Lessons in Etiquette (Schooled in Magic series) (33 page)

And if they worried about the roads having military applications,
she thought to herself,
they will panic when they realize what the trains can do
.

Lady Barb squeezed her shoulder, hard enough to hurt. “That isn’t funny,” she snapped. “Your changes have put one guild out of business already and risk damaging others…”

Imaiqah’s father had told Emily that the Accounting Guild–or at least some of its members–had been corrupt. Even those who hadn’t been outright thieves had used their advantages ruthlessly over those who couldn’t read a balance sheet. Or at least one of the old balance sheets. Double-entry bookkeeping, Arabic numerals and abacuses had made it laughably easy to spot the fraud. The Accountants might have survived–there would certainly still have been a place for them–if they hadn’t been so unwilling to punish their guilty members.

“They could have adapted,” Emily muttered. Sooner or later,
someone
would have stumbled on something comparable to Arabic numerals, something so useful that it would have spread like wildfire. “The world changes all the time.”

“You’re
just
like your mentor,” Lady Barb snapped. “Doing something without ever bothering to consider the long-term consequences.”

Emily flinched. She wanted to defend herself, but Lady Barb was right; she
hadn’t
considered the long-term consequences of what she’d introduced to Zangaria, let alone the rest of the world. Some innovations–like stirrups–would have been adopted by the various armies without dissent, but others…the printing press alone was likely to cause problems. And, on Earth, some of those problems had become the bloodiest times in the planet’s history.

And she’d been wrong. Lady Barb still disliked her because of her connection to Void.

She stared down at the muddy ground, her thoughts churning around and around in her head. If she did nothing, if she went native and allowed her knowledge to die with her, what would happen? The world would remain stuck in a rut that would last until a native produced similar changes, or until the necromancers came over the mountains and destroyed the Allied Lands. No, that wouldn’t happen. What she’d done already had ensured that change would come. The only real question would be just how much chaos it would bring in its wake.

What should she do? What
could
she do? It hadn’t been her who had perfected the first printing presses, or produced the increasingly advanced designs. Local craftsmen had done that, working from her ideas and then improving on them as their experience grew. They’d done the same with the abacuses and would probably wind up doing the same with steam engines, once they produced a working model. Come to think of it, they could combine science and magic to make it work; a binding spell on the locomotive might stop it leaking or exploding if metallurgy wasn’t quite up to the task.

“Tell me,” Lady Barb said. “Where is this leading?”

She’d told King Randor that it was leading to a better world, a simple answer that hadn’t really told him anything useful. It certainly didn’t include the troubles that were going to come, when education was widely available and merchants were making more money than the aristocrats could extract from their estates. The king might side with the Assembly and use them to weaken the barons, or he might side with the barons and try to strangle the changes in their cradle. Either way would almost certainly lead to civil war.

It was easy to say that the aristocrats needed to be removed, but what would happen then? France had fallen into civil war after the revolution, eventually leading to dictatorship; Britain and Russia had gone through similar phases. And she
knew
Alassa; she was Emily’s best friend. If they were still friends…and how well had she known her, if Alassa was capable of killing a man? But she came from a very different culture. It was easy to forget that at Whitehall…

“I asked you a question,” Lady Barb said, a hint of steel in her voice. “Where is this leading?”

Emily swallowed hard, then tried to answer. “The vast majority of the population never has a chance to use its full potential,” she said. It was true enough. “The changes I have introduced will allow more of them to attempt to realize their potential, allowing them to produce greater wealth…which in turn will make the kingdom wealthier.”

Lady Barb studied her for a long, thoughtful moment. “Do you really believe that?”

“Yes,” Emily said, simply.

“So you do,” Lady Barb observed. “Explain.”

Emily blinked at her, then realized that a combat sorceress would have ways to tell if someone was trying to lie. Or at least lie deliberately. Sergeant Miles had talked about the various levels of truth spells, although he had only taught them to the more advanced students; there was one that could detect a spoken lie, without compelling the speaker to talk. Ideally, the speaker would be completely unaware that the spell was even in place.
Emily
certainly hadn’t realized that Lady Barb might be testing her words for truthfulness.

“Money is useless if it is tied up,” she said, carefully. She’d worked out the basics of economic theory at Whitehall, but she suspected that theory was going to prove insufficiently close to practice. Plenty of fine-sounding theories had run into unsuspected rocks and shoals in real life. “Those who have money can simulate the economy by spending it.”

She grinned suddenly as she used concepts that few others in Zangaria would even have considered. “If a man makes two gold coins by…selling tunics, he can use that gold to buy food from a farmer’s stall, passing the gold on to the farmer. The farmer in turn can use that gold to buy farming tools from a craftsman, who needs to dress himself so he goes to the tailor and buys more tunics.”

“Craftsmen don’t wear tunics,” Lady Barb said.

It took Emily a moment to realize that she was being teased. “Or whatever craftsmen wear,” she said, tiredly. “The point is that the money keeps going round and round. Every stop on its journey means that someone new can have the power to buy something for themselves…and so on. In the meantime, the authorities can tax a little from each person, which gives the state the funding to produce things that help stimulate the economy further.”

Lady Barb frowned. “Really?”

“Yes,” Emily said. “Projects like…producing a new harbor, or making roads, can be expensive, too expensive for small businessmen. But if the authorities have the funds, they can do something that benefits everyone–better roads mean faster transport between the farms and the cities, while better ports mean that there can be more shipping heading out to the rest of the world. All of which will bring in more wealth.”

