The Fire Queen

Chapter 30

I had VanBilt brought up from his cell the next day. He was brought to the Great Hall, where Alfred, Boris, Ferland and I were seated around the table waiting for him. He was seated at the opposite end of the table from us, where a quill and sheets of parchment was waiting for him.

"You are to write down everything that you know about the nobles' relationships with Dranii and Volstaff. Names, numbers, everything. If the information that you provide us with is deemed satisfactory, your life will be spared, if not, you will suffer the same fate as your fellow prisoners."

VanBilt, who was showing all the signs of a person who was in a great distress, picked up the quill, dipped it in the ink bottle and started writing. He filled one sheet of parchment, then another, then another, then another. He filled six pages in total with all of the details about how much money the nobles made every year from a full harvest of Caeda flowers, who transported them out of the kingdom to Dranii, which people in Dranii were responsible for receiving the flowers and arranging payment, and which banks in Dranii were holding the nobles' money for them. When he was done I thanked him for being so cooperative and had him returned to his cell.

The four of us took our time reading closely everything that he'd written down and what quickly became obvious was that from a diplomatic standpoint we were facing an enormous challenge. The kingdom of Dranii was a lot more involved in the dealings between Volstaff and the nobles than we'd originally thought. Merchants and royal officials in Dranii were transacting directly with merchants and royal officials from Volstaff and the nobles, and according to VanBilt's notes the Dranii ambassador, who we were planning on summoning, was the central figure orchestrating all of this. He communicated directly with Esmeralda and VanBilt who then issued instructions to the nobles.

"This complicates things," Boris said after reading VanBilt's notes.

"Given how invested Dranii is in Volstaff's exploitation of the nobles we should expect a more forceful response from them when we move against the nobles," Ferland offered.

"You told me that if Volstaff chose to invade Dranii would not assist with troops; do you still believe that?" I asked Boris.

"I don't think that we can count on that, no," Boris responded.

"The good news is that, from the figures that he's written down here, we'll have enough funds after we've confiscated the nobles' wealth to settle our debts and still have some left over," Alfred said.

"If it's true that Dranii will always seek out alliances that are the most profitable for them then our focus should be on demonstrating to them that an alliance with us would be more beneficial to them than their alliance with Volstaff," I said.

"That's what I've been wanting to discuss with you," Ferland said to me.

He went on to explain that Dranii had uncharacteristically gotten deeply involved in Volstaff's scheme, and therein lay our opportunity. Should the other kingdoms discover that Dranii was complicit in the proliferation of Histra, the drug that was manufactured from the Caeda flowers, then Dranii would find themselves at the centre of a firestorm. This was our leverage, the stick that we could threaten to beat them with should they provide Volstaff with large scale assistance for their invasion. The carrot would be the opportunity to use Volstaff's inevitable invasion to weaken them by luring their army into a trap to be decimated. The beauty of this plan, Ferland explained, was that for Dranii there was no downside; if we were successful in repelling Volstaff's invasion then Dranii would have a weakened Volstaff on their western border whose weakness they could exploit, however, if we failed, they could say to Volstaff that they had intentionally set up a confrontation between our two armies to make it easier for them to get our army out of the way before they moved deeper into our lands. His plan made a lot of sense, but it wasn't without risks. For it to succeed Dranii needed to believe that we were capable of defeating the Volstaff army, a claim that it was going to be hard to convince them of when they understood how much the kingdom had suffered under Esmeralda's rule.

"The fact that you have command of a phoenix will likely be enough for them to put their faith in our ability to defeat the Volstaff army," Ferland said in response to my concerns about the risks that were present in his plan.

"But I don't plan on using Myra in battle."

"It would be best if you didn't let the Dranii ambassador know that," Ferland said.