[X] Jerold - Armies
[X] Terrel - Law
[X] Claude - Treasury
[X] Edmond - Foreign Affairs
[X] Marc - Interior
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[2-1]
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"God damn the Ruhtanians!"
That outburst heralded the arrival of the new High Councillor of of the Armies, who took the last empty seat at the council's table.
The past two weeks since your address to the people of Lorne had been a chaotic mess of hectic action. Terrel had spent most of it cloistered away with a handful of aides working furiously on revising the law to something more acceptable to the new order. All of them had helped a little of course, and a few times you'd had to step in and veto one of his proposals—the man had wanted people to decide for themselves how much tax they paid!—but overall it was going surprisingly well considering that the High Councillor of the Law had no prior training or experience with judicial matters.
Claude, similarly, had spent the time pouring over the archive's records and taking inventory of the treasury itself. If his gloomy expression was anything to go by, he hadn't enjoyed it so far. He hadn't given you any kind of report on it, that was what this meeting was for, but from what he'd said in the time since he began, you knew that there was something very
wrong with the kingdom's (and you needed to change that title, know that you thought of it) finances.
Edmond on the other hand, was delighted with his new post, once its purpose had been explained to him. The idea of speaking with kings and emperors as their equal had put to rest any lingering resentment he might have had to the formation of the council.
You'd yet to point out that any decisions regarding 'Foreign Affairs' would be made by the council as a whole, rather than him alone.
Jerold, unsurprisingly had both the easiest and most difficult job to do. The capital was secure, and the local soldiery and guardsmen had sworn allegiance to the council, something you'd made a grand occasion of. Now, though, he was charged with making sure that the armies in the rest of the nation would obey their new rulers. Travel time alone was making it difficult, though it was offset somewhat by the pre-existing military hierarchy. All it took was convincing the garrison commanders that he was, in fact, their new commander-in-chief.
Being mostly minor nobles and lesser sons of the more prominent ones, this was more complicated than it sounded.
For yourself, you'd had relatively little to do, as of yet. Once things settled down, you knew you'd be the busiest of the whole council, but until the new order and the new laws were more firmly established there wasn't much you could do. Any infrastructure projects would require the treasury up and running, any legal matters required Terrel to finish his document; even repairing the damage caused by the rebellion—your most immediate concern—needed the other councillors up and running before you could get stuck into it.
You'd passed the time, mostly, by coming up with plans and ideas for what you would do once everything else was in place. Ordering new weapons and armour to replace what was lost in the palace fire was once such plan, another being to finally give Lorne a solid road network. Connecting all the villages and hamlets to the major settlements was a goal for the distant future, though even a single paved road from the capital to Dove, the primary trading port for the Isles of Saires, would do wonders for local transportation.
All that was a concern for another time. Whatever the Ruhtanians had done, Jerold clearly hadn't liked it.
"What have they done this time?" Edmond's calm tone seemed to cool the soldier's temper, because his response was an indignant hiss, rather than a furious bellow.
"They've got troops blocking the passes into Ruhtan and are stopping all Lornics from passing through.
Either way. This," he held up a scroll clenched tight in his hand, "is the account of one trader who tried to ignore them."
His angry gaze swept across the room before he finally spat, "They formed a god-damned
pike wall on him!"
What?
"That seems like an… overreaction." came Claude's cautious words, earning him a glare from the Army's commander. "Are you sure that the account wasn't, shall we say, exaggerated?"
"I have four other reports—one more merchant and three from the border guard—confirming it and one other occurrence. It happened."
Before the argument can build more steam, you step in to try and divert Jerold back to the matter at hand. "You said they're stopping Lornics from passing?" At the man's nod, you continue. "How?"
"I just said tha–"
"No," you shake your head, "not like that. Their border forts are too far back to seal off the passageways entirely. To cut off all access to the empire? They have to have advanced their line of defence towards us. And what of the soldiers? How many were there? Was this 'pike wall' five men with spears? A full Dekata? Something in between?"
You look Jerold dead in the eyes. "Give us all of the information and
then we can come up with a response."
He holds eye contact for several long moments before grunting and looking away, towards the other councillors. "The traders didn't bother to count, but the border guards did. There were five lines of ten; fifty in total."
"That can't be right." Edmond cuts in. "That's their entire force for the southern border fort; a whole platoon—whatever they call it."
"A dimoiría," Terrel glances up from the papers in front of him at the rest of the table staring at him. He scowls back at you. "I read."
"Er, yes." Edmond clears his throat. "But my point stands. That would have to have been their full force out at once, so it stands to reason that your report must be wrong."
"Or," you point out, "they sent more troops to guard the border."
You see Jerold nodding along with you. "If they actually intend to stop everyone from crossing into Ruhtan they'd have to. Like you said, the forts are too far back to close them off completely. They've got wooden palisades blocking the pass. The only clear spot is the centre of the road and now we know they've got fifty pikes watching that!"
"More probably. Soldiers still need to eat and sleep; they've probably got at least one hundred in total so they can stand guard in shifts."
Jerold stands, his fist slamming down onto the table. "That doesn't make it better! They've broken our border treaties, threatened our people and cut off all our ties to the western world! We
have to respond to this aggression somehow."
