by Candy Rae
“They couldn’t possibly have come up with it on their own. Someone has suggested it to them, must have,” said Robert who had his own ideas and suspicions about who it might have been.
“But what is it?” asked the exasperated Paul Hallam.
“Just that they should send an expedition west with the eventual aim of colonising the southern part of the continent of Dagan of all places. Appears that they’re of the opinion that the continent is packed full of great riches there for the taking,” answered Robain. “Precious stones and gold lying around on the ground just waiting to be picked up and the like.”
“Not that old idea,” groaned Paul, “don’t they realise the continent belongs to the Lai?”
“Ah, but the Duke is of the misguided opinion that they won’t interfere. He has it on good authority that the Lai would welcome such an event.”
“Or at least not be displeased,” added Liam. “He approached me too, asked me to speak to you. He looks for support.”
“It’s no secret then?”
“Well, yes and no. He was very careful to speak to me in private and swore me to secrecy, apart form you. He was wondering if Queen Antoinette might not look too favourably on the venture.”
“He’s got some sense at least then,” noted Paul, “does she know?”
“Not yet,” Robert spoke, “but she will soon. Lord Prince Marshall Pierre was intending to speak to her. Prince Crispin now, he does I’m sure.”
“Ah, the unassuming and diffident and loyal Crispin,” groaned Paul who had met him on numerous occasions and harboured a secret dislike for his easy good looks and charm, “I hope you two boys tried to dissuade the Duke of Markwood. Murdoch has treaty with the Lai and we don’t want to antagonise them. They may not be much in evidence these days but I assure you that they will take considerable umbrage if they thought any Duke of Murdoch was considering this seriously.”
“We’re sure he is, considering it seriously, fact is, we think he’s preparing to send an exploratory ship west, a small one, a pinnacle, or quite possibly something larger.”
“The Queen must be told now. She must send the navy to stop him poste haste,” insisted Paul.
“The Queen is too concerned with what is happening around her to be overly bothered about a mad duke sending explorers west Paul,” said Charles Karovitz, “but that’s not all the trouble that is brewing. Duchesne, Graham and Charleston, they’ve long been discontented about what they see as royal preference for the southerly dukes. It’s well known that a large percentage of taxes is spent there, proportionately increasing the further south.”
Paul Hallam nodded, “Elliot Twelve introduced the tax laws when he gave this duchy to my ancestor, the first Duke of Hallam, they were crown lands before and he had to find a way to replace the revenue.”
“Yep, problem is that these three believe that it is most unfair. I can see their point, to an extent. Taxes as you know are levied on population size, the free population that is. Much of the south is inhabited by serfs and the Dukes of Cocteau, van Buren, South Baker and Smith pay much less into the royal coffers than those to their north and the south gets much more out of it.”
“North and south have always been different,” agreed Paul, “and I’m not talking about the continents, with North Baker and Hallam somewhere in between. I pay large amounts of coin to the crown and don’t complain.”
“Or not too much,” whispered Liam in an aside to his brother.
Robain bit back the involuntary spurt of laughter and choked. He took a large sip of wine to clear it.
“So what do they intend?” Paul asked, not paying his second son much attention.
“Separation from the kingdom. They want they say to ‘go it alone’.”
“How do you know?”
“That would be me,” said Robert Crawford. “I’ve been working on it with Philip Ross.”
Paul Hallam turned his gaze yet again to Robert.
“It was a little thing that alerted us,” Robert began to answer the unspoken question.
“It usually is.”
“Philip noticed that very few recruits for the regiments were volunteering from Duchesne and Graham. That fact piqued his interest and he began to make enquiries. He found too that less than usual who were born there were signing up for a second term of service.”
“These three duchies are closer to the islands and to the northern continent, new ideas and all that,” opined Paul and Robert nodded in agreement.
“They’re definitely looking northwards these days and the island chain link isn’t helping,” said Charles Karovitz, Paul’s son-in-law.
