Chapter 6
“They’re getting braver.”
“They are.”
Da Verilyn’s stalkers latched onto them the mont they left the rchant inn, and Nel’s sense of alarm swept aside the muddled feelings from their discussion over breakfast.
Nel only noticed a handful tailing them from a distance, which ant that there were probably twice that many observing them who were too inconspicuous for her to detect. No one approached as she and Da Verilyn strolled around the city, but those that she saw seed to have sorted themselves out and were now more focused on their main task than one another.
The overcast skies started to break up as midday approached, allowing the sun to intermittently peek through the clouds. Though Nel’s equipnt bestowed protection against the conditions that aerial mages were usually exposed to, she appreciated the warmth nonetheless.
As they continued on their way, a chill that had nothing to do with the weather seeped through her when she saw where they were headed.
“We’re going there for lunch again?”
“I was asked to,” Da Verilyn replied. “Beyond that, the food quality holds to a high standard. Most importantly, the owners of these bakeries will be reimbursing for any purchases I make on this trip so it’s basically free food. There are also no lines to get stuck behind.”
Nel cast a dubious look up at the Undead mascot on the bakery’s sign. It undeniably had an impact, but who went around calling their shop ‘DEATH BREAD’?
The man at the counter imdiately brightened upon their approach.
“Welco,” he smiled. “How may I serve you?”
“Hmm…the bakery at Engelfurt had so wonderful at pies – do you make them here, as well?”
“Indeed we do, madam,” the shopkeeper nodded. “What would be your pleasure?”
“Is there anything made from the local ga?” Da Verilyn asked, “If so, I’ll have six of those. Also…you fancied the wildberry obsttorte the last ti, didn’t you, Officer Gran?”
“Erm, yes, that’s right.”
“Then one of those, too,” Da Verilyn told the shopkeeper. “Pack five of those at pies away, please.”
They waited in silence while the shopkeeper put together the order. Nel examined the food on display. It was, for the most part, what one could find at any respectable bakery in the Empire. The only difference was what was in it – or rather, where what was in it was from.
Her gaze travelled away from the displays, going to the wall above the counter. A recently-carved plaque with the symbol of the Baker’s Guild was mounted on the wall.
“Don’t the guilds test their masters’ products before recognizing them?”
“They do,” the shopkeeper’s lip twitched. “The master Baker provided them with a sampling of our fare. It took them two weeks to render their judgent.”
Nel wrinkled her nose.
“…they ate two-week-old at pies?”
“They did. Fortunately, the owners had the foresight to issue us Preservation containers. Those inspectors had to eat everything eventually. Still, even with guild mbership, business is as you see.”
mbership with a craft guild was a guarantee that the establishnt t the standards of that guild. Under normal circumstances, people gave goods of a shop that bore a guild emblem the benefit of the doubt.
The shopkeeper placed their order on the counter. Da Verilyn handed Nel her share. Together, they started eating in front of the store.
“I really appreciate it,” the shopkeeper said. “It’s perfectly good food, but the people here are still scared to death of it.”
“Maybe it’s the sign,” Nel muttered.
“It’ll be a great laugh once people get over themselves.”
“So no one else buys food here?” Nel asked.
“People who can afford to eat elsewhere eat elsewhere,” the shopkeeper answered. “Those less fortunate co around late at night or before dawn so they aren’t seen. Well, there was one lady who ca by yesterday evening – an Adamantite Adventurer from out of town. She wasn’t scared of our stuff at all. Ordered a lot, too.”
Nel looked out towards the street, glancing at Da Verilyn out of the corner of her eye.
Just how many at pies have you eaten since we arrived?
For her part, Da Verilyn displayed no visible reaction to the man’s account. Nel turned her attention back to the shopkeeper.
“Will the shop be able to hold through until things start to change?”
“We’ve got no worries about that,” the shopkeeper said. “The owners said they’ll back us for as long as it takes. Well, we don’t have much in the way of losses with how cheap the food and fuel delivered to us is. Once traffic from the Dwarf Kingdom picks up again, things’ll be fine since they’re perfectly happy to eat produce from the Sorcerous Kingdom. It’s too bad you ca in during their holiday – the mushrooms they export make for so excellent pies.”
Passers-by eyed them as they ate. A beautiful Elf and a noblewoman in an Imperial Air Service uniform, eating food that no one else dared to openly. An ‘Adamantite Adventurer’, too. Nel wondered what sort of effect they would have on the shop’s business.
Da Verilyn licked her fingers clean and wiped them on a Trooper’s Towel. Nel nibbled on her obsttorte as they strolled back in the direction from where they ca.
“So will these fellows finally approach us this afternoon?” Da Verilyn asked.
