Trynair studied the treasurer’s profile for several seconds. Then he inhaled deeply and turned to stand at his shoulder, looking out into the beautiful, wind-lashed wildness of that deadly afternoon.
“I know there are a great many things we don’t agree on these days,” the chancellor said quietly, “but I want you to know, I truly admire what you’ve accomplished here in Zion. I don’t spend the time out in the city that you do, and to be honest, I wouldn’t want to. That doesn’t mean I don’t hear the reports, though. I know how you and Father Zytan reduced the death toll last year, and I’m sure you’ll reduce it even further this winter.”
“It’s a pity Zhaspahr doesn’t see things that way,” Duchairn replied.
“Zhaspahr is a very … focused personality.” Trynair’s nostrils flared. “He sees what he wants to see—what he thinks he needs to see—very clearly, and his attention to detail in those instances is almost terrifying. Anything that doesn’t fall into that category is unimportant. Or at least not important enough for him to allow it to distract him from that narrow, focused viewpoint of his.”
“That’s an interesting way to put it,” Duchairn observed. “Not quite the one I’d choose, although I’ll grant you it has its points. But it would be far better for everyone, not just the people freezing to death out there, if Zhaspahr could at least consider the pragmatic advantages of appealing to men’s hearts as well as to their terror.”
Trynair’s wordless sound neither agreed nor disagreed. Perhaps he was afraid one of Clyntahn’s eyes was watching them, listening to them, even now. Keeping tabs on his fellow vicars, knowing what they were thinking, was the sort of “focused” vision and attention to detail that clearly qualified as important to the Grand Inquisitor.
As Samyl and Hauwerd Wylsynn discovered, the treasurer thought with a familiar, bitter tang of guilt.
“I was on my way to your office, actually,” Trynair said, after a moment. “I have letters from Dohlar and Desnair—even Sodar—that all ask basically the same thing, and I’m going to need your input replying to them.”
“My input?” Duchairn turned from the window, eyebrows arching, but Trynair continued to look out into the snow.
“You’re the one I usually have to talk to when it comes to money.” The chancellor shrugged. “It seems to come to that quite a bit these days.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Duchairn chuckled mirthlessly. “I assume they want to know how much we can increase their subsidies for the coming year?”
“Something like that, yes.” Trynair grimaced at the window. “Hard to blame them. When we set the subsidies, none of us anticipated we’d be asking them to put armies into the field this year.”
“None of us but Zhaspahr, you mean,” Duchairn said grimly, and Trynair shrugged again, perhaps a little irritably this time.
“I think Allayn should’ve seen it coming as well.”
“Allayn did see the need for armies coming; he simply had no idea it would be coming this quickly and on this scale. You do recall that it wasn’t so very long ago we were all in agreement that the Charisians couldn’t possibly field an army of their own big enough to invade the mainland? Even after the Gulf of Tarot all of us—including Zhaspahr, if I remember correctly—were of that opinion. That’s why Allayn was still working with me to find a way to balance the cost of rebuilding the Navy while putting the new rifles and field guns into production. Of course, none of us anticipated they’d be invited in by one of the mainland realms, now did we?” The treasurer showed his teeth for just a moment. “I don’t think it’s very fair to blame him for what’s going on in the Republic when Zhaspahr hadn’t bothered to mention his plans there to any of us.”
“He told you he had to act more quickly than he’d anticipated,” Trynair pointed out. “If he wasn’t expecting to move yet, it’s hard to blame him for not warning Allayn.”
“Not if he truly wasn’t expecting to,” Duchairn said softly.
The chancellor turned his head to dart a quick look at him, then returned his gaze resolutely to the snow-covered Plaza of Martyrs.
“I see no reason not to take his word for that.”
Now that’s an interesting choice of words, Zahmsyn, Duchairn thought dryly. I suppose it depends on how you view your responsibilities, doesn’t it? Would there be no reason to doubt Zhaspahr’s word because there’s no “doubt” involved, given that we’re both completely certain he’s lying? Or would there be a reason to go out of our way not to doubt Zhaspahr’s word because challenging him on it might be a good way to get killed, given that we’re both completely certain he’s lying?
