To the Balestriere

[big metal rod]

Mercenaries,

Why is it that after opening my purse-strings for you at great public expense I continue to hear rumblings about your company trying to manipulate the Gold primary and work against me?

Currently:

-Balestriere Mirielle is receiving wages from the treasury via the title of Expeditionary Captain
-Recluta Danebluff is receiving wages and great political clout from me via the title of Magistrate
-Balestriere Emilia should be receiving wages via the defunct title of Mirliva that have yet to be investigated.
-I am working to establish a position of value for you in the coming war.

And in return...

-I am still being told you intend to support another candidate
-My employees continue to be threatened by your rank and file
-My allies within the League of Gold imply you intend to enact an inter-league coup against the sitting Legate (You realize the Officials will simply stomp this out, yes?)

And yet again and again I am asked for more and more concessions, and again and again I work toward them to be immediately betrayed.  Why is your Recluta doing everything in their power to spit on me? Why are your Balestriere's following my employees around and accusing them of being "Rose Killers"?

I am starting to become annoyed.  I am starting to believe you don't have a plan, don't know what you are doing, and don't care to do anything but petulantly stomp your feet and whine that the world isn't yours.

Am I conducting business with a company of children, or am I conducting business with the storied La Banda Rossa? 

I am still the Legate.  I will continue to be the Legate for a month.  You are far too used to flashing your knives and getting off on feeling in charge.

You are not.

All of the above wages and positions are now closed to you.

If I cannot expect any kind of quid pro quo or concession from your people, then you can expect me to make use of the powers at my disposal to make your lives as difficult as possible.

Please tell me I have been misinformed about this. 

-Live and drink,
Argent

[VanillaPudding]

Dearest Dragon,

Marcellus removed the wages from the position I held long ago, as soon as he took office in fact, and refused to listen to thoughtful ideas on how we might still leverage the motivated and wanting of the refugees as a military force that I could guide into battles and help with your vision of total victory. When I tried to meet with you in order to discuss arrangements you chose instead to flutter your little fiery wings and threaten death on members of the Banda Rossa. It is with thick irony that you try to call us children but cannot negotiate without throwing a child-like tantrum.

   You decided on your own to break the contract with the Rose and hand power to an outside presence, something you slandered your predecessors for doing with Kha'esh when they were given rights to the depths, if I do recall correctly? Yet more irony from the Dragon.

   You decided to bed with the Astronomers who, no matter how you spin it, will vote purple or white and see you removed from office next election. You, by means of your influence, decided to pay a former Recluta for private knowledge from our files and employ them.

   You decided through lack of action to see the Banda Rossa removed from the War Council, and without clear knowledge of the battlefield to come we simply are left wondering where to deploy the Recluta and otherwise on the battlefield. I'm sure it will all be clarified in short time.

You and your employees will be treated as you deserve while within our fortress, be it with kind words or flashing knives, and that decision has been in your clawed hands this entire time. You are welcome to return for negotiations when you find yourself able to speak and act appropriately within this fortress. We in turn will decide just how it is that we feel like voting, or if we feel like voting.

Balestriere Emilia Laurentis

[Moonlighter]

You have been misinformed, of course.

La Banda Rossa is weighing it's options for the next election to come as we always do.

Hearing offers. Weighing them against one another. This is a natural thing, no? This is how business is conducted.

We've made no commitments, not even to you. I can only speak for myself when I say that I've certainly not humored any coup attempts.

Given you broke your contract with the Cinquefoil Rose quite deliberately one might hope that you and your underlings might stomach some mean words without some hare-brained declaration of war.

Given you left a meeting with the Condottiera and myself and immediately went to rat on us to the Sultan's Janissaries and then had the nerve to come to me hat in hand asking for our votes and our money one might hope that this would instill in you a certain degree of humility and introspection.

I can see now that it has not. Allow me once again to make things clear for you.

We don't need you, Legate. If we needed someone to lie to us and spend our fucking money and then take marching orders from the Astronomers, Marcellus is right there.

I enjoy your penchant for the theatrical, Legate, but even my patience for all of this wears thin.

What was the term you used again?

"A Prandium Proditorum or - The Bitter Meal of Traitors."

Just how bitter of a meal is being the first sitting Legate to lose their primary, Argent? Because you are fucking with the person who with a few strokes of a pen can make sure you meet with such a glorious end.

I imagine this bitter meal to be an entire buffet of crow.

The next time you speak to me it will be with bowed head and bent knee. Or not at all.

Balestriere Mirielle Rosseau
BANDA ROSSA

[big metal rod]

Balestriere Laurentis,

The Astronomers of Q'tolip have voted as I demanded of them for three elections now.  You can be assured they will continue to do so.  Your assessment of my political clout and positions is woefully lacking in scope and depth.

Gohari Heavy Machinery is not an "outside influence", it is the company which aided to found the Ephian League of Gold and has been invested in the Citadel for some years. 

You are under the mistaken assumption that I could have removed the Sultan's Warmaster without a tangible loss to his name.  I could not.  The Consulate's eye is upon him and he is in essence unimpeachable. 

If you act on your base impulses against any of my employees, you can expect there to be consequences.  I am quite capable of protecting my own from you.

Your organization controls four Voices.  I have invited you to the table because I respect your people's professional character.  When I find it lacking, I am well within my rights to balk.

-Argent 

Balesteire Rosseau,

If you don't understand what the point was in sinking "Connorsday" but keeping your wages and material favors in tact, I'm really not certain what to say.  There is a necessity to maintain a working relationship with the IVth so long as I no longer benefit from a Monochromacy.  A small token to them was required for this reign to function.   

That you consider this "betrayal" equivalent to aiding in the disruption of my Quarry is nothing short of laughable. 

As for the primary...

I have followed the dictates of the League's officials nearly to the letter.  It does not matter how many signatures you are able to assemble in the Primary.  They will be moot compared to the backing of our Comptrollers, which I will benefit from.  There may as well not be a Gold primary.  I will be the candidate regardless of your signatures.

Again and again and again, you behave as if you have leverage or power over me.  This is what I can not abide with you.  The gall of it.  We shall be partners, forthright and respectable, or nothing.  I violated the initial contract because Aubrey Domergue treated me in every way like a snake.  It wasn't mutual.  We were not, in that moment, business partners at all. 

There has been a good deal of blood between us now.

Your organization controls four Voices.  It does not control me.

I have chosen to deal with you because my assumption has been that you - like me - are a professional.  It's a fondness and an affectation, not a need. 

As you seem to be confused about the definition of a need, here are a few relevant examples:

You need a Legate to protect yourself from the ramifications of pulling out of the War. 

I need business-minded professionals who will respect the fact that they are being paid and fall in fucking line.

Perhaps somewhere in the middle, we can get what we actually want.

Now can we meet those needs, or not?

-Argent 

   

[big metal rod]

A second letter arrives...

Balestrieres,

I have decided to take a new tack in my remaining time in the seat.  Everything will be sealed ahead of time and everything will be strictly transactional.

We gain nothing but ire by continuing on this course.

I am waiving all deposits.

I've run my sums.  I have four-hundred thousand Dinari unspoken for in the District project. 

What do your people wish built? 

Let brick and mortar mend what threats cannot.

-Argent

[Moonlighter]

After quite some time, indeed, a reply comes.

Argent!

I have decided what the future holds for our District, and I doubt I shall hear any objections from the brass on this.

You see, I have thought on long and hard on this subject, and when I see little Recluta Danebluff, I realize how badly I wish to help him achieve his dream. I see it in his eyes, his broken heart over the failure of his own Casino to lure people to play games. Alas, the furniture, the rent, and then the games? It was too expensive and too much work for one man, even one of his means.

We should build a Casino, Argent! For the workers to play and bet their wages from the Factory at. Security will be handled by the Company, of course.

A cut from the house will cover the costs on our end. And maybe there is back room, where no one has to know what goes on?

Oh, the possibilities, they are endless!

Condottiera Mirielle Rosseau
BANDA ROSSA

[big metal rod]

Condottiera,

Now, see, here is a brilliant and forward-thinking plan.  I will bring the plans to our architects.  We'll get it done.

-Argent