“I’m not sure,” Nel answered. “When it cos to stuff like this, people prefer negotiating in less public settings. Master Chiru always sets up his stand in the southern plaza; they’re not going to make any aggressive overtures in the plain view and hearing of hundreds of people.”
“Does being seen and heard by strangers matter when it cos to what they want?”
“It can,” Nel replied. “There are dozens of big factions in the Empire and probably thousands of little ones, so there’s always the chance that soone nearby is in the pocket of another faction. They’re all rivals for influence in different arenas and there’s an intricate web of relationships wherever you go. The Emperor removed all major obstacles to his authority and people have kept their heads down since then, so most of what happens is pretty small and local.”
Nel put the remaining half of her obsttorte away to save for later. Over lunch, the skies had cleared completely, offering an unobscured view of the Azerlisia Mountains. The frozen peaks glead in the midday sun over foothills laced with fresh snow.
“Small and local…” Da Verilyn’s tone was curious, “do you have any examples of these factions’ activities?”
“Honestly, it’s pretty normal and it’s usually not bad. People push for influence: craft guilds use it to secure rights and better rates for their mbers, Nobles and other wealthy interests might use it to promote business, help make expansion easier, or secure contracts for resources and labour. The problem is when it starts getting bigger or more aggressive.”
“And this is still ‘small and local’?”
“Yes,” Nel nodded. “In short, influence can be used to alter the economic and political battlefield and remove the competition. Businesses can be forced under because rivals holding a superior negotiating position will out-compete them. A Noble house or faction can slowly take over the economy of a city if its mbers are skilled enough and its rivals aren’t. Once they do that, they essentially hold the lynchpin to an entire County or March and then they’ll shift their attention towards the rural fiefs in the territory.”
For the first ti in Nel’s recollection, Da Verilyn cast a lingering gaze westwards towards the towering peaks.
“My father was doing sothing similar…I think? He consolidated power by gathering his family, biding his ti until we were strong enough to wipe out our rivals. Or maybe that’s not quite the sa. I suppose we were considered war potential rather than this political and economic power you Humans invest so much into.”
“In the old days,” Nel said, “powerful Nobles could do that. That’s actually how we split from Re-Estize. The Imperial Army was established early in the Empire’s history, so, after that point, it beca ‘political’ and ‘economic’, as you say. I guess what I’m describing is how Human factions rise to power when open warfare isn’t an option: they gain influence over urban centres and their surrounding territories. At the point when competition becos too stiff for legitimate ans to gain any ground, things can get really dirty. Rivals can be implicated in cris or otherwise set up to fall out of imperial favour and the Court Council will purge them. This just repeats itself until the entire area is in line with the faction that presides over it.”
“The Emperor doesn’t do anything against this influence over his new appointnts?”
“Hmm…how do I put it…it’s not sothing you can ‘target’, it’s more like a set of economic and political realities that slowly shift over ti. The newly-promoted bureaucrats are especially vulnerable: they don’t have the skills or awareness to realise that their new titles are in a place that already works in the presiding faction’s favour. The conditions they find their new fiefs in aren’t ruinous, so they more often than not just do their best within the boundaries that have been set for them under the assumption that things are ‘normal’. That’s the problem when you have a pure bureaucrat in office: they tend to only see numbers and the technical side of things. Unless they start learning how real Nobles do things, they remain oblivious.”
Nel’s parents considered such ‘newbloods’ excellent examples as to why their family’s traditions and aristocratic education held an advantage over the cold bureaucracy that the Empire tended to promote. The rules that dictated imperial politics gave true Nobles an undeniable edge against all of the ‘talented individuals’ promoted in the wake of the Bloody Emperor’s actions.
Her family’s overall strategy was to use their training and skill as Nobles to defend themselves from the machinations of other Nobles while remaining absolutely loyal to the Imperial House. Its success was in no small part due to the fact that House Gran’s main incos ca from their involvent in the Magic Item industry, which hinged directly on the main branch of the family and vassals whose families had been with them for as long as anyone could rember. Loyalty was their best defence, but many dismissed it as a weakness.
Exerting pressure against House Gran was extrely difficult without being overly disruptive and thus drawing the eye of the Court Council. No one dared to risk that – especially with the current Emperor. The reason why Nel had beco caught up in things was that she had stupidly stuck her head out by insisting on a career in the Imperial Army in her whimsical effort to stay connected with her friends and enjoy a bit of personal freedom.
As it was often said, everything beca clear in hindsight. Nel no longer had any desire to work in the Imperial Army. Once enlisted, however, the only way for won to be prematurely discharged from military service under honourable conditions was to get married and retire to family life. n were stuck until they served their terms, which were calculated according to the resources that the Empire had invested in their training and future retirent.
