by P. S. Power
"Ah, Counselor of Magic Baker. So good of you all to join us. In such a timely fashion as well. A most amazing thing. I think there were several bets placed saying you couldn't possibly get here before the evening meal. Here we are some four and a half hours before that. I should have placed my own wager. Alphonse, I believe you did, how did that fare?"
"Oh, very well. I believe Count Isle owes me a silver. I said that it would be half an hour, he wagered fifty minutes. I do think he was factoring in a break to pick up snacks however. Or was it tea?" He actually looked over at a slightly bemused old man that held a gentle smile and a walking stick in his hands. It had a silver handle on the top of jet black wood and felt old, even from a distance. His voice was aged and cracked, but sounded mirthful enough.
"Tea. I see I was being a foolish old man again, thinking that today's youth was soft, and sought their own comfort first. Well, never too aged to learn, are we?" For all that the man was making himself seem a bit doddering, that so clearly wasn't the case that it poured from his field. Oh, he wasn't ready to run any races, but Tor didn't doubt the man was mentally sharper than most in the room by far.
The King nodded regally, that being his job, and gestured to the others behind him.
"I recognize a few, but some faces are new, perhaps introductions are in order?"
He smiled, and tried to remember the names from earlier, hoping that he wouldn't get anything too far wrong.
"Master Builder Fines, who is the new head of the Lairdgren Group, and his first assistant, Master Builder Roberts. Then we have Baron Mark Sorenson, and Conserina Farlo Ross. They're in charge of the new section of builders. Behind them are Attaché Sam Builder and..." He didn't let himself think about it too long, since he had no idea what he was going to say next, but didn't want anyone to think that the others didn't sound grand enough. "Guide Eastgreen, who's our liaison to Vagus. They have a new building program over there that's doing well, I hear."
He didn't know that at all, but a man sitting halfway back on the right side of the room, who was pretty tall and had a mustache along with nice clothing interjected something then, which was probably rude, but no one seemed to think it was worth calling him on it. The words weren't bad or anything, so Tor didn't either.
"Indeed they do. I have several healing items made by their mages. That's what they call them there. Good work, all done on stone, and for a fair price. That we have people working with them already is excellent news."
Tor nodded a few times, liking the sound of it himself.
"Next in line we have Conserina Derring, Alyssa Baker. Followed by..." He nearly got lost then and had to use a trick he'd learned a few years back to recall what he'd heard earlier. Two of the girls only had one name, like Sam and Guide had originally, so he filled that in, hoping what he picked wasn't too annoying to them. They sounded normal enough to his ear, if a little plain. No one acted like it was out of the ordinary at least and when he was done he gave a polite half bow, to the King. Everyone else just stood, not knowing what to do at all, since it was outside of the normal pattern.
"We stand ready to serve." He left it at that, and the King clapped a few times.
"Wonderful! We won't keep you all waiting, but you must stay to have dinner with us. I know that Connie will love to have you all. Alphonse, could you see to our guests comfort? Tor, if you and Master Builder Fines would stay? We'll need two more chairs..." He made a gesture that seemed nearly bored, which got two servants to run in with the needed seats. They were both large men, and the chairs themselves were settled in different locations. Tor was shown to the front one, to the left hand of Smythe, with Fines being placed behind him and to his left. There was no one between him and the wall, with an old woman sitting in the first chair off to the side and a bit in front of them. A Countess, clearly, but not one that Tor knew. She sneered at him when she caught him looking her way, so he smiled politely.
She might just have gas or something after all. The lady hid her face behind a large fan, her blue and white dress looking fairly pretty, but like it needed to be on a girl of twenty, not a woman that had granddaughters that age. At least the Countess looked away after a bit, so he scanned the room, looking for any possible friendly faces. There were a few at least.
One was right across from the woman next. Burks. His grandfather. The man looked sharp, and too young to be sitting near the front of the room, since they were very clearly going by age, since the ranks were all about the same really, except the King and his heir. His brother in-law Tovey was near the far end, with only one person between him and the door on the right side, Holly Printer and Ursula Thorgood were on the other side. The person next to Tovey was a rather small, very dark skinned girl that looked like a miniature version of Sandra Morris. Her sister, Tor thought. They'd never met, but she'd been offered to him for sex once, by her father, while he was trying to get some shields and other devices out of him. The girl was two years older now and still looked to be illegal by at least that much time. It was just as well that her father had been teasing at the time, or he would have had to kill him then.
Or maybe it wasn't that great of a thing. Sure, he would have died for doing it, but Tiera wouldn't be having problems with them now if it had happened.
There were a few moments of silence, and then people started yelling. It was about a trade agreement or something, but Tor couldn't make out what the problem was. The King was suggesting they ease trade tariffs, in light of the greater availability of faster trade, which meant that more goods were being shipped. The idea was that a lower price would increase that kind of thing.
The idea that he'd been supposed to pay tariffs on anything was a new one to Tor. He decided not to mention it, and just hope that his people were covering things like that as needed. Though he didn't have a lot of things that would be covered, it turned out. Only solid goods and food were in the agreement and he didn't have a lot of interests in those things. He didn't think.
