Chapter 453: The Last Piece

For a while, the desk-carrying group continued to walk in relative silence, until the young commoner stopped in front of a large, brightly lit courtyard.

Not long after, the group was inside the private residence. While the guards were setting up the new furniture based on the commoners' wishes, Inti and Brym stood aside to continue their conversation.

"They really are living simple lives, and in such a large courtyard to boot," Inti commented. She looked around, and indeed, the new table fit in neatly with the surrounding furniture, all of which wouldn't have looked out of place in an ordinary farmer's home.

"This is the powder keg we've buried in the north. Sooner or later, someone will hold a match to it, and then the whole kingdom will go up in flames," Brym said with a sort of grim pride. However, Inti wasn't quite so optimistic about the southern kingdom's plans in the north.

"That day could come sooner than you may hope," she said. "Sooner than you may be ready for."

"In that case, could you finally tell me what you know, Lady Inti?" Brym said, and when Inti hesitated, he added: "We are in an independent courtyard, in a large, mostly empty room. You don't think anyone is still spying on us, do you?"

"What about them?" Inti asked, and motioned towards the owners of the residence.

"You really don't need to worry about them. They're on our side." By now, even the always patient Brym looked a bit unhappy. Maybe a day full of uncertainty had eaten away at his patience. Still, Inti was unconvinced.

"Are they trustworthy just because they've bought from your shop?" she asked.

"No, they are trustworthy because they have much more to hide than us. However much damage they could do to us by learning your information, it would be nothing compared to this family's secrets. Here, didn't you want to know what else was special about this table?"

With a mysterious smile, Brym walked up to the table, twisted an overhanging wooden frame at the bottom of the desk's top plate, and then pushed it in. While he held it pushed, he lifted up the plate itself. In response, the entire wooden slab simply flipped open. The hidden mechanism revealed a small holder for a candle and a bowl for sacrificial offerings, which were flanked by another two holders for incense sticks.

"It's a beacon shrine," Inti realized.

These beacons were used by the people of Medala to pray to their deceased while they were on their journey through the underworld, to the stars. Most likely, someone had just died in this commoner family. This was the reason they had been so eager to see the table delivered today. However, something still didn't add up.

"Why would anyone have to hide a beacon shrine?" she asked. After all, it was an ordinary object of wors.h.i.+p common in every Medalan household, not some smuggled good.

"You heard the scholars earlier. Apparently, the Pacha faith falls under 'rural superst.i.tion' these days. Selling beacon shrines, or anything similar, is not allowed any longer."

"Do they really want to force the people into a revolt?" Inti added after a shocked gasp. This was too outrageous, right? If they tried to take away the faith of the people, surely they would stand up in rebellion sooner or later, right?

"That, or they want to subdue and control them completely," Brym commented with the same grim determination as before. "Either way, the people here will be in deep trouble if the scholars learn about the shrine, so they won't betray us."

"I suppose this fits neatly with my own findings," Inti finally said, though only after she had taken a moment to compose herself.

Now that she knew a deadly secret of these commoners, there was little reason to suspect them further. As far as this rotten city was concerned, this place would be as safe as any other. Thus, she began to explain what she had learned from the local ghost forces.

"The so-called scholarly court that is, King Amautu and his teacher and fellow disciples have been sending out their scholars to control the independent estates of the northern kingdom. Apparently, they have had problems with disobedience at the local level before."

"Wait, so those people actually

are

scholars? Why did they seem so..." Brym was looking for words, but Inti already had them ready in spades.

"Uneducated? Boorish? Vulgar?" she offered. "Only their leader should be a real scholar, if there is one at all. The rest are local robbers, who have been hired to enforce the will of the court out here. It seems they don't have nearly enough scholars to control the entire kingdom, so this is their solution."

"So they send one scholar into an estate, then hand out some white robes to local criminals and give them free reign on their activities in the city, so long as they help enforce the will of the court," Brym put together the plan.

