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- They/Them
[x] "Rest assured that I will not let them down, Saundersley."
Let's Play: Cataphrak's Dragoon Saga
- Thread starter Rogue Attican
- Start date
That's a great route...for optimized characters with high Charsima. Our guy would get eaten alive.
Interesting note: characters with an estate near the capital do have a little royal blood, from marrying into a cadet house a dozen generations back. They also know this offhand.
- Pronouns
- He
[x] "Rest assured that I will not let them down, Saundersley."
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Aetorians have all the luck. Not only do they have the easiest time getting into the Rendower Club, they also get +8 Intellect and +8 Charisma all the way back during character creation.
Meanwhile, the Cunarians get a small Soldiering boost and brownie points with their Duke, while the Wulframites start out with more income and less debt. However, the Salt Coast probably has it the worst out of all the regions, as they only gain Health and increased Cynicism for how much life sucks over in Crittenden. At least they have a secret handshake with Cazarosta, though.
Yeah, having our estate be in a less terrible shape is a substantially better consolation prize than what other regions get, but I'd still rather have the 16 extra stat points. Especially since you get them right at the start and get to reap their benefits for two games before ever getting to this point.
Lords 1.02
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- He/Him
[X] "Rest assured that I will not let them down, Saundersley."
Saundersley nods wearily as if that was the answer he'd been expecting all along.
"It is what your tenants would hope to hear, I imagine," he concedes, "but I would advise not to promise too much too quickly, not where your publick can hear. Improvements will require money, as well as energy and fine intentions, and a broken promise will be looked upon more poorly than one not made at all."
"Rest assured, Saundersley," you reply. "War is a profitable enterprise if one does not get in one's own way."
"The war is over, my lord," the solicitor replies bluntly. "There will be no more ransoms to be had, and you've still your debts to think about."
You're past the fields now. Beyond the battered and cracked coach window, you can see the cottages of Reddingfield village, constructions of half-timber frames and steep shingle roofs like the images that still sit deep within the recesses of your memories, the images that the word 'home' had conjured within you during your long years in Antar.
Yet the scenes which confront you now seem different from what you remember. The figures who trudge from cottage to cottage seem duller and more stunted than the stout, happy folk you recall. Everything seems smaller, dirtier, tawdrier. Even the air seems to hang in your nostrils, heavy and fetid.
You cannot help but get the impression that this is not your home. Everything is off. Everything is wrong. Even as your eyes register the dilapidated old village shrine, the battered market stalls on the village square, and the remaining lengths of orange bunting from the just-past High Harvest Festival, you cannot shake the unease in the back of your head. The more familiar your surroundings become, the more alien you feel.
And what of your family? Will your cold, distant mother even acknowledge your presence? Will your brother and sister still remember you at all after a decade away?
The village is far behind you now, its last cottages receding into the distance. Ahead, there's only the long, lonely path up the rise to the manor house where you lived for so many of your early years.
Even from a distance, it too is somewhat less than you remembered, the steeply sloped roof filled with holes and imperfections, the stonework of the foundation dingy and worn, the bulk of its oaken frames more precarious than imposing. The home of your childhood has been reduced to a sad little edifice - a rickety pile atop its hill. Half its windows are broken or blocked up, its perimeter fence is tumbled down and entirely collapsed at places, and the grounds are almost overrun with wild tangles of growth and shrubbery.
There can be no safety in a frail half-ruin like this. It would be so easy for a band of determined attackers to advance under cover of the brush up to the very perimeter fence. From there, it would be child's play for any band of assailants to find and advance through one of the gaps in the fence, enter through one of the broken windows, and place the entire house at their mercy. Even if you were able to shut yourself up in some secure wing, you doubt it would take any piece of artillery greater than a six-pounder to batter the whole edifice down within an hour, with you still inside—
It is only then that you realise that you have, through long force of habit, begun thinking like a soldier again.
Only through a conscious effort do you force yourself to stop. The war is over. No partisans are skulking about in the woods around Reddingfield House, looking to do you harm. You may have enemies in Tierra, true, but nobody so barbarous as to attack you with cannon. Surely to apply military patterns of thought to your life at peace would be ridiculous.
Wouldn't it?
[ ] The lessons of war have made me stronger. I'll not abandon them.
[ ] I may no longer be at war, but some of what I've learned may yet be of use.
[ ] My days as a soldier are over; I must stop thinking like one.
Saundersley nods wearily as if that was the answer he'd been expecting all along.
"It is what your tenants would hope to hear, I imagine," he concedes, "but I would advise not to promise too much too quickly, not where your publick can hear. Improvements will require money, as well as energy and fine intentions, and a broken promise will be looked upon more poorly than one not made at all."
"Rest assured, Saundersley," you reply. "War is a profitable enterprise if one does not get in one's own way."