Until a man he didn't know on the other side of the room, about a third of the way down, started to bluster about it.
"The new magically driven farming system in County Bonner is producing enough food to increase my revenues by nearly fifty percent in the last year. I don't suppose that your new Counselor being co-owner of the endeavor with your brother in-law has anything to do with this sudden desire for lower tariffs does it, Sire?" There was enough smarm to the words that Tor felt vaguely dirty about the whole thing, as if it were all his fault. He hadn't even known that he was in business with Duke Morgan at all. Plus, he owned farms, and they used magic? That must be in shipping and perhaps some kind of water management, since he didn't recall making anything else that might work for that kind of thing. Maybe earth moving equipment, to replace plowing? That should work, at least in theory, if used carefully enough.
Tor nearly spoke up then, but Cordes sent a single word into his mind, loudly.
'Hush.'
It was a little rude to say things like that, but the Ancient King just repeated the word and sent forward a thought that it might prove better to wait, since rising to bait almost always got you stuck in a trap.
What happened next was different than Tor would have dreamed, since instead of turning to talk about how he was clearly behind the whole thing and trying to make gold off of their backs, Count Isle cleared his throat, getting the whole room to go silent, so he could be heard.
"I believe that those farms have been being used solely to aid areas around the kingdom in need. A philanthropic activity. Counselor Baker has been paying the costs of the operation out of pocket. Are you certain you wish to begrudge him a slight easing of that burden Count Bonner? I remember a time when people wouldn't count every coin, if it were going to a good cause. Perhaps things have changed though?" He didn't look at anyone in particular when he said the words, but Count Bonner actually laughed at the man, instead of getting angry.
"Brilliant. Well, stuck my foot in it a bit then, didn't I? How was I suppose
d to know that? The gold comes in, and it's written in a ledger. Baron Bonner is quite happy with the situation. All those orphans given gainful employment. I suppose their care and upkeep comes from philanthropy as well?"
King Richard answered this time, his voice sounding remarkably pleased for some reason.
"They make enough coin to feed and care for themselves, actually, which is the point. I believe that Alyssa Baker came up with the idea, originally."
She had? When? This couldn't be a new thing or they wouldn't have had any crops coming in yet. Tor held his face still and tried not to seem shocked at all. Not even when a decent looking tall blonde woman near the far quarter of the room spoke up in a dreamy voice.
"Yes... Gretchen got me to help with that. She's ever so clever you know. Tall now too. Father was very cross when she ran away, but it was better for her, I know it was." There was a bit of strangeness to the words, but they trailed off after that and no one commented on it.
She must be Ali's oldest sister, Heidi. It seemed that the others hadn't been kidding when they talked of the horrible things that had been done to her. He hadn't heard it all, but she was the oldest and prettiest girl, so her monster of a father hadn't let her go, even after the rest managed to get out from under his thumb directly. It broke her, obviously.
The woman was family though, so Tor got ready to stand for her, if anyone tried to be mean about it. They weren't though, not at all. No one even pretended to be annoyed.
Count Bonner made a bit of a face, but only at the King and then snorted a bit, sounding cross.
"Alright, so Counselor Baker isn't trying to get rich at my expense, but I can't see how lowering the tariff rate by fifty percent will increase trade all that much. Perhaps ten percent? There has to be a line where things cross, doesn't there? Where doing too much lowers the return?"
The conversation didn't get a lot less heated, but they hammered out an agreement by the end of the session, lowering the rate by seven percent. It meant no one at all was happy, but it was a thing they could all agree with, and not lose sleep over. That it took that long to come to a simple agreement over what to charge people for the right to move goods around didn't make a lot of sense to him, but everyone else seemed to think it was brilliant work, coming to a conclusion in less than a day.
It was a bit after five when they were let out of the chamber, with most of the Counts and Countesses fairly running away from the place, probably so they wouldn't have to talk to one another on a one to one basis. The only two that were left were Count Thomson and Count Lairdgren, and the Ancient just nodded while gesturing for them to escape into the back room with the King. Smythe made a point of gesturing for Fines to come along too, his face friendlier than Tor was used to seeing it. At least when he was around. The man had a reputation for going out of his way to be kind and gentle with people, as long as they weren't Tor. Why that was, he'd never really been certain.
Probably just one of those personality conflict things.
The space looked like it had been re-purposed a bit in the last months, since Tor had been invited in. It had large chairs, but ones that were more comfortable and padded than the ones in the other room, with soft fabric covered pillows all over them and low tables to the left side of each, for drinks or papers. The color scheme was dark though, mainly in brown and black. The nice wooden tile walls had some kind of oil on them, which made the whole place smell very strongly of cedar, which wasn't unpleasant, but seemed a little odd for the space, which tended to scents like vanilla.
Rich settled into a chair that was obviously his and moved his head in a fashion that indicated the rest of them should find a place as well. It didn't take long, since they had a lot of room. Count Lairdgren who just looked at him, and then Fines for a long time, finally nodded.
