Chapter 37: Ch 29 p.2

Seffon finds her still there a few hours later, and excitedly tells her to come along. “Something good, or bad?” Leah asks, half-closing the book and listening worriedly for any sounds of incoming attack.

“Good: the missive has arrived.”

Leah immediately picks up the book and the dowel and follows him.

In the second floor of the tower, he has laid out the old missive on the stone table – the new one, Leah notes, has been crumpled up and thrown to a corner of the ingredients shelf.

“What spells are you going to use, to determine its origin?”

Seffon scoffs. “It’s much more effective to use science in cases like this.” He beckons her close to watch, and she leans against the stone table opposite him, quiet and attentive.

He takes a scalpel and scrapes a bit of the paper, pulling up loose fibres, and then looks at them under a magnifying lens. A few seconds pass. “Wood-based,” he declares.

“Is that important?”

“Cheden is mountainous and dry; they have few trees, and they do not use them for paper. The southern part of the Gulf uses mainly wood pulp, and the northern states use mainly vellum. The paper is from the south.”

He takes a small knife and cuts open the scroll case, exposing the layers. “Boiled leather for structure, and birch bark on the inside, to keep the paper from catching on any nails or rough spots.”

“And where does birch grow?” Leah asks, guessing which detail is the important one.

“Mostly in Nent, but there’s a heat-tolerant variant in Devad, popular in landscaping.”

He moves on to the next step, and slices off the remains of the wax seal. He rubs it between his fingers to warm it, then smells it. “Resin, with cochineal to dye it red. We use cinnabar, from Valerin – for obvious reasons – but the makers didn’t have access to it, which suggests a more distant origin.”

Leah is about to ask, and then the smell reaches her and she wrinkles her nose; squashed lady-bug.

Seffon picks up the last piece; he takes the ribbon from the missive, unravels a bit, and lets one end catch fire over a candle flame. “A few fly-away strands, see? And oily. Made from animal fibres, not plant fibres. That helps narrow it down; plant fibres would mean flax, and almost all flax is exported from Algi to all over the Gulf. Animal fibre…” He unravels a thread carefully, watching the fibres unwind. “But not coiled, so not sheep. Very coarse. Goat?”

“Ibex?” Leah remembers them being mentioned before, but Seffon shakes his head.

“Cattle. Devad.”

“Cattle hair used for spinning?”

“They have a long-haired breed, and since the cattle need to be shaved anyway before butchering and leather-making, they use the leftover hair to make cloth. Not very comfortable cloth, of course, but strong.”

A moment of silence, and Leah is grinning. Seffon sees, and she stops. “Why didn’t you use magic? Would it have taken longer?” she asks.

Putting aside the remnants of the scroll for now, Seffon appraises her carefully. “You have your heart set on learning it, but I think you put too much weight on it. Magic isn’t a cure-all. It can’t answer everything, as we’ve very much seen in your case. Sometimes, chemistry or botany can answer the question just as well, without using up expensive components.”

Leah considers and accepts this. “So what did we learn?”

Seffon leans against the stone table across from Leah, the missive and its accoutrements between them. “That the missives were not made within the Enterlan, so it wasn’t any of our neighbours trying to frame us.”

“That was a possibility?”

“Not a likely one, but I’m glad to have it crossed off anyway.” His shoulders sag slightly as he exhales. “No, the single-use supplies were bought in the south, and likely Devad. The multiple-use supplies, on the other hand – the wax, that is – that was brought from the north. And unless we want to posit that Algi and Nent are planning an invasion, we must assume Cheden supplied them.”

“What’s the significance of that?”

“You’re quite clever, you ought to have realised.”

Leah reflects. “Single-use supplies means the paper, the case, and the ribbon. You buy it, you use it, it’s gone. But wax, you buy in bulk.” She pauses. “Is paper really not sold in bulk here?”

“For books, yes. Scroll-quality paper is thicker, tougher, and more rarely used, so one buys it as needed, though people in leadership positions usually keep a supply handy in their office.”

