Chapter 379

Dominic Ihre Partouche wore a heavy frown on his face while he sat 'alone' in his office. "How seriously should I take this, Yarvin?" Dominic asked of the elf at his side.

Yarvin closed his eyes and took a deep breath, whenever his master asked him a question, it merited the most sincere answer. Dominic waited, after a lifetime, he knew Yarvin's answer would be well thought out, and having shared every scrap of paper and report with his boyhood servant, he had high expectations.

Yarvin finally opened his eyes and set the glass of wine on the desk, two fingers width away from his master's grip. "Master, I say this with the understanding that it in no way implies any desires of my own. I have been with your family since I was rescued from the Hodges, and I will never, ever leave the service of your house. If they wish to take me from here, they will have to drag my corpse from your side."

"I know, Yarvin. I know." Dominic answered the elf in a gentle voice he never used for any others of Yarvin's race and took up the glass. In the office of Dominic Ihre Partouche, there was one difference from all the rest of the estate. Every room of the house had a whip on the wall, though they never needed to be used, their presence was reminder enough. None of the elven servants defied the master of the house. But the wall of his inner office had no lash on display, ready for use. The walls had only art, paintings, and the occasional award from his service years. There was no implement of violence or control, and there was no need, because no elf was allowed within the office except for one.

"Master," Yarvin said, "I believe you should take this very seriously. The nations all around us are offering a safe haven to runaways. Years ago, the Draconic Kingdom depended on us for their survival, now they turn up their noses and rely on the forces of the Allfather. King Mare's forces keep all raids by would-be slave takers at bay without any success. And the traitoress of the divine has taken the Captain hostage. Even Zesshi has turned on us." Yarvin crouched down and put his hand on Dominic's lap, it was an unthinkable act from any other elf, but from Yarvin it was as natural and comfortable and welcome as that of a favorite uncle to his nephew.

Dominic nodded, in a few lines, Yarvin summed up half their problems. "The other scriptures were sent to rescue him and kill the Queen of Frost. If they succeed, the whole of their little pseudokingdom will collapse. When it does, everyone will see that those really are just slightly intelligent beasts… they'll see… they have to."

"Master, did you hear what you said?" Yarvin pressed with a quiet voice, his luminous eyes no longer blinking at the unthinkable.

"What?" Dominic inquired, caught off his guard by Yarvin's quiet intensity.

"Master, you said, if. If they succeed." Yarvin pointed it out, and Dominic sucked in his teeth.

"I did… didn't I." Dominic's dark eyes shut for a moment and he tried to imagine failure. It seemed impossible for the Black Scripture to fail, but if they did? The world lay out before his mind's eye as if he were Thousand League Astrologer, not over distance, but time as the implications came down on him.

'The black, defeated or captured, all our best weapons gone, they're equipped with treasury weaponry, we'd lose so much. We have no allies left, even with our army being strong as armies go, we can't defeat every surrounding nation and impose our will. Not without champions on par with theirs, and the Allfather's forces are at least as strong as our best, and he is vastly stronger than…' The path of war laid out before Dominic Ihre Partouche, Cardinal of the Theocracy, he saw the fields of Wheaton burned to cinders, Kami Miyako starving as the Kingdom of Carne simply moved its armies just over the border and occupied the vast Latifundias and set the elves free by force. Ikari's Iron Governor couldn't hold back a nation by itself, the distance between the two places was short, and the Wolf King and Queen were now experienced and well prepared for war.

The Elf Kingdom under King Mare was a de facto province of the Allfather so no new slaves could be captured from there officially without war, a war Dominic tried to imagine winning… 'I can't… I can't picture a victory, not without all of humanity united against him and even then…' Dominic lowered his eyes, set his glass down, and then rested his now heavy head into his hands. "Even if we succeed in getting the Captain back… and killing the Queen of Frost, there's no getting us out of this, is there? We're going to have to do something drastic."

"You mean to abide by their demands?" Yarvin asked.

Dominic tugged at his dark hair, "I think… yes, sort of. Right now they're demanding prisoners of war be returned, since the war is over. How many slaves does that make?"

"Master, in the last one hundred and twenty years of war, the Slane Theocracy has taken thirty thousand-five hundred-seventy-two prisoners of war from the elf Kingdom. They mostly work in the large latifundias around Wheaton and Ikari, but a substantial number serve in… other capacities. Small farms, crafts and trades." Yarvin answered immediately.

"And if we were to do as the elf Kingdom demands?" Dominic asked.

"Then the wheat would lie unharvested in the fields." Yarvin answered at once. "The Slane Theocracy would either starve or…"

Dominic swallowed the lump that put into this throat, his fingers tightened their grip on his scalp, "Or we would have to force humans to do it. We would have to make slaves of humans… or we would have to start importing food. Tonnes of it. We would lose our main export to the dark elves and become an import nation… dependent on outsiders and…" In that moment, Cardinal Dominic il Partouche, saw worse than the death of his nation.

'If we died in a fiery glorious fight to the end… the light of our memory would inspire mankind for generations and ensure humans would one day rise again. But this… this isn't a glorious warrior death. This is an old man's gasping pathetic whimper… and what if we refuse? How long before the other countries arm the elven slaves and start a war?' The more Dominic thought, the worse things looked, the demand that the prisoners of war be returned was as good as a demand that the Slane Theocracy ruin itself. And that was without considering the next likely demand.

'The release of all the elves…' Dominic looked out of the corner of his eye toward his side where Yarvin still crouched. "I cannot help but think, Yarvin, that when we began to take the elves, the ones to do so… they were fools. They decided to ride a tiger, and never wondered how they would let it go or get off of it when they got where they wanted to be. If we release the slaves, we will have to make slaves of our own, no human would willingly do work that has been labeled as 'slave work' for this long. We will destroy our economy and make ourselves a low, dependent nation… our pride… cast down into the dust… everything will be ruined. And if we don't… we may be ruined anyway."

"Master, you're wise, hot tempered, but clever, cunning… there has to be an answer… Perhaps if you called a few of your comrades together away from the burdens of government? Have them for dinner, drink with them, speak to them the way common people talk politics in the market. Away from the burden of decision, maybe they will be more creative too?" Yarvin suggested, and Dominic took a heavy breath.

"Yarvin, this isn't just you trying to find some way to get me to relax a little, is it?" Dominic asked, politely overlooking the true statement about his temper.

Yarvin stood up and poised himself as the regal butler he'd been for over a century, "Master, I'm sure I would never think of that as my motivation… it is merely an added benefit."

Dominic snorted and straightened up, resting his back against the leather center pinned against the dark wood. "Then yes, invite the other Cardinals, tomorrow if they can make it, there's no work then, so maybe… just maybe we can navigate ourselves through the thicket of thorns without bleeding ourselves dry."

"I'll have the invitations prepared at once, Master." Yarvin said, bowed, and made his way out of the private study of the Cardinal.