Chapter Seventy-Seven
My eyes adjusted to the morning light, and as I yawned and stretched, I dressed myself with calm and graceful movements. No servants to bother me in the morning, being able to dress myself as much as I wished, and no Isabella to follow...this was truly a vacation for me. It wasn't like I disliked Isabella, mind you. She was a good kid, but having to keep up appearances and thus suffer being dressed by other servants, keeping myself at the ready for every tiny wish she had, or try to smudge a bit of her pretentious self-she was earnest, all right, but after weeks of it even I couldn't go without grumbling in the back of my head.
The air in the gardens outside was cold, but not so much that it would require myself to cover up. The few servants in the mansion had been told how to act in my presence -starting from not coming to dress me in the morning- to what I wanted for breakfast -coffee, bring me all your coffee. I had departed the Petite Troyes with enough coffee to last an army a month, so for me alone it would last be a year and even more -not that I planned to stay away for a whole year, but still, it was better to be prepared than not.
"So..." I mumbled as I looked at the letters in front of me, grimacing, "It's begun."
The letter announced the death of the king of Tristain, having finally succumbed to his old age. The Queen, in her sorrow, had refused to claim the throne yet. While there was no mention of a regent, the princess was too young to rule. As my father put it, it wasn't rare that in circumstances like these a regent was picked either from the nobles or from the clergy. I knew that Cardinal Mazarin would be chosen, as he was the better fit. Still, even then-
I shook my head. As a prince-consort of a foreign country, there was no way I'd be nominated as a regent. Of course, in the meantime the news that one of Wales' younger siblings -a certain Theodore Tudor- had been found killed in his rooms had reached the main continent. Even Albion was going down the path of civil war, and I couldn't help but inwardly shudder as my thoughts had turned into reality.
Starvation had kicked in, the wines had failed, and thus without the wines to sell the nobles didn't have the money to buy food for themselves and their servants from the mainland. Since in this world the concept of humanitarian aid did not exist, the starving people were dying one after the other, and the royalty refused to bend the knee and ask help from other crowns. It would make them look weak, even to their allies.
The proud and strong Albion country was henceforth starting to burn in the names of revolution, and most of the nobles -directly responsible for the troubles themselves in their folly- were playing the game of throwing the blame at the crown's head, with their taxes increased in order to find the money to buy the food to solve the problem.
It was schadenfreude, pure schadenfreude.
And horribly sad.
I blinked as one of the maids that served me coffee had long pink hair. Calmly sipping coffee, I showed no outer sign of having recognized Jeanette for whom she was -even though she looked quite young to be a maid, but with knights of the North Parterre, one could never know.
So, Isabella didn't trust my guards? Oh, alas, the poor dear. No, seriously, I don't need protection with skilled assassins.
The knights that guarded me weren't of the Parterre, admittedly. No, to be more precise, they had renounced the Parterre title to join up under the Night Wind command structure. Honestly, even though I didn't need to make such a ceremony out of it, I had named them out of the four main winds used in my summoning. I had four companies of knights under my employment, the Audri, Sudri, Westri and Nordri knights, while the Gale and Maelstrom divisions were cavalry, and the Thunder and Lightning were musketeer corps.
All in all though, even though I called them divisions, and companies, they totaled a grand number of one thousand troops and some loose spare.
The fun fact was that paying them didn't require me more than seventy thousand ecus a year, and the revenues of the Duchy of Brittany were easily ten times that. Gallia was a rich country, and the army proper could easily reach far, far higher costs. Course, lodging and food came out of my pockets too, so if I made them march, the costs skyrocketed. But if they didn't, then they remained fixed.
Still, as the letters from the nobles that had me as their liege were soon read one after the other, I couldn't help but groan at the sickening amount of ass-licking that came from them. It was obvious that while saying things like I would really enjoy meeting your grace in person! the true reason for it was if I show myself sympathetic, he might cut down my taxes! and the addition of having the best wines, it was clearly a way to entice me.
Unfortunately for them, I had found coffee once more, so the poor substitute that was wine had soon put itself on the shelf.
