Arrows of Promise (Kingmakers Book 2) (8 page)

She learned something new every day. “And silver?”

“Silver’s the same. But copper’s easy. It likes to form in
the ground, and it’s usually found with lead and zinc. Well, it forms with gold
and silver too, but not in very large amounts.”

While all of this was fascinating, she had to wonder, “How
do ye know this?”

“Hmm?” He paused and glanced back at her, drawing a wand
from his belt as he answered, “My master is a strange man in some ways. Very
old fashioned. He never let us buy the materials we needed to make our wands or
tools. We always had to go mine the metals we needed and refine them ourselves.
He said that if, in a pinch, we were stuck without our tools or needed to make
something, we needed to know how to do it from the ground up.” Ruefully, he
added, “I cursed him at the time, but you know, all of that knowledge has saved
my hide more times than I care to recall. Now, for instance.”

Now, indeed. “Ye probably never thought that what ye learned
under him would save a country someday.”

“No, the thought never crossed my mind. Actually, if I had
known what I’d be doing ten years down the road, I would have paid a lot better
attention. The benefits of hindsight.”

She let the matter rest there as he worked his magic,
searching about him for any hints of ore. He didn’t seem happy with the
results, as he didn’t find anything worth mentioning, and they trudged along,
heading deeper into the woods. Riana was automatically alert to her
surroundings as this was uncharted territory and she had no idea what dangers
might be lurking in here. She also had no faith in Ash’s ability to navigate
their way back. The man seemed to be a little lost without roads. City-boy that
he was, it wasn’t much of a surprise.

It was turning out to be a blessing that Ash and Ashlynn had
figured out how to boost the caller system. They’d had to craft much larger
versions, connecting them in a way so they all powered each other, but they now
had roughly three times the range they did before. The instantaneous
communication made an already challenging job that much more manageable.

Ash stopped again and cast his spell, but this time he
looked faintly hopeful. “I’m getting a ping over in this direction.”

Riana followed his pointing finger and noted, “That be
towards the coast.”

“Is it?” he asked, genuinely surprised by this.

Thank Macha she had been paying attention earlier. He really
had no idea where he had been going. She fell into step with him as he cast the
same spell again in a continuous loop, and watched him work from the corner of
her eye. She would never, ever, let him go out into the woods alone. She’d
never find him again.

In between renewing the spell, he observed, “I’m going to be
tied up with mining some of this, at least to start with, until we can get
miners established over here. It’s going to delay getting the marketplace in.”

That…was not good. “Belike we will need to set guards around
the mines as well so people can work. At least until we be sure the bandits
will no’ be returning.”

Ash nodded, indicating his necklace caller. “Ashlynn is
aware of that and already working on the problem.”

That was good. Riana looked around at the forest, but didn’t
see it, as her mind turned over the problems they had at hand. Not that they
had much other choice in the matter, they really had to have money to run the
country on, but… “Ash, be there a spell to make two of ye?”

He snorted. “I wish. It would be handier if we could
duplicate me and Ashlynn. Actually, I’ve been thinking about that recently. At
the rate we’re going, just two magicians can’t handle the workload. We really
need to scout out other magicians, see if we can’t lure them in to working for
us.”

It was not a bad notion. “Have ye a thought on how to go
about it?”

“I do, but I’m not sure how viable the idea is. Ah.” He
stopped dead and pointed to a rolling hill that looked craggy around the base.
“I’ve found our copper. And possibly zinc. Let’s mark this area.”

As he put up magical lights around the base of the hill, she
asked, “Can ye be telling how much there be?”

“A good deposit is here. It might be enough to do a whole
new currency with. It’s a little hard to tell, as the deposit goes deep.” Ash
gave her a cheerful smile. “Well, those two were easy. Let’s go searching for
the hard ones.”

Broden sat at the table on Ashlynn’s right and tried to be
as still as possible. As foolish as it was, people often overlooked something
that was still and quiet. He harbored the hope that if he sat like a statue, no
one would think to draw him into this debate.

All of the provosts sat around the oblong table, Edvard at
the head, as usual. Ashlynn had brought in one of her larger Callers, this one
linked to the other magician in Tierone’s service so that the other brother
could weigh in with his opinion as well. Ash was connected in so that he could
report. All told, they had fourteen people in this meeting, three of them
without being in the same room.

And was not that a thought to boggle a man’s mind with.

“We have two important topics to discuss today.” Edvard was
back to his usual self, seemingly in control and much calmer than before his four-hour
nap. He still looked a mite tired to Broden’s eyes, but then four hours of
sleep could not solve everything. “Food shortage for this winter and currency.
I think we should discuss currency first as that is the most pressing problem.”

“
Agreed
,” Tierone’s voice came through loud and
strong. “
I understand from Ashlynn that she has been doing some footwork in
that quarter
.”