"The war is over, my lord," the solicitor replies bluntly. "There will be no more ransoms to be had, and you've still your debts to think about."
You're past the fields now. Beyond the battered and cracked coach window, you can see the cottages of Reddingfield village, constructions of half-timber frames and steep shingle roofs like the images that still sit deep within the recesses of your memories, the images that the word 'home' had conjured within you during your long years in Antar.
Yet the scenes which confront you now seem different from what you remember. The figures who trudge from cottage to cottage seem duller and more stunted than the stout, happy folk you recall. Everything seems smaller, dirtier, tawdrier. Even the air seems to hang in your nostrils, heavy and fetid.
You cannot help but get the impression that this is not your home. Everything is off. Everything is wrong. Even as your eyes register the dilapidated old village shrine, the battered market stalls on the village square, and the remaining lengths of orange bunting from the just-past High Harvest Festival, you cannot shake the unease in the back of your head. The more familiar your surroundings become, the more alien you feel.
And what of your family? Will your cold, distant mother even acknowledge your presence? Will your brother and sister still remember you at all after a decade away?
The village is far behind you now, its last cottages receding into the distance. Ahead, there's only the long, lonely path up the rise to the manor house where you lived for so many of your early years.
Even from a distance, it too is somewhat less than you remembered, the steeply sloped roof filled with holes and imperfections, the stonework of the foundation dingy and worn, the bulk of its oaken frames more precarious than imposing. The home of your childhood has been reduced to a sad little edifice - a rickety pile atop its hill. Half its windows are broken or blocked up, its perimeter fence is tumbled down and entirely collapsed at places, and the grounds are almost overrun with wild tangles of growth and shrubbery.
There can be no safety in a frail half-ruin like this. It would be so easy for a band of determined attackers to advance under cover of the brush up to the very perimeter fence. From there, it would be child's play for any band of assailants to find and advance through one of the gaps in the fence, enter through one of the broken windows, and place the entire house at their mercy. Even if you were able to shut yourself up in some secure wing, you doubt it would take any piece of artillery greater than a six-pounder to batter the whole edifice down within an hour, with you still inside—
It is only then that you realise that you have, through long force of habit, begun thinking like a soldier again.
Only through a conscious effort do you force yourself to stop. The war is over. No partisans are skulking about in the woods around Reddingfield House, looking to do you harm. You may have enemies in Tierra, true, but nobody so barbarous as to attack you with cannon. Surely to apply military patterns of thought to your life at peace would be ridiculous.
Wouldn't it?
[ ] The lessons of war have made me stronger. I'll not abandon them.
[ ] I may no longer be at war, but some of what I've learned may yet be of use.
[ ] My days as a soldier are over; I must stop thinking like one.
[X] The lessons of war have made me stronger. I'll not abandon them.
I feel like the MC would view his time as a leader and soldier as a period of growth for himself.
I feel like the MC would view his time as a leader and soldier as a period of growth for himself.
- Pronouns
- He
[X] My days as a soldier are over; I must stop thinking like one.
- Location
- A Place
The Aetorian supermen are half-memes in the CoG Infiniverse topics for a reason.
Though every dude of mine save one I've sent through Lords has been a Wulfrimite for... soon to be seen reasons.
[X] My days as a soldier are over; I must stop thinking like one.
Lords 1.03
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[X] My days as a soldier are over; I must stop thinking like one.
True, the ways of the soldier had been of much use on campaign, but you're in Tierra now, and Tierra is at peace. No more must you act as if you were still on the battlefield, where the only currency worth mentioning is force, and civility is only a byword for indecision.
Civilian life plays by wholly different rules, regulations, and codes of behaviour, and you shall have to follow them if you mean to prosper. It wouldn't do to address your valet as if he were your batman or your tenants as if they were your Dragoons. You couldn't imagine the scale of the injury you would do yourself if you were to disport yourself before your fellow country gentlemen as if they were brother-officers in a regimental mess.
No, it will do no good to cling to a soldier's way of thinking here. The sooner you discard it, the easier it shall be to adapt to your new circumstances.
Your family home: a somewhat aged example of rustic Wulframite architecture.
The coach trundles on, past the rusted wrought-iron gates and up the paved drive, to where a row of figures await, turned out to receive the new lord of the manor.
They're all here, the half-dozen men and women who had served your father and are now to serve you. They're smaller and greyer than you remember, their clothes more worn and threadbare, but one by one, the sight of their faces pulls a name from the deep recesses of your memory: Fernand, the foul-mouthed old groundskeeper; Mistress Ibanez, who'd run the kitchen as her own personal realm; Armand, the footman, who had once played constable-and-roadsmen with Willie Fenton in that very same yard.
You remember them, all of them.
And they're not the only ones waiting for you in that battered yard.
