So I hadn't had my morning caffeine yet! Wanna make something of it?
I've got rakurai, and I'm not afraid to use 'em!
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“Actually, I think I may have some hope for Baron Star Rising’s initiative,” Prince Nahrmahn said from the computer in which he and his virtual reality resided.
“You really think he’ll be able to pull that off?” Pine Hollow sounded skeptical, and Nahrmahn’s computer-generated image shrugged.
“I truly think he may . . . if he’s luckier than hell, pardon the language, Maikel.” Staynair’s lips twitched, and Nahrmahn grinned. Then his own expression sobered. “Owl and I couldn’t predict something like him coming along, Trahvys—or, rather, we deliberately refused to engage in wishful thinking and hope someone like him turned up. But I think he’s really going to try rather than cutting and running for it with his family, and Doctor Johnson had a point. God knows Star Rising’s got enough horrible examples next door in Tiegelkamp to concentrate anyone’s thinking! Not only that, serfdom in western Harchong’s never been quite as brutal as in the rest of North Harchong.”
“Mostly because that’s where so many of North Harchong’s craftsmen and artisans are concentrated,” Nynian pointed out. “Especially in Boisseau and southern Cheshire. Not so much in Omar and Pasquale, of course. And there’s not much of anything in Bedard Province, aside from a few fishermen along the coast.”
“But the guilds have been just as much in bed with the aristocracy in western Harchong as anywhere else,” Ehdwyrd Howsmyn, the Duke of Delthak, countered. “They’re just as invested in the old system as anyone else.”
“Not really,” Nahrmahn disagreed. “Oh, they are invested in it, I don’t think anyone could argue about that, Ehdwyrd. For that matter, I know they don’t want to see your style of manufactories move in on their turf. But I doubt they want to see their families massacred, either. And not even the aristocracy’s interests are as tied to the land as they are for the major power holders in, say, Tiegelkamp or Chiang-wu, given how many more smaller landholders there are in Boisseau and Cheshire.”
Delthak nodded, albeit with a doubtful expression. Some of those “smaller landholders”—like Baron Star Rising himself—were among the most ancient of Harchong’s aristocratic families, given the initial pattern of human colonization, moving into those provinces from the original enclaves around Beijing Bay and the Yalu Inlet. However, they’d also moved into them before the great nobles managed to monopolize power. In fact, those ancient families had been largely squeezed out of the Harchongese power structure’s top slots by the more recently ennobled families spreading out eastward from their new capital in Shang-mi into Tiegelkamp and Chiang-wu.
That probably helped explain why serfdom was less oppressive in Boisseau and Cheshire. Some of the peasant freeholds in those two provinces were almost as ancient as Star Rising’s title, and the huge estates with hundreds, even thousands, of serfs bound to the soil were rare.
That was also the reason wealthy families there were more invested in trade than elsewhere in North Harchong. South Harchong was another matter entirely, of course, with fewer great nobles of any sort and a much more open mind where commerce was concerned. But not only were Star Rising and his fellows excluded from the lucrative perquisites of office by the more powerful aristocrats who monopolized the imperial government and bureaucracy, they couldn’t generate sufficient income from farming their smaller estates, especially given the inefficiency of Harchongese agriculture. So they’d had no option but to seek other avenues . . . which, of course, allowed the great, land-rich members of the aristocracy to despise them as mere tradesmen.
“I’m not saying the odds are in Star Rising’s favor,” Nahrmahn continued. “I’m only saying he might pull it off. And if he does, I’m sure he will follow up on the suggestion that he seek Charisian aid.”
“How much ‘aid’ could we actually give them?” Delthak asked skeptically.
“A valid question,” Cayleb said. “Care to take a swing at it, Kynt?”
“If we’re talking about military aid,” Kynt Clareyk, Baron Green Valley and Duke Serabor, replied, “I’ll have to give it some serious thought before I could give you any sort of definitive answer. But I can already tell you there’s no way we have sufficient military capability to intervene on any broad scale in Harchong. That kind of rolling disaster sucks up manpower like a sponge, and we’re still building down from Jihad levels.”
“None of us think we can do that,” Merlin said. “But what about in just the western provinces? Assuming Star Rising and his friends can keep a lid on things?”
