The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency #1)(13)

As if to accentuate the point, there was a loud thock from one of the side panels.

“What was that?” Kiva asked the driver.

“Exploratory shot, ma’am. Nothing to worry about.”

“Being shot at is nothing to worry about?”

“If they’d been serious, they would have hit us with a rocket.”

Kiva looked back to Finn. “You people do this once a decade.”

“Once or twice a decade, yes.”

“You don’t have other things to take up your time? Sport teams? Board games?”

“Usually the rebellions are confined to outer provinces,” Rue said. “They pop up, the reigning duke sends in the Home Guard, it’s over in a couple of months. This one is different.”

“This one is organized,” Finn said. “It’s got some firepower behind it.”

“Yeah, I figured that part out on my own,” Kiva said. “But I’m still not hearing what it has to do with us.”

“As I said, politically, nothing,” Rue continued. “But this particular rebellion has been expensive to fight. Tax revenues are dropping because of business disruption. That money’s got to come from somewhere.”

“From us?”

“From us,” Rue agreed.

“Not just us,” Finn amended. “He’s putting the squeeze on all guild interests here. Higher taxes and tariffs, for a start. The duke pushed them up to the imperial legal limit.”

“But that wasn’t enough,” Rue said. “So at that point, the duke started getting creative.”

“When the virus was reported on the grapefruit, the duke froze the banking accounts of the House of Lagos,” Finn said. “Theoretically they’re in escrow pending legal determination of damages to End in the spread of the virus to native crops.”

“How are we responsible for that?” Kiva asked.

“We might not be,” Rue said. “That’ll need to be decided in court. But if the duke can prove that the virus was introduced into the End ecosystem due to negligence on our part, he’s entitled by imperial law to compensation and penalties.”

“And in the meantime, to keep us from repatriating profits to Ikoyi and potentially out of the reach of the duke, our accounts are in escrow here,” Finn said.

“But they’re not really in escrow, are they?” Kiva said, and pointed out the small, thick, bulletproof window. “The duke is using them to fund the fight against these rebels.”

Rue smiled, thinly. Everyone on End, apparently, smiled that way. “As it happens, when the duke declared the current state of emergency, he nationalized the banks. The official line is that it’s to tamp down on financial panics and speculations. But the executives at the guild banks tell us he’s raiding accounts.”

Kiva snorted. “Well, that’s nice.”

“It’s not a bad plan, at least as it relates to the House of Lagos,” Finn admitted. “If he beats the rebellion, he has all the time it will take for the litigation to run to replace the funds he’s stolen. That will be years.”

“And if he loses then it won’t matter anyway, because he’ll probably be dead,” Rue said.

Kiva grunted at this and looked out the window. End’s capital city of Inverness rolled by, run-down, unhappy, a few sooty fires in the distance. “Will he?”

“Will he what?” Finn asked.

“Will he lose?”

Finn and Rue looked at each other. “It wouldn’t be the first time a Duke of End has been deposed,” Finn said.

“Fine, but what about this one?” Kiva asked. “Are we wasting our fucking time going to talk to this asshole?”

“It’s not looking great for the duke, no,” Rue said, after a minute. “We’ve heard rumors of desertions in the provinces, and of military commanders changing sides and taking their soldiers with them. We’ll probably know within the next week how things are going to shake out.”

Kiva pointed upward. “And what about those assholes? The imperials? The duke is a goddamned noble, after all. They would probably see it as bad optics to have him dragged out in the street and shot.”

“This is End, Lady Kiva,” Rue said. “As long as the Interdependency gets its percentage of trade, everything else is an internal matter.”

“Including the death of a duke?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time a Duke of End has been deposed,” Finn repeated.

“We’re about to arrive at the palace,” the driver said. “It’ll take a few minutes to get through the security checkpoints. Ma’am, may I have your invitation to the palace?”

Kiva passed it forward and then turned her attention back to her underlings. “So basically what I do now is go in and beg this motherfucker to let me sell my haverfruit, and if he does, expect him to put any profit into this so-called escrow and never see it again.”

“Not for years, no,” Finn said. “Best-case scenario.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you see this coming?” Lagos asked Finn, and jabbed a finger toward the heavily fortified palace, visible through the front windshield. “We’re sitting here grabbing our own tits while this asshole is using our cash to play whack-a-mole with insurgents.”