"Yes, and the local lords can't just stop the criminals or throw out the scholars, because attacking a scholar means declaring war against the king," Inti explained. It was another dangerous, all-or-nothing scheme from this northern court, which seemed dead-set on either subduing everyone or forcing a revolt.

"Right, now I understand where the fake scholars came from," Brym summed up. "But what are they doing in front of my shop? I mean, I'm not a lord, and neither are most of my customers."

"Apparently, the shops are seen as a problem by the king, since your success is funneling too much gold out of the kingdom and into the treasury of an enemy." As she explained, Inti had to smile at Brym's proud look when he was affirmed in the success of his business. "At least that's what my people tell me. Though it's also possible that the northerners already know that the ghosts have been operating out of the shops since the start of the year."

In fact, Inti felt a bit guilty about the involvement of the ghosts. Most likely, her mother had suggested to use the northern shops as contact points, and now they had implicated Brym's business. And yet, the businessman in question didn't seem bothered by her guilt at all. Instead, he stroked his stubble, seemingly deep in thought.

"Maybe they're aiming at the lords this time as well, and we're just caught in the middle," he commented. "Many lords have found the wares in my shops quite suitable for their tastes. If the shops are closed down, the lords might be more inclined to act on the false scholars, thus prompting a justified response from the court."

"So it might just be another provocation. Either way, it won't change our problem, fundamentally," Inti concluded.

For a while, the two simply stood in silence. As Inti looked up to the darkening sky, where stars would appear any moment, she felt a heavy weight on her back.

"So what do we do now?" Inti finally asked. "We certainly can't sell any bonds so long as the city is like this. And we can't just let them close your businesses and enslave our northern allies either, can we?"

After all, the southern kingdom had many contacts with n.o.bles in the northern kingdom, especially in the east. If King Amautu's plan to subdue the lords succeeded, all of these long-cultivated relations.h.i.+ps would become useless. Of course, Brym knew that just as well as her.

"Of course not," he thus replied, "but we can't act rashly. If we provoke the scholars too much, Rhodanos will be turned into an example for the other northern estates, and I would prefer to keep the blood off my hands. I only like the smell of copper, not iron. For now, there's still a crucial piece of information missing before we can act."

"Which is?" Inti asked. What exactly had she overlooked? Though when Brym revealed the answer, she felt silly for not thinking about it earlier.

"Please help me organize a meeting with Lord Gratidia," Brym said. "I believe his att.i.tude will profoundly impact our future strategy."

From the top floor of his manor, Lord Gratidia watched as dark clouds rolled in and envelop the city. Darkness had descended over the city of Rhodanos. Strangely enough, the darkness had been brought by the scholars of Chutwa, who had promised to bring the light of civilization to the barbaric Medalans. At least that had been the claim of the northern king Amautu at the start of his reign.

If he was honest, Lord Gratidia didn't really know about enlightenment and all that. At heart, he was still the young warrior who had claimed the seat of a lord through his military prowess alone. He didn't really care much for politics, or cultural issues. Yet his carelessness had dragged him into a real mess this time. As the dark clouds enveloped his city, the lord could only watch helplessly. His choices had been made, and now he had to live with them.

Lord Gratidia sat at a table in a secret room, and watched King Amautu's attendant silently mouth empty promises. Switching sides from the central kingdom to the northern kingdom seemed like a smart move at this time. After all, King Pachacutec didn't really value House Gratidia, as he was more focused on the older houses and his conflict with House Ichilia.

Meanwhile, King Amautu's man promised him a role of great importance in the northern kingdom. And no matter how much deceit was contained in the man's words, Lord Gratidia was still convinced that he would be important to the northern king, deceit or not.

After all, if House Gratidia switched sides, Chimpaya would become the only estate of the northern kingdom south of the Argu River, a lynchpin in their aggressive strategy against the center. This heightened strategic importance would guarantee his estate's value in the continued conflict between the kingdoms, which would let him reap great rewards, just like the northern king promised.