Your lady mother is there too, as straight-backed and imperious as ever; stoop-backed old Mistress Fenton is standing beside her.
Louisa and Karl were still children when you went to war. Now your younger siblings stand tall and proud beside your mother, transformed into a man and woman fully grown.
You had sent word ahead, of course. Perhaps you were never truly cut off from them. You exchanged letters regularly whilst you were in Antar.
But letters aren't the same as seeing, hearing, and breathing the same air.
At last, the coach lurches to a stop on the uneven cobbles. Thumps echo across the ceiling as the coachman makes his way down to the side of the carriage, and then his black-gloved hand pulls open the door. With a deep breath, you step out onto the drive, back into the world you left so many years ago.
"Mother," you report as you step off the running board, "I've returned."
Your mother nods in return, stonily, sedately. It's a nod of approval, to be sure, but it's the approval given to a particularly well-liked petticoat, not that given to a son newly returned from years of war.
So your mother is still as cold as she's always been. On some level, the familiar lack of affection is almost comforting.
Your sister, on the other hand, all but springs into your arms, pausing only to deliver the requisite curtsey you're now owed as lord of the manor.
"Oh, how good it is to have you back, Brother!" she cries as she wraps her arms around your neck and stands tip-toe to kiss you on the cheek. "How long we have hoped this day would come."
"Have you?" you ask mock-seriously, your sister's spirited disposition quickly beginning to affect your own.
"I have!" she protests in much the same fashion as she sets herself back. "Why, ever since we got the news, Karl has spent every morning staring out the front window, waiting for your coach."
"Louisa, you are a liar and a rascal," your younger brother interjects as he steps forward, his expression a look of sternness far too intense to be even the remotest bit serious. "I deny everything, utterly and categorically, and besides…". His face finally breaks out into the broadest of grins. "You were waiting for him with me."
Still smiling, Karl seizes you by the shoulders and pulls you in for a tight hug. "Welcome home, Brother. It has been boring here without you."
Only the servants are left now, the coachman and Saundersley among them. You can see the unease and uncertainty in their expressions as they deliver their bows and curtseys.
True, you were the young master to them when you were a boy, but boyhood seems far away now, and the gulf of years that separates you has become a wide and bottomless chasm. While they spent those years in this quiet and rural backwater, you fought at the forefront of the largest and bloodiest war in the Unified Kingdom's history. Could they even think to fathom the trials you have faced? What stories have they heard of the war in Antar, of you?
Perhaps it's time for some words or a gesture. Anything to lay their uncertainties to rest.
[ ] No. If I am to reassure them, it will be by deeds, not words.
[ ] I must reassure them that things will not be so much different.
[ ] I shall try to inspire them, convince them that we are bound for greater things.
[ ] Words are cheap. I'll offer the staff a substantial bonus instead. (-40 Wealth)
True, the ways of the soldier had been of much use on campaign, but you're in Tierra now, and Tierra is at peace. No more must you act as if you were still on the battlefield, where the only currency worth mentioning is force, and civility is only a byword for indecision.
Civilian life plays by wholly different rules, regulations, and codes of behaviour, and you shall have to follow them if you mean to prosper. It wouldn't do to address your valet as if he were your batman or your tenants as if they were your Dragoons. You couldn't imagine the scale of the injury you would do yourself if you were to disport yourself before your fellow country gentlemen as if they were brother-officers in a regimental mess.
No, it will do no good to cling to a soldier's way of thinking here. The sooner you discard it, the easier it shall be to adapt to your new circumstances.
Your family home: a somewhat aged example of rustic Wulframite architecture.
The coach trundles on, past the rusted wrought-iron gates and up the paved drive, to where a row of figures await, turned out to receive the new lord of the manor.
They're all here, the half-dozen men and women who had served your father and are now to serve you. They're smaller and greyer than you remember, their clothes more worn and threadbare, but one by one, the sight of their faces pulls a name from the deep recesses of your memory: Fernand, the foul-mouthed old groundskeeper; Mistress Ibanez, who'd run the kitchen as her own personal realm; Armand, the footman, who had once played constable-and-roadsmen with Willie Fenton in that very same yard.
You remember them, all of them.
And they're not the only ones waiting for you in that battered yard.
Your lady mother is there too, as straight-backed and imperious as ever; stoop-backed old Mistress Fenton is standing beside her.
Louisa and Karl were still children when you went to war. Now your younger siblings stand tall and proud beside your mother, transformed into a man and woman fully grown.
You had sent word ahead, of course. Perhaps you were never truly cut off from them. You exchanged letters regularly whilst you were in Antar.
But letters aren't the same as seeing, hearing, and breathing the same air.
