Lescari Revolution 03: Banners In The Wind (47 page)

'While Branca leaves for Draximal, once she's sent word of the outcome to Charoleia in Parnilesse, while Failla heads for Triolle. A fine pair of heroes we are,' Aremil observed with a grimace, 'asking the ladies to run our errands while we nurse our infirmities.'

Tathrin had other concerns. 'That just leaves Marlier to be settled.'

Aremil saw his friend gazing far beyond Carluse Castle's walls. How desperately he wished Sorgrad or Gren had managed to kill that villain Karn.

'What do you suppose Lady Derenna and Lord Rousharn will make of our proposals,' he asked, 'and Duchess Aphanie?'

'What they think doesn't matter if the populace agree,' replied Tathrin with a glint in his eye. 'Any more than Ferdain or Hidarin of Marlier's opinions.'

Aremil saw there was no turning his friend's thoughts anywhere else. 'Kerith will take our proposals to Marlier Castle,' he said firmly, 'after securing Baron Dacren's opinion that Caladhria's barons won't interfere in Lescari affairs. Ferdain of Marlier will have no choice but to capitulate.'

Once again, Tathrin visibly curbed an impulse to shrug. 'We shall see what we shall see.'

Aremil suspected that statement meant more than it seemed. But there was no time to pursue such concerns. The great castle bell tolled the five chimes of noon.

'Want a hand?' Sorgrad was waiting as they reached the outer stair to the great hall.

'I'll manage.' Aremil had been practising this climb daily with Branca's assistance, just as he had rehearsed this speech time and again, pacing his breathing to avoid stumbling over the words.

As they reached the top step, Gren opened the door to Sorgrad's knock.

An urgent murmur enveloped them. Only for an instant. As they entered, hush swept through the vast hall to leave an echoing silence.

Aremil's crutches scuffed the floorboards as they made their way to the dais. Two chairs waited in front of the empty high table.

Tathrin turned to the throng. 'Please be seated.'

The scrape of benches barely concealed the flurry of speculative whispers. Priests from any shrine within five days' ride had been invited to record everything said and agreed here today, along with those both devout and efficient who administered the shrine fraternities' charities for the poor. Guildmasters, town council members and Watch constables had been summoned and they all seemed to have come.

Aremil was pleased to see plenty of women in the gathering, from youthful matrons married into their husbands' responsibilities to grey-haired widows well used to managing their own affairs. Failla had insisted that every Carlusian must hear what he had to say.

So he was also relieved to see a coterie of Carluse's remaining nobles; some who had risked opposing Duke Garnot; others who had prudently, or cravenly, held aloof from the ducal circle. There were even a few whom gossip was still inclined to condemn as profiting from Garnot's rule or merely failing in their duty to their tenants. Were they intent on making a fresh start?

The silence became expectant. Taking his chair, Aremil glanced at the door where Branca and Failla sat together, hands folded demurely in their laps. Both women were already dressed for travelling. Gren lounged on a bench, boots outstretched. Sorgrad sat beside him, his countenance unreadable. He met Aremil's gaze with a slow wink.

Aremil looked back to the gathering. For the first time in his life, he was grateful for his weak eyesight. He couldn't see any faces beyond the first few rows, which made this so much easier. He began speaking without preamble.

'There's not one of us here unaffected by the battles of this past year. If we haven't been wounded ourselves, we know those who have been bereaved, dispossessed or suffered the loss of everyone and everything they hold dear. The same is true for men, women and children from Sharlac to Triolle, from Marlier to Draximal and Parnilesse. Like you, they are asking themselves if this frail spring promise of peace can possibly endure.'

As he took a longer breath, Aremil felt rather than heard the responses barely restrained by his audience. They wanted to ask a good deal more than that. He spoke on before anyone seized the chance.

'The answer is no, because this is not peace,' he said bluntly. 'Absence of warfare is not peace. Lescari know that better than any other folk. For generations past, any respite in fighting has only meant the dukes are biding their time, to hoard coin wrung from their tenants and vassals before they squander it on fresh violence.'

