Indomitus Vivat (The Fovean Chronicles) by Robert Brady

have,” one of the barons commented drolly.
         Again, a small laugh.
         “Shall you be keeping me on,” he continued, “or is this my last meal?”
         “Will you be bound by a fealty?” I asked.
         He considered this.  Clearly he expected it. 
         “There are more ways out of a fealty than out of a room full of doors,” the baron next to him commented.  That drew some looks.  Had to be pretty bold to essentially say, “Stupid” to the new boss.
         I noted the baron.  Maybe a military commission for him.  The army needed risk takers.
         “Yet there is honor in taking an oath, regardless,” Tom said.  He looked at me, considering.
         “I would ask you to be bound to my protection,” he said.  “But I don’t think you’re likely to do it, and I see what it means to offend you.
         “Yes,” he said, finally.  “You are well aware that I am a spy for the guild.”
         “How would I think otherwise,” I said.
         “They will take you, your Highness,” he warned me.
         “Heard that before,” I said. “But, you know, all of the people who’ve said it are dead, and I’m not.”
         He controlled himself better than I did.  He made me wish I was a bounty hunter right then.  You just had to like the way he handled himself so easily.
         “Our second point of affairs, then,” the fourth Oligarch said, “would be affairs with other states.”
         Several nodded.  A lot of them had questions about how we handled the delegates from Trenbon.  Was this wise?  Well, we weren’t paying reparations.
         “They demanded reparations, your Highness,” said Hectar, “because they want to sack our ships.”
         Many at the table nodded.  I grinned and turned to my new general.  “How goes our Theran project?”
         He smiled, looked at the bounty hunter, then at me.
         “If he is worth his salt, he already knows of it,” I said.
         “My salt?” he asked, and looked at a bowl with a small spoon in it.  “Am I to be charged to spice my meal?”
         I grinned.  “In ancient times,” I said.  “There were nations who had no gold to pay their troops, and paid them instead in rare salt spices.  Hence, worth their salt.”
         “I have never heard of this,” commented one of the Oligarchs.
         “It isn’t a well-known fact,” I said.
         “But a considerable option, if the men would sustain it,” the Duke said.  “It would be much simpler to dole out spice than silver and certainly more economical to the kingdom.”
         “Something to consider,” a baron said.
         “Regardless,” Tom said, “I am well aware that you are building your own ships in Thera.  I am aware as well that you seek to enhance them magically, as has Trenbon.
         “Trenbon has three hundred years more experience than you do,” he added, then took a bite and chewed, adding, “and the best wizards on Fovea,” through his food.
         I grinned.  “A surprise for them, no less,” I said.
         He shrugged.
         “The status of our armed forces,” the third Oligarch continued.
         “We have the maximum compliment of twenty thousand,” Daharef said, “and your Wolf Soldiers, whom I am told could take them without a sweat.”
         “Conflu had one army of thirty thousand,” I said, stabbing at a piece of meat.  “The limit of twenty is meaningless if all nations don’t abide by it.”
         “That is surely why they are so secretive,” the baron who would soon be in my military added.  I looked directly at him.
         “This is the Baron Jaheff of Andurin,” Oligarch two said.  “He was elevated a year ago, when his Majesty…”
         “Got drunk and generous,” Jaheff said.  Hectaro barked a laugh, drawing a stern glance from his father. 
         “Glennen made me an Earl the same