Shaman's Crossing (The Soldier Son Trilogy #1)

I glanced back at my uncle to find him nodding at me. “You are too honest, Nevare. Your thoughts parade openly across your face. But this is not something that should be up to you and Spink and Gord to solve for yourselves, though I do fear that you may have to face, alone, the repercussions of my attempting to solve it. Yet attempt it I must, and do what I can afterward to protect you. You are students at the King’s Academy. If true justice does not prevail there, then what can we hope for when you enter the greater world as soldiers of the king?”

He sounded so solemn and so sad that it sent a chill of premonition up my spine.

“What do you fear?” I asked him, and found I was speaking in a hoarse whisper.

“I fear on a large scale what you are experiencing on a small scale. I fear old nobility facing off against the king’s battle lords, in a power struggle that will eventually come to violence, and perhaps even civil war.”

“But why would that happen? Why would it ever come to that?” I asked, startled.

“Even if they dislike sharing nobility with us, why should it come to bloodshed?” Spink asked also. “It seems to me that there is land in plenty for the king to grant to his new nobles, and of honor, there is no limited supply that men must fear to receive a lesser share.”

“Not for land, for most of the old nobles perceive the lands granted to your fathers as wasteland and desert. Not for honor, for though all nobles should possess that, few think it a goal to be struggled for. No, young sirs, I fear that we speak only of money, of common coin. The king lacks it; old nobility has it, though not in the quantity we did at one time. If he tries to squeeze it from us, as our families were squeezed through so many years of war and bloodshed, I fear we-that is, some of us-will turn on him. But his battle lords, they would stand with him, perhaps. And in so doing, stand against us, their brothers.”

Spink knit his brow. “The king lacks for money? How can that be? He is the king!”

My uncle smiled weakly. “Spoken like a true new noble, I fear. The final twenty years of war with Landsing beggared the monarchy, and everyone else. King Troven’s father did not hesitate to ‘borrow’ from his nobles. He threw all he had into his war with Landsing, hoping to leave his son a triumph and a treaty. He did neither, but he spent a great deal of money attempting it. The debts the monarchy owes to the old nobility are many and heavy. And, some on the Council of Lords say, long past due for repayment. Troven’s father was willing to grant his nobles much greater autonomy in exchange for their ‘generosity.’ But the more free rein he gave to his lords, the less inclined we were to tax our vassals for his benefit. When his father died and Troven came to power, one of the first things he did was to end the war that had drained our coffers for so long. We were glad to have the war over, yet those of us with holdings in the coastal regions were dismayed to find ourselves stripped of our estates there. Our ports, our warehouse, our fishery, and our trade were all surrendered to the Landsingers. Many old nobles still say that in his haste to end the war swiftly, Troven gave away too much, and that much of what he gave was not his to cede.

“Then, when he turned his eyes to the east and began a determined expansion, we had to ask ourselves, who would pay for this new war? Will the king bully us to lend money again, just as our own fortunes are starting to recover? The Council of Lords were determined it would not be so. We had grown stronger and more resolute in limiting what percentage of our taxes we would turn over to the monarchy. Even when the wars in the east went well and we began to see the profits of victory, some nobles asked one another, ‘Why do we need a king at all? Why cannot we govern ourselves?’ ”

Spink and I had remained as still and silent as children listening to a bogey tale. This was certainly not the history I had been taught. I suddenly wondered if this was yet another of the differences between first sons and soldier sons. The treason of that thought shocked me at first, but I faced it in my heart. Then I wondered at how naive I had been, that one talk with my uncle could reorder my whole view of the world. I asked my question carefully, fearing he would think me a traitor. “Does the king deliberately cultivate fractiousness between his old nobles and his battle lords?”

“It would be in his best interest to keep them at odds,” my uncle replied carefully. “If ever all his nobles united…well. Some would say, not I, of course, but some would again say, ‘What use do we have for a king?’

“When King Troven first turned his excursions into the east, they brought fresh wealth to nobles stripped of resources by years of war. Game meat, salted in barrels, came to our tables, and it was a new thing for many of us to have as much meat as we wanted, for our own flocks and herds had dwindled in the war years. The land that was opened up for farming yielded rich harvests, at first. We feared the competition from our battle lord brothers. But now they are finding that even letting those prairie fields lie fallow does not restore their productivity. Our crops are still in demand. In the east, there are new orchards and vineyards and fish from the streams, and more demands for the goods we manufacture as our excess population moves eastward. The only difficulty is moving the goods, and the difficulty of that adds delay, cost, and inconvenience. The king anticipates rich revenues if he can finish his King’s Road. I am one of the nobles who see a great promise. The lumber and forest goods that travel intermittently to us now on barges and occasional wagons would become a steady flow, and there is a market for that lumber in Landsing as well as here at home. I can see that all would benefit if the King’s Road were finished. But some think it is folly to imagine that might be done in our lifetimes. To finish his road, he must have laborers and coins to pay them. And that is where he runs into conflict with his old nobles. For the old nobles would like to keep their laborers and their coins to work on our own needs here in the west.”