How Firm a Foundation (13 page)

“Of course I have. In fact, I’ve been mentioning it to all of you at regular intervals,” Duchairn observed a bit tartly. “And I do see a few things we can
do—none of which, unfortunately, are going to be pleasant. One thing, I’m afraid, is that we may find ourselves borrowing money from secular lords and secular banks instead of the other way round.”

Trynair grimaced, and Maigwair looked acutely unhappy. Loans to secular princes and nobles were one of Mother Church’s most effective means of keeping them compliant. Clearly, neither of them looked
forward to finding that shoe on the other foot. Clyntahn’s set, determined expression never wavered, however.

“You said that was one thing,” Trynair said. “What other options have you been considering?”

He clearly hoped for something less extreme, but Duchairn shook his head almost gently.

“Zahmsyn, that’s the
least
painful option open to us, and we’re probably going to have to do it anyway,
no matter what other avenues we turn to.”

“Surely you’re not serious!” Trynair protested.

“Zahmsyn, I’m telling you we’ve spent millions on the fleet.
Millions
. Just to give you an idea what I’m talking about, each of those galleons cost us around two hundred and seventy thousand marks. That’s for the ships we built here in the Temple Lands; the ones we built in Harchong cost Mother Church well
over three hundred thousand apiece, once we got finished paying all the graft that got loaded into the price.”

He saw Clyntahn’s eyes flash at the reference to Harchongese corruption, but there was no point trying to ignore ugly realities, and he went on grimly.

“Dohlaran and Desnairian-built ships come in somewhere between the two extremes, and that price doesn’t include the guns. For one of
our fifty-gun galleons, the artillery would add roughly another twenty thousand marks, so we might as well call it three hundred thousand a ship by the time we add powder, shot, muskets, cutlasses, boarding pikes, provisions, and all the other ‘incidentals.’ Again, those are the numbers for the ships we built right here, not for Harchong or one of the other realms, and between our Navy and Harchong’s
we’ve just lost somewhere around a hundred and thirty ships. That’s the next best thing to forty million marks just for the
ships
, Zahmsyn, and don’t forget that we’ve actually paid for building or converting over four hundred ships, including the ones we’ve lost. That puts Mother Church’s total investment in them up to at least
a hundred and twenty million marks
, and bad as that number is, it
doesn’t even begin to count the full cost, because it doesn’t allow for building the shipyards and foundries to build and arm them in the first place. It doesn’t count workers’ wages, the costs of assembling work forces, paying the crews, buying extra canvas for sails, building ropeworks, buying replacement spars. And it also doesn’t count all the jihad’s
other
expenses, like subsidies to help
build the secular realms’ armies, the interest we’ve forgiven on Rahnyld of Dohlar’s loans, or dozens of others my clerks could list for us.”

He paused to let those numbers sink in and saw shock on Trynair’s face. Maigwair looked even more unhappy but much less surprised than the Chancellor. Of course, he’d had to live with those figures from the very beginning, but Duchairn found himself wondering
if Trynair had ever really looked at them at all. And even Maigwair’s awareness was probably more theoretical than real. No vicar had any real experience of what those kinds of numbers would have meant to someone in the real world, where a Siddarmarkian coal miner earned no more than a mark a day and even a skilled worker, like one of their own ship carpenters, earned no more than a mark and
a half.

“We’ve had to come up with all that money,” he continued after a moment, “and so far we’ve managed to. But at the same time, we’ve had to meet all Mother Church’s other fiscal needs, and they haven’t magically vanished. There’s a limit to the cuts we can make in other areas in order to pay for our military buildup, and all of them together aren’t going to come even close to making up
the shortfall in our revenues. Not the way our finances are currently structured.”

“So what do we do to change that structure?” Clyntahn demanded flatly.

“First, I’m afraid,” Duchairn said, “we’re going to have to impose direct taxation on the Temple Lands.”

Clyntahn’s face tightened further, and Trynair’s eyes widened in alarm. The Knights of the Temple Lands, the secular rulers of the Temple
Lands, were also the vicars of Mother Church. They’d never paid a single mark of taxes, and the mere threat of having to do so now could be guaranteed to create all manner of resentment. Their subjects were supposed to pay taxes to them, plus their tithes to Mother Church;
they
weren’t supposed to pay taxes to anyone.

