Read Online Transformation (Rai Kirah) by Carol Berg - Free Book Online Page B

most powerful Derzhi family in the Empire save the Emperor’s own Denischkar family. The Fontezhi holdings included a sizable portion of northern Azhakstan, plus millions of hectares in the conquered territories of Senigar and Thryce. Unlike most of the hegeds who owned large palaces in Capharna, but whose land holdings were elsewhere, the Fontezhi claimed about two-thirds of the land on which Capharna stood. Merchants and householders of the city worked diligently to keep rents flowing into the Fontezhi coffers.
    The Jurran Heged, on the other hand, was a minor house, not one of the Ten who sat on the Emperor’s Council, nor even one of the Twenty who held the bulk of lands and the traditional Derzhi titles. The Jurrans were closer to being a merchant house than a warrior clan. They needed no sympathy, however. They had a stranglehold on the spice trade and were very rich. But as all their holdings were in gold and spices rather than land and horses, they were dismissed as unimportant.
    On that afternoon, when Aleksander was quite obviously bored to insensibility with a succession of minor disputes and tedious speeches, Baron Celdric, the head of the Jurran Heged, came before him with a protest over the Fontezhi decision to burn a crumbling district of Capharna that lay southwest of the river. It was the poorest district of the city, populated by maimed and diseased veterans, elderly people who had no kin to care for them, widows without resources, and all manner of thieves, dead-handlers, lepers, and mad-men. The Jurrani spice warehouses were situated right in the heart of the district.
    Aleksander yawned through Baron Celdric’s presentation, then sent for a representative of the Fontezhi Heged to answer it. The outcome was foreordained. The Jurrans could never prevail against so powerful a heged ... except that the Fontezhi made a serious mistake. They sent their most junior dennissar, someone’s cousin’s nephew’s son, to appear before the Prince.
    “And where is Lord Pytor?” the Prince snapped at the quaking, bewildered eighteen-year-old whose appearance had sent him into a froth. “Does the lord of the Fontezhi believe he is too important to appear at his Prince’s summons? Perhaps he expected me to wait upon him.”
    “N ... no ... Your Highness. Lord Pytor is out riding this afternoon.” The downy-cheeked young man did not know when to keep his counsel.
    “And have the Fontezhi no messengers, no aides, no horses available to contact him? And perhaps every first-, second-, and third-degree noble of your house is similarly occupied? I cannot believe that such a quailing fish as yourself could have attained even fourth-degree status.
    “Of course not, Your Highness ... I mean, it was just thought ... as it was only the Jurrans and it was not the Emp—” The youth almost swallowed his tongue. “The district is nothing, Your Highness. A filthy, plague-ridden haven for thieves and beggars. Lord Pytor wishes to make it beautiful ... worthy of the Derzhi summer capital.”
    “And how does he plan to make it beautiful by burning it?”
    Recouping a bit of his confidence, the junior dennissar puffed out his chest and tugged at his purple satin vest. “He plans to build a shrine to Athos—your own patron, Your Highness.”
    “But that would take only a small part of such a tract. What else has he planned? Tell me truly, now, or I’ll have it from you less pleasantly.”
    Less sure now. “Only a residence ... for his son ... a small palace ... that’s all.”
    “Well”—Aleksander jumped up from his chair—“as this is so unimportant a matter as to send a puling child before the Emperor’s representative, I had best go look at this disputed land myself. Perhaps I may have some use for it.”
    The Fontezhi youth gaped and turned pale. It was not a wise thing to lose your heged lord’s lands by virtue of your incompetence.
    Lord Celdric bowed deeply. “My lord Prince, the Jurran Heged will, of