Presumably, some day, this would feel like his desk. In his office, in his house. In, etc. But for the moment, with the funeral only two days ago, it felt like he was sat at his father's desk. Reviewing the accounts as he had used to do, but half expecting his father to walk in and quiz him about what he had learnt. "What dues should we set East Hook farm? Has the mill paid this month?" And so on.
In fact, he was probably more than half expecting it because when there was a knock on the door his first reaction was to wonder why in the world his father was knocking on the door to his own office. It didn't last long, though, and his "Come" came without a noticeable pause.
"Kristoff Weaver" The seneschal announced.
Baron Clearspring looked up from the accounts he was reviewing to stare blankly at his senschal and the man, child really, accompanying him.
"The weaver's son, my Lord"
The blank stare, if anything, grew blanker.
"His father bought him into your service, my Lord. He was at seminary."
"Ah. Ah yes. Come in. Sit. That will be all, Levi" His fath..Land's sake. His seneschal nodded and withdrew leaving the boy standing, looking lost.
"Do sit, boy. I'll crane my neck if I have to stare up at you. Now, give me one..." he shuffled through the papers in front of him before finding the one he was looking for. "Kristoff Weaver. Trained in seminary but released because" he glanced up "Land, boy. Sit. In the chair in front of you. Sit in it. There, that wasn't so hard was it."
"No, my Lord. I'm sorry. I was sorry to hear of your father, my Lord."
"Yes, so was I. Thank you, though. Kind of you to say. Errrm." He glanced down at the paper and read through it again, sipping deeply from a wooden tumbler as he did.
"OK. The seminary didn't want you because, and I'm reading their words now, your reading is not to be trusted? What did they mean by that boy?"
"I know my letter my Lord!"
The Baron raised an eyebrow "But...."
"They...they swim around the page, my Lord. When I try to read them, they move around. I can read, my Lord, but it takes me a long time."
"The letters more around? What is that, boy. A curse?"
"No, my Lord. They said they'd seen it before. Some people just have it, my Lord. But they said I was no use to them because of it."
"So they sent you back and your father bought you into my service instead. Anxious to be rid of you isn't he boy. You have an elder sibling I assume?"
"Two, my lord."
"Well, that explains it. And now here you are." He read the report on the boy again and absently filled up the tumbler with something flammable smelling. "Hmmmm." He took a sip, winced, and then picked up a different sheet and pushed it across the desk. "Can you read me the last item on that list, boy?"
"The Duchy of The Falls, The Barony of Clearspring. Thirty crowns, twelve archers and thirty barrels of fish." Perhaps he did squint a little harder than usual, perhaps it did take a little longer than usual. But he clearly could read and that wasn't common enough to be ignored. Hmmmm.
"Correct boy. Now. What does it mean, do you think?" The boy stared at him for a moment, and a couple of times the words 'my Lord?' started to form on his lips. But the report had said he was a clever one and he was clearly clever enough to understand the question was a test.
"It's the dues for the Barony, my Lord." The Baron made an encouraging noise and Kristoff looked back at the list, frowning in concentration. "I think, my Lord. It's a list of all the dues for all the Baronies in Haverford. And they're arranged from most to least. Which means that you pay the lowest dues in the Lordship. Which is good news, I suppose?"
"Very good, boy, except the last bit I can see why you think it's good, but it's actually bad. Bad and embarassing. Lord Mikhail is a fair man, Duke Mina is a fair woman. They charge dues according to how much people can afford. The reason we're at the bottom of that list is because we're the poorest Barony in Haverford. But that's not your concern boy. No, I'm minded to put you under Jesse, that's the captain of my household guard, such as they are. His assistant died with my..." he trailed off for a moment before resuming "..last week. And it's a role I should like to be filled." And what's more, a role he would like filled with his man, not his father's. It wasn't that Jesse, or Levi the Seneschal, or the other longstandning members of the househol, were disloyal by any means. It was that they didn't quite take him seriously. Perhaps viewing him as the child they had known rather than the Baron he was. Ah well.
"A guard, my Lord?"
"Well, an officer. Of sorts. A mixture of officer and military advisor. I should like you, in time, to coordinate the Barony's involvement in the war."
"I thought I might be a servant, my Lord? Or help with the seneschal's office?"
"I've no doubt you did, boy, and I'm going to break the rules of the war council by telling you that what you thought isn't that relevant to all of this. What I thought is this: I thought we were going to spend an hour or so making sure you have an overview of the military situation then you'd spend the afternoon with Jesse getting to know exactly what I have. Then, over time, you'll become a valuable asset and we can play our part, more than our part, in the war. Accrue honour and prestige, become a desirable Barony. And maybe move a couple of steps up the list. First of all, you need to know about war councils. Every time I talk to you, it's going to be a war council."
