studiobondurri The Paladin of the Holy Kingdom, Part III: Act 3, Chapter 10
The Paladin of the Holy Kingdom, Part III: Act 3, Chapter 10
The Paladin of the Holy Kingdom, Part III: Act 3, Chapter 10
Chapter 10
9th Day, Middle Fire Month, 1 CE
“Liam!”
Nat burst through the open door of Liam’s cell with a tearful cry. He parried her mouth attack, but couldn’t evade the hug.
“Thank the gods you’re safe!” She buried her face in his chest, “Did the Paladins do anything mean to you?”
Those Paladins serve the same gods you’re thanking, you know...
“Why would the Paladins do anything mean to me?” He asked.
“Because they accused you of doing horrible things!”
“It was those two Noble houses that accused me.”
“But the Paladins did their bidding like evil goons!”
Liam sent a glance to the open door, but the Paladin that had unlocked it wasn’t there anymore. Much like people anywhere else in the northern Human countries, the common folk of the Holy Kingdom switched allegiances as if it was second nature to them. What mattered wasn’t the idea that they were part of a kingdom or the actions of some far-off group of people, but things like religion, culture, family, and who one answered to.
Despite being raised as a citizen of Hoburns and living there until a few weeks ago, Nat no longer identified as one. She was, first and foremost, Liam’s ‘wife’ and his enemies were her enemies as well. She hated anyone that was ‘mean’ to him. Liam served House Restelo, so any retainer of House Restelo was a friend and House Restelo’s cause was Liam’s cause which also made it Nat’s cause...at least according to her understanding of things.
“I’m fine,” Liam patted her straight brown hair. “Once my trial is done, I’ll come back home.”
“But your trial’s already done,” Nat told him.
“Huh?”
“That’s why I’m here. Sir Jimena brought me with him to pick you up.”
More than slightly confused, he put on his vest and walked out of his cell, leaving the jail through the Holy Order office. There, he found Sir Jimena waiting for him.
“Liam,” the Knight offered him a tight smile. “Good to see you didn’t get fat on prison food.”
“I had uh...one meal?” Liam frowned, “What’s this about my trial being over, sir?”
“It’s exactly as it sounds,” Sir Jimena told him. “You’re free to go. Your shift starts in two hours, by the way.”
“But I didn’t attend any trial...”
Sir Jimena gave him an odd look.
“This is the Royal Court of Hoburns,” he told him. “Not some baronial manor in a fishing village. No one enters the Royal Court without good cause. Lord Restelo successfully argued your case to the Holy King and that’s that.”
“I see. Um, let him know I said thanks.”
Apparently, attending one’s own trial wasn’t a good enough reason for a commoner to stand in the Royal Court.
“A competent liege is always willing to defend valuable assets,” Sir Jimena said. “Unfortunately they’re also obliged to stand up for useless vassals. Fortunately, you’re one of the former.”
The Knight signed him out of the Holy Order office. He frowned slightly as Liam left his ‘x’ beside his signature. The Paladin at the counter checked over their paperwork before letting them go. Of course, neither Remedios nor Grandmaster Montagnés was present to see them off.
“You should learn how to read and write,” Sir Jimena told them as they walked through the palace grounds. “It’ll be essential if you want to rise any higher in House Restelo.”
“I can teach you,” Nat offered helpfully.
“Maybe after things aren’t so crazy,” Liam said.
Supposedly, most people could only learn one language. Rogues had Thieves’ Cant on top of that and Liam was already schooled in the language of Re-Estize. Knowing that much was sufficient for most who lived in E-Rantel, as it meant that they could also understand modern Imperial.
Upon crossing the gate into the Prime Estates, they were met with a sea of hostility. Dozens of liveried men, patrols and plainclothes alike, sent dark looks in their direction. Some got in their way while others fingered their weapons menacingly as they passed. Liam glanced at Nat, worried that she might be terrified at the reception, but she looked like she was about to jump out and bite them instead.
“Don’t back down,” Sir Jimena said as he brushed past a cocky-looking thug. “If they try anything, it only works in our favour.”
“Doesn’t Lord Restelo stay here?” Liam asked, “It can’t be very nice if the other houses are like this.”
“He does, but the Holy Order’s patrols keep the residents from being harassed. These guys are here specifically for you.”
Sir Jimena pushed through a group standing directly in their path. Liam slipped in behind him, holding Nat close.
“Murderer!”
“Damned Restelo Rogue!”
“Get out of our city, Demon Assassin!”
Their insults weren’t very imaginative, but he was pelted with them all the way to the Fire Gate. There, they were welcomed by a set of Restelo men.
“Sounds like fun in there, sir,” the lead armsman said.
“Our Liam’s famous, now,” Sir Jimena grinned. “A half day in prison to lay House Vizela low. I sure wouldn’t mind taking the entire capital like this.”
Liam sighed in annoyance, but the men took his reaction in good humour. Being famous was the opposite of what he wanted.
Well, it’s not as if I settled on any specific strategy.
Getting involved just enough to move things in the right direction seemed to be doing the trick. If people were watching out for him now, he could exploit that just as easily.
