Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 10

Several maids arrived, delivering trays containing the last of the pre-prepared meals from the city. The chef in their entourage would reuse the magical items that stored them to prepare new courses for the next few days of their stay with supplies purchased from Crosston. The food situation in Fassett Town was so aggravated that prices had inflated to several times the market value of the next town along the highway. As it was due to supplies being purposely withheld by those in power rather than any true shortage, merchants were either intercepted and bought out by agents of each faction or turned away outright.

After the maids arranged their meal and left to attend to other duties, Clara picked up their discussion.

“I’m not hopeful that there’s any chance for House Fassett and most of their collaborators,” she said. “What I’m worried about now is where we draw the line between someone who skirts the law to survive and one that actively undermines order for purely selfish reasons.”

“Is there a difference?” Liane said, “Everyone that participates undermines order, and survival is an inherently selfish reason. Even the farmers and woodsmen far out on the edges of the developed lands dirty their hands here, becoming thugs, selling out their own and bringing harm to their fellows. They may claim that they do it to survive, but in doing so they deny the same to others. That is the way things are here, as far as I can see. There is none of the surplus and growth that you see from properly managed fiefs – only the ever-diminishing scraps that the people fight over as the Fassetts and their goons bleed out their demesne to no good end.”

“Even these children that we’ve picked up?” Florine asked, “They’re the same: just lucky enough to be picked up by us to assist in our investigation here. It’s rather unfa–”

The head of House Gagnier cut herself off and scowled at the ground.

Unfair.

Though the word was cut off, it still echoed in their minds. No one present believed that life was absolutely fair – it would be shamelessly hypocritical for a scion of a noble house to even suggest such a thing. They were born to authority, wealth and countless other advantages garnered through generations of planning and effort by others. In the end, all that they could hope for was that everything that went into their rule would lead to success, and that this success would benefit their subjects in some meaningful way. As much as one might have wanted to create some perfectly fair world, it was unrealistic at best and destructive at worst.

“These children, as you say,” Liane answered, “are lucky. Unless they’re caught doing something that they shouldn’t be, they’ll reap the benefits of that luck. Fortune can be fickle, and disaster may strike even the most fastidious and righteous of people. Perhaps something can be done over much longer spans of time with the population at large, but Fassett County has no such luxury now.”

“I considered redistributing the population,” Clara said, “but it’s both something we cannot immediately afford and we could end up poisoning every other fief with this behaviour instead of rehabilitating the people as we had intended. Liane is correct that we currently do not have the luxury to attempt this, and she is also correct that it is something that can be done with time on a broader level. Last week I spoke with Miss Yuri Alpha, and it seems she is doing just that by starting with a major orphanage in the city. It is beyond just a shelter for children: I would personally like to see branches of this institution spread over my entire demesne. She has a shared interest in doing so, and is willing to cooperate with me to establish another facility in the new harbour town.”

“So it’s not simply a place for orphans,” Florine’s interest was piqued. “What is it, exactly?”

“My interpretation of the concept may be flawed,” Clara replied, “but on a very general level it is the groundwork for a new system of social welfare and education. Beyond the orphanage it’s stated to be, it’s also a type of school, which is not limited to the orphans. Through this institution, children are provided a standard basic education, and those that show promise in various areas are encouraged to contribute to the Sorcerous Kingdom through their talents as working adults. The intent is not simply benevolent: it is also progressively beneficial for the long term as more and more of the population is educated and trained.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Florine said. “Should we all be opening our own orphanages as well?”

“For the time being, only the orphanage in the city is being subsidized by the Sorcerous Kingdom,” Clara answered. “The one being built in the harbour is through my own funds, and it’s more of a school with accommodations for the students rather than an orphanage. The hope is that once the institution starts turning out promising results, Miss Alpha can make a case for its expansion as a nation-wide system. I have no expectation of masses of orphans being a common thing in the future, so the orphanage in the city is sufficient. Schools, on the other hand, will perhaps be appearing across the nation within our generation.”

Ludmila had spoken of knowledge, understanding and how it would change their lives earlier that day, but it seemed that the Sorcerous Kingdom was already far ahead of her thoughts and well underway in establishing both a means to distribute and regulate it for the benefit of the nation. Once again, the excellence of the upper echelon of the administration had definitively proven itself far beyond her meagre grasp of things.

After they had settled their meals, the four noblewomen returned to the task at hand. The magical light continued to burn as brightly as it had throughout the day, the surface of the table had been cleaned up while they were having dinner and fresh glasses of Kutz had been placed on their coasters. Ludmila reached out and pulled a new set of documents to herself.

“Ah–” Liane pointed at the surface of the table near Ludmila, “could you push that thingy back over to the middle?”

Ludmila’s gaze traced a line to where she was pointing: there was a polished crystal disk framed in bronze that had been dragged along with the file she had pulled away. She lifted it up and placed it back in the centre of the table.

“What is it?” Ludmila asked.

“It’s a magic item that repels vermin,” Liane replied. “When activated, it creates a field slightly larger than this pavilion, so we want it right in the middle or things come crawling in and get stuck.”

“I see.”