“There’s nothing new about their annoyance at what they view as favouritism of the Crown for van Buren and the rest. They’ve been complaining about it for as long as I can remember,” agreed Robert Crawford, “but this time I believe they have support from out-kingdom.”
“Have they indicated who?” Paul Hallam’s question was a sharp one. This new problem might well turn into a very difficult and potentially dangerous situation.
Robert shook his head, “not even a ghost of a hint.”
“It can’t be the northern mainland,” postulated a frowning Charles Karovitz. “we’d have heard if that was so.”
Paul Hallam took that as a read.
Both Charles and Robert worked closely with the Department of External Affairs, with one Prince Xavier. Prince Xavier’s daughter had married out-kingdom; to a young man called Julian Durand who came from one of the wealthiest, oldest and most powerful families in Argyll. Paul knew that the Prince kept close ties with that portion of his blood family residing to the north of the Middle Sea and that the Durand family provided Xavier with most of the intelligence about what was happening on the northern continent.
Paul himself had alternative sources of information. The most obvious was from within Argyll and Vadath. The ducal family of Hallam had distant blood-family in both, distant after two centuries but blood-ties ran true on the planet.
In the first half of the seventh century, the first Duke of Hallam’s eldest son, Robain had renounced his ducal inheritance and had (after marrying a Vadathian woman) left for Vada. Paul Hallam was very proud of the fact that some of his relatives could be numbered among the ranks of the Vada. There were influential Hallams in Argyll too.
“That’s all?” he asked now in his deceptively mild voice. Those who knew him however noticed that his mouth was twitching at the corners, a sure sign of inner perturbation and disquiet.
“And quite enough to be going on with too wouldn’t you say?” asked Robert.
“Have we any proof of the Duchesne, Charleson, Graham plans?” asked Paul in return.
“Not yet,” admitted Robert.
“That must be out first step then,” a decided Paul Hallam informed them, who like his forefathers, had a quick and astute mind combined with an ability to see through to the roots of a problem. This type of mind had led his ancestor, the first Duke of Hallam to become a close personal friend and knowledgeable advisor to his king, the aforementioned Elliot the Twelfth.
“That’s the one that’ll destabilise the kingdom,” he explained.
“But the southerly duchies?” protested Robert.
“Wait, I’ll explain in a moment my old friend.”
Paul took a breath, marshalling his thoughts.
“On its own the so-called Reform Movement, even with overt rebellion, does not present a real threat to the inherent stability of the kingdom as a whole, even more so now that Prince Pierre has destroyed their infrastructure. If the serfs rebel, the regiments will march in with the ducal levies and crush them. In fact they already have as we know but they don’t. Problem is, if the Dukes of Duchesne, Charleson and Graham are aware of an incipient rebellion, therein lies the danger. They will declare separation when the southerly revolt begins and the Queen will have to choose, send the regiments north to force them to remain within her kingdom or crush the serf revolt. Mmmm, I think I b
egin to see signs of a guiding hand in all this.”
“The expedition to Dagan?”
“Part of the same guidance, but if it ever happens, which I doubt, it is merely a distraction. The Markwoods are famous for thinking up grand schemes but not so good at carrying them out. They don’t have the brainpower. The Lai will stop it. Someone wants to see Murdoch fragment, grow weak and I have a very good idea about the who. A foreign someone with imperialistic dreams.”
“The King of Leithe,” breathed Robert Crawford, “why didn’t we make the connection? Leithe has been expanding Leithe’s power base in the islands for a number of years now, through trade agreements, ‘protectorates’ and outright conquest. I should have guessed.”
“But his son is married to our Crown-Princess!” cried a shocked Liam.
“His third son,” Paul reminded him, “and his fourth he has married into the ruling family of the Western Isles, his second to that of the Eastern Isles. I begin to see a pattern.”
“He has daughters married into Randall and Eilidon too,” Robert Crawford reminded them, “and we have been expecting that that is where his next move will be.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” cautioned Paul Hallam who of all the dukes in the kingdom was the most aware of people and places outside his own borders. In his youth he had travelled widely and had even gone (for a short time) into the Rtathlians of the Lind. Rumour had it that he had met and spoken to their leader, the Elda of all the Lind.
