Chartomancy

Chapter Four

10th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Wentokikun, Moriande

Nalenyr

Though Grand Minister Pelut Vniel appeared quite calm as he delivered his reports, something about his manner set Prince Cyron on edge. Pelut’s predecessor had always insisted on a formal setting for their discussions, so Cyron had taken it as a good sign that his new Grand Minister was willing to join him in his private chambers. Pelut did evidence some lingering traces of stiffness in the Prince’s presence, but that seemed to be largely affected.

Which means he is using it to hide something. Cyron’s shoulders sagged slightly as a great weariness washed over him. He remembered well how sitting on that same throne had aged his father so quickly. And Father ruled during a time of prosperity, with no enemies actively seeking his destruction.

Muted light glowed gold from the room’s wooden floor and Pelut’s shaved head. “Because of the relatively mild winter, my lord, we anticipate both a bountiful harvest of winter crops and an early planting season. We have no sign of drought and no reason to expect anything less than the abundant harvest with which we were favored last year.”

Cyron nodded, an unruly lock of brown hair falling over his forehead. “This may be true of crops, but if the winter is mild, both the Helosundians and Desei will be free to campaign early. Prince Pyrust would take great delight in attacking during the month of the Hawk.”

“Your Highness’ perception of the political climate is, as always, stunning.”

Cyron held up a hand. “You have no need to gild gold with me, Minister. Your predecessor raised empty praise to an art form, which is why I found dealing with him rather tedious.”

“I understand, my lord.” Pelut bowed low enough to touch his forehead to the floor. His golden silk robe, trimmed in yellow with small red dragons embroidered on it, shimmered and shifted. It allowed Cyron to imagine that his minister was not human at all, but some nightmare creature sent to torment him.

Cyron narrowed his light blue eyes. “You have been monitoring the shipments of rice to Deseirion. For every quor we send north, how much actually reaches Deseirion?”

Pelut straightened. “Minister Kan Hisatal is overseeing the shipments, Highness, and he has been most efficient. He reports to me that ninety-five percent of what we send to Deseirion reaches its intended destination.”

“Really?” Cyron leaned forward, not quite menacingly. “We were going to send a million quor north, so this would mean nine hundred fifty thousand quor will make it. And yet, you told me that forty thousand quor were destroyed in a warehouse fire in Rui.”

“That is true, Highness.”

“You might wonder why I mention this fire. Prince Eiran had ridden to Rui, to meet with other Helosundians and urge them to forestall provoking the Desei in the spring. I had a note from him in which he said he admired our people for their industriousness. He could not believe how quickly they had rebuilt Rui, after the fire.”

Pelut blinked, but Cyron could feel it was forced. “Highness, the destruction was confined to a warehouse.”

“Your informant on that matter was incorrect, Minister.” Cyron rose from his chair and began to pace crisply. His heels clicked sharply with each step and his robe-black, trimmed with gold, embroidered with brightly colored dragons at breast and back-whispered ominously. “A single quor is enough rice to keep a man alive for a year. It occupies roughly six and a third cubic feet. It would take a warehouse one hundred sixty feet on a side, rising to ten stories, to hold it all. Rui may have grown in the past nine years, Minister, but it hasn’t a building over four stories. The fire that consumed that much rice would have consumed the whole of the town.”

“I can see that, Highness.”

“But can your man, Hisatal? Does he think we are blind and stupid? Knowing Eiran would be going to Rui, I asked him to look for fire damage. I had already done the math.”

“Highness, you should have brought your concern to me. You did not need to send Prince Eiran as your personal spy.”

Cyron stopped and glared at Pelut. “My personal spy?”

Pelut’s face tightened, then he bowed to the floor again. “Forgive me, Highness.”

“No, Minister, this bears discussing. Have I not the right to information about my nation? You are the chief of all my ministers, from the grandest to the lowliest clerk. Shouldn’t any information I want come through you?”

“Yes, Highness.”

“I believe that, too, Minister, but I believe you have served me poorly in this matter. What disturbs me more than Hisatal’s fraudulent reporting-and we both know he is diverting grain into markets where he can benefit-is that you saw fit to provide me with the raw reports he sent to you. You did not even correct so elementary an error. Could it be you wanted me to catch it and therefore demand his removal or punishment? Did you want him caught because you had not approved his theft, so therefore the proceeds of his crimes never benefited you? Or was it merely that you saw his actions as a way to undermine a program you never liked?”

