He almost got up to find out, but the warmth of the fire seduced him. If there was a report on his desk, it would still be there later, and if there wasn't, it wouldn't materialize.
Not like the old days, when one might have. The old days—huh. The "old days" were less than six moons ago. It seemed like a lifetime ago, and he was a different man then. He had already done things that Grand Duke Tremane would never have considered.
I have burned all my bridges.
The walls would be done in a few days. Then work could start on the barracks. He wanted to get everything done at once, and despite the number of men he had, there still weren't enough—and—
And we have gold. We have gold! Why can't I just hire some of the locals? Why shouldn't I? I've seen boys standing about, looking for work. Maybe there are only boys and old men and women, but not all the work will need strength. Oh, damn. We have gold, but I need to keep it in reserve if I can, to pay my own troops. Besides, how do I get those people to work for us? Not all that long ago, we were the enemy. How do I manage to get the townspeople and my men to work together? How?
His thoughts stopped as he realized that he was planning for a long future. These new barracks weren't meant to last for a season or a year; his builders had given him plans for structures that would last for years. His sanitary men were planning for decades of use.
Oh, a long future be damned. Well, of course, they're giving me plans for good barracks. The winter is going to be worse than anything we have ever seen. Tents or flimsy structures made to last a season won't cope with the kind of winter storms we're going to see. And one of the worst things that could happen would be for our facilities to freeze up; if we overbuild, that won't happen. Probably. Maybe.
Better to concentrate on how he could hire some of the locals, how he might be able to keep the people of the town and the men of the Imperial Army from going for each other's throats. If he could just find a way to get them to work together—that was how the Empire had forged all the disparate people of its conquered lands into a whole in the first place. Young men from all over the Empire were conscripted into the ranks of the army, where they served out their terms beside young men from places they might not even have heard of before. By the time their terms were over, they all returned to their homes unable to think of men from places they didn't know as barbarians or foreigners, and capable of thinking in larger terms than just their own villages.
I can't conscript the townsfolk, more's the pity. For one thing, they wouldn't stand for it. For another, there's no one worth conscripting. Ancar took every able-bodied man away for his own army.
"Sir!" One of the aides was at the open door, calling anxiously into the gloom. Of course, he couldn't see Tremane from the door, hidden as he was in the oversized armchair. "Commander, are you here?"
"Over here." Tremane stood up and turned to face the door, and saw relief spread over the aide's features.
"Sir, there's a delegation here from the town, and they are rather insistent. They say they must talk to you now." He made a gesture of helplessness. "They wouldn't leave a message or talk to anyone other than you."
Of course they wouldn't, they never have. The townsfolk didn't seem to grasp the concept of delegation of authority. They evidently thought that unless they spoke directly to Tremane, whatever it was they had to say would never reach him. "Send them in immediately." He moved back into his office and sat down behind his desk as the aide went off to fetch this delegation. Whatever they wanted, whether or not it was really important, he would make time for them. At all costs, he must stay on good terms with these people, but he must also make it clear—though with such subtlety that they themselves would not be aware he was doing so—that he was the real ruler here, that he permitted them their autonomy. Perhaps that was why they insisted on seeing him and him only; perhaps he had done his job too well.
Or perhaps, after years of terror under Ancar, they no longer believed in anything but the witness of their own ears and eyes.
Would it be complaints this time? It had been the last, though they were complaints from those living nearest the new walls about the noise and dust. He had made it very clear at the time that while such inconveniences would pass, he was not about to slow the progress of his walls by restricting the building to the daylight hours. Since the spider-creature had been brought in, interestingly enough, there had been no more complaints about noise. It was a pity that the town had no real walls of its own; people who had protective walls usually had a firm grasp on the need for protective walls.
The delegation was the usual three; the mayor of the city and his two chief Council members representing the Guilds and the farm folk. The mayor, Sandar Giles, was a much younger man than Tremane was used to seeing in a position of authority, and was quite frail, with a clubbed foot, though his quick intelligence was immediately obvious when he spoke. Thin and dark, he looked like a schoolboy, although Tremane knew his real age was close to thirty. His eyes were the liveliest thing about him; large and expressive, they often betrayed him by revealing emotions he probably would rather have kept concealed.
Both the Chief Husbandman and the Chief Guildsman were old enough to be his grandsires and the main difference between them was that the Chief Husbandman was weathered and wrinkled with years in the field, his face resembling a dried apple, while the Chief Guildsman wore his years more lightly. Both were gray-haired and bearded, both knotted and bent with the years, joints swollen and probably painful. Both had square jaws beneath the close-cropped beards, and cautious eyes that betrayed nothing.
All three took their seats, both of the Council members showing great deference to Sandar, seeing to it that he was seated comfortably before taking their own chairs in front of Tremane's desk. Tremane had always been more at ease receiving civilians in his office rather than in any kind of a throne room; the former implied a businesslike approach that he found made civilians more inclined to cooperate.
They all exchanged the usual greetings; Tremane sent for hot drinks, since he had learned that Sandar was quite susceptible to cold. As soon as the aide was out of the room again, he leaned forward across the wooden expanse of the desktop.
"Well, what is it that you need to see me about so urgently?" he asked, coming to the point quickly, something that would have been so unheard of back in the Empire that his visitors would have been shocked into utter speechlessness. "Not a complaint, I hope. Not only can't I do anything about building noise, I won't. We're racing the winter, and I hope by now your people know how badly all of us need those walls."
"Definitely not a complaint—or, rather not a complaint about you or your men," Sandar replied, with both thin hands cupped around the mug of kala, though it was still too hot to sip. "If I have a complaint about anything, it would be about the weather."
Tremane raised one eyebrow, and Sandar shrugged. "I hope, you don't expect me or my mages to do anything about that," he replied, amused. "I wish we could, as heartily as you do. Not that we couldn't have in the past, but—"