The Fell Sword (6 page)

The Queen pressed his hand.

‘Master Pye!’ called the King.

The Master Armourer stood against the wall – short and stocky, as one would expect of a smith, with a long grey beard and clear grey eyes. He straightened and bowed. ‘Your Grace?’

The Queen leaned forward. ‘Your Grace needs to attend these worthy men.’

‘I am attending, sweet,’ said the King. He smiled at her, and then went back to his beloved Master Pye. ‘Pye, unriddle me this – why is it such a mischief?’ He sat back. ‘I’m too simple. Money is money. Either we have enough, or we don’t. I gather that we don’t? Is that the root of the trouble?’

‘The Captal de Ruth,’ announced the herald.

Master Ailwin winced at the man’s arrival.

‘If you need more money,’ Jean de Vrailly said, ‘tax these men harder. It is a shame that any member of the lower orders dresses like this popinjay. Take all the gold fittings from his belt – that will teach him not to dress this way in public. In Galle we order things better.’

‘Yes, well, Captal, in Alba we do not, and we reckon our kingdom stronger for it.’ The King waved the Captal to a seat. ‘Now be a good fellow and give me some room, here. These fellows are stretching my wits.’

‘As I was saying—’ Master Pye began. He went and stood by the coins, and Master Ailwin gave him a grateful glance.

‘The King of Galle—’ said de Vrailly.

The King turned the full force of his glare on the Victor of Lissen. ‘Master Pye is speaking, sir.’

De Vrailly turned and stared out the window like a pouting basilisk.

‘So,’ said Master Pye. He tossed a much-abused silver leopard on the table and it rang like a faery’s laugh. Then he tossed a fat silver leopard on the table, and it made a rude clank. He shrugged. ‘More tin than silver,’ he said. ‘The word I hear is that the Count of Hoek and the King of Galle are attacking our coins.’

‘You lie!’ said de Vrailly. He was in full armour – the only armoured man in the room.

Master Pye looked him over carefully. ‘That right pauldron must catch on your mail,’ he observed, after a moment.

De Vrailly paused.

The Queen thought that she had never seen the Gallish knight so utterly taken aback.

De Vrailly cleared his throat. ‘It does,’ he admitted. ‘Master Pye, you cannot attack the honour of the King of Galle in my presence—’

Master Pye didn’t flinch. He looked back at the King. ‘That’s what I hear, Your Grace. It stands to reason – our wool is pushing theirs out the market. They don’t have the kind of laws we do to support our cloth, because small men have no voice there.’ His eyes flicked to the armoured man. ‘So when their crafts fail, their kings must raise money by devaluing the coinage. It is like an attack.’ He raised a hand to forestall the King and de Vrailly too. ‘But our coinage is solid – your father made sure of that. Mmm? So everyone in the Dix Ports trades in our coin and that is our defence. They devalue their coinage, we don’t, and so our trade is strong. So what have they done?’ He took a deep breath, aware that the King was finally listening, ‘They’ve counterfeited our coins but with less bullion. Right? Now they beat us in two ways: they supply their devalued coins for exchange, which makes traders believe our coins are worth less; and they most likely take our true coinage and melt it down.’ He tossed the little, much clipped leopard again. ‘And our coin is old, Your Grace. It’s old and tired, much clipped and so lighter, but still pure silver. They’ve lost some of their value anyway.’ He looked at Master Ailwin. ‘How was that?’

‘It’s brilliant,’ said the King. His voice was no longer bantering, but hard. ‘How much has this hurt us?’

Ailwin shook his head. ‘I think we all thought it was just the events of the spring, at first. But then Master Random started to chart the falling silver content and what we’ve lost from it.’

‘How much?’ asked the King.

‘A hundred thousand leopards,’ said Master Random.

There was silence.

‘All Your Grace’s revenues are down, and when people pay their taxes using these debased coins, we have even less money than we expected.’ Master Ailwin said.

‘Good lord, I’d rather face a charge of trolls,’ complained the King. For a moment he put his face in his hands. ‘What do we do?’

The Lord Mayor looked at the carefully laid-out new armour on the side table. Each piece was mostly finished, but there were no buckles or hinges yet, and in place of decoration there were careful lines in white paint.

‘Cancel the tournament, for starters,’ said the Lord Mayor. ‘It’s going to cost what the war cost, and we don’t have it.’

The Queen put a hand to her throat.

The King looked at Master Pye. ‘Surely we can do better than that,’ he said.