He shook his head. 'Don't blame us for bringing warfare to Lescar. We have done what we must to halt this endless, fruitless round of aggression and retaliation, all in pursuit of an empty crown. Because there can be no more dukes if Lescar is ever to truly know peace.'

Now he could feel them united; in relief at having someone to blame - in the case of Carluse's duke, someone who was safely dead. Let them enjoy that for a moment, Aremil thought grimly.

'But if there are no more dukes, what becomes of us? Who is to ensure that the common folk prosper, tilling their land and tending their trades? Who should honest peasants trust? Their liege lords, when so many have gathered up their moneybags and fled to Caladhria or Tormalin?'

He raised a hand to quell barely suppressed indignation somewhere in the middle of the hall.

'Such cowards have done a grave disservice to those honourable men and women who have borne every duty laid on them by their noble birth. Such nobles have endured their own losses without complaint, still dealing with their tenants as fairly as they could. Are they to be rewarded with disgrace for the crimes of others?'

He challenged the uncertain stillness with a fresh question.

'Are we to trust merchants and guildsmen? True, many have risked their lives, across all of Lescar, to see innocents and the unjustly accused taken secretly away to safety. They have spent their own coin to help those beggared by excessive levies. Believe me, the Woodsmen are no tavern tale.'

He let that murmur of surprise swell before cutting it short.

'But should we trust those merchants who have callously sold whatever pitiful harvests our farmers have won from some respite in their suffering? What of those guildsmen who pay their journeymen and prentices a pittance, knowing they're too desperate to feed their families to risk being cast out from their trade? Then there are those who aided and abetted the dukes in the interests of their own profits first and last. You know who they are.'

A dark murmur acknowledged that truth.

'We all know shrewd and honest men and women, however humble their birth. Every festival-tide, they give a share of what little they have to those even less fortunate. Why should they bend their necks to those who can claim no such virtue to go with their greater wealth?'

The hall was silent. Aremil shook his head.

'If noble birth is no guarantee of a noble spirit, humble origins offer no more assurance of virtue. The anarchy in Parnilesse proved that. Reniack was as intent on brutal retaliation as the most bloodthirsty duke. His allies were as arrogant in condemning those who did not agree with their philosophies as any noble who ever flogged a man for no better reason than his base birth.'

He fought to keep his voice strong. 'Yes, our endeavours to see Lescar free offered Reniack and his kind their chance for their vile revenge. We acknowledge our guilt and we will answer for it whenever we stand before Saedrin.'

He jabbed a feeble hand at the assemblage.

'But before you stand in judgement upon us, search your own consciences. Have you never acted with the best of intentions only to see disaster follow? Before you condemn those whose actions have added to Lescar's misery, even if only by a pennyweight, ask yourselves, truly, have you ever acted out of fear, out of wilful ignorance, to save yourselves and your loved ones, even at a cost to someone else? No, we are none of us innocent, just as there are none so guilty that we can load all the blame onto their shoulders to relieve our own.

'So what are we to do?' He shrugged, ungainly, not caring how that looked. 'Shall we sit and wring our hands and protest we're better than some and not as bad as most? What difference will that make to the price of bread?'

He folded his hands in his lap. 'Looking back has been Lescar's curse. Our dukes and their forebears harked back to the very days of the Chaos in search of their claims to a throne that never even existed. But they are not alone. Every town, every family has cherished its grudges, nurturing fresh hatred in every new generation. What good has that ever done? What difference will that make to the price of bread?'

That stirred a puzzled murmur. Aremil smiled.

'You've seen the price of grain for bread and beer rising through the winter seasons. You know merchants beyond our borders are calculating precisely what our markets will bear through the spring so they can take as much of our coin as they can. You know they will play Draximal off against Parnilesse, to pay the lowest prices for timber, leather and linen. They'll ship their booty down the Asilor and the Rel. Dastennin forfend such merchants should use Triolle's rivers and pay a fair price towards the upkeep of Lescar's bridges.

