Arrows of Promise (Kingmakers Book 2) (7 page)

“What do you mean, we’re running out of money?” Edvard
repeated, voice rising.

“We’re running out of hard coin,” Troi expounded. “To be
exact.”

Broden listened to this report with a sinking sensation in
his stomach. He did not understand the nuances of ruling a people, or forming a
government, but he knew one basic fact to hold true: nothing could be done
without money. Not even kings got very far without it.

He and Ashlynn were in Edvard’s office, giving a report on
the city and coming to speak about another issue altogether, so it was pure
coincidence they heard this other report as it was being given. He was about to
ask just how serious this was when Edvard dropped his head to his desk in a
loud
thunk
. “That bad, eh?”

“That bad,” Ashlynn confirmed darkly. She looked worried,
too, and this was a lass that was not worried by much. Ashlynn’s approach to
life was direct. If it caused her trouble, she was as likely to punch a hole
through it as she was to fix it. “In history, there have been wars that ended
and kingdoms that fell for the simple lack of money. Troi, what’s causing
this?”

“Iysh finally managed to stop all trade. Even sea trade.”
Troi spread his hands, palm up. “Without any export/import going on, we have
limited coin available in the city and it just doesn’t cover every person. Coin
shortages started early this week, but this morning I actually saw people
writing out vouchers and carrying them about like they’re money, it’s gotten
that bad.”

Something that might have been the word ‘vouchers’ was
wailed against the wood. Edvard still had not raised his head from the desk.

“Edvard.” Ashlynn bit at her bottom lip before asking, “Can
we support the settlement like this?”

“Not at all.” Edvard finally lifted his head. The lines
around his eyes and mouth made him look a decade older. Had the man been
sleeping properly? “We’ll have to stop all support to them immediately. They’re
on their own until we get a solution to this problem.”

“Only one possible solution, to my mind.”

Broden looked at her sideways. “Make our own money?”

She pointed a finger at him, nodding. “That’s it. We make
our own currency.”

“Out of what?”

“I’m assuming The Land Northward has ore. Let’s get more
contractors out there to mine it out. We can make our own coins that way. Until
then, we issue a more formal version of the vouchers, something that we can
make easily.”

“Wood?” Broden suggested. “The way Ash be felling trees, we
have plenty of timber lying about.”

“And who’s going to carve these things?” Edvard raised a
hand. “Wait, that was a stupid question. We have more idle hands than I care to
recall offhand. We’ll contract it out.”

“Best use of manpower,” Troi agreed. “Sire, should I stop
the use of vouchers?”

Edvard considered it for a long moment before shaking his
head. “No. No, it’s the only sensible solution to the problem until I can offer
something as a substitute. It’s not like I can tell people to not buy anything until
then. Ashlynn, you have a list of people that need something constructive to
do?”

“It’s probably not as long of a list as you think it is, but
yes, I do.”

“Find as many people as you need to. Get started on this
today. For now, just use the same currency values as Iysh. We’ll sit down and
discuss this with all of the provosts after dinner tonight. Troi, spread the
word to them that we need to meet.”

Broden cleared his throat. “Edvard, be ye forgetting
something?”

Giving him a perfectly blank look, Edvard parroted,
“Something?”

“A little something called bandits?”

“We haven’t heard anything from them in over two weeks,”
Edvard responded. “Doesn’t that mean they gave up?”

“Iysh hasn’t responded in over three months,” Ashlynn
pointed out sweetly. “Does that mean they gave up too?”

Edvard’s mouth went flat, jaw flexing as he gave a Look at
his sister. “I stand corrected. Broden, you’re our bandit expert. What do you
think is likely to happen?”

“Belike one of two things be happening right now.” Broden
put his hands comfortably in his pockets, rocking a little on his heels. “Two
gangs have lost a lot of manpower because of us. It belike caused a power
vacuum. Odds be that they be fighting it out with the other gangs, struggling
to hold onto their territory. Whether they win or lose no’ be important to us,
but it does buy us peace and time.”

Ashlynn nibbled at her thumb, thinking hard. “How long will
this last?”

“No way of knowing. Now, other thing be this: they likely
had a few that escaped us, running tail back home. Those that did will report to
their bosses and tell them all they know. So, could be we have other gangs
eyeing us as a prize. Could be they decide we no’ be worth the effort. That too
be any man’s guess.”

“Broden.”

“Aye.”

“That was not in the least comforting,” the Estolian King said.

“My apologies on that.” Broden shrugged, resigned. “I been
fighting around these thugs most of me life, Edvard. Their tactics do no’
change much. I give it good odds it be one or the other happening now. Whether
they come again in the future? Well, I do no’ know for certain but I give it
fair odds they will. Aside from attacking Senn, and Cloud’s Rest itself, they
do no’ have much in the way of ready targets.”

Edvard scrubbed both hands over his face. “Noted. But I
can’t dwell on what-ifs right now. We’ll arrange protection for the miners,
once we find a place to mine the metals we need, and hope for the best. Troi,
take that into consideration as well.”

“Sire.” Troi gave a proper bow as both acknowledgement and
dismissal before turning sharply on his heel and leaving the study.

Broden studied his king with narrowed eyes. Edvard’s hair looked
downright unruly, and even though he was as neatly turned out as usual, the way
his shoulders sagged spoke of fatigue. “Edvard. Pace yerself.”

Edvard looked up at him with a dry smile. “I take it I look
terrible.”

“You do,” his blood-sister informed him bluntly. “I think
you need a nap.”

“It won’t do any good,” he negated wearily. “My mind won’t
shut off and let me rest.”

“Then I’ll give you a very nice potion that will fell a
whale. Sleep, Edvard. No one makes good decisions while sleep deprived.”

