“You mean the walls?” J.B. mused. “They’re an impressive construction.”
“And necessary—not just now,” Baron Silas said. “Back in the day when we were still basically a wag-repair town, there was a lot of jack coming in, and a lot of valuable supplies. We also had trade convoys who were completely at mercy because they were being serviced. So sec was always a major concern. And when we were a small ville, we built the walls around where we lived and worked.”
“But now?” the Armorer queried.
Baron Silas shrugged. “When we capped the well, that’s when I knew that we had to get outside help. There was no way that we could pay or trade for all the materials we needed on our own, and no way that we had enough people in the ville to work on the well and refinery and still keep enough trade going to keep the ville alive. So that’s when I started to make alliances. ‘Cept that alliances means more people, and we ain’t got the room. And there’s nothing like that for making people a mite testy.”
THE MIND of Baron Silas traveled back momentarily to a few weeks before, when there had been a meeting in that very room of the barons involved in the alliances concerned with the well.
As always, Baron Silas was at the head of the table. Standing behind him were two armed sec guards. He hated having armed sec in his own baronial halls, but figured it was a necessary precaution as all the other barons in attendance had their own armed guard, and to be without would be foolish. And Baron Silas Hunter didn’t maintain his position by being foolish.
There were eight barons in attendance, from the far-flung villes that had formed the alliance to reap the profits of the revitalized well. The bargaining had been hard, but the agreement had been forged over the amount of jack and manpower that each ville had guaranteed to the project, which in itself was determined by the size of the ville and its proximity to Salvation.
Nearest Silas on each side of the table were Baron Silveen from Mandrake, and Baron Lord from Hush, curiously named because of the valley in which it was situated, which seemed to deaden all sound coming out and kept it secure from outside prying eyes. Next down were barons John the Gaunt from Haigh, and Red Cloud from Running Water. The latter was the ville from where Crow had originated, the foreman coming to Salvation as part of the project and being adopted as a close associate of Silas because of his qualities. Farther down the table—as they were farther from Salvation—came Baron Abraham and Baron Cay from the villes of Carter and Water Valley. Farthest away was Baron Howard from Baker, and the baron of Dallas, Eddison. Baker was the farthest distance of any ville from Salvation, yet Dallas was one of the closest. But, as in the days of Silas’s father, the farmers of the new Dallas were skeptical of the oil well of Salvation.
The eight barons were all leaning over the table, arguing and shouting at and over one another and at Silas, their angry voices a confusion of sound, a cacophony from which it was difficult to determine anything that resembled sense. The tense and fraught atmosphere had also transferred from the barons to the sec men who stood to the rear of them, all of whom were fingering a variety of automatic blasters, from Uzis to H&Ks and Thompsons. It seemed to Silas as he sat back and watched that any moment the atmosphere could crack, and violence erupt.
“Gentlemen, please,” he yelled above the racket, trying to make himself heard. But there was no letup in the bickering. So Baron Silas rose to his feet, slipped one snakeskin boot from his foot and banged the heel on the table repeatedly. The piercing clatter of the heel on wood cut through the noise and silenced the barons, who stared at Baron Silas in amazement.
“That’s better,” he said in a quieter tone, slipping the boot back on. “Now, if you’ll all stop playing stupe games to see who can shout louder than the other, let’s address the issue at hand here.”