of every leading clan’s seal and all of the remaining unaffiliated smaller clans’, too.
Kip handed it over to Tisis, who had stopped even pretending to work on her map. She looked at it carefully. “Named, signed, and sealed by the head of each family,” she said. “Every signature that I recognize—and that’s most of them—is correct. And the wording . . . this means exactly what it says.”
The ambassador said nothing. The scroll said it for him. Satrap Briun Willow Bough might be no military leader, but he was clear-eyed about his situation. It was desperate, but he was taking desperate actions without panicking.
It made Kip like the man. It took uncommon strength of character to present yourself to a foreigner, a younger man, and one of dubious birth no less, and say, ‘I’m in desperate straits. Will you please, please help?’
“I’ll be named satrap,” Kip said. “And put in full charge of the armies. I’ll expect the resignations of everyone on the board of electors of the satrap so it can’t be stripped from me in a few months, and I’ll have the power of appointing new ones.”
The room went dead silent.
Kip went on, “Briun Willow Bough will be allowed to keep all of his own lands but will vacate the palace, leaving it furnished and adequately staffed. He can take his own gold, but if he raids the treasury, I’ll have him hanged. The city needs that coin and more, if we’re to keep fighting. All the nobles above the salt will give me one part in five of their lands and possessions immediately, like so: they will divide their possessions and wealth into five as they see fit, and I will choose which part I take. In cases of indivisible properties, trades will be allowed as assessed by an independent party and accepted within one year, or else the part I deem the larger reverts to me. Any hidden undeclared assets will become my property, and future possession of them by other parties considered theft.
“All officers will resign their commissions and reapply to the same posts pending my approval—though there will be no cost for the second commission. Failure to reenlist will be considered desertion. Families I find especially helpful in the transition or the defense of the Forest will find their tax reduced to one part in seven.”
It was even more audacious than he and Tisis had discussed, and everyone in the room froze.
Bram looked suddenly ill. “That would make you a dictator. I would be responsible for giving away a fifth of all Blood Forest’s wealth. My lord, on behalf of my entire family, I signed that scroll myself.”
“Then perhaps as you’re being particularly helpful, you should only give a seventh?” Kip asked.
“No!” the ambassador said, mortified. “No, I’m sorry. We would be shamed to the tenth generation if it looked like you bought this treaty by paying us off.”
He didn’t pat his forehead now, though. He looked up with those keen eyes hidden in his chubby face like raisins poked deep into bread dough. “But you’ll save us?”
“I’ll certainly try,” Kip said. “Unfortunately, the White King does get a say in how that turns out.”
“Not some halfhearted effort, though,” Bram insisted. “You’ll send everyone. Tomorrow? You’ll bind your future to ours?”
“Tomorrow’s not going to happen. But we’re mobilizing already. The day after. But are you really worried we’ll betray you, after all we’ve done for these lands?” Tisis asked the ambassador, disbelieving.
“Those people out there may want to make you king,” Bram said. “But you’d have to fight if you wanted to be king in anything more than name, and a civil war burns a lot of treasure and more goodwill. So maybe this agreement is your way to take the same power without having to fight for it. With what you’re asking, you’d be instantly wealthy, with complete legitimacy to your power. We couldn’t dislodge you. From there, how hard would it be for a man of your talents to make yourself king in truth? Rather than even fight at all, you might negotiate a peace with the White King. Maybe you already have.”
Kip said, “You’re standing in a city I liberated from the Blood Robes. We killed thousands of them, this week.”
“I know, I know. I’m just—I just need to know that you’ll save us. I can’t give you everything and get only words in return.”
“Of course we’ll march to save Green Haven,” Kip said, and he could see the relief wash