Melvin Roche

Melvin Roche is the governor of a forested coastal region on the road north in Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles"). A man of White City with the look of a rich businessman, he walks with a cane and keeps his own guards and a servant. When Kemp Corvus gave his house name, the governor said that he knew the Corvus caviar from trade, and offered coffee.^{1 2}

The timber works

Roche had made his base at a timber works some two hours from the coastal inn, reached along the shore and down a muddy log road. Many guards, new wooden watchtowers and fresh fortifications surrounded it. On the road there the companions passed a convoy of four wagons and armed guards holding five wounded wood elves in a metal cage.^{3 1 4}

He said that exact and urgent quotas for timber and coal came to him directly from the officials and planners of the Marble Palace, so that the work could not be left to time. The project they served was not named.⁵

The elves and the road

The governor's criers announced that the road was unsafe because of ambushes by elf "terrorists", and lone travellers and small merchants had waited at the inn for weeks. The road guards, however, had heard only of scattered incidents over the months and had seen no widespread ambush, and a band of dwarves who had walked the road for a month and searched the forest for four nights had found nothing. The guards kept this among themselves rather than speak against the governor.^{6 7 8}

Roche claimed that some local elf tribes opposed to the logging shot arrows to kidnap and kill, without saying how often. He had not closed the road, he said, but only advised against it, and his soldiers guarded the forest works rather than the road. He expected no full rising, saw the trouble as the resistance of primitive life to civilisation, and admitted that blood had flowed on both sides.^{9 10}

He told the companions that he had once settled a matter of iron mines in mountains held by independent barbarian tribes with gifts and, where needed, the stick. With the elves here he meant no bargaining: he would destroy those who bore arms and, if necessary, move the tribes by force. He asked Sara, as a bridge between two peoples, to tell any elves they met that his men were only harvesting what was the Emperor's by right. The companions sensed that he was hiding part of the truth.^{11 12}

His commander on the road, Calvin of Rochensted, had posted a call for paid guards against the "terrorists". Calvin told the companions that the caged elves had been taken while patrolling their own lands rather than in an attack, that his men had shot at those who fled, and that by the governor's order the prisoners would work at the timber works until the matter was settled. He added that the governor planned to put a price on the heads of the elves who fought.^{13 14 15}

When Kemp told Roche that the dead young elf whose body the companions had brought in was the son of a clan leader, and that revenge was feared, the governor saw at once that this would buy him time. He had decided that the volunteer guards were not enough and had sent for a hundred to a hundred and fifty heavy infantry, veterans of the orc wars on the East Road, and wished to avoid reprisals until they came. He agreed that one prisoner should carry the body home; Calvin carried out the order, and the freed elf promised the others that they would be rescued.^{16 17 18}

Roche also tried to take the dwarves into his service, but they stayed with the companions and went north with them. In the end Kemp chose to pass word of a coming raid to the imperial soldiers, while Sara chose to stay neutral.^{19 20}

Ships for humans

The innkeeper said that, by the governor's direction, the ships along the coast took humans first, and the dwarves too had been refused passage. Roche admitted that the rule was his own and came from the idea that citizens should come first: having no one to check papers, he let looking human stand in for citizenship, and argued that the long-lived races could wait. He owns fishing and cargo boats but no passenger ships, and independent captains follow his direction. One captain offered to bend the rule for Kemp's noble surname and take the dwarves as well, but the companions chose to go overland with them instead.^{21 22 23 24 4}