A pretty maid brought him breakfast in bed. She gave him a cheerful
morning greeting but embarrassed him by hoping in her thought that he
would not make love to her. Her mind held some memory of how the last
man in this room had done so, but she shied from the thought of the
outcome so much that instead of decently avoiding her look Rodvard was
tempted to pry deeper, but there was hardly time.
She said it would be near to noon when Count Cleudi rose and that his
apartment was in one of the pavilions set among tree and shrub and
garden, west from the main villa. Rodvard dressed and went to stroll in
that direction through curved avenues among intricate beds of spring
flowers—tulip and narcissus, with pink azaleas just in the bud beside
them and magnolia showing its heavy white wax. The pathways had been
laid out so that each sweep brought somewhere into view through trees
the pale blue bay, with the white houses of Sedad Vix climbing the slope
beyond, their walls touched to gold by genial sunshine; bright yellow
birds were singing overhead, or busily gathering morsels for their
nests. Rodvard felt his heart expanding with a joyous certainty that all
would yet be well, though in the same tick demanding of himself how men
who dwelt in such surroundings could be given to evil and oppression.
Ah, if all people could only walk in gardens daily! A question in
philosophy to put to the doctor—but before he could frame it into words,
a turn of the path brought him past a tall clump of rhododendrons to the
front of a red-doored pavilion, where a gardener was letting into the
ground plants of blooming hyacinth.
The air was rich with their fragrance. “Good morning to you,” said
Rodvard cheerfully, for joy of the world.
The man looked up with lips that turned down at the corners. “If you say
it is a good morning, I suppose it must be one for you,” he said, and
turned back to his trowel.
“Why, I would call it the best of mornings. Does not the fine air of it
please you?”
“Enough.”
“Then what’s amiss? Have you troubles?”
“Who has not?” The gardener slapped his trowel against the ground beside
his latest plant. “Look at these flowers, now. Just smell that white one
there, it’s more fragrant than the blue. Aren’t they beautiful things?
Brought here at expense, and in this soil, see how black it is, they
would grow more perfect than ever, year by year. But here’s the end of
them; as soon as the blossoms fade ever so little, poor things, they
must be dug up and thrown away, because she—” he swung his head and
rolled an eye in the direction of the red-doored pavilion “—can’t bear
to have any but blooming flowers at her door and will want new lilies.”
“Who is she?” asked Rodvard, lowering his tone for fear that voices will
sometimes carry through wood.
“The Countess Aiella. Her affair, you will be saying, whether flowers
die or live; she has all that income from the Arjen estates, and doesn’t
have to provide for her brothers, who married those two heiresses up in
Bregatz, but a man could still weep for the waste of the flowers. Ser,
give a thought to it, how in the world we never have enough of beauty
and those who destroy any part of it take something from all other
people. Is it not true, now?”
He paused on his knees and looked up at Rodvard (who was growing
interested indeed, but now felt the coldness of the Blue Star telling
him that this earthy philosopher was not thinking of beauty at all, but
only reciting a lesson and wondering whether his pretty speech might not
draw him a gift from this poetical-looking young man.)
“I do not doubt it,” he said, “but I have no money to give away,” and
turned to go, but he had not travelled a dozen paces when he met one who
must be the Countess Aiella herself by the little double coronet in her
drag-edge hat. Rodvard doffed to the coronet, noting in the fleeting
second of his bow the passionate, bewildering beauty of the face
surrounded by curves of light-brown hair.
She stopped. “Put it on,” she said, and he looked up at her. The cloak
did not conceal the fact that she was still dressed for evening; a leg
showed through the slit in her dress. “I have not seen you before.”
“No, your grace. I only arrived last night.”
“Your badge says you are a clerk.”
“I am a writer to the Count Cleudi for this conference.” (He dared to
look into the eyes a finger-joint length below his own; behind them
there was boredom with a faint flicker of interest in himself and the
thought of having spent a bad night; a weary thought.)
