Chapter 673 668: Fool's Choice

The last line of the secretary was finished and he waited as if the next sentence would decide something definitive.

The Emperor sat at the end of the table long after the Archivist had left. The privacy wards hummed down a degree or so from their normal tone, tired sounding after a morning of holding all those secrets.

Down below in the capital the cart wheels rattled on along the cobbles, people chatted to one another and went about their daily business with no inkling whatsoever that the center was buying the Empire's edges a ten-day reprieve.

"Bring in the two marshals," the emperor said. "And the Master of Tithes. But no tower envoys and no archivists. I want the military and the grain. Nothing that reports to the White Spire."

The secretary quickly left the room, returning several minutes later with the two marshals and the Master of Tithes of the grain all looking rather nervous and all wearing guarded expressions on their faces.

The emperor did not invite them to sit.

"Speak freely," he said. "The White Spire has given me ten days before they treat the Brotherhood's river blockade as formal hostility. How close are we to open fracture? I want the real assessment, not some rosy version to keep your careers intact."

The older of the two marshals is a man in his late fifties with fifteen years experience of defending the eastern approaches. For long periods of time he has been asleep in his armor.

His hair is thinning at the front and he has a set of lines running down from the outer corner of each eye to the edge of his jaw. He looks a tired man.

"Much worse than is being reported to you, Your Majesty. The Kess house has not only ceased paying the tithes due, but is diverting grain stores to the coastal fortresses of their own.

It appears they are stockpiling the food for possible use against the imperial center. The Renn house is 'practicing' with 'flood-season drills' two months before said season.

The Vale house continues to pay its due in part, but the last letter received contains phrases that, while not yet openly rebellious, hint strongly at soon ceasing to be loyal when it becomes 'inconvenient' for them to do otherwise.

When Vale finally ceases to be loyal, the south shall have formed a solid, unyielding block against the capital in all matters."

The Master of Tithes speaks with conviction, as one who is better familiar with the columnated figures on the page than with the particular persuasive phrases of imperial politics.

The southern grain pool, for the emperor's benefit, is the empire's greatest store against the shortfalls in the north, and once it is pulled from imperial control then within two months the stores in the capital's markets will be nearly empty.

And once the stores are empty then the people of the capital's districts will be angry, and it is well known that an angry crowd makes for the perfect excuse for any faction to declare that a weaker center would make for a more conveniently managed realm.

"The Iron Spire league and the Old Bridge compact are no longer holding separate drills and training exercises," the second marshal said quietly.

"Together they are now sharing observation posts. Yes, this means that the joint command of the river is being formed. And if the Spire and the Tower now answer with force, the knight cities will regard an imperial attack as well as an attack by the Tower as a threat to their independence. And they have the steel to back up this view."

The silence was enormous as he sat there listening to them. For all his controlled superiority the weight of their words is clearly pressing down upon him. The pressure is being kept in check but the air in the room is growing in weight and in tension.

"And my parents?" he asked.

The older man of the two marshals to speak took his time and when he did, he said only that,

"Northern elements are involved. We confirm that. And if they are advised by people who believe the center cannot hold then every day that Your Majesty's Brothers and Sisters are allowed to continue in freedom means that they have another symbol of legitimacy in the provinces.

And old bloodlines carry a lot of weight with the people in the provinces. Especially if the seat of power looks to be wobbling."

"Of course I am out of good options. But I am not hesitating."

No one disagreed with the Emperor. The secretary's pen began to scratch again in his notebook.

The emperor followed their exit and walked over to the windows of the White Spire. From here, the capital looked clean, like a large, well-ordered city that would last for another century or so.

"Prepare contingency orders to defend the southern approaches. The orders should be such that they don't create the impression of an immediate attack on the three houses, though. They should give him room to move in if Vale stops paying tithes completely, however.

Also establish a secret contact with the Iron Spire. If he can get the knight cities to withdraw from the blockade of the Brotherhood, then for once the towers will have lost their cleanest pretext for acting as if the center did not hold. I'd prefer them to continue needing my permission to act for a while longer."

The Master of Tithes nodded once, the motion of a man who trusted numbers more than speeches. "The numbers back it. The southern grain pool has always been the empire's cushion against northern shortfalls.

Pull that pool out of imperial control and the capital districts start seeing empty shelves inside two months. Empty shelves become angry crowds. Angry crowds become the perfect excuse for every faction that already thinks a weaker center would be easier to live with."

As the two men exited the room the older of the two marshals paused in the door and said, "Your Majesty, I must advise you that if the northern elements and the old bloodlines start to openly side with the south, the Board will not wait for Your Majesty's ten days. They will stop asking for permission to declare war with the Empire.

"I know," the emperor said.

The chamber emptied. The last of the Imperial advisors departed. The young Emperor went back to the window and looked down at the streets below him. His parents would still be walking up and down in the lower reaches of the city, unaware that their blood, so notorious for centuries, had become the last, and most intractable, variable the young man could not command into his service.

He had ten days.

The board of proceedings was looking very adverse indeed.

By nightfall the western grain silos had transformed once again.

The room was gray and dull. For a long while, there was silence. Suddenly the presence of the city swelled, the way a net might be pulled slowly and without haste, in case it accidentally starts to catch something in the process. As before, the night patrols had been doubled, the screens were working at odd times to analyze the air for smells and signatures that weren't of office workers or of merchants carrying produce to market.

