The Sage of Silvatia (2)
Vincent cried out in wonder.
"Thirty-seven ways to save the domain, in a moment as short as this? It really is you! Well then—what would you have me do? Lay the methods out for me."
"Hmm..."
Seated across from him, Rondel made a show of thinking it over. There were no thirty-seven remedies for the drought. The number was nothing but a device, meant to make his intellect look staggering; the plan he had actually prepared was one. He could hardly admit as much outright, so he eased the talk onto ground that favored him.
"I could give you all thirty-seven here and now, but it would take more than a month. How could I keep a busy man sitting through that?"
"Is it truly that involved?"
"Which is why I mean to explain only the single best of the thirty-seven, as I judge them. With that one alone, the domain should weather this crisis."
"Mm. Fair enough. In the end I need only take the best."
A flicker of disappointment crossed Vincent's face, but he knew well enough that satisfying his curiosity was not the point. When the baron had settled in to listen, Rondel unfolded the solution he had prepared.
"If I may be so bold, my lord, you must increase the grain allotment—not reduce it."
"What do you mean, increase it? Do that, and we won't last until winter's end."
"Distribute the grain, yes, but set a condition on it. Grain goes only to those who take part in building the reservoir."
"A reservoir?"
The rainy season was coming. Yet the domain's one river hardly deserved the name; however hard the rain fell, most of the water would be swept away downstream. A reservoir would hold as much of it as could be held.
"The grain must be opened sooner or later, and if the drought is to be stopped, a reservoir is what we need. Offer it to the people as payment for the labor, and both productivity and morale will rise."
"A fine method. Pay them grain for honest work, and their will to labor will rise with it. But... one thing worries me."
"And what is that?"
"Follow your plan, and we've nothing left behind us. If the rains don't come this summer, the reservoir we went to such trouble to build will be useless, and we won't survive the winter."
In summer the rains usually came. Not always. Should they fail, then just as Vincent said, the harm would be past undoing.
"You need not concern yourself with that."
Rondel shook his head.
In this land, farming was life and death. That was why one of the first things he had done, after opening his eyes in this world, was to make a calendar. Drawing on the earth sciences, he had calculated the world's solar cycle, observed it, and built a calendar of his own. More than that, working from modern meteorology, he had spent a long while gathering every datum that might sway the climate, until the patterns of this world lay open to him.
Modern meteorology, admittedly, came to nothing more than the earth science he had studied in high school and the popular books he had read as an adult. Even so, what he carried was the fruit of human history—knowledge evolved and proven across more than two thousand years of a previous life. In this world, no one would know the climate better than he.
"I have a small hobby of exchanging letters with friends in far places."
And modern knowledge was not the only thing he leaned on.
Rondel drew out the papers he kept slipped between his books. They were letters that had come not only from the kingdom where he lived, but from people across the whole continent—the world's data, gathered into this one room by farmers who lived by the soil and who had received a portion of what he knew.
"I am told the brenos of Runehalt bloomed this year in a splendid wash of yellow. The aohikari of Ryuzan, by contrast, blackened and withered, and the glaciel of Acefelt has melted."
Climate was not a thing one learned by glancing at the sky over a single patch of ground. A planet's atmosphere was all of a piece, and its ecosystem one vast organism. From data gathered across the world over a long span of years, Rondel had reached his conclusion: the chance of a rainy season this summer converged on ninety-six percent.
Vincent understood nothing of the explanation that followed. One unfamiliar name trailed after another. Still, he could guess, at the least, what sort of words would come at the end of it.
"Judging from all of this, a powerful rainy season will come in no fewer than two months, and no more than three. Mobilize only the people of the domain, and a serviceable reservoir would take some six months. Call upon the domain's knights and mages as well, however, and the work can quite well be finished within two..."
Rondel brought the whole of it to a close.
"......!"
Vincent shot to his feet. Forgetting even a noble's dignity, he drew a great breath and stammered.
"You—you mean you read a future three months off, sitting quietly in this room? And with a clear view of what's happening across the whole world?"
"It is nothing more than a simple knack."
"No. No... how can you call a thing like this a simple knack? This is extraordinary. Even the archmage of the royal palace can't properly see what will happen a week from now."
"You honor me too much, likening me to an archmage. I am only a commoner, with no talent for the sword or for magic."
Vincent shook his head, his face alight.
"There was a time I thought the sword and magic were everything. Meeting you changed my mind. A man of your gifts has no business buried in the countryside."
"I am fond of this place."
"Mm. Yes... you never wanted to be tangled in politics. A true loss for the kingdom, that a talent this great should keep his power hidden."
Vincent, who had sprung up, steadied his breath, set his clothes to rights, and sat back down. He held out the coin pouch that had been lying unregarded on the table and pressed it, past every show of refusal, into Rondel's arms. Thanks to this, he said, the matter of the drought was perfectly settled, and he was grateful beyond measure.