The War Council
"Now. The Lord Haverford is big on this. Which means his Dukes are which means their Barons are which means I am which means you are. But I don't want to just tell you to be because it sort of defeats the purpose. You know about the Northern War, right?"
"Well, I've heard of it my Lord. It was before I was born though."
"Land, boy, it was before I was born. How old do you think I am? No, please don't answer, it will just upset me. When I was your age there was no difference between twenty five and seventy five, I remember how it was. Anyway. We won the Northern War, Treaty of Incorporation and all that, but we shouldn't have done. Or we should have done much quicker, perhaps thats a better way of saying it. Do you understand me?"
"Not...I'm sorry my Lord."
"Don't apologise for things that aren't your fault boy. Let me start again. The Sin tribes were outnumbered - our Army of the North was larger than their entire population. They had very little iron. They weren't expecting the attack, not really. We had every advantage under the sun and we thought this was going to be a pleasant jaunt. A couple of days march, a quick surrender, everyone would be home in time for bed."
"I thought it lasted several years, my Lord?"
"It did. Four. The Army of the North suffered massive losses, parts of Ruthertown were conquered, and the terms of the surrender were nowhere near as favourable as we wanted by the time they were agreed. Now, there were all sorts of things that went wrong, but one of them was the way they did planning. See Lord Ruthertown, at the time, appointed family and friends and, well, lackeys to his leadership positions. And then when they sat down to plan what they were doing these people were too reliant on him to disagree with him. Or they were too focused on presenting a united front to question decisions. Or too hung up on their internal jockeying for position. Or...whatever. All sorts of messes. All of that might not be a problem if he had been a military genius, but he wasn't. He made terrible plans, noone said 'That's a terrible plan'". With me?"
"I understand my Lord."
"So in the end the Armies of the South were sent up to reinforce, they were under the command of the Lord of Haverford's father, Lord of Haverford at the time. He banged some heads together, replaced almost all of the leadership structure, did a lot of other stuff, and we won. And he brought back what he learnt to the Southern War and passed it down to his son. Some people call them Haverford's Rules but Haverford himself calls it the Sanctity of the War Council. The rules are really simple. Everyone is an equal in the council. If you think someone is wrong then if it's the King or a penal legionary then you tell them you think they're wrong and you explain why. If you don't understand something then you get it explained. Obviously someone has to take final decisions but as much as possible everyone is the same. You call me Finn, not my Lord. With me, boy?"
"Yes my Lord"
"Finn. In the war council I'm Finn." He took another sip, another wince. "Do try to remember boy."
"So am I Kristoff?"
The Baron burst out laughing. "You got me there...Kristoff. You are. Sorry about that. Habit. I'll watch it. Seems like you're with me. As I say, Haverford likes it and wants it to trickle down but I can see the benefits. So that's how we'll work, Now. Tell me what you know about how the military works."
"Well, my Lord"
"Ah." The Baron held up a finger.
"Finn. Sorry. Finn. I don't know that much. We have the Army of the South. Obviously. And you mentioned the Army of the North and presumably there's an Army of the East and West as well. And there's mercenaries. And the penal legions. And Han. And...I really don't know that much."
Finn nodded slowly to himself. "OK. Some right, some wrong."
The Diarchy's Land Forces
"There are armies of the North and South. They're led by the Lords Haverford and Ruthertown respectively. East and west have fleets, not armies. Fleet of the East, under Lord Han, fleet of the West under Lord Thanal. Ignore the fleets for a bit, though, lets talk about land forces. First thing you need to know is that the Army of the South, and the North for that matter, isn't actually a thing. Nothing you can point to. What happens is Haverford - in the south, this is - Haverford calls the Armies of the South. And messengers go out to all of his dukes and out to the Lords Blue Water and Mulebridge as well. And they assemble their household guards and send messages down to everyone under them to assemble their household and so on down. So in our case Haverford sends the message to Duke Mena, she sends a message to us and we all round up as many fighting men as we have. And what you end up with is the Army of the South. Same in the north if Ruthertown called the armies. With me?"
Kristoff nodded slowly, and he almost continued but stopped himself. Give the boy time to chew it all through, and more importantly a chance to show his intelligence.
"Why are you here then Finn? The Army of the South is fighting the war but you're here with your household guard. Did you say no? Are you allowed to do that?"