“Well, I suppose it’s the practical consequences that matter, isn’t it?” he said out loud. “And the practical consequences are that Allayn was no closer to having the Army of God—or any other formed troops—ready to advance into the Republic before snowfall than he was to invade Charis itself. For that matter, he had less than eighty thousand men anywhere near the frontier.”
“A point, I assure you, I’m well aware of,” Trynair said a bit tartly. “And one of the primary causes for my correspondence with Desnair and Dohlar, for that matter.”
Duchairn nodded. The road and canal network in East Haven was well developed, especially between Siddarmark and the Border States, the band of smaller, independent realms between the Temple Lands and the Republic, which helped explain the quantity of goods—the bulk of Charisian manufacture—which had passed through Siddarmark into the continental interior in the last half century or so. Yet there were limits in all things, and one of those limits in northern East Haven was the snow driving down outside the Temple at this very moment. By the time Allayn Maigwair had discovered what was happening in the Republic, it had been literally impossible for him to move and supply large bodies of troops. Oh, he’d been moving them anyway all winter long, in smaller formations, despite the weather, and he’d have quite a sizable force along the Siddarmarkian frontier by the end of this month or the middle of the next. But it was taking far longer than it would have if Clyntahn had warned him last summer, when he could have marched them in clear weather, with ice-free canals to transport the food, fodder, and ammunition those troops would have required.
At least the southern weather had at least allowed Desnair and Dohlar to begin moving troops sooner. On the other hand, the Imperial Desnairian Army was less well organized than the Army of God. Its supply arrangements struck Duchairn, as the man responsible for the Army of God’s logistics, as ramshackle—or perhaps the word he wanted was improvisational—and it seemed to him that Desnair remained too committed to the primacy of cavalry, without making sufficient allowance for the new infantry weapons. The Royal Dohlaran Army had a much higher percentage of infantry—and all reports indicated the Dohlaran foundries had managed to equip a higher percentage of that infantry with rifles and bayonets than even the Army of God—but it was also much smaller than its Desnarian counterpart.
And then there were the Border States and the Army of God.
Half the Border States’ armies were either hopelessly obsolete, with virtually none of the new model weapons, or little better than rabble; the other half were mostly well equipped, well organized … and very small. In theory, they could cross into the Republic as soon as the snow melted—or, at least, as soon as the canals did. In fact, most of them would contribute little to Mother Church’s combat power if and when they did.
Which left the Army of God, the largest of any of the armies currently at Maigwair’s command. In some ways, the winter-imposed hiatus had actually helped the army, and Maigwair, frankly, had worked miracles. The foundries in the southern Temple Lands and the Harchongian works closest to the Temple Lands border had labored frantically to churn out additional rifles, shifted from naval artillery to fieldpieces, and—in the last month and a half or so begun putting the new exploding artillery shells into production. It would take some time after the weather improved to get the new weapons transported to the front in quantity,
and Maigwair still had a higher ratio of pikes to rifles than he would have preferred, but output was climbing steadily. He’d be able to start improving the ratio by mid- or late summer.
Always assuming we can find a way to continue paying for it, he reflected.
“I’ve been working closely with Allayn since the ‘unanticipated’ and ‘spontaneous’ popular uprising in the Republic changed all our calculations,” he said after a moment. “We’ve had to essentially shelve plans for rebuilding the Navy, of course.” He grimaced. “Harchong’s continuing to work to arm the ships they’ve already got built, but between you and me, that’s mostly because there’s so much graft tied up in them. If they don’t get finished, certain people don’t get paid.”
Trynair grunted in acknowledgment. Harchong’s immense population and monolithic loyalty were crucial, and the Empire’s bureaucracy was actually capable of accomplishing things quite efficiently. That wasn’t the same thing as economically, however. In fact, in Harchong, “efficiently” and “economically” were contradictions in terms, since nothing happened—efficiently or not—until the proper palms were greased.