“They’ll scream bloody murder!” Trynair protested.

“No,” Clyntahn said harshly.
“They won’t.”

The Chancellor had been about to say something more. Now he closed his mouth and looked at the Grand Inquisitor, instead.

“You were saying, Rhobair?” Clyntahn prompted, not giving Trynair so much as a glance.

“I think it’s entirely possible we’re going to have to begin disposing of some of Mother Church’s property, as well.” The Treasurer shrugged. “I don’t like the thought, but
Mother Church and the various orders have extensive holdings all over both Havens and Howard.” In fact, as all four of them knew, the Church of God Awaiting was the biggest landholder in the entire world … by a huge margin. “We should be able to raise quite a lot of money without ever touching her main holdings in the Temple Lands.”

Trynair looked almost as distressed by that notion as by the
idea of taxing the Knights of the Temple Lands, but once again Clyntahn’s expression didn’t even waver.

“I’m sure you’re not done with the bad-tasting medicine yet, Rhobair. Spit it out,” he said.

“I’ve already warned all of our archbishops to anticipate an increase in their archbishoprics’ tithes,” Duchairn replied flatly. “At this time, it looks to me as if we’ll have to raise them at a minimum
from twenty percent to twenty-five percent. It may go all the way to thirty in the end.”

That disturbed Trynair and Maigwair less than any of his other proposals, he noted, despite the severe impact it was going to have on the people being forced to pay those increased tithes. Clyntahn, on the other hand, seemed as impervious to its implications as he’d been to all the others.

“Those are all
ways to
raise
money,” he observed. “What about ways to
save
money?”

“There aren’t a lot more of those available to us without cutting unacceptably into core expenditures.” Duchairn met Clyntahn’s eyes levelly across the conference table. “I’ve already drastically reduced subsidies to all of the orders, cut back on our classroom support for the teaching orders, and cut funding for the Pasqualate
hospitals by ten percent.”

“And you could save even more by cutting funding for Thirsk’s precious ‘pensions,’” Clyntahn grated. “Or by stopping coddling people too lazy to work for a living right here in Zion itself!”

“Mother Church committed herself to pay those pensions,” Duchairn replied unflinchingly. “If we simply decide we’re not going to after all, why should anyone trust us to meet any
of our other obligations? And what effect do you think our decision not to provide for the widows and orphans of men who’ve died in Mother Church’s service
after we’ve promised to
would have on the loyalty of the rest of Mother Church’s sons and daughters, Zhaspahr? I realize you’re the Grand Inquisitor, and I’ll defer to your judgment if you insist, but that decision would strike at the very
things all godly men hold most dear in this world: their responsibilities to their families and loved ones. If you threaten that, you undermine everything they hold fast to not simply in this world, but in the next.”

Clyntahn’s jaw muscles bunched, but Duchairn went on in that same level, steady voice.

“As for my ‘coddling people too lazy to work,’ this is something you and I have already discussed.
Mother Church has a responsibility to look after her children, and it’s one we’ve ignored far too long. Every single mark I’ve spent here in Zion this winter—every mark I might spend here
next
winter, or the winter after that—would be a single drop of water in the Great Western Ocean compared to the costs of this jihad. It’s going to get lost in the bookkeeping when my clerks round their accounts,
Zhaspahr. That’s how insignificant it is compared to all our other expenses. And I’ve been out there, out in the city. I’ve seen how people are reacting to the shelters and soup kitchens. I’m sure your own inquisitors have been reporting to you and Wyllym about that, as well. Do you really think the paltry sums we’re spending on that aren’t a worthwhile investment in terms of the city’s willingness
to not simply endure but support what we’re demanding of them and their sons and husbands and fathers?”

