Madness in Solidar

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Then … there will be no increases in tariffs?” Haebyn began to smile.

  Alastar understood that Vaun was going to take the easy way, the political way, and make Alastar lay out the terms. “There will be tariff increases.” Alastar looked squarely at Haebyn. “I’m not asking the High Council to consider an increase in tariffs. The Collegium and I have had enough of this bickering over coppers. Rex Lorien will publish a tariff increasing the tariffs by four coppers on a gold for the coming year, and announce the possibility of smaller increases in the following years.”

  “That’s opening the gates to continual increases,” protested Nacryon.

  “You cannot possibly expect the High Council to agree…?” Haebyn’s tone was somewhere between dismissive and snide.

  “Then, one by one, beginning with you, every remaining High Holder on the Council will die, until the Council agrees.”

  “That is a strong promise. You cannot—”

  Alastar clamped shields around Haebyn, then continued as the High Holder began to turn red. “Marshal Demykalon is gone. Rex Ryen is gone. High Holder Guerdyn is gone. A half a battalion of troopers are gone. Do you really believe that we cannot remove enough of you that any of this High Council will remain?”

  Haebyn flushed even more, unable to speak. Nacryon swallowed and glanced from Haebyn to Vaun, then to Alastar. Moeryn nodded.

  After several moments of silence, Alastar released the shields.

  Haebyn offered an explosive exhalation and then began to gasp for breath, staggering and putting his hands on the table to steady himself.

  “Are you sure that Rex Lorien will agree?” asked Vaun mildly.

  “Rex Lorien has declared that he will have a proposal ready later this week. He has also asked Acting Marshal Petayn for a plan to reduce the number of army regiments, and to transfer some to locations along the Southern Gulf in order to reduce piracy by eliminating shore bases for piracy.” Alastar wasn’t about to mention the naval marines, because they would be needed far more than land troopers. “Sea Marshal Wilkorn has been asked to provide a plan to build some smaller craft to deal with the pirates and for a longer-term increase of larger vessels to combat the larger ships of Jariola and Ferrum. Depending on the actions of the High Council and the High Holders, there may be an even greater shift in time.”

  “And if they go back on their word?” asked Vaun.

  “Then the Collegium will be forced to deal with them once again.”

  “Why is the Collegium insisting on this so … forcefully?” Vaun’s voice remained level.

  “Because it appears that no one else wishes to reach an agreement. The Collegium does not wish to suffer any more injury and insult. Imagisle is a mass of rubble. Many young imagers are wounded. Some may not live. You have suffered comparatively little. These terms are indeed a bargain for you. If you do not wish to accept that bargain, we will be more than happy to increase the price.”

  “That’s not a bargain,” declared Haebyn. “You’re imposing your will on others.”

  “Absolutely. But both you and Rex Ryen wished to impose your wills on each other and Solidar suffered. So did the Collegium. We’re insisting on compromise. We’re not even asking for anything more.”

  “This is absurd,” declared Nacryon. “We have no choice.”

  “Oh … yes, you do. The same one that Rex Ryen or Marshal Demykalon had. It is a choice. A few coppers more on each gold, and the rest of your life to enjoy most of those golds.”

  “It is a choice,” observed Vaun. “Not terribly appealing…”

  “You have a choice,” pointed out Alastar. “So did Ryen. The student imagers who were killed had none. Nor did the cooks who died preparing dinner, nor … a great number of innocents.” Alastar offered another cold smile. “I won’t ask for your decision. The Collegium will act—or not—based on what it is. Good day.”

  A small pistol appeared in Haebyn’s hand, firing as it appeared.

  The unexpected impact on Alastar’s shields forced him back, even as the small iron ball rebounded from those shields.

  “Dear me.” Alastar drew out the words, then imaged a long knife through each of Haebyn’s boots and deep into the carpet and tile floor beneath, pinning Haebyn in place.

