Roo said, “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you are not done with our service, young Avery.” James stood and paced as he said, “Reports from across the sea are worse than we thought they’d be; far worse. Your friend Erik may already be dead for all we know. Everyone who went with Calis may be.” He stopped his pacing and looked at Roo. “But even if they reach those goals they set out to achieve, this much you can bank on: the host of the Emerald Queen is coming, and you know almost as well as I that if she lands on these shores, your hard-won riches mean nothing. You and your wife and children will be nothing more than objects to sweep aside as she marches toward her goal: the destruction of every living thing on this world.”
Roo said, “What do you want me to do?”
“Do?” said James. “Why do you think I want you to do anything?”
“Because we wouldn’t be having this meal if you were only trying to remind me either of your ability to hang me on a whim or about the terrible things I saw when serving with Calis.” Roo’s voice rose in anger as he said, “I bloody well know both those facts!” He slammed his fist on the table, causing dishes to jump and clatter. Then he added, “M’lord.”
“I’ll tell you what I want,” said Lord James. He leaned over, hands on the back of one chair and the table, and put his face before Roo’s, eye to eye. “I need gold.”
Roo blinked. “Gold?”
“More gold than even a greedly little bastard like you can imagine, Rupert.” He stood up. “We’ve the biggest war in the history of this world about to be unleashed on these shores.” He walked to a window that overlooked the harbor and made a sweeping motion with his hand. “Unless someone with a great deal more power and intelligence than are possessed by every ruling lord in this Kingdom comes up with an unexpected solution, we will see the biggest fleet in history come sailing into that harbor in less than three years’ time. And on that fleet will be the biggest army ever seen.”
He turned to look at Roo. “And everything you see from this window will be ashes. That includes your house, your business, Barret’s Coffee House, your docks, your warehouses, your ships, your wife, your children, your mistress.”
At the last, Roo felt his throat almost close. He thought no one knew about his relationship with Sylvia. James spoke calmly, but his manner betrayed a tightly controlled anger. “You will never understand the love I feel for this city, Rupert.” He motioned around the hall. “You will never understand why I hold this palace dear above all other places on this world. A very special man saw something in me that no one else would ever have seen, and he put out his hand and elevated me to a station that no one of my birth could ever have imagined.” Roo saw a slight sheen of moisture in Lord James’s eyes. “I gave my own son that man’s name, to honor him.” The Duke turned his back to Roo, to look out the window again. “And you have no idea how much I wish we could have that man with us here, now. Of all men, he would be the one I would wish to tell us what to do next as this terrible day approaches.”
Taking a deep breath, the old Duke composed himself. “But he is not here. He is dead, and he would be the first to tell me that dreaming of things that cannot be is a waste of time.” He looked again into Roo’s eyes. “And time is something we have far less of than we had thought. I said that fleet would be here in less than three years. It may be here in less than two. I won’t know until a ship from Novindus appears.”
Roo said, “Two, three years?”
“Yes,” said James. “This is why I need gold. I need to finance the biggest war in the history of the Kingdom, a war that dwarfs any we’ve fought. We have a standing army of fewer than five thousand men in the Principality. When we raise the banners of the Kingdom, both Eastern and Western Realms, we can put perhaps forty thousand men in the field, trained veterans and levies. How many men does the Emerald Queen bring against us?”
Roo sat back, remembering just those forces at the mercenaries’ rendezvous. “Two hundred, two hundred fifty thousand if she can get them all across the sea.”
James said, “She has six hundred ships as of our last report. She is producing two new ships a week. She’s destroying the entire continent to keep production that high, but she’s got her heel on the throat of the entire population down there and the work continues.”
Roo calculated. “Fifty weeks, minimum. She needs at least one hundred more ships to carry provisions for that many men. If she’s prudent, she’ll build for another one hundred weeks.”
“Have you seen anything to indicate prudence?”
“No,” said Roo, “but on the other hand even someone willing to kill every man in her service must have some idea of what she needs to accomplish her goals.”
James nodded. “Two or three years from now, they will be in that harbor.”