“Unless the ‘lid’ includes something besides suppression, I think the technical phrase is ‘not a chance in hell,’” Serabor said bluntly. “If he’s able to bring the free peasants and what little middle class he has into some kind of genuine power-sharing relationship with the aristocracy, and if the lot of them manage to convince the majority of serfs they’re truly willing to implement real reforms, we could probably find the strength to provide at least some islands of stability. But that’s a lot of ifs, Merlin!”
“That’s true,” Staynair said. “But they may have a better chance of managing all that than you think, Kynt, given how much less hardline the local Church has been about resisting Duchairn’s reforms. In fact, there’s a strong Reformist element in in both Boisseau and Cheshire—especially Boisseau. You know how severely Bishop Yaupang’s been hammered by both Shang-mi and Shynkau because of his support for it.”
“And that’s exactly why I think they might be able to pull it off,” Nahrmahn agreed. “Star Rising’s being careful to get the bishop on board, and now that Zhynchi’s run for it, I think Lyauyan has the inside track in the Church, at least in Boisseau.”
Serabor considered that for several seconds, then nodded.
Archbishop Baudang Zhynchi, the Archbishop of Boisseau, was a Church apparatchik of the old school, bitterly opposed to Rhobair II’s reforms. But he was also over eighty years old and increasingly frail. In fact, he would have retired at least two or three years ago if the Harchongese Church hierarchy had been one iota less determined to prevent Rhobair from replacing any more of its members. As it was, Zhynchi hadn’t been about to request replacement, and none of his fellow archbishops would have been at all happy if he had. At the same time, age, ill health, and a gathering loss of mental focus had precluded him from keeping a firm grip on the Reformists in his own archbishopric.
And Zhynchi had panicked when the first reports of the sack of Shang-mi reached his cathedral in Zhynkau. It was probably unfair to blame a man his age and whose mind was increasingly fuddled even when it came to dealing with routine matters, but he’d been on the first galley south, and his unceremonious departure had created an abrupt vacuum at the very apex of the province’s religious hierarchy. More than that, his cowardice—which was the only word for it, whatever excuses one might make for him—had further undermined the Church’s hardliners.
Yaupang Lyauyan, the Bishop of Pauton, was quite a different sort of prelate. He was only forty-seven, thirty-plus years younger than Zhynchi, and one of those Reformists Zhynchi had been unable to repress properly. His see wasn’t wealthy, but Pauton was the province’s third oldest diocese, after those of Zhynkau and Quijang. That gave him more seniority than his youth might otherwise have suggested, and he was not only younger than either of those other two bishops; he was far more charismatic, as well. In fact, unlike them, he was actually trusted by the peasants and serfs of his diocese. If Star Rising could enlist him in the nascent provisional government he was trying to create. . . .
“I still think it would be iffy,” the duke said, “but you and Maikel have a point about Lyauyan.”
“And bayonets aren’t the only way to keep the peace,” a soprano voice pointed out.
Lady Elayn Clareyk, Duchess Serabor, was ten years younger than her husband, with exotic—by Old Charisian standards—golden hair, green eyes, and a pronounced Siddarmarkian accent. They’d met following the Tarikah Campaign which had ended the Jihad, and there were dark places behind those green eyes, left by the things she’d had to do to keep herself and her younger sister Lyzbyt alive after the Sword of Schueler massacred every other member of their family.
Lyzbyt had taken vows with the Bédardists of the Church of Charis as Sister Lyzbyt, and she was emerging as a brilliant young psychologist. There was still too much anger inside Elayn for that sort of rapprochement with the Church, even in Charis, but she’d been a member of the inner circle almost from the day of her marriage and she’d grasped both the challenge that circle faced—and its capabilities—with almost frightening clarity.
“What do you mean, Elayn?” Sharleyan asked.
“I think I’m the only member of the conversation who’s seen this kind of madness from the inside.” Lady Elayn’s voice was as dark as her eyes. “When it started in Harchong, I prayed to God that it wouldn’t be as bad as it was in Siddarmark. Now it looks like it’s actually going to be worse. And that means we have to do anything we can— anything, Your Majesty—to . . . to mitigate it. I know exactly why you don’t want to send troops into the middle of this, Kynt. For that matter, I don’t think any purely military solution would work. I think you’re right that they could help provide at least your ‘islands of stability,’ but we need more than islands. We need to give Star Rising and the others hope, not just soldiers. We need to give them the kind of hope they can extend to other people—to those artisans and guild masters, to the peasants. Even to the serfs.”