“Their eastern foundries, in Maddox and Stene, have effectively become extensions of our own, though,” Duchairn continued. “We’ve been able to exert much more direct control over them—I have to admit Zhaspahr’s decision to assign individual inquisitors to each of them helped a lot in that respect—and we’ve shifted all their naval orders over to additional rifles and field artillery. But there’s no point pretending the marks haven’t been running like water while we’ve done it, and the money we’ve had to shift into orders for army weapons is money we aren’t able to continue paying for the ships we were working on, so we’ve actually produced a significant unemployment problem in all those shipbuilding centers we’ve created.” The treasurer grimaced. “And while I really know everyone’s tired of hearing it, when people can’t earn a living, they can’t pay their tithes, either.”
“I know,” Trynair sighed. “I know! And what’s happening in Siddarmark isn’t helping, is it?”
“That’s a little bit like asking whether or not Hsing-wu’s Passage is wet, actually. Of course it’s not helping! Siddarmark and Silkiah were the only two realms which were actually managing to pay more than their pre-Jihad tithes. Up until October, at least. Now the Republic’s fighting a civil war, Silkiah’s economy is in almost as much chaos as Siddarmark’s, and the Border States’ economy—whose relative prosperity depended on Siddarmark’s—has gone straight into the crapper, too, to use one of Zhaspahr’s delightfully pithy phrases. Effectively, Mother Church’s current income amounts to the percentage of the tithe that manages to get past the various … hurdles, let’s say, in Harchong, plus what Dohlar can continue to pay and what’s coming from Desnair. Delferahk was never a major revenue source in the first place, and Sodar—the one realm whose tithe level has remained almost unchanged—was also the poorest of the mainland realms to begin with.”
The treasurer turned away from the window and tapped the taller Trynair’s chest none too lightly with his index finger.
“I’ve put together the new taxation policy for the Temple Lands,” he said. “And I’ve drawn up plans to dispose of a full half of Mother Church’s less critical real estate. I’m also preparing a letter to Emperor Waisu which you’ll have the indescribable pleasure of redrafting into properly diplomatic language.”
“What sort of letter?” Trynair’s expression was unhappy, and Duchairn smiled thinly.
“The one telling him his tithes are going up to twenty-five percent … and that Mother Church will require the imperial treasury to make good any shortfall.”
“We can’t tell Waisu that!” The chancellor’s expression had gone from unhappy to horrified.
“First of all, we both know we’ll actually be telling his councilors that, since I doubt he’s allowed to make policy in anything more significant than deciding whether to have rice or noodles for supper. Second, we don’t have a choice—we need the cash, Zahmsyn, and Harchong’s economy’s the least damaged of any of the major mainland realms. Partly that’s because its economy is so damned backwards compared to all the others that disturbances in trade patterns haven’t affected it all that much, but it’s still true. And third, you and I both know the Harchongian bureaucracy and aristocracy have been filching from Mother Church for generations!” Duchairn stopped tapping the Chancellor’s chest and waved his hand. “Oh, we both know why we’ve permitted that to continue, as well, Zahmsyn; I’m not saying I’m unaware of the reasoning. But we can’t allow it any longer, and if the imperial treasury is on the hook for the thirty percent or so of the tithe various powerful Harchongese’ve been pocketing for as long as anyone can remember, I’m pretty sure they’ll pay up.”
“But … but we need—I mean, you know how loyal Harchong’s always been! If we start making unreasonable demands, we—”
“It’s not an unreasonable demand.” Duchairn’s voice was flat. “And Zhaspahr can’t have it both ways. He’s the one who kicked off this ‘spontaneous uprising’ without warning any of us. And his ‘spontaneous uprising’”—the treasurer’s irony was withering—“is what’s created so much starvation in western Siddarmark a damned wyvern would have to carry its own rations to cross it.” Fury crackled in Duchairn’s normally mild eyes. “You’ve seen the reports, Zahmsyn. You know how many people are starving to death, how ugly the fighting’s been, and now we expect Allayn to take entire armies through the same area? Just how in the names of Sondheim and Truscott d’you expect him to feed those troops when the people who live there are already starving? He’s going to need every scrap of food we can beg, borrow, or steal, and then he’s going to need every river barge, every wagon, every draft dragon we can find to ship it to him! And all of that’s going to cost money that has to come from somewhere. So either Zhaspahr can agree with my … unpalatable prescription for Waisu and the rest of Harchong, or he can damned well figure out how Allayn’s supposed to march across the wilderness he frigging well created!”
