Chapter Sixty-Two

  “I still cannot believe that idiot!” Berenice snapped and slammed her fist down on the stone table. She’d said that every day since Dominic’s detention for the last few weeks.

  “I know. I know.” Ginedine groused and ran his hands through his hair, “And the blood debt… it’s so much…”

  “But we have to pay it.” Yvon replied. “Even if it is far more than he was ever worth… what was he thinking?! Even if they’re demon worshipers, they were a noble and men-at-arms under the Queen’s direct orders! What kind of damn fool…” He stopped and sucked in a deep breath. Then he languidly placed his palms flat on the table, closed his eyes, and with slow deliberation, exhaled, “No, do not get riled up again.”

  “Look,” Yvon continued, “we’ve worked the budget a hundred ways from Sunday and there is no way to pay it all at once. I suggest we ask to pay it in stages.”

  “That’s reasonable, maybe we should even pay more, ask them to keep him.” Raymond let out a bitter laugh, he had no love for Dominic Ihre Partouche, and so there was none to lose when he learned how badly the Cardinal had screwed up. Even so, his comrades gave the Cardinal of the Black Scripture some very dour looks.

  Raymond bowed his head, “That was too far, forgive me.” He said, then perked up as they grunted acknowledgement, largely due to their own shared frustration. “Allowing us to pay in installments will probably be accepted, but we will have to find the money somewhere, and you know where our only option is.”

  They did.

  Slashing the military budget… while a war was going on.

  “But… I do have another suggestion.” Raymond offered, and the table perked up at once.

  “Since the Holocaust Scripture has sped up our progress in this long war, we can start selling the conquered territory. If we speed the process up, sell the land before we’ve taken it, then we should be able to raise most of the money with only trivial cuts to the budget.” Raymond’s suggestion lit a spark in their collective eyes.

  Selling land that hadn’t been taken yet was unheard of, but the concept of selling ‘futures’ in grain and livestock were not, and they quickly made the connection.

  “There is precedent for this.” Ginidene remarked, “But it will also mean depressing the cost of captured elves, the great houses won’t like that.”

  “So we freeze the prices at a set minimum, but it shouldn’t be as much as all that, remember, all that land will need labor, that could take up hundreds or even thousands of bodies.” Yvon remarked.

  “There are mining operations in the west that are always clamoring for more bodies.” Berenice pointed out.

  “I’ll draw up something. For now we should just ask if we can pay the ransom or… blood debt, in stages. Perhaps in parts of six.” Raymond stretched in his chair, it had been hours of talking, they’d put off dealing with the Dominic question until the very end of their day, it was the most vexing one, and he could feel only drained.

  “Till tomorrow.” The group of them said, and Raymond made his way home.

  He said little more than ‘home’ to the coachman who drove him there, his mind was elsewhere.

  When he was in his study upstairs not far from his bedchamber, he was not long at work before a knock at the door drew his attention.

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  “Enter.” Raymond said, and the elven woman made her way within holding a silver tray in her hands, and the Cardinal stopped what he was doing to look up.

  “Tea, master.” She said, her face blank when she spoke, he nodded. “Just set it there, Calen.”

  “Yes, master.” She said evenly, and as she laid out the tray and began to prepare a cup for him, he asked…

  “You are able to read and write, in addition to everything else, yes?”

  “I can read and write in Elvish, Sandein, Ancient Bahreth, and the modern Restian variant, master.” She folded her hands in front of her waist and lowered her gaze, “The tea is prepared. If it pleases you, I will go attend to other matters.”

  “It doesn’t.” Raymond said as she took a step back, her foot immediately reclaimed its former position.

  The silence hung for a moment, “Are you schooled in Theocracy law, Calen?”

  Without raising her head she answered, “Sixty years ago I was in service to the House of Law, I served my master as a tutor and as a bodyguard after I was sold after twenty years, I tutored three generations of students before I was sold again. From what I have seen since those days, the Theocracy system of law has changed little, with respect, master, I would prefer to look at current books of law to say for sure. But I think a few hours reading would likely be enough to make me useful.”

  “No, Calen, I think that is enough.” Raymond answered and setting aside his quill, he reached for the cup and brought it to his lips. He drank deeply after breathing in the hot air and rich fragrance. When he set the cup down, he gestured to the chair opposite his desk. “Sit.”

  Calen clenched her jaw a little, then moved to obey, sitting in the cushioned seat and folding her hands stiffly into her lap, holding one hand folded tight around the other which she’d clenched into a fist.

  “You’ve been very helpful to my house.” Raymond said as he saw the way the nervous female elf sat in front of him, though her neutral face never wavered.

  “Thank you, master.” She said matter-of-factly. The neutral mask never wavered as she spoke, she may as well have been carved from stone.

  “I’m working on a proposal, but it’s not the sort I’m accustomed to writing, and I could use help.” He pointed to the quill and paper.

  She reached for both and made ready to write. “I understand, master, tell me what you propose, and I will frame it in such a way as to achieve your goal.”

  An hour later after he began talking, it was done, and Calen’s face was less neutral than it had been. Her eyes grew very wide as she went from Raymond to what she’d written on his behalf.

  “Is there something wrong, Calen?” Raymond asked when he noticed the color drained from her face.

  “I-I had no idea the war was so close to ending…” She answered and swallowed the lump in her throat.

  “Yes, perhaps a year, maybe two, but with the scriptures brought to bear, the conclusion is inevitable. Crescent Lake can’t hold out against a three pronged attack, all our projections are the same. So selling the land around it should fund… various things, for the foreseeable future. Particularly fishing rights…” He stopped talking when he saw that her eyes welled up.

  “Calen?” He asked. Then the obvious struck him, ‘She’s probably been praying for an elven victory to see her set free for over a century now, her pedigree of service and sales was so long that I hadn’t read it all, so for all I know she could have been a slave here since before our nations were at war… and now that hope is proven futile.’

  He half expected her to ask what would happen to the captive elves, but she didn’t. The look that passed between them said that they both already knew.

  “Master, I am afraid I am feeling… very ill right now, would it be alright if I returned to my room to rest?” She asked.

  It was hard not to feel sorry for her, a hundred or more years, maybe two hundred, dashed in an instant, and she learned of it by writing down the laws of how her home would be split up and sold to various humans.

  “Go, and I pray you feel better soon.” He said, and she jerked to her feet, then made her retreat to go and mourn.

  As she reached the door, Raymond cleared his throat and stopped her with her hand on the knob, she looked back at him, and whatever words of comfort he had in mind, or perhaps they were well wishes, or perhaps a promise that she would be safe… all of them died and vanished from his mind.

  “Take two days of rest. To make sure you recover from whatever illness has you.” He said, and she nodded.

  “Thank you, master.” She slipped from view, and after that Raymond had no more energy for matters of law either.