"Good choice for a replacement. Master Fines is well respected in the field, and has enough years behind him that people won't think that the working group is just a school project. I would like to see the reach expanded a bit, perhaps to a few other institutions? Do you have any plans for that? We don't need a lot more builders working at that level, but scattering them a bit might be advantageous."
Tor thought he got the basic idea without being told. Too much magic was dangerous to the world. It was, he realized, something that had been coming from Cordes, not his own mind. A thing that he'd noticed from hard won observation over centuries. Every time people became too affluent, or when the ability to alter the world itself became too great, that ended badly.
He'd been considering that fact, but it was clear that more would be needed there, before too long.
No one else seemed to need to be instructed in that fact so he didn't talk about it himself either. That would just be trying to look smart, he knew. Not that he wanted to seem like a moron, but these people didn't need him to chatter at them to fill time.
"Not at present. I might have some contacts at the Printer school. I don't know what they have going on as far as building however. I should check on that." Possibly by talking to Holly, since she owned the place. Handily, she was even in the building.
Count Lairdgren smiled at him and didn't add anything else, even though it would have been normal in a conversation like that.
Richard glanced at Tovey however and didn't break eye contact.
"So, has there been any progress on what we discussed earlier?"
"Not yet. A few have asked about the Ward problem, but no one seems that concerned yet. Not openly. I'm hoping that something will break soon."
So much was left unsaid that Tor didn't have a clue what the two men were going on about, except that it seemed to have something to do with Count Ward, or possibly Maria, his wife. The men didn't explain either, which meant it was a secret, more or less. He didn't have any of those to share, so it felt a little like he was useless to the conversation. On the good side, everyone got a turn, more or less, except Instructor Fines, who just sat peacefully, looking old and a bit like he didn't belong in the Palace.
Tor could relate, remembering what it had been like his first ten or twenty times himself. Talk about something to make you uneasy. It wasn't just the finery either, but the fact that there were all those Royals hanging about, like they were waiting for you to make a mistake so they could pounce. They never did though, even when he messed things up pretty badly. That probably meant they liked him, he figured.
The conversation shifted a after about five minutes, to his current plans, of all things. He was a little bit chagrined, but he told the truth, wondering if Smythe or Rich would yell at him for being so lazy.
"I'm just planning to take a break for a while. This latest thing, with the healing devices is probably enough disruption to be going on with. In a few months I need to check in with Denno and make certain he has a handle on his Larval Assassins. If not, I'll probably have to kill them all." He wanted to claim he had some kind of major working planned, but really didn't. Not at all. "I might go and see what some of the various business holdings are getting up to and all that."
There was no yelling at all, in fact Smythe grinned as if it were a present for him personally.
"Very good! If you're looking for a worthy project, young Timon mentioned that some of the citizens of the Capital have been liberating water from the glowing river. They use it for garden plots around the city, perhaps you've noticed? The problem is that the boards and planks they use to interrupt the stream seem to be eating away the wall at the top in places. I hate to tell them they need to stop, but we can't actually afford to have the wall taken down in large divots at the moment. Would it be possible to come up with a fix for that? One that might leave people with the ability to have their gardens?" The older man looked at Tor frankly, as if it were some kind of actual problem , rather than a simple fix that would take less than a day.
"All that's needed is a variation of a water pump, designed to spray water over a large area rather than make a single stream of it. I've made several things that can do
that already, so it isn't even a new build. When do you want it by?"
There was a bit of hesitation as the men looked at each other and then oddly at Count Lairdgren and Tovey, who crossed his arms.
It was the King who answered.
"Well... We don't want to take away from your current plans or force you to do free labor. What would such a project cost?" It was a strange thing to ask about, but Tor thought he got it. They owed him too much gold already and didn't want to increase the debt. That meant he was probably being a jerk about it again, not spending enough. That or the Prince was, since he controlled the treasury funds. Those shouldn't be building up that fast though, unless the interest rate was really that high?
"Nothing. In fact I won't even be doing the build or copy work on it. I have a person in mind for that. She might not be able to do it very fast though. I'll pay and we can hire some people to do the gardening portion for the kingdom, in the places that aren't being used. Maybe set up some orchards? This place could use some trees." That got Smythe to smile at least, though the others still looked tense, except for Fines who simply touched his hairless chin.
He leaned in a bit, but addressed Tor directly.
"Whom do you have in mind for the project? Some of the newer members of the Lairdgren Group? It would be a decent place for them to start. It might take them out of their projected schedules however."
He shook his head a bit, trying not to frown.
"No, I was thinking that I'd get my little sister to do it. Maybe see if any of the rest of them can manage some copy work. I might have to run up a template for it, but it seems a good project for them."
Count Lairdgren nodded at least, though he didn't get it at all.
"Tiera has been working on meditation skills and has the basic ability. I was going to ask after her. Losing a friend like that can be hard. They didn't know each other long, which will make it easier in the long run, but for the coming months she'll need to be watched."
Tor wanted to roll his eyes, but the man, no matter how young looking he seemed, was an elder, which meant he deserved respect. Even if he'd missed the actual point.