At last, the coach lurches to a stop on the uneven cobbles. Thumps echo across the ceiling as the coachman makes his way down to the side of the carriage, and then his black-gloved hand pulls open the door. With a deep breath, you step out onto the drive, back into the world you left so many years ago.
"Mother," you report as you step off the running board, "I've returned."
Your mother nods in return, stonily, sedately. It's a nod of approval, to be sure, but it's the approval given to a particularly well-liked petticoat, not that given to a son newly returned from years of war.
So your mother is still as cold as she's always been. On some level, the familiar lack of affection is almost comforting.
Your sister, on the other hand, all but springs into your arms, pausing only to deliver the requisite curtsey you're now owed as lord of the manor.
"Oh, how good it is to have you back, Brother!" she cries as she wraps her arms around your neck and stands tip-toe to kiss you on the cheek. "How long we have hoped this day would come."
"Have you?" you ask mock-seriously, your sister's spirited disposition quickly beginning to affect your own.
"I have!" she protests in much the same fashion as she sets herself back. "Why, ever since we got the news, Karl has spent every morning staring out the front window, waiting for your coach."
"Louisa, you are a liar and a rascal," your younger brother interjects as he steps forward, his expression a look of sternness far too intense to be even the remotest bit serious. "I deny everything, utterly and categorically, and besides…". His face finally breaks out into the broadest of grins. "You were waiting for him with me."
Still smiling, Karl seizes you by the shoulders and pulls you in for a tight hug. "Welcome home, Brother. It has been boring here without you."
Only the servants are left now, the coachman and Saundersley among them. You can see the unease and uncertainty in their expressions as they deliver their bows and curtseys.
True, you were the young master to them when you were a boy, but boyhood seems far away now, and the gulf of years that separates you has become a wide and bottomless chasm. While they spent those years in this quiet and rural backwater, you fought at the forefront of the largest and bloodiest war in the Unified Kingdom's history. Could they even think to fathom the trials you have faced? What stories have they heard of the war in Antar, of you?
Perhaps it's time for some words or a gesture. Anything to lay their uncertainties to rest.
[ ] No. If I am to reassure them, it will be by deeds, not words.
[ ] I must reassure them that things will not be so much different.
[ ] I shall try to inspire them, convince them that we are bound for greater things.
[ ] Words are cheap. I'll offer the staff a substantial bonus instead. (-40 Wealth)
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- They/Them
What's our income from the Half-Pay?
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We currently make 180 crown every six months.
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- He
[X] I shall try to inspire them, convince them that we are bound for greater things.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] No. If I am to reassure them, it will be by deeds, not words.
[X] Words are cheap. I'll offer the staff a substantial bonus instead. (-40 Wealth)
That'd be nice if we were charismatic.
[X] Words are cheap. I'll offer the staff a substantial bonus instead. (-40 Wealth)
That'd be nice if we were charismatic.
Oh yeah, it's great. Especially in Lords.
The only thing saving us is that Lords has a lot of hybrid checks where you add two stats together to get over a certain number, or sometimes add your reputation with a faction to a stat.
Lords 1.04
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It isn't difficult to see the situation from the perspective of your retainers: for all that you remember them, you are still, for all intents and purposes, a complete stranger. They cannot know to what degree and in what fashion your years at war have changed you if they have changed you at all. The only inkling of your present character they might now possess is that of memories more than a decade old. What good could words do in such a circumstance?
No. If you are to make an impression, you shall have to resort to action.
One by one, you call up the staff, and one by one, you deposit in their hands a handful of coin, a reward for the long years of service they have given your family and the long years of service which you mean to expect of them from here on after.
You doubt you've bought their loyalty entirely, but opening with something like this will no doubt be a good foundation. You must take care not to antagonise them now and to maintain a reputation for generosity. It will take some time to earn their loyalty. You know that. However, as you watch each one of your old retainers withdraw with your gift in hand and note their looks of gratitude, you cannot help but be filled with some sense of satisfaction.
No, you do not have their devotion yet, but you have made a start of it.
-
Dinner is almost a feast. There's a platter piled high with blood sausage and a bowl of mushroom preserves. There's a bowl of pickled cabbage fried and chopped until almost creamy. There's black bread and black beer.
No Aetoria City hostess would have been caught dead serving such fare, and no regimental mess either. It has too much of the air of the backwoods rustic and lacks any of the sophistication of Kian or Takaran or M'hidiyossi cooking, with ingredients determined less by any culinary theory or high fashion than by price and sheer proximity to the kitchen which is to prepare it. You can imagine the polite condescension of some of your higher-placed acquaintances if they were served such food. Others of their class would likely be far less civil. "Food for peasants," they would likely sneer, "and people who live like peasants."
But for you, it is the food of your childhood, and even if the rest of your past before the war seems dull and foggy and only half-recalled, you remember this more than well enough.
It is the taste of home, and you spoon it up with gusto.
