as impecunious.
Demansk fought down a harsh grin. He didn't doubt for a moment that Willech assumed that he had swindled a fair share of the Redvers estate. Which, as it happened, was not true. Demansk was one of the few officials in the Confederate government who relied on the workings of his own estates for his fortune.
That, and the merchant establishments and manufactories which Demansk had begun investing in several years earlier, once he came to realize that agriculture alone was a risky basis for maintaining a family fortune. Of course, he'd been careful to use an elaborate network of 'cutouts' for the purpose. Partly to protect his investments against his many enemies in the officialdom, but mostly because Vanbert custom did not allow a nobleman to engage in anything as low and disreputable as manufacturing and trade.
Unless, of course, it was the trade in slaves arising from conquest. Over the years, Demansk had augmented his fortune considerably from that particular trade. Like any successful military commander, slaves were part of his booty. But, even as a young man, it had struck him odd that the most savage and bestial of all forms of trade should be the only one acceptable to the Confederate elite. Looking back on it from the perspective of middle age, he thought it was that experience which first began sowing the seeds of doubt in his mind as to the health of his own society.
He decided he'd allowed enough time to lapse in these idle ruminations. When he spoke, his voice was even more clipped and hard than Willech's.
'That's Triumvir Demansk, Governor Willech, and I trust I won't have to remind you of it again. The penalties for disrespect to state officials are severe.' As in mutilation for a first offense, he left unspoken. Even though, in practice, a nobleman like Willech would rarely suffer that penalty-not for a first offense-it remained a possibility. More than a few of the noblemen who had been distantly connected with the Redvers rebellion were walking around today with their left arms ending at their wrists rather than their fingertips.
'As for the danger of rebellion,' he continued harshly, 'that is your problem, not mine. I am charged with the task of conquering the Western Isles-a martial feat which has never been accomplished in the history of the Confederacy. You, on the other hand, are charged with the simple task of maintaining public order in a province- something which any competent governor can manage easily with a bit of thought and effort.'
He rose to his feet. Unlike Willech, he had been sitting erect on his couch, and could thus rise easily and quickly. An old soldier's habit, that. 'I will also remind you that, not so many years ago, I was the governor of this very province. And I managed to keep order, with no difficulty at all, using only two regiments.'
Willech's face was like a nut, now, hard and wrinkled. Demansk gave him a smile which ended just short of a sneer.
'Of course, I used those troops to check the worst depredations of the tax farmers. Instead of using them to enforce outright robbery. I dare say you'll have the same success, if you adopt my methods.'
Willech's face, as impossible as it seemed, tightened even further. But he said nothing.
What was there to say? Since becoming governor of the province three years earlier, Willech had attempted to extricate himself from his bad loans by squeezing the Emeralds mercilessly. It was an open secret that Governor Willech was taking a cut from every tax farmer in the northern province. That was illegal, under Confederate law. But, for several generations now, Demansk had been one of the few governors to obey that law. The main attraction to becoming a governor nowadays, in fact, was that the post allowed just such chicanery. The modern Vanbert aristocracy, most of whose members couldn't tell one end of a pig from the other, raised taxes the same way their ancestors raised swine.
Not even that, really. No swineherd was stupid enough to think that the way to get rich was to starve his pigs.
Demansk realized that Willech was going to remain silent. Not saying anything was, ultimately, the last resort the governor had. If he said 'no,' he would be in open rebellion. Demansk had enough of his own troops in Solinga now to crush all six of Willech's regiments-even assuming they would obey the Governor, which was highly doubtful. And if he said 'yes,' he would be officially acquiescing to Demansk's demand.
Demansk decided he could live with the silence. By the time Willech could even begin to figure out a way to circumvent Demansk's plans, it would be too late anyway. Unlike the Governor, the Triumvir was popular with the army. And he knew already which four regiments he was going to select. The best, naturally, with the best officers. The commanders of three of those four regiments were former proteges of his, in fact, and he'd already spoken to them privately.
So, matching silence with silence, he turned on his heel and marched out of the Governor's private audience chamber. He even closed the door himself on his way out, before a slave could do so. Partly, because he thought a formal display of politeness was to his advantage. Mostly, because he wanted to test the door a bit-in case it proved necessary to come back through it at the head of a squad of soldiers.
Which, he suspected, would happen very soon. Demansk had plans for Willech's money as well as his soldiers. And unless he was badly mistaken, the Governor would part with the latter far more readily than the former.
The docks were swarming by the time Demansk got there. Not with soldiers, or sailors, but with Emerald workmen drawn by the rumors sweeping the city of a massive new shipbuilding project. Governor Willech's tax farmers had, in a few short years, impoverished half the artisanry of the northern province-along with most of its fishermen and all of its peasants. Most of the workmen teeming on the piers and in the harbor taverns were shipwrights and other skilled craftsmen; or fishermen, whose trade was closely related. But many of them were simply farmers who had abandoned their land, with nothing to sell except a strong back and pair of hands.
Demansk surveyed the scene from the flat top of the building he had sequestered as his temporary headquarters. The building was typical of the better-built edifices of the Emerald country. Mudbrick and wood, true, where Confederates would have used stone. But in the sunny and dry Emerald climate, mudbrick and wood covered with paint was a perfectly durable building material. Especially given the excellence of Emerald tile-making, still the best in the world.
As he stood atop the tiled roof, three stories above street level and with a good view of the city's great harbor, Demansk allowed no trace of satisfaction to show on his face. For the project he had in mind, he would need a lot of strong backs and willing hands. Not simply to make the gigantic fleet he planned to build, but to man the oars on those ships afterward. Demansk took no pleasure in the poverty and misery of others, but he would not hesitate to use it for his purpose. If nothing else, he could assuage his feelings of guilt by remembering that, in the end, he would use the depredations of men like Willech to break them.
The immediate goal of his projected fleet, of course, was the conquest of the Western Isles. But Demansk thought he could show the world a new trick in the old repertoire of dictators. Since he planned, among other things, to use the shipbuilding campaign to create a great industrial center in Solinga, he would demonstrate that workmen could form as effective a mass base as small landholders.
Give a poor and desperate man a stake in the world-any kind of stake-and a stake which depended upon a tyrant's shield for its shelter…
'How many, do you think?' he asked Olver. His son, at Demansk's command, had taken charge of the Triumvir's temporary headquarters while Demansk was visiting the Governor. He was now standing beside his father on the roof of the building, staring down at the mob in the streets below.
'The gods only know,' he muttered. 'You wouldn't believe how deeply Willech's gouged these people. I just found out he even started taxing the Grove a few months ago.'
Despite himself, Demansk was startled. For all their frequently derisive remarks about effete Emerald philosophers, the Confederate aristocracy had long since adopted much of Emerald culture for their own. Every Vanbert nobleman, and most noblewomen, were fluent in the language of the northern province. Demansk was by no means uncommon in having read most of the Emeralds' great poetry, and seen most of their famous dramas. He'd even read a respectable amount of their most important philosophical works.
The Grove, the traditional academy for training Emerald scholars, was thus almost as venerated an institution