  The High Holder screamed, if but for an instant.

  Nacryon stood there, his mouth open.

  Even Vaun swallowed. The faintest smile crossed Moeryn’s face, but was gone so quickly that Alastar doubted any of the other High Holders had even seen it.

  “I won’t be nearly so generous if any of you should be so foolish as to attempt any further violence upon any member of the Collegium.” With that, Alastar turned and walked from the study, strengthening his shields more as he did.

  The footman, who had obviously been watching surreptitiously, scurried ahead of Alastar and hurried to the entry hall, where he quickly opened the door.

  As he rode from the Chateau D’Council, Alastar still found himself amazed that Haebyn would have been so stupid as to use a pistol, especially given how unreliable they supposedly were. Except even Demykalon had said the single-shot weapons were reliable, and Haebyn’s was probably forged specially with great attention to detail and likely cost more than an imager maitre’s stipend for an entire year. But had the High Holder been stupid or just unable to believe that anyone could force him to compromise? You may indeed be unable to make him agree. If so, Solidar would suffer no great loss at his absence.

  By the time Alastar returned to the Collegium and answered questions from Dareyn and Arhgen, then checked with Akoryt about whether his scouts had discovered anything—and they had not, not yet—it was time for him to leave for his meeting with Rex Lorien.

  Again, Coermyd and Neiryn accompanied him. They had little to say on the ride, and Alastar had less, trying to think about all the possible stratagems Lorien might possibly be trying … and what he could do in each case.

  When Alastar did walk into the rex’s study, Lorien turned from the window where he stood and said pleasantly, “We need to go down to the treasury strong room, Maitre.”

  Alastar followed the young rex from the study to a narrow circular staircase that descended two levels, presumably, he thought, to the lowest level. A few steps down the corridor, they stopped outside an iron gate, with two guards. Lorien produced a set of keys and opened both locks. The antechamber within held a second locked door, which Lorien opened as well. The chamber beyond held twelve ironbound chests, each with a ledger chained to it. In turn, Lorien unlocked each of the eleven and lifted the lids.

  “A simple system,” the rex declared. “A chest for each month’s revenues, and two for what might be left at the end of the previous year, and a ledger to record what is received and what is disbursed. I’d like you to look into each chest.”

  Alastar began with the chest labeled IANUS. It was empty. So were those for the next five months. The chest for Agostas was roughly a quarter full, holding, Alastar estimated by mentally comparing it to the chests at the Collegium, two thousand golds. The chest for Erntyn held possibly twice that. The chests for Feuillyt and Finitas were, expectedly to Alastar, empty. Of the last two chests, each four times as large as any of the others, one was empty, and the other perhaps half full. Still, given the size of the previous year’s chests, there had to be somewhere more than fifteen thousand golds remaining in the treasury.

  “The chest for Feuillyt there,” Lorien gestured. “It should be filled by now. And the carryover chests should have half again what they do.”

  “The Feuillyt chest is empty because your father didn’t work things out with the High Holders.”

  “According to Minister Salucar, in previous years, until three years ago, half of those chests held golds even before the year’s tariffs were collected.”

  “The crops have been bad all over Solidar this year.”

  “Tariffs were too low to provide reserves, and now…” Lorien’s face turned even more somber. “We’ll go bac
k to the study. You need to see something else before we speak more.”

  Once the two had climbed the staircase and stood in the study, Lorien pointed to the ledger on the desk. “That’s Salucar’s master ledger. I assume there’s something similar at the Collegium?”

  “There is. There’s a copy near my desk all the time. There was, at least, until the cannon fire set the administration building aflame and the fire destroyed it and most of the records.”

  “Go ahead,” Lorien said. “Read the last few pages. Read any pages you wish for that matter.”

  Alastar studied the entries on the last pages, then flipped to the front of the ledger and read several pages there, comparing a number of entries.

  “What do you think now, Maitre?”

