Valkyrie's Shadow - 7The Paladin of the Holy Kingdom, Part III: Act 3, Chapter 4

Chapter 4

“I don’t understand girls.”

“Didn’t you pick up the missus just a few days ago?” Marim asked.

Waves of heat rose off of the pavement after another sweltering day in Hoburns. Liam stood at the entrance of an alley, chatting with Marim and his patrol as a pair of men delivered his latest catch. He didn’t fancy the notion that he was slacking off a bit, but getting on the good side of the people that he directly worked with was worth a few momentary distractions.

“I did,” Liam answered, “but she’s not happy. Actually, I think I might have gone funny in the head…”

“How do you figure?”

He reflected on his actions since Nat moved in. There was definitely something wrong with him.

“I’m doing things that I wouldn’t if I was still on my own,” Liam said. “Did you see all that stuff that I bought? It’s like this weird sense of responsibility kicks in and I have to make sure that everything is ‘enough’. I barely think about it – it just happens.”

“Welcome to manhood,” one of Marim’s squadmates said. “I got like that once my girl said our first kid was on the way. Hmm…does that mean she’s pregnant?”

Did it? They had held hands…

“I don’t think so,” Liam purged his mind of the memory. “She just moved in at the beginning of the week.”

“Wait,” Marim said, “so you fixed up your place to make her happy and she’s still bitchin’?”

“Nat doesn’t complain,” Liam said. “She just seems unhappy about something. But whenever I ask if anything is wrong, she says that everything is fine.”

The patrolmen exchanged grave looks amongst themselves.

“That means something’s wrong,” one of them said. “You’d better figure it out before it blows up in your face.”

At first, he thought he might be pushing Nat too hard with her leatherworking, but she always did far more than he suggested. She was even proud of the results, showing off all of the goods that she crafted when he returned from the city every day. The quality of her work upon moving in was already good enough that she could sell what she made and she had set up a stall on their plot with a modest inventory of shoes, bags, aprons, boots, and belts. Their neighbours were turning in various things to be repaired, as well, so Liam was sure that she was already well on her way to realising a fulfilling life where people appreciated her talents.

As the days passed, however, the part of her that seemed dissatisfied with her situation never went away. His current theory was that her cultural and religious upbringing was being challenged by her new experiences and that was the source of her troubles. If that was what it was, then things were going in the right direction – it meant that Liam was helping to unravel the heretical worldview that Nat had been raised with.

“What do you think of her work, by the way?” Liam asked.

“Her work?” Marim frowned, “Well, I think you went a bit overboard setting up a whole damn workshop for her on your plot, but that’s none of my business. For us, it means we don’t have to walk across the whole damn camp to get our boots patched up.”

“So you don’t think it’s wrong, right?”

“It’s peculiar, but I don’t have anything against it. It’s not as if she’s single and trying to do the same thing. I guess it might be kinda the same as if she married into a workshop.”

He had been wondering how that worked. Nearly every workshop lease and business licence in the Holy Kingdom was held by a man. There were only two notable exceptions that would lead to this not being the case. The first was that the individual who owned the business had no male heirs and their eldest daughter inherited it. The second was that a woman’s vocation was so rare it might be considered ‘deviant’, such as those of arcane artisans.

Broadly speaking, this was how it was in all of the northern Human countries. Men inherited first and thus owned pretty much everything. They did almost all of the fighting and conducted most of the business. This resulted in what Director Alpha called a ‘patriarchal society’, though everyone else didn’t call it anything at all: it was just the way things were.

Tribal Demihumans generally went with the rule of the strong, so how they perceived women depended on how strong their women were relative to their men. Liam hadn’t given much thought to it at all until a certain girl kept insisting that ‘wife’ was a valid vocation.

She was very defensive about her ‘position’, too. One day, she had been horrified to find him washing his own clothing and chased him away with her awl.

The two men who went to deliver Liam’s catch returned from the gatehouse. Liam scaled the alley wall, padding across the rooftops to shadow the patrol’s progress. For the past few days, he had been working to deter any sneaks in the area by associating the street patrols with getting mysteriously captured. This seemed to work for all but the most dogged of intruders, which he was now sorting out.

