Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles) (59 page)

    
“Please,” Rennin groaned.  “It is bad enough you pay him more tithe than any two of us, do you have to get us
respecting
him, too?”

    
We all laughed, Glennen less so.  He wanted us to be serious.  I could see Ancenon slipping in to the side of the conversation.  The Uman-Chi seemed not to like my appointment, despite his ties to Trenbon.  Good enough for him, not for others.  Ancenon wanted control.

    
“That is what I wanted to discuss, Rennin,” Glennen said.  “Thera was a load on the economy before Rancor’s earldom.  Now it is my highest producer.  I want to know why.”

    
“Taxes,” I said, simply.

    
Groff, of Andurin, shook his head.  “I already tax as much as my people can bear,” he said.  “I take almost sixty percent.  Any more and I will have revolt in the streets.”

    
“I tax fifteen percent,” I told them.  “Flat.”

    
They were silent.  Even Glennen didn’t expect that, and he knew my strategy.

    
The Baron from Elephos said, “You must be running side businesses, then.”

    
I shook my head.  “I personally own almost all of the wharf space in Thera, but I tax myself 15% on that, as well.”

    
Rennin coughed.  “You tax
yourself
?”

    
I nodded.

    
Glennen held up his hands.  “Wait, you say you tax less, and yet you collect more tax than anyone here.  Thera, which produced nothing by way of revenue, is rich.”

    
“Correct, your Majesty.”

    
“Impossible.”

   
“You can’t have more from less.”

    
“Nothing works that way.”

    
I laughed.  How could I explain
Reaganomics
to people who had never heard of
economics
? 

    
“It works, doesn’t it?”  I asked, simply. 

    
Whenever I’d tried to explain this everyone’s eyes glazed over, no one got it.  They just couldn’t grasp the idea that you could take less and get more.

    
They all looked around the lavish mansion (built without a silver coming from tax money, but they didn’t know that) and back at me.  These facts seemed hard to embrace but a lot harder to argue with.

    
“People invest when they have money,” I said.  “You make more money on growth than you do on a stagnant economy, and smart businessmen will go where they can do smart business.”

    
Blank stares.  I had done it again.  I had been over this and over this with Shela, and she sort of got it, but not really.  At least that is what I thought.

    
Yet she introduced herself to the conversation anyway.  “Is my Earl describing his
ughronomics
to you all?” she asked, smiling.  The word didn’t translate into any Fovean language.

    
They all nodded.  “I thought I recognized the pained expressions,” she said.  Then she looked at me.  “May I, my Lord?”

    
I nodded, curious.

    
“You all fish?” she asked of them.  Most of them nodded.

    
“Do you catch more big fish, or little fish?” she asked.

    
Rennin frowned.  “I try to catch big fish, but yes, I usually end up with small fish.”

    
“So there are likely more small fish than there are big fish,” she said.

    
They all nodded.

    
“So if I want to catch fish, I would do well to have a net with small holes, because otherwise, I will only catch the big fish – the small fish will swim through, and I won’t have as much fish.”

    
“But there is more meat on the big fish,” Groff pointed out.

    
“True,” she agreed.  “But if I catch ten, one pound fish or one, eight pound fish, how am I better fed?”

    
Again, they all nodded.  I could see a hole in that argument, but I didn’t want to point it out.

    
“In Thera, we realized we could find more meat on many small fish, and by that we mean small business,” she pointed out.  “Big business, like big fish, can pay big taxes, but that isn’t where your life-blood is.  Small businesses can’t survive when you take their gold and silver as fast as they can make it.”

    
“So you take less,” Glennen said.

    
“Yes, your Majesty,” she said, smiling with perfect, white teeth.  “And these fish stay, and they grow, and they pay more taxes.”

    
“Thus the small fish become big businesses,” Groff said, smiling.

    
“Who collectively pay more taxes than the original businesses ever could,” Rennin concluded, “at a smaller rate, but from much more.”

    
By Jove, I think they got it! 

    
Could
this
be the girl who came off the Andoran Plains in a leather thong?  I looked at her through different eyes from then on, seeing a Lady in a white gown, grown up in one society, embracing another.  How much more adaptable was she than I?

    
“Of course,” Glennen said, “if you take nothing, you
have
nothing – you have a breaking point.”

    
“Is that your fifteen percent?” Groff asked.

    
“It must be,” Rennin asserted.

    
“I wouldn’t be comfortable taxing less than fifteen percent,” a Baron said.