Your mother sits apart from you, carrying the same air of detachment she had possessed through much of your childhood. At some tables, you suppose, such silence would be considered unnatural. At yours, it is almost yet another familiar part of being home.
"Alaric," she finally says after what must have been a quarter of an hour at least. "It is time you got married."
"Married?" you manage, your fork suspended halfway betwixt mouth and plate. "A bit sudden, don't you think?"
"It is overdue, that's what it is," your mother replies stonily. "You're getting too old to be unattached the way you are. You've spent far too long gallivanting off in who-knows-where when you should have been finding a wife and siring an heir."
"It was my duty, Mother," you remind her, doing your best to keep your voice even and temperate. "The realm was at war."
"Now it is at peace," she replies dismissively as if your years in Antar were nothing more than a misbegotten diversion. "And you are still in need of a wife, a respectable one. Your father was attempting to arrange a match with the Torrenburg girl down the road when you ran off, do you remember?"
Yes, you remember that, though only barely. Your father had been rather set on helping you find a respectable match, especially seeing as the son of a poor baron was not exactly the most glittering of prospects for any baneblooded lady of a titled family. The fact that one lived only a few hours' ride away had been a stroke of luck, and negotiations had entered a most crucial phase just as the war interrupted.
In the end…
[ ] [AMALIA] …I agreed to an engagement with some enthusiasm.
[ ] [AMALIA] …an engagement was thrust upon me, though I wanted no part of it.
[ ] [AMALIA] …the talks came to nothing. There was no engagement.
[ ] [AMALIA] …I made what promises I needed to, but only so I could take the Torrenburg girl to bed.
[X] [AMALIA] …the talks came to nothing. There was no engagement.
I don't think the MC would want the engagement and he's smart enough to get out of it.
I don't think the MC would want the engagement and he's smart enough to get out of it.
[X] [AMALIA] …the talks came to nothing. There was no engagement.
Our romantic situation is complicated enough. No need to make it worse.
Besides, to get the most out of it you really need to stay in the country, and I doubt we will.
Our romantic situation is complicated enough. No need to make it worse.
Besides, to get the most out of it you really need to stay in the country, and I doubt we will.
Lords 1.05
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- He/Him
[X] [AMALIA] …the talks came to nothing. There was no engagement.
"There were negotiations," you admit, "but nothing came of them."
"I see," she replies icily. "A pity, and one which must be rectified quickly."
She leans forward, her eyes cold and flinty. "I am sure you will agree that finding a wife and siring an heir ought to be your highest priority. I expect you to begin the search for a new prospect immediately and for you to bend every resource at your disposal to that end," she commands. "It must be done."
[ ] [MOM] "I do not know. Give me time."
[ ] [MOM] "I will find someone, make no mistake."
[ ] [MOM] "What if I wish to marry no one at all?"
[ ] [MOM] "There is already someone else I have in mind."
"There were negotiations," you admit, "but nothing came of them."
"I see," she replies icily. "A pity, and one which must be rectified quickly."
She leans forward, her eyes cold and flinty. "I am sure you will agree that finding a wife and siring an heir ought to be your highest priority. I expect you to begin the search for a new prospect immediately and for you to bend every resource at your disposal to that end," she commands. "It must be done."
[ ] [MOM] "I do not know. Give me time."
[ ] [MOM] "I will find someone, make no mistake."
[ ] [MOM] "What if I wish to marry no one at all?"
[ ] [MOM] "There is already someone else I have in mind."
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] [MOM] "There is already someone else I have in mind."
"Her name is Cazarosta's Sister... erm I mean Katarina."
"Her name is Cazarosta's Sister... erm I mean Katarina."
[X] [MOM] "There is already someone else I have in mind."
- Pronouns
- He
[X] [MOM] "There is already someone else I have in mind."
Lords 1.06
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[X] "There is already someone else I have in mind."
"Is that so?" your mother replies icily. "An unwise match, no doubt, not worthy of your station."
"She is Lady Katarina d'al Cazarosta, Mother," you reply.
Your brother and sister stare at you, wide-eyed in shock. Your mother's expression flashes through emotions in rapid sequence: surprise first, then fear, then anger, before it finally settles into derision.
"I am not in the mood for your foolish little jokes, boy," she finally replies, her voice colder than ever. "This is a matter of great import to the future of this house, not a setting for your absurd jests. Strike a match with one of the wealthiest houses in the Unified Kingdom? You? Ridiculous."
So that's how it is to be, though you suppose you ought to have expected it. Your mother never had great faith in your abilities. Why should she start now? No, easier to dismiss the whole affair as a bad joke than to admit it's possible that her son might be able to pursue—successfully pursue, even—a match with one of the greatest heiresses in the realm.
"I am being serious, Mother," you insist. "It is a prospect I mean to pursue in deadly earnest."
