Chapter 70: 069 A Pretty Nice Deal

The Librarian was the last of those in attendance to finish her food owing to her relative age. Her movements to put down her utensils evoked a great degree of tension in those attending, tension that remained well after her hands were removed from the neatly placed silverware.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"So are we just sitting here or what?"

Donovan couldn't help himself. He knew Diana wanted him to remain quiet, but half an hour of silence had a way of screwing with him. Even more so when he fully understood that this silence was accomplishing absolutely nothing. 

Just as he had expected, Diana's face went pale, and he was certain that a high-heel was making its way towards the top of his foot. This was a punishment he was perfectly willing to take, his 'move' was calculated to some degree. Donovan wasn't very diplomatically inclined, he didn't understand what was going on and he had little interest in it. However he was familiar enough with Diana to understand that she didn't know what to do either.

If one of them was to make a move while completely clueless in this situation, it would be better that he did it. His ignorance could be very easily played off as a failure in his education, and the peculiarity of their situation would make it simple for someone to understand why he wouldn't want to stand on ceremony.

If they had to make the choice of which person's reputation was to be harmed in this meeting, it would be infinitely better if it was Donovan's.

Just as the point of the heel made its way to his toes, the Arboreal Maiden sharply exhaled through her nose, amused.

"I was wondering when your patience would run out. What are your thoughts, Montaug?"

"While I'm normally a stickler for convention, especially when in the presence of more authoritative figures, I can appreciate the drive to get to what has to be done. They've demonstrated that they can be worked with to a satisfactory degree. Trebar?"

The more well-built of Montaug's two aides cleared his throat before speaking. "I won't pretend to be capable of determining someone's potential from only watching them eat dinner and listening to what they are supposedly capable of, but I believe that he is a suitable fit for the army we are in control of. Whether or not the others will allow him to reach the level of general depends almost exclusively on his future actions and aptitude for managing an army, but I can see him achieving command over a brigade on the merits of courtesy, composure, and boldness alone."

Montaug nodded, not entirely familiar with military matters but understanding how politics in such institutions operated. "Gawan?"

"Lady Diana appears to have all of the necessary qualities of a queen, though they are being underutilized. If I may make an assumption, I would like to attribute this to her education being focused more on diplomatic and interpersonal relations than regality and how best to leverage power. It should be an easy fix, but I doubt that the Sanctum's educational doctrine will be able to remedy it on the schedule they might require." Courteously, Gawan turned to the Librarian. "I apologize if that assertion offends you in any way."

The Librarian chuckled in response. "I am not so jaded as to deny such an obvious truth. It has always been something of an irritant to me that we are limited in what we can teach, and the scale at which we operate makes individual guidance almost impossible."

"Is that so? Still, I feel it prudent to apologize for criticizing the institutions of the Great Csillacra." This time, he was subtly directing his words to the Arboreal Maiden.

"Never mind that, Gawan, I am curious what you have in mind to remedy her faults."

"Before anything else, familiarizing her with the major powers and how to act around them is a must. After that we can work on developing 'queenly' habits and making her more regal in manner and mind. I think that her interpersonal skills will develop with time, she seems quite apt at communication already from your testimony, but she does not yet fully grasp the culture and manners of the current day."

Montaug nodded, content with his answer. "I'll give it an eight out of ten. While I agree with most of you assessments of her, I feel that referring to a lady who qualifies as a queen as not being regal enough for her status or elsewise unqueenly in nature while in her presence is unbecoming of Holifania's official representatives. I would instead use terms that apply to more specific areas, in this case working on her capabilities as a stateswoman is far more pressing than qualities such as her habits and making her more regal.

In addition, I would like to add that she would benefit far more from experience than anything else. As such, it is my recommendation that she participate in our interactions with other powers, specifically merchants, during her stay here. Do you think this could be arranged?"

"By your instruction alone, though I think that some complaints might arise should she screw something up."

"We will deal with that when it comes up. Instead we should see what they think of such an arrangement." Montaug turned his head to face the pair of them with a raised eyebrow.

Diana, still frozen from the flood of information (and their opinions of her), didn't immediately respond. Donovan, who only kind of understood what they were getting at, tried to clarify the situation.

"Sorry, but could you explain exactly what this deal entails? It wasn't exactly clear from your little conversation."

"Ah, my apologies. I will handle Diana's portion owing to my familiarity with the topic. Treber, could you explain what we are willing to do for Donovan?"

"Certainly. For one, we are perfectly willing to accept you and your squad into our army. As it stands we have a few openings that need to be filled, and if we can secure someone as strong as Lady Titanyana in one of our special regiments then its all the better. Furthermore, we are willing to grant you command roles as long as you fulfill certain requirements and provide the training required to familiarize you with the position. Should you prove yourself proficient enough both tactically and managerially, both my successor and I are willing to forfeit our position as General so that you may further your reputation."

"You would give that up?" Donovan was a little surprised at how readily they would forfeit their positions.

"We could care less who's in charge so long as they are competent and friendly. We are willing to be put into a less prestigious and influential position for the sake of our national interests. We really don't get much out of the deal anyways."

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"Because you're isolationists, right?"

Treber nodded with a pained smile.

"What about me?" Diana worked up the gumption to ask what her routine would entail.

"In addition to attending your normal classes, we will have one of our people instruct you in more detail on proper mannerisms and how to act as a ruler, most likely me considering my schedule."

"Is there anything else?" Diana thought it was rather short, even if it was the very thing she wanted from them.

