Not a chance. The sole surviving Triumvir could not get one of his cohorts — not even his own son — to meet his gaze.
No help for it. Got to do it myself.
"I'd have preferred to have the wedding tomorrow. But. ."
He cleared his throat. "But it'll be a double wedding, as it happens, and the lady who will figure in the second wedding hasn't arrived yet. She's on her way here, from her estate in Hagga where she took refuge after Albrecht's massacres in the capital. I'm not quite sure when she'll get here. I received a letter yesterday from the commander of her escort saying that the journey would take a bit longer than expected. It seems the noble lady, ah, insisted on bringing along several wagonloads of art treasures. Twenty wagonloads, to be precise. Marble sculptures, mostly. And, ah — unusual, this — apparently quite a few wooden ones. Reedbottom carvings, as it happens. Seems that new cult of theirs — what's it called? the 'Young Word'?—is given to religious icons."
"Sculptures?" choked Helga. "Icons?" Her eyes widened. "We're in the middle of the worst civil war in history and some noblewoman is hauling useless crap through the countryside? To a wedding? What kind of lunatic—"
She broke off and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "Oh, the gods. Don't tell me. Twenty wagonloads? There's only one woman in the Confederacy rich enough for that. Not to mention crazy enough!"
Demansk thought it was time to pour himself another cup of wine. A full one.
"Well. Yes." He attempted a look of stern fatherly reproof. "Though I believe the proper term for a lady of her station is 'eccentric.' Not, ah, 'crazy.' " The patriarchal cluck of the tongue which followed sounded hollow, even to Demansk. "She's hardly a peasant crone, Daughter. About as respectable and wealthy a widowed matron as exists, anywhere in the land."
Helga chuckled. "To say the least. Wealthy, that is. I'm not sure how many of the Councillors — not to mention their wives — would call Arsule Knecht 'respectable.' "
To Demansk's relief, Prit Sallivar came to the rescue. "None at all, these days. Not in the capital, at any rate. The morning after Ion Jeschonyk and the others were massacred, Lady Knecht mounted a speakers' platform in the Forum of the Virtuous Matrons and denounced Albrecht for a murderer and a traitor. She barely escaped from the city with her life. Wouldn't have, if she hadn't taken the precaution to bring her household troops — and if her husband hadn't been one of the few to maintain his troops up to the legal limit."
And now Enry Sharbonow sallied forth. "And if the lady herself hadn't had the foresight to keep those forces up to strength, in the years since her husband died." He straightened up in his chair. Unlike most of Demansk's close counselors, though not Demansk himself, the Islander preferred chairs to couches. "I've met the lady, as it happens. Several times, the last of them quite recently. She's really not the, ah—" He groped for words.
"Try 'lunatic,' " suggested Helga. "As I recall, that's usually the term I heard people use."
Sharbonow's frown was quite fierce. "A slander! Slander, I say. I admit the woman has her, ah, eccentricities, but—"
Helga waved her hand. "Never mind, never mind. It's not as if I care. I'm just curious. Who here in Solinga is crazy enough to marry her?"
Dead silence fell upon the room. All of Demansk's counselors were studying the tapestries on the walls. Except Trae, who seemed utterly engrossed in the ceiling. Which, as it happened, had not so much as a single fresco painted upon it.
Treacherous bastards. Demansk sighed, drained half his goblet in one long swallow, and set it firmly down upon the table. Most powerful man since Marcomann. Courage!
"I am," he announced.
* * *
He was prepared for a ferocious brawl. After Helga stopped laughing, at least. But, to his surprise, his past-and-future son-in-law intervened.
Until that moment, Adrian Gellert had said nothing since he arrived, beyond a few murmured words of polite greeting. So far, at least, Demansk was rather mystified by the man. For someone who'd had such an incredible impact on the world, his daughter's lover seemed more like a distracted Emerald scholar than anything else. The kind of man you wouldn't trust to walk across a small town without getting lost on the way.
"It's a good move," he said firmly. "Might even prove to be a brilliant one."
Helga choked off her laughter and goggled at him. "You have got to be kidding! You've never met her, Adrian. You have no idea—" Another choked-off laugh. "For as long as I can remember, every nobleman in Vanbert has made fun of her. You don't want to know what the matrons say! Especially the time—"
"Who cares what they think?" demanded Adrian. "Helga, don't you understand yet?" He pointed a finger out the window of the airy salon. The southern window, that was. A thousand miles beyond it lay the great capital of the world's greatest empire. "You're talking about the aristocracy, which is finished."
His eyes swiveled toward Demansk. Incredibly blue, those eyes were. But what struck Demansk far more was the weird sense that something lurked within them. Something wise as well as pitiless. As if a scholar was inhabited by. .
Helga's "spirits." The gods save us, she was right. And maybe that's what will do it, since the gods have gone away.
"Not, at least, in their present form," Gellert continued. "We haven't spoken yet, sir, but I imagine you've already given some thought— Well, that's for later. I think of it as the nobility of the pen, rather than the spear."
