Part 9 (1/2)
”Then there'll be peace and plenty for all-until the people outmultiply the food supply, and the whole cycle begins all over again.”
”And again, and again, and again,” Morgan said darkly. ”So any suffering that comes from our plan will be less than there would be without it.”
Easy enough for him to say-it was not his people who would die, not his mother and sister who would be raped and sold into slavery, not his house and goods that burned!
”Can backward people like the feudal serfs in the western continent ever accept modern techniques?” Giles wondered.
”They can if they're taught,” Rosalie said sternly, ”and if they're taught it as a way of getting richwhich doesn't take much, for a serf.”
”Yes,” Esmeralda said slowly, ”and that's the kind of teaching that merchants can do so well. The synergy of the peasant mentality and mercantile greed can produce amazing results.”
”So can the groupthink of the tribes in the North,” said Giles. ”If they all talk long enough and loudly enough at a powwow, they'll forget that greed is wrong, and start farming instead of hunting.”
”Then we can sneak in nuclear-powered matter converters, limited so that they won't produce precious metals, until each lord has one,” Morgan said.
Even in his half-sleep, Gianni's scalp p.r.i.c.kled at the unfamiliar words. Were these false Gypsies really sorcerers?
Morgan's next words confirmed it. ”When each lord has a machine that will produce any trade goods that he wants for free, he'll have a distinct advantage over the merchants, and not one single aristocrat will be able to resist the temptation of going into trade.”
Resist the temptation! They would ruin the merchants! Heaven knew the n.o.blemen were already taking enough of the merchants' money in the cities in which aristocrats still ruled. The taxes and official monopolies were already punis.h.i.+ng, and the lords insisted that the merchants rent their stevedores and drivers from the aristocrats at extortionate rates. If, on top of all that, they began to undersell the merchants with goods they could produce from nothing, they'd annihilate the traders completely! No, they wouldn't do it by underselling, Gianni realized-if the lords became merchants, they wouldn't let anyone compete with them. Trading would be made illegal, for any but the aristocrats' hirelings! They would have monopolies that couldn't be broken!
”But the matter converters really do have to be limited,” Esmeralda said anxiously. ”If the lords could produce gold and silver just by throwing lumps of lead and stone into a box, then pus.h.i.+ng a b.u.t.ton . . .”
”Of course not,” Morgan said impatiently. ”Why do you remind us about this every time we discuss it, Essie? If they could make gold and silver whenever they wanted to, they wouldn't have any reason to go into trade!”
Gold from lead! They were sorcerers! Or, at the least, alchemists ...
”Greed will make the contes and the doges forget their petty feuds and band together to compete with the merchants,” Morgan said, with satisfaction. ”They only need to see that they actually have a chance of taking over the merchants'
trade and getting all the money the merchants are getting now. They won't be able to, of course-the merchants are too skilled, too deep entrenched, and the aristocrats will be far behind them in learning mercantile theory.”
”But they will learn,” Rosalie pointed out. ”We really can turn the lords into merchants.”
Could they really be so naive? Such was not the lords' way-once banded together, they would send their armies to wipe out the merchants completely, to send the buildings of Pirogia cras.h.i.+ng down into the lagoon from which they had risen!
Oh, they would leave a few merchants, bound by taxes and loans and dependence on n.o.ble patrons, to do the trading for them, and would take all of the profits to themselves-or nineteen parts out of twenty, at least. No, whoever these people were, their plan was disastrous, at least for the merchants-and for the education and culture of which they were so fond, for a great deal of that had come from the patronage of merchants, not aristocrats. Oh yes, the artists would do well under the contes-as long as they only wished to paint portraits of n.o.ble faces, and scenes of martial valor. The poets would do well, as long as they wanted to write heroic romances and heap praise on their local conte and contessa, as Ariosto had praised Lucrezia Borgia in his Orlando Furioso. Yes, the artists and poets would do well, if they were tameexcept that there weren't enough n.o.blemen to support more than a handful of artists. But there were merchants enough to support scores!
”No, our plans must be nurtured,” Morgan said complacently.
”Yes,” Giles agreed, ”and if Medallia really tries to wreck them, we'll have to find a way to stop her.” Even in his dream, Gianni's spirit clamored for him to wrap his fingers around Giles's throat. Harm that beautiful, merciful woman? Never!