Wise words. Edvard apparently realized the same, as he
braced his hands on his desk and pushed himself up to his feet. The way he did
so was akin to a man lifting the whole world on his shoulders.

“Fine, Ashlynn. Give me your wonderful potion but wake me
before dinner. And while I’m sleeping, the two of you can think of a solution
to feeding people, as I don’t think we’ll have enough food come spring.”

Not at the rate their population was expanding. Especially
since all trade with Iysh was now completely cut off. That was one problem that
magic couldn’t just conjure up a solution to.

“We be thinking about it,” Broden assured him. “Now, shoo.”

“Shoo, is it?” Edvard chuckled softly as he weaved toward
the door. “Shoo, he says. This from a man that was nervous and awed the first
time he met me.”

“I will be properly awed again after yer nap,” Broden
drawled.

The sleep-deprived king thought this hilarious. He laughed
all the way out the door. Ashlynn apparently decided that this signaled an end
to his sanity, as she grabbed him by the shoulders and frog marched him the
rest of the way to his room. Broden followed as far as the man’s bedroom door,
then stayed there and guarded it. Anyone that tried to approach, he re-directed
to someone else. Really, half of the questions they had should have been asked
of another person. Edvard’s attempt at delegating to his provosts was not
working well. The man needed to be more firm about sending requests to the
right people in charge. Otherwise he would set a bad trend and work himself
into the ground.

Ashlynn came back out, shutting the door firmly behind her
and whispering a word that Broden recognized as a locking spell. “Ye be locking
the man in?”

“More like I’m locking other people out. The only person
that can leave readily is Edvard.” For just a moment, she let her own fatigue
show. “His head barely hit the pillow before he was fast asleep.”

“Potion be a good one, I take it.”

“I didn’t get the potion into him before he sat on the bed.
He was that tired.” Ashlynn ran shaking fingers over her head. “I’m worried,
Broden. What about the people that we sent across the channel? If we have no
money....”

Aye, he was worried about that too. But not as much as
Ashlynn. He put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her to his chest. “Brace
up, lass. They be fine. There be game aplenty over there; they will no’ starve.
And there be timber, and ore, and like as no’ a lot of other things they have
no’ discovered yet. We be in more of a pickle than they.”

“True, they could hunt.” She snorted and there was only a
trace of amusement in the sound. “It might end up that they have to feed us.”

There be truth. “Best I think to tackle one problem at a
time. Let us start with the one that we have a notion of how to solve. What do
we need in order to make money?”

Ashlynn pushed gently away and found her own feet,
re-centering herself. “Offhand, I’m not quite sure. A lot of it needs to be
decided with the provosts. The denominations, the amounts, how much needs to be
made, etcera. But there are some things that we can do to speed the process
along. We can find artists to design the money for us and have them ready to
go. I can contact Ash and alert him that he needs to be searching for ore so
that we know what materials we have to work with.”

He watched her as she started to put together a mental list
of things to do. How did women do this? They went from being depressed and in
low spirits to energetic and ready to tackle the world all within a minute. He
had watched his Riana do the same thing several times. Broden smiled as he
suggested, “Best to talk to Ash first, I think.”

Nodding in agreement, she lifted a hand to her ear and
called her brother’s name distinctly. “Ash.”

Ash cupped a hand to his ear and listened intently for
several moments before growling in disbelief, “We’re what?”

Riana stopped dead in her tracks. She didn’t like the tone
in his voice, not at all. They had been in the middle of discussing which land
needed to be cleared next to make room for a marketplace when the call from his
sister had come in. Whatever it was that Ashlynn was saying was not good news.

“I take it that I need to go looking right now. Yes,
alright. I know that you need an answer on this soon, but I’m not sure if I can
deliver one by the time that the provosts meet. As long as you realize that.
Fine, I’ll look now. Go find an artist or ten.” He dropped his hand and looked
at his partner. “We are running out of money in Estole.”

Riana’s mouth dropped open in dismay. “What do we do?”

“Make our own money. It is the only thing we can do.”

He said that so simply, but it must be more complex than
that.

Ash looked at the water pouch at his waist and peered
inside. “I think we have enough to do a bit of a hike with. Let’s go exploring,
shall we?”

It was safe enough to do that at the moment. They hadn’t
seen hide nor hair of a bandit. Still, she made sure she had a full quiver of
arrows before joining him. He had mentioned something to Ashlynn about looking,
but Riana wasn’t sure what they were looking for. “So,” she queried as she
followed him further into the woods, “what be we looking for?”

“Precious metal. Or I should say, ore to make metal with.
The Land Northward is a very mountainous region so odds are good that we have
plenty of ore, aside from iron, here to work with. If I can find it.”

Riana looked around her, eyebrows screwing up in confusion.
All she saw was a lot of trees, foliage, and some gentle rises in the land. How
in the world did a man tell if there was ore anywhere nearby? “Ye have a spell
for this?”

“Not precisely, but I have a spell that will work well
enough for this task. It just has a short range, so we will be doing a lot of
walking as I’m not sure how far out will need to go. And we will need to find
different types of metals to make money out of.”

This part made sense to her immediately. Money was not
formed all out of the same type of metal, after all. The worth of the money was
dependent upon the metal it was forged from. Copper was not worth much, which
was why it was used for the smallest coin. Gold was worth quite a bit which was
why most used it for their most valuable coin. Of course they would not be able
to deviate from the system. “Ye think ye can find copper and silver and gold
here?”

“I’m not as confident about gold and silver. But we should
be able to find copper and nickel at the very least. We’re more likely to find
gold along the coastline. It tends to collect around salt water.”