'Give them half a chance and travelling merchants will set Carlusians against Sharlac's Guilds in order to pay the lowest tolls to travel the Great West Road. They'll grow all the richer selling Caladhrian goods in Tormalin and Tormalin goods in Caladhria. There's no point in visiting Lescar's markets. We'll have no coin to spare given the rising price of bread.'

Now the murmur was agreeing with him.

'Who will curb such abuses? Tormalin lords who would happily subject Lescar to their Emperor's rule? They could replace our dukes with provincial governors, as in the Old Empire. Their legions would guarantee no more warfare as Tormalin's great princes profited from our disarray.'

He shrugged again. 'Unless Caladhria's barons march to see our dukes reinstated, to curb those brigands looking for richer pickings across the Rel once they've stripped us of anything worth stealing. Could you blame them? Those beyond our borders are convinced we're too stupid to rule ourselves.'

He raised his voice above the affront stirring the gathering.

'We need more than an absence of fighting to prove those naysayers wrong. We need to establish justice for all regardless of rank. We need safe trade on fair terms so that none can be exploited. We need to levy even-handed dues to maintain our highways and town gates, to fund the soldiery who will guarantee this peace won at such a cost.'

That wasn't too popular. Aremil pressed on, regardless.

'We need to build for the future. Every family from lowest to highest deserves legal title to their farm, their workshop, their demesne. No one should lose home and livelihood on some duke's whim or the malice of some mob. Those who have been dispossessed must be reinstated or recompensed. Unjust debts must be written off. With goodwill on all sides this can be done.'

As Branca had predicted, these ideas won guarded welcome. Aremil hid a smile, leaning back in his chair.

'Who's to decide what is equitable? Who should benefit and to what degree? Which debts must be honoured and which discarded?'

He shook his head. 'Not me. Not us. We came to overthrow tyranny, not to impose our own. It's for you to decide on a new order for Lescar. We recommend you act swiftly,' he added, 'before the Caladhrians or Tormalin's Emperor decides to save you from yourselves.'

He nodded thoughtfully.

'There are different philosophies to consider. Follow the Caladhrians and hand over your future to those born with title to land, whatever their flaws or merits. They can talk and talk and never get anything done. That should at least be peaceful.'

It wasn't much of a joke but Aremil was relieved to hear a few nervous laughs.

'Merchants rule the Relshazri and Ensaimin's city states,' he mused. 'Do elected magistrates govern in the best interests of their citizens or of their own purses? Does amassing the coin to buy votes prove fitness to rule?'

No one was laughing now. He acknowledged the silence by leaning forwards.

'No single faction can be trusted with unchallenged authority. Even the Tormalin understand that. For all their loyalty to their princely houses, they know their Emperor holds any would-be tyrant in check. Even the humblest Tormalin can appeal to the Imperial Throne. In turn the Emperor's powers are balanced by the Convocation of Princes. Without their consent, he cannot rule.'

He looked at the uncertain faces in the rows closest to him.

'I believe we Lescari can improve on all those philosophies. All those neighbours, who so despise us, will envy this opportunity. Let us forge our new future linked by common purpose, with every voice an equal!'

Now those closest faces looked cautiously expectant.

'We don't wish to rule but we would make a suggestion. Let this coming Spring Festival see a Conclave of the Lescari Estates drawn from every dukedom.' He gestured at the lofty elegance of the hall. 'You have these fine castles at your disposal, built with the coin wrung from your labours.'

That prompted muted agreement.

'Let every town send their guildmasters. Let all those who hold land choose respected men and women from among their number to equal those chosen guildsmen. Let those who have neither land nor trade gather at the shrines and put forward those whom they know to be sincere and wise, in equal number to the guildsmen and to the landowners.