"Perhaps as time passes and we find more flaws to iron out, but for now that should suffice. It will be important for you to cultivate relationships with powers other than our own, something that neither the Sanctum or I are able to help you with."

"Because you're isolationists, right."

Montaug nodded with some degree of irritance.

"Alright, so we know what you are willing to give us, what do you want us to do in return?" Diana was getting back into the swing of things, starting to control their half of the conversation. "I'm sure you are already aware we don't exactly have much to give you, and we have no idea what you might want."

"I mentioned this only in passing previously, but we would like you to occupy a portion of our border so that we may spend less time maintaining our own military. Carter, would you mind displaying the map?"

With a polite bow, one of the men with glasses stood up and opened a tube that was left to rest behind his chair. He pulled out the rolled up piece of paper much like one would draw a sword, taking extreme care not to damage the edges or bend it in a detrimental manner. The center of the table, already cleared of the plates, was very quickly occupied by the unraveled parchment, its edges held down by weights that Carter had slid around with the gentle application of split. After he was confident it was set and the air was pushed out from underneath it, he pulled out a collection of markers and thin fibers, once again using split to move them around.

Donovan remarked on its similarity to the massive wall he had seen in the Cartographer's room aboard the Oberlux, this map evidently being focused on a more local area. This focus was very apparent through its quality. He was not familiar with reading these starcharts, but he could see that detail was far greater inside and around the area denoted by a thick blue line. Don could tell that this was the area the Holifanian Theocracy was in direct control of.

The shape this area made was a very sharp crescent moon, at least if you ignored the occasional imperfection along the edge. What was even more interesting was the few smaller blue circles a distance away from the main body, as well as the very distinct red outline around certain shapes.

"As you've probably gathered, this is a map of the Theocracy's immediate surroundings. The blue outline shows what we control, even a few of our exclaves, while a green outline shows the few nations we are either allied to or hold a degree of influence over. Black are historically neutral parties, yellow are those who are unstable, and those with red fibers covering their borders are potential threats at the moment."

Don took a look around, and immediately realized why they were so eager to have someone cover their flank. More that just the fact their area controlled to border length ratio was absurdly bad, there were a great many regions where yellow and red nations bordered or were very close to bordering them. Even if they held military superiority, it wasn't out of the question to expect some of the more powerful ones to band together and attack them on multiple fronts, especially from the center of the crescent.

The large red border that extended beyond the boundaries of the map was certainly concerning, especially when he took into account the relative distance between it and the blue line around their main territory. He could see multiple places where lines looked like they had been erased and redrawn, they were expanding.

"Where exactly would we be building our nation? I can think of a few different places where we might be strategically relevant given my limited knowledge of how combat works here, but I imagine you already have a place in mind." Donovan was giving Diana the chance to let the information sink in. She probably wasn't too familiar with reading maps, much less one of this scale, so she would need it.

To his surprise, it wasn't Montaug that responded to him. "Ideally, we would like you to occupy one of the empty systems along one of our nation's wings, more specifically the inside half, and expand from there to take the logistical burden off of our hands. However, we aren't so boorish as to not consider your situation, you will need an incredibly powerful position to start from and build off of if you are going to have a good chance at meaningful expansion." The man with the eyepatch was responding to his questions in a manner characteristic of a military strategist.

"In a similar manner we understand that the expansion we desire is likely to take a long time, so we will need to play the long game with you. There are a few choice locations that we believe will be excellent home bases for you on account of them being unoccupied green stars." He pointed to the few green markers around the edges of the crescent."

"So those are the Verdant stars? There seem to be a lot more of them than we were lead to believe." Diana looked at the map with some confusion, she could see at least ten, more than the ration she had been told they existed in.

"Only inhabited stars are displayed on this map, the ratio is correct." Carter responded to her query about the map in a rather monotone voice. "If anything, there are actually less than the anticipated amount due to our policy with the Great Csillacra of not having stars added around our territory."

"Anyways," Montaug got back to the important topic, tangents were to be avoided in the Arboreal Maiden's presence, "we are perfectly willing to provide you with a colonization and security force of a few million of our more adventurous people so that you may make a foothold on the planet as well as clear it of danger. If you want to bring in others, that is up to you. Slaves or indebted prisoners are probably your best bet on that front, but we will not finance such an operation."

"Is there anything else we should be aware of?"

"Defense policy." The eyepatched man once again piped up. "We will commit to defending you for a period of time, but will refuse to do so once you actually decide to declare war and expand your borders. We won't provide ships for you, but we will help train any crews you end up assembling."

"Actually," the other man with glasses finally spoke, "I have received word that the bishops are willing to place the Jakobi brothers under their command. That includes their ships, of course."

"What!? The Jakobi's? They'd saddle them with those headaches?"

Montaug responded as the one with authority. "Yes. Recently they've been complaining that they don't have a base they can use outside of the mainland to repair and relax as it doing so would ruin their reputation, and rendezvous' with our repair ships are proving rather costly. Having an unaffiliated territory they can use to rearm, repair, and refuel might limit the range they can operate in, but it will overall prove less of a nuisance in the long run."

"No, I get that part, I just want to know what happened to their old base, that pirate lord."

Montaug sighed deeply, clearly dissatisfied with the Jakobis' actions. "Apparently, Lebenstrum slept with that very pirate lord's only daughter. As you can imagine, he was less than pleased, so now they're on the run from him."

"That fucking idiot."