Clara had been comparing the last of Harren's southern reports with the corresponding entries in the old tithe records. Her face had gone pale in the dim light of the single shielded lamp.

"Kess and Renn have been effectively gathered into the fold of the southern duchies," Clara continued after a moment. "They are one polite refusal from Vale on the tithes and the whole of the south will be at the capital's mercy within the space of a month.

Should the capital decide to crack down on the southern duchies, they will find local cadres and mountains of grain stored away in out-of-the-way corners of the city, all ready to be unleashed in a brief, savage uprising that will bring an end to the turmoil of the past week or so and see the southern duchiesPartitioned from the rest of the empire as if by magic.

Everyone who has been waiting for this will be amazed and disillusioned in equal measure by just how inevitable it all seems."

Eli looked down at Clara with arms folded over his chest. "And the knight cities?" he asked in a quiet tone.

"Ha! They've got joint observation posts along the river corridors for the joint commercial voyages. Commercial traffic is being 'delayed' for 'security inspections' and it's already forcing the Brotherhood to choose between breaking the blockade or accepting it. It's going to be a short, bloody war, one way or another."

Lara finishes the last of the cutting motion, sliding the blade into the leather scabbard with a soft click. "He wasn't exaggerating, of course," she says at last. "Just being polite. But as I've said before, I don't think the capital is preparing for civil war. I think they're already in the early stages of it, and just hoping it doesn't get too out of hand."

The unaccounted for force was there beneath his sternum, power restrained as it had always been and watched as in a past era the Wizardess had referred to the act of closing roads and finishing houses.

The abstractions that had comprised that list of phenomena had seemed remote and unconnected to the reality of the here and now. He now had a list of names and specific dates corresponding with grain tallies previously collected by Clara.

"Restricted Projections," Atlas said, his voice drawing out the name. "We go in to retrieve them tonight. If the deeper forecasts reveal the same, then Harren has made the only sensible request to be granted.

The question then becomes whether to release them to the south or to try and contain them in the hopes that the south does not recognize what is being given to them before the big day. In either case, our son will have to answer them. Publicly."

Clara nodded. "The archive annex is still locked up tight. The deeper screens haven't been refreshed since the last official cycle.

We can go in, get what we need, and be out of there by the second watch-ending, as long as we avoid the silo corridor and take the old service route that Harren had marked out for us."

Eli looks up at Atlas, a deep, familiar weight in his eyes. He is the son of Atlas, heir to the blood of a long line of rulers.

"With this data public, Harren's son will have to answer for it. The Wizardess and the Wizards of the major knight cities will have something to say about the information too.

And once the data is public, the southern duchies will have to answer for it as well. They can no longer hide their actions behind managed silence."

"I know," Atlas said.

"Then we stop pretending we can remain invisible," said Lara, "for soon enough the city will start to take a closer look. All it will take is one wrong door and the correct set of questions."

Clara folded her hands and stepped back from her mental catalog of information. "And the knight cities? The joint observation posts along the river corridors are real. Commercial traffic is already being delayed under the guise of 'security inspections'. The Brotherhood is forcing the Wizard cities to choose between accepting the blockade and breaking it by force. Either choice speeds up the fracture. There is no clean middle path left."

As he watched the pair of officers of the next patrol move past the end of the alley he felt the line tighten. Their steps were a little more measured than they had been at dusk, their eyes cast a little wider. But they were not yet closing the net.

"Now, we go to enter the Wizardess's restricted projections at the change of the second watch. Three of us will enter the archive annex where the deeper screens have been locked since the last official cycle.

The silo corridor is best avoided but we can take the old service route that Harren has outlined for us. He's marked the third marker on the wall at the far end of the corridor. We go in, download the relevant information and leave. No heroics. No side trips. Three districts away we then decide how and when to release the information to the public."

Eli's mouth cracked into a brief, wry smile. "Simple, before it becomes complicated again."

"Because the simple version is how we have managed to keep our lives until now, long enough for us to debate the complicated version."

Lara double-checked the straps on her pack. "I'll go out the western exit. If something bigger than a rat looks suspicious, you'll hear about it."

Clara had been organizing her research into thin packets of notes. She tucked them into her pockets. "I'll go in with Atlas. The deeper screens respond better to someone with knowledge of the old access codes. Eli will cover the eastern approach. If the patrols start to move in an unexpected fashion while we're inside, we'll abort and head for the third marker the following night."

Eli nodded once. "Understood. And if the projections are worse than we think?"

Atlas could feel the power under his sternum settle to a lower, deeper pulse. It was a feel he had grown to associate with a decision that had been made long before he had.

"Then we stop giving our son the option of managed silence," he said. "He will have to choose in the open. And so will everyone else who has been waiting for someone else to move first."

Outside, the screens of the city continued to pulse as night watches of Republic guardsmen patrolled narrowly defined sectors of the imperial capital. Far above in some palace, the Emperor looked out over the towered city that continued to operate under the misconception that it had time.

They no longer did.

The second watch would begin in less than an hour.

They spent the remaining time before the second watch, like many before them, completing last minute tasks, checking and rechecking, with the hope that things would go as they were planning, and that the board would suddenly decide to be kind to them.