“I think all of us agree with that,” Cayleb said soberly, and the others nodded. Young Elayn might be, by other people’s standards, but she was only a year younger than Cayleb himself, with a hard won wisdom far beyond her years. “The problem is how we do that.”
“We do what Charisians do best, Your Majesty.” She gave him a quirky smile. “We invest. We take those islands of stability and expand them into islands of prosperity.”
“Who do we invest with?” Delthak asked. “You’re right, Elayn. If we could do that—if we could find someone to partner with and Kynt could buy us a big enough window of stability—it would help enormously! Some of the families involved in trade, especially in Boisseau, would see the opportunity in a heartbeat, but I don’t think they have enough capital or enough time to take advantage of it.”
Several heads nodded in agreement with that. The “Nahrman Plan”—Merlin’s teasing name for it had actually stuck—seemed to be succeeding, but it was working far better in some places than in others. Charis’ own rate of industrial expansion continued to accelerate, driven by an exuberant tide of innovations utterly foreign to Safehold’s traditional mindset, and Charisian investors had found scores of partners in the Kingdom of Dohlar, under the auspices of First Councilor Thirsk. The Grand Duchy of Silkiah was another success story, with Silkiahan investors almost trampling one another to buy shares in the new Silkiah Canal Company and import Charisian manufactory techniques. South Harchong, unlike the northern half of the empire, had also embraced the new opportunities, although the Harchongians had so far chosen to go largely their own way, with minimal Charisian involvement. After all, everyone knew how the Emperor and his heir felt about Charis, and no one wanted to be pasting any targets to their own backs. There were a handful quiet partnerships underway in the south, but nothing like the scale in Dohlar and Silkiah.
Yet if the effort was succeeding in those places, it was going less well in the rest of Safehold, including North Harchong and, unfortunately, the Republic of Siddarmark.
“I don’t pretend to understand economics as well as you and Baron Ironhill do, Your Grace,” Elayn said, looking at Duke Delthak’s image. “I do understand that promoting stable economic and industrial growth requires local investors and the local rule of law, though, especially if we want that growth to be sustainable. And I realize Delthak Enterprises is only one investor. Admittedly, you’re the biggest in the entire world, but only one, and not all Charisian investors are as . . . altruistic as Delthak. I know that, too. But surely there has to be some way!”
“Altruism’s not the best word to describe even my investment strategies, Elayn,” Delthak said. “I do have partners and investors, and I do need to earn them a healthy return if I expect to hang onto them. And especially if I want to attract more of them!”
“You actually said that with a straight face, Ehdwyrd,” Cayleb said in an admiring tone, and Sharleyan stifled a giggle, then poked him with an admonishing toe.
“All right, that’s fair,” the duke acknowledged. “But I haven’t told my shareholders about our real objective. I can’t, now can I? And none of the others—the ones Elayn is pointing out aren’t as noble and altruistic as your humble servant—care a damned thing about spreading our technical infrastructure. Most of them would be just a delighted to maintain a total monopoly on it as long as they frigging well can, actually! They’re looking purely at the profit factor when they consider any overseas investment, and if they can’t find local partners or some other damned convincing incentive, they won’t be able—or willing—to free up enough risk capital to do any good. Especially not somewhere where they don’t know if the local authorities are going to be able to stay the local authorities. Elayn’s absolutely right about how important stable, law-abiding local governance is if we expect anyone else to come along for the ride. Hell, that’s a big part of the problem—in a different way, of course—in Siddarmark!”
“Fair enough,” Cayleb said in return.
They’d counted heavily on Siddarmarkian participation in their expansion effort. The fact that it didn’t seem likely to be forthcoming, and that the chaos and catastrophe in North Harchong was likely to impact South Harchong, made all of them unpleasantly aware of the cold, fetid breath of apocalypse on the backs of their necks, and—
“Wait a minute,” Merlin said suddenly. “Wait just one minute.”
His wife looked at him, her eyes intent. He didn’t seem to notice. He simply sat there, obviously thinking hard, and then as his expression began to change, she smiled.
