The Scepter's Return by Harry Turtledove Page B

here doesn’t feel any different,” Pterocles murmured. “I wondered if it would.”
    It felt no different to Grus, either, but the wizard could sense things the king couldn’t. Hirundo descended, and then Otus. The ex-thrall still had no special rank, but everyone who did was convinced of his importance. By the look on his face, he too was trying to tell any difference from what he’d known before. He found only one. “Now I’m here as a whole man,” he said. “I hope all the thralls get to see this country the way I do.”
    Attendants led up horses for Grus and Hirundo, mules for Pterocles and Otus. Sailors sprang out of the Pike and shoved the river galley back into its proper element. Grus mounted his gelding. He looked back across the Stura toward Anna. The Avornan town seemed very far away. The barges on the river—some full of men, others with horses, still others carrying wagons loaded with supplies—were less reassuring than he’d thought they would be.
    He looked south again. He’d advanced less than half a mile from Anna’s walls. Suddenly, as though he’d gone in the other direction, everything in the Menteshe country seemed much farther away than it had.
    Several sessions of sifting through the archives hadn’t yielded the traveler’s tale Lanius wanted. He refused to let himself get angry or worried. If the mice hadn’t gotten it, it had to be in there somewhere. Sooner or later, it would turn up. It wasn’t anything he needed right this minute.
    He had other things on his mind, too. When Grus left the capital, Lanius turned into the real King of Avornis. All the little things Grus worried about while he was here fell into Lanius’ lap now. As he had more than once before, Lanius wished Grus were here to take care of those little things. Grus was not only better at dealing with them but also more conscientious about it. Lanius wanted them to go away so he could get on with things he really cared about.
    The treasury minister was a lean, hook-nosed, nearsighted man named Euplectes. Unlike Petrosus, his predecessor, he didn’t try to cut the funds that supported Lanius. (Petrosus was in the Maze these days, but not for that—he’d married his daughter to Prince Ortalis. Ambition was a worse crime than keeping a king on short commons; he’d surely had Grus’ support in that.)
    Peering at Lanius and blinking as though to bring him into better focus, Euplectes said, “I really do believe, Your Majesty, that increasing the hearth tax is necessary. War is an expensive business, and we cannot pull silver from the sky.”
    â€œIf we increase the tax, how much money will we raise?” Lanius asked. “How many townsmen and peasants will try to evade the increase and cost us silver instead? How many nobles will try to take advantage of unrest and rebel? What will that cost?”
    Euplectes did some more blinking—maybe from his bad eyesight, maybe from surprise. “I can give you the first of those with no trouble. Knowing the number of hearths in the kingdom and the size of the increase, the calculation is elementary. The other questions do not have such well-defined answers.”
    â€œSuppose you go figure out your best guesses to what those answers would be,” Lanius said. “When you have them, bring them back to me, and I’ll decide whether the extra money is worth the trouble it costs.”
    â€œKing Grus will not be pleased if the campaign against the Menteshe encounters difficulties due to lack of funds,” Euplectes warned.
    Lanius nodded. “I understand that. He won’t be pleased about an uprising behind his back, either. How much do you think the chances go up after a tax increase?”
    â€œI will … do what I can to try to calculate that, but only the gods truly know the future,” Euplectes said.
    â€œI understand that. Do your best. You may