From his clenched fists and the look in his eyes, you know what the man
wanted to do. Thankfully, his continued silence suggested that he was smart enough to realise that the entire Lornic military would barely outnumber the Emperor's First Army alone, and Ruhtan had
four the last you'd heard.
"Actually," Edmond's voice was surprising in the hesitance it showed. "He might not have broken anything."
As the council looked to him, he went on, "All of our important treaties were between the Emperor and 'His Royal and Majestic Highness, King of Lorne'. If the Emperor knows the king is dead, but hasn't heard that the prince survived…"
You wince. "And then we tell everyone that Lorne doesn't have a king and never will again…"
"Exactly. He's taken it as permission to discount all of our standing agreements. This," Edmond gestures towards the scroll still held in Jerold's fist, "is probably Ruhtan's first step in renegotiating those agreements."
You can see how it would work. Take a more advantageous position in the passes, force Lorne to negotiate with Ruhtan—as opposed to the other way around, as was normal—and put themselves in a strong position of power for any bargaining. If you were wearing a hat, you'd tip it to the Emperor's deviousness.
"You could be right Edmond." Looking at the nobleman's face to savour the moment, you finish with, "Why don't you bring your suggestions to our meeting in two days? This is clearly foreign affairs, after all."
It takes some effort to avoid letting your amusement at his sudden expression of dismay show.
"Terrel, give me some good news. How much longer before I can start distributing the new laws and bringing the guardsmen up to speed on things?"
The High Councillor of the Law didn't even bother looking up from the ink-covered pages in front of him. "Not long. A day, maybe two, then the rest of you can look over it."
You clasp your hands, injecting a brighter tone into your voice to try and raise the noticeably lowered spirits of you fellow high councillors. "Excellent, good work. Claude?"
The young man is silent for a minute or so, staring down at his hands before finally replying, "We're… not doing so well."
At your gesture he continues. "We think a few of the noble aides or guards in the treasury might have taken some of the coin while our attack was going on, but it's a pretty small difference. The big problem…" He hesitates again. "There's not as much money as there should be. It's all official too; we have records of huge amounts being shipped off to Kallia under express orders from the late king, but beyond that the records don't tell us much."
After a moment to take that in, Jerold summed it up quite well.
"Shit."
"We're expecting a Kallian ambassador soon, aren't we?" You direct the question to Edmond. "Perhaps he will know where our missing gold is."
Edmond frowns in response. "He's late, actually. Vogt's schedule said he should have arrived already. I can only guess that he was delayed somehow—hopefully nothing unfortunate has happened to him—but I believe he probably sent word back to Kallia of our success in taking down Vogt."
"Yes, he wouldn't want to act without knowing where the king stood on the council." You muse.
"Hopefully he doesn't pull a Kanaris and break all of the Lorne-Kallia agreements as well. I'm not sure we could handle being cut off from both our neighbours at once."
Claude's attempt at humour falls rather flat.
"Marc," he says, after waiting for laughter that never comes, "maybe you should think about working your magic on our trade because we're going to need it."
"That bad?" You see that Terrel's finally giving the conversation his undivided attention.
"To be frank," Claude says, face making his distaste at what he's about to say clear, "I think the only reason the treasury isn't
empty is because of Vogt's raised taxes last year. It's not an insurmountable issue, but we need to be very careful with how much we're spending until we can build up comfortable reserve."
"Shit."
Jerold, seems to be keeping up well.
"I'm not going to get my extra soldiers, am I."
You're not really sure what to say to that. It was a statement, not a question; the pragmatist clearly knew he wasn't going to get what he wanted.
"Let's not discount anything yet, old friend. Claude," the councillor of the treasury looks at you. "What can we do to fix this?"
"The simple answer? Raise taxes." As Terrel and Jerold both start to protest, Claude holds up a hand to cut them off. "I said it was the simple answer, not a
good one. There's other things that might work. We could just not spend any more money than we absolutely have to?"
You all shake your heads at that. It would take weeks to undo the worst of the damage the Rebellion had done (although you'd tried to minimise the damage when you were planning it out). Your work on the interior, Jerold's soldiers, possibly even Edmond's negotiating would all require coin if they were to turn out.
"Terrel," Claude turned to the man beside him, "your laws include fines, yes? Maybe… tweak, those so that some of it goes to treasury?"
At Terrel's cool stare, the young man deflates a little. "It can't hurt."
"It's something to think on," you say smoothly to stop any further argument. "Any other ideas?"
"We could start a business. Owned and run by the council with the profits going to the treasury?"
"Now that," you say, "is something we can work with. What else?"
Claude shrugs at that. "That's all I've got. I know how to handle money; you're the expert in making it."
A glance around the table shows no one else about to speak.
You clear your throat. "I suppose that leaves me…"
Vote:
[] Prioritise trouble with Ruhtan
[] Prioritise internal development
[] Prioritise treasury
[] Write-in
A/N: Not happy with the vote, and I'd honestly welcome decent write-ins here, but I need input and direction to shape the story. I think a big part of my problem is that I'm accustomed to writing
stories where I'm the be-all and end-all of the decision process; I'm not used to leaving those gaps for players to fill.
This feels way too info-dumpy for my taste. I think I've got chapter-creep as well; these just keep getting longer and longer. It's similar to the problem I had in chapter 1-1; I've got to establish what everyone's been up to and that takes a lot of words.