“I know that look,” she said. He blinked, then shook himself and gave her a crooked smile of his own. “Out with it!” she commanded.
“Well,” he said, “it’s just occurred to me that all we’re seeing right now in Harchong is the devastation and massacres. At least, that’s all we’re looking at, because it’s so horrible and there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do to stop it. Which, unfortunately, is probably true for most of North Harchong. But you and Nahrmahn are right about Boisseau and Cheshire’s social matrix. And that means that what we have in those provinces is actually an opportunity.”
“An opportunity?” Cayleb’s expression made it clear that only his respect for Merlin’s past accomplishments had kept the incredulity out of his tone, and Merlin smiled again.
“We’re all in agreement that we need to actively involve everyone we can in this industrialization effort, which is why we’re letting the ‘private-sector’ carry the primary burden. None of us like how some of our more unscrupulous Charisians are doing that, but Ehdwyrd’s right that relying on the profit motive—and basic greed—means somebody will exploit every opportunity out there. He’s also right about the situation in Harchong. The way it’s headed, no private investor’s going to risk the capital to accomplish anything in time to keep Star Rising and his effort from sinking. But we’ve got the Mohryah Lode.”
Cayleb frowned, then his eyebrows arched, and Merlin nodded.
The enormous wealth under Silverlode Island’s Mohryah Mountains had come as quite a shock when Nahrmahn found a description of it in the notes Pei Shan-wei’s survey crews had left in Owl’s memory. It dwarfed Old Earth’s Comstock Lode. So far, the prospecting crews, working without benefit of Shan-wei’s notes for obvious reasons, had found considerably less than a third of the major ore bodies under the mountains, yet those same notes indicated that what they had found would ultimately produce in excess of ten million tons of silver and six and a half million tons of gold.
And that was barely the tip of an iceberg that belonged—in toto—not to the Charisian Empire, but specifically to the House of Ahrmahk. In terms of real buying power, Cayleb and Sharleyan Ahrmahk were undoubtedly the wealthiest individuals in the history of the human race.
Period.
Obviously, they couldn’t simply dump that kind of gold and silver into their own economy without fatally overheating it. But. . . .
“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?” Cayleb asked after a moment.
“I’m suggesting a variant on what was once called the ‘Marshall Plan’ back on Old Earth. If we don’t have Harchongese investors, we create them. We make Crown-guaranteed loans to qualified Harchongians—and we define ‘qualified’ as loosely as we can get away with—at a zero interest rate, or damned close to it. Face it, we’ve got money to burn in the Mohryah Lode. Even if half of them default, we can write it off the books and keep right on going. But by making the loans available in the first place, we provide a route to that prosperity Elayn was just talking about. Plus, we get all the goodwill for having ridden to the rescue, and having been mighty generous when we did. And it gives us the opportunity to create a huge opening for industrial expansion in North Harchong, of all places!”
“I like it,” Delthak said after a moment, then grinned suddenly. “We can call it the Ahrmahk Plan!”
“I like it, too,” Archbishop Maikel said. “But if we’re going to do that, we need to set up the mechanism very carefully to make sure it doesn’t turn into something totally dominated by the local nobles. Ehdwyrd and Elayn’s point about the need for stability and the assurance of the rule of law will be essential for outside investors. And if we want to convince peasants and serfs that this offers prosperity for them, as well, we can’t create a situation that simply reinforces the existing elites’ control!”
“Agreed.” Merlin nodded firmly. “I’m sure we can draft terms to mandate the conditions—both of governance and of broad-based participation—under which we make them available, though. And since we’re guaranteeing the loans, I think it’d be reasonable to assign Charisian administrators to them to make sure that Harchongese propensity for graft doesn’t get a toehold. Offering to provide Charisian industrial advisors—like Brahd Stylmyn, if you can spare him, Ehdwyrd—for any project we underwrite would probably be a good idea, too. As long as we make it clear those advisors are being paid by the Crown, not by the people they’re advising, at least.”
“Excellent idea,” Nahrmahn approved. “If we’re paying them, the Harchongians will know their ‘advisors’ aren’t skimming anything from their cash flow.” The dead little Emeraldian chuckled suddenly. “Graft-free administration! I wonder how many Harchongians will drop dead from sheer shock when they hear about that!”