While doing all of that, he was also familiarising himself with the residents. This was probably the hardest part of his work so far due to the sheer number of them. However, it was necessary: without knowing who belonged and who didn’t, he would have no clue who might be an agent from another house. Of course, this didn’t help at all against residents who were already in another house’s pocket.

Liam’s steps quickened as his eyes latched onto a shadow cast by the waning moonlight. He closed the distance within a minute, gripping his mark by the back of the neck and driving it to the tiles. As his hand searched for any weapons, a scream pierced his ears. He muffled the woman’s cries as quickly as he could, holding her down as she continued to kick and scream into his gauntlet.

Her struggles were eventually replaced by sobs and the noise leaking out from under his palm sounded very much like a desperate prayer. He continued his search, which only turned up a single dagger. Nothing marked her as an agent from another house. Everyday women in the Holy Kingdom didn’t sneak around on the rooftops in the middle of the night, however.

He bound her legs and wrists and gagged her. This caused her struggle to begin anew, but she quickly tired out. Liam returned to the street to turn in his vanquished adversary, but the reception from the patrol was dubious.

“Liam, what the hell–”

“She was a screamer,” Liam told them.

“Was that what that sound was? I thought someone was skinning a cat.”

Liam dumped the woman onto the pavement. She looked up at him with a baleful blue eye.

“Aw, you made her cry.”

“She made herself cry,” Liam corrected him.

The woman probably thought she was being attacked by a Rogue. Not that she was wrong, but people here had all sorts of strange ideas about them.

“You should probably keep her gagged,” Liam told the patrol. “She might start screaming again. Here’s her dagger.”

A muffled curse stopped Liam on his way back up to the rooftops. He looked over his shoulder to see the woman darting across the street. It appeared that the patrol had removed her restraints to walk her back to the gatehouse.

“Hey!” One of the men shouted, “Get back here!”

As if she’ll listen…

He dropped back into the alley and sprinted after her. Since she was now technically a fugitive, he was legally allowed to pursue her through another jurisdiction. Liam shadowed her through the dimly lit alleyways, her breathless panting filling his ears.

Her conditioning is crap. What was the point of sending someone like that to our side?

Liam had to remind himself that pretty much no one but Ijaniya trained their agents to his degree. The Holy Kingdom shunned his line of work as an evil occupation, so any Rogues that the Nobles ended up employing to serve as his opposite number would most likely be clueless novices. That didn’t mean they couldn’t overwhelm him with numbers, however, so he kept his eyes peeled for potential allies of his mark.

The woman’s path eventually led her to a warehouse guarded by a group of liveried men. She made no attempt to stay concealed, instead storming right past them with a furious expression. Liam scaled the side of the warehouse, frowning as he listened to the not-so-quiet discussion within.

“Esme! By the gods, what happened to you?”

“You lied to me, Julio! You said it would be safe to look around!”

“You’re one of our best, Esme. How could anyone–”

“They had a Rogue. I was nearly raped!”

Liam poked his head into an open ventilation port. In a pool of lamplight at the centre of the warehouse, the woman collapsed and broke into a bout of tormented sobs. One of the men knelt to place a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She slapped it away.

“Don’t!” Esme screeched, “Oh gods, I can still feel his hands all over me!”

The man rose, staring down at his open palm.

“Those knaves,” his hand curled into a fist. “I never imagined that House Restelo would fall so low!”

“Do you think the rumours are true, then, Lord Julio?” A second man asked.

“This does lend more weight to their credibility,” Lord Julio said, “but, practically speaking, those rumours still don’t make sense. Why would Restelo turn on Iago Lousa? They literally own half of his assets. Beyond that, what the rumours describe is utterly fiendish!”

“…what if whoever did Lousa in is in Hoburns now?”

“…”

“No!” Esme whimpered, crawling over to clutch the hem of Lord Julio’s coat, “No no no no NO NO! I can’t do this, my lord. I want to help, but this is too much! Please don’t make me do this…”

Lord Julio reached down to gently stroke Esme’s hair.

