Questions and Answers
The Never Ending Quest - Episode 44339
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Shirini replied: "I should have thought that you could have worked that
out for yourself, khanom, but I will spell it out for you. Hespan is a
very big country. The capital is almost at the other end of it, a very
long way north of here. The King is unlikely to be too interested in the
problems of an area that is so far away, especially one that is poor and
able to provide him with little in the way of tax revenue. Of course, a
substantial proportion of the taxes that the Satrapy of Polabi collects
goes to him. Polabi is not especially wealthy, in comparison to Corona for
example, and this is the poorest corner of it.
"Besides, the provinces and satrapies have a considerable amount of autonomy, and so the person to whom we should look for help is our Satrap rather than the King. We have indeed reported the activities of the alchemists to him, but as far as we know he has done nothing. That is not really surprising. It would take a great deal of effort to root them out, and I don't suppose that the Satrap feels that it would be worth it. The arguments that would influence the King would influence him too, if not to the same extent." "I see," Astra said. She decided that she had better not pursue the subject any further. As a supposed native of Hespan herself, albeit from a far-off island, it would not be wise to reveal too great an ignorance of the way the country was governed. That might arouse suspicion. Instead she switched to another, hopefully safer, topic: "Bella mentioned someone called Bakhtar, who lives west of here. Who is he?" Shirini looked at Bella, wondering if she wanted to take the lead. Bella said: "You know more about him than I do, Shirini. All I know is that he's a hermit who lives west of here, and who occasionally comes into Golabi to get supplies. Mary said that he had been invited to this evening's picnic, but that she didn't know whether or not he would be there." "Coming to a picnic doesn't seem like a very hermit-like thing to do," Astra observed. Shirini laughed. "Though he likes to live alone, he isn't a total recluse, so I'm not sure that 'hermit' is really the right word to describe him. He lives not far west of the village, and we see quite a lot of him. He settled in this region four or five years ago. Before that, he seems to have travelled widely, judging by the stories that he tells."
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JH
8/12/2004 11:40:02 AM
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