“So to buy scroll-quality paper, as a politician, means that you are away from your office.”

Seffon seems satisfied that she is following. “Exactly.”

Olives… Leah shakes her head at the thought, but she finally voices it, trying to sound casual. “You kept mentioning where each product was produced…are there really such clear distinctions between which nation produces what?”

Seffon seems surprised by the question. “Usually, yes. A given product is produced in a given environment, and various places with that environment tend to be clustered together, and share basic values, family ties…things that over centuries grow to make them a nation. It’s part of what caused Probesc to split from Valerin; Probesc is standalone hills, truffle fields, apple trees, and salt beaches by the sea, while Valerin is humid forests, citrus trees, and sheer rock faces. Their economies are so different, and thus their people are too. Having a different government to take care of each made more sense. There were other reasons of course, ideological and such, but – ”

Leah cuts him off. “So if one nation produces something for export, another nation is unlikely to?”

“Yes?”

“Where do olives come from?”

Seffon stifles a laugh at how seriously Leah asks the question. He finally answers, “From Cheden. Cheden-Ai, more specifically. But there was no trace of olives or olive oil on this missive, so I don’t see…”

Leah waits for him to catch on, but he doesn’t. “Have olives been expensive here lately?”

Seffon’s face goes blank. “We don’t trade with Cheden ships, they’re not interested in our goods, but those we get second-hand from Devadiss trade-ships…no, not more than usual.”

Leah stares at the stone table, trying to remember the words in her journal.

“If you know something…”

“Old-Leah had a diary.” Seffon confirms he remembers. “She wrote the dumbest things in it, I used to think. Then I realised that most of the entries were intentionally short and vague, but if you knew her…you could guess at implied meanings. Anyway, she had multiple entries from days spent at the market in Valerin, the weeks before the mind-swap. She often commented on the prices of things, what was expensive, what wasn’t. I remember thinking she must really like olives, because she kept talking about how expensive they were. Come to think of it, there was that ship…a Ben-Lia ship, and they had olives…they talked about wind gods…sneaking past a Devadiss ship…”

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“So?”

“So, olives were being sold at a mark-up in Valerin, but apparently Devad has been getting them at the regular price.”

Seffon shakes his head in confusion. “You’re either being brilliant or entirely off-track.”

“No, I think we’ve all been entirely blind, and we’re just now getting the evidence of it…” Leah says, unnerved, and Seffon seems equally unnerved by her intensity. “Come on, be a politician, think political. Why would a nation boost the price of its luxury items when selling to its ally, but keep the price low for a nation it doesn’t care about or sort of dislikes? It makes no sense.”

Seffon thinks. “No, she must have been mistaken, or this was a temporary blip in the price…”

“Even if she were an idiot, she could certainly still count, and could tell when one number was higher than it used to be.”

He shakes his head again. “But what would it mean?”

“You’re the political mind, not me. You know the history of this area. Cheden marries a noble daughter to a Valerin noble son; everyone in power signed off on this marriage, presumably. If something was going on with Devad and Cheden, why would Cheden make such an overt declaration of alliance?”

“Nothing’s going on between Devad and Cheden.” Seffon says it like it’s obvious.

“Wouldn’t it answer the question, though, if they were working together? What if the invaders sent against the Hold were a joint effort, equipped by both nations? What if the missive was written by both nations who had an interest in its being sent and interpreted as a threat?”

“Why would Devad coax war from Volst again? And why would Cheden care either way?”

“You said they wanted territory on the mainland.”

“Yes…”

Leah shrugs and gestures widely. “Valerin is territory on the mainland!”

Seffon shakes his head. “But why send Lady Jeno? Ben-Lia is in excellent standing with the Emperor, last I heard. The Auzzo family are distant cousins of the imperial line!”

Leah’s eyes drift to the missive, and she turns it to read it. “Warrior-mage.”

“What?”

She points to the words. “I haven’t heard that term often. What does it mean, exactly?”