Ludmila had assumed that it was a paperweight, seeing it on the corner of the file. She now understood why wasps and flies weren’t being drawn to the Kutz juice, insects weren’t swarming the magical light and nothing had crawled up her skirts for the entire day in the pavilion.

“House Wagner employs quite a lot of magical items,” she remarked.

“One of the advantages to having so many merchant companies,” Liane grinned. “We get to see what is being sold in the wide world. Re-Estize is a backwater of a backwater when it comes to magical items for daily life – even the Empire handily outstrips us in this regard, and they used to be a part of Re-Estize. I’m fairly certain a third of the various magical utility items in Re-Estize were introduced by House Wagner and our affiliates deeper within the Kingdom.”

“Aren’t magic items expensive?” Ludmila asked.

“Hmm…I suppose your basis of reference might be the equipment used by Adventurers,” Liane replied. “That sort of equipment is quite expensive, but much of the reason is due to Adventurers themselves creating demand for very specific items, on top of being terrible merchants with no connections. While I wouldn’t exactly say that they are mass-produced, the common items that you see for everyday use are created in sufficient quantities to be competitively priced and generally affordable. If anything, they are often cheaper in the long run than their conventional counterparts.”

Liane pointed to the magical light above them.

“This item is enchanted with a Continual Light spell, and will last forever unless broken. As a source of illumination, it’s better than any torch, lamp or candle: it’s far brighter, has no odor or smoke, and won’t spark accidental fires. Imagine the cost of providing fuel for a similar quality of illumination, and how long it would take until it surpasses the cost of a magical light. It’s easy to see that, after a relatively short span of time, the magic item is cheaper…though I suppose I don’t know the conditions of your Barony, or if this item would survive conditions on the border. I should really pay you a visit one of these days.”

Ludmila thought that she would curl up and die of embarrassment in some lonely corner if Liane saw the markedly backwards state of her demesne. At this point, she would have believed it if someone told her that Baroness Wagner traveled around the world on luxurious flying coaches, while Baroness Zahradnik mucked through the savage wilderness in the darkness with muddy boots and biting insects all around.

“The entire place is being turned upside down, so perhaps when things are not so hectic,” Ludmila said. “That is, if we all survive House Fassett’s folly.”

“Which still seems to depend on how we can pressure them into relenting,” Clara’s expression was flat as she flipped through the pages of the file. “This last report does not make things look any better.”

Ludmila looked down in front of her: Clara had taken the documents while she had been discussing magical items with Liane. Chagrined, she pushed thoughts of her own demesne out of her mind.

“How could we ever get them to agree?” Florine asked, “With just what we’ve collected, House Fassett is done for. For that matter, this is so severe that it will almost certainly cast doubt on the rest of us.”

“I believe it will have to come down to what Ludmila already prescribed,” Clara answered. “We no longer care for what they are willing to agree to: we must force them to come to terms. Just how we will accomplish this is the question now, and what this will gain in our efforts to avert the looming disaster with the Royal Court.”

Clara, Liane and Florine looked to Ludmila.

“My thoughts are still roughly the same,” Ludmila said, looking around the table. “We need to undermine their confidence by removing what they believe is supporting them. House Fassett is not of a militant lineage: they rely entirely on their retainers and hirelings as a way to back up their words with the threat of force. Now that we have information on the relative disposition of their strength, we can figure out just how we can hurt them the most.”

“So, say we accomplish this,” Liane said. “We deal with the various ringleaders working under the Fassetts and, if they’re still not convinced, we take Jacqueline and Campbell into our custody. What then? How will this solve the greater problem?”

“With the leadership gone,” Clara said. “We should be able to employ Count Völkchenheim’s proposal to establish a new foundation for the industries of this territory. The land is underutilized and we may even be able to alleviate some of the labour imbalances in the other territories by encouraging migration here. I’m uncertain what sort of oversight the Royal Court will prescribe to Fassett County but, with everything in place, we’ll be able to begin the long process of returning this land to normal.”

Ludmila’s thoughts on this part had not changed either. It seemed the most productive course, as things could only get better in the county. She hesitated for a moment, as the answer to the outcome in relation to the House of Lords was nebulous at best.

“With the time that we have left,” Ludmila told them, “displacing the leadership and creating a comprehensive report with our recommendations is the most we can do here. Following this, we must make our case to the Royal Court: they will learn the true scope of all of this sooner or later, and it is better for us to come to them than it is for them to come to their own conclusions. What matters when we do is whether we can impress upon His Majesty’s cabinet that what we have done reflects our conviction in upholding His Majesty’s will – that the wholesale restructuring of the law is unnecessary, and the nobility can still be trusted to carry out their duties.”

As expected, it was not a wholly welcome answer. Liane drained her glass and let out a loud sigh, while Clara and Florine had worried looks on their faces.

Ludmila knew that Clara understood, and hoped Florine and Liane did as well. Gone were the days when they watched their parents make critical decisions, and the only thing they needed to worry about was developing proper etiquette and reciting lists of facts and figures. Now leading their own houses, there was no guaranteed solution; no one to tell them if their path would lead them to success. There was only what they understood and how they would act with what was available for them to use, and the results of their actions would come at a point well past any opportunity to change what they had done.