“With Talkro’s farms flooded out, we have a shortage of grain this next winter. I have been preparing for it by rationing to the people what we can spare. Fish don’t keep for that long and we certainly can’t rely on it during the winter months. There will barely be enough caught to feed the fishermen. There’s barely enough to feed anyone else with how terrible Talkro’s fishermen are, as it is.”

  Draka leaned back in his chair, his head tilted to the side. He mulled over what Christophe was saying. This was not what he expected to hear. He expected something that would give him the satisfaction of, as Maud would call it, ‘thumping’ his baron into line. Instead, he was being shown that there were no good answers to the problem. He had one farming hamlet and it was now a fortress and fishery.

  Rationing was a rational action. He couldn’t fault the Baron for it. He likely would have done the same. Just not in the same way. He wrote, ‘What is your defined ration amounts?’

  “Oh, well,” Christophe looked past Draka for a single split second. “We do it by household, of course. Needs’ based.”

  Draka looked over his shoulder to see Baroness Clarissa and the maid who had been with Lisbeth that day. What was her name? Nina. A very southern sort of name. She had Alicia’s look, the same fire in her eyes, but without the temperance he knew Alicia had developed over decades. No, Nina looked directly into his eyes, unblinking.

  “My Prince,” Clarissa curtsied before taking her seat in the chair beside Christophe.

  Nina held her dress so that her hoops didn’t fly upward, then moved to the wall with a bowed head. He couldn’t tell if those mousey green eyes were threatening or not. That was what she reminded him of most: a mouse. Pointed chin, wide cheeks, and eyes that looked a little too big for her face, along with her ears. She had her long tree-bark brownish red hair tucked behind her ears so that they were pushed forward, making them seem bigger than they were. Tight lips and a downturned, thin bridged nose. A mouse. No mistaking it now.

  “I do apologize, my dear, but the Prince has ordered me to distribute the food to the masses,” Christophe clasp her hand on her lap. “It is a travesty to put such a celebration to a hold. But desperate times and all that.”

  “Certainly, this one could be allowed, your Majesty,” Clarissa shifted herself to lean toward him. He could see the cracks in her face powder and where the paint of her lips had colored her teeth. “The first harvest festival is important. Not only for us, but for the people. If you take from the feast, you take from them, as well.”

  Draka narrowed his eyes. ‘Is this when they do the pole dance?’

  “Ribbon Dance, yes,” Clarissa answered. “The people consider it to be nearly as sacred as we do Christmas.”

  “Moreso, for those in the outlying villages, like Talkro. I’m sure someone has told you how important it is. So much so, that no township has their’s on the same day. It is coordinated throughout the Kingdom.” The look Draka gave Christophe made him gulp loudly. “Not to say that it is to be the same in this, our glorious Principality.”

  ‘The people need food. You have food aplenty. Give it to them.’

  “I would, but you see—” Christophe began.

  Nina’s eyes were looking through Draka as the Baron and Baroness searched each other for a defense. It was Alicia, swooping in from the far end of the tea room, who came to save them.

  “Most of our food reserves are not able to be used by the low folk,” Alicia said with a curtsy from beside her Baroness, who was whispering her thanks. “They haven’t the ability to cook the meats properly or keep them or otherwise feed from it. Dysentery and death would become rampant.”

  Draka lifted his quill. Alicia put her hand over it. “If we have it all cooked up before it is given, it would not keep any longer and would still do the same.”

  He shot her a glare, then turned it on the Baron.

  “Yes, of course,” Christophe stood and called, “Guard, take Alicia to the stocks for her impunity. I will deal with her later.”

  Alicia’s mouth gaped down at Draka as the guards wrapped her arms and lifted her back. Draka was too shocked to write a single letter as he watched her be taken through one of the far doors by two armed men.

  To Draka, Christophe bowed, “My sincerest apologies, your Grace, I thought that with all her years as our head mistress that she would know propriety equal to her station. I was mistaken. It will not happen again.”

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  Nina finally blinked from where she stood with her back against the wall, still watching him.

  “She is right, though,” Christophe returned to his chair. “Even if we were to cook our own food and hand it out to them, it would do nothing but wake their wrath. I do have a solution, if you’re willing to entertain it.”

  Draka hovered between Nina and the door they had carried Alicia through. He kept wondering where this had happened before, when he had seen such a thing, perhaps in the courts of the Holy Lands. And then he remembered and his chin stiffened.