“Count Cleudi, oh. You might be him in disguise.” She laughed a laugh
that trilled up the scale, slipped past him with a motion as lithe as a
gazelle’s and up the path into the red-doored pavilion. Rodvard looked
after her until he heard the gardener cackle, then, a little angry with
himself, stamped on round the turn of the path, trying to recover the
glory of the morning. Some of it came back, but not enough to prevent
him thinking more on the comparison between this countess and Lalette
than the difference between this day and any other day; and so he
reached Cleudi’s door, with its device of a fishing bird carved into the
wood.
Mathurin greeted him properly in words to show he and Rodvard barely had
met each other. The pavilion was all on one floor, the Count in a room
at the side, with a man doing his hair while he sipped hot spiced wine,
from which a delicious odor floated. Rodvard had heard of, but never
seen this famous exile and intriguer; he looked into a narrow face with
a broad brow above a sharp nose and lips that spoke of self-indulgence.
Mathurin pronounced the name of the new writer; a pair of dark eyes
looked at Rodvard broodingly (the thought behind them wondering what his
weakness was and how he would cheat). Said Cleudi:
“I do not ask your earlier employment, since it is of no moment if you
are faithful and intelligent. I cannot bear stupidity. Can you read
Tritulaccan?”
“Yes, your Grace.”
“You will gain nothing by attempting to flatter me with the form of
address. On the side table are pens and papers, also a horoscope which
has been cast in Tritulaccan and a poem in your own musical language.
Make fair copies of both in Dossolan. Have you breakfasted?” (His accent
had the slight overemphasis on S which no Tritulaccan ever loses.)
“Yes, thank you.”
The symbols on the astrological chart were new to Rodvard; he had to
copy each by sheer drawing and then translate the terms as best he
might. The poem was a sonnet in praise of a brown-haired lady; its meter
limped at two points. Rodvard managed to correct one of them by a
transposition of words and presently laid both papers before Cleudi, who
knit his brows over them for a moment and smiled:
“You are a very daring writer to improve on what I have set down, but it
is well done. Mathurin, give him a scuderius. Well then, you are to wait
on me in the conference at nine glasses of the afternoon. Everything I
say is to be set down, and also the remarks of the Chancellor Florestan,
but most especially those of the Baron Brunivar, for these may be of
future use. Of the others, whatever you yourself, consider worth while.
You are dismissed.”
Mathurin saw him to the door. “The scuderius?” asked Rodvard.
“Goes into the treasury of our Center,” said the servitor.
“But I have no money, no money at all,” protested Rodvard.
“Pish, you do not need it here. Would you starve our high purpose to
feed your personal pleasure in little things? I will come to your room
tonight.”
8
HIGH POLITIC
Although the day was bright outside, little light could seep through the
leaded panes and what little light there was had been cut off by heavily
looped curtains. There were candles down the long table and in brackets
on the walls. In the marble fireplace at the high end of the room a
small flame smouldered under the stone cupids; before it three men were
standing, with goes of brandy in their hands. Baron Brunivar was
recognizable by his description—tall, with a mane of white hair and a
firm-set mouth that made one think of the word “nobility” without
reference to civil condition. He was talking with a short, round man who
looked as jolly as he could possibly be and a dark, grave-faced lord who
held a kitten in his arm till the little thing struggled to be set down,
whereupon it played round his feet, catching for the shoe-laces. In
spite of his solemnity, this would be Florestan, the Laughing
Chancellor; he was known to favor cats.
In a moment he looked around and signed to Tuolén the head butler, who
rapped a little silver bell on the table. All the men from various
corners of the room gathered. Three of them were episcopals in their
violet robes with flowers of office. Florestan quietly waited till all
were at rest, his visage in calm lines (but Rodvard could see just
enough of his eyes to catch an intimation that this might be a grim
business). He tapped the bell once more.
“My lords, if you were ignorant of this convocation’s purpose, you had
not been summoned; therefore, let us leave all preliminaries and turn
straight to the matter of Her Majesty’s finance.”
Pause. The apple-faced man said; “What’s there to say of it?”
“That it is a very dangerous thing to have the court in poverty when we
are threatened with this question of the succession.”
The faces along the table watched him attentively, all set in varying
degrees of stubbornness, and as the kitten scratched at the leg of his
chair, he reached down to pet it. “My lords, this has now grown so grave
that we can dissolve our troubles only by measures never taken before;
all the old means eaten up. Yet we still want money to pay Her Majesty’s
army, which is not only a disgraceful thing but also a perilous. Those
who should protect us may become our persecutors.”
