From Londoner To Lord

However, the moment their two wagons had turned around the last bend on the forest road, Joric had seen a vast empty space in front of them ending at some towering walls in the distance. For a while, he had even thought that the guards had lied to him that they were from Tiranat and had somehow brought him to some other unknown place - not that there was even any other major settlement in this region of Southern Reslinor, but it was hard to believe that this was the poor village which supposedly didn't even have a wall around it.

But unless his eyes were lying to him, there was a strong palisade wall stretching into the distance on both sides - easily taller than the ones surrounding Kirnos - and there was even a tall watchtower right inside the walls. Even Kirnos didn't have them! He even saw an alert-looking older man squinting at the wagons from top of the tower, with some weird looking bow in his hands.

Before long, they had stopped near the strong wooden gates, and one of the guards had gone to talk with the gate guards through a small peephole in the walls. He was expecting that the wagons would have to give a bribe here as well, just like it was common when entering Kirnos, but surprisingly, no such thing happened. Immediately, a pair of guards in warm fur coats - who looked ready and alert to defend their home village from any danger - had opened the gates and their two wagons had entered inside.

At that point Joric had to ask a guard to confirm that this really was Tiranat, and he did say it was, but it was still hard to really believe it. This place didn't look at all like a poor, undefended settlement with the usual lazy, corrupt guards like he expected. Was this really Tiranat?

Once they passed the gates, there was some more empty space before the first huts of the village, which looked as dilapidated as he expected from a poor village like Tiranat. As they moved between those huts, he had craned his neck all around but had barely seen anyone there. Was the village abandoned now? He had asked the guards about it, but they had laughed at him and said that the villagers were now living in some really long house, which was so big that more than a hundred people could live there easily. That felt a little hard to believe, but he had accepted that the guards might want to boast about their own village.

Eventually, the group of slaves which had been following behind them had been told to wait outside what turned out to be another walled compound, but he had been taken inside along with the other guards. By this point he had been fearing that his end was near and the baron would immediately order him to be executed. However, the silver haired man who came out from the manor house ahead of them was... quite young - younger than even the young master Lanidas who was a greedy and lecherous wastrel at best. Then how could this young man named Kivamus possibly rule over a whole village? Huh... maybe he was also like Lanidas, and that's why the local people had run away from the village.

However, the young baron had barely looked towards him while he talked with Feroy and a local guard who was nearly as big as Nokozal, along with another bald older man. That was weird though. Why would a baron come out just to meet a few guards returning from a journey? Baron Farodas would never do it in Kirnos just to meet some lowly guards. Before the young baron had sent them to eat, he had talked with the injured guards and told them that they would be taken care of, while also reassuring the guard who had lost his arm that his family would never go hungry in return for the service he had already provided to Tiranat. That... was unexpected. If such a thing had happened in Kirnos, their guard captain would have just gotten rid of the amputee guard and hired another one, instead of telling him that even his family would be taken care of!

As they had talked Joric's heart had kept beating faster and faster, fearing once again that his end was coming near, but before long, Feroy had gone out to tell the escaped slaves where they would live, before entering the manor house to talk with the baron for a long time. In the meantime he had been told that a guard named Tesyb would be keeping an eye on him. He had been wondering where to go, when Tesyb had brought him to a wooden building called the servants' hall, where he had been given warm, freshly baked bread along with some warm porridge and some newly roasted meat. Joric's eyes had teared up seeing such a luxurious meal, after eating weeks old stale bread with some water in Torhan's clay mine.

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However, Tesyb had told him to enjoy it, since he would also be living with the escaped slaves from tonight after another interrogation, and would have to earn his meals from tomorrow, probably by working as a coal miner or a woodcutter. Joric would have balked hearing about that a few months ago, but after working in a clay mine for the last few months, his body was already used to hard work. Anyway, he knew that he was a slave, and would remain so for the next three decades, so he had to work hard until then anyway. Now that this young baron was his owner from today, he had to follow their orders, even if it meant working in the coal mines.

As he had begun eating the delicious food, he had looked around to familiarise himself with his new surroundings. A few maids had been bringing more fresh bread for anyone who needed it. No, for anyone who wanted it. Some other off-duty guards who had been sitting nearby were asking about the journey and wondering how the guards had defeated the bandit group. He had even found out that the tall redhead wasn't the only female guard in this village. For some reason, this baron had hired nearly a dozen women as guards, and many of them had been sitting near the male guards while eating, like they all were long time friends, without the guards resorting to any lechery. It was weird to see that after seeing the bandits at the clay mine doing exactly that with the female slaves. If anything, the whole servants' hall's atmosphere felt like it was the home of a happy, extended family which was meeting after a long time and enjoying their time together. Everything in this village felt... unusual, to say the least.

Joric had been told to rest after that, before he had seen the guards getting out of the servants hall one by one to go to some event. Being curious about it, he had asked for permission to come, and one of the guards had told him to follow along. So he had followed the guards to an empty area just outside the gates of the baron's manor, where a small crowd of villagers was already gathered. That was where he was standing right now.

While the crowd wasn't that big, there were still enough people here that it looked like the village wasn't really abandoned, after all. In fact, he overheard some of the villagers telling about their day to their friends and families. Most of them seemed to have returned from the coal mines, as expected, while some of them had been cutting trees to clear the forests for some reason.

Another few had supposedly been working on a new watchtower, while some seemed to be building something called a dam, which was a new word for Joric. Some of them had been working to make some kind of sawdust cubes, while there was even a woman who was working to make... paper? But why? Apart from them, there were even some who had been working as apprentices of carpenters, of a blacksmith, and of even a fletcher. Hearing about so many opportunities for work was quite surprising to him. Wasn't this supposed to be just a coal mining village? Nothing about this village made any sense to him.

For now, he was standing next to the guards, who had made a loose ring around a pair of benches which had been joined together to make a raised platform just outside the gates. The crowd of villagers was standing outside that ring, and seemed to be waiting with anticipation for something. Just what was going to happen here?

He waited there for a while, realising that it was already evening now, although the sun hadn't set yet, which meant there was just enough light to look around clearly. Before long, he saw the silver haired Baron of Tiranat walking towards the gates, followed by that giant guard as well as the older man. Soon, Joric was surprised to see that the baron climbed on the benches and began giving a speech to praise the hard work and sacrifice of the guards who had gone on the trip to Kirnos. How was this possible? How was a noble even praising commoners? Such a thing would never ever happen in Kirnos! Hah! It was hard to even imagine the young master praising his guards!

The speech which detailed how the guards had managed to defeat and kill a strong group of bandits didn't last too long, and all the guards and surprisingly even the gathered villagers clapped and cheered loudly for the baron after that. That was also strange to see. How were the villagers so supportive of a noble? From what he knew, all nobles were money-grubbing bastards who only thought for themselves, and didn't give a damn about commoners. Then how could the villagers be cheering such a tyrant...? Nothing made sense here!