Trynair shrank visibly from Duchairn’s ferocity. He swallowed hard, but the treasurer never looked away from him. Finally, the chancellor drew a deep breath.
“All right, Rhobair,” he said quietly. “All right, I’ll support you. But for Langhorne’s sake, don’t … explode at Zhaspahr that way. Please.” He waved both hands. “I accept that you’re right, but you know Zhaspahr as well as I do! You know how he feels about Harchong, too. If you turn this into a confrontation, and especially if you make it sound like an attack on Harchong, he’ll just dig in his heels and get stubborner and stubborner. And if that happens … well, let’s just say it won’t work out well.”
Duchairn snorted harshly, a sound that mingled understanding, resignation, and contempt in equal measure, but he also nodded.
“Of course I understand that, but I’ve already talked to Allayn. He’s prepared to support me, because he’s looked at the numbers along with me. He knows we’re going to need the marks and need them damned soon. The two of us need your support, as well. If all three of us confront Zhaspahr on this, present a united front, with Allayn explaining why he needs the money, and you explaining why Desnair and Dohlar and—Langhorne save us all!—even Sodar need money, and me explaining the only places where we can get money, maybe even Zhaspahr will see reason.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Trynair asked very quietly.
“Zahmsyn, I’m already issuing drafts on money we don’t have,” Duchairn said equally quietly, and Trynair’s eyes widened. “This Jihad’s hammered our cash flow from the beginning, both because of the tithe base we’ve lost and because of how damned much it’s cost,” the treasurer continued. “In order to pay for it, Mother Church is running a deficit for the first time in her history, and we started doing that more than three years ago. Worse, we’re the ones other people usually borrow money from—the entire banking system was never set up for us to borrow large sums of money from secular
sources. Which doesn’t even consider the fact that the primary mainland banking houses are all in eastern Siddarmark and happen to be … unavailable to us. We’re not going to be able to borrow our way out of this, even if the interest on the money wouldn’t eat us alive. Oh, Zhaspahr saved us some of our debt, since we’ve just pretty effectively repudiated payments we hadn’t already accounted to Siddarmark, but that’s less than a drop in the bucket compared to the revenue we’ve lost from the same source. We actually saved more—and lost less—when Corisande surrendered to Cayleb and we repudiated all of that debt. Neither of those paper transactions changes the fact that, at this point in time, what we actually have in the Treasury’s accounts is almost eighteen percent less than our current obligations without any consideration at all of future interest on what we’ve already borrowed. Worse, other people know we’re issuing notes we can’t cover, even if they don’t know exactly how bad the situation actually is, and that means our drafts are trading below their face value. No one wants to be too open about it, but anyone but an idiot is taking hard currency over our paper any time he possibly can get it, and my Treasury agents are hearing more and more reports about clipped, underweight coins or even outright counterfeits. For that matter,” he met Trynair’s eyes levelly, “one of my senior assistants has actually suggested—very quietly, you understand—that we begin … reducing the bullion content of our coinage.”
Trynair’s nostrils flared, and Duchairn smiled thinly. The Book of Langhorne made the archangels’ position on debasing or adulterating coinages very plain. Or that was the way Mother Church had always interpreted Langhorne 14:72 where secular coinage was concerned. “You will give honest measure and honest weight in any transaction, for he who would cheat his brother in smaller matters is but teaching himself to cheat in larger ones, and treachery to a brother in God will surely beget treachery to God Himself.” The Inquisition had used that passage to crush any secular ruler’s temptation to debase his coinage for the better part of seven centuries, and if Mother Church now began to violate it.…