Red Country Read Free

even, ‘I believe it will rise tomorrow.’ You can only say, ‘I hope it will.’ Nor can you truthfully state, ‘It rose yesterday,’ unless you were there to see. Belief is irrelevant, princess. You know, or you do not know.”
    Taking his post seriously, he did not confine his teaching to the tools of thought. He had held power in Estar. He knew the bones of it throughout the Confederacy, and he anatomized them for me, a far more valuable grounding for a future queen than all Zathar’s lists of battles and dynasties. Not that Kastir disdained the past; but in his hands it was important as the well springs of the present, not for the Who and When and How, but for the Because and Why.
    For me he traced the rise of Quarred’s Tingrith from the eight noble families’ obsession with “birth,” Holym’s elected Consul and permanent Scribe from the cattle-lords’ insularity and pre-occupation with fighting their own floods and droughts, Hazghend’s tyrants from their endless blood-feuds and brigand temperament, Estar’s dogfights from the factions of money-lord and guild-leader and their secret wars for power. Always he saw with merciless clarity. “Men rule as they live, for their own benefit. In all history, look for the motive, princess. And look low, not high.”
    So he dissected his own career for me, warning me that emotion must not weigh in the mind’s balance. “What happened to me and why is of value, princess. How I felt and if it was justice are irrelevant. Learn what it tells you of Estar, and keep the knowledge for use.”
    With the same clarity he exposed flaws in all the Confederate governments, Estar’s turmoil, Holym’s power behind the throne, Quarred’s oligarchy, Hazghend’s unsanctified tyrant, even Everran’s monarchy. “One man ruling by right of succession, yes. Well, if he is efficient.” Kastir never used the word good. “If he is not, trouble and oppression. Always incipient trouble over the succession, and if he dies untimely, real peril to be faced.”
    When I said in despair, “None of them are any good!” He merely smiled his cold, keen smile. “None of them are perfect, princess. This is the one case where you must fall back on beliefs. Every country believes its government is the best. I prefer to say, ‘Mine is the worst of all possible governments—excepting all the rest.’”
    And we both understood without words that the debate was more than academic: that, one day, forms of government would be another of my choices, when I sat on Everran’s throne.
    Not that I thought much of that, for with a father just hale and heartily fifty, accession seemed many vague tomorrows away. However burdened by Zathar, I had plenty of free time. I played at life with my palace pack, as it is easy to play when you are a royal heir, young, healthy, carefree, and handsome enough for your needs. We might take Kastir with us, but we hawked, we hunted, we danced, we banqueted, we rode on every royal progress, from Maer Selloth in the south to Dun Stiriand at the limits of the north, from Meldene’s gray hethel groves to the red levels of Gebria, and I was lucky, I know now, that in those years Everran’s borders were quiet. We traded with the Confederacy, our wine and oil for Holym’s cattle and Estar’s merchandise, Quarred summered its sheep with us, and we tithed a quarter of the clip before they went home. Hazghend was only a bad reputation in the distant south. Nor did the Lyngthirans descend, as they do so frequently, over the northern border, and everyone knew we were safe from the east. That way the Sathellin carried our wine along Hethria’s desert ways to a great nation no one else could name, but no army could have tracked their road back to us. The mighty Gebros frontier wall and Everran’s doughty soldiers were waiting if they had. No, we