He turned back to Helga. "What matters — this is what your father understands and you don't — is what the gentry thinks. Because you can destroy — cripple, anyway — a small elite. You can't destroy a numerous class of gentrymen. Not, at least, without destroying most of your educated populace. And try building an efficient and civilized realm without them. It could be done, but not without paying a bitter price."
Demansk felt the tension in his shoulders ease. Took another drink from his goblet — a sip, this time — and leaned back in his own chair.
Helga was right, bless her. By whatever gods might still exist, I'll forgive her all her trespasses. Just for having had the sense to fall in love with the right man.
Then, half ruefully: Might even add five years to my lifespan, letting her quarrel with him instead of me.
"The gentry," Adrian reemphasized. "They're the key. One of them, at any rate. And what's the old saying about the Vanbert gentry? There's nothing they adore more than a crazy aristocrat — who does all the things they'd never dream of doing, and provides them with half their gossip, to boot. Provided, of course, that the aristocrat is a real one. The crust of the upper crust, as it were."
He glanced at Demansk, then Sallivar. "I'm not personally familiar with the lady, but I get the sense—"
"Gods, you're serious," exclaimed Helga. She shook her head, as if to clear it. Then, for the first time, seemed to finally consider the question as something other than a joke.
"Oh, she's that, all right. Adrian, you have no idea. Not only is Arsule Knecht the wealthiest woman in the Confederacy — was, at least, before all this—"
"Still is," said Sallivar firmly. "She's really not 'crazy,' Helga. In some ways, she's saner than most. She took the precaution, over the past several months, to move almost all of her portable assets and wealth to her estates in Hagga. She's closely connected to the Haggen aristocracy, you know, on her mother's side. And since she's showered the Haggen with philanthropic enterprises for decades — she grew up there, on her mother's family estates — they think most highly of her."
Now that he was confident of the subject, Prit took the time to rise and refill his goblet. "As for her lands, she also had the good sense to keep them scattered all over the Confederacy. A big chunk in Hagga, another one in the east — still stable, you know? — relatively, at least." Easing back onto his couch, he shrugged. "She'll lose much of it, of course — either through. . Well, never mind. We can discuss that later."
Very firmly: "But it doesn't matter. She'll still come through all this the richest woman in the world. The richest person, for that matter. At least" — here, his confidence seemed to desert him a bit—"until your father's investments begin to return a profit."
"So that's it," said Helga. She gave her father a look which was not so much accusatory as speculative. "You're bankrupt, aren't you? Finer trappings than ever — and the coffers empty."
Demansk grimaced. "Crudely put, but — yes. Though 'bankrupt' isn't really the right word — no, I'm not glossing over anything! — because I'm actually wealthier than ever. But there's almost no cash left, Helga. And I've got a civil war to win — and quickly, before the Southrons return — and soldiers won't fight for promises. Much less some newfangled nonsense called 'stocks.' "
Sallivar smiled. "I believe your father neglected to mention that Lady Knecht is bringing thirty wagons with her. Only twenty of which are laden down with, ah, her enthusiasms."
"Wouldn't even put it that way," rumbled Nappur. "I spoke to her myself, when Prit and Enry and I went to Hagga to make the final negotiations." The giant ex-trooper's face was cheerfully grim. "I dare say she's even more enthusiastic on the subject of gutting Albrecht than she is her patronage of the arts. Right at the moment, for damn sure. Old Undreth's her uncle, you know — he's the Watchman who escaped the massacre at the Council — and he went into exile with her. Right horrid stories he's been telling her since. And none of them lies."
"She always despised Albrecht anyway, Helga," said Demansk. "I can remember, one time when we visited Arsule years ago — she was a friend of your mother's, you might consider that also—" He smiled at the memory of a long-ago conversation at a dinner table. "A very poetic — her rhetoric's excellent — and very detailed comparison of the virtues of Drav Albrecht and one of her pigs. The pig came off the winner, hands down."
But Helga wasn't really paying attention. Her eyes were a bit unfocused, as a person's get when they're trying to do calculations in their head. "Ten wagons full of cash? How big are the wagons?"
Firmly, in one voice, Sallivar and Nappur and Sharbonow together: "Big."
Helga grinned. "I take back anything bad I ever said about the lady. Shocking, the way these slanders spread!"
Enry looked smug. "Wait'll you see the counteroffensive. I've got printing presses." He began counting off his fingers. "Patron of the arts and philosophies — that'll go down well here, among Emeralds—"
"Especially since half those wagonloads are sculptures we swiped from the Emeralds in the first place, now being restored." That from Demansk, who was beginning to feel a little smug himself.
"Indeed so. Then, benefactress of the poor. The rest of the nobility, most of them, never paid this much attention. But the fact is — gods, it's even true, and isn't that a change? — she's been the primary support of the Temple of Jassine for years."
Helga was startled. Jassine was the Goddess of Mercy. But, for all the official respect paid to her, not one whose temples were frequented by the nobility. "I didn't know that."