The Fire Queen

Chapter 60

I couldn't deny that Philip was right, eventually I would have to once again have to start engaging with the rest of the realm, it wouldn't be responsible of me as a leader to ignore our neighbors, but things were changing so fast in Aseron that even my full focus was proving insufficient to stay on top of it all. Were it not for Brumli most of the improvements that had taken place would not have been possible and for his indefatigable industry I thanked him by bringing him to the palace and handing him a binding stone to place upon the head of one of the chicks, Igor's brother.

"Milady, I can't, this is too much," Brumli protested.

"No it's not; now don't be afraid, I've already told Myra to tell him to submit to you, simply place the stone on his head and he will be yours."

My decision to give Brumli one of the chicks was motivated primarily by my need for him to have a form of transportation that would allow him to easily travel to anywhere in the kingdom. There were various projects underway in the kingdom that had been made possible by the dwarves' inventions and innovations that he needed to help oversee, and there was the problem of supplying the dwarves with enough iron ore that needed to be solved fast. Brumli told me that he knew how to find it but it was going to take him a long time to traverse the kingdom looking for it, hence my decision to give him one of the chicks.

Brumli had taken on a level of responsibility that made him the equivalent of a member of court. I had delegated authority over nearly all of the engineering and construction work going on in the kingdom to Brumli so that I could focus on the development of the civil administration that would be responsible for managing tax collection, adjudicating legal disputes, regulating market transactions, enforcing property laws, issuing title deeds and providing secure banking services. In each village we built a courthouse, expanded the administration building to accommodate the new services, and increased security to protect the bank deposits. These village upgrades were paid for with our increased tax revenues, which had increased so much that even after financing all of these improvements we still had a large surplus, large enough for Alfred to come to me with the idea that we should seek a return on it by putting it to work in the loan market, but I had other plans for it. The steam locomotive that the dwarves were working on in Galand was showing promise and if they were able to develop it into a viable form of transportation extending its use throughout the kingdom and into neighboring kingdoms was going to require enormous commitments of capital that I planned on continuing to build up our reserves for.

Aseron's success was causing us to attract attention, notably from Queen Herana. Our agriculture yields had increased to the point where we were able to easily produce enough food to feed our people and our livestock, ending the need for us to import grain from Theran. We were the first kingdom to become fully food independent and our progress had Quenn Herana concerned enough to come to Aseron to find out for herself how we had managed to achieve our independence. On her way through the kingdom she saw the water towers and she understood that we had developed a system for transporting water over great distances, a system which, if we shared it with other kingdoms, would destroy Theran's economy. She was coming to see me in a state of desperation, and in the interest of maintaining a state of peace between our kingdoms I planned to reassure her that I had no intention of exporting the water towers and that the increase in our agricultural yields was purely for domestic consumption, not for exporting, though Herana was skeptical of this.

"I find it hard to believe that you would decline to take advantage of an opportunity to further enrich your kingdom," she said to me when we were speaking in the Great Hall.

"There are other things that I must devote my attention to."

"By other things are you referring to King Philip and Aseron's relationship with Dranii?"

"Nothing has changed in our relationship with Dranii."

"You mean nothing has changed yet."

"As I told King Philip, I have no intention of getting involved in the politics of the realm, all I care about is doing the best that I can for the citizens of Aserons."

"If that were true then King Philip would not be as resistant to my overtures as he has been."

"Philip is nothing like his father, perhaps you should consider changing your approach."

"My ambassadors have informed me that Philip's first trip after becoming king was to come here, that would make sense if his goal was to foster a close relationship with you with an eye toward an official alliance."

"He came to see me because he wants to make it clear to the rest of the realm that he's a different ruler than his father and he thought that I could help with that."

"He should worry less about appearances and more about what it means to sit on the throne; Theran has been Dranii's closest ally for the longest time, I'm the one he should have reached out to first upon becoming king to discuss preserving the strength of our alliance."

"You did trigger a civil war in his kingdom."

"A civil war that put him on the throne, all the more reason for him to showcase his loyalty."

"If he did that it would make it look like he was involved in the plot to orchestrate a civil war from the beginning, that he sacrificed thousands of his own people for the sole purpose of installing himself in the throne room, if that were the case he would be a weak king, and worthless to you as an ally."

I could see that Herana grasped the logic in what I said. The realm had changed dramatically as a consequence of King Gregorio's death, and she was going to have to wait patiently for the new dynamics of the realm to reveal themselves.

"Your monopoly on grain exports will remain," I continued, "that is your primary concern, yes?"

Herana paused to consider my words and the tone in which I had spoken them.

"When I heard that there was a new queen in the realm I thought that I would take you under my wing and help you to realize your potential as a ruler, but I can see now that you don't need my help, and that rather than be proud of you, that I should be wary of you."