Soul of the Fire (Sword of Truth 5)

Richard was relieved that she had finally agreed, but worried about her reasons for being reluctant. With her hand on his arm, they returned to the head table. The Minister, his wife, and Dalton Campbell rose.

“There are conditions,” Richard said.

“Such as?” the Minister asked.

“Our men will watch everything, to insure no one cheats. Everyone will have to vote at the same time, so people can’t go to more than one place and vote more than once. They will gather in cities and towns, and each will mark a piece of paper, either with a circle to join into one whole with us, or an X to leave their fate to the cruel fangs of fate. Our men will watch the counting and reporting so that we know everything has been fair.”

The Minister smiled. “Excellent suggestions. I concur with every one of them.”

Richard leaned toward the man. “One more thing.”

“That being?”

“All the people will vote. Not just Anders, but the Hakens, too. They are part of the land, just as are the Anders. Their fate will be altered by this, too. If there is to be a vote, all people of Anderith will vote.”

Lady Chanboor and Dalton Campbell shared a look. The Minister spread his hands, his smile growing.

“But of course. All people will vote. It is settled, then.”

53

Hildemara was livid. “Bertrand, you’re going to be skinned alive by Jagang’s men, and I will delight in watching, my only regret being that you have sealed me to a similar fate!”

Bertrand lifted a hand dismissively. “Nonsense, my dear. Rather, I’ve managed to stall the Mother Confessor and the Lord Rahl while Jagang draws ever closer.”

Dalton, for once, tended to agree with Hildemara. Despite everything else, she was a brilliant strategist. On the face of it, it seemed that if given the choice, the people, the Hakens for sure, would go with the freedoms of Lord Rahl’s empire rather than willingly submit to the tyranny of the Imperial Order.

But Dalton knew, too, that there had to be something behind Bertrand’s self-satisfied smile. The man had the uncanny knack of tactical calculation coldly bereft of emotional bias toward his desired outcome, which would corrupt the validity of the equation. Bertrand only jumped if he knew he could span the chasm; he didn’t leap simply because he wished to span it.

From his vast knowledge of law, Dalton knew there were few weapons as effective in eviscerating an adversary as the simple tactic of delay. He hoped Bertrand wasn’t wielding a weapon that would gore them, instead of the enemy.

“Minister, I’m afraid this could be troublesome. To stall Lord Rahl is worthy, but not if it serves no better end than to allow him to enflame the people against the Imperial Order and drive them into the arms of his cause, instead. Were that to happen, we would be unable to fulfill our agreements. We would then be at the center of the storm of war.”

“And Jagang would make an example of us, to show others what happens to those who don’t deliver as promised,” Hildemara added.

Bertrand took a swig from the goblet he’d brought with him to the private study. He set down the silver goblet on a small marble tabletop and savored the taste of rum before swallowing.

“My dear wife, and my trusted aide, do you both fail to see the simple brilliance in this? We are going to stall them so the Imperial Order can have time to get here. Stall them until it’s too late for them to do anything effective. On top of everything else, can you imagine how grateful Jagang will be when we can hand him his greatest enemy?”

“And how would we accomplish that?” his wife asked.

“A month of this voting business will enable the Order to get the rest of their advance guard in place. They can then take the Dominie Dirtch at their discretion. Lord Rahl’s forces, even if he has them close, will be precluded from coming to the rescue of the Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor, once they lose the people’s support. Jagang will be invincible.

“The emperor gets a land and the people to work it, as promised, and we are handsomely rewarded for handing it to him. We will have unquestioned authority. No more Directors to worry about—ever again. We will rule Anderith for life, the way we choose, without worry of opposition.”

Life, for the people of Anderith, would go on, Dalton knew. For the most part, the lives of many would be much the same, if poorer, serving the greater good of the Order. There would be the inevitable dislocations and deaths. Some would be taken away to serve the emperor. Most would be grateful just to live.

Dalton wondered at his own fate, if he had not become the trusted chief aide to the Minister, and thus by service and by necessity brought into the arrangement. He shuddered to think what might have become of Teresa.

“If he indeed honors his agreements,” Hildemara muttered.

“The emperor, his forces having a safe haven immune from attack, will be only too happy to honor our agreements,” Bertrand said. “What he promised us, in return for the task of seeing to it the people of Anderith work on as they do now, is vast beyond our ability to ever spend; to him, however, it is but a pittance compared to what he will gain. We must simply see to it the Order is supplied with food while they conquer the Midlands. He will happily pay as agreed.”

Lady Chanboor huffed irritably. “But it will come to no good end when Lord Rahl gets the people to vote to join with him.”

Bertrand chortled. “You must be joking. That, my dear, is the simplest part of the whole thing.”

She folded her arms as if to demand to know how.

Dalton, too, was worried about that much of it. “So then, you have no intention of actually allowing the vote to take place?”

Bertrand looked from one to the other.

“Don’t you see? We will easily win such a vote.”

“Perhaps with the Anders,” she said, “but the Hakens? You have placed our fate in the hands of the Hakens? Who outnumber us many times over? They will choose freedom.”

“Hardly. The Hakens are kept ignorant. They don’t have the capacity to comprehend the issues. They believe the only way they can attain anything, from work to food—even to joining the army—is by our benevolent hand. They believe what freedoms they have, or hope to have, can only be granted them by Anders. With freedom comes responsibility—not the easy path they would prefer.”

His wife looked unmoved. “How can you be so sure?”

“We will have speakers go before the people, wringing their hands, shedding tears, expressing deep fear for what will become of the people at the mercy of the cruel D’Haran Empire, in the uncaring hands of a Lord Rahl who doesn’t know the first thing about their needs as Hakens and only cares about his own dark magic. The Haken people will be so terrified of losing what crumbs we grant them they will shrink from the loaf before them—if we simply make them believe the loaf is poison.”

Dalton’s mind was already spinning with thoughts of how they might a

ccomplish the Minister’s plan. The true possibilities it presented were only just dawning on him.

“We must consider how to frame it properly,” Dalton said. “It would be best if we remained completely out of it.”

“My thought, exactly.”

“Yes…” Hildemara drawled as she imagined, now caught up in the scheme. “We must appear as if we’re looking to the people for direction, rather than the other way around.”

“Others will speak the words we craft,” Bertrand said as he nodded to her. “We must at all cost remain above it—look as if our hands are bound by a noble adherence to fairness, with our fate in the hands of the wisdom of the people, as if we put that principle and their wishes above all else.”

“I have men who would be good at expressing the proper tone.” Dalton stroked a finger beneath his lower lip. “Wherever Lord Rahl goes, those who speak for us must go behind, and deliver the message we fashion.”

“That’s right,” Bertrand said. “A message more powerful, more cutting, more frightening.”

Deep in thought, trying to envision all requisite elements of the strategy, Dalton waggled a finger.

“Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor will bring swift and unpleasant action, should they suspect such a thing. In fact, it would be best if they never even knew of the things the people are told—at least in the beginning. Our messages must be delivered only after they have gone on to the next place.

“Let them offer hope. We will come behind and portray the hope of freedom they offer as lies—frighten people out of such thoughts.”

Dalton knew how easily the minds of the people could be manipulated with the right words, especially if people were distracted by other matters and confused with contradictions.

“If done well, the people will resoundingly approve of us as we at the same time betray them.” Dalton smiled at last. “When I get through with them, they will cheer us on to the task.”

Bertrand took another swig of rum. “Now you’re thinking like the man I hired.”

“But when the people reject his offer,” Hildemara said, “Lord Rahl will no doubt react badly to losing; he will turn to force.”