Read Online Imager's Challenge by L. E. Modesitt Jr. - Free Book Online Page B

senior to each of us. I still remembered the chemistry laboratory studies under her and how she insisted on perfection every bit as much as did Master Dichartyn.
    I passed her the platter of egg toast, then the berry syrup. While she served herself, I poured some tea. “Would you like some?”
    “Yes, please.”
    The egg toast was darker than I would have preferred, but not black-brown, and the sausages were perfect.
    “You know, except for Maitre Dichartyn,” Maitre Chassendri observed, “you’re the youngest imager to become a maitre in centuries.”
    “I had the advantage of having him as a preceptor,” I said, “and some fortune as well.”
    “Misfortune,” she corrected. “Rapid advancement always comes fromsuccess in dealing with difficulties in hard times. We’re looking at harder times, I fear.”
    “Because of the Ferran-Jariolan conflict?” asked Ferlyn.
    “More than that,” she replied. “The free-holders in the west are harvesting more produce than are the High Holders, and they’re able to sell it for less. The same is true for timber holdings. Before long, the same may happen in the east, although the water control issues there make it harder.”
    “Why should that—” Ferlyn broke off his words as he looked at Chassendri.
    “The free-holders are making more golds on their harvests,” I said, “and the High Holders comparatively less. The only way the High Holders can compete is to impose stricter conditions on their lands. That will cause unrest, increase costs, and reduce their profits. If the High Holders sell land, the free-holders will buy it and use it to become wealthier—”
    “All right, Rhenn . . . I see that.”
    “Fighting wars is expensive, and that means higher taxes,” I pointed out. “The High Holders are pressing to support Jariola, and given the way the Ferrans have dealt with us, the Council doesn’t have much choice.”
    “And tax levies are on land,” Ferlyn finished. “So the High Holders are going to be squeezed two ways.”
    “Three,” suggested Chassendri. “Conditions will get worse on some of the holdings, not all, because most of the High Holders actually manage their lands well, but workers on the poorly managed lands will leave. They’ll either work for the free-holders or get conscripted. More High Holders will fall to debts, and their lands will be split between successful High Holders and free-holders, but in the end there will be more free-holders and fewer High Holders.”
    I could see that, but I didn’t see it happening that quickly. “Won’t that take time?”
    “There are at least fifty High Holders who are so land-poor that were they businesses, they’d be close to bankruptcy,” replied Chassendri.
    “But they could sell their lands, or part of them, and besides,” Ferlyn pointed out, “there are hundreds of High Holders.”
    “More than a thousand,” said Chassendri cheerfully, “one thousand and forty-one High Holdings, to be precise.”
    Something . . . there was something. Then I had it, an obscure section of the compact that had created the Council. “The rebalancing provisions. The High Holders would lose a Council seat, probably to the factors, and the head of the Council would no longer be a High Holder.”
    “But . . . the High Holders could just split a few holdings up, couldn’t they?” asked Ferlyn. “To keep the numbers above a thousand.”
    “They could,” Chassendri pointed out.
    Left unspoken was the point that few High Holders ever willingly let go of anything.
    Those thoughts put a damper on matters, especially since we were close to being done with breakfast anyway, and I had another concern as well—Shault.
    He looked so forlorn that as soon as I swallowed the last drops of my tea, I rose and walked over to the long table that held the primes and the seconds and said to him, “I’ll need a few moments with you after you’re done eating. I’ll meet you by the doors.”
    “Yes,