“Why so Father?” asked Liam.
“Neither Randall nor Eilidon are large nor are they powerful, they are influential enough in their own way but they are no threat to the ambition of the Kings of Leithe. Murdoch is. We have a navy that can rival his and have close alliance with the Isles of the West and the East, even with the Galland Confederation.”
“All these navies could rival Leithe”
“Precisely. I believe that he wants to expand, he has a driving need to expand, extend his influence, eventually his over-lordship over all the islands and island groups in the Great Eastern Sea. He is building an Empire. To claim over-lordship of the Great Eastern Sea he must neutralise these four fleets. With Duchesne and the other two duchies seceded who knows what would happen? Our navy is manned mostly by sailors and officers who originate in the northerly duchies. Our main naval base is in Duchesne! I fear naval conflict, with those ships loyal to Queen Antoinette on one side and those not on the other. This is the cause of our internal troubles and unrest gentlemen. He is to blame, he is sowing the seeds of disruption.”
“What of the Argyllian Navy Father? It is the most powerful in the world.”
“They patrol their coastlines and fight pirates who attack their shipping. They are not concerned with the activities of Leithe. I can hear their Councillors now - let him get on with it – keep the pirates away – the navy costs us a lot – let Leithe fight the pirates.”
“So you think he’s trying to get us so concerned with trouble and problems inside our borders that we don’t notice what’s happening outside?”
“That’s my idea, the Isles and Galland won’t, can’t challenge him without our support and so he’ll start nibbling away at more and more of the islands, one or two at a time.”
“What’s Prince Crispin’s position in all this?” asked Robain, “is he behind the trouble here?”
“Perhaps, perhaps not, I’m not sure. What’s the Intelligence Department saying Robert?”
Robert Crawford shrugged, “very little, whosoever is behind it is very clever but he can’t possibly be unaware of his father’s ambitions. My guess is that he’s here to keep an eye on things, is reporting back to his father. I wish Crown-Princess Antoinette hadn’t insisted on this marriage. The Queen had doubts at the time.”
“A very charming young man.”
“And persuasive, a smooth talker. I also don’t think he was that adverse to the marriage, even if he is a part of his father’s plot to destabilise us. She is a pretty young lady, if a bit small and quiet.”
“Introspective,” agreed Robert Crawford, “so what do we do?”
“We ask the experts,” answered Paul Hallam with a slow smile.
“I’ve already got my best men working on it.”
“I’m not thinking of your agents my friend. When I said experts, I meant experts! We’ll ask the Avuzdel.”
“Avuzdel? What’s that?” asked Charles Karovitz.
“The best way to explain it is that they are the northern equivalent of a certain section of our Bureau of Internal Affairs. They are concerned with information.”
“Spies?” queried Liam.
“I prefer the term information gatherers myself,” said Robert Crawford in a mild voice, “the term spy implies a certain degree of nastiness and is not a nice word.”
“Spies is as good a word as any,” said Paul Hallam. “The Avuzdel has a long history. Before mankind arrived they were operating with a great deal of success here on the southern continent. Remember, the Lind and the Larg had been fighting each other for a long time before we humans arrived.”
“The Larg were the aggressors,” said Liam, “ninety-nine times out of a hundred anyway. They used to attack the northern continent most summers.”
“You are quite correct Liam. I am pleased to see that some of the facts your expensive tutors drummed into you have been retained. The Avuzdel used to journey into our continent to spy out what the Larg were doing and so give the Lind warning about when and in what numbers the Larg were going to attack. Very efficient they were too. When we arrived, rather when the WCCS Argyll arrived in the north and some of their colonists became mind-linked and life-bonded to certain Lind, some few of those duos entered into and served with, the Avuzdel. At the time they were trying to make sure that our ancestors from the WCPS Electra were not going to attack the north, a distinct possibility at the time as the original Dukes and Kings were allied with the Larg. Later, men and women, not so life-bonded, also became a part of the Avuzdel, the better to blend into southern society. A Lind is a distinctive creature, difficult to keep out of sight when one is poking, prying and spying.”
