite himself, Cayleb began to nod as the duke continued. “And if the wheels ultimately do come off, there’s no Zhaspahr Clyntahn waiting to send in the Sword of Schueler to finish off the Republic. So nothing we’re talking about here represents an immediate and significant threat to Siddarmark.”