“I won’t, Esme,” he said softly. “I’m sorry – this is my fault. What House Restelo’s doing…it’s simply unprecedented.”

“What do we do now, Lord Julio?” The man on the nobleman’s right asked.

“Do what you can to shore up our defences,” Lord Julio told him. “I’ll reach out to the other houses. House Restelo must be stopped before Hoburns is turned into another sea of blood!”

The gathering dispersed, leaving Liam thoroughly confused. There was no indication that House Restelo was up to anything beyond pursuing their ambitions in Hoburns. Whatever they had supposedly done was enough to terrify people with the rumours and, as Lord Julio asserted, it was impossible for Liam to imagine that House Restelo was capable of doing anything like that. Everything about them was upright and sternly rigid.

He returned to House Restelo’s jurisdiction and headed straight to the gatehouse. The patrol that had lost Esme was standing in the captain’s office, lined up in front of a rather displeased-looking Sir Jimena.

“Liam,” the Knight said as Liam went to stand with the patrol. “I’m surprised you came back empty-handed.”

“Not exactly, sir.”

“I’m waiting…”

“…I’m not sure whether you’d like to hear this yourself first, sir.”

Sir Jimena’s eyes went to the men lined up beside Liam.

“Resume your patrol. Everyone but Liam: out.”

The patrol went back down the stairs and Sir Jimena’s escort walked out onto the wall. Liam idly mused over the notion that this was the moment when the Knight would discover an Assassin’s blade buried in his throat, but, fortunately for Sir Jimena, Liam wasn’t here for that.

“Let’s hear it,” Sir Jimena said after seating himself.

“When the girl fled,” Liam walked up to the captain’s desk, “I used it as an opportunity to shadow her. She led me right back to the warehouse that she was operating out of. There was a nobleman there that the retainers called ‘Lord Julio’.”

“Lord Julio Ovar,” Sir Jimena crossed his arms and leaned back on his chair. “Second son of House Ovar. What did he say?”

“The girl’s name is Esme. She claimed that House Restelo had a Rogue working under them and that she was nearly raped as a result.”

Sir Jimena’s face twisted at the last.

“I assume that the alleged ‘Rogue’ was you. As for the rest…”

“She was hysterical, sir. Also, there was something else that seemed to be driving her fear. Lord Julio and his men referred to a ‘rumour’. One that involved someone named Iago Lousa.”

The Knight rose to his feet, his chiselled features turned to stone.

“We’ll continue this discussion in the camp,” he told him.

So there was something.

They left the gatehouse and headed straight to the camp office. Sir Jimena motioned for him to enter a side tent. Inside, Sir Luis was already awake, poring over a mountain of paperwork. He looked up at Sir Jimena and Liam with a question on his face.

“Rumours about Lousa are starting to circulate in Hoburns,” Sir Jimena said.

Sir Luis set down his quill and rose from behind his desk. The top of his head brushed up against the ceiling of the tent.

“What are they saying?” He asked.

“Liam.”

“It’s not just what they’re saying, sir,” Liam stepped forward. “People are also taking action. House Ovar sent an agent to spy on our jurisdiction. She was caught, but she escaped from the patrol escorting her to the gatehouse. I used her escape to justify shadowing her back to her base. Lord Julio Ovar was there, and the woman claimed that we were hiring Rogues and that she was nearly raped.”

“I trust that the latter didn’t happen,” Sir Luis said.

“No, sir.”

“Damn women adding fuel to the fire,” the tall Knight muttered. “What did Lord Julio say?”

“He was appalled, sir. He and his retainers started talking about how House Restelo had fallen and they didn’t understand why we would kill off a major business partner.”

The tent shuddered as Sir Luis drove his fist into his desk.

“That’s because we didn’t,” he grated. “We didn’t do anything of the sort, and that’s the very obvious conclusion that any decent, rational person would arrive at!”

“Then…what happened, sir?”