But she isn't listening. "If you cannot speak gravely about such matters, then I see there's no point in discussing it with you further," she sniffs. "I shall simply resign myself to the fact that it will be Karl who will carry on the line and that you will die as stupid and alone as you are now."
With that, she turns away, a look of disdain on her face. She does not speak to you again that night.
The next few days pass in a flurry of activity as you grow accustomed to your new position and circumstances.
When you were in Antar, the process of settling into your new billet only took a few hours. Your batman would follow you to your new lodgings with your baggage and unpack everything per your well-accustomed directions. You would immediately commandeer a desk for your administrative work. After that, it was only a matter of clearing away the papers left by the desk's previous owner, introducing yourself at the local officers' club, and making sure the rest of your command was similarly settled in.
You took that for granted, then.
Now, newly returned to your childhood home, you find yourself surrounded by half a dozen servants who remember your name and face but know nothing of your personal habits. Your baggage—the sparse kit of a soldier ready to depart at a moment's notice—possesses little of the necessities you suddenly find yourself in need of as a country gentleman. Worst of all, instead of having the luxury of discarding your father's confidential papers—the ones which even Saundersley is not privy to—you must read through them, one by one, at the desk which used to be his, so that you may learn of your father's affairs and the decisions he made in the government of the barony which is now yours.
It is not an easy process. Your father didn't show you much care in person, but his private journals show that he possessed perhaps more affection for you than he ever really showed. It is a harsh blow to learn of such a thing only long after his death. In the end, you set those volumes aside to be read some other time.
Your brother proves a great help, having run much of the estate after your father's death. Working side by side, you're able to reorganise your father's desk to your liking and grasp the workings of your new fiefdom faster than you could have possibly hoped.
It is only after three days of near-constant work that you finally emerge from your father's study. Your head still filled with lists of tenants, maps of grazing fields, and the texts of legal contracts, you commit yourself to a good, long night's sleep. You are not entirely versed in your estate's workings, but you at least now know enough to be confident moving forward. You've taken the first step to becoming Baron Reddingfield in truth as well as in name.
On the morning of the fourth day, you bathe and dress in your best coat. You order the carriage hitched and readied; and head for Baron Torrenburg's estate. Courtesy requires you to introduce yourself to your nearest neighbour as the new baron, even though he may have no reason to remember you fondly after your father's failed attempt to arrange a marital alliance. You can only hope that the past has not prejudiced him too greatly against your house and pray that the conversation does not become too awkward.
Torrenburg House is not so different from your own residence. The drive is perhaps less holed, the walls in less disrepair, the outbuildings in better condition, but as a whole, it is of the same model as your house and the perhaps one hundred other country houses which dot the Wulframite hinterlands: too worn and too cramped to be the stately hall of a great lord, far too grand and ancient to be the home of a mere farmer or tradesman.
Lord Torrenburg is a solidly built man, his grey hair tied back and curled, as had been the fashion among the country nobility when your father was young. You think he would have made a good Dragoon officer, were he twenty years younger. Over cups of coffee and plates of biscuits, the two of you make inconsequential conversation in his parlour for the next hour. You take care to avoid any serious conversation and to steer clear of any topic which might cause offence or unpleasantness. Instead, you chat about the weather, the ongoing harvest, and the local news. You lament the poor state of your roads and he not-quite boasts about his effort to restore his village's shrine.
It is an amiable exchange if almost entirely without substance, the chatter of two country gentlemen discussing matters which would be utterly irrelevant to anyone who lived a day's ride away.
Part of you cannot help but enjoy the process of conversation without consequence after twelve years of almost nothing but the earnest discussion of war and statecraft.
Part of you is slowly going mad.
Thus it is both a sadness and a relief when, after your third cup of coffee, Lord Torrenburg brings a third figure into the room, a slight, snub-nosed young woman with long, mousey brown hair and a pair of darting hazel eyes.
"My Lord Reddingfield," he says as the girl steps forward to join you, "it has been some time, but I am sure you remember my daughter?"
You remember Lady Amalia d'al Torrenburg only faintly, and judging by how she moves around you, there's little doubt that she doesn't remember much of you either. The two of you exchange maybe half a dozen words altogether before she withdraws to the other side of the parlour, taking a seat next to her father.
Baron Torrenburg continues your conversation from before. At times, he defers to his daughter, though only long enough to allow a few words, delivered with a quiet, almost meek reserve. You suppose that's only natural. Women of your class are not exactly encouraged to speak their minds when in the company of men, be they husband or father. You wonder if she would behave the same way outside the shadow of her father's influence. But you cannot know that unless you were able to speak with her in a more intimate setting, and that could not possibly occur unless you were to try to court her.