The little round man’s smile was jolly as before, his voice not; “Your
Grace, a bug close to the eye may look as big as a lion. Is there proof
of true disaffection?”
A man with silver-streaked hair and the breast-star of a general on his
silk nodded gloomily. “I bear such proof. This brawl among the Red
Archers of Veierelden has been given a light appearance; but my men have
looked into it, and it runs deeper than you think. Namely, they were
shouting for the restoration of Pavinius to the succession. We hanged
one of his emissaries, a Mayern man.”
“Pah,” said the round man. “Since he was exiled every ruction has been a
shout for his return. They do not mean it.”
“Dossola will never bear a king who is himself the leader of a sect
opposed to true religion,” observed one of the episcopals. “Even his
one-time followers of the Amorosian faith have rejected him.”
Florestan held up his hand. “My lords, you wander. I summoned you here
on this matter of finance to say that it is within the powers granted to
me as minister by the Queen’s Majesty to establish by decree the new
form of tax-payment proposed by our good friend, the Count Cleudi. Yet
as some of you have been good enough to let me know this plan will never
succeed, I now ask what other you propose.”
“It is a plan to steal from the nobles of the land, and it will surely
not be borne,” said a long-faced man with great force.
Said one of the episcopals; “The estates of the Church must of course be
exempt from this plan; for it would be an affront to the most high God
to make his spiritual ministers into tax-gatherers for the lesser, or
civil estate.”
Chancellor Florestan threw back his head with a burst of laughter so
heartily sustained that it was not hard to see how he had won his
calling-name. “The same spiritual ministers,” he said, “have little
trouble with their consciences when it is a question of collecting taxes
to their own benefit. No, I do not contemplate that the lords episcopal
shall be exempt, however ill that sits, and I tell you plainly that I
will enforce this plan with every strength there is. Come, my lords, you
waste my time, which belongs to the Queen; and so dissipate her
resources. I ask again; who has a sharper scheme than Cleudi’s?”
Now they burst in on him with a flood of words like so many dogs
barking, which he hardly seemed to hear as he leaned down to pet the
kitten. Rodvard, watching the calm indifferent face, could not catch a
clear vision of the eyes in the candlelight and flow of movement. He saw
Tuolén advance to pick up one of the glasses, with his eyes fixed on the
horsefaced lord who had been so vehement (and it came to him that
Florestan must know there was another Blue Star in the room, and be
concealing his thought from reading). The Chancellor reached over to tap
his bell once more.
“We will hear the Baron Brunivar,” he said.
The lord he mentioned turned a stately head, (but though he was squarely
in face, Rodvard could only make out a thought troubled and urgent;
nothing definite.) “Your Grace,” he said, “when I first learned of this
plan, I thought it was put forward merely to provoke a better. Now I see
that it is not, and though I have no plan for raising more money, only
for spending less, I ask you to think what will happen if you persist in
it. More taxes cannot be borne by the commonalty; they’ll rise, and
you’ll have Prince Pavinius over the border with a Mayern army at his
back.”
The Laughing Chancellor turned his head and said to his own writer at
the side table; “Be it noted that Baron Brunivar spoke of treason and
wars in the west, where his seignory lies.”
White eyebrows flashed up and down over Brunivar’s orbits. “You shall
not make me a traitor so, Your Grace. I have stood in the battlefield
against this Pavinius when he was Prophet of Mancherei, with all
Tritulacca to aid him; and there were some who fled.” He looked along
the table. “It is not exterior war I fear, but Dossolans at each others’
throats, and an unpaid army against us.”
Florestan’s voice tolled; “Write it down that the Baron Brunivar doubts
the army’s loyalty to Her Majesty.”
Brunivar’s face became a grimace, but he plunged on. “Let me beg Your
Grace: could not enough be saved on the household budget for the spring
festival to keep the army happy for long?”
“Write it down that the Baron Brunivar declares Her Majesty to be
extravagant.”
“I’ll say no more. You have my completest word.”
