The waiting was driving me mad. It seemed like I was spending all of my time waiting. When I was feeling especially idle I would walk down to the dungeon and visit Esmeralda's cell in the prison. I didn't go down there to speak to her, and she had been given instructions not to say anything to me when I was outside her cell. All I did when I went down to the prison to visit her cell was stand outside of her cell door and look at her, at what she had been reduced to. Seeing her in the state that she was in served as an important reminder to me of how one could fall so far so fast. On this occasion, after spending time looking at Esmeralda in her cell, I moved on to the cell where VanBilt was being imprisoned.

"The noble house that you spoke of, the Remdahls, would they be willing to be of assistance to me?" I asked him.

"What is it that you need assistance with?"

"I'm concerned about how many people in the kingdom there might be whose sympathies lie with the nobles."

"The nobles enjoy a not inconsiderable amount of support among the population, after all, they are the descendents of the founders of the kingdom, the families that came north from Theran and put down roots here, that is why even the king was unwilling to go as far as you wish to go."

"That support will have to be neutralized to eliminate the possibility of rebellion and civil war."

"Perhaps if you made the head of the family a member of your court..."

"I'm not going to fall for that trick like Esmeralda did! The nobles' time is at an end, forget about trying to save them and start thinking about how you might minimize their suffering."

"You are asking me to conspire with you to eradicate the nobles; I'm sorry, but I can't do that."

"Then you're useless to me, in which case there's no reason for me to spare you," I said before walking away from his cell door.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"WAIT!" He called out desperately.

"TOO LATE!" I called back with finality.

I would give him time to consider whether he was willing to forsake his life for the sake of his loyalty. My expectation was that he would be unwilling to go so far and would consent to aiding me in whatever I should ask of him, I just had to wait.

Fortunately I didn't have to wait much longer for Alfred. Two days after Boris's arrival Alfred came to the palace to present me with his proposal for getting the kingdom's finances in order. There were three main issues that he believed were most in need of our attention: the debt we owed to foreign kingdoms, in particular Volstaff and Dranii, the Volstaff coins that were in circulation throughout the kingdom, and the depletion of the Royal Treasury's reserves. Solving the problem of the Volstaff coins in circulation was going to require a two step approach: one, the treasury would begin removing the Volstaff coins from circulation and melting them down to mint new coins, and two, a barter system based on the weighted values of goods and services would be instituted to allow for commerce to continue. The other two problems were interconnected and thus harder to solve. The only way to be rid of the debt was to pay it off, but there was no money in the treasury to pay it off, and the citizens of the kingdom could not bear the level of taxation that would be required to raise the necessary funds. Another solution would have to be found.

"After the last civil war, when the king subjugated the nobles, he only confiscated part of their wealth. Suppose I confiscated all of their wealth, how far would that go in aiding us?"

"It would do a lot, but there is a problem."

"What problem?"

"Much of the nobles wealth has been stored in banks in Dranii, this makes it easy for them to conceal the funds that they've been receiving from Volstaff."

"I'm planning on summoning the Dranii ambassador soon, I need to know exactly how much they've stashed away in their banks in order to make sure that it's returned to us."

"I can't know the exact figure, but there is someone who would know."

"VanBilt?"

"He knows everything about the nobles, he'll be able to tell you how much money they've been squirreling away in Dranii."

"Then it's a good thing I haven't killed him yet."

"He's fiercely loyal to the nobles, I doubt he'll give up that information."

"He will, we just need to squeeze him enough."