A quarter of a century passed–and Kovir had extracted as many minerals as Redania, Aedirn and Kaedwen taken together. Only Mahakam surpassed Kovir in the extraction and processing of iron ore, but transports full of metal serving the production of alloys went from Kovir to Mahakam. Kovir and Poviss accounted for a quarter of the world’s yield of silver, nickel, lead, tin and zinc, half of the extraction of copper ore and native copper, three quarters of the yield of manganese, chromium, titanium and tungsten ores, and the same amount of metals occurring only in their native form: platinum, ferroaurum, kryobelitium and dimeritium.

And more than eighty per cent of the world’s gold production.

Gold, with which Kovir and Poviss bought what didn’t grow or wasn’t bred in the North. And what Kovir and Poviss didn’t produce. Not because they were unable to or didn’t have the expertise, but because it didn’t pay. A craftsman from Kovir or Poviss–the son or grandson of an immigrant who went there with a bindle on his back–now earned fourfold that of his counterpart in Redania or Temeria.

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: