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"I kept it as a loss leader," Heuisink said. When Rudi's eyebrows went up: "As a tax write-off. That meant… in those days, we were taxed on our incomes. If you had a business that was making a loss, you could balance that against other income and pay less."
Baffled, Rudi blinked, thinking of the rich fields outside.
"How could land like this not pay? People had to eat then too, and to be sure there were so many of them! And with machines to do the work, you could sell nearly all of it."
His host chuckled. "Farmers used to ask themselves that question all the time. The short answer is that there were a lot of people between us and the hungry mouths, and they made the profit."
As a nobleman used to paying levies and to making them on his vassals, Odard's thoughts were a little different:
"How could the Crown know your income to tax it, my lord Heuisink?" he said. "I mean, the old American government. Did they send clerks around to assess your fields?"
"You told the government what your income was," he replied. "And I'm not a lord, young man."
Odard gave a charming smile and spread his hands. "You are by the way we'd reckon things in the Portland Protective Association's territories, sir. I'm a Baron myself back home; perhaps you'd say Farmer here. But about that… income tax, did you call it?"
"Most of my family's income came from stocks and bonds, investments."
The travelers nodded; all of them at least knew what those were, in theory, except perhaps Virginia Kane. Seeing that they'd followed him that far, Heuisink went on:
"The law required you to report your total income every year."
"And people actually told what they had, Lord Heuisink?" Mathilda said, her cup halfway to her mouth. "That's more power than my mother has as Regent of the Association, by Saint Dismas! It's hard enough to collect the mesne tithes and the tallage and corvee and the salt tax!"
"You had to tell, or the IRS would get on your case, young lady. Believe me, you didn't want that to happen."
"Ah," Odard said wisely. "Rack? The steel boot? Pincers? Not," he added piously, "that we Associates do that sort of thing anymore. Not much."
Their host looked at him sharply, obviously wondering if he was being mocked and then looking even more startled when he realized the younger man was perfectly serious.
"Worse than that," he said. "Audits. But as you say, Mr. Mackenzie, it's good land… and that's what matters now. Thank God I didn't let my accountant talk me into selling it and putting all the money in Intel stock! His son actually keeps my books here now."
He poured himself a brandy and leaned forward. "But it's your story I'd like to hear." A glance around. "From the introductions, you can all tell me things about parts of the country we hardly hear rumors from these days. So, Mr. Mackenzie… Unless you'd like to start, Captain Vogeler?"
Ingolf looked at Rudi, who gave a fractional nod.
This all started with you riding into Sutterdown, with the Prophet's men waiting for you and everyone all unknowing, he thought. Unless it really started with that prophecy Mother made at my Wicca
Ingolf knotted his big hands for a moment, considering, and then began:
"Well, Colonel, you know we… my Villains and I… got sent East, heading for Boston, going on four years ago now."
The magnate nodded. "Waste of resources, but young Tony was set on it. Not that I grudged you the contract, though that offer of a job is still open."
"Yah, but I had my people to think of. And he sent Kuttner along with us. Well, Kuttner had-said he had-secret orders from the Bossman that we pay a visit to Nantucket…"
Heuisink sat quietly while the story spun out, and fireflies glittered like captive stars in the gardens outside, and some sort of cricket shrilled. The others began theirs when Ingolf left off with his arrival in Sutterdown…
By Ogma the Honey-tongued, that was more than a year ago! Rudi thought.
When they'd finished, a long silence fell.
"Well," the master of Victrix said at last. "If I didn't know you were a reliable man, Ingolf Vogeler, I'd toss you all out on your keesters right now. Even so, I'm dubious."
"It's a wild tale," Rudi agreed. "But our enemies seem to believe it, so."
"Yeah, and that's one more reason to take it seriously… most of it, at least. This cult out West has ambassadors in Des Moines now. At court," Heuisink added, using the term wryly for some reason.
"Oh, court intrigue is something we're used to," Mathilda said helpfully.
The others nodded. Abel Heuisink looked at them and sighed.
"Sometimes I think I've lived too long."
TheScourgeofGod
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Oath-sworn band were sundered
Held in bonds of adamant and iron
Hostage to compel Artos, high-hearted lord
Would he save companions dear
Or would revenge be his arval-gift to them?
From: The Song of Bear and Raven
Attributed to Fiorbhi
"Well, Victrix Farm may not have a wall," Rudi said softly. "But Des Moines most certainly does, the awe and wonder of the world, to be sure!"
The Heuisink family had traveled openly to the capital in their private railcar, pedaled by men of their own household and faster than a mount could gallop; Rudi and his party were coming in discreet anonymity on one of the plain horse-drawn trains that plodded along the steel way. That gave them plenty of time to watch it approach. They'd seen the skyscrapers first, of course, but those were farther away on the west bank of the Des Moines River, and fewer and smaller than those of Portland or dead Seattle. Those grew from dots on the horizon to stark height as they passed through the last ring of truck-farms and villas, where only the marks of roadways showed where suburbs had been before the Change.
Finally they could see the raggedness of the great ruined outlines, where some had burned and half collapsed in the chaos after the Change, and others had been mined for metal, disassembled from the top down. Then the golden dome of the state capitol caught a gleam of the afternoon sunlight on this side of the river, and the city walls approached across the flat open ground kept bare for defense.
There was a twenty-foot-tall outwork with towers every hundred yards, then a wet moat half bowshot broad and flowing like a slow river, and rearing above it on the i
Probably pumping up reservoirs for hydraulic cocking systems, Rudi thought, as an observation balloon tethered to one tower was winched down. Whoever built this didn't miss a trick.
The construction itself was concrete and steel, though faced with salvaged stone; he suspected a welded web of construction girders inside poured mass-concrete. The ramparts had crenellations overhanging it so that murder-holes could be opened to drop things straight down, and they were topped by an outward-sloping metal roof that was definitely not thin sheet.
More I beams, welded into a solid mass. Like the gates of Larsdalen. And the wall around Mt. Angel is taller, and built into the side of a hill four hundred feet high. But the size of this!
The wall stretched out of sight, curving away to the northeast and southwest towards the river. As he watched gaslights flared up along it, a long ripple like a wave across a lake; that showed the thick steel shutters of the firing ports in wall and tower.