Kovir traded and wanted to trade with the whole world, on a greater and greater scale. But it couldn’t.

Radovid III became king of Redania, and shared with Radovid the Great–his great-grandfather–the same name as well as the same cunning and miserliness. That king–called the Bold by fawners and hagiographers, and Rufus by everybody else–had observed what none before him had wanted to. Why didn’t Redania have a single farthing of the gigantic trade engaged in by Kovir? Why, Kovir was just a meaningless county, a fiefdom, a tiny jewel in the Redanian crown. It was time the Koviran vassal began to serve its suzerain!

A wonderful opportunity occurred to do so; Redania had a border dispute with Aedirn, as usual concerning the Pontar valley. Radovid III was determined to take up arms and began to prepare for it. He promulgated a special tax for military purposes, called the ‘Pontar tithe’. All of his subjects and vassals were to pay it. Without exception. Kovir included. Rufus rubbed his hands. Ten per cent of Kovir’s income; that was something!

Redanian emissaries made for Pont Vanis, imagined as a small town with a wooden palisade. They communicated astonishing news to Rufus on their return.

Pont Vanis wasn’t a small town. It was a great city, the summer capital of Kovir, whose ruler, King Gedovius, sent King Radovid the following answer:

The Kingdom of Kovir is no one’s vassal. Redania’s petitions and claims are groundless and based on the dead letter of a law which never had any force. The kings of Redania have never been the overlords of Kovir, for the rulers of Kovir–as can easily be checked in the annals–have never paid Redania tribute, have never carried out military servitude and, most importantly, have never been invited to celebrations of state holidays. Or any others.

Therefore, the King of Kovir informed the emissaries–with regret–that he could not recognise King Radovid as his seigneur or suzerain, much less pay him a tithe. Nor could any of the Koviran vassals or arriere vassals–which were subject exclusively to the Koviran suzerainty.

In short: let Redania mind its own business and not stick its nose into the affairs of Kovir, a sovereign kingdom.

Cold fury welled up in Rufus. A sovereign kingdom? A foreign land? Very well. We shall deal with Kovir as we would any foreign province.

Redania, along with Kaedwen and Temeria–incited by Rufus–applied against Kovir a retaliatory tax and ruthless right of storage. A merchant from Kovir, heading southward, had to, whether he liked it or not, put all his goods on sale in one of Redania’s cities and sell it or return home. That same constraint faced a merchant from the distant South, when making for Kovir.

Redania demanded heavy duty on goods which Kovir shipped by sea, even if they were not calling at Redanian or Temerian ports. Koviran ships, naturally, didn’t want to pay–and only those who didn’t manage to escape paid. The game of cat and mouse begun on the sea quickly led to an incident. A Redanian patrol craft tried to arrest a Koviran merchant, two Koviran frigates appeared, the patrol craft went up in flames. There were casualties.