"Two good questions. I'm going to leave the first one for a bit and come back to it if I can. The short answer is that what I'm saying now is how things used to work, but the fact this war has dragged on for so long has led the Haverfords to make some changes to how things normally work. The idea of the Armies was for one summer, two max, of campaigning. The system was never meant to keep people in the field for, what, it's been fifty years now hasn't it. As to the other question. Well, yes. Obviously I can say no. But then what? That's what I have to decide. Has every other person sent their troops and there's just me and my twenty men shaking our fist in defiance at the host of thousands? I'm probably not going to be Baron for very long. Or has everyone else said no as well? Haverford was stupid to call in the armies if that was going to happen. In honesty, I can't imagine a situation where I, personally, would refuse. Maybe if Haverford mustered against the King but even then. I don't know him that well, but I do know him and I can't imagine him mustering against the King without an outstanding reason. It would depend."
"He can do that? Declare war on the King?"
"Legally, absolutely. The Army of the South is commanded by the Lord Haverford, not by the King. It happened before, with the Army of the North. The Lord of Ruthertown's Rebellion. Heard of it?" Kristoff shook his head "Well. I'll probably want you to study it at one point, but lets move on for now. Where were we. Oh yes. So if there's a land war in the south then the General of the Army of the South sends word out to people and tey send their men and also send word out to their people and so on. Everyone is responsible for outfitting and provisioning and whatever their own people. After that there would probably be a colossal argument about who paid for everything, but that's economics not military. Same in the north. Our other land forces are newer, the Penal Legions."
"You said I should ask if I didn't know something? I mean, it's a little off topic." At the Baron's nod he continued. "Does Penal mean to do with your...you know, your..." he gestured at his crotch. "Because there are women in them as well. That was a stupid question wasn't it? I've just always wondered."
"Ha, no. Not a stupid question and not only because there aren't any in the War Council. No, Penal means to do with punishment. As you know some crimes, most of them by this point, are punished by serving an amount of time in the Penal Legions. As punishment. They're, well..." He tailed off and stared thoughtfully at his tumbler before refilling it and swirling the contents round for a bit.
The Penal Legions were monstrous, everyone agreed on that. They were essentially a death sentence for minor crimes. Of course, not everyone sentenced to the Penal Legions died, probably not even half. But so what - the penalty for selling short pints was a fifty per cent chance at death? Following a few months of slavery. Everyone, north and south, agreed the Penal Legions were monstrous. Everyone in the south, however, added a 'but' to the end of that. The Penal Legions were monstrous, but... What precisely followed that 'but' varied in specifics but not in meaning. But what else can we do? But we need them. But the alternative is worse.
"Finn? Are you alright?"
"Yes, sorry. Thinking." He knocked back half the tumbler and winced. "The Penal Legions are controversial. But we need them. See, the problem is that when the Army of the South, or the North, is raised, it's not actually just my household guard that is raised. I'd also call up able bodied fighters from the villagers. So if we're away for a year it means the harvest suffers that year, if we're away for two then things are going to get really tough. If we're away for fifty then, well, we couldn't be. There'd be rebellions, famine, all sorts. The way the Armies work, we just can't keep them in the field for too long. But we need a permanent force down here and so..." He shrugged. "If you can think of a better way then there's an awful lot of people who would love to hear it. They also shift some of the burden. Because the war is just in the South it would just be the Southern Lordships losing men. But the whole Diarchy would be affected. The Penal Legions mean that Ruthertown and Briar Wood and those northern Lordships also contribute. I know it sounds like I'm trying to justify it and I am. The Penal Legions are controversial but we need them." He swirled his drink again and shrugged to himself.
"Anyway. Normally, if the Army is called, I'm in charge of my men. On the battlefield. Under the Duke's command. Who is under the Lord's. In theory, in practice there would be experienced people appointed from various retinues to do day to day command. The Penal Legions each have an overseer and a priest attached to them, they share command responsibility but realistically they all answer to one of Haverford's men. We can go into more depth on precise command structures later and who, specifically, oversees what. This is big picture stuff. And that's the Diarchy's land forces. The armies and the legions. I was thinking we'd look quickly at the naval forces then talk about the specifics of the war, that work for you Kristoff? Don't need food? Or a piss? No? OK, let's talk about the navy."
The Diarchy's Naval Forces
"So, the thing you need to know about the navy is...wait, hang on. See if you can figure it out. What does the navy need? What does that mean?"
Kristoff frowned. "Well, I mean, the navy needs ships obviously. I guess it needs..." but he stopped as the Baron nodded. "It needs ships? OK, so I guess that means it needs...I'm not sure what the word is. Shipbuilders."
"Shipwrights"
"Shipwrights, ok. And harbours. And...I don't know..sailors. And rope makers."
