March To The Sea

things kept right on going from bad to worse until I . . . persuaded him to let me advise him. After which the business recovered.'

'Our device translated that as 'persuaded,' ' the chief of staff observed, toying with her wineglass. She supposed, given the restaurant's obviously costly fixtures and the jewelry of the other patrons, that the wine must be an expensive vintage, but it was also thin and tasteless as vinegar. 'Would that be an accurate translation?'

'The term she actually used has overtones of gentle persuasion,' Tre agreed. 'However, in the context, it can be assumed that the reverse was true.'

'I had two thugs accost him and threaten to break both his false-arms if he didn't put me back in control.' The widow made a dismissive gesture. 'Of course, they never said they were working for me. In fact, they didn't know they were. I'd hired them through a friend of my husband's, and they believed they were from a moneyman Tareim owed money to. Since part of the arrangement that put me back in charge also put me in direct contact with the moneyman and left me controlling all of Tareim's payments to him, no one was ever the wiser.'

She chuckled softly, and the humans joined her.

'A neat solution to the problem,' O'Casey said. 'But what did this have to do with the sealift?'

'I'd built up a small fleet of ships by the time the Boman swept down from the north. When Therdan was surrounded and I realized the barbarians had no intention of stopping with the cities of the League, I decided that it would be good to move my base of operations, so I'd already arranged to shift everything to the Cove.' Fullea picked at her dinner for a moment. 'At first, when the Boman surrounded D'Sley in turn, there was a great deal of money to be made from ferrying rich nobles to the Cove. But then all of those who could pay to go were gone, and there were still all those people left.'

She made another gesture of resignation.

'She organized the fishermen,' Tre took up the story. 'And the cargo barges. Begged, bullied—whatever it took—and started moving anyone who turned up at the docks across to K'Vaern's Cove.'

'Not able-bodied men,' the widow countered. 'Not until the Seven tried to leave, anyway.'

'Yes,' the nobleman agreed with a grimace of distaste. 'The Council tried to flee in the middle of Fullea's evacuation—on private boats, and without telling the military commanders, most of whom were mercenaries, anyway.'

'That's when it all came apart,' Fullea sighed. 'We still refused to take soldiers if there were women and children, but more and more of the soldiers turned up. Then they started seizing the boats and not coming back. Finally, we called it off.'

'You could see where the Boman were by the burning houses,' the nobleman said quietly. 'It was raining, hard, so the flames didn't spread from house to house—not on their own . . . but you could see the fires marking their line of advance.'

'You were there,' Kostas said.

'Sam held the rearguard for quite a time,' Fullea responded. 'But then he was wounded, and some of his men brought him down to the docks and loaded him on one of the ships. It was almost the last one out.'

The nobleman clapped his hands in a Mardukan shrug. 'After that, it got very bad. The final ships out . . . what they saw wasn't good.'

'Sacks of heavily defended cities are like that,' O'Casey said. 'Fortunately, we humans, as a society, are pretty much past that. We had a bad period about a thousand years ago—the Dagger Years that caused the formation of the Empire. But since then, we haven't experienced organized pillaging. Not of major cities, at any rate.'

The chief of staff toyed with the limp vegetables of a side dish.

'Are you going to go back?' she asked. 'When the Boman settle down or move back north?'

The nobleman made a gesture of uncertainty.

'The Boman have vowed to remain on the southern lands until all of the cities of the south are destroyed, including K'Vaern's Cove,' he said. 'So we can only return if the Cove survives, and even if the Boman don't overwhelm the city walls, the Cove is weakening day by day while they squat on the timber and ore and fields. When the Boman leave, there may not be any reason to return.'

'For me, I don't know,' Fullea said. 'I lost everything in the ferry efforts and the Battle of the Bay.' She pointed at the two small necklaces she wore. 'Would I wear a pair of simple coll pearl necklaces if I had more left? No bracelets, no rings. No ships, no funds. For me, it's all to do over.' She made another gesture of regret. 'I'm old. I'm not sure it's in me to start over again.'

'There's also a labor problem,' Tre pointed out. 'We lost much of our population fighting the Boman. At least, much of our labor force. All we have left are . . .'

'Women and children,' O'Casey said with a glance at Matsugae.

'Yes,' the nobleman confirmed.

'And then there's the whole sticky political question,' the widow added with a grunt of laughter, and the nobleman sighed.

'Too true. The Council lost all its political capital when its members tried to flee, and all the noble houses are now stained with the same reputation.'

'But the nobles had portable funds,' Fullea pointed out, 'so they're the only ones with the money to rebuild the city.'

'And no one trusts them to rebuild it and stay the course?' the valet murmured. 'I can think of half a dozen ways to fix that.'

'So can I,' O'Casey said. 'More, of course, but I think your half dozen are probably the same as the ones on my shortlist. Just one would be to offer shares in ownership to K'Vaernian interests. That's your funding problem solved right there. Offer lesser shares and a small stipend to volunteers from K'Vaern's Cove interested in rebuilding the city. Things like that. You'd end up with a limited corporation managing the city. However, it would be an economic vassal of K'Vaern's Cove.'

'That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard of,' Tre said. 'Who's in charge?'

'The chief executive, strictly limited by a binding charter,' Matsugae said, and glanced at O'Casey. 'Therean Five?'

'Something along those lines, anyway,' the chief of staff replied, taking an absentminded bite of limp vegetables. 'But, in general, societies like that are lousy in wartime. Therean Five was a special case of a homogenous militaristic agrarian society.' She paused and chuckled. 'With a really funny charter, if you're a history buff.'

' 'And this time, we really, really mean it,' ' Matsugae quoted. 'And the majority and minority opinions of the framers are required for every amendment.'

'Right,' O'Casey agreed, then turned back to Fullea and Tre. 'But if that wouldn't work here, you could try a limited monarchy, like the Empire. The nobles get an upper house with specific powers, the commoners get a lower house with specific powers, and there's a hereditary executive that must be approved by both houses. Various other restrictions and controls have to be cranked in as well, of course. The judicial branch, for example. And it's very important for long-term success to provide for ongoing periodic replenishment of the upper house. Like I said, lots of details, but that's the broad outline.'

'Do you know all the details?' Fullea asked after a moment's pause.

'You could say I have a firm academic grasp of them,' O'Casey replied with a smile. 'One point about it— whatever system you use, you really need to have either unlimited suffrage or citizenship through service. Muzzling half your population won't work as technology advances.'

'You're speaking of giving women political power,' Tre said.

'Yep.'

The nobleman glanced over at his dinner partner, his body language clearly troubled.

'While there are certainly individuals  . . .'

'Oh, shut up, Sam,' the widow said tartly. 'There was no reason—outside of some truly stupid laws written by men—why Tareim should have inherited, and he squandered it all until I forced him to give it back. And there are other women who could do just as well as I did—possibly better.'

'But few are prepared for it, or able for that matter,' the nobleman argued.

'How do you know until you try?' O'Casey asked. 'I've heard this argument throughout this entire journey,