The Crimson Campaign

Adamat smoothed the front of his jacket. What was bothering him so much about this woman? There was something about her mannerisms that he’d not noticed before… something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. “So if Claremonte is elected, there is the potential for him to wield as much power in Adro as a king?”

“Not as much as a king,” Ricard said. “The design of the system has put parameters on that. However… quite a lot of power.”

“Pit,” Adamat said.

Fell crossed to Ricard’s side. “Sir, if I may…”

“That’s it!” Adamat stared at her.

“What?” Ricard asked.

Adamat reached in his pocket slowly, grasping the butt of his pistol. “You have the same way of speaking,” he said to Fell. “Some of the same cadence as he does. It’s not readily noticeable. Not like you’re family or anything, but as if you’ve been trained at the same finishing school.”

“As who?” Ricard asked.

“Lord Vetas.”

Ricard and Fell exchanged a look.

“This is bad,” Fell said.

Ricard agreed. “Very bad.”

Adamat’s gaze moved between the two. He found himself squeezing the butt of his pistol in one hand and the head of his cane with the other. He felt his jaw clench. What was going on here? What did they know that he didn’t?

Ricard said to Fell, “I’m going to tell him.”

“This isn’t common knowledge,” Fell said with a frown.

“What the pit are you two talking about?” Adamat asked.

Ricard leaned forward on his desk, leaning his chin on one hand. “Have you heard of the Fontain Academy in Starland?”

“No,” Adamat said. Neither Ricard nor Fell seemed unduly ready to leap at him, so he loosened his grip on his pistol and cane. “A finishing school?” he guessed.

“Of a sort,” Ricard said. “It’s a very exclusive place. Of every thousand students they have, only one graduates.”

“What makes it so difficult?” Adamat asked.

“The rigors,” Fell spoke up. “Eighteen hours of work every day for twenty years. Training of every sort: martial, sexual, memory retention, etiquette, mathematics, science, politics, philosophy. Exposure to every school of thought in the known world. No contact with friends or family for the rest of your life. The willingness to become beholden to one man or organization against bribery or threat of pain or death.”

“Sounds awful,” Adamat said. “I would have heard of such a place.”

“No,” Ricard said. “You wouldn’t have.”

Fell was looking at her fingernails. “Only prospective clients know about the Fontain Academy. It costs as much as thirty million krana to purchase a graduate.”

“Purchase? So it’s slavery?” Adamat rocked back in his chair. Thirty million krana. That was a kingly sum. There were less than fifty people in all the Nine with access to that much money, and he didn’t think Ricard was one of them.

Adamat wasn’t sure if he believed this. How could an organization like that exist? Certainly slavery was still openly practiced in the world, but in the Nine? Not for hundreds of years. “Are you asking me to believe that you and Lord Vetas are graduates of the Fontain Academy?”

“It appears that way,” Fell said. “I couldn’t confirm it for certain, but for you to make the observation you did transcends coincidence.”

“Then what can you tell me about him?”

“Every graduate has different specialties. But if he is a graduate, then he’s dangerous. He’ll be adept at blackmail and sabotage. He’ll be smarter than most of the people in this city, including you. Proficient with all weapons, but likely favoring knives and pistols.”

“What’s your specialty?” Adamat asked.

Fell gave him a thin smile but didn’t answer.

“Can we speak alone?” he asked Ricard.

Ricard nodded to Fell.

“Sir,” Fell said. “The Fontain Academy is not a secret, strictly, but we do not advertise ourselves. This information is to be kept private.”

“I’ll respect that,” Adamat said.

Fell left the room, leaving him alone with Ricard.

Adamat watched his friend for nearly a minute before he spoke. “You purchased a woman?”

“Adamat…”

“I didn’t think even you would stoop to that.”

“It’s not like that, I — ”

“It’s not, is it?” Adamat raised his eyebrows.

“Well, maybe a little. But that’s not why I did it.”

“Then why?”

Ricard’s face grew grim. “I love this country. I love my union. I will not see either torn apart by the machinations of a foreigner. I’ll be the first prime minister if it kills me — or if I have to kill to do it.”

“When?”

“When what?”

“When did you… purchase… her?”

“I finalized it over the summer. She arrived four weeks ago.”

“And where the pit did you get thirty million krana?”

“She was ten million,” Ricard said. “About half my fortune. She’s only had ten years of schooling at the academy — it’s normally twenty years.”

Adamat shook his head. “Ten million for that girl. What were you thinking?”

“She runs my organization better than I can,” Ricard said quietly. “In one month — just one — she’s made me fifty thousand krana. She’s straightened my ministerial campaign. Before her I had some good ideas, but now I have a serious chance at being the prime minister of Adro. She’s worth every penny I spent on her.”