Chapter Eighteen: Nathye

A knock sounded on Nathye’s door.

Opening his eyes, he looked up at the ceiling, which was higher than he remembered. Had he shrunk? Had he moved to a bigger chamber? The mattress felt as if someone had thrown a sheet over a solid block of granite. He needed to get a better bed.

He reached his hand to the bedside table, trying to find the bottle of wine he remembered leaving there. His hand found a bottle lying on its side, bumping into it and causing it to roll away. It surprisingly didn’t fall to the floor.

Nathye turned his head and blinked a few times, trying to readjust his point of view. The bottle was rolling away from him under the bed? Yes, he was on the floor and, in fact, lying on a rug. That explained the solid granite feeling of the mattress. He must have passed out last night.

The knock sounded again.

“En…ter,” he tried calling, but it ended with a whimper as his head throbbed with the first syllable, and he finished the word quietly.

Ser Ancis entered the chamber while Nathye tried to sit up. The bottle, having found a slight inclination in the floor, rolled back down towards Nathye, adding to the noise in his head and the vertigo from changing his position.

“Your Grace, we need to talk about the duchy’s finances,” Ser Ancis said without preamble. He did not even give Nathye time to wake up properly.

“It’s early morning, Ser Ancis. Do we have to talk about this right now?”

“It’s past noon, Your Grace. I had been here three times already today.”

Nathye tried to remember if he’d been awake for these conversations. “What about the finances, Ser Ancis?” he said, leaning against the bed, not trusting himself to stand up.

“In short, Your Grace, ordering the new statues and redoing all the heraldry was a significant draw on the reserves.”

“The people need to know of my magnificence, Ser Ancis. We have discussed this.”

“Yes, Your Grace. The problem is that the tax collectors are back. We had underestimated how many people have left in the last few months. Taxes are lower this year.”

“Who left where?” asked Nathye, curious. Could he go there too?

“We think the ones who aren’t tied down, like the farmers to the land, are going to other, hem, duchies, Your Grace.” The seneschal was uncomfortable talking about this.

“Why?” asked Nathye, now truly interested.

“We don’t know for certain, Your Grace, but we think they are afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Of you.”

Nathye felt awake for the first time in weeks. It wasn’t good that taxes were going down, but he appreciated his people’s recognition. This was good.

“Ser Ancis,” Nathye said, his head finally rising, bloodshot eyes opening up with a gleam of anticipation, “draft a proclamation. We are raising an army. Figure out appropriate rates for veterans and greenstalks.”

“Your Grace, who are we fighting? How would we pay for this?”

“Just draft the damn proclamation, gods damn you!”—Nathye grabbed the bottle that was now back by him and flung it at the door by Ser Ancis’s head. It shattered on impact, scattering glass and some of the remaining wine. That was a waste.

Ser Ancis flinched, then turned around and left the room. Nathye started looking for another bottle, but his mind was waking up now. He had an army to prepare, a campaign to plan.

He got up.

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Nathye’s fledgling war council included Ser Dafeld, Ser Ancis, and two guards the former recommended, Edmugh and Gyles Gelnne. Nathye was considering adding a baron to it, but he wanted to start now, and they were all a day’s ride out.

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“We are taking an army to Duke Drewill’s domain. I intend to take it,” Nathye said. He was dressed in his best black, having cleaned up before he summoned all of them. His eyes were still red, but there was not much he could do about that.

“Your Grace, may I ask why we are attacking?” Ser Dafeld asked.

“Does it matter?”

“If the other dukes see this as unprovoked or unjustified, they might lend Drewill their support.”

“Only Walteph will,” said Ser Ancis, who had changed his clothing. There was a cut on his cheek. “There is no great love between him and the others.”

“He had insulted me by sending a child to my ascension, a child who further insulted me during the ceremony,” said Nathye. “If needs be, I will find a better reason. For now, I need to know how many people we will need to capture Owdale.”

“The duke has a small standing army, though they are mostly for show. They have not been to war in many years. Some of them might be veterans of other wars who came home and had taken positions there, but the army is not well trained. Still, the city has a wall. We will need at least a few thousand people and siege engines.” Ser Dafeld, who was a veteran himself, had at least some basic understanding of warcraft.