“And your changes help people to do their own accounts, and to read,” Lady Barb said. “How does
that
create wealth?”

“The more they know, the more they can do,” Emily said. It had actually been the motto of a college that had been trying to recruit students back home, although she’d never been convinced that the collages were worth the mountains of debt she would have had to assume to go there. “Sharing information leads to greater progress. That’s why we have places like Whitehall.”

“How true,” Lady Barb mused. “And do you think that the barons are going to be happy when they realize their peasants are moving off the land?”

Emily hesitated. Zangaria’s lowest class–apart from the slaves, who were treated as animals–was tied to the land, forbidden to leave the noble estates on pain of death or enforced servitude. Unsurprisingly, their treatment was horrific, even by the standards of most of the world. Equally unsurprisingly, many of them had been slipping off the land and fleeing to the cities, or learning to use the new letters and alphabet. Emily couldn’t understand how anyone could expect the peasants to be grateful when they had no reward at all for their labor, but it wasn’t unprecedented. The slaveholders of the American South had believed the same thing.

And what would it mean for Zangaria?

“I wish I knew,” she admitted. But she had a feeling that she
did
know. There would be repression, and resistance, and outright war…just like in Russia, prior to the Revolution of 1917. It had been the Bolsheviks who had finally crushed resistance from the peasants. “Maybe the king can do something…”

But what? The barons would resist any attempt to strip them of their power. Given time, it was quite possible that the Assembly would be able to create enough wealth to support King Randor’s military–or produce an army for itself–but would the barons realize the danger in time to stop it? They seemed pretty sure that they’d gelded the Assembly…

“I think you’d better think about it,” Lady Barb said. She looked into the forest, then back at Emily. “Do you want to go find the hunters?”

Emily shook her head. Whatever else happened, it would be a long time before she forgot the dead body. “No,” she said. “I want to go into town and find Imaiqah. I need some space.”

“Most people wouldn’t give the princess
any
space,” Lady Barb said. Her tone was so artfully neutral that it was impossible to tell if she approved or not. “But you would be well advised to return to the castle and go visit your other friend tomorrow. Send a message, tell her that you’re coming, and I will accompany you to her home.”

“That isn’t necessary,” Emily objected. “I…”

“Oh?” Lady Barb interrupted. “You know how to find her house?”

Emily flushed again, cursing herself. She should have realized that it would be impossible to find Imaiqah’s house without a street map, or a local guide. Come to think of it, did they even have numbered houses? All of the letters Imaiqah had sent home had been mailed directly to her father. Lady Barb was right. She
would
need someone to help her.

“Point,” she admitted, grudgingly.

Lady Barb motioned for Emily to mount her house, then mounted her own. “For what it’s worth, I agree with you,” she said. “Transforming someone–anyone–into a different form is not amusing…and hunting them for sport is unpleasant. But I cannot change it.”

Emily looked at her, sharply. There had been something in her voice…

“The Kings believe that punishment must be horrific in order to deter,” Lady Barb added. “And you will agree that the punishment is horrific?”

Cruel and unusual
, Emily thought. But what did that mean
here
? And was it even unusual?

“Who judges?” She asked. “Does King Randor pass sentence?”

Lady Barb snorted. “The king hear every case in Alexis, let alone the rest of the kingdom?”

She shook her head. “Most cases are heard by a Town Councilor,” she added. “Anything involving the nobility is judged by the Noble Estates–the noble part of the Assembly. Anything involving magic is the problem of the Court Wizard. Thankfully, Zangaria doesn’t have many magicians. Zed is more interested in alchemy than actually carrying out the duties of his post. I’ve often ended up dealing with them myself.”

Emily listened as Lady Barb outlined what happened at court. A criminal case was always conducted under truth spell, with everyone involved bound to speak the truth. Civil cases tended to be less simple, with–Emily guessed, reading between the lines–a great deal of bribery involved. The person with the most money probably won. At least there was no chance of sending an innocent man to be hunted to death. By the time Lady Barb had finished speaking, they were almost back at the castle.

“I’d suggest that you make an appearance tonight,” she said. “Most of those cocksure men think women are too frail to be sorceresses. They’ll take your departure as proof they’re right. You owe it to Alassa to look strong this evening.”

Emily winced. “How often do they give you trouble?”

“The first day I came here, I had to whip three Royal Guardsmen in a bare-knuckle fight to convince them that I had earned my rank,” Lady Barb said. “You can’t fight the Princes, any more than Alassa can. So you need to look strong.”

“I’ll do my best,” Emily said, finally. She didn’t want to attend the dance at all, but Lady Barb was right. She
had
weakened Alassa’s position, even though Alassa probably looked strong compared to her. But then, most of the princes probably didn’t think of her as the fearsome Necromancer’s Bane. “And tomorrow you can take me into town.”

I
THINK THE COURT WIZARD IS ANNOYED
with you,” Alassa said, the following morning. “You might not want to visit his lair alone.”

Emily winced. King Randor would have had time to talk to his daughter–and then to the Court Wizard. It wouldn’t have been a very pleasant discussion. Even if Emily was wrong–and she had to admit it was a possibility–the long-term effects of the Royal Bloodline could be disastrous. And that would be bad enough for anyone, but Zangaria’s political stability depended upon a line of succession.

“Very annoyed, I should say,” Alassa added. “The last I heard, father had to speak to him quite severely about not threatening guests.”

Alassa’s eyes narrowed. “
Are
you sure about this?”

“I don’t know,” Emily admitted. “It just seems odd to have a fertile line start to have fewer and fewer children until you wind up an only child.”