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I glanced back atat hts parade openly across your face But this is not so that should be up to you and Spink and Gord to solve for yourselves, though I do fear that youto solve it Yet attempt it I must, and do what I can afterward to protect you You are students at the King’s Academy If true justice does not prevail there, then what can we hope for when you enter the greater world as soldiers of the king?"

He sounded so solemn and so sad that it sent a chill of premonition up my spine

"What do you fear?" I asked hi in a hoarse whisper

"I fear on a large scale what you are experiencing on a s’s battle lords, in a power struggle that will eventually come to violence, and perhaps even civil war"

"But ould that happen? Why would it ever come to that?" I asked, startled

"Even if they dislike sharing nobility with us, why should it come to bloodshed?" Spink asked also "It seerant to his new nobles, and of honor, there is no limited supply that men must fear to receive a lesser share"

"Not for land, for ranted to your fathers as wasteland and desert Not for honor, for though all nobles should possess that, few think it a goal to be struggled for No, young sirs, I fear that we speak only oflacks it; old nobility has it, though not in the quantity we did at one time If he tries to squeeze it froh so many years of war and bloodshed, I fear we-that is, some of us-will turn on him But his battle lords, they would stand with hiainst us, their brothers"

Spink knit his brow "The king lacks for !"

My uncle smiled weakly "Spoken like a true new noble, I fear The final twenty years of ith Landsing beggared theTroven’s father did not hesitate to ‘borrow’ fro, hoping to leave his son a triureat deal ofit The debts the monarchy owes to the old nobility arepast due for repayreater autonoenerosity’ But the ave to his lords, the less inclined ere to tax our vassals for his benefit When his father died and Troven cas he did was to end the war that had drained our coffers for so long We were glad to have the war over, yet those of us with holdings in the coastal regions were dismayed to find ourselves stripped of our estates there Our ports, our warehouse, our fishery, and our trade were all surrendered to the Landsingers Many old nobles still say that in his haste to end the iftly, Troven gave away too ave was not his to cede

"Then, when he turned his eyes to the east and began a determined expansion, we had to ask ourselves, ould pay for this near? Will the king bully us to lendto recover? The Council of Lords were deterer and e of our taxes ould turn over to the an to see the profits of victory, so at all? Why cannot we govern ourselves?’ "

Spink and I had reey tale This was certainly not the history I had been taught I suddenly wondered if this was yet another of the differences between first sons and soldier sons The treason of that thought shocked me at first, but I faced it in my heart Then I wondered at how naive I had been, that one talk with my uncle could reorder my whole view of the world I askedhe would thinkdeliberately cultivate fractiousness between his old nobles and his battle lords?"

"It would be in his best interest to keep them at odds," my uncle replied carefully "If ever all his nobles united…well Soain say, ‘What use do we have for a king?’

"When King Troven first turned his excursions into the east, they brought fresh wealth to nobles stripped of resources by years of war Game meat, salted in barrels, ca for many of us to have as much meat as anted, for our own flocks and herds had dwindled in the war years The land that was opened up for far yielded rich harvests, at first We feared the competition fro that even letting those prairie fields lie fallow does not restore their productivity Our crops are still in demand In the east, there are new orchards and vineyards and fish frooods we manufacture as our excess population oods, and the difficulty of that adds delay, cost, and inconvenience The king anticipates rich revenues if he can finish his King’s Road I areat prooods that travel interons would become a steady flow, and there is aas well as here at ho’s Road were finished But soht be done in our lifetimes To finish his road, he must have laborers and coins to pay them And that is where he runs into conflict with his old nobles For the old nobles would like to keep their laborers and their coins to work on our own needs here in the west"