Master Random raised a hand. ‘I hate to see a tourney cancelled,’ he said. ‘Instead, why not reopen the mint and issue new coinage? Strike some copper while we’re at it, and we’ll hold the balances for a while.’ He looked at Master Pye. ‘Pye has the skills to make the dies – I know he does. We could issue copper exactly to size and weight with the Imperial coinage out of Liviapolis, and have the thanks of every merchant and farmer west of the mountains.’

Pye rolled his eyes. ‘I make armour. We need to find a goldsmith.’

Master Random shook his head. ‘No – saving Your Grace, we need a loyal man who is absolutely trustworthy, and that’s you, Master Pye. The King’s friend. Your name behind the coins will—’ He looked sheepish as he realised that he was implying that men might not trust the King.

But the King had leaped to his feet. ‘Well spoken,’ he said. ‘By God, Random, if all my merchants were like you, I’d have a corps of merchant-knights. At least I can understand you. Let it be done – Master Pye, reopen the mint and coin us some coins.’

‘Commons will have to approve it,’ said the Lord Mayor. But then he shrugged. ‘O’ course the commons asked us to bring this to council in the first place, so they’ll approve.’

‘Why does my cousin the King of Galle attack my coins?’ asked the King. ‘Much less the Count of Hoek?’

Every man present turned and looked at de Vrailly. He crossed his arms. ‘This is absurd,’ he said. He looked around. ‘If you are short of funds, why not collect from those who owe? I hear your Earl of Towbray is very much in arrears.’

The Lord Mayor smiled. ‘Great nobles are not great tax payers,’ he allowed. ‘Who can collect from them?’

‘I can,’ said de Vrailly.

Ailwin Darkwood looked at the Gallish knight with something like respect. ‘If you could, my lord, this kingdom would be in your debt,’ he said.

‘Towbray’s taxes alone would pay for the tourney,’ allowed the Lord Mayor. ‘And any of the northern lords’ taxes would cover the cost of the war. The Earl of Westwall alone owes more taxes than all the Harndon merchants would generate in ten years. But he never pays.’

The Count of the Borders, hitherto silent, nodded. ‘But it would take another war to persuade Muriens to pay his tax,’ he said.

The King leaned forward. ‘Gentlemen, you are on dangerous ground here. My father gave the Earl certain tax concessions for maintaining a heavy garrison in the north.’

Rebecca Almspend had sat throught the meeting in silence. Small, dark, and pretty, in a detached and somewhat
aethereal
way, she, in the Queen’s words, looked like a beautiful mouse and dressed like one too.

She was not the Chancellor, but through the Queen she had access to all of that worthy man’s papers. The Bishop of Lorica had died at the great battle and had not yet been replaced. Lady Almspend rattled two scrolls together and spoke in a very small voice.

‘The Earl of Westwall’s subjects still owe a number of taxes. None has been paid,’ she looked up, ‘since Your Grace’s coronation.’

The Count of the Borders sat back. ‘He hides behind your sister, Your Grace.’

The Captal nodded, his helmet moving heavily, more like a horse’s head than a man’s. ‘Towbray is closer, but a campaign in the Northern Mountains would suit me very well.’ The Captal, who was not known for his smiles, beamed at the thought. ‘What adventure!’

‘There!’ said the King, obviously delighted. ‘Master Pye is to be master of our mint, and the Captal shall collect taxes in Jarsay with a royal commission and a strong retinue. And I shall send a strongly worded letter to my sister’s husband, suggesting that he might be next. Done! Now, before I forget – Random? Can you kneel?’

Master Random smiled, gritted his teeth, and got down on his knees. ‘I pray Your Grace’s mercy,’ he said.

The King reached out to his new squire, young Galahad d’Acre. ‘Sword!’

Galahad presented the King’s sword, hilt first. It was very plain, and the gold that had once decorated the cross-guard was mostly worn off. It did have the finger joint of Saint John the Baptist set in the hilt, and it was said that no man who bore the sword could ever be poisoned.

The King drew, and the blade whistled through the air to settle like a wasp on the shoulder of Gerald Random, merchant adventurer.

‘Rise, Ser Gerald,’ said the King. ‘No one deserves the buffet more than you. I insist you take the head of a wight as your arms. And I intend to charge you to be the master of this tournament we are planning; find the money, and account for it to the Chancellor.’

Ser Gerald rose like a man with two feet, and bowed. ‘I would be delighted, Your Grace,’ he said. ‘But you’ll need a Chancellor for me to account to.’