From the conversation Rondel had earned ten gold. For an ordinary commoner it was enough to idle for a decade and more and still have coin to spare, but to him the sum was not so great. Beyond the postage he scattered in order to gather data from across the world, he was spending heavily in a dozen places—the cost of educating his family among them. Had he only possessed a gift for sword or spell, or been born at the least to a noble house, he would not have had to scrape along like this.
Well. Complaints of that sort mean nothing. I need only answer the situation as it comes.
He declined once more, for form's sake, then bound the pouch tight inside his coat so it could not slip free. And yet, at this point, something nagged at him.
Why isn't he leaving?
Vincent had his solution. He had heard the explanation. As always, he had sprung up and lavished his praise. That was the signal that it was time to go. Strangely, he stayed where he was, dawdling. He even poured himself another cup from the kettle for no reason at all, wetting his throat while he admired the clouds overhead. Ordinarily he would have declared that the plan must be put into motion at once, and climbed into his carriage. Why this?
Don't tell me there's another problem.
Nothing else fit. The trouble was that, of everything Rondel could call to mind, nothing presented itself. A fair number of people in the baron's household had a line to him, yet he had heard nothing particular from any of them. Better, here, not to play at reading minds, and simply wait.
The way he's drawing this out, it has to be serious. What is it? Please let it not be politics.
While Rondel turned the possibilities over, Vincent, who had been watching the sky, cleared his throat and shifted the air.
"Ahem. Ahem. Dear me... I've taken far too much of your time. Forgive me."
"Not at all. There are times when one slips free of a stack of documents, looks up at the sky, and quite loses the hour. Remain as long as it pleases you."
"Kind of you to say so. I've rested enough. It's time I brought out the real problem."
Vincent set down his cup. He had rejoiced in earnest when the drought was settled, but the brightness drained from his face once more.
"Seeing the domain through a drought is a matter of great importance. But something still more important has come up—or so it seems to me. This time it isn't the domain. It's a personal matter."
"Your affairs are mine as well, my lord. Please speak without reserve."
"Rondel, I've had a great deal of help from you since we met. The people of this domain, dragging themselves through each hard day, have been given hope of a tomorrow."
In truth, Rondel had used the knowledge of the modern world to lift the domain where he lived into a far richer, better state. He often asked Vincent, his principal client, to keep his part in it quiet, yet the fact had spread among the people all the same, whether anyone meant it to or not. From the start, there was no one here who did not know his byname—the Sage of Silvatia.
"And that is precisely what became the problem."
Vincent lowered his head a little.
"The domain prospered too well. On a frontier estate no different, in any particular, from the lands around it, we achieved a growth that isn't natural."
"The trouble you speak of, my lord—surely you do not mean—"
"A man is coming down from the royal palace. A letter arrived. They mean to investigate what trick we used here, and whether we stole wealth from the neighboring domains."
So the kingdom had come to look into corruption. They called it an investigation; it was the same as coming to strip the estate bare. An inspector, with power at his back, would sweep up coin and goods under color of law. Protest, and he would invoke the authority granted by the king, and the one on the receiving end could only sit still and watch himself be fleeced. Resist too hard and be branded a traitor, and the least of it was the loss of one's title—the worst, the headsman's block. A house of real standing would never suffer such a thing. Vincent had no connections of that order.
This is bad. All the trust I've built is about to blow away.
Rondel could have stomached almost anyone else's fall. Not Vincent's. The principal client who guaranteed his money and his safety was in danger, and that was a matter of keeping himself alive. An ordinary commoner might watch a lord's ruin the way one watches a fire on the far bank of a river. He had decided he would solve this.
"Who is the inspector they are sending?"
"Baron Theodore. Have you heard the name?"
"A man famed for his worship of ability. I have heard he does not so much as count as human anyone without a gift for swordsmanship or magic."
"It's true. That's why I'm worried. I need your help, of course, but I can't promise we'll weather that man's high-handedness. And the day Theodore means to arrive is tomorrow."
Rondel had the bloodlines of most nobles at his fingertips, and Baron Theodore was one he knew well. As befitted a noble who moved in the capital, the man had let a great many rumors loose. One of his traits was an unusual obsession with talent, and that would be the key to handling him.
"Hmm."
Once he had the shape of things, Rondel filled his cup and drank at his leisure.
"I understand the situation. Please send a carriage for me tomorrow morning."
"Have you thought of something?"
"But of course. To see what tomorrow holds is a simple matter, set beside seeing three months ahead. You need not worry."
"Oh...!"
It was a lie.
No particular method had come to Rondel at all. But to look calm in a crisis like this, and never once lose one's ease, scored very high indeed—so he bluffed, on instinct.