The shock surrounding the morning’s events seemed to be fading and Hoburns had returned to a semblance of its previous activity. Liam eyed a group of men pushing a wagon half-loaded with unmarked crates.
“Did you have any trouble transporting the rest of the stuff, Nat?”
“Nope! It was weird watching my mother buy it, though. All of my old neighbours, too. Oh, I finished your gauntlets.”
“Nice. Did you bring them to Raquel?”
“Yeah. She said she’s going to Canta in the morning since she doesn’t have to sell the food now. The Merchant that took over for her is really pushy, though.”
“How so?”
“He wants me to space out the shipments over the next two weeks. But that means the labourers we hired only get one hour of work a day. They were supposed to work all day today.”
They turned their heads at Sir Jimena’s dismissive snort.
“Damn Merchants are always like that,” the Knight said. “It’s even worse out in the country. They make our tenants bring the harvest to them because they don’t want to deal with the logistics. Then, when they go around peddling their wares to the villages, they act as if they’re doing everyone a massive favour. If you don’t deal in coin, they won’t even look at you.
“Everything’s about money to them. They’ll pay half a meal’s worth of work to a man that’s been waiting for half the day to find work to feed his whole family and act as if that’s not their problem. Those Merchants just use people up and discard them without a second thought. It’s immoral, I tell you.”
Having grown up in a town himself, Liam was used to working like that. No one ever considered it immoral.
“Maybe there’s a better way to do things,” Liam said.
“There is,” Sir Jimena said. “Be a proper landlord with proper tenants. We don’t have problems like the cities do.”
That’s because you dump your spares in the towns and cities...
Rural tenancies didn’t worry about paying people hourly or daily wages because they essentially hired labour by the season. If a farm had too many mouths to feed, those mouths were kicked out. If they needed extra hands for the harvest, the local town was a convenient source.
Ultimately, the problem was that there wasn’t enough work. The rural elite just considered it a problem of urban peasants and the Merchants could hire whoever they wanted, whenever they wanted, because they tended to have what everyone needed. In the Sorcerous Kingdom, the problem was even more pronounced since a single Soul Eater could do the work of twenty freight wagons and their teams, but the lowered cost of living combined with the ‘transitional regulations’ laid out by the administration prevented most of the employment issues that came with the new systems of transport.
Upon crossing into House Vizela’s jurisdiction, Liam paid careful attention to the behaviour of both the citizens and the patrols. As expected, the locals were treating the patrols as something between pests and dangerous animals. House Vizela’s men looked none too pleased about it, but they didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to addressing their treatment.
“So what’s happening with House Vizela?” Liam asked.
“They’re having that battle in the court right now,” Sir Jimena said. “Winning your case gave us a lot of momentum, so Lord Restelo expects a favourable result.”
“Can we expect a favourable result if the royalists are the Holy King’s power base?”
Sir Jimen gave Liam an appraising look.
Nat usually updated him on camp gossip – courtesy of all the bored wives in the camp all around them – after he got up in the evening, but it was a process that usually took over an hour while he prepared for the day. It never ceased to amaze him how warped information could get in the span of a few short hours, but it did give him useful hints on how to exploit the expectations and fears of the other houses.
“Everyone’s saying that you’re the Assassin that killed Iago Lousa,” Nat said. “Not our people – the others. They say it took a Paladin to beat you and send you to jail.”
“People think that even after the trial today?”
“I think so? All those mean people in the Prime Estates were trying really hard to make everyone believe that what they were saying is true.”
That the royalists broadly refused to recognise the verdict of the Royal Court was a telling sign of the Holy King’s ever-waning power. The Crown had no money and, even if the ranks of the Royal Army were restored to their old numbers, the fact that it was being staffed by officers from the south cast doubt upon whether it could be used to enforce the Holy King’s will.
“Has anyone given you trouble over it?” Liam asked, “I don’t want you to get hurt because of what people are saying about me.”
“Only when we went through the Prime Estates,” Nat said. “I couldn’t believe they were allowed to do that! What Sir Jimena told us was probably right.”
“Nat!”
Mrs Abarca’s voice drew them from their conversation. Nat’s mother was standing in front of her family’s leatherworking workshop, clutching her broom in her hands. Liam stopped a few metres away as Nat went up to speak to her.
“What’s wrong, mother?”
“I...I heard a disturbing rumour, dear.”
At this point, Liam could think of any number of disturbing rumours floating around him, House Restelo, and the Holy Kingdom in general. It was surprisingly surprising how many the country had developed in the short time since he had arrived.
“If it’s about Liam...”
“It’s about the army,” Josefa said. “People are saying that the Royal Court is conscripting for the wall again.”
“That’s right,” Nat replied. “House Restelo is responsible for making sure the quotas are met for the households around here, but we won’t be doing it right away. People should have time to settle their affairs before then.”
“What’s the quota?” Josefa asked in a small voice.
“One in twenty hearths,” Nat answered. “They’re skipping over families that lost members during the invasion.”
