“Yes, quite well, thank you, m’lady,” he said solemnly after a moment. “Madeleine will be honored to know you asked after her.”
“Young master Malcolm must be getting ready to take his first steps,” Rhapsody said as she continued into the library, her hand resting on Ashe’s forearm.
“Any day now. How kind of m’lady to remember.”
“I remember every child at whose naming ceremony I have sung. Good evening, Martin,” Rhapsody greeted Ivenstrand, the Duke of Avonderre, who smiled and bowed deferentially; she nodded to each of the other councilors and slipped hurriedly into an empty seat at the long table of polished wood where Ashe and his advisors had been meeting. The dukes of Roland and the ambassadors from Manosse and Gaematria, the Isle of the Sea Mages, all member nations of the Cymrian Alliance, took their seats as well, following the lead of the Lord Cymrian.
“I can see you’ve been keeping these good councilors far too long and far too late into the night in my absence,” Rhapsody said to her husband as she gingerly moved aside a half-eaten turkey leg that lay oh a plate amid crumpled sheets of parchment and empty cordial glasses on the table before her, eyeing the refuse that was clumped in piles around the rest of the table and other parts of the library.
Ashe rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. “Revisions to the Orlandan tariff structure,” he said with mock angst.
“Ah. Well, that explains it.” She turned to young Gwydion Navarne, seated to her left. “Where were you in your discussions when I interrupted, Gwydion?”
“The impasse seems to have occurred in the discussion of the exemption that the province of Yarim has requested on foodstuffs, owing to the drought conditions of the last two growing seasons,” the young man said.
“Indeed,” Ashe agreed. “Canderre, Avonderre, and Bethany oppose the waiver of such tariffs, while Bethe Corbair agrees.”
“Bethe Corbair shares a border with Yarim, and does not have the cost of transportation of goods that Avonderre has,” protested Martin Ivenstrand, whose coastal province was the most distant from Yarim.
“Nor do I remember Yarim agreeing to reduce tariffs on their opals or their salt in the past when restrictions on sea trade threatened our revenues,” said Cedric Canderre, the older man who was the duke of the province that bore his name, known for its production of luxury goods, fine wines, and rich delicacies. “I am unclear as to why this drought is any different than the obstacles Canderre or the other provinces of Roland have faced.”
“Because this drought is beggaring my province, you imbecile,” growled Ihrman Karsrick, the Duke of Yarim. “Those so-called obstacles did not make even a nail’s worth of a dent in your fat treasury, and you know it. Yarim, on the other hand, is facing mass starvation.”
Rhapsody leaned back in her chair and looked to Tristan Steward. “And what is Bethany’s position, Tristan?”
“We are certainly sympathetic to Yarim’s plight,” said the prince smoothly. “As such, we are more than willing to extend them generous extensions on their tariff payments.”
Amusement sparkled in Rhapsody’s green eyes, but her face and voice remained passive. “How kind of you.”
The mild look on Tristan Steward’s face hardened a little. “More than that, m’lady, Bethany is concerned that this matter was brought up for discussion at the level of the Cymrian Alliance at all,” he said, a terse note entering his otherwise warm voice. “Hithertofore each province of Roland has always had the right to set its own tariff rates, as it deemed fit, without interference from any—er, higher authority.” His eyes met Ashe’s. “At the Council that named you Cymrian lord and lady, we had been assured that the sovereignty of the realms within the Alliance would be respected.”
“Yes, that assurance was given, and it has not changed,” said Rhapsody quickly, noting the darkening of her husband’s expression. She turned again to the young man who would soon take a place at this table as the Duke of Navarne. “What is your opinion of this, Gwydion?”
Gwydion Navarne shifted in his chair, then sat forward.
“I believe that, while the sovereignty of provincial tariff rights is important to observe, there are some things that transcend tariff,” he said simply, his young voice husky with change, “emergency foodstuffs being one of those things. Why should those of us blessed with more fertile lands and plentiful food profit excessively from the suffering of a fellow Orlandan province, rather than going to its aid in a time of need?”
The Lord Cymrian smiled slightly. “Your father would have proffered the same solution,” he said to Gwydion Navarne, while keeping his eyes locked with Tristan’s. “You are a compassionate man, as he was.”
“Well, I am sorry to intrude at what is clearly a sensitive stage of the talks, but if you will allow me, I believe I may be able to proffer an alternative solution to the tariff quandary,” Rhapsody said, squeezing Ashe’s hand.
“By all means, do tell, m’lady,” said Quentin Baldasarre, the Duke of Bethe Corbair.
“Yarim needs water.” Rhapsody folded her hands.
The councilors looked to one another blankly, then stared in turn at the table, amid the occasional clearing of throats. Ihrman Karsrick’s brow furrowed, barely containing his annoyance.
“Does m’lady have a way of beseeching the clouds for rain, skysinger that she is? Or are you merely stating the obvious for amusement at my expense?”
“I would never taunt you on so grave a matter for amusement, m’lord, that would be cruel,” Rhapsody said hastily, pushing down on Ashe’s arm to guide him back into his seat as he began to rise. “But Yarim has a great source of water in its midst, a source which you do not currently make use of, and which would doubtless spare you from some of the effects of the drought.”
Karsrick’s expression resolved from anger into confusion. “M’lady does understand that the Erim Rus has run dry, and that even when it was still flowing in spring, it was contaminated with the Blood Fever?”
“Yes.”
“And that the Shanouin well-diggers are finding surface veins of water less and less often?”
“Yes,” Rhapsody said again. “I was referring to Entudenin.”
Silence fell over the dark library, the lanternlight dimming as the oil reserves began to run dry, the firelight on the hearth burning strong and steady, casting bright shadows on the faces of the bewildered councilors.
Entudenin in its time had been a towering geyser, a miracle of shining water spraying forth from a multicolored obelisk of mineral deposits sprouting from the red clay of Yarim, in cycles roughly akin to the phases of the moon. For twenty days out of every moon cycle it showered the dry earth with sweet water, water that made the dusty realm bloom like a flower in the desert. In its time it had gifted the province with liquid life, allowing the capital city of Yarim Paar to be built, a jewel in a vast wasteland at the northern foothills of the Teeth, and had nourished the outlying mining camps and farming settlements as well.
But its time had come to an end several centuries before, when one day, without explanation or warning, the marvelous artery of life-giving water dried to a shriveled shell, never to give forth water again. Centuries had passed; the obelisk withered in the heat, dissipating into a shrunken formation of mono-colored rock, unnoticed every day by hundreds of oblivious passersby in the town square of Yarim Paar.
“Entudenin has been dead for centuries, m’lady,” said Ihrman Karsrick as pleasantly as he was able.
“Perhaps. Or perhaps it is merely sleeping.” Rhapsody leaned forward, the fireshadows gleaming in her eyes, which sparkled with interest.
“And does m’lady have a song of some sort with which to awaken Entudenin from its sleep of three hundred years?” Karsrick was struggling to maintain his patience.