Chapter 111: Limits of his position

It did not take long for Encrid to discover how limited his position as the Strategist of the Wall actually was.

Having a seat at the Council gave him the right to speak, and the Council was obligated to listen to him, but neither of those things gave him the authority to make a decision or the power to carry one out. He could point toward a problem, explain why it mattered, and even provide a solution, but once the discussion ended, the matter belonged to someone else.

He understood the distinction well enough in theory.

It was quite different to experience it.

The first real lesson came with the thirty weeks of grain.

The Council had approved the measure unanimously after Captain Corr’s report, and Encrid had thought little more about it at the time. They had recognized a potential threat, increased their provisions, and bought themselves time. As far as he was concerned, that had been the sensible thing to do.

A few days later, he discovered that deciding to acquire thirty weeks of grain and actually acquiring thirty weeks of grain were two entirely different problems.

"These scums," Steward Vess muttered. "These bastards hide behind the Wall we protect and still have the nerve to act like we’re begging them for a favor."

He looked exhausted, which Encrid had come to recognize as the natural condition of anyone responsible for keeping the Wall supplied.

"I have written to all four of them. Two have not answered, one has quoted me a price that is nearly double what we paid last spring, and the fourth has asked whether the Wall is expecting a war."

Vess rubbed his forehead.

"They’re acting up because they know we need them. A fortress that suddenly wants four times its usual grain is a fortress that somebody in the south is going to ask questions about."

He let out another bitter curse.

"And those bastards would rather squeeze the Wall for every copper than remember who stands between them and everything beyond it."

"Then pay the price," Garrick Dane said.

Vess looked at him.

"With what?"

Dane frowned.

"The Wall’s grain allocation for the year was fixed in the autumn, and it has already been spent. I can find perhaps six additional weeks from the reserve, but after that I am buying on credit against a harvest that has not happened yet, in a market that has just realized we are desperate."

Encrid leaned back in his chair.

He had expected resistance from the guilds. What surprised him was how quickly they had learned that the Wall needed more grain.

The Council’s decision had been made less than two weeks ago.

Somehow, the information had already travelled hundreds of miles south.

He found himself both irritated and impressed by it.

"How do they know?" Encrid asked.

Vess gave him a tired look.

"They are merchants."

That was apparently explanation enough.

Encrid considered the problem for a moment before raising his hand. It was the arrangement they had settled upon after he had first taken his seat. The Strategist could speak freely, but he would not interrupt someone who held a formal office while they were giving their report.

Vance noticed the gesture.

"Strategist."

Encrid stood.

"We are looking at this from the wrong direction."

Vess turned toward him.

"We are not buying grain."

A few people looked confused.

"We are selling cores."

The room became quieter.

"The Wall has been supplying high-level Roamer cores to the northern guilds for generations. We have done it for so long that nobody seems to have stopped and asked whether the contracts we are using still make sense."

Encrid reached into the satchel beside his chair and pulled out a folded set of papers.

"The current prices were established decades ago. Some of these contracts have not been meaningfully renegotiated in forty years."

He spread the papers across the table.

"The Wall is the Empire’s only reliable source of high-level cores. There are other places where cores can be found, but there is no other forest that produces them in anything close to the quantities we do, and there is certainly no other source capable of supplying the level threes and level fours that the northern guilds have built their businesses around."

Bree’s attention shifted from his ledger to the papers.

"You want to raise the price."

"I want to renegotiate every core contract we have."

Vess stared at him.

"All of them?"

"All of them."

Encrid pointed toward the figures.

"I have the yields from the last ten years. I know how many cores we have supplied, how many of each level were produced, and how much the numbers fluctuate from one season to another. The guilds do not have that information."

He tapped the papers.

"That means we know how much we can afford to withhold, how much we can afford to sell, and how much additional revenue we can demand without putting ourselves in a position where we cannot meet our own commitments."

Vess slowly leaned forward.

"And you believe they will agree?"

"They need the cores."

Encrid looked down the table.

"We do not need their trade nearly as much as we have convinced ourselves that we do. The guilds have spent decades buying from us at prices established by men who were negotiating from a much weaker position. We have treated those contracts as permanent because nobody bothered to question them."

He paused.

"That ends now."

Dane glanced at the figures.

"And if they refuse?"

"Then they buy their cores from somewhere else."

There was a faint edge of amusement in Encrid’s voice.

"Of course, there is nowhere else for them to buy them."

A few people around the table exchanged looks.

Encrid continued before anyone could interrupt.

"If they refuse to renegotiate, the shortage will become their problem instead of ours. Mage-houses will notice. Armouries will notice. The other guilds will notice. Prices will rise whether we increase them ourselves or simply allow the market to do it for us."

He gathered the papers together.

"We are not the ones who need this trade, Steward. We have simply never noticed how much leverage we already possess."

There was a fairly long silence around the table.

Vance finally looked toward Vess.

"Can you handle the negotiations?"

Ulrich looked at the papers, then at Encrid.

"With these figures?"

"Yes."

"I can."

"Then do it."

Ulrich turned toward Encrid.

"The Strategist will provide the figures and projections. Steward Vess will negotiate the contracts."

Encrid nodded.

That was how it began.

Over the following weeks, Encrid came to understand the actual nature of his office.

He could see a problem before most people noticed it. He could trace its cause, work out where the Wall was vulnerable, and occasionally find a solution that had been sitting unnoticed in their records for years.

But he could not sign the contracts.

He could not order the grain.

He could not negotiate with the guilds.

He could not instruct the Works to repair a road or tell a Watch commander to move his men.

He could only bring the matter before the Council and explain what he believed needed to be done.

Someone else would then take the decision and carry it out.

At first, Encrid thought he would dislike that.

Instead, he found that he minded it far less than he had expected.

The work still got done, and it was being done by people who were better suited to the task than he was. Vess knew how to negotiate with merchants. The Works knew how to repair roads. The Watch commanders knew how to move men.

Encrid did not need to be good at all of those things.

He only needed to notice when they needed doing.

The realization was surprisingly freeing.

He had spent much of his life believing that influence came from having enough authority to make other people act.

The Council was teaching him otherwise.

Sometimes it was enough to see what needed to be done and put the right person in a position to do it.

Whether his name appeared beside the decision mattered less than he had expected.

If the Wall was better because of something he had pointed out, then that was enough.

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