  “Do you happen to have a master ledger from several years ago?”

  Lorien frowned, then said. “From two years ago.” He walked to the small cabinet against the wall, behind the desk and toward the window, opened it, and took out another ledger, which he handed to Alastar.

  Although he was conscious of Lorien’s impatience and scrutiny, Alastar forced himself to check several of the entries for 387 A.L. before setting the older ledger beside the first. He had been initially stunned by the amount of golds in the chests in Lorien’s treasury strong room—fifteen thousand or even close to twenty thousand golds—until he had gone over the ledgers and realized that the total amounted to less than a season’s expenditures from all the rex’s accounts.

  The costs for running the Collegium were more than a hundred golds a week, and the Collegium was roughly the size of a battalion of troopers. Even given that troopers were paid considerably less, on average, than imagers and the Collegium workers, the army alone would require over a hundred thousand golds a year, just in pay, and the weekly disbursements for pay for the army confirmed that. Roughly ten thousand a month … and Lorien has only some twenty thousand or so left, with doubtless lower tariffs coming in. And that didn’t even count everything else.

  Once again, that brought home to Alastar that the one thing the late Ryen hadn’t been unreasonable—or mad—about was the need for higher tariffs. Or a much smaller army … if not both.

  “Well … Maitre?” demanded Lorien.

  “As I’ve said all along, both to your father and you, you need both higher tariffs and a smaller army.”

  “Marshal Petayn thinks the army is too small, as it is.”

  “There’s a small problem with the marshal’s figures,” Alastar said. “Two years ago, the army pay disbursements were running fifteen hundred golds a week. They’re now costing you a little over two thousand. Pay for the army alone is up one part in five. That doesn’t include food. While your father and you have been struggling to make ends meet, and not repairing roads and sewers, and the like, the army is costing you an additional twenty-five thousand golds a year for two more regiments than ordered—regiments that aren’t even being used.”

  “I’m not sure I believe you.”

  Alastar shrugged. “Those are the numbers from your master ledger. Petayn and Demykalon both admitted that they have two more army regiments than ordered … and that doesn’t include the two regiments of naval marines. I still agree with the need for higher tariffs, but not at the levels your father proposed. Cut out those extra regiments, say, back to four or five regiments, and in time you’ll have an additional thirty to fifty thousand more golds to pay for other needs … and that’s without the additional funds from higher tariffs.”

  “I’ll have to think about that.”

  Alastar was perfectly willing to let Lorien think it over. That was a start in cutting back a bloated and unnecessary army. “The High Council requested I meet with them yesterday.”

  “What did they have to say?”

  “They’re waiting for your formal declaration of next year’s tariffs. I said that I’d recommended an increase of four coppers on the gold, with likely smaller increases in years to come to make up, as necessary, past deficits.”

  “Recommended? Dictated, as I recall.”

  “They’ll most likely accept four coppers and future increases.”

  “You haven’t left me much choice.”

  “If you insist on more, you’ll likely have a High Holder rebellion on your hands, a great number of unhappy factors, and a very unhappy Collegium.” What Alastar didn’t need to say was that, whatever happened, the senior officers of the army were going to be less than pleased. While he had wanted to bring up the matter of rescinding Ryen’s reduction in the monthly stipend received by the Collegium, it was clear that doing so would be singularly inappropriate and unwise at the moment.

  “What other less than pleasing news do you have?”

  “Besides the fact that the Collegium still has two buildings in ruins, that we can’t immediately get to finishing the new avenue, that the sewer repairs we promised to the factors’ council will be delayed, and that Petayn will violently oppose, if he has not already, cuts to the numbers of army regiments … and that the longer you delay in proposing the new tariff schedule, the longer before you’ll receive this year’s tariffs.”

  “That’s quite enough for today, Maitre. I will see you tomorrow at fourth glass.” Lorien’s voice was firm, just short of being curt.

