‘However, whatever my incapacities, please be assured that I am unconscious of any error I have made. I have always served the Bank to the best of my ability, and it is my desire to do so in the future.’
Thus Alfric.
Comptroller Xzu smiled.
‘You defend yourself well,’ said Xzu. ‘However, you are not under attack.’
‘I’m not?’
‘Whatever gave you the idea that you were? Have I indulged in curses or fulminations? Have I quoted unpleasant anecdotes against you? Have I made any critiques whatsoever? No. I have not.’
Not for the first time, Alfric realized that Comptroller Xzu no longer possessed a native’s fluency with Toxteth. Xzu had spent so much of his life living in foreign parts that his use of the syntax and vocabulary of his birth tongue had become strangely stilted.
Really, Xzu was scarcely a citizen of Wen Endex at all. Rather, he belonged to that strange meta-nation created by the Partnership Banks; he lived in a world where market movements and currency fluctuations in Dalar ken Halvar or Chi’ash-lan were as present and as important to him as any events taking place in riverside Galsh Ebrek.
‘While I have no criticism to make of you,’ said Xzu, ‘I do have a demand. My demand — which is the Bank’s demand — is outlined in this document which I would like you to read.’
Alfric suspected that something uncommonly unpleasant was afoot. Bankers often committed to paper that which they were loathe to voice.
With great apprehension, Alfric took the document which Xzu extended to him.
And read.
The document was long and windy, but the gist of it was simple. Basically, it asked Alfric to delay the freeing of the Wormlord and the campaigning against Herself by seven days. Why? Because of certain unspecified ‘diplomatic contingencies’.
Alfric read it once.
Read it twice.
Then He should by rights have read it a third time, to give himself opportunity for reflection. After all, in diplomacy, time spent in meditation is never wasted. So it is written in the Bank’s Book of Wisdom, and the Bank should know.
But Alfric, at that moment, was in no mood for meditation. The demand the Bank was making was outrageous. How was he to delay the Knights? Those heroes were enraptured by enthusiasm for the project the Bank itself had schemed up, and no amount of rhetoric was likely to halt them.
‘You know,’ said Alfric, anger making him uncommonly audacious, ‘this demand puts me in a very difficult position. In fact, it might almost have been calculated to cause me the maximum difficulty. What is this? Some kind of half-arsed test of my ability?’
‘No, Alfric,’ said Xzu. ‘This is not a kind of practical examination. For reasons which I am currently not at liberty to reveal, certain complications have arisen vis-a-vis our plans to put you on the throne. These complications can doubtless be resolved in due course, but, for the moment, we need to call a halt to the action. We need you to stop the Yudonic Knights from doing what they plan to do.’
‘What the Bank planned for them to do!’ said Alfric. ‘The Bank made certain plans, yes,’ said Xzu. ‘But now these have changed. And surely it is a banker’s duty to change when the Bank does. You would not put personal ambition ahead of your duty to the Bank, would you? Or would you?
‘This is where my earlier question is pertinent. I asked if you were a narcissist. I asked whether you put too great a value on satisfying your own ego. You answered in the negative. You made yourself out to be a loyal servant of the Bank, and expressed a desire to serve the Bank always to the best of your ability.
‘That is how you spoke when our debate was being conducted on a purely theoretical level. Do you now wish to revise your commitment when you come face to face with the practical application of theory? Talk is easy, and you talk most beautifully. Deeds are another thing. Are you going to flinch from the exertion that deeds demand? Where is your honour, Alfric?’
So spoke Xzu.
Then sat back, leaving Alfric struggling with wordless frustration.
Despite his undiminished anger, Alfric had to admire the cunning of the great Comptroller Xzu. Oh yes. Xzu had manoeuvred Alfric nicely, prompting him into making declarations of loyalty. And now Xzu was using those declarations of leverage, speaking of ‘honour’, the watchword by which the Yudonic Knights wished to live.
Xzu was using Alfric’s knightly heritage against him.
And Xzu had also reminded Alfric that the Bank existed for its own purposes — for the increase of its own wealth, power and influence — and that personal ambition and ego meant nothing to the Bank. If Alfric wished to rise in the Bank, then he must do what the Bank wished, regardless of how outrageous that might be.
Never before had Alfric faced that truth so clearly.
Of course, it was something he had always known. The marginalization of personal concerns is a characteristic of every large organization, and the Partnership Banks were as large as they come.
Even so, Alfric was almost stupefied to find himself being manipulated so shamelessly, tossed about like a cork on the storm-seas of politics. One day the Bank demands the release of the Wormlord. So a Danbrog must be commanded to arrange it. A little later, political concerns (What political concerns? Alfric was almost ready to kill to know!) demanded that the release of the Wormlord be delayed. So a Danbrog must arrange that, too, regardless of the difficulties and embarrassments involved.
‘Well?’ said Banker Xzu.
‘I wonder,’ said Alfric, ‘if you have the slightest idea of the enormity of what you’re asking.’
‘Enormity?’ said Xzu.
‘I have given my word to my father and all the Yudonic Knights who were gathered together with him,’ said Alfric. ‘I have allied myself to their grand adventure. I have-’
‘Yes, yes, I know all that,’ said Xzu. ‘I was bom and raised here, the same as you were.’
‘Then you know that you’re being totally unreasonable,’ said Alfric. ‘I can’t make and break my word to my father and my father’s peers just because your policies change as — as casually as the weather. ’
‘Can’t you?’ said Xzu.
The waxen composure of this banker-comptroller was making Alfric steadily more angry. He was a Danbrog. A man in his own right. Not a thing of putty to be moulded into whatever shape the Bank chose. Or was he? Once again, he was brought face to face with the uncompromising nature of the organization. If he wanted to rise in the Partnership Banks, then he would have to surrender all personal freedom. His subservience to the organization would have to be absolute.
No formal bonds of slavery had been laid upon Alfric Danbrog, but, thanks to his ambition, he was a slave regardless, bound to the Bank with ties almost as strong as those of blood. Because he wanted to rise in the organization, he had to measure his every public word (and most of his private speech) by what the Bank might think. Because of his status in the organization, he was never entirely off duty.
Alfric knew then that it was useless to strive to be a man in his own right unless he was prepared to break free from the organization. Was he? No. He was wedded to the institution because it was the institution that offered him his chance of power, of influence, of glory.
For a moment, Alfric felt something close to despair.
Then he realized this kind of thinking belonged to his past.
He was no longer a slave of the Bank, for his future was almost upon him, and his future was to be king. Once he had met Herself in combat, once he had made himself a hero, then the Bank would have to support him in his drive for the throne. And even if the Bank did not, why, the Yudonic Knights would put him on the throne regardless. The movement to enthrone Grendelson Danbrog was rapidly gathering momentum, and nothing could stop it now.
Nothing except Alfric’s death.
He might die when he went up against Herself.
Oh yes, he might die indeed.
But that was a risk he would have to run.
‘Come,’ said Xzu, ‘we have wasted enough time on this. The directive from the Bank is clear. We ask you for
