Willech, lounging on a couch across the room from Demansk, was a small and wiry man. Hard-faced, tight-featured, and surprisingly fit for a man who made his fortune with abacus and weighing scales rather than a plow or a sword. True, he resembled the popular image of a “tax shark.” But Demansk thought it would have been more appropriate if Willech had sported a large, sleek, tapered and finned body—with a wide and whiskered face consisting mostly of jaws and teeth. Just like the breed of sea predators whom the Emeralds, using an ancient word whose original meaning was long lost, called a “shark.”
“I’m afraid I can’t agree to that, Justiciar Demansk.” Willech’s words, like his face, were clipped and hard. “One regiment, certainly; perhaps two. But four? That would leave me only two regiments in the entire province. Riot and rebellion would be the certain result.”
Demansk did not reply immediately. He returned the little man’s stare with a hard stare of his own, allowing Willech time to let his hidden uncertainty mount. And his fears.
Willech had been one of the main creditors of the traitor Redvers, who had led the Confederacy’s most recent attempted coup d’etat because the only way he and his cohorts had seen to avert bankruptcy was to usurp state power and repudiate their debts. Demansk had played the key role in crushing that insurrection. And while most people would assume that such men as Willech would be grateful to him for it, the reality was much more complicated.
True, had Redvers and his co-conspirators achieved their aim, Willech would have been ruined—and, most likely, murdered in the bargain. On the other hand . . .
Redvers’ property, as was traditionally the penalty for treason, had been confiscated by the Confederate government. And while some of the money obtained from liquidating what few assets Redvers still had left had been handed over to the creditors, most of it had disappeared into the coffers of the officials charged with overseeing the liquidation. Officials who were every bit as greedy and corrupt as Redvers himself—and Willech—if not as impecunious.
Demansk fought down a harsh grin. He didn’t doubt for a moment that Willech assumed that he had swindled a fair share of the Redvers estate. Which, as it happened, was not true. Demansk was one of the few officials in the Confederate government who relied on the workings of his own estates for his fortune.
That, and the merchant establishments and manufactories which Demansk had begun investing in several years earlier, once he came to realize that agriculture alone was a risky basis for maintaining a family fortune. Of course, he’d been careful to use an elaborate network of “cutouts” for the purpose. Partly to protect his investments against his many enemies in the officialdom, but mostly because Vanbert custom did not allow a nobleman to engage in anything as low and disreputable as manufacturing and trade.
Unless, of course, it was the trade in slaves arising from conquest. Over the years, Demansk had augmented his fortune considerably from that particular trade. Like any successful military commander, slaves were part of his booty. But, even as a young man, it had struck him odd that the most savage and bestial of all forms of trade should be the only one acceptable to the Confederate elite. Looking back on it from the perspective of middle age, he thought it was that experience which first began sowing the seeds of doubt in his mind as to the health of his own society.
* * *
He decided he’d allowed enough time to lapse in these idle ruminations. When he spoke, his voice was even more clipped and hard than Willech’s.
“That’s Triumvir Demansk, Governor Willech, and I trust I won’t have to remind you of it again. The penalties for disrespect to state officials are severe.” As in mutilation for a first offense, he left unspoken. Even though, in practice, a nobleman like Willech would rarely suffer that penalty—not for a first offense—it remained a possibility. More than a few of the noblemen who had been distantly connected with the Redvers rebellion were walking around today with their left arms ending at their wrists rather than their fingertips.