“I know, Kovneva.”
“This is why you are in Vondium?”
“Yes.” It was as good an excuse as any. I felt the Emperor had sized me up — whether I liked the man or detested him I still didn’t know — and he had not mentioned the tax situation. I thought then that if it had been my daughter claiming the horrible object that had been Dray Prescot in his chains and filth, I might have reacted as he had done.
“And you are not prepared to do anything about it?”
“Just what had you in mind?”
The very word tax is obscene, of course, to those who pay. To those who collect for causes their honor tells them are just, the word means different things. But then, any taxman believes his cause is just. My people of Valka paid heavy taxes, unjustly heavy, as I had discovered since reaching Vondium. My selfish