Lord Gratidia found himself atop his walls, staring down at the armies of the central kingdom ama.s.sed in front of his city. Meanwhile, the northern king's servants were the ones directing the warriors of House Gratidia into battle. All of the lord's calculations were going up in smoke right in front of his eyes. During the initial negotiations, his 'strategic advantages' had only been his conjecture, and now they had become a fatal miscalculation. Reality had looked quite differently.

What he hadn't considered during the negotiations was that his betrayal would also make him a deadly enemy of the central kingdom. Since a northern city on the south bank of the Argu prevented the smooth transport of the central kingdom's goods along the river, the hero king Pachacutec was forced to regain the Chimpaya estate at almost any cost. This conflict had quickly led to a drawn-out war between the kingdoms, with Rhodanos at its center. With his walls destroyed, his fields razed and many of his warriors dead, Lord Gratidia felt none of the promised benefits. All he could see before him were death and destruction, and a permanent weakening of his house, and his position in the northern kingdom.

Again, Lord Gratidia found himself at a table with the northern king's representative, yet the lord's ambition had turned to desperation by now. This time, Amautu's negotiator wasn't one of his warrior aides. Instead, an arrogant scholar sat before Gratidia and broke all previous promises, as he forced his house into horrible concessions in return for almost nothing.

While the north had ultimately won the war by striking a deal with the center, it had also damaged the lands of his estate severely.

At the same time, the war had proven that House Gratidia couldn't stand up against the central forces by itself. As a result, they had become completely dependent on King Amautu's protection if they wanted to survive. Ultimately, none of the northern king's promises had been upheld. In an unimaginably weak position, all he could do was watch as the northern king's scholars took more and more of his privileges as their own.

Baffled, Lord Gratidia stared at a letter, and wondered what could have been.

All throughout, his neighbor of House Instea had been suffering the same fate as him, yet now their lord had found a way out of his dilemma. While everyone in Medala was still focused on the civil war in the south, House Instea had quietly undermined the influence of the northern court throughout its capital of Odeana. Now, Lord Gratidia had been informed that Lord Instea had traveled to Arguna, to once again switch sides to the central kingdom. Surely he would receive great benefits in return, on top of removing the all-pervasive influence of the scholars from his lands.

As someone who valued his word, and was proud of the honor which came along with being the patriarch of one of Medala's n.o.ble houses, the lord of Rhodanos never even considered such an act of betrayal. Only when he saw the option presented to him black on white did he realize that there had been a path out the northern king's trap all this time. Yet once again, House Gratidia had acted too late to save itself.

Lord Gratidia put down the letter, and rued his choices once more. After the Instea defection, King Amautu would greatly increased his control over the northern estates, of that he was sure.

With an increasing numbness, Lord Gratidia watched as more and more scholars were sent to his home to 'supervise' his rule. More and more white-robed men appeared around his manor, and began to take it apart, plank by plank and stone by stone.

As he watched the dismantling of his life's achievement, the lord understood that he had never become a lord because of his fighting prowess in the first place. Rather, with his weak foundation and poor political ac.u.men, he wasn't a threat to anyone, and had thus been allowed to exist as a weak leader to retain the stability around Arguna. All this time, he had just been a p.a.w.n to be pushed around, and he was quickly outliving his usefulness.

When a loud bang from outside the window awoke Lord Gratidia from another night of tossing and turning, his side of the bed was soaked in sweat. Once again, he had relived the nightmare of the past few years. Again and again, his poor choices haunted his dreams. Now he was awake again, yet the nightmare continued. After all, he still had to live with the consequences of his actions.

However, there were more immediate problems to handle first. Although he was still confused after waking up, his long experience still let him check for threats immediately. A look out the window the source of the noise showed only darkness, and the unfamiliar room was small and empty. Without a second thought, the lord grabbed the axe next to his bedside and jumped out of bed. Only then did he calm down and recalled where he was.