Speaker 1: The scum Kings, a broad Sword Studio production created and
written by Mike Daltrey. Chapter fifteen, Selaine's ledger.
Speaker 2: While Stigan drowned himself in ale and Cob tortured a
baker with a rolling pin, Selaine went to war. Her
weapons were not steel. They were silent and a stick
of charcoal. I watched her from the balcony of the
Mayor's manner. She moved through the chaotic streets like a hawk,
diving through a flock of starlings. She ignored the looting,
She ignored the screams. She walked up to the door
of the Ironmonger's Guild, flanked by two of the terrified
town guards she had pressed ganged into carrying her books.
She knocked once, sharp and authoritative. Door opened, and she
stepped inside. She didn't come out for twenty minutes. When
she did, she was holding a heavy leather bound book,
and the guildmaster was standing in the doorway, looking like
a man who had just been told the exact date
of his own death. She moved to the next house,
the tanner, then the grain merchant. She was performing an
autopsy on a living town I turned back to the
room the Mayor's Solar who was a ridiculous space filled
with velvet drapes and furniture with spindly gilded legs that
looked like they'd snap if a real man sat on them.
I tested this theory by kicking a chair. It shattered satisfyingly.
I picked up the pieces and threw them out the
open window into the muddy courtyard below. Crash. Another one
Dicks cheered from where he was lounging on a chaise
outside the building, carving his initials into a priceless tapestry.
I grabbed the bottle of the Mayor's Vintage, read something
from the Southern vineyards of the Sea, and knocked the
neck off against the mantle. I drank. It was rich, oaky,
and tasted like power. The door opened, Selaine walked in.
She didn't look at the ruin we were making of
the room. She walked straight to the heavy oak table
in the center, swept a collection of porcelain figurines onto
the floor with a sweep of her arm, and slammed
her ledger down. We have a problem, she said. Her
voice was ice water. We have wine, I countered, offering
her the jagged bottle and we have a town. I
failed to see the problem. She ignored the bottle. She
opened the ledger. It was covered in her precise spiderweb handwriting.
I have audited the primary businesses, she said, tapping the page.
Vance's folly is a lie. The name is apt. The
town is in Solvent. It's a backwater Salaine. Of course
it's insolvent. It looks like a backwater because the mayor
kept it that way. This is a trading center at
the intersection of two rivers. It should not be a
backwater Selaine, sighed. But there is no coin dre she said,
looking me in the eye. The mayor has been skimming
the tax revenue for years to buy this. She gestured
vaguely at the velvet drapes garbage. The merchants operate almost
entirely on credit notes from the conquered. There is no
cash in the strong boxes. Maybe a few hundred coppers
and some silver spokes. We cannot pay a salary with this.
Speaker 1: Hell.
Speaker 2: The mayor probably paid bribes to the concord to keep
this place's own backwater kingdom. And you know what happens
if those bribes are no longer paid. I shrugged. We
have the wagon. We have the abbey gold, which we
cannot spend, she reminded me, sharply. We need liquid assets
to run a town, to buy loyalty, to pay for imports.
You flipped a page, however, she continued, her finger tracing
a column of numbers. The warehouses are full iron, cured leather,
seasoned timber grain. The raw materials are here. The value
of this town isn't in the chests. It's in the
rivers and the rich land around it. She looked up
at me, her face intense. That was when she smiled
the widest grin I'd ever seen on her face. It's
a machine, dre If we keep the machine running, if
we export the iron and the leather, we can generate clean,
spendable coin. We can wash the abbey gold through the
trade routes. We work the materials and nurture the trade
routes of the rivers. We can build a legitimate treasury.
So do it, I said, taking another swig of wine.
Tell them to get back to work. I can't, she said,
because you broke the machine. She pointed out the window
towards the smoke rising from the lower district. Stiggand has
smashed the brewery. Vats Cobb has traumatized the baker. Your
inventory has terrified the workforce. The smiths are hiding in
their cellars. The tanners have fled to the woods. If
they don't work, the iron rusts and the grain rots.
We are looting a corpse stray when we should be
working a horse. She took a step closer. That's what
I meant when I said we have a problem. We
are the problem. You need to recall the crew. You
need to stop the looting. We need to declare martial law,
set shifts and guarantee safety. We need to preserve the asset.
I stared at her. She was talking about shifts, about safety,
about work. Looked at Gicks, who was currently cutting the
eyes out of a portrait of the mayor's mother. Looked
at the bottle in my hand, Selaine, I said, my
voice heavy with a lazy, dangerous humor. Do I look
like a foreman to you? You are a king, she hissed,
acts like one. The king protects his peasants so he
can tax them. I am a scum king, I corrected her.
I walked over to a heavy, gilded cabinet filled with
crystal glasses. I put my boot against it and shoved it.
Tipped over with a spectacular, deafening crash. Glass sprang across
the floor. Selaine didn't flinch, but her jaw tightened. I
didn't conquer this mud hole to run a tannery, I said,
turning on her. I conquered it to take what I want.
If you break them, they can't produce, she insisted, her
voice rising. We will have nothing left to steal in
a week. Then we steal from someone else. I walks
back to the table. I looked at her ledger, at
the neat rows of numbers representing iron ingots and bushels
of wheat. It was boring, It was slow. It was
the work of a merchant, not a conqueror. I reached
out and ripped the page from the book. Seline gasped,
snatching the book away. What are you doing. I crumpled
the paper into a ball and tossed it into the fireplace.
It flared up, turning to ash in seconds. I don't
care about their iron, I said, and I don't care
about their safety. I grabbed a heavy velvet upholstered armchair.
I dragged it to the window. We have the gold,
I said, lifting the chair. We have the wine. Through
the chair, out the window. It smashed into a rain
barrel below. Let the machine break, I said, turning back
to her with a grin. We'll burn the pieces to
stay warm. Delayne looked at me for the first time.
I saw something other than calculation in her eyes. I
saw disappointment. She closed her ledger with a snap. As
you say, my lord, she said coldly. She turned and
walked out, clutching her book like a shield. She knew
she was right. Hell, I knew she was right. She
knew I was a fool, But I was the fool
with the sword, and the wine tasted just fine.