"You're going off topic. The nazy needs warships. What does that mean?"
"Well...I guess it means we...Oh! Oh! Wait!" He was beaming with the satisfaction of a problem solved. "How long does it take to build a warship?"
The Baron grinned in response. "A year? Six months if we pushed it"
"OK, so there's the thing. The people in the Army of the South exist anyway. They're farmers or fishermen. And if we need them to be in an army that's fine they're already there. We can build an army when we need it, we can't build a navy when we need it. It has to be there already. And that takes money, I assume?" He was a bit less confident on that point but there was another encouraging nod.
"Spot on Kristoff. Spot on. The solution to that problem is Han and the Fleet of the West. But let's quickly talk about the Fleet of the East because it won't take long. See, the Fleet of the East isn't a thing. Lord Thanal is Admiral of the Fleet of the East but he has no warships, it's purely an honourary title. We have no navy in the east because there's nothing there. Several weeks dangerous travel to reach an uninhabited mosquito filled swamp and after that, well, Her." They both gave a respectful nod to the east. "So it's just an honourary title. But to the west we have the City States, the Coast of Gold, Gyre, the Thousand Isles, Maceton, loads of places. All of whom could and some of whom have fought naval wars with us."
He went to fill his tumbler again but withdrew his hand. "Probably best not. Anyway. The Lordship of Han. It's not like other places, it's more like a single permanent military base. The Lord Han is Admiral of the Fleet of the West and he certainly does have warships under him. Lots of them. And all the shipwrights and assorted craftsmen needed to maintain them, and all the sailors needed to crew them and all the other things that are needed. And all of that studd needs to be fed or maintained or repaired or whatever, and as you say that takes money. So a fair whack of our dues eventually filter upwards to the King and then filter downwards to Han. The Lord Han also collects money from the coastal Lordships, Blue Water in particular, in exchange for keeping the seas safe from pirates. He also, actually, gets paid by Gyre and the City States for that as well. Han doesn't have Barons, but each Captain of a ship is equivalent to a Baron. But they don't collect dues or pay them upwards, instead they get money given to them according to this complex set of rules. The Captain's Accord it's called. So even though they are Barons, or the equivalent of, it's easier to think of them as permanent mercenaries. With Han being so different to the other Lordships it really does have its own set of rules and way of doing things. Again, easier to think of it as a military base than one of the Lordships, even though it is. You OK Kristoff?" The boy had stood up and was rocking up to his tiptoes and back again.
"Yes, sorry. Stretching my legs. So we have the Armies when we need them, the Penal Legions because we do, the Fleet of the West and an imaginary Fleet of the East."
"Well, we have mercenaries too. Hired by individual nobles - sometimes for some reason it's better to pay someone else to do the fighting than send your own men. But they're a bit of a side issue."
"And that's all to fight the Southern War. What...OK, there are really no stupid questions? OK, what are we actually fighting? I don't really..."
"You don't really understand the Southern War. Don't feel bad, Kristoff, no fucker does. We've been fighting it for fifty years and we're still not really one hundred per cent clear who we're fighting. Do you want some of this?" At Kristoff's shake he refilled his own tumbler.
"OK. Do you have two minutes spare? Time to fill you in on literally everything we know about the war that's slowly killing the Diarchy." He took a sip and composed his thoughts.
The Southern War
"So Haverford, the Lordship, doesn't really have a southern border. It's thick forest down there and Haverford just kind of trails off. Same in the north, actually, with the desert. We've sent ships round and it's just thick forest for literally thousands of miles. And traditionally as there was excess population then various border barons would clear a section of forest, sell off the lumber and convert it to farmland. We think, our best guess, is that that pissed something off. What happened at first was that forest started rapidly regrowing. Really rapidly. Trees reappearing, fully grown, in a matter of days. Well, as you can imagine, the border barons rubbed their hands in glee. Basically free lumber, theirs for the taking. The Church was nervous - it, smacked of Elementalism and reminded them of the whole Green Sea thing, you know about that?" Kristoff nodded "Both sides lobbied Lord Haverford and he agreed some limited lumbering in it, basically out of exploration, you understand. And it all seemed fine, trees went down, came back a few days later but they were spreading north. Every day, more land was lost to forest. And so obviously Haverford had to do something. The...yes?" Kristoff had started to ask a question.
"Sorry, Finn. Obviously? Could they not just, I mean I know its a little weird. But just pivot from farming to lumber? I mean, how hard is cutting wood, they don't need training or anything. It seems like they could just...just become woodcutters instead of farmers."