“Information gathering,” corrected Robert, uttering the words almost as an automatic reflex, “what makes you think the Avuzdel will be able to help?”
“They are better than your agents,” Paul Hallam answered with an apologetic smile and a gleam in his eyes, “experienced, well-trained, un-bought and un-buyable. Their loyalty is absolute and it is a loyalty to peace, to the enduring existence of a planet un-beset by strife and war. Your agents are also congregated here, in Murdoch with a few dotted here and there in the islands and the northern mainlands.”
“Not in Dagan.”
“The Avuzdel is everywhere.”
“Do you know of any here in Murdoch that we can contact?”
“Not personally, no.”
“My men will find them.” This assertion was emitted from Robert Crawford’s lips. He was proud of his information gathering network.
Paul Hallam shook his head. “I told you they were good Robert. Found any yet? Did any of your predecessors? They didn’t. Also if your agents start making enquiries those who are stirring up the trouble might realise that we’re on to them. Can you trust every one of your men?”
“No. Probably not,” admitted Robert, “so?”
“So we send out some people we can trust, of our own, to Vadath, where the Avuzdel headquarters are.”
“They just walk in and introduce themselves?”
“They go to Vada and introduce themselves to the Susa who commands there. He or she will know what to do.”
“It’s a Susa Malkum,” Robert Crawford supplied the information. “He’s been in command for a number of years now. Good man by all accounts, well respected.”
“You can be sure that he is aware about what is going on, at least in part. He will be worried, he’s ultimately responsible for the defence of the entire northern continent. Also, if there’s civ
il war and unrest in Murdoch it is bad for trade. The merchants of Argyll are greedy, they’ll want it stopped, preferably before it starts. They’ll put pressure on the Council of Argyll and they will ask the Vada. I’d heard that there has been some strain on the relationship between Vadath and Argyll in recent years but they will join together to meet a common threat.”
“Murdoch?”
“If we’re right, not Murdoch, Leithe. The merchants depend on their fleets to bring prosperity into Argyll. They will already be nervous about Leithe’s actions of late as a threat to their futures. The Councillors know this, they will ask the Vada to do something about it.”
“We send a ship to Vada then.”
“One ship to Vada,” confirmed Paul Hallam, “and another I think must make the longer journey to Dagan to warn the Lind and the Lai about the expansionary ideas of the Duke of Markwood.”
He turned to Robain.
“Go back to Fort and speak to Markwood. Tell him that you do have an interest in his plans for Dagan. If they ask, say that you’ve had second thoughts and now think it a most excellent idea. Lay it on thick Robain.”
“I can’t go Father and I don’t think I’m the best person. I’m due back in Gardiner soon. Also, I don’t think the Duke of Markwood is still at Fort. He was preparing to leave when we did. I saw his attendants loading the pack horses. No, it’ll have to be someone else.”
“Daniel Ross, nephew of Baron Mark Ross, Philip’s son,” suggested Robert Crawford, “he’d be ideal, he’s quick-witted and so loyal it’s embarrassing. He can join them and keep an eye on them, make sure they don’t do anything stupid. He’s a boyhood friend of one of the Markwood boys too and I know he was planning to visit later in the summer. Philip spoke to me about it. He could go early, Duke Markwood’s so stupid he’ll not suspect a thing. If we can get word off to Philip Ross, today even, I’m sure that by the time I get back to Fort young Daniel will have already left. Duchesne, Graham and Charleson, what about them?”
“They’ll need more careful handling. The Duke of Duchesne is a fine statesman. He must be persuaded, using every means at our disposal bar open fighting to keep his duchy within the kingdom. Duke William is a sensible man. He also listens to me. The other two will follow suit. Let me think that one over.”
