Read Northlight for Free Online Page B

compromise.”
    He leaned forward and tapped the table in front of him. “I’ve had enough of every port city skimming whatever it can. No wonder our traders won’t go farther north than Brassaford — their profits are eaten up tenfold by the time they get back to Cathyne!”
    With reduced tariffs, Terricel thought, they’ll search out new markets, new sources of goods. He sat up straighter, his attention sharpening. This was not going to be an ordinary meeting, not if Pateros were talking about shifting the balance of power in Laurea.
    Esmelda leaned forward, her eyes flashing. “You’re talking about establishing trade with the north, aren’t you?”
    â€œYou always were a half-step ahead of me, Esme,” Pateros answered.
    Not just the balance of power in Laurea — maybe all of Harth! He scribbled madly.
    General Montborne shook his head. “I wouldn’t advise it. Not with hostilities smoldering there.”
    â€œThese aren’t civilized people,” said Karlen, the Senior Court judge. “They don’t think the way we do. Any overture we make, official or not, they’ll interpret as weakness and attack again.”
    â€œThe northers aren’t going to disappear, no matter how many times we beat them back,” Pateros said somberly. “Not so long as we have what they want. We have to create an alternative to fighting for it.”
    Esmelda rubbed her ring, frowning. Terricel noticed the characteristic gesture and felt her thoughts racing ahead of Pateros’s words. “The norther culture is marginal at best,” she said in a deceptively mild voice. “The pressures of accumulating furs or elk skins or whatever they have that we might want could easily lead to over-harvesting or disrupt wildlife migration patterns. Not to mention the effects of putting a string of trading posts up there. We’ll have to be careful.”
    â€œI don’t see what any of this has to do with coddling the traders,” said Andre, the elderly representative of Laureal City. “Squeezing the port cities won’t make the northers any less dangerous. If anything, it’ll weaken our own economy. We need those tariffs.”
    â€œI don’t intend to cut you off,” Pateros replied. “What I want is an incentive for our traders to take the risk of opening up the north. I intend to levy a single tariff — a fair one — for goods shipped anywhere along the great rivers.”
    The Senate won’t like that, Terricel thought. Hobart, across the table, frowned and shook his head.
    â€œI know cities will be unhappy and you,” Pateros nodded to Montborne, “are justifiably wary about the defense aspects. That’s why I’ve brought up the matter privately. I need you to chew it over, tell me all the reasons it won’t work. And then help me find the way it will work.”
    Montborne traced a design in the wood grain of the table, his usually smooth forehead creasing. “Are we talking about military escorts for traders, increased border patrols, what?”
    â€œIt’s your business to tell me what we’ll need,” said Pateros. “Even with our Rangers, we’re no better than a sieve up there right now.”
    â€œIf I had more men, or weapons...” Montborne leaned back in his chair with a cryptic expression. “But we’ve been all through that, haven’t we?”
    â€œWe have,” replied the gaea-priest, “and you have had your answer — the Law forbids it. Would you have us go the way of the Ahtom and rain destruction on all Harth?”
    â€œWhat would you do, lie down and let the northers run right over us when a simple invention could make the difference?” snapped Montborne.
    Terricel’s spine stiffened as he caught the shift in tension. Montborne was making no effort to disguise his anger at Markus, but there was something else there,