"Well, I think cutting wood is harder than you give it credit for, Kristoff. But also, look at this." He stood up from his desk and gestured to a map on the wall, the diarchy picked out in a pathwork of colours. "When I was a lad, a bit younger than you, I painted this. I was always interested in pigments? Sounds strange, I know. But dyes and colours and...anyway, I made this. Each blob of colour is a barony in the Diarchy. We are..." his finger circled for a moment before alighting on a small dark blue shape "...here. Dark blue for fishing. Each colour is that barony's dominant export. Look at Haverford." He waved his hand over the Lordship, some dark blue around the river but overwhelmed by the sea of green.
"Green is farming I assume?"
"Green is farming. Loads in Haverford. Some elsewhere" he touched a few blobs in Briar Wood, a few more in Landhome "but Haverford feeds the Diarchy. If we lose this land to forest then the Diarchy starves. Land, the Diarchy is starving, we just haven't noticed it yet because we're importing food from elsewhere. But money's going out and it's not coming back, and..." he shrugged. "Mabe they could become lumberjacks. But we need the farmland. So something had to be done. With me?" Kristoff nodded, vaguely, his attention on the map.
"So nothing bad happened when we cut down some of the trees, so Lord Haverford, as was, called the Armies of the South and set them to work cutting the trees back. We thought we might hit a, I don't know, a tipping point. We couldn't keep the Army mobilised forever as I've explained" Kristoff nodded again "but we thought there might come a point where we could just hack our way through whatever was happening. Or at least buy time for the Church to find out what was happenning and stop it.
"But then attacks started. Logging parties went missing, others came back with a fraction of their numbers. Darts fired from the trees by unseen attackers. Then reports of the trees themselves coming to life and attacking people. Credible, you understand. Enough different people, all telling the same story. So some of the lumberjacks were changed in to guards. Armoured, equipped, guarding the logging teams. But obviously that meant less people logging and we weren't holding the forest back. That's when the Penal Legions were formed, they do the logging, mainly, while soldiers try to guard them."
"So what's actually happening though? The forests are growing back quickly, elementalism probably" he all but spit the word, the Diarchy's deepseated mistrust of elementalism clear in his tone. "Under cover of that, people are attacking us and making trees come to life as well and attacking us as well?"
"OK, none of it your fault, but a lot wrong with that question. First off, elementalism can't make trees grow. If Plant could create plants there'd be nothing but plants. What we - and I'm flattering myself a little there, what people who know about this kind of thing which emphatically doesn't include me - but what we think is happening is that some god is being invoked to grow the trees quickly and then maybe elementalism, maybe the god, maybe even mages" he nodded at Kristoff's snort of laughter "I know, I know, but Im assured there's no reason mages couldn't do it if they only knew how. Anyway. They're growing back and something is making some of them come alive. Those living trees plus humans in the forest, we've seen some of them, even captured some of them, are fighting our logging operations and we're slowly losing ground and less slowly losing men. More than we can replace. The Penal Legions have been massively expanded in scope over the years; they were originally just for the most serious crimes. And the Diarchy is bleeding to death. Not enough food, not enough men. But slowly enough that the northern Lords can see it as not a problem and just grumble about the legions."
"But that's not all. See, we - and again, I actually mean 'they', people who know - think that the enemy is fighting a defensive war. Looking at their tactics and the land they take and suchlike. It's quite likely that we're attacking them, and they're trying to defend themselves. But..." he pointed back at the map. "Farmland. Eventually, presumably, we'll lose enough men to this war that we no longer need the farms. But that's a crappy outcome isn't it."
"Can we not make a peace treaty?"
"No. First, farmland. We need the land and what's our offer in the treaty? We take everything we have and more and come back later for even more if our population expands? We're in absolutely no position to offer terms like that. But more importantly, we can't talk to them. The humans we capture refuse to talk or eat. We've never captured a tree - think of the logistics. Felling a sixty foot oak or whatever and carting it back through enemy terrain all the while under attack. I'm not even certain we've tried. We have no way of offering a treaty even if we had anything to offer."
They both sat in silence for a moment. Kristoff staring at the map, Finn swirling his drink. Eventually the younger spoke up.
"So what happens then?"
"Well. No one knows. If you're asking me, personally, I think we lose. In fact, I think we've lost already, we're just too stubborn to admit it. I think we limp on for another ten, twenty years - bleeding men and food the whole time - until we just can't continue. They take the south and we pray they stop there. Tens of thousands starve. Maybe Land can change the desert to make it farmable, maybe we can renegiate the Green Sea Compact to allow fishing off the east coast, maybe something else." He shrugged. "Maybe not"
"Wow."
"Yeah"
They sat in silence a little longer.
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