The little round man’s smile was jolly as before, his voice not; “Your Grace, a bug close to the eye may look as big as a lion. Is there proof of true disaffection?”
A man with silver-streaked hair and the breast-star of a general on his silk nodded gloomily. “I bear such proof. This brawl among the Red Archers of Veierelden has been given a light appearance; but my men have looked into it, and it runs deeper than you think. Namely, they were shouting for the restoration of Pavinius to the succession. We hanged one of his emissaries, a Mayern man.”
“Pah,” said the round man. “Since he was exiled every ruction has been a shout for his return. They do not mean it.”
“Dossola will never bear a king who is himself the leader of a sect opposed to true religion,” observed one of the episcopals. “Even his one-time followers of the Amorosian faith have rejected him.”
Florestan held up his hand. “My lords, you wander. I summoned you here on this matter of finance to say that it is within the powers granted to me as minister by the Queen’s Majesty to establish by decree the new form of tax-payment proposed by our good friend, the Count Cleudi. Yet as some of you have been good enough to let me know this plan will never succeed, I now ask what other you propose.”
“It is a plan to steal from the nobles of the land, and it will surely not be borne,” said a long-faced man with great force.
Said one of the episcopals; “The estates of the Church must of course be exempt from this plan; for it would be an affront to the most high God to make his spiritual ministers into tax-gatherers for the lesser, or civil estate.”
Chancellor Florestan threw back his head with a burst of laughter so heartily sustained that it was not hard to see how he had won his calling-name. “The same spiritual ministers,” he said, “have little trouble with their consciences when it is a question of collecting taxes to their own benefit. No, I do not contemplate that the lords episcopal shall be exempt, however ill that sits, and I tell you plainly that I will enforce this plan with every strength there is. Come, my lords, you waste my time, which belongs to the Queen; and so dissipate her resources. I ask again; who has a sharper scheme than Cleudi’s?”
Now they burst in on him with a flood of words like so many dogs barking, which he hardly seemed to hear as he leaned down to pet the kitten. Rodvard, watching the calm indifferent face, could not catch a clear vision of the eyes in the candlelight and flow of movement. He saw Tuolén advance to pick up one of the glasses, with his eyes fixed on the horsefaced lord who had been so vehement (and it came to him that Florestan must know there was another Blue Star in the room, and be concealing his thought from reading). The Chancellor reached over to tap his bell once more.
“We will hear the Baron Brunivar,” he said.