“We discovered that Iago Lousa was doing business with enemies of House Restelo. Enemies of the royalists and the Holy King. House Restelo’s resources are focused on helping hold Hoburns, so we asked a group of our allies to address the problem – and by ‘addressing’ I mean setting the man straight on where his loyalties lie. Lousa was a commoner and commoners can have strange ideas about how the world works.”

“If that’s the case, sir,” Liam frowned, “how did it go from persuading him to killing him? He is dead, right?”

“Presumably,” Sir Jimena said. “There was a raid on his home and the labour camp built up around it. His people wasted no time letting everyone they came across know about what happened. Fortunately, they’re out near the kingswood and information doesn’t get around very quickly in the country.”

“No one’s claiming responsibility for the raid,” Sir Luis added. “Not that they would. Our allies claim that they had just arrived to negotiate with Lousa and were on the border of his territory when it happened. With how things played out, everyone naturally suspects that House Restelo’s to blame.”

“What else did Lord Julio say?” Sir Jimena asked.

“He ordered his men to ‘shore up their defences’ while he reached out to the other houses. He said something about stopping House Restelo before we turn Hoburns into another sea of blood.”

The sharp click of Sir Luis’ tongue was followed by several moments of silence.

“Raising our guard will only serve to reinforce their outlandish suspicions,” Sir Jimena said.

“We can’t let them walk all over us,” Sir Luis countered. “And House Restelo will not take their slander like a toothless Debonei harlot! It’s an affront to everything that we stand for.”

“In that case,” the other Knight said, “our only viable option is to attack.”

Liam looked back and forth between the two Knights.

“Attack, sir?”

“A political and economic offensive,” Sir Jimena said. “We need to gain as much influence over the capital as we can. If you didn’t realise, House Ovar is supposed to be one of our allies. I highly doubt that we can settle the rumours surrounding Lousa anytime soon, so we’ve effectively become an independent faction in Hoburns. If the other houses sense weakness, they will move to exploit it. We need to build up enough strength in every aspect to deter them.”

Sir Luis snorted.

“That’s easier said than done. We had to work in concert with the other houses to control the economic climate of the capital.”

“That’s one thing working in our favour, now,” Sir Jimena noted. “Our efforts worked because everyone was working together. Putting a hole in their little boat should be easy, especially if we do it in our jurisdiction.”

“Fair,” Sir Luis admitted. “But what about the rest? We’re outnumbered and we’ll be crushed if push comes to shove. The new companies are nowhere near ready.”

“The standard we’re holding them to isn’t necessary for what we can have them do, but we’ll have to convince Lord Restelo of that. Once Jorge and Pires are awake, we’ll see what we can come up with. Liam, how do you think the houses will move on your end of things?”

“I don’t know the character of each house, sir,” Liam replied, “but something like today, at least. Er, the scouting, I mean, not the other stuff that happened. If every house in the city sends agents to snoop around our jurisdiction, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep up. Do we even need to stop them? It’s not as if we’re doing anything bad.”

There were benefits and detriments to letting intelligence agents flow freely. The Sorcerous Kingdom was the extreme case where they allowed spies to gather information as a way to reassure the neighbours of their benign intent. That strategy was double-edged, however. House Restelo might be able to show everyone that they weren’t doing anything wrong, but their enemies would also see their every move and come up with countermeasures for them. Unlike the Sorcerous Kingdom, House Restelo couldn’t just shrug off any attack.

“You’re correct that we won’t be doing anything wrong,” Sir Jimena said. “But we also don’t want the other houses reading us like a book. We’re on the back foot, strategically speaking, and being able to move and react faster than anyone else will be our main advantage. Let’s get back to our posts – Luis, I’ll see you later in the morning.”

As expected, the Knights weren’t the simple brutes that so many perceived Knights to be. If all of the other houses in Hoburns had leaders of similar calibre, the fight for the capital was going to be a tough one.

No unwelcome reports greeted Sir Jimena upon their return to the gatehouse. The Knight went over the peer across the rooftops of the city through the office’s arrow slits.