“Highness, if I might explain…”

“Can you?”

“I believe so, my lord.”

Cyron folded his arms. “Please. This will be fascinating.”

Pelut sat back up, but kept his head bowed. “I had noted the anomaly, Highness, and had begun my own investigation into the truth of the matter. I did not mention it to you because I did not want to cast aspersions on Minister Hisatal without just cause. If it were his subordinates who were stealing and he was just being sloppy in his reporting, he would have to be dealt with-but in quite a different manner than if he were actively stealing.”

“Your explanation makes sense, but I think that is only half of it, or less.”

“You misjudge me, Highness.”

“I don’t believe I do. You have never approved of the idea of our sending rice north to keep the Desei from starving. You see the Desei as a threat, and if they starve, there are that many fewer to descend upon us. The diverted rice, if not being sold on the black market, could certainly be waiting as provisions for Helosundian troops this spring. Not only would it not have fed Desei, but it will strengthen those who would kill more of our enemy. That means the chances of disruption to our society is minimal-and that goal is exactly what you have been trained to promote.”

“Highness…”

The Prince shook his head. “You need to be listening right now, Minister. As your own Urmyr would put it, ‘The chittering of the dulang masks the approach of the wolf.’ ”

Pelut nodded silently.

“You must remember that Empress Cyrsa, lo these many years ago, divided her Empire among the princes and entrusted it to them, not the Imperial bureaucracy. Do you know why? Because a society that is perfectly ordered is a society that becomes stagnant. It becomes inflexible. You would have it such that every family is a man, a woman, and two children-preferably one of each gender-for it keeps things perfectly stable. But life is not stable. Families change for any of nine thousand different reasons. No planning can encompass them all, which means circumstance is reduced to a controllable number, everything is lumped together, and the society frays because the needs of individuals are not accounted for.”

Pelut’s head came up and fire flashed in his azure eyes. “But, Highness, a society that caters to each individual is one that descends into chaos. It has no stability. No one knows how to act since all acts are valued equally.”

“Nonsense, and you know it. Your society of anarchy is as much a dark fantasy as is mine of perfect stagnant stability. You deliberately miss both of my points. The first is this: by rising to deal with challenges, a society gets better. Look at our current prosperity. Remember how my father and I fought to get ships built for exploration. Doing something new and different has been of a great benefit to the nation. It promotes our long-term welfare and provides us with the resources to deal with new threats.”

Cyron spread his hands. “And my second point is this: the Empress entrusted the nations to the nobility, not the bureaucrats. It is true that I could not administer the nation without you and your people. I acknowledge that and thank you for it. There may well have been princes past who were content to let the ministries do everything for them. I am not among their number. I need information. I need good information, and I will get it from you, or I will get it some other way. It is not because I resent or dislike the ministry; it is because Nalenyr’s welfare is my responsibility. And nothing will prevent me from acquitting it.”

Pelut bowed sharply. “Yes, Highness, I understand.”

“Good.” Cyron returned to his chair. “From now on, I want only accurate information. If you have suspicions, I want them brought to me immediately. How much do you think Hisatal has stolen?”

Pelut’s momentary hesitation told Cyron his answer was a lie. “I suspect him of diverting roughly six percent of the grain into other destinations. As you suggest, some is going to the Helosundians; he has ties to that community. Some has been sold-price fluctuations in some of the northern provinces could be the result of his selling stock off. There are, over all, indications of eight percent shortages. The difference is pilferage by workers, grain consumed by pests, spoilage, and circumstance.”

“I see.” Cyron turned away from the minister and crossed to a pair of doors that opened onto a balcony overlooking his gardens and animal sanctuary. They’d been shuttered for the winter, but still the winds howled faintly through them. He very much wanted to push the doors open, vault from the balcony, and wander through the snowy enclosure, but doing so would be an escape from the very responsibility he’d used to chide the Grand Minister.

He glanced back over his shoulder. “You are dismissed, Minister.”