"Uhm..." I hummed as I opened the letter detailing how much ecus in taxes I would be receiving from the lord overseeing the main port of the region, "St. Mallon's expected port revenue is a bit too low for my tastes," I looked up at the servant to my left. "You, go get me the thick ledger with the words Past revenues written atop it. In my office, on the desk," the servant bowed and swiftly moved to do so.
Meanwhile, I quietly resumed reading the letter. Excuses such as lower trade, increased trouble with black market, smugglers-the usual list of reasons. It was quite the detailed excuse, and it could also be honestly the truth. On the other hand, when you suddenly go from three hundred thousand ecus of expected revenue to merely one hundred and fifty thousand ecus, one needs to check.
"So last year...ah," I tapped my finger, "The entry for the Albion commerce and the tariffs and taxes-I see, a pitfall drop without doubt, even the merchants are wary of going to Albion -no money, no one buys their wealth," I mumbled to myself. "The problems of being an island is that-" I blinked then as I looked at the new year's revenue.
Someone was still doing traffic with Albion, a few loose merchants who sold...
Silk? Ceramics?
"Perhaps this explains the anger of the commoners," I muttered.
A shadow cast itself over me, and as it did, I looked up at Raven who in turn cawed at me flapping his wings. "Good morning!" he cawed, "I love you!"
"Good morning, Raven," I answered with a smile. "Enjoyed a morning flight?"
"Yes!" Raven answered primly, sitting down by my side like an eager dog, but without his tongue out to loll about. I proceeded to scratch the back of his head and grin.
"You have this to deliver," I said, placing a letter from my own pockets inside the pouch around his neck. "It goes to father," I continued. "Meanwhile, have a messenger sent to deliver this letter to the Duke D'Orleans," I remarked, taking another letter and handing it off to the servant by my right, which turned out to be Jeanette, who still dutifully did it. Whether she read it or not was of no importance, since the important thing was that it merely alerted the Duke -or his chamberlain- that I'd be crossing the border near the Ragdorian lake to meet with my father later in the evening.
Although I wouldn't be receiving a reply per time, it didn't really matter. The important thing was to have sent the letter. Theoretically, being a noble of both countries made it possible for me to border cross with impunity, but...asking permission made it look like I wasn't just doing it arrogantly to drive home a point.
Raven rubbed the side of his face against mine, and then hopped a bit away before opening his wings and flying up in the sky, swiftly disappearing from my sight over the horizon.
I sighed, and returned to my duties.
The revenue from the newly minted Count of Nantes had increased, which showed just how much the previous Count had skimmed on his duties, keeping some of the money for himself. The village chief had written a letter claiming everything was fine, and there was no need for a redress situation with the current laws firmly in place.
I had, after all, proclaimed a very problematic, yet largely went by unnoticed, law.
Protestants, Reformed, or whatever-if they're not hurting others, let them believe in the Gods and the Founder however the hell they want to.
This had gone by largely unnoticed because it had been the default reaction of many, but not all. This law didn't change the fundamental religion of the state, it simply allowed the practice of it in whatever ways they saw fit. To be honest, this law didn't grant permission to pray to different gods, or different faiths. It simply allowed one to pray to the Founder and the Gods of the pantheon of Halkeginia in whatever way they saw fit.
If it involved gold, then so be it. If it didn't, then so be it once more.
The Gods being who they were, they'd be the ones to decide who was right and who was wrong in the end.
And then I blinked as I moved on to the next letter of the line.
"New applicants?" I muttered, staring at the long list of names that wished to enroll into the Night Wind army, called officially the Petite Armée on the manifests. The list, truth be told, was long.
What caught my attention was a name amidst the commoners' recruits.
Most definitely, I had opened up my recruitment to people from all countries, as long as they swore fealty to the crown.
I had not expected Agnes to try to enlist in my army.
There even was a small note on the side of the paper from the recruitment officer. Though she is female, she has passed all of the requirements. What to do, your grace?
What stupidity are you saying, recruitment officer?
Recruit her. Recruit. Them. All.
