"Lee, John - Unicorn Saga 04 - The Unicorn Peace UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lee John)

the capitals of Strand for many sennights. The printed
broadsheets that had sprung up since the war had had
a field day. Thereafter Jarrod had not pressed the Dis-
cipline's claim, but no one had challenged his right to
sit on the Commission.

In the intervening years he had learned that there was
little logic where matters of national interest were con-
cerned and that his colleagues, intelligent, secure in their
positions, often humorous in private, became rigid and
inflexible when they got to the conference table. Only
Qtorin of Lissen, who represented Queen Arabella of
Arundel (Queen now because she had married), re-
tained his skeptical sense of humor. Everyone paid lip

THE UNICORN PEACE + 5

service to the idea of a new beginning, but they clung
fiercely to the old order.

At one stage, Jarrod had suggested that the Outland
be developed without boundaries, under international
control, an idea he still felt offered the best solution. It
had caused another uproar. The growing body of schol-
ars and men of letters had endorsed it enthusiastically,
but even the Isphardis, who of all people should have
been international in outlook, had rejected the notion.
Borr Sarad, the grizzled former Thane of Talisman, had
been the only sympathetic ear.

Now, fifteen years after the war had ended, matters
were coming to a head and none of the old problems
had been solved. There was no agreed-upon formula for
the apportionment of land. Should it be based on the
size of the individual countries? Their contribution to
the war effort? How then to deal with Songuard, which
had done nothing during the war, or Isphardel, which
had never committed a single man but had provided a
vast amount of money? What of Talisman, smallest of
all the nations, whose cloudsteed wings and warcat bat-
talions had fought so valiantly and suffered such losses?

There had been no formal agreement on any of these
points, but Phalastra of Estragoth, the elderly Umbrian
Elector who was President of the Commission, was
pushing for a conclusion, motivated, in Jarrod' opinion,
more by the growing civil unrest in the Empire that by
conviction. For himself, he could not for the life of him
see how they were to come to an equitable decision. He
sighed. His own idea was still the only just solution,