Herald of Steel

"So we are agreed then….," Sensing the negotiations coming to a close, Lord Castell looked at the notes his scribe had taken and reiterated the terms they had agreed on one last time.

He wanted to make sure there was nothing they missed.

He read,

"Both sides agree that…

1. All the hereditary nobles and the elite horsemen who served Lord Parker, the latter also belonging to the unit colloquially called 'Firefield,' would be ransomed at the discussed rates set jointly by the two parties.

2. The agreed amount will be given in full by a combination of Margraves and Heeat funds.

3. General Achillas will be ransomed at a special 100,000 wesa (1 million ropals).

4. The various wives, mistresses, and other companions of the nobles as well as servants such as cooks, servants, bodyguards, etc. have to be redeemed by the individual nobles themselves.

5. There will be a ten year peace treaty between the Margraves family, Lord Alexander, and the Heeat family.

6. In the meantime, none of the four parties will be allowed to interfere in the other's conflict with a third party unless specifically asked to.

7. The Heeat family will work to allow both the rulers of the Margraves family access to the safe Sybarian trade routes.

8. The Margraves family will be henceforth jointly ruled by Lady Linda Margraves and Lady Miranda Margraves.

9. Lady Linda Margraves will rule everything from Caira to the western bank of the river Lublio, and Lady Miranda Margraves will take everything from the eastern bank of Lublio to... ( at that point Lord Castell went on to name quite a few natural features and town detailing the bounds of Lady Miranda's jurisdiction.

This had been already 'pre cut out' by Alexander and the offer was generous enough for Lord Castell to accept without much haggling.)

10. Pasha Alexander will get the regions...(once again Lord Castell named a lot of regions).

11. Crimes committed by individuals will be judged by the law of the land where it was committed unless they are hereditary nobility.

And lastly,

12. The Margraves family can only be reunited with the support of both Lord Alexander and the Heeat family.

There was really no need to discuss why that last point was added. It was neither in the Heeat family's or Alexander's interest to see the powerful Marquiss family once again get together, such as through the marriage of the two sisters' children.

Hence when Alexander brought up the issue using the excuse- 'combating malicious influence by third parties wishing to create friction between the two sisters,' Lord Castell quickly picked up on the clue and signed the clause in.

The handsome lord was frankly quite happy with the result he managed to obtain- even with the total destruction of his main army, he managed to get forty percent- around 80,000 sq km of land.

Yes, losing his nephew was a tragedy, and yes, the 'conquered land' technically belonged to Lady Linda, but these were mere semantics.

In the grand scheme of things losing Lord Parker was hardly more than a flesh wound for the Heeat.

The family had two other candidates, both reasonably suitable. And even if the worst scenario came and both of them died, there were three more daughters.

So crying for Lord Parker was little more than spilling crocodile tears.

As for Miss Linda, well Lord Castell had to thank Alexander for giving him such a golden opportunity.

With the total decimation of the Margrave army, this young lady had nothing to defend herself with.

So the ones who would be 'protecting' her from now on would be the Heeat and as they say, who has muscle, has the say.

The moment this treaty was signed, Miss Linda's destiny was written to become little more than a puppet.

Thus the lady who had dreamed such grand dreams… of even becoming the next duchess found all of that suddenly coming crashing down.

From that perspective, Lady Miranda's fate was much kinder. Alexander was neither as oppressive nor could he project power so far from his homeland, thus letting the plump lady have much greater autonomy.

Thus with the completion of the negotiations and the signing of the terms, Alexander's campaign for Galiosos came to an end… at least the formal part.

Because there were still a lot of informal things to iron out.

....

The complete drawing of the treaty took a few days and in the following days after that, as the terms were announced and the relevant people asked to carry them out, Alexander was inundated with requests from all over the place asking to bend, if not outright change the entire thing.

Miss Linda, Lady Miranda and surprisingly even Lord Kite of all people wanted a piece of his ear.

Alexander would meet the Heeat nobleman first because he could already guess what the two sisters wanted.

He would deal with them later.

Hence letting Lord Kite into his study, Alexander greeted,

"Lord Kite, to what do I owe the pleasure? Ahhh… first let me once again thank you for all the hard work you have done... I suspect Lord Castell would not have been such an easy man to talk to without your hand." Alexander was neither courteous nor disrespectful towards the man but kept a professional attitude.

"Hehe, I also did it for myself. The faster I was freed, the better. And you have also been quite generous with your compensation. I thank you for that. I am actually here for a different reason, my lord."

With the pleasantries out of the way, Lord Kite quickly got down to business.

"I am actually here at the behest of many of the nobles you see. They want you to… amend point 4 of the treaty- the one concerning the nobles paying the ransom for their personal entourage. They wish for you to pressure... ummm... 'insist' that Lord Castell ransoms them all altogether."

The details of the point was finally enough to make Alexander jog his memory of what was being discussed.

He recalled that this was not something that Alexander had proposed but actually insisted on by Lord Castell.

"I only want to redeem the nobles and their immediate family- wife, and sons," The strongly built man said.

And there was some logic behind this 'selfish act'.

You see there was an existing social contract between the Heeat family and the nobles serving them.

The terms of that 'employment' were that- the nobles would fight for the Heeat family, bringing their valuable financial and manpower resources as well as greatly desired leadership and expertise to the battlefield, and in exchange, the ducal family would promise to help guarantee their safety during campaign… to the best of their ability.

The Heeat family was basically those nobles' protectors, so Lord Castell was currently obligated to rescue the captured men as it was one of his duties.

However this 'pseudo insurance' was only applicable to the nobles and their immediate family members, it did not extend to their whole entourage of… 'boisterous rabble,' as Lord Castell put it.

Because that would have been ridiculous. The nobles could have gamed the system by asking the ducal family to save every Tom, Dick and Harry they knew.

"Oh, and how do you suppose I do that?" Alexander understood this, which was why he was a bit surprised by Lord Kite's issue, "If I truly insist on such a thing, I suspect, even a family as wealthy and powerful as the Heeat family would have to bankrupt itself to 'buy' them all."

"Of course, we are aware of the challenges. We are not asking Lord Castell to ransom all of the captured men…. Only a selected few. You know the people the lords…. need the most." As soon as Alexander finished, Lord Kite was quick to reassure the skeptical man to keep him from raising his eyebrows.

"....." Alexander's lips first curved with an ambiguous smile upon hearing this.

Then, as if he was humoring Lord Kite for the fun of it, smirked,

"And how do you suppose I convince Lord Castell? The treaty has already been signed. Modifying it will be ten times the hassle. Not to mention the question of whether the lords can even afford to rescue all the umm… 'people they need the most'."

Alexander used the same words Lord Kite used, bringing along them the real main reason why Lord Castell and the Heeat family never rescued everyone from a noble's house- many of the nobles lacked the ability to pay such a huge sum back.

Lord Castell was not doing charity here and the ransom he was paying Alexander to rescue them was not free money.

It was a loan that the nobles would have to pay back once they got it back.

The only advantage of doing it this way was that these nobles got to return home early and there was no interest on the amount.

But despite Alexander's nitpicking, Lord Kite insisted, "Lord Castell cannot afford to leave so many of us behind. It would cause too much chaos. As long as we stick together, we will have to have to relent. Besides, at the end of the day, it will not even be his money, it will be the Lady Linda's!"

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