  “If we were to relocate them to, say, the ruins of Wittel, south of Talkro,” Christophe grinned. Draka began writing. He continued, “They would build another settlement and would likely cultivate and organize for themselves. It would give us another outlier area for fortifications and wouldn’t require redistribution of land holdings.”

  Draka finished and turned the paper for Christophe and Clarissa to see. Nina’s eyes shot to the paper and back almost faster than he could notice. Almost.

  He gave no indication of it and instead turned to watch Christophe’s reaction to reading, ‘People are starving in your streets while you have banquets. They haven’t the strength to walk from one end of your holdings to the other, how do you expect them to walk four days across two rivers? I will go to the parish to see if the Cardinal will help. For now, you and yours will be given the same rations as you do to a man and wife with no provisional income. What suits you will be the same for them.’

  Clarissa’s thin neck whipped her head to face her husband, “What does he mean by that?”

  “He means,” Christophe didn’t look up from the paper, “That what we eat is what the poorest within our holdings eats.” He looked to Draka, pleading, “I know you mean well, but there is far more at stake than this. If we are seen eating the same as the lowest of our people, then they will treat us as the lowest of our people. You don’t fear such a thing because you aren’t even the lowest among the Church. But for us, this could mean death. You don’t know what they will do to us. Trust me, it is far worse than whatever punishment you could give. Death,” he narrowed his gaze at Draka, “would be a gift. I will not subject my family to that. We will limit our indulgences and will provide whatever we can spare to the cause, but we will not live by those rations. We. Are. Not. Low-born. I ask for you to understand this. You are our Prince, but as your sole landed aristocrat, I feel obligated to teach you what it means to be a ruler. This isn’t an army. These are people who only respect the authority of God and wealth. Without one, you cannot rule with just the other.”

  Draka fumed while writing, ‘You will do as I command.’

  “Or what?” Christophe crossed his arms even though Clarissa moved into a bow beside him. “You kill me, wipe our family from our position, remove us from our home, then what will you do? You can’t rule the whole of Alcalia out of Talkro, living like some street-rat who found himself a hut. I wondered why the Cardinals chose you to be given Taggerty’s lands with higher authority and now I know. Because you don’t understand a damned thing about governing.”

  Draka only glared. He made a wave of his hand for Christophe to continue. Clarissa’s painted lips formed an ‘O’ and Nina grinned a little.

  “If you want to keep your head firmly on your shoulders, you need to listen carefully,” Christophe jammed a finger on the table. “People will pretend to love you while you give them all that they want—food, homes, coin, you name it—until they realize that the hand that feeds them could be theirs. We give rations fitting to what they earn. So, of course the soldiers’ families and the builders’ families look healthier. They work and are paid. Those on the street are not starving because we don’t provide them food, they’re starving because they don’t get their share from the stronger factions on the streets. We need another Talkro. And we can’t wait.”

  Draka set the quill down as he listened.

  “A new settlement will upheave the factions. You don’t see it, but there are some strong enough that I wouldn’t doubt the Cardinal, or at least the Bishop, are in their pockets—possibly even influenced the ousting of Lord Taggerty and your appointment, I wouldn’t doubt it. That’s why I have been so adamant about the war. If we strike first, we can overrun and hold the lands from Offen to Baden.” He leaned toward Draka, “He intends to take your lands, why not beat him to it? And, while we’re at it, we fill the ranks with all those who haven’t a pot to piss in and send them to do it with their reward being a home of their own in the conquered provinces.”

  “That is an amazing idea, my dear,” Clarissa clapped excitedly. “I could see my father praising you for such a good plan if he were here.”

  Draka drew in a breath. Behind them, Nina was watching more than his expressions, more than studying him. Her glances were always to and from his quill hand. He noticed that when he wrote, she didn’t look away, even from that far.

  Could she read what he was writing like he could read what someone was saying? To see, he wrote, ‘I will consider what you have said.’ Then crossed it out with long swooping motions to write instead, ‘Which authority do you think I lack? And by whose authority did you gain yours?’

  Draka paused a moment. Her expression changed. There was a crease under her nose, her eyes looked ready to flutter at him. She approves. And, she can read as he writes it.

  ‘I will go to the Cardinal and see what he is willing to do. If he requires anything, and I mean anything, it will be from your coffers, as willingly as if Christ himself asked for them.’

  “I am trying to be your friend in all this,” Christophe said as Draka stood from the table.