    
Welcome to tax reform in the eighty-first year of the Fovean High Council.  Ancenon pulled me aside as the nobles chattered eagerly to each other and no longer needed me in their conversation.  Shela followed.

    
“You
are
the revolutionary,” he said. 

    
“One tries.”

    
“It is a simple thing, once you see it working,” Shela said.

    
“But didn’t most of your citizens come from their cities?” he asked.

    
I nodded.  “The new ones.  And, yes, some may go back, when their homes adopt the same tax strategy.”

    
“If they don’t move back then these tax cuts won’t work,” Ancenon said.  He was more intelligent than I, but then, he’d had hundreds of years to cultivate that intelligence.  “If they do, then your city is doomed.”

    
I shook my head.  “Only if there is one hundred percent employment, Ancenon,” I said.  “So long as there are poor in the streets, then there are people to hire.  So long as there are people to hire and businesses can afford to hire them, business grows.  So long as businesses grow, it works.”

    
“And the poor can come in from other nations,” Shela added.       “Perhaps you may need to look to your own borders, Ancenon.  Your Uman people may see greener pastures across Tren Bay.”

    
Ancenon just smiled at that.  “No one would give up his or her Trenboni birthright to be an
Eldadorian
,” he scoffed. 

    
How many English said that about colonial America
? I asked myself.  Tides change, they always do. 

    
“Change is the only constant,” I told him cryptically.  He had nothing to say to that and neither did I.

    
The mock battlefield shone wet with dew, the morning cold.  Grass made the fighting harder than did hard-packed earth, but that is what you want for practice.

    
Shela and my Wizards stood with me.  I had broken my men into squads of ten, each controlled by a Sergeant.  For every five Sergeants, I’d assigned a Lieutenant, and for every ten Lieutenants a Captain who answered to me. 

    
I structured the light horse differently – they fought under Two Spears who, as my blood brother, became a Captain.  He was incredibly loyal and gifted – the cavalry under him, two hundred men, twenty sergeants and four lieutenants, moved as nimbly as dancers when we practiced.

    
The Free Legion assembled five hundred yards from us, in heroes’ style.  Heroes’ style is just that, a group of men running onto a battlefield like heroes, fighting whomever they come across.  This is why distinctive uniforms can be so important in big battles: it keeps your men from accidentally killing each other.

    
Genghis Kahn, the dwarf Mongol who conquered Asia, convinced his men to fight in groups of nine, instead of heroes’ style, and it became the key to his success. 

    
My squads had four shield men, each with a short, stabbing sword, in front of three men with long swords.  Behind them were three more men who fought with pikes, or wicked spearheads on long poles.  We marched in varied rows, far enough apart so that a catapult shot or fireball couldn’t take out more than one group at a time.

    
In anticipation of today’s event I had hired two hundred Aschire archers to supplement the two hundred Wolf Soldiers I already had.  The Aschire bowmen were better and had been coming to my coliseum for months to train my archers, thanks to help from Krell and Evokain.  I had a good working relationship with the Aschire, buying their wares and shipping them in exchange for gold, which they needed.  When you knew them, it was easy to love the Aschire.  There had a fragility to them, hidden under a homicidal toughness that you
really
never wanted to invoke.

    
I held back with the archers because I needed to direct the magic.  A lot of generals fought alongside their men; their bones testified to it on battlefields everywhere.

    
With a war cry, the Free Legion charged my Wolf Soldiers.  We began the march forward to meet them, the light horse holding back with the archers until I decided where they were most needed.  Both sides had rattan swords – a substance like bamboo, although heavier and more flexible than simple wood.  It hurt to get hit with it, but it wouldn’t kill you.  The ends of our arrows were wrapped.  Magicians would create illusions of their magic.  The warriors wouldn’t actually kill each other.

    
“First volley, when in range,” I called to my archers.  Four hundred men and women pulled back as one, the Aschire more easily and gracefully than my Wolf Soldiers, but not much so.

    
The Free Legion kept sprinting, we kept walking.  They would meet us more tired – let them.  Three hundred yards became a long way to run for someone in armor, carrying heavy weapons.

    
About thirty yards before both sides met, my archers let loose.  Some arrows arced higher than others, letting men position their shields for the first, direct volley, and get caught unawares by the slower, arcing one.  Their own archers were moving to one side to catch the flank of my troops.  Arath must have seen the flaw in my shield wall defense: a weak right side.