Wasn’t much of a trade in some ways, since Merry was keeping as sharp an eye on him as Surreal had done, but the difference in personalities made him feel easier. Besides, Merry had plenty of other people to look after—and didn’t look like she wanted to rip out everyone’s throat.
Rainier sat at a table with his left leg resting on cushions that floated on air and enough shields around that part of the table to barricade a whole house—and none of those shields were his. Still, he was happy to be around other people for a while and concerned that Surreal was taking another walk to work off more temper—and he wondered if there was some way for him to find out if there was a problem in Ebon Rih or if Lucivar had a problem with just one man.
Lucivar prowled the sitting room at the Keep. He’d spent the day trying to figure out whom he could talk to who would just let him talk. Marian would have listened, but he didn’t want to share this with her. Not yet. Not when it might change how she felt or acted around some of the other Eyriens.
So he’d come to the Keep, wishing he could have talked to his uncle Andulvar, or even Prothvar, but finally choosing the man he hoped could understand.
“I’m not leaving Ebon Rih for any prick-ass’s benefit,” he said, “but Falonar was right about some things.” He braced when his father rose from the chair where Saetan had sat silently and passively while Lucivar recounted his discussion with the other Eyrien Warlord Prince. But the High Lord just settled on the wide arm of the big stuffed chair and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Was he?” Saetan asked blandly.
Hell’s fire. He’d asked—no, demanded—to be allowed to talk without having to deal with someone else’s anger, but this blandness in face and voice hid too much, giving him no clue to Saetan’s thoughts or temper.
“What, exactly, was he right about?” Saetan asked.
Lucivar bristled. Couldn’t stop himself. “Look, I didn’t want to deal with anger, but I didn’t say you couldn’t express an opinion.”
“As long as it’s expressed politely?”
He swore savagely. “I was hoping you would understand.”
“I do,” Saetan said, his voice still viciously bland. “Better, I think, than you do at this moment.”
Lucivar snapped to a stop and looked into Saetan’s eyes. Something there, something that warned him that he could hear nothing or he could hear it all.
“Stop that.” If he had to submit to a scolding, he was not going to listen to it delivered in that bland, no-balls voice—not from this man.
Saetan’s gold eyes filled with sharp amusement. “Would you prefer a whack upside the head? It’s what you would have gotten from your uncle.”
“Why?”
The bland expression vanished, which wasn’t a relief because now Saetan’s face held the look of a family patriarch annoyed with one of his offspring. Not angry, not threatening, just annoyed enough that if Lucivar had been younger, Saetan would have grabbed him by the scruff of the neck as a warning to pay attention and think.
“Point by point, then,” Saetan said. “There are about two hundred Eyriens in Ebon Rih. How many of them are you supporting?”
“I can afford it,” he mumbled, not sure how much trouble he was in, but certain he was in trouble. “Besides, they work for me.”
“Do they? It’s been two years since the last service fair, two years since the last contracts were signed that were part of the emigration requirements to live in Kaeleer.”
“No,” Lucivar said quickly, “there were a handful this past summer.”
“Eyrien women who have young children and were desperate enough and determined enough to leave what they had known. They didn’t come through the service fairs, since those fairs no longer exist. They came to the Keep in Terreille, asking for help. And Draca asked you to consider adding them to the women living in the mountains near Doun. Which you did. How many other Eyriens who signed contracts with you are still under contract?”
Not sure he liked where this was going, he shrugged. “They’re still serving.”
“Are they? Being a dark-Jeweled Warlord Prince, Falonar has to serve for five years in order to remain in Kaeleer after the contract is completed. The others, not being of that caste and not wearing dark Jewels, have fulfilled that obligation and are free to live elsewhere now.”
“If a Queen will permit them to live in her territory.”
Saetan tipped his head in agreement. “I think some of those men have already talked to Eyriens who accepted service contracts with Rihlander Queens and have discovered that those Queens are not intimidated by Eyriens or impressed by aggression and arrogance, that those Queens are not going to pay them to sit on a mountain scratching each other’s asses while complaining about the ruler they are supposed to serve.”
Lucivar took a step back. It still shocked him when his father expressed an opinion so crudely. It would have sounded natural if Andulvar had said it, but Saetan? No. And that crudeness focused his attention as nothing else could have.
“How many are still under contract to you, Lucivar?”
“I’m not sure.”
A flash of anger, like a flash of lightning, filled the room.
He waited to hear the thunder, waited for the gauge that would tell him how close the storm was—and how violent.
The silence that followed scared him because it indicated an anger too deep to gauge.
“Andulvar didn’t like paperwork any more than you do, but he knew every man who served him directly. Contracts were a formality. He didn’t need those pieces of paper to know who served and who didn’t, who was loyal and who wasn’t, who lived by the Blood’s code of honor and who didn’t. He knew—and so do you.”
Lucivar swallowed hard. “Except for the women I took in last summer, Falonar is the only one who hasn’t fulfilled the full contract.”
“Then he and those women are the only ones who should be receiving anything from your share of Ebon Rih’s tithes—if they’re fulfilling the tasks you’ve assigned them as their part of the bargain. The others should be informed that they have fulfilled their agreement and are free to live elsewhere. If they want to remain in Ebon Rih, and you’re still willing to let them live here, they will have to find work to support themselves. If they want to work for you, and receive wages from you, and have a skill that you want for the Eyrien community in your keeping, they will stand before you and witnesses and make a formal, binding pledge of loyalty for whatever amount of time you specify. They will do this according to Eyrien tradition, understanding that the penalties of breaking that loyalty also will follow Eyrien tradition. And yes, Prince, that does mean execution. And yes, there were times when Andulvar had to hold up that part of Eyrien honor.”
Lucivar wanted to pace, but that storm of temper could still come down on him, so he didn’t move. “I can’t cut them loose like that. They’re just starting to build a life.” He wasn’t thinking of the men. Not most of them, anyway. But the women? And what about men like Hallevar and Tamnar? What would they do to support themselves sufficiently?
“Eyriens prefer plain speaking, so I’ll speak plainly,” Saetan said quietly. “The reason most of the Eyriens who are now settled in Askavi Kaeleer came here was to escape the control of Prythian and all the corrupted Queens who followed her lead. Well, Prythian and those Queens and everyone who was tainted by them are gone. Dead. Destroyed. Purged from all the Realms. If the Eyriens living in Ebon Rih don’t like the boundaries that are set by the Queens in Kaeleer, they can return to Askavi Terreille and take up their old lives.”