The Steward and the Sorcerer James Peart (read my book .TXT) 📖

began to mine the lands outside Brinemore and discovered a fortune in metals and natural minerals.  The equipment with which to do this was expensive and the city outsourced its mining to contractors who wanted to keep the silver and gold deposits that they excavated from the vast quarries Brinemore owned.  This led to war in the Northern Territories, a war which the city could afford as it held the gold deposits and had grown rich selling them to the Southern Territories.  Gaining possession of the gold had been a tricky proposition at first, yet Longfellow and his former supervisor had come up with an idea.  Threy Tin, by this time Steward of Brinemore, approached the citizenry and told them they would receive a stake of the earnings realised from selling the gold if they stood up to the mining company and prevented it from gaining possession of the deposits.  The resultant bloodshed was inevitable but the citizenry, driven by anger and the righteousness of reclaiming what they naturally felt was their property, along with a good measure of old-fashioned greed, won out in the end, and after they had learned how to work the quarries themselves, drove the company out of Brinemore.  It was Longfellow who came up with the slogan: ‘A stake for every citizen is a stake in his future.’  It fuelled the war of the Northern Territories and a version of the slogan (‘a weapon for every citizen means a stake in his future’) was later used to build the powerful Northern Army.  It reminded some people of the history of the Punic Campaigns some 150 years before when Brinemore was intent at the time on ‘reclaiming’ sacred relics from distant regions of the Northern Earth before the four territories existed.

Later, when Longfellow himself became Steward, he ousted the Governor in a swift, decisive coup.  The region that controlled the city threatened to become as wealthy as Brinemore and the Governor of that region had begun to claim credit for forging trade alliances with towns and strongholds in the Southern Territories and West Ridden.  The Governor was touting the success of these alliances as a model of aggressive expansion while Longfellow, despite being privately in accord with this sentiment, wished the nature in which the alliances were made to be seen as wholly democratic.  The former Steward Threy Tin, by now demoted to the role of Longfellow’s personal advisor (later to be replaced altogether in favour of Tan Wrock) was sent to the Governor with a message the essence of which was ‘retire and allow Karsin’s army to take control of the regional seat or face the bloody consequences.’  The Governor, an old man but astute enough to recognise when he had been outmanoeuvred, resigned in a bloodless coup.  The citizenry, long resentful of the position of authority the Governor held over their city, applauded this non-violent resolution of the matter.

Karsin Longfellow had taught yet another opponent a lesson in the art of political warfare.  He had done so many times in the last five years, turning Brinemore in that time into a formidable power in the Northern Earth.

Longfellow now considered the Confederation Council.  There were two principal subjects up for discussion in its chambers today, though Longfellow also had a private agenda that he wanted the assembly to veto: the territory-wide banning of any form of sorcery- already illegal in Brinemore- including the territories into which Brinemore was expanding.  If he timed it right, it would be accepted and a new bill drafted.  He would place it, he thought, between the two main topics up for discussion.  The first, the continued expansion of the Steward’s army into the Drague Territories, was a thorny issue for some on the Council, notably Scrot Manch, Brinemore’s Vice-Steward.  He knew that Manch and another official, Drak Poel, were secretly campaigning to remove him from the position of Steward.  They had approached other members and had roughly the support of a fifth of the Council.  The individuals they approached had so far agreed to Manch’s and Poel’s proposition and had not leaked this knowledge to other Council members.  This was no open secret.  Longfellow knew because he had asked Tan Wrock to use the Thrust on Manch without the other’s awareness and knew what he knew.  So far, he had not instructed Wrock to dispose of the two but he would deal with them soon, that much was certain.  He reviewed the approach he would make when he appeared before the Council today, revising the wording of his opening remarks.  It was necessary that those assembled understood the importance of Brinemore’s continued expansion east.

The second topic was the city’s confrontation with the Cru Dynasty in the south.  The idea of waging war with the Cru sat uneasily with most of the Council.  They consisted of a ruling family which was long established in the Southern Territories (known there as the Kingdom), an ancient royal bloodline that had seen off bigger, more predatory invaders in its approximate 1000-year history, though none perhaps as economically successful as Brinemore.  This would be the crux of his argument, he had already decided.  Unbeknownst to its citizenry, The Cru King had already visited Brinemore and held informal talks with Longfellow.  True, they had discussed much and the other had promised little, yet he knew of a way to force the King’s hand to allow him to exert his influence in the south.  The real problem, as with the first motion, was Manch and Poel.  They would, however, be handled, sooner rather than later.  This way the words he spoke today would have a more significant and lasting impact on the minds gathered in the Council.  They would inspire both fear and wonder in its members, tightening his grip on the administration while removing at a stroke any future threat to his rule.

19.

The Confederation Council meeting began shortly after Karsin Longfellow’s arrival, the council members gathered in their assembly listening to the Steward outline