Then again, perhaps…
No, now is not the time for such thoughts. The coffee pot is empty, and the biscuits are gone. Your visit, for all intents and purposes, is at an end. Lady Amalia escorts you to the door. Her father thanks you for a pleasant morning's conversation and sends you on your way. You spend the trip back to your estate thinking about what could have been.
And perhaps, what might be.
A pleasant surprise awaits you upon your return to the estate: a battered old horse van, direct from Tannersburg and aboard, a familiar face, or rather perhaps, a familiar form.
Faith was your personal mount in Antar, and now, by a slow, circuitous route, your old battle companion has returned to your side.
Your horse is no longer young or particularly spry, but Faith is still a warhorse trained, and you have little doubt that you will pose an imposing figure atop the saddle to the eyes of your tenants and neighbours.
Alas, you have only enough time to arrange the transfer of beast, tack, and saddle to a new place in your dilapidated stables before you must cut your reunion short. Your desk awaits, and there is still no small amount of work to be done.
For the next few weeks, as the last of the harvest is brought in and the last of the leaves fall from the trees, your time is occupied by three matters, each of no small importance.
The first is perhaps the one that consumes the most of your effort: the touring of your estates. Every day, you spend the early morning riding through the pitted and muddy streets of Reddingfield village wrapped up in a heavy overcoat to ward off the chill, greeting your tenants as they go out to their day's labours.
At a glance, you have no doubt that the whole practise seems rather frivolous, to spend hours riding about, doing nothing but saying "Good morning!" and "Saints go with you!" to men and women who only know you by name. Yet it is the very fact that they do not know you by appearance which prompts you to such activity. You are, after all, their new lord, the man to whom their rents and obedience are now owed. War has taught you well enough that an officer who cannot have his voice or face recognised by his men cannot command at all. You doubt it is very much different with the administration of an estate.
So, every morning, you continue to ride out, even as the mornings grow colder and wetter and the roads start to degenerate into a morass of mud. You continue until every one of your tenants is able to distinguish you by sight and know almost by instinct that it is you, and no other, who serves as lord and master.
Your second duty is a rather warmer one, if somewhat more tedious; for when you return from your morning ride, you have only time enough to eat a light lunch before turning to your office to put the administrative affairs of your estate in order.
True, you have sworn your oath before the King and made yourself known to your tenants and neighbours, but that does not mean there are not other matters related to your assumption of the title which demand somewhat timely action. First, there are the letters to Grenadier Square and the Duke of Cunaris in Fernandescourt, informing them of your new address so that your half-pay might be routed properly. Then, there are inquiries to the Intendancy regarding matters of law. You must look over your father's subscriptions to the city broadsheets, so you may continue the ones you favour and cancel the ones you mislike.
Perhaps most importantly of all, you send letters to the banking houses which hold your family's debt, settling the outstanding interest they are owed with a combination of the assets your father left behind and a portion of your own wealth.
The third matter is the one that is perhaps most vital to the proper administration of your fief: the twice-annual collection of rents, timed with the first planting season and the last harvest. Under normal circumstances, the rents would have been your only source of reliable income, and although your half-pay and royal annuity go some way to covering your expenses, only the rents levied upon your tenants can bring in enough money to keep your finances stable.
Thankfully, this is a task in which you do not need to be personally involved. Instead, it is Saundersley who goes out every morning, armed with a copy of your ledgers, to visit the plots and cottages your tenants have rented from you and exact the coin they owe you for the privilege. Every evening, he returns with the collected rents, bound for your strongbox, and a stack of receipts bound for your records.
It is a task that Saundersley performs with his customary stolidness, a matter which gives you little trouble until the very last day when your solicitor hurries into your study with a stack of folders under his arm and a worried expression on his face.
"My lord, I think we may have something of a problem," he reports as he places a thick sheaf of papers on your desk. "I was presented with this not an hour ago."
You look down to see a long list of names, almost all of them recognisable: they are the names of your tenants printed in a rough, unrefined hand. A handful of names are accompanied by signatures. Most carry only an illiterate's mark next to them. The list goes on for page after page until it seems every tenant in your fief has put ink to it.
"What is it?" you ask.
"A petition," Saundersley replies. "It demands that the rents be lowered for next spring and kept at that rate thereafter. Given the current hardships which they must endure, it may not be an unfair imposition."
Your eyes narrow. Your tenants have every right to petition you, but your rents are your livelihood. It is not a matter on which you may concede ground easily. "How much?" you ask.
Saundersley swallows hard. "By a quarter, my lord."
"Saints above! That is no small amount!"
"No, my lord, it is not," Saundersley concedes, "but given the circumstances, I have no doubt your tenants consider such a drastic reduction more than reasonable."
"Cutting rents by a tenth, perhaps," you muse, "or even an eighth, but this?" You shake your head in disbelief. "Surely this year's harvest could not have been that bad?"