Said Cleudi lightly; “I thank you, my lord Brunivar, for having shown
that no plan but mine will do.”
Brunivar’s mouth flew open and shut again. Said one of the episcopals;
“Let us think if there be not another plan. I have heard that in some of
the estates of Kjermanash, when extraordinary measures are needed, they
have a tax on flour which is levied at the mill; most collectible, since
no one can avoid it if he wishes to eat bread. Could not a similar be
laid here?”
Florestan’s lips twitched. Brunivar struck the table. “I said I’d done,
but this outdoes all. My lord, in the west it is exactly that our people
have not coppers enough both to buy bread and pay their present taxes
that has roused our troubles. Will you starve them?”
The little fat man said; “Yet the present revenues are not enough.”
A general murmur. Brunivar stood up in his place at the table. “My
lords,” he said, “I am forced to this issue. The burden lies not on the
court alone, but on all of you. The popular can pay no more; whatever
comes, must come from our estates. It has been so since the Tritulaccan
war and the loss of the Mancherei revenues that kept us all in luxury.
We in the western seignories have made some sacrifice toward the
happiness of our people, out of free will and the love of humankind. We
have been without the troubles that vex such seignories as yours, Your
Grace of Aggermans—” he looked at the round man “—and without witchings.
And this, I think, is because we show some love for those we rule.”
Cleudi lifted his hand for speech and the Chancellor signed to him. He
said; “I speak here under permission, being a foreigner, and not
familiar with these new religions that have vexed and divided the
ancient realm of Dossola and its former dominion overseas. I would ask
whether the Baron Brunivar’s talk of love for humankind places him more
definitely with the Amorosians who follow the first doctrine of the
Prince-Prophet, or with those who now accept his word?”
Head bent to set down these words, Rodvard did not catch a glimpse of
Brunivar’s face at this accusation, but he heard the quick gasp of
breath that was covered by Florestan’s laughter. The Chancellor said;
“My lords, and fellow-scoundrels of Baron Brunivar’s accusation, I think
this most happily clears the air. You see where the true resistance to
Count Cleudi’s plan for taxes lies, and on what ground. Will you make
yourselves one with that purpose, which is clearly nothing but the
establishment over us of Pavinius and his form of witchcraft?”
His eyes swept the table, and the noble lords and episcopals stirred in
their seats, but nobody said a word. “Now I’ll add more. You are jealous
of your privilege, my lords, as to this new plan, and fear the
government will be the only gainer. By no means; it is only a device of
finance which will in the end work favorably for all. You are charged
with the taxes due from your seignories, yes. But when this happens
there is created a class of financial paper which, having value, can be
bought and sold; I mean the warrants drawn by the court on you for the
tax-monies. Good; Her Majesty’s government will sell these warrants at
discount to Zigraners and others who love to speculate. There’s a fine
speculation; for instance, will the tax on the province of Aggermans
yield twice what it did last year—or the half? Thus the paper will
change hands; but at every change of ownership in the paper, the
government takes a small tax on the transaction, small enough not to
discourage the purchase and sale. Thus we are provided instantly with
the full treasury we must have, obtaining it from the sale of the
warrants; and at the same time we have a steady source of income, while
you, my lords, lose nothing.”
The small fat man who had identified himself as the Duke of Aggermans
spoke up; “It all sounds very well, but why must the nobles of the realm
be converted into money-grubbing tax-gatherers as though we had Zigraner
blood? What! Can you not cheat the speculators as well by selling them
paper on taxes collected direct, in the name of the Queen?”
The Laughing Chancellor flung out a hand. “Why, touching your first
question, my lord, you’ll be no more a tax-gatherer than you are today;
only the agents who now speak in Her Majesty’s name will be by degrees
transferred to your service. From this you’ll benefit; for some of these
taxes will be paid in early and you will have the handling of the monies
until the government’s paper against you falls due. As to the second,
why if we are to enlist the speculators to our work, it must surely be
through having papers of different values, which go up and down from one
seignory to another, instead of all being equal, as the government’s own
obligation is.”
The general said; “The monies must come soon, if we’re to have peace
with the army.”
Florestan stood. “The session may be considered closed.”