Chapter 15: Theft and Cheating

When we got to my turn at the next meeting, I asked the council if they had determined the value of the ship. They had. It was worth 340 Conchs, and they wanted half of that or 170 Conchs to sell their half.

I asked if the council was unanimous in this figure, and they all nodded. Very well. I handed the secretary my other sealed parchment, and asked him to read the label and then open and read it as before.

“Proposal for the Council. I am an inventor, sailor, and soldier. I am not a trader, and have no desire to run a trading ship. It is an honorable profession, but it is not for me. On the other hand, the town needs to have its own ships in order to grow as a port. I will sell my half to the town, for whatever price the council decided its half was worth.”

They really started squawking at that. They didn’t want to own a ship in the first place. There was no way they were paying that much for a rotten stinking pirate ship. That gave me the last opening I needed, to slide the knife into their hearts. “Seriously? Your half of the ship is worth 170 Conchs, but my half is falling apart and worthless? Do you really believe that one side of a ship can be worth more than another side? How did you figure out which half was which?”

All of the fishermen and other sailors in the audience started laughing at that. “I publicly charge the council as a group and each individual in the council with being thieves, attempting to cheat an honest man.”

The leader immediately called for the guards to arrest me for disrespect.

I turned to the Commander. “Commander, I apologize for surprising you with this, but it’s time for you to make a decision. Do you serve the town of Widemouth, or do you serve the council?”

After leading the town through the siege by the pirates, he knew that he had the loyalty of all of his guard and most of the militia and other fighting men in the area. The old warrior stood up straighter than I’d ever seen him, smiled, and said “I do not command the Widemouth Council Guard. I command the Widemouth Town Guard. The Widemouth Town Guard serves the town of Widemouth. We do not serve the Council. We protect the town from all enemies, both outside the wall and inside. We will not arrest any man for merely claiming that someone else is cheating him, no matter who that man is or who he accuses. We will listen to the evidence and judge who is guilty for ourselves.”

I asked “Would the guard be willing to ensure that no one else interferes while we determine who is guilty here?”

“Certainly, the guard will prevent any interference.”

“Thank you.” I turned back to the council. “Throughout this world, when an honest man accuses a thief of trying to cheat him, the matter is settled between them immediately, with whatever weapons they are carrying at the time. Now, I happen to have a sword on me, but as everyone knows I’m not very good with it yet. The six of you are in this together. I asked if you all supported this, and you all agreed. I think that the six of you against me is a fair fight. You have worked together to cheat everyone else in this town, now if you can work together you should be able to kill me before I finish killing all of you. Or, you can each face me alone and all die one at a time.”

They gave me some wild looks, then agreed to pay me for my share of the ship.

“Great! Mister Secretary, where is the town’s treasury kept?”

“We have a lock-box with ready money for expenses, but it doesn’t have anywhere near enough for that.”

“How much does it have in it?”

“Probably less than three Conchs.”

“Where are the rest of the town’s funds?”

“Uh, each of the council members keeps part of it for the town, so that they can pay for whatever needs to be paid for.”

“What you just said was that any money that comes into the town treasury is immediately divided between the council members for their own use. You don’t actually keep any of it for the town.”

“Uh, pretty much, yes, Lord Jason.”

“And, how long have you known this?”

“Uh, all my life. It’s the way they do things here.”

I turned around. “Did the rest of the town know this?”

The consensus, heard roughly through all the shouting, was no. Actually, the consensus was more along the lines of ‘hang every one of them’ but I took that as a ‘no, they hadn’t known’.

Back to the secretary. “So, what happened to all the money we took from the ship?”

“It was distributed immediately.”

“How much was that again?”

“114 Conchs. Each council member got 19 Conchs.”

“And how much money comes into the town treasury every year?”

“It varies, but it’s usually about 40 Conchs all told each year. Some years more, some years less.”

“Thank you. So, every year the six council members split 40 Conchs between them. That’s, what, about six and a half Conchs each?”

“Yes, Lord Jason.”

“And how much of it gets spent by them to support the town?”

“Pretty much none of it. I think that the wall and the moat and your machines are the first time they’ve spent anything at all since I became secretary.”

The Commander interrupted. “Where does our pay come from?”

“That gets pulled out before they divide it up. That’s about five Conchs per year.”

I went back to my questions. “So the council gets to divide about 35 Conchs between them, about six Conchs each. Very well, I’m going to ask each council member a question, and I want you to write down their answers.”

I asked how long each one had been on the council. The answer was invariably “Since my father died, 12 or 6 or 23 years ago.”

After we had all those answers, I turned back to the audience. “I wish to give the council members a choice. The first choice is for them to give back to the town all the money they’ve stolen. First, each is to hand over to the town treasury the 19 Conchs they got from the ship. Next, they will give me one-sixth of their own value for half of the ship.” Back to the secretary. “How much is that, one-sixth of 170 Conchs?”

He scribbled for a few seconds. “That’s 28 and a third Conchs each, Lord.”

“I have no desire to cheat anyone. If they each give me 28 conchs I will be satisfied that they owe me nothing. Next, they need to pay the town treasury back everything they have stolen through the years. There’s nothing we can do about their fathers, they are all dead, but we can get these men to pay back what they have stolen. I recognize that some of the money may be gone, but they should be able to pay back half of it at least. I want each of them to pay back the town an amount equal to half of the six Conchs they have received each year, times the number of years they have been on the council. If they have been on the council for one year, then they will pay the town three Conchs. If ten years, thirty Conchs.”