Silver in Eillen 2: The Status Quo
“I’m not interested in preserving the status quo: I want to overthrow it.”
- Niccolo Machiavelli
<- 1: Obstacle and Opportunity ~0~ 3: Lady Disdain ->
Lord Amador lived closest to the Duke, so it was in his study that they found themselves, one coach ride, several staircases, and twenty minutes later, being served wine from his own landholdings by a page. The older lords spoke of inconsequential things, as they had for most of the carriage ride, while Vespasian remained silent. It was only after Lord Lucio had inquired after the wine’s vintage and he and Lord Amador had reminisced about the year of 342, and the large boar that they had slain on a hunting party with the late Duke Abrastion, that the page quietly made his exit.
“… And then Abrastion gave the tusks to Patroneus,” Amador concluded, looking over at Vespasian and his untouched wine, “Biggest tusks I’ve ever seen. Do you still have them, Vespasian?”
“Yes,” Vespasian replied automatically, “Mother had them mounted above a fireplace.” All the while, however, he was thinking of something else, which stung him sharply.
If Duke Abrastion were still alive, he and the other four lords would be sitting around the fire in his sitting room, all speculating on the best way to get as much money out of the Eillen Houses for their raw silver as possible, rather than here unwilling to admit that, because of Varin, they were likely to lose control of more money than the dukedom had seen in a generation. Abrastion at least had listened to his Dukedom’s lords, and valued each for their expertise in various areas - Varin preferred to gamble with their sons and nephews, or to chase after their pretty chambermaids.
But while Vespasian was wishing, he might as well wish his father alive again as well. Patroneus had always known what to say to the late Duke, even when he had become angry with the other three lords. He’d been wise in the campaign, whether it was military, financial, political, or a simple hunting expedition. And even though they were perfectly willing to extend their company and their kindness to Vespasian, the young lord couldn’t shake the feeling that his three companions looked at him and saw a child sitting in his father’s chair.
There was a moment’s silence. No doubt the three lords were thinking their own thoughts about the two dead men, for the five of them had seen Renua through many years, several minor wars with neighboring states, both those lost and those won, and countless other things. They had heirs the same age as Vespasian - or, in lord Cornelius’ case, a few decades older - and every year it seemed that they grew a little more maudlin, for in the “good old days,” for even during the Imperial war, there had always been a sense that nothing could ever defeat them, for the Duchy of Renua, though perhaps small, perhaps settled deep in the country, and perhaps obscure, was prosperous and strong.
But in the last four years, since Duke Abrastion’s heart had stopped, that sense was gone. Some people might be inclined to put it down to the fact that, with the exception of Cornelius, who had undoubtedly faced his own mortality decades ago, Duke Abrastion’s death had come as something of a shock for the Renuan lords. One day he had been riding out hawking with his son in celebration of the fact that his daughter’s precarious health had finally improved, the next he had been tired, aching and short of breath, and within a month his eyes had closed for the night and never opened again.
For Vespasian, the news, delivered by the ducal herald before he was properly dressed that morning, had been devastating. The only reason he could stand to attend the funeral was that Varin and his younger sister, Adria, then just children to Vespasian’s eighteen-year-old sense of personal importance, were visibly far worse off than he was. Abrastion hadn’t yet been forty-five.
Most people said, that first year, that it was too much to expect Varin, then sixteen, to buckle down and take charge of the day-to-day running of the Dukedom. He was grieving, they said - some people grieved by distracting themselves, after all, whether that meant doing things calculated to make a person happier, or allowing themselves to feel rotten about something that was completely unrelated. A boy of his age especially needed to get strong emotions out of his system. Thus began two and a half years in which no one could get Varin to do anything. He let his mother arrange for his father’s tomb to be carved, the requisite letters sent to Renua’s neighboring states and partners in trade, and their letters of condolence, sealed in colored wax, to be accepted.
Without question, the four lords had taken much of the burden on themselves. Not only had it been their duty, it had been something they could do for Abrastion, even after his physician and his magician had been rendered powerless by fate. Abrastion had been a good man, loved by his people of all walks of life, and if his efforts at diplomacy, trade and militarism had never been particularly glorious, he had succeeded for most of his reign in keeping the Dukedom fairly prosperous and in more or less the same size and shape. And he had been good at simply keeping the whole place running.