Alternatively, they could be deed unfit for service. The Battle of Katze Plains had resulted in roughly 4,000 soldiers retiring due to ntal health issues.
Fortunately for Nel, an unprecedented alternative had appeared in the form of Da Verilyn’s desire for vassals to help manage her land.
“The way you make it sound,” Da Verilyn said. “So people will eventually beco so powerful that they can challenge the Emperor.”
“It’s not that easy,” Nel replied. “The Emperor is backed by the Imperial Dynasty – the three Ducal houses, their cadet branches, and the Imperial Harem – the Imperial Army, the Imperial Ministry of Magic and the Imperial Magic Academy. That’s pretty much half of the Empire’s wealth, all of its military might, and the institution that directs the future of the Empire’s leadership. Also, one can only rise so far before they risk the wrong sort of attention: if the Emperor doesn’t like the way that soone is sticking out, they’ll be set up to fall and the cycle starts all over again.”
This was what Nel’s father considered the most insidious aspect of it all, a systematic ‘sterilisation’ of the Empire’s civilian aristocracy. Every Noble attainted was generations of tradition specific to that lineage destroyed, replaced by sothing cold and empty. As a result, the Empire as a whole was diminished. He even went so far as to privately say that the Imperial Dynasty was slowly killing off a part of the ‘soul’ of the Empire. The traditions of the martial nobility were carried into the Imperial Army, but civilian aristocrats had no such recourse to preserve their collective heritage.
Since the Imperial Dynasty was rarely the target of such asures, it felt as if they were slowly rendering the rest of the nobility impotent against the political and economic machinations of the Imperial House. When Fundantal Principles of Magocratic Governance was published, he was sowhat mollified as it was written by a duke’s daughter and directly proposed to address the issue.
“Hmm…I could make sense of about a quarter of everything that you just said,” Da Verilyn told her.
“Eh?” Nel blinked, “But doesn’t the Sorcerous Kingdom have Nobles? You should have at least seen sothing like this going on.”
“It isn’t as if these types of Nobles go out of their way to explain every little thing they do,” Da Verilyn shrugged. “Also, I have a sense that the sort of thing that you’re describing would be terminally idiotic in the Sorcerous Kingdom. Nobles like Lady Zahradnik have a mysterious way of seeing straight through people who run afoul of His Majesty’s will. Once they are identified, an investigation incorporating mind control would settle the matter.”
“I see…”
Da Verilyn had ntioned sothing about mind control in Engelfurt. It would certainly put an abrupt end to anything of the sort.
“Since my charming people would be breaking one of your laws or customs or whatever here,” Da Verilyn told her, “you’ll just have to point these things out to as we go. Your house excels at defending itself against these activities, yes?”
“I’ll do my best…um, what am I to you, anyway? The vassals of Knights don’t usually have fiefs, so I’m a bit confused over that.”
“That is a very good question. I don’t recall anything existing in the aristocratic hierarchy that matches. How about the default ‘Minion’ – it’s a reliable classic.”
“Er…I don’t think I would be able to live with everyone calling ‘Minion Gran’. Maybe a titled appointnt? What else did you have in mind aside from managing farming villages?”
Da Verilyn furrowed her brow for a good long while.
“I admit that my efforts at the whole desne managent thing have been dismal. How about you take over all of that? Once you prove your capabilities, of course.”
“A-are you sure about that?”
“Don’t get too excited, it’s a mountain.”
“What about the villages that you ntioned?”
“I said that there was land enough for ten villages along the riverfront.”
“Oh.”
Nel started to ntally tabulate everything she would need to get started. Having land was all well and good, but it sounded like there was no infrastructure or anything beyond the land itself. Nel had no money or people…Da Verilyn ntioned sothing about Goblins…how many potatoes would they produce? Could they even grasp the concept of tenancy? Did Goblins even farm?
“If it’s too much for you to handle…”
“No, it’s fine!” Nel hurriedly answered, “I can do it. At least I think I can. I suppose I’m sothing like a bailiff…or a seneschal?”
“Whatever you like,” Da Verilyn told her. “As long as I get my taxes.”
They stopped in front of their rchant inn, where Da Verilyn held out the packed-up stack of at pies. Nel looked down at them in confusion for a mont before taking them in hand. As Da Verilyn’s follower, wasn’t she supposed to be carrying them in the first place? She needed to review what she had learned of being an attendant from her parents and her sister.
“What’s going on now?” Nel asked.
“I’m going to change,” Da Verilyn said. “Deliver these to Zu Chiru’s stand. I will see you there.”
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