  Alastar couldn’t blame him, but men who were rulers did inherit the sins of their fathers. “Then, tomorrow at fourth glass.” He inclined his head and walked from the study, all too conscious of Lorien’s eyes on his back.

  Belatedly, as Alastar rode back toward the Collegium, he realized something else he’d totally overlooked. Why hadn’t Ryen—and now Lorien—placed at least some of the golds with the larger merchant bankers or even the relatively new Banque D’Excelsis … so that he could earn some interest? None of them could afford to default, not without losing everything; so the risk wouldn’t have been that great. Or didn’t anyone think of that? Except Salucar certainly should have thought of that possibility. Or had he, and had Ryen refused to consider the possibility?

  Either way, Alastar wasn’t going to bring that up, at least not for a while. Even if it is another sign of shortsightedness.

  34

  Eighth glass on Meredi morning found Alastar stepping into the small study at Elthyrd’s wood factorage.

  “Well, Maitre Alastar, you were more accurate than I was. I did not think that old Dafou was that mad.” Elthyrd reseated himself and gestured for Alastar to sit down in one of the chairs before the stark goldenwood table desk.

  “More arrogant than mad, I fear, and partly with just cause, but ordering cannon to fire upon innocent students was not forgivable, either for Demykalon or Ryen.”

  “Do you really think that all this will change anything for long?”

  “That will depend on whether the High Council and Rex Lorien can work out the tariff agreement … and how far Lorien is willing to go with the army.”

  “The army? What does that have to do with it?”

  “A great deal, unfortunately, since Demykalon and his predecessor increased its size by two full regiments, four, if you include the two regiments of naval marines. That amounts to more than fifty thousand golds just for troopers and officers.”

  “Fifty thousand?”

  Alastar nodded. “Marshal Petayn seems to be trying to convince the rex not to reduce the size of the army. If Lorien does not, I doubt that he will have enough golds to get through the next year.”

  “You’re saying that if young Lorien does, he’ll have trouble with the army.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “It’s the same thing.” Elthyrd shook his head. “How soon will Rex Lorien begin building more warships to fight the pirates?”

  “That is the rex’s decision, but I cannot imagine it would be before next year,” replied Alastar cautiously.

  “Next year? I lost two shares when the Pride of Thuyl went down last month, and another share in Agostas when the Southern Gulf pirates captured and converted the Chevan.�
�� The factor’s voice rose as he continued. “No one is doing anything. The Sea Marshal claims his warships can’t go into the shallow waters north of Lucayl.”

  “Wasn’t the Chevan retaken?”

  “If you can call it that. The Rex Clayar turned her into kindling and towed the wreck back to Solis. The pirates had already off-loaded the cargo. You tell me that it will be two years before…” Elthyrd shook his head.

  “The higher tariffs don’t take effect until next year. Also, the sea marshal needs to have a shallow-water warship designed, one that will go where the pirates are.”

  “That kind of ship is much less costly to build.”

  “I’m sure it is, but the rex is short of golds, and Marshal Petayn doesn’t want to reduce the army, as I mentioned, and Sea Marshal Wilkorn is more concerned about the Ferran and Jariolan fleets than pirates.”

  “Petayn doesn’t need all those troopers at headquarters. They’re useless. You and you imagers already proved that.”

  “If Rex Lorien immediately reduces the number of regiments near L’Excelsis, by half, which is what is necessary, at a minimum, you’ll have over three thousand, possibly up to five thousand footloose troopers and junior officers, plus some unnecessary field-grade and senior officers. If they’re released without stipends or some recompense, that might result in a bit of local brigandage … and great unrest on the part of the remaining troopers, who will worry that they’ll get the same treatment.”

  “So what was the point of all this, if nothing is saved and no new ships are built?”

  “Saving golds and building ships over time … unless you want to pay higher tariffs this year,” replied Alastar. “You could, of course, ask for a meeting with Rex Lorien and bring up those questions to him personally.”