Varin went out each day in his mourning black to the houses of his friends, sons and second sons and nephews of Renua’s nobles and knights. He drank himself stupid and alternated between loosing vast sums of money to them and causing scandals by chasing after any unmarried female over the age of consent. He came home in the early hours of the morning, when he came home at all, and rode out hunting, if the mood struck him, with no preparation and without telling anyone. The ducal guards were forever searching for him, finding him asleep in some inn, wandering about in the forest after falling off his horse, and once after he had fallen in the river. All the while, taxes went uncollected, laws went unsigned, and tithes to the emperor went unpaid. The dukedom was in a shambles, its accounts draining, its people more dispirited by the day, and the emperor’s letters piling up on Varin’s desk becoming even more thinly veiled threats. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Varin’s younger sister, Adria, had stepped up to the task of checking the books and that of granting audiences and hearing petitions in her brother’s name, life in Renua might have ground to a halt.
That it hadn’t might have served as a heartening thought now, save for the fact that the young Duke had, since his eighteenth year, found even more ways to squander the country’s money and disrupt diplomacy when he could be bothered to attend to his duties as a ruler. And with accepting those duties, he had become insufferable, convinced of his right and of his own power to the degree that Vespasian almost missed the days when he had been missing - and definitely missed the days when a few sharp words from one of the lords, or the hysterical hand-wringings of his mother, could shame him into at least trying to act like a grown man instead of a spoiled child.
The silence had stretched out like a lazy old hound before the fire, and Vespasian clamped down on four years of frustration. Mentally rehashing all that he, and indeed the whole Dukedom, had to blame Varin for would accomplish nothing. Nor could he allow his own feelings to compromise the reality of the new situation. Whatever he could do to alleviate the economic and political blow that the oblivious young Duke was about to level against Renua, he would do, and he could save his bitterness to burn in the last dark dregs of the night.
It was with some surprise that he heard old Cornelius speak. The old man had grown more taciturn by the years, as well as increasingly deaf, to the degree that the majority of his conversation was carried out in nods, small gestures, and single words. His voice sounded like the croaking of a raven, or the cacklings of a crow.
“The Duke would be wise to rethink his approach to trade with Eillen,” he said slowly. For a long moment, no one said anything, though agreement was written all over their faces. They were waiting to hear what the old lord would say next.
“In fact,” Cornelius creaked, “It would be best if he could be persuaded to put the matter off until he could learn of the customs and the business of the Houses of Eillen. That he will be hosted by the third house, instead of the first, speaks of the Eillenians’ contempt for us.”
Lucio’s face fell. “No great chance of that, I’m afraid,” he said, “He’s decided that he will gain wealth and respect, both here and in Eillen, from this project, and he’s too stubborn to abandon it.”
“House Argentus has been a strong supporter of ours in the past,” Amador disagreed, “perhaps that is the reason he will be hosted by the third house. After all, the first three houses are equals in all but title.”
“Legally, the first house has the Vox Ultimus,” Vespasian replied absently, “sharing its power in all else with the second and third houses, which are equals.” It somewhat surprised him that he’d said it - he didn’t make a habit of contradicting the older lords, perhaps from the lingering sense that he was merely an observer in their discussions, or a student to be taught. It was time, however, for him to demonstrate how much he had learned.
“You see,” Amador continued, not really arguing with old Cornelius, “With no difference between the second and third house, and little difference between them and the first house, we aren’t being slighted yet - or if it is a slight, it’s only the typical Eillen arrogance. If we can keep him from making a fool of himself or allowing them to sneak in any tricky sub-clauses, we can still make the deal. It will be good practice for him.”
From Lucio’s face, Vespasian thought that he was more disillusioned with his nephew than the other lord was, but he said nothing.
Cornelius gave a snort that sounded like a horse. “The position of the first house has not changed in over a decade,” he reminded them all, “The Signolini keep their second and third houses at each other’s throats, and House Argentum and House Montag are at a deadlock. House Argentum is still trying to recover from the fact that House Montag has taken part of their land, and being their guest is unlikely to cause House Montag to look favorably on our Duke.”
Not to mention that the whole state of Eillen is an ancient blood-feud waiting for a chance to start up again. But Vespasian didn’t see a way to avoid that - in order to ship their silver out of Renua, they would either have to strike a deal allowing them to trade freely without one of the Eillen merchant houses skimming a sizable chunk off the profits, or sell directly to them at a price over which the Eillenians had all of the negotiating power. Shipping further up or downriver, to Saedis or Genona, was out of the question due to empirical trade taxes. Even if the arrangement had been purely economical, it would be a nightmare: once they threw the political realities into the mix, it only grew worse. The council headed by the first three houses could, if the right votes were against it, effectively forbid the Renuans from trading legally with any of their merchant houses. And having discovered the vein of silver, they had to export at least some of it to cover the new tithes that the emperor’s tax men were sure to levy upon them by the end of the year.