“Ash and I both have, actually,” she corrected. “Provosts, I
have lined up five artists who are ready to design our new currency once we
tell them the denominations. I also have twenty-three workers who have
experience working with metals, four blacksmiths, and promises from every money
exchanger in the city that they will distribute the new coins as soon as they
have them in hand.”

Broden was gratified to see that every person at the table
looked impressed by the sheer amount of groundwork she had already laid for
them. As well they should be. Lass nearly ran off his legs getting all of that
done in four hours.

“
Now, as for the metal itself
.” Ash sounded a bit
smug. Gloating, even. “
I’ve found deposits of copper and zinc over here that
are near the surface and will be easily mined. I’ve also found aluminum and
tin. We’re so near the coast that I think there’s gold and silver to be had as
well, I just haven’t found it yet.”

The man had only been looking four hours. It was a miracle
he had found as much as he had!

Zorich, a rather stout and short man, leaned over the table,
making the wood creak a little under his weight. His dark eyes were seemingly
glued to the caller. “So we actually do have the means to make our own coins.”

“Exactly so,” Edvard agreed as if he had known this all
along. Actually, the man had only been awake fifteen minutes, and this was the
first he had heard of it. “Now, provosts. I think we should settle on how many
types of coins we need to make and what their worth shall be.”

“Let’s not confuse people,” Ross suggested. He was stroking
at his tawny beard in thought, lanky build stretched out comfortably in the
chair. It almost looked as if he were taking this discussion casually except
that his brows were furrowed in concentration. “Let’s keep the coins the same.
We’ll just have our own version of it.”

“Won’t that be more confusing in the long run?” Captain
Bragdon protested. “How will people tell the difference between Iyshian coinage
and ours?”

“He does have a point,” Troi agreed. “The confusion we’ll
have with a new system will be short lived, just long enough for everyone to
get used to it. Perhaps two, three weeks.”

“That’s for the people that are already here,” Haney pointed
out stoically. As a large man, his words were more ponderous and weighty, as if
his presence alone made them so. “But we get an influx of people weekly. What
about them?”

“They’ll catch on quickly enough.” Troi splayed his hand in
a dismissive gesture. He clearly didn’t worry much about this. “Even the influx
of people will die down eventually. It’s not like this steady stream is going
to keep up forever. Eventually, the people that want to leave Iysh will have,
and the people that can’t leave for whatever reason will remain where they are,
and our population growth will plateau.”

Broden certainly hoped so. Because the ‘influx,’ as they put
it, was no jesting matter.

“But if we stick with the Iyshian system, I anticipate one
of two things will happen.” Edvard frowned, speaking slowly as if he were
working through the idea out loud. “One, because our coins have their own value
and aren’t dependent on the treasury to support it, it’ll be easy for Iysh to
claim them as a ‘new’ version of the coinage and steal them. We won’t have any
legal course of action to stand on and they’ll profit from it greatly.”

Ashlynn hissed out a breath. “That’s exactly the sort of
underhanded thing they’d do, too.”

Well, now. That nap had done the man wonders after all, if
he could think that far ahead.

“The other thing is,” Edvard continued, “I don’t think the
people will accept anything that bears such a strong resemblance to Iysh. We’ve
been using their money simply because there was no other choice. But now? Now
we do have the means to come up with something different. If we offer them more
of the same, would they take it?”

Towan cleared his throat, expression disagreeing. “This is
money we’re speaking of, sire. They’d take it.”

“Would they?” Ranun countered thoughtfully. He had seen a
great deal of sun recently as his dark skin was peeling pink around the nose
and cheeks. He’d also lost several pounds, if Broden was not mistaken. He had not
seen the man face to face in a good month but Ranun had seemed more…stout
around the stomach area before. Now he looked almost trim. “I’m not so sure.
When the Iyshian money started disappearing, they just wrote up their own
vouchers, came up with payment in kind, and kept moving forward. I’m not sure
if they would just blindly accept anything that we made.”

“We need a new system.” Edvard’s tone was firm,
uncompromising.

“
I agree
,” Tierone put in. “
Actually, I had a
feeling that things might come to this. It’s not just you that Iysh has cut
off, after all. We’re not in quite the same predicament, but it’s going to
happen in the next few months, I think. When I realized that, I did some
research. Edvard, are you aware that the old government you copied your new
monarchy from had a money system that bears no resemblance to Iysh?”

Edvard blinked, then blinked again. “Truly?”

“Not in the least whit. I was just as surprised, but
pleasantly so. Their money was quite simple and straightforward. There were
only seven denominations.”

Broden internally cheered. Seven types of coin was very
simple in something as complex as a country, but really, it would be pushing
their resources to do any more than that.

“Just seven?” Edvard repeated doubtfully. “Is that enough?”

“To start with? Heavens, man, do you want to work people
to death? If it’s not enough later to support your population, you can always
add more in.”

Edvard seemed sold on this idea but Ashlynn had more caution
than that. “How was it divided up?”

“Bit, denning, kroner, mark, gulden, reales, trillina.”