The ”Gypsies” seemed to think so, too. There was a horrified silence; then Esmeralda said, ”You aren't talking about killing her, surely!”
”No, of course not,” Giles said quickly-too quickly. ”I only mean to catch her somehow, and keep her from leaving again.”
”I don't like the sound of that,” Rosalie said darkly.
Morgan said, ”Shame on you, for even thinking about depriving another sentient being of her freedom!”
”No, no, of course not,” Giles said quickly. ”But there must be some way to make sure she can't do us any harm.”
They were silent for a minute or so; then Esmeralda said, ”Warn all the people against a renegade Gypsy woman?”
”Oh, no!” Rosalie said. ”They might turn into a mob, accuse her of witchcraft or sorcery, and burn her at the stake!”
”Surely these people aren't that barbaric,” Esmeralda protested.
Gianni shriveled inside. He knew full well that his people could be very barbaric indeed, when it came to believing in magic. But how could these people be so concerned about charges of witchcraft, when they themselves were sorcerers?
”She was so kind and so gentle,” Esmeralda said plaintively. ”I can't believe Medallia would actually try to fight us!”
”Not fight, no,” Rosalie agreed, but she sounded doubtful. ”Perhaps decoying her into some outlying region, where there's a good deal of disease that needs curing .
”She'd see through that,” Esmeralda said. ”We could send Dell through the villages dressed as a minstrel, to sing about the plight of orphans. In a month, he'd have everyone talking about orphans, and Medallia might set up an orphanage . . . ”
”No,” Giles said. ”Medallia is smart, very smart. She'd see through either of those stratagems. We have to either pen her up, which we won't do, or try to move a step faster and maneuver more cleverly than she.”
Morgan's tone indicated agreement. ”That shouldn't be hard-we're thirty to her one!”
”We'll just have to play the game fairly, then,” Rosalie sighed.
Game? Was that all this was to them, some sort of huge game? But to Gianni and his people, it was life--or death!
”So much for Medallia,” said Rosalie, ”but what're we going to do with our two waifs and strays?”
Gianni turned cold inside again.
”What can we do?” Morgan sighed. ”We can't just dump them to starve, not so badly wounded, and with one of them still witless from concussion. That must have been a very bad blow to the head!”
Esmeralda shuddered. ”Be glad you didn't have a close look at the bruise. The bone wasn't broken, though-at least, not that I could see without an X ray.”
”There might be a subdural hematoma,” Rosalie said, frowning. ”We'll have to keep a close eye on him!”
”We'll have to take them with us, until we can find some place safe to leave them,”
Morgan decided. ”Prince Raginaldi's castle is only two days away, and we were thinking of stopping there anyway.”
”I suppose we'll have to drop them there, then,” Rosalie sighed, ”though I hate leaving someone in that condition to medieval medicine.”
”Not quite as medieval as it might be,” Morgan reminded her. ”Their doctors still have some advanced techniques and even ways of making antibiotics, that have come down from the original settlers by word of mouth.”
But Gianni missed the last sentence or two, numb with shock. Leave Gar and him to the Raginaldi, the aristocrats who were employing the Stilettos? They might not know who he was, but the Stilettos would recognize Gar in an instant, and the two of them would be dead in a second-a.s.suming the Raginaldi didn't maim them and send them back to the Pirogia as a warning. No, somehow, as soon as they could, he and Gar would have to escape!
Hard on that thought came another: no time like the present. The Gypsies wouldn't expect them to wander off in the night, so soon after being rescued-but they couldn't be suspicious, either; they'd just take Gar and Gianni for ungracious and ungrateful wretches or, at worst, for a couple of vagabonds who had played a ruse upon them.
Gianni couldn't believe the naivete of these people-especially since they seemed to consider themselves so much wiser than the folk of Talipon, wise enough to meddle in their affairs and to dare to try to chart their destinies! Didn't they know that no lord would willingly have anything to do with trade? Stealing a merchant's money under the name of confiscation or fines for violating a chartered monopoly, yes-but earning the silver themselves? No! Surely they must see that if the lords could ever stop fighting, they would band together to enslave the merchants!
Very true, the face said. White hair swirled about it as though it were the center of a whirlpool.