It couldn’t be helped now, of course - like a fool, Varin had gone and announced the find when it first opened up, and now everyone and their old nurse knew about the new mine, and the amount of silver it was putting out, as well as the length of time that the ducal surveyors had estimated it would last. The Eillen houses had probably been prepared to twist the business opportunity to their advantage for months, and instead of sending a competent negotiator, who knew when to ask for a second opinion, the Dukedom of Renua was sending Varin, who was hell-bent on running it to ruin. The thought left a bitter taste in Vespasian’s mouth.
“What if we could persuade him not to go?” he said, and Lord Amador and Lord Lucio left off carefully not arguing while repeating their own opinions to each other in very controlled voices in order to give him some very patronizing looks.
“We stand to lose too much if we can’t export from the mine,” Lord Amador explained, and Vespasian was almost certain that the pause at the end came from him struggling not to add the word ‘child’ to his sentence. “Even being swindled by the Eillenians and paying double their usual fees will leave us richer than abandoning the mine and paying the Emperor’s taxes on it anyway.”
“He’s too stubborn in any case,” Lucio added, shaking his head, “He would never admit to not being able to handle this. And we can’t afford to back down either.”
“I meant,” Vespasian replied, “convincing him to send someone else in his place.”
He should have expected their reaction. Lucio blustered, while Amador flat-out denied the possibility. Only Cornelius was silent. Vespasian opened his mouth a few times to explain further, while Lucio and Amador both continued to talk, and he was never sure if they were agreeing with each other, or avoiding arguing, but he knew they weren’t agreeing with him.
“House Argentus,” Lord Cornelius said after a while, causing the other three to turn and look at him, “Would not be a slight against a mere ducal representative.”
“But it can’t possibly work,” Lucio protested, “the Eillenians -”
“Often use proxies of the same sort.”
“The bargaining -”
“Could be handled by someone qualified.”
“But no one will be able to convince Varin of that!” Lucio finally cried, placing his glass on the table beside him and hauling his considerable paunch out of his chair, “You heard him - he’s been looking forward to this, he’s proud to finally be doing something that would measure up to his father’s actions…”
He thinks he’ll have the chance to enjoy himself for several weeks in another state. Vespasian’s dry humor, and the mental smile that accompanied it, didn’t quite cover up the fact that he was scoffing at Lucio’s statement. There was no way that Varin would ever measure up to his father.
“… and he wouldn’t ever back down after he’d announced it all to us, not after all the years we’ve spent trying to get him to step up and start acting like a Duke,” Lucio finished, somewhat ruefully.
“If we could make it seem to him like he wasn’t backing down…” Vespasian began hopefully, but Amador interrupted him with a booming laugh.
“Any man who could do that would be more than capable of handling the Eillenians,” he said, “Changing the opinion of the duke and bartering with that tight-fisted pack of moneygrubbers! No, there isn’t a man alive today who can do it. Now, if Patroneus were still alive…”
Lucio, finally at the end of his temper replied, rather sharply, “There’s no use in speculating.” Amador was silent, his voice trailing off almost visibly into the room, as Lucio composed himself, lacing his fingers together on the bulge of his embroidered doublet. “Even if we could convince the Duke to give the mission his blessing, who would be in charge? There’s no one but the four of us who could possibly have the authority to represent him to the Eillenians, and none of us know the first thing about bargaining with them under their own laws. The merchants of the Dukedom handle all of the new exports - the rest of our trade is common goods, and has been established for generations.”
There was a long moment in which everyone considered that, and Vespasian’s mouth started to grow dry as he felt a pair of beady, rheumy raven-eyes fixed on him.
“There’s me.”
This time he knew to expect the explosion of half-coherent thoughts and protestations. Lucio and Amador were too tightly wound today to behave in any other fashion. They didn’t think he could do it. To be fair, he didn’t know if he could do it either, but surely it was better than the alternative. And he had an advantage that the Eillenians wouldn’t expect in a member of the nobility, and especially a Renuan one.
“You’ve barely any more experience with the Eillenians than the Duke,” Lucio pointed out when things had wound down.
“But, as Cornelius said, their intended slight to the Duke by making him a guest of the least powerful of the houses will measure out as an honor to me,” Vespasian pointed out. “To them, Varin is the equivalent of a patriarch of one of their houses, whereas I would equate to some distant cousin sent as a business proxy. Those usually stay with even more distant cousins, or in one of the Inns.”
“You are twenty-two,” Cornelius croaked, and it was evident that, after having let go of so many words earlier, his stream of conversation was winding down once more.
Vespasian flushed. “They’ve had first citizens younger than me,” he replied, neglecting to mention how long ago that was. “And that I am a business proxy at such a young age and a guest of the third house will give me credibility among the lower houses.”
Amador snorted. “If you can convince the Duke to go along with this, you have my blessing in this ridiculous endeavor.”
“Mine as well,” Lucio added, leaning back and picking up his wine glass once more. Cornelius simply nodded.
~x0x~
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