The King's Blood(155)

Maps littered the table, four and five layers thick in places. Canl Daskellin and Fallon Broot stood over the mess, scowling and angry-looking.

“Gentlemen,” Geder said. “I take it we’ve made no particular headway.”

“Asterilhold, in practice,” Daskellin said, “is posing several problems we hadn’t anticipated.”

“You’re damn near out of noble families,” Broot said. “There were only about forty to start, and that’s counting the eastern Bannien group as their own that just happen to have the same name. The ones we lost in Kalliam’s rebellion, that’s down to thirty-four, thirty-five.”

“Broot wants to redraw the map of Antea while we’re about it.”

“Doesn’t make sense for a man to have two holdings on different sides of the river. How are you to oversee them both? Spend half the winter one place? Only see a holding every second year? It’s just sense to expand the existing baronies.”

“These aren’t just dots on a map, Broot. These are places. My family has lived on its holding for ten generations. My grandfathers are all buried there. It’s not as if we can switch that to some field in the middle of Asterilhold and call it the same.”

Geder raised his eyebrows. This wasn’t the part of being regent he was best at, but they were right. It would need to be addressed.

“And there’s the problem of the cities,” Broot said, pointing an accusing finger toward the blotches of Kaltfel and Asinport. “We can’t make them part of a barony and check in on them once a year. We could try it, but they’ll revolt by spring and we’ll be right back where we were when the whole damned thing started.”

“There will be no revolt,” Basrahip said.

“Easy for you to say, Minister,” Broot said. “All respect, but you’ve never run a city. They’re worse than children.”

“They have the temple of the goddess within them,” Basrahip said. “The Righteous Servant will keep them true.”

Daskellin and Broot shared a glance. Daskellin looked away first.

“We did just have war in the streets for the best part of the summer,” Daskellin said.

“Yes,” Basrahip said, his smile broad. “The city was tested and purified, and note, Prince Daskellin, that we are here, and the enemy is slain.”

“Speaking of slaying enemies,” Broot said. “There is a third option, but it does mean abandoning the wholesale slaughter of the noble classes of Asterilhold.”

“And means less reward for the people who stayed with the crown,” Daskellin said.

“It’s not a reward if you can’t manage it, Canl. If you would stop thinking with your purse and see sense, you’d know that.”

“Stop!” Geder shouted, and the two men went silent and abashed. “There’s a third option. What is it?”

One of the maps slid to the floor, pooling in great loops and folds. Broot tugged on his mustache.

T H E K I N G ’ S B L O O D 455

“We could keep Asterilhold under its own rule. Take men from their best stock, let ’em swear fealty to the Severed Throne. Not all that many. Just five or six to… well, to replace the ones we lost. As it were. Even if they weren’t on our side before, it doesn’t take a wise man to see where the power is now.”

Geder stepped to the table and plucked one of the maps to the center where he could see the whole place at once. Asterilhold was much smaller than Antea, and with the marshes and mountains in the south, less of it was arable than a part of Antea the same size. Apart from the two great cities, it wasn’t even a particularly great conquest.

“Have we started killing the noblemen yet?” Geder asked.

“No, my lord,” Daskellin said. “Kalliam’s insurrection threw the plans badly behind schedule.”

“Hold off, then. I think I have an idea.”


T

he ballroom where Basrahip had questioned the personal guard hadn’t been used for dancing in some years. The boards were warped and uneven. The chandelier, though clean, was rusting at the joints. Geder walked through the space, his eyes narrow, seeing not what was before him, but what could be. Basrahip stood by the doorway, hands folded. If the big priest had an opinion, he didn’t say it.

“The thing we did here,” Geder said, nodding up at the steep tiered benches. “We could do that again, couldn’t we?”

“If you like, Prince Geder, we could.”

Geder stepped up two, three, four tiers, then turned, looking down at Basrahip and the ballroom floor from a height. The perspective made even Basrahip seem small. Geder felt a little bubble of pleasure rising in him. It reminded him of finding a new book on a subject he enjoyed.