The Fire Queen

Chapter 34

Nicolas Remdahl and the rest of the nobles and their retainers left the city for Erst in ordinary wagons. I watched them leaving from one of the rooms on the second floor of the palace, leaving for their new lives as ordinary citizens in a foreign land. It wasn't lost on me that what I was witnessing was the end of an era, the end of the more than thousand year old history of the nobles, and, just like with Esmeralda, my thoughts turned to the incredible fragility of power, and whether my actions, like the ones that I had taken against the nobles, would one day expose the fragility of my power.

"If you keep handling things the way you've handled this business with the nobles you'll be just fine," the Overseer said to me.

I had by now gotten used to his unannounced pop-ins and was no longer startled when his voice came to me from out of thin air.

"Do you really mean that?"

"When the king decided to move on the nobles he ended up fighting a series of civil wars that lasted for years and resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people; you were able to bring a conclusive end to the time of the nobles with minimal bloodshed, I'd say that qualifies as a resounding success."

"The noble that I spared, Lord Remdahl, he told me that his reason for not joining the other nobles in their opposition to the king or their alliance with Volstaff was his devotion to you; why was his devotion to you so much stronger than his own self-interest?"

"Because he is a direct descendant of the first pilgrims to travel to these lands and settle it. It is the dream of all settlers to have their years of toil rewarded by an Overseer being sent down from Mount Edrugar to recognize the land that they've settled as a kingdom."

"Is that where you're from? Mount Edrugar?"

"It's where all of us Overseers are from, the mountain is a wellspring of divine energy."

"Where is it?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that, such knowledge is not for humans to know."

"When you came down and recognized Aseron as a kingdom, were you aware that the settlers had driven the Okwari off their lands and killed thousands of them in the process?"

"Yes, I was aware of that."

"Why was there no divine punishment for that?!" I asked angrily.

"It is not up to us to stand in judgment of you humans, it's up to you to recognize when your behavior has been abominable and to correct it accordingly."

"That's exactly what I plan to do, the Okwari will receive what they are owed for what they were made to suffer, as queen I will make sure of it."

I had been thinking a lot about this ever since Ferland had stressed to me the importance of my first proclamation and how it would set the tone for my reign. I was torn between using my proclamation to make clear my intent to address the wrongs that the Okwari were made to suffer or if I should use it to send a message to the citizens of my unwavering commitment to always act in their best interests. I couldn't decide which would be the better approach, so I chose to focus on something else.

With the nobles gone the administration of the affairs of the states now fell under the purview of the palace. The newly restored Merchant Guild took charge of economic affairs and the soldiers assumed responsibility for security. The administration of civilian services throughout the kingdom covered a wide range of areas, the most important of which was providing the population with agricultural assistance, of which there would need to be a great deal because of the elimination of the Caeda crop. To replenish the growth of food crops a larger than usual share of the harvested food crops would need to be set aside for planting for the next harvest, putting our food situation in critical territory.

"We'll have to import, there's no other way," Alfred said to me and Ferland.

"That much is obvious, the issue is how much we need, how much it will cost and who produces enough of a harvest to provide us with what we need," I said to Alfred.

"The best estimate we've been able to come up with is that we'll need to import sixty percent of the grain that we need."

"Does that include the grain that's needed for feeding livestock?"

"It does."

"And who produces enough grain to supply us with that much?"

"Theran is the kingdom that produces the most grain, we've been importing most of our grain from them, but not as much as this, we'll need to double what we've been importing thus far."

"Do they have enough to meet our needs?"

"Theran exports its grain to many kingdoms, mostly to kingdoms that aren't able to grow the food they need because their landscapes don't allow for the cultivation of large fields, like Kandalar."

"And we've been importing grain to make up for a reduced harvest due to us growing flowers for narcotics."

"That's why they've been charging us more than the normal rate."

"How much more?"

"About thirty percent."

"Thirty percent!"

"A deferred payment plan was agreed for much of the grain that was imported, that is the nature of our indebtedness to Theran. The good news is that the nobles were making more money growing the Caeda flowers than the grain imports cost, so as soon as we get Dranii to turn over the nobles' fortunes we'll be in the clear."

My audience with the Dranii ambassador was shaping up to be the most important event of my reign and it was imperative that we left nothing to chance. We sent a letter to the Dranii embassy summoning the ambassador only once we had all of the information that we needed to engage in a robust dialogue.