Nat’s mother fell silent, her face turning ashen grey. Liam didn’t know if the Abarca family qualified, but he had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what she would say next.
“If...if your brother’s lot is drawn,” Josefa asked. “Could you go in his place?”
“...”
What?!
Josefa’s panic grew at Nat’s silence.
“He’s your only brother, Nat! Someone has to carry on the family name and inherit the shop...”
Liam stormed forward with barely-restrained fury. Before he could speak, however, Nat gripped his arm.
“I’ll see if I can figure something out,” she said.
“Nat!” Liam looked incredulously at the girl.
“Let’s go, Liam.”
They walked across the street to drop off his new boots at Raquel’s place before Nat led them back toward Rimun gate. She hugged his arm tightly, closing her eyes and rubbing her cheek against his shoulder.
“Thanks for getting mad for me,” she said.
“She was wrong to ask you that,” Liam muttered. “You’re not even a reservist.”
“No, she was right,” Nat replied. “I only have one brother.”
“What about their one daughter?”
Nat looked up at him, an amused smile tracing her lips.
“A son is a son,” she said, “and a daughter is a daughter. No one’s had to choose before, but now that they have a choice, sending their daughter is the correct decision. As mother said, they need him to carry on the family name and inherit the shop. If he dies...”
He was accustomed to places that prioritised men over women, but he never imagined a place where soldiers were always assumed to be men yet the people preferred to send their daughters. What Nat and her mother discussed made a sort of twisted sense, but it sickened him nonetheless. From what he knew of him, Nat’s brother didn’t seem like a very admirable guy, either.
“I don’t care,” he said. “I’m not letting you go. You’re not even a part of their household anymore!”
“He’s still my brother. I have to do what I can.”
They arrived at Kalinsha gate, where Nat went up to see Sir Jimena. The Knight gave her a curious look, then his gaze went to Liam, who looked at Nat.
“What’s this all about?” Sir Jimena asked.
Liam gently nudged Nat forward. Nat licked her lips nervously before speaking.
“Sir Jimena,” she said, “you mentioned that the south exempted themselves from conscription by funding the rearmament and mobilisation of conscripts in the north, right?”
“In addition to sending skilled veterans to serve as officers, yes.”
“Can I do that too?” Nat asked.
The Knight’s expression shifted, looking more puzzled than anything.
“As Liam’s wife,” he told her, “you’re part of a southern household. You’re not being considered for conscription even if you were born to a northern family.”
“It’s not for me,” Nat replied. “It’s for my brother. My family qualifies for conscription, and he’s the only son of the workshop.”
Sir Jimena’s gaze went to Liam again.
“Is this your idea?”
“No, sir,” Liam replied. “We just came from speaking to Nat’s mother and Nat didn’t say what she had in mind.”
“I see,” Sir Jimena said. “I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to.”
“...really? Liam frowned.
“Why are you surprised?” The Knight said, “The Crown has millions of reservists available. What they’re lacking is finances. If you’re willing to sponsor one soldier, that’s one less soldier’s worth of debt that the Crown has to shoulder.”
Liam couldn’t figure out whether that was fair or not. Many people would consider it a pragmatic give-and-take, but others might see it as a formalised bribe.
“How come we didn’t do that for mandatory service?” Liam asked, “There are some professions out there that are worth far more driving the industries of the country than they are serving on the front lines.”
“Not everything is about money,” Sir Jimena told him. “Mandatory service was important in fostering a sense of unity and identity with one’s fellow citizens.”
“But ‘sponsoring’ is fine now that it’s not the same form of military service?”
“That’s right.”
“In that case,” Liam said. “There’s another woman I’d like to bring up for consideration.”
Nat seemed to stiffen and looked over her shoulder at him. Sir Jimena’s lip twitched at her reaction.
“Thinking of getting a new wife already?”
“No! It’s the mage that I hired to enchant equipment for me. She’s the only member of her household and didn’t lose anyone to the war, so she qualifies for conscription. If her lot gets drawn, she’d go straight to the army. She’s more valuable to the Holy Kingdom as an enchanter than a soldier – especially if all those new army officers want magical equipment.”
“I suppose that makes sense. Does this enchanter have a name?”
“Raquel. I’ll come by with her in the morning.”
It occurred to Liam that the order to keep people from leaving the city would have caused all sorts of grief for the mage, who was supposed to leave for Canta in the morning. Thankfully, Nat’s idea both brought his attention to the problem and provided a permanent solution for it.
Their business with Sir Jimena completed, Liam walked Nat back to the entrance of the labour camp before heading back to begin yet another shift of the night watch. Out of what was probably an unwise sense of curiosity, he revealed himself to a House Ovar patrol as it was making its way along the boundary street with House Restelo.
Several seconds passed before one of the armsmen noticed him standing on the rooftop in the twilight. He shouted out a warning to his fellows, drawing his sidearm and pointing it at Liam. The entire patrol stood frozen, unwilling to take their eyes off of him.
Liam smiled to himself. That smile caused the entire patrol to back away several steps. Without personally taking a single life, he had become the most notorious Assassin in the Holy Kingdom of Roble.