Seffon struggles to keep up with the topic changes. “Uh…a high-ranking military magic-user. In Volst’s provinces it is more or less equivalent with ultimate evil, the greatest threat to lawful and peaceful leadership.”

“Like captain Eschen?”

“The man you mentioned, yes. Cheden’s military colleges produce a few warrior-mages every generation. Not many, but good ones.”

Leah thinks. “You said Valerin would never use defensive magic, even if allied with Cheden, even if at war. No…I’m losing it, stay focused…”

Seffon watches, fascinated.

“Do any other nations fear magic users?”

Seffon’s hands tighten on the edge of the stone table for a moment. He hesitates before responding. “There was a genocide, about five hundred years ago. It happened in Bair, and was carried out by born-magic users. They nearly wiped out the learned-magic users, and much lore was lost…almost the entire evocative branch of magic, gone.” Here his face is odd, but it passes quickly. “Some of the killing spilled over into southern Bair and Welleslass, but…minimal, compared to northern Bair. After Algi and Cheden put pressure on them to stop, they finally put an end to the killings, but tensions were high. It took many decades for Bair to recover, and only increased pressure from the far more extremist ‘no-magic-at-all’ Volst forced Bair to change its stance to an ‘all-magic’ one, to present a united front against a growing threat. Even so, learned-magic is still more regulated there than born-magic.”

“Why learned-magic users in particular?”

Seffon shifts uncomfortably. “The evocative branch. It’s still very taboo, and even what we’ve recovered or rediscovered…it’s the sort of magic that can wipe out a city in a day, if the caster is strong enough, and anyone who studies magic can learn it. You don’t have to be born with it.”

Leah nods. “And anything that makes an individual strong enough to wipe out a whole city, the government would want to forbid entirely.”

“Forbid, or control.” At Leah’s questioning look, he adds, “Well think! In Nent, magic is contained within the religious ruling class, and no-one else is allowed to practice it. In Cheden, it’s contained within the military, which follows the orders of the Emperor. Algi has barely any beyond the entertainment industry, and that type can’t really be used offensively. Bair is the only place it’s even close to unregulated, and that only works because of the higher incidence of born-magic users meaning every slum and hamlet has its own magical defender – even so, the pressure is building there for another power-grab.”

“And Devad?”

Seffon shakes his head dismissively. “Devad has minimal interest in magic, with all its study of the physical sciences. Their military is powerful enough without it, and their medicine, and their single God does not allow the workings of miracles by mere mortals. That said, they are at a tipping-point; if something like the Bairish genocide ever happens again, the other nations will be expected to take a stance, and damned if Devad will align itself with Volst.”

Leah’s eyes narrow. “Would they rather align themselves with another powerful military entity?”

Seffon’s jaw doesn’t quite close.

Leah presses on. “And frankly, if warrior-mages are Cheden’s main military might, would they really align themselves with a nation that might suddenly decide to go on a crusade against the very idea of magic?”

The room falls silent again.

“I don’t like what you’re saying, but I can see where it’s coming from,” Seffon says. “You understand that if it’s true, it is earth-shattering?”

“I’m not even sure what I’m saying at this point, only…I feel like the Auzzos were very eager for the five to make another attack against Seffonshold – a real one, not just a scouting trip. And the fact they had multiple people capable of translating from Olues to Volsti…” She lets out a heavy breath. “Cheden is involved, somehow, with what’s been happening here and in Valerin.”

Seffon shakes his head, eyes closed. “Your mind. Truly.” He says it with a faint smile. “We’ll look into this. I’ll dig up my books on Cheden, refresh my memory on their policies, their history…we’ll try and find out if there’s a precedent for this, or a solid, logical way they would excuse marrying off a noblewoman to one nation while aligning themselves secretly with its enemy. But first.”

Leah drags her thoughts away from poor Jeno. “Yes?”

“How – please, I’m begging you – how did you arrive at this conclusion, from olives?”

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