She looked surprised. "I that order never gave! Why such a stupid and self destructive thing you did?"
He was taken aback at her heat "Captain Glyupit said you needed the dangerous ones taken to the blue tower until after the coronation"
She wailed at captain Glyupit "How could you such insane orders give? I wanted to have a swift coronation, instead I will have to a million small fires put out!"
Glyupit stood his ground. "It is traditional. Most of the men he has had arrested knew what to expect"
She glared at Captain Glyupit. "Having them together conspiring makes perfect sense"
Glyupit nodded to the Chancellor "Having them together was his idea. I would have had them in separate cells rather than in a group as 'Honored Guests.' "
She glared at the Chancellor. " It is far better to go all the way stupid one way or the other, being two varieties of stupid at once is nothing but a third variety of stupid compounding the other two." She looked at the door. "You are listening to them?"
"Yes, we are listening to them, and yes we know what they are planning to do." She waved to go on. "They plan on sitting when you come in and not bowing"
She paced for a moment. She turned to a soldier. "You! Go to the barracks. Get several underwear. Dirty by choice. Now!" She paced some more. She said to another soldier "Get several ropes about 12' long. Go!" The captains lookd at each other as she paced. The soldier with the ropes arrived first. "How many did you bring? Seven? Excellent." She looked at the soldiers and gave a tope to each of the seven biggest and beefiest. The soldier with the underwear arrived while she was passing out the ropes. She looked to captain Glyupit. "Who are the seven loudest and most courageous in there?"
Glyupit said "Well, the loudest would be Gromkyeye. "
A soldier said "In a room with 70 people, he would the 86th most courageous."
She said to the soldier with the underwear "Stand next to Gromkyeye."
The Chancellor said "The one with the most courage would be Pravonazorik, but he is pretty quiet, and is kind of weedy looking."
She said to a small soldier "He is to be tied to a rope around his neck over the rafter. Along with six others. When I go in they will stand up. They will also bow, if you have to knock them off their feet. " After a short spirited discussion the other six were quickly chosen. 14 other soldiers were called up. The 21 soldiers went in quickly and, after a great deal of yelling, the queen went in after them. When she came in the seven soldiers pulled on their ropes and the noblemen left their chairs, followed by the rest of them. The only one who needed to have his feet knocked from under him was Pravonazorik. Who also got a mouth full of underwear.
the Queen stood in front of the noblemen and said "Thank you all for coming here today. I am glad you could all make it. I will be keeping you here until the Sabor Naroda. We all want what is best for the kingom, and we all want the kingdom at peace. We will all work together to achieve this.
She said "Now are there any ideas to make the kingdom better? Things that would make things with less thieving, more freedom for the common man so he is paying more in taxes?"
Pravonazorik wiggled in his bonds and made noise through his gag. She stood up and wandered to him. "I am going to your gag release for a moment because something worth hearing you might have. If it turns out you don't...."
She pulled the gag. Pravonazorik said "Lights on the northern coast." Then he turned his head and began spitting. She turned to one of her attendants and told him to get some water, which she quickly did. After a few moments, when he was able to talk. "There are places, like in Yamaikinn, where there are dangerous places for shipping. King Oscar always said he was going to put lights on the worst parts of the coast, but he never did. Also, there are places where the residents put lanterns on donkeys and lead donkeys along the coast so as to confuse mariners. They plunder the wrecks that they cause."
The queen remembered discussions between the Lord Treasurer and her father. The Lord Treasurer could never find the money for this. "Wouldn't this very expensive?" She asked.
"It would probably result in quadrupling the trade between the east coast of the kingdom. Maybe more." Pravonazorik said. "Putting copper bearing rocks in the fires for the lights would result in blue-green flames. It would be sort of a guarantee that the fires were from the kingdom."
"And where would we get copper bearing rocks?" She inquired
"Which brings up my next point. The treasure trove tax on copper ore at 1b out of 120 is way too excessive. There is lots of copper in the Yamaikinn region, but no one can afford to mine it. All the kingdom's copper is imported, but we have lots of copper ore than no one will dig for. We also have tin, silver... all kinds of metal that has to be imported. Can you get rid of the precious metals tax? 20% which yields nothing and 0% which yields nothing will produce equal amounts of revenue. And perhaps you can get more at zero than you could dream of at 1b out of 120
She smiled and said "You want 0%? How convient for you?"
"It is more than you are getting now. You have to import all these valueble metals. We end up paying taxes on the copper, tin, silver and gold to the other princes.
She said "I am not going to get taxes again until the Sabor Naroda gives me majesty. But we can announce we are not going to ask for the customary 1b%. That will perhaps get people digging for treasure?