Their gazes locked, and tension hovered like smoke in the chamber’s corners. For a moment, Duchairn thought Clyntahn’s rage was going to push him over the line they’d drawn a year ago, the compromise which had bought Duchairn’s acquiescence—his silence—where the Grand Inquisitor’s pogroms and
punishments were concerned. In Clyntahn’s more reasonable moments, he probably did recognize it was necessary for the Church to show a kinder, more gentle face rather than relying solely on the Inquisition’s iron fist. That didn’t mean he liked it, though, and his resentment over the “diversion of resources” was exceeded only by his contempt for Duchairn’s weakness. For the Treasurer’s effort to
salve his own conscience by showing his compassion to all the world.

If it came to an open confrontation between them, Duchairn knew exactly how badly it was going to end. There were some things he was no longer prepared to sacrifice, however, and after a moment, it was Clyntahn who looked away.

“Have it your own way,” he grunted, as if it were a matter of no importance, and Duchairn felt his
taut nerves relax ever so slightly.

“I agree there’s no real point in cutting that small an amount out of our expenditures,” Trynair said. “But do you think we’ll be able to rebuild the fleet even if we do everything you’ve just described, Rhobair?”

“That’s really a better question for Allayn than for me. I know how much we’ve already spent. I can make some estimates about how much it will cost
to replace what we’ve lost. The good news in that respect is that now that we’ve got an experienced labor force assembled and all the plans worked out, we can probably build new ships more cheaply than we built the first ones. But Allayn’s already been shifting the Guard’s funding from naval expenditures to army expenditures. I don’t see any way we’re going to be able to meet his projections for
things like the new muskets and the new field artillery if we’re simultaneously going to have to rebuild the Navy.”

“Well, Allayn?” Clyntahn asked unpleasantly.

“This all came at me just as quickly and unexpectedly as it came at any of the rest of you, Zhaspahr,” Maigwair said in an unusually firm tone. “I’m going to have to look at the numbers, especially after we find out how accurate Searose’s
estimate of our losses really is. It’s always possible they weren’t as great as he thinks they were. At any rate, until I have some hard figures, there’s no way to know how much rebuilding we’re actually going to have to do.

“Having said that, though, there’s no question that it’s going to be the next best thing to impossible to push the development of the Guard’s military support structure the
way we originally planned. For one thing, field artillery’s going to be in direct competition with casting replacement naval artillery for any new construction. A lot of the artisans and craftsmen we’ll need to make rifled muskets and the new style bayonets are also going to be needed by the shipbuilding programs. As Rhobair says, we’ve planned all along on shifting emphasis once we got the shipbuilding
program out of the way. In fact, I’d already started placing new orders and reassigning workers. Getting those workers back and shuffling the orders is going to be complicated.”

“Should we just shelve land armaments in favor of replacing our naval losses?” Trynair asked.

“I think that’s something we’re all going to have to think about,” Maigwair said. “My own feeling, bearing in mind that we
don’t have those definite numbers I mentioned, is that we’ll have to cut back on the muskets and field artillery and shift a lot of emphasis back to the shipyards. I don’t think we’ll want to completely
cancel
the new programs, though. We need to at least make a start, and we need enough of the new weapons for the Guard to start training with them, learning their capabilities. Striking the balance
between meeting that need and rebuilding the Navy is going to be tricky.”

“That actually makes sense,” Clyntahn said, as if the notion that anything coming out of Maigwair’s mouth might do that astounded him. “On the other hand,” he continued, ignoring the flash of anger in the Captain General’s eyes, “at least it’s not as if Cayleb and Sharleyan are going to be landing any armies on the mainland.
Even adding the Chisholmian Army to the Charisians’ Marines and assuming every outrageous report about their new weapons is accurate, they’ve got far too few troops to confront us on our own ground. Especially not when they’ve got to keep such hefty garrisons in Zebediah and Corisande.”

“There’s something to that,” Maigwair conceded. “Doesn’t mean they won’t try hit-and-run raids, of course.
They did that against Hektor in Corisande. And if they’re willing to start that kind of nonsense on the mainland, our problem’s going to be mobility, not manpower. They can simply move raiding parties around faster by ship than we can march them overland, and the sad truth is that it doesn’t really matter how good our weapons are if we can’t catch up with them in the first place. That’s one of the
reasons I’m inclined to think we’re going to have to place more emphasis on ships than muskets for the immediate future. We need to have enough of a navy to at least force them to make major detachments from their own fleet to support any operations along our coasts.”