“But, Highness, there is much more to report.”

“I am aware of that, but I am granting you time to check your figures before you waste more of my time.”

“Yes, Highness. Strength of the Dragon be with you.”

“And you, Minister.”

Cyron again stared at the doors until he heard Pelut slide the room’s other door closed behind him. Convinced he was alone, Cyron raked fingers up through his hair and stifled the urge to scream. He’d had great hopes he could trust Pelut Vniel, and having them dashed was almost more than he could bear.

He took a step forward and rested his forehead against the chill glass in the doors. The secret of Naleni prosperity had been the charts made by the Anturasi family. Qiro, their patriarch, had been a venal, cantankerous, moody man, but his genius with charts had compensated for that. Cyron had indulged the old man as much as he could. As long as Qiro produced the charts that kept Naleni ships safe on the high seas, there was no end to their prosperity.

The difficulty was that Qiro was now missing.

The sheer impossibility of his disappearance would have baffled Cyron, save that he’d been through Anturasikun himself and found no sign of the man. The tower had been a magnificent cage for a genius, and Qiro had only occasionally chafed at his imprisonment. It was almost as if his having supreme knowledge of the world was freedom itself.

What disturbed Cyron most was the map on the wall in Qiro’s personal work space. The world had been drawn in with care, every detail exact. Cyron had always marveled at it and many details had been added since Keles and Jorim had been sent off on their quests. The Prince had no doubt that it represented the world as accurately as possible.

The difficulty was that it showed a new continent to the southeast, occupying what had previously been an unexplored portion of the ocean. The continent had been labeled Anturasixan, and showed all the signs of being a land populated by diverse and ancient cultures.

Cultures of which no one in the Nine Principalities had ever heard.

Worst of all, it had been drawn in Qiro’s blood. And the legend beneath it simply read, “Here there be monsters.”

A shiver skittered down Cyron’s spine. Qiro, genius that he was, arrogantly assumed that his place was rightly among the gods. If he had discovered this land-or, worse, shaped it through magic-there was no telling what sort of creatures lurked there or what their intention would be toward the Principalities.

He would have every right to want revenge! Qiro’s granddaughter, Nirati, had been horribly butchered by a murderer who had gone unidentified and uncaptured. The Prince had ordered a full investigation, but nothing had borne fruit so far, and he was doubtful it ever would. The murder would go unsolved, and Qiro’s wrath would be limitless.

Cyron had wanted to confide the news about Qiro to Pelut, but the man’s willingness to lie meant he could not be trusted with so delicate a bit of information. And yet, without telling him about the possible threat, there was no way the nation could be prepared to handle it. If I dole out just enough information, I will be playing the same sort of game he is.

The Prince straightened up, then ran a hand over his face. Pressure from the north, pressure from the south; rumors of discontent among the inland Naleni lords-it was all slowly crushing him. He crossed to his chair and dropped heavily into it.

Perhaps I should let Pelut just run everything. Better his collapse than mine.

He smiled, then threw his head back and laughed, trying to keep a note of hysteria from it.

A tiny tapping came at the interior door. It slid open enough to reveal a kneeling servant with his head pressed to the floor. “Does his Magnificence require something?”

“No, Shojo, I am fine.”

“Yes, Master.” The older man began to slide the door shut again.

“No, wait, don’t go.” Cyron drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Send a runner to the Lady of Jet and Jade. If it would not be an inconvenience, I would enjoy the pleasure of her company this evening. I have need of relaxation.”

“Yes, Highness, of course.” Shojo lifted his face enough for the Prince to catch the hint of a smile. Not because the Prince was summoning the nation’s legendary courtesan to attend him; Shojo found no scandal in that. He smiled because he didn’t think Cyron did it frequently enough.

“Shojo.”

“Yes, Highness?”

“Don’t send a runner. Convey the message yourself. All arrangements will be in your hands.”

“I shall see to it, Master.”

“Thank you.” The prince bowed his head as the man slid the door shut again. “If only Pelut would serve me as well as you.” Cyron slowly shook his head. “But he does not, which is why the burden of the nation’s future rests squarely on my shoulders. But for how long?” Cyron could sense doom lurking. “And from what direction shall destruction come?”