‘Now that the Count here is Constable, I can’t have him acting as Chancellor, too. And Lady Almspend cannot continue to fill the role.’ The King smiled at her. ‘A woman as Chancellor?’ He looked at her, and for a moment, his intelligence outshone his indolence. ‘Not that you haven’t been the best Chancellor I’ve known, my lady. But it’s not talent I need, but someone with enough interest in Parliament to make my laws and my coinage and my wars run smoothly.’

The Captal looked around. ‘Your Grace, if—’

‘Let’s have Master Ailwin, then,’ said Master Pye.

‘A commoner fulfilling the highest office of the land?’ asked the Captal. ‘Who would trust him? He’d most likely steal money.’

‘As a foreigner, the King’s champion is no doubt unaware that the last Bishop of Lorica was born a commoner,’ the Queen said, her voice light but her eyes steady. ‘Captal, by now you must be aware that such statements give offence to Albans.’

The Captal shrugged, his shoulder armour rising and falling to show the strength of his shoulders and back. ‘They should challenge me over it, then. Otherwise—’ he favoured them with his most beatific smile ‘—I assume they all agree.’

As always, Jean de Vrailly’s statements brought silence – in this case a stunned one as men sought to understand.
Did he just say what I think he said?

‘As this has become an impromptu meeting of the King’s Grace and his private council – may I say a word?’ asked the Count of the Borders. ‘There are many ways in which the north has not returned to normal since the fighting in the spring. Ser John Crayford reports that the woods are full of boglins, and worse.’

The King nodded. He smiled at his Queen.

She smiled back, but nodded graciously to the Count. ‘It is important to replace all the crown officers who were slain,’ she said. ‘Lorica needs a new bishop. His presence at our council is much missed.’

The King nodded. ‘He was a good man. A fine knight.’ He looked around. ‘He was with us for as long as I can remember – like old Harmodius.’ He looked around. ‘My pater appointed him.’

De Vrailly’s head shot back. ‘A king, no matter how favoured by God, cannot just appoint a bishop!’

The King shrugged. ‘Jean, perhaps I have the wrong of it.’

The Count of the Borders shook his head. ‘Captal, our king holds the right to appoint his own bishops under the approval of the Patriarch in Liviapolis.’

De Vrailly sighed. ‘The Patriarch is no doubt a worthy man, but not the rightful heir of Peter.’

Every Alban present either bridled at the words or settled his weight in boredom. The habit of Arles, Etrusca, Calle and Iberia had been to turn religious squabbles into open conflict – the investiture of bishops and the primacy of the Patriarch of Rhum were two particularly sore points. By virtue of distance and isolation, the Nova Terra was immune to such conflicts ‘Perhaps—’ The King grinned. ‘Perhaps we might find a candidate agreeable to both worthy fathers, and thus make all men happy.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Would that not be the wisdom of Solomon?’

Master Ailwin’s eyes met those of the newly minted Ser Gerald.

Ser Gerald bowed from his seat. ‘Your Grace – that might seem like sense, but you are abrogating a royal prerogative and asking two men who rarely even recognise each other’s existence to reconcile.’ He looked around, ignored a grunt from the Captal and shrugged. ‘Lorica and the north need a bishop now.’

The King smiled into his wife’s eyes. ‘I’ll look into it. Appoint a committee. Captal – you seem to know so much of religion. Will you manage this?’

‘I’d be delighted, Your Grace,’ said the knight, bowing with a clash.

The King whispered to his wife, and stood. ‘That’s enough business for one afternoon, gentles.’

The pages bustled about and the room emptied, leaving Ailwin and two servants with Gerald Random and Master Pye.

‘That was well said. The Bishop of Lorica was the friend of the little man.’ Pye shook his head.

‘I fear the Captal will find us a Gallish candidate,’ Ailwin said.

Random shrugged. ‘We got the mint. We won’t get the bishop. This is the life of court.’ He got to his feet and tottered into the hall supported between two servants.

The Captal was there already, attended by a pair of his omnipresent squires and his new lieutenant, fresh from Galle – the Sieur de Rohan. All three were big men in full armour.

‘This is the King’s notion of a knight,’ Rohan said, as Random passed.

He stopped. Turned his head, and smiled agreeably at the King’s champion and his friend. ‘Do you mean that as an insult, Ser?’ he asked.

‘Take it as you will,’ Rohan tossed off.

Random hobbled forward and put his face in the younger man’s face, very close. ‘You mean, you are
afraid
to tell me what you really think?’