Saundersley grimaces. "It is not a poor harvest which is the issue, my lord. It is the fact that nobody can afford to buy what is harvested. The towns have been just as badly pressed by the King's taxes as we have, and they do not have the coin to buy all the produce they once did. I think the return of all the men who went to Antar may have made things even worse."
You nod pensively. As much as you might hate to admit it, Saundersley is likely right. With the tens of thousands of men who once made up the King's Army in Antar returning home at the end of the war, there must be a surfeit of healthy men competing for what jobs exist in the towns and cities, a situation sure to drive wages down. It is a wretched thought that your fellow soldiers are only making the situation worse, but that doesn't mean that it might not very well be true.
Your solicitor clears his throat quietly. "Now then, about this petition…".
"Your thoughts, Saundersley?"
"You are still new to your seat, lord," Saundersley ponders, "and your tenants still do not know what quite to make of you. Acquiescing to their requests may ease their anxieties."
"It may also ruin me," you point out. "This fief's revenues are not much greater than its expenses. If those revenues were to drop so precipitously…".
Your solicitor nods. "That is true, but here you have a chance to make an early impression on your tenants," he notes. "Remember that they are not Antari serfs. If they are displeased, they may well leave. If they are happy, they will stay, and their high opinion of you may even attract others. Their goodwill may prove to be a more valuable resource than coin. This is an opportunity to win a great deal of it."
And how long will that goodwill last when you are forced to make economies to keep yourself afloat? When the tenants realise that lower rents mean no more money to repair the roads or fix the cottages? Will you still have their goodwill then? Or will they simply think you are a fool?
Saundersley looks down at the petition, then gives you a grim little smile. "I think I have made my thoughts on the matter clear. Do you have a decision, my lord?"
[ ] [RENT] "It is not an unreasonable request, given the circumstances. I'll grant it."
[ ] [RENT] "Times are hard for all; I cannot afford to lower rents anytime soon."
[ ] [RENT] "Lower the rents? No, I think I'll raise them instead."
"Is that so?" your mother replies icily. "An unwise match, no doubt, not worthy of your station."
"She is Lady Katarina d'al Cazarosta, Mother," you reply.
Your brother and sister stare at you, wide-eyed in shock. Your mother's expression flashes through emotions in rapid sequence: surprise first, then fear, then anger, before it finally settles into derision.
"I am not in the mood for your foolish little jokes, boy," she finally replies, her voice colder than ever. "This is a matter of great import to the future of this house, not a setting for your absurd jests. Strike a match with one of the wealthiest houses in the Unified Kingdom? You? Ridiculous."
So that's how it is to be, though you suppose you ought to have expected it. Your mother never had great faith in your abilities. Why should she start now? No, easier to dismiss the whole affair as a bad joke than to admit it's possible that her son might be able to pursue—successfully pursue, even—a match with one of the greatest heiresses in the realm.
"I am being serious, Mother," you insist. "It is a prospect I mean to pursue in deadly earnest."
But she isn't listening. "If you cannot speak gravely about such matters, then I see there's no point in discussing it with you further," she sniffs. "I shall simply resign myself to the fact that it will be Karl who will carry on the line and that you will die as stupid and alone as you are now."
With that, she turns away, a look of disdain on her face. She does not speak to you again that night.
-
The next few days pass in a flurry of activity as you grow accustomed to your new position and circumstances.
When you were in Antar, the process of settling into your new billet only took a few hours. Your batman would follow you to your new lodgings with your baggage and unpack everything per your well-accustomed directions. You would immediately commandeer a desk for your administrative work. After that, it was only a matter of clearing away the papers left by the desk's previous owner, introducing yourself at the local officers' club, and making sure the rest of your command was similarly settled in.
You took that for granted, then.
Now, newly returned to your childhood home, you find yourself surrounded by half a dozen servants who remember your name and face but know nothing of your personal habits. Your baggage—the sparse kit of a soldier ready to depart at a moment's notice—possesses little of the necessities you suddenly find yourself in need of as a country gentleman. Worst of all, instead of having the luxury of discarding your father's confidential papers—the ones which even Saundersley is not privy to—you must read through them, one by one, at the desk which used to be his, so that you may learn of your father's affairs and the decisions he made in the government of the barony which is now yours.
It is not an easy process. Your father didn't show you much care in person, but his private journals show that he possessed perhaps more affection for you than he ever really showed. It is a harsh blow to learn of such a thing only long after his death. In the end, you set those volumes aside to be read some other time.
Your brother proves a great help, having run much of the estate after your father's death. Working side by side, you're able to reorganise your father's desk to your liking and grasp the workings of your new fiefdom faster than you could have possibly hoped.
It is only after three days of near-constant work that you finally emerge from your father's study. Your head