A what now? Broden was gratified that he was not the only
one at the table that had trouble following that rattling of foreign sounding
names. At the risk of drawing attention to himself, he requested, “Run us
through that again, slower, and with a proper knowing of what be what.”

“Ah, Broden, you are in the meeting after all. I was
beginning to wonder as I hadn’t heard your voice.”

It be a shame, it was, that a man could not glare through
Ashlynn’s caller.

“Certainly, I’ll go through them again. Bit. It’s rather
like half a copper. Denning is a full copper. Kroner is roughly ten coppers.
Mark is half a deneres. A full deneres is a gulden. Ten deneres is a reales. A
hundred of them is a trillina.”

Broden thought that through. Really, it was not a bad
system. It was missing a few coins in the middle, but a man could get by with
that, and make change well enough if he needed to. He personally did not see
the need for a coin large enough as that tril-whatchamacallit, as a man very
rarely spent that sort of money, but maybe he was the only one that thought
that way?

“They didn’t have anything larger than a trillina?” Edvard
asked, eyebrows kissing his hairline in mild surprise.

Apparently he really was the only one at the table.

“Things didn’t cost as much back then
,” Tierone
drawled. “
Well, what do you think?”

Troi was already nodding in approval, practically radiating
it. “It’s good. It’s workable, it’s divided up enough to be usable no matter
what rank you are, and it’s foreign enough that no one can get mixed up with
another country’s currency. Sire, I think we should adopt it.”

“We already adopted the government, I don’t see why we can’t
do the money as well,” Amber observed. “Do we have any objections to this?”

Not a single person raised a hand or a voice.

Edvard was the only one that seemed to hold any
reservations. “I still think we’ll need a few more in there, but for now, this
will do. Ash, which metals did you find again?”

“
Copper, zinc, aluminum, and tin,
” the wizard
patiently repeated.

“That’s not enough choices to make seven types of money
from,” Edvard grumbled.

Ranun cleared his throat. “Speaking as a former mine
owner…copper and tin make bronze.”

Broden blinked at him. Did they really?

“So we actually have five?” Edvard cocked his head in
question. “How difficult of a process is this?”

“Not. It’s quite common practice, actually. Bronze is only
slightly more valuable than straight copper, it’s that cheaply done.”

“Oh-ho. Then let’s assume one of the coins will be bronze.
Ash?”

“Yes?”

“How certain are you that you can find silver and gold along
the coast?”

“Dead certain. Copper, zinc, aluminum, silver, and gold
all like to appear in the same areas. Especially with this much sea water at
hand, it’s bound to be over near the coastline somewhere. I just haven’t
stumbled across it yet.”

“Then we’ll assume that bird is in hand.” Edvard pulled a
fresh sheet of paper from the center of the table toward him and started making
quick notes to himself in a sloppy hand. “My proposal is this: aluminum for a
bit, zinc for a denning, copper for a kroner, bronze for a mark, tin for a
gulden, silver for a reales, and gold for a trillina. Any objections?”

“What if we need to make more coins later?” Ross asked with
a half-raised hand.

“We will cross that bridge when we come to it. Any other
objections?” Edvard’s stare practically dared someone to speak up. Fortunately,
no one seemed to find anything wrong with this plan. “Good. Ashlynn, speak with
your artists and tell them what we’re planning. I want sketches of the new
money in two days. Ash? Get people mining the ore that you have already found
and get it to me as soon as you can. Let’s see, where to best set up a factory—”

“My district,” Captain Bragdon said firmly. “You’ll need
water to do all of this work with, and I don’t have a lot of people yet in my
areas. I have more space to build in.”

“Good point. It’s yours, then. Build something or repurpose
something to suit. Tierone, I assume you want to assign some of your people to
develop coins as well?”

“You assume correctly.”

“Then send a courier over here to pick up the new designs of
the money. We’ll figure out how much ore you need later. Ashlynn, do we have a
guard rotation figured out to protect the settlement during the day?”

“We do, roughly. We’ll be a little shorthanded here in
Estole for this week, but the week after, our newest guardsmen finish their
training. At that point I’ll have enough to redo our rotation schedule and cover
everything.”

Zorich lifted a finger to call attention to himself. “May I
ask, what do we know about the bandits at this time? I haven’t heard anything
about them since that last attack.”

“We haven’t seen any since then,” Ashlynn answered. “Things
are extremely quiet in that area. We’re not sure if they’ve given up or if
they’re just retreating until they have a better plan. Right now, we’re
guarding the settlement as best we can just in case they do come back.”

The provost did not seem quite happy with that answer, but
no one was. Then again, there was little they could do about it except wait
them out. Or go after them. They did not have the resources to go hunting down
bandits now, more the pity. Broden was all for it but they really had enough on
their plates as it was.

Edvard ticked points off on his fingers, nodding when he
realized he had covered everything. “Good. Now, let’s talk about food.”