“That is expensive, Your Grace,” said Ser Ancis.

“Money begets money, Sir Ancis,”—Nathye waived the concern away. “Ser Dafeld, where do we find them?”

“The duchy will have enough young men looking to make their fortune, and we can recruit further out.”

“The cost?” Ser Ancis asked, a sigh of resignation driving the words, a pen poised over paper.

“We can pay peace rations while there isn’t fighting, higher rates during the fights,” Ser Dafeld said.

“We do not need to pay for training. Tell them they will get food, a place to sleep, and training. Once trained, they will then start earning their pay.”

“Your Grace, I do not know if they will agree. The veterans—” said Ser Dafeld.

“Pay the veterans their rates from the beginning. But have them prove their ability and make them train the others,” Nathye said.

“Yes, Your Grace. Gyles Gelnne, you’re in charge of training the new men,” Ser Dafeld said.

The man, a short, stocky man who had been quiet until now, perked up at that. His sunken eyes seemed to shine under his black hair, and his back straightened. “Yes, My Lord!”

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The men, mostly young, poured in. A few women had as well, and Nathye told Ser Dafeld and Gyles Gelnne to allow them to join the army. There was no reason to turn them down so long as they were willing to accept the same terms as everyone else. When storming a wall, bodies were bodies, and dead people were dead people.

There were very few veterans in all. The wars were all far away from Bewic, and those who left to fight in them seldom returned. The few that enlisted were put in charge of training. In the last month, a thousand people have joined the fledgling army. Not enough to conquer a walled city, but enough to take on a walled toilet should Nathye find one the other duke had neglected to guard.

“We do not have enough funds to equip everyone with weapons. I’m not sure there are enough weapons to be had in the duchy even if we had the funds,” Ser Ancis, ever the doomsayer, was leading the charge in today’s council meeting.

“They are training with sticks for now. We are not ready to equip them yet,” Nathye said.

“They would need to get used to the weight of a sword,” Ser Dafeld’s dour disposition added to the meeting’s negative ambiance.

“Can they weigh their sticks with stones for the training?” asked Nathye. It should have been much simpler to start a war.

“We’ll get it done, Your Grace,” said Edmugh. The tall, light-haired guard was impressing Nathye more and more with his ability to accommodate.

“We still need money for food,” Ser Ancis said. “They can’t eat the rocks.”

“The vultures in the area have all raised their prices,” said Baron Hany.

He was the only one Nathye had added to the war council. The others had all begged off with some excuse or another, and Nathye could see their desires for a comfortable life had made them ill-suited for war. Rumors had it that the baron was the grandson of a bandit who was elevated to the barony by Nathye’s grandfather for some favor or another. Banditry in the area had miraculously stopped, though the stocky baron, two generations removed, with his beefy fingers and paunch, still looked like a bandit gone soft. His manners evidenced his pedigree.

“They have been raising the prices. I had to threaten some broken bones to get some wheat at a reasonable rate,” the baron continued.

“We’ll starve the duchy, Your Grace,” Ser Ancis said.

“The duchy will have the spoils of war, Ser Ancis. I think we need to get some of that money back from the traders, though. My father always talked about how taxation influences trade. Let’s raise taxes on wheat and meat. In fact, double the taxes.”

“Your Grace, that will starve the people. They will not be able to pay the cost of food,” said Ser Dafeld.

“Then they may join the army,” said Nathye.

“Your Grace, please consider. There may be other ways to get the supplies we need. We could buy from other duchies,” Ser Dafeld said.

“The closest duchy is Owdale. Shall we buy from Duke Drewill? Enrich his coffers? Arm him ere we make war?” Nathye asked.

“Your Grace—” Ser Dafeld started.

He was getting tired of this, of being the one solving every problem while others were just piling issues in front of him. Ever since he hung that guard, Thury, Ser Dafeld had been cold, resisting, unhelpful. Now, he was actively refusing to do what was needed. Didn’t he understand that they were gearing up for war?

“Ser Dafeld,” Nathye said, “thank you for your advice. You are relieved of your position as head of the guard and removed from this council. Please join the veterans training the army. Edmugh, you’re in charge of the army now.”