"The Chancellor said "It won't be that easy. It requires a lot of capital to run a mine. And the history of taxation makes people very leary of investing in a mine when after it is built the tax officials change their mind about remitting taxes.
""And this foolish thing has been done?"
The Chancellor said "King Oscar did it twice."
She shrugged. "We won't tell people. We will just neglect to pass this tax when the Sabor Naroda meets. I to call the Sabor Naroda don't intend more than once myself. If, as you say, we are zero revenues getting, passing this tax is extra effort for no reason."
She looked around. "Are there any other things the Sabor Naroda should take up?"
"There is the unconscionable attitude of bakers in the kingdom" shouted one from the back
"First, you should address me as your majesty, second you should tell me who is addressing me, and third you should come up front and talk in turn. What have the bakers of the kingdom done to annoy you?"
A tall thin man with a perpetual sneer come up. "It is I, Lord Neclebnikov. Bakers no longer make wheaten bread. They make oat bread, and rye bread, but never wheat bread. The only place you get wheat bread is in inns. They are avoiding the court of wheat, and we get inferior breads. The farmers won't grow wheat except for their own tables."
"A court of wheat? " She asked incredulously. "What is that?"
"That is a ecclesiastical special court that the church maintains to regulate prices of foodstuffs so that the poor can get food at low prices." explained the chancellor. "Wages of peasants are kept artificially low, and wheaten bread, goats, chickens and so on are the list of things that are price regulated. For some reason the things on the list are always in short supply.
"It does not happen that the poor the food for low prices get?"
The chancellor shrugged "The bakers do not make bread that does not make a profit, or they make the smallest amount they can get away with."
Neclebnikov said "You must compel the bakers to make more wheat bread. It is intolerable that they make so little"
Pravonazorik said "King Oscar tried that. For a year there were no bakers"
Another lord came up. "Your majesty, I, lord Nobednian would like to suggest doing away with the Ecclesiastical court. Taking care of the rabble's needs is foolish. "
Neclebnikov said "We must make them then. No escaping the rules by running away!"
"A soldier in every bakery standing with a sword to make him bread cook? That a waste of good soldiers would be! "
The Chancellor said "We could ask the Ecclesiastical court to raise the prices on wheaten bread, but they would probably refuse"
"The Ecclesiastical court also was in charge of licences for mills, saw mills and grain mills. It only granted licences to monasteries"
The queen watched him sourly. "Why can you me tell was the church given the right to licences grant?"
The chancellor shrugged. "Tradition. I don't know how long they have been doing that. I suppose that it was just a convient way of granting the chuch extra money. "
She leaned back in her chair. "And where does the ecclesiastical court come from?"
The chancellor was on firmer ground. "It is from Samchot's reign. He was exceedingly pious, in addition to being ruthless. He granted the ecclesiastical court to make up for a proscription against some priests who stood in his way."
She leaned forward in her chair looked around the room. The she stood up and megan marching around the room. She spoke rapidly and forgot her grammar. "I the Ecclesiastical court prefer getting rid. The poor are bread to eat are not getting. Ecclesiastical court I intolerable find. The church a husband through bad behavior has to me lost! I the church do not like. The foolish court I am confused. "
A thin churchman came up. "Your majesty, I am Cannon Tserkovleyn. Might I enquire that you are going to continue your late husband's foolish and catastrophic war on the great father church?"
"The Father church has my husband me cost so soon after my wedding. I am very angry at the church. My great and good husband took his religious duties seriously. Something churchmen in this kingdom do not" The cannon tried to interrupt and she signaled the soldier with the underwear, and he calmed down. "I am a good wife, and I, like my husband, will continue to be a good believing and congregant dutiful. But, I good behavior expect from the chuch. I will of the chuch demand reformation of disgraceful behavior on its own." She paused then very slowly and taking care to speak as grammatically as she could. "I do not like calling the Sabor Naroda on issues other than my majesty, but if the church does not reform, I will call on the Sabor Naroda and together we will take up ways to correct the church's behavior. You understand my grammer? Is it very clear to you?"
"Yes, your majesty." The cannon looked troubled.
"We will to an agreement come, and I forward look to a relationship good." She smiled "It is entirely up to you and the fathers of the good Father church."
"But the Ecclesiastical court?" the cannon asked.
"Ah, that with my excellent husband regrettably died." She replied "Partly because of the fact that it is too confusing, but mostly because the church fathers used it as a means of robbing the common people. The church is from the common people not anymore stealing. It is with violence done with robbing."
Count Stary'yazik walked to the center and said, in Grennoulian, "Are you going to have the court language be Grennoulian? And the language of the laws?"
The queen said with emphasis "No! I approve not in the slightest a court language incomprehensible to the language of the commons. Also plots and schemes against the crown "