“If you were intent on doing harm to our jurisdiction,” Sir Jimena asked, “what would you do?”

“That depends on the objective, sir.”

“The rules haven’t changed. Undermining our ability to get ahead or even forcing us to give up our holdings would be the goal.”

“With this weather, arson. Assuming having fires would make us lose face. But you don’t need someone like me to do that. Honestly, sir, I’d be more concerned with what goes on during the day than what happens at night.”

“And why might that be?”

“Because it’s easier to figure out whether someone’s doing something suspicious or not at night than it is to figure out whether one of the thousands of citizens going back and forth between jurisdictions during the day is up to something. The rumour might work in our favour there, though.”

Sir Jimena turned from the window to fix Liam with a sharp look.

“How so?”

“Fear,” Liam shrugged. “Just like that sneak from tonight. I restrained her and searched her for weapons and she decided that she was being raped by a Rogue. She had a long time to think about what happened on her way back to Lord Julio, but her story never changed.”

“Hmm…yeah, women are like that. Whether it’s something that they like or something that they hate, if they make up their minds about something, it never ends. They never come at you straight, either – they work to destroy you in the most underhanded of ways. I’ll have to address the men about their interactions with them from now on. Our enemies won’t hesitate to use a parade of sob stories to undermine our reputation.”

“Ah, that’s not what I meant, sir. As Sir Luis said, the entire thing is irrational. Irrational behaviour driven by an irrational rumour. Reason jumped ship long before it arrived in Hoburns.”

The Knight grunted and walked back to his desk, scanning the new reports scattered across them.

“So you’re saying that the monsters they’ve conjured out of these ridiculous rumours will keep them at bay.”

“In part, sir,” Liam said. “They won’t poke us so hard that they think we’ll retaliate because they think our retaliation might drown Hoburns in blood. At the same time, they’ll be looking for evidence of our intent to do just that.”

They could exploit that in a handful of ways, but Liam doubted that House Restelo would approve of his methods.

“Then we have nothing overly exciting to look forward to until they become so desperate for results that they act rashly,” Sir Jimena sighed. “Still, that may come sooner than you think. I want you to keep the jurisdiction clean to the best of your ability. Speaking of which, what are your plans for equipment? If steel is drawn, a shirt and pants won’t cut it.”

Liam looked down at himself. He was in a common labourer’s outfit, save for his boots, belt and leather vest. The vest didn’t offer much in the way of combat protection – he had bought it more for the extra pockets and to keep his shirt from being damaged as he moved through narrow spaces and climbed around.

“The Leatherworkers in the camp are all focused on making everyday things,” Liam said. “I was thinking of getting Nat to make me some equipment.”

“Your girl? The men have been saying good things about her, but do you think she’s up to the task?”

“It’s either that or running around in this,” Liam gestured to himself. “I don’t want to be caught unprepared if things take a violent turn.”

“Let us know how that turns out,” Sir Jimena said. “If she does a good job, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get some business from the office. We’ve been importing leather equipment from the south this entire time.”

“I will, sir.”

She’s been progressing smoothly, so it shouldn’t be long until then.

It sounded strange to say so as they had only been together for a few days, but it really was the case. He suspected that she had a high aptitude for her family craft when she mentioned her leatherworking skills and the fact that it had only taken her a few months to get to a post-journeyman level of skill. She was lucky that her family let her help out in the craft that she was good at to make her capabilities plain to Liam. At the same time, she was unlucky in the fact that that same family had sold her off regardless of their recognition of those skills.

…or was that lucky? Going by her initial expectations for their relationship, she wouldn’t have cultivated her capabilities any further if she had been married off to a local.

The sun was already rising over the city by the time Liam returned to the rooftops, so spent the remainder of his shift reflecting on the night’s events as he made a quick sweep over the jurisdiction. Had Lord Demiurge foreseen the current course of events?

Assist in maintaining political deadlock in Hoburns.

He should have known that his new orders wouldn’t be as easy as they initially appeared. His job now was to help House Restelo take on all of Hoburns.