Hanish touched the scar on his nose with his thumb, just a passing motion that he did not linger on. Wryly, he said, “I can barely contain my curiosity.”
“We would like to take the Outer Isles off your hands. We would like to own them outright.”
“Those islands are thronging with pirates.”
Sire Dagon smiled. “We have considered that. They are not a problem. We have examined every aspect of how they function, and we are confident we can pacify them.”
“They are hardly the type to accept passivity of any sort.”
“They have been a problem to you, haven’t they?” Sire Dagon asked. “So many problems you’ve taken on your shoulders. Perhaps you did not think that the peace would be more challenging than the war. This is a lesson only learned by error and trial. It is why the league chooses to always be at peace, even if our friends choose to make war on one another.”
Hanish could not dispute that there was wisdom in such an approach. Who would have thought that winning the military battles would prove to be easy compared to managing the empire? One and then another and then another crisis sprouted. Some of the trouble was of his own making. The fever was more virulent than he had imagined, for example. He had not fully reckoned with how far it would spread and how quickly it would outstrip his military objectives. It simply killed too many, leaving a weakened fragment of the former population to rebuild after the war.
Also, the Numrek outlived their usefulness, and their welcome. They had not returned across the Ice Fields as they had first promised they would, though Hanish had paid them lavishly for their services. In the turmoil after the war, as the fever still raged through the south, they entrenched themselves in Aushenia, claiming the entire region as their own, taking over the towns and villages and the royal estates, enslaving the humans unlucky enough to get captured. Even worse, they had started colonies along the western edge of the Talayan coast. Creatures of the frozen north, indeed! As it turned out they loved nothing better than baking beneath a furious sun and swimming in the limpid waters.
There were other problems he had no hand in creating. The people-perhaps because the war disrupted the flow of the mist-got all sorts of ideas in their heads. They became unruly, conniving, flaring into rebellion, staging acts of sabotage, as when they set fire to the grain stores on the Mainland, halving the supply there and causing a near famine year. They spun stories of holy prophecies, said that Hanish and his plague were the harbingers of the Giver’s return. They developed a liking for martyrs, recalcitrant bastards upon whom torture and execution were but a blessing. Talay had never been fully pacified; the Outer Isles were lousy with pirates; his troops were pestered by assassins in the guise of loyal subjects.
And the revolts at the mines were most frustrating. Just when Hanish was poised to restart the engine of the world’s commerce, the miners took it into their heads to grasp control of their own lives. They refused to work. Some fool among them rose to prominence by suggesting that the miners deserved a share of their profits from their labor. A silver-tongued, ranting prophet of a man, Barack the Lesser, had caused no end of trouble. He had even claimed to have seen the future return of Aliver Akaran. How very annoying. His efforts achieved nothing but misery for all involved. The strike had to be put down through a siege that Hanish could scarcely afford to prosecute. So many of them died. Such a waste of manpower; all for nothing.
The Numrek, the league, and the Lothan Aklun: how had be become so miserably indebted to all of them? In frozen Cathgergen, so far from power and privilege, each partnership had made complete sense. Why not buy an army and pay them with treasure from lands they themselves conquered? Why not promise great sums to merchants who would help to enrich him? What better partner in business than the suppliers to a ravenous market never looked upon or dealt with directly? No sum had seemed too great if paying them helped him achieve his goals. He felt different now, on every count.
Not least of his worries was that he had managed to catch only one of the four Akaran children. Corinn went unharmed and lived comfortably in Acacia. She knew nothing of the fate that still awaited her. Her presence should have been a comfort, one less thing to worry about. Instead, she shot him through with a sort of torment. What would he do with her? What did he want to do with her?
Sire Dagon pressed his teeth against a plum. He broke the skin of it, paused, and relished the moisture. He did not swallow the fruit. Apparently, the juice on his lips was all he wanted. “Anyway, these brigands, all their raiding up and down the coast-you need not trouble yourself with them. Even we have had some difficulty with them, but we have yet to crack down. We will do so now, and they will fall to us by next summer. The Ishtat will prevail where you struggled; we’re confident of this. When we are done, we will quietly take possession of the islands; you will bask in pride at having secured the coastline from brigands.”
“Why do you want those islands so?” Hanish asked.
Sire Dagon contemplated him for a moment. He touched the corner of his lips to wipe the fruit juice away. “Before I tell you, remember that the doubled quota will make you richer than Acacia ever was-”
“How can they want more?” Hanish interrupted, unable to keep the incredulity out of his voice. “What do they do with all these slaves? They could scarcely ask for more if they ate them for meat.”
Sire Dagon frowned and twisted his head to the side, indicating that both the question and the inference were in terribly bad taste. “One need not ask such things. They do whatever it is they do; let us both be glad for it. Remember that one of the original tenets of the Quota contract was that the league would serve as the only intermediary between Acacia and Lothan Aklun. As part of this, we have never betrayed the secrets of one side to the other. Nor will I do so now. As I was saying, the Lothan Aklun swear never to amend this agreement, not now, not ever. Nor will we overreach the quota in the provinces. This is something that sometimes happened during the last reign, but it will not happen again. Once we have normalized the increased quota, we will pacify the Outer Isles. We will clear them, make them arable, and we will begin production.”
“Production of what?”
“Of the only thing the Lothan Aklun want from us.”
The answer came to Hanish like an amorphous shape rising from the depths of his imagination. “You will breed slaves there.”
Sire Dagon showed no surprise, no satisfaction at Hanish’s pronouncement. He just plucked up a grape and spoke casually. “I do not recognize that word slaves. But if you mean that we will breed our product there, you are correct. It will be a most efficient means of production. We’ve made plans already. The island of Gillet Major, in particular, will make for a lovely plantation.”
After the leagueman left, Hanish leaned against his desk and gazed through the thin curtains, rippling as they did with the afternoon’s breeze. The world could be so calm at moments, he thought, so oblivious. His brother and his uncle entered, and he had to summon his energy just to erase the disquiet from his demeanor.
“I passed that weird one in the courtyard,” Haleeven said. “I have no love for those creatures, Hanish. No love at all.” His face testified to the turbulence of the passing years. Peacetime, it seemed, had been particularly hard on the older man. The climate-though he never complained-did not suit him. He seemed ever ill at ease within his skin, flushed as if coming in from exercise, confused by something in the air that he could not quite put his finger on.