Antiagon Fire

18

All in all, it wasn’t until Meredi morning that Southern Army and Quaeryt’s regiments pulled out of Laaryn, heading down the River Laar toward Ephra. While the factors of Laaryn had provided more flatboats, they were only used for supplies, and the troopers were forced to ride-or march, in the case of Skarpa’s two regiments of foot-along a very rough road on the east side of the river.

There had been one sad reminder that no matter how hard Quaeryt and Vaelora tried, sometimes there was no remedy for some ills. The small blond girl, about whom Vaelora had worried, had slipped out of the inn on Mardi night and thrown herself in the river. One of the squads riding patrols had seen her running toward the water, but hadn’t been able to reach her before the current pulled her into deep water, where she vanished in the darkness. The other girls hadn’t heard her leave.

The better side was that Vaelora had found families willing to help the other three, and had persuaded Meinyt to have an officer follow up to make certain they had kept their word. Even thinking about what he had found left Quaeryt discouraged, especially since he doubted that the situation was all that rare in Bovaria, perhaps even in Telaryn.

By Samedi noon, the Telaryn forces had weathered a chilling rainstorm that had halted their progress on Vendrei for several glasses, gusty fall winds, and two broken axles on supply wagons. They had covered close to a hundred milles, passing through hamlet after hamlet. Quaeryt and Vaelora also discovered that Kharst’s comparatively narrow and flat-bottomed canal boat rolled considerably even in the gentler waters of the River Laar and that the rudder was too small for quick response. In the end, Quaeryt ordered the canal boat lashed to a flatboat, and he and Vaelora rode with the troopers-although Quaeryt had to admit he did enjoy sleeping comfortably at night.

As they left another riverside village, called Croilles, Quaeryt looked to Vaelora. “Have you noticed that we haven’t seen anything even faintly resembling a high holding?”

“You’ve mentioned that every day, dearest.”

“I just wanted to keep reminding you of that.”

“You’re doing well. Why don’t you tell me what that means. You’re dying to do so, I think.”

“I well might”-Quaeryt grinned sheepishly-“especially since the weather has been nothing to talk about.” He ignored the fact that the morning was sunny and pleasant, with just enough breeze to be cooling without chilling.

“Well … go on.”

“Since you insist.”

Vaelora rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion.

Quaeryt grinned, then said, “When we traveled up the River Aluse-Southern Army, that is-we didn’t find many high holdings there, either, and there were far more ruined holdings than I would have expected, a number of them burned out or abandoned. In fact, I saw more ruined high holdings there than I have in all of Telaryn. When I think back on it, there was something else I didn’t see-and that was that people weren’t particularly afraid of the High Holders. The majority of the High Holders were afraid or worried about Kharst, and the larger and richer the hold, the more worried they were. Then there was something else”-Quaeryt looked to Vaelora-“something we saw again in Laaryn.”

“Powerful factors?”

“Rich and powerful factors. Some of the factors’ dwellings in Bovaria are the size of hold houses in Telaryn … and all of them are in towns or very close to them … and then there are the roads…”

“You keep saying that Kharst and his forbears didn’t build roads, except for the one from Nordeau to Variana.”

“Exactly. Almost all the trade and commerce in Bovaria has gone by the rivers, not by roads, and what good roads there are flank the rivers. Kharst’s power was limited by those facts. Telaryn is different, and so is Tilbor. Except for the Aluse, we don’t have that many long navigable rivers, and the ones we do have are separated by mountains and the like. So rulers built roads. They had to in order to be able to control their people and even the High Holders. Kharst used his assassins to rule the High Holders by fear, and granted the factors more power in order to collect tariffs through them. Bovaria doesn’t even have a government in the sense that Telaryn does. I’d assumed that Kharst had some sort of regional governor in Khel, but Bhayar couldn’t find any record of that, and all the messages in the Chateau Regis…”

“You destroyed them, didn’t you?”

“Those that survived were unreadable,” Quaeryt admitted.

“You think that the powerful High Holders in Bovaria were either favorites of the rex and close to rivers, or located in places where the rex would have great trouble attacking or assassinating them?”

“It makes a strange sort of sense.” Quaeryt shrugged. “I’m sure there are High Holders that don’t fall into that pattern, but too many of those I’ve encountered or observed do.”

“That also explains the Great Canal,” Vaelora said. “When Father started tariffing the Bovarian merchants using the River Aluse, that meant Kharst’s father couldn’t tariff his merchants as much. He didn’t build roads, though. He didn’t even think that way. He built a canal from Variana to Laaryn to get goods to and from the port at Ephra.”

After a pause, Vaelora asked, “Then why aren’t there more high holdings in the hills to the north of Lauckan? Those places would be even harder for any rex to have reached. Or is it because the ground is not only rocky and rugged, but poor?”

“That would be my guess. From the maps, it looks like all the lands north of Laaryn and Tuuryl are rather hilly and inhospitable. And the richer high holdings are those located at the hilly or rocky edges of flatter and more fertile lands-usually away from the rivers.”

“That explains Lauckan. It doesn’t explain why someone else didn’t do what you did, though.”

“I think it does.”

“It does?” Vaelora’s tone conveyed considerable doubt.

“Kharst and his predecessors ruled through the factors and through fear and assassination. He used crossbowmen and armsmen to carry out his wishes. Those are forms of violence against which a ruler can take precautions. We-the other imagers and I-have been effective only because Bhayar has gathered us and because I’m loyal to him. That’s because he’s a good ruler…”

“Kharst couldn’t trust any imager powerful enough to do what you can, could he?”

“I’d be very surprised.” Quaeryt sighed. “That’s why I have to build the imagers into an institution that has to be loyal to Bhayar and his successors, and one that is strong enough to assure that his successors are good rulers, in a way that will never tempt future imagers into trying to rule.”

“That sounds more difficult than unifying Lydar.”

“I doubt Lydar will remain unified if we don’t succeed.” Quaeryt couldn’t keep a certain bleakness out of his voice.

“If anyone can, you can…”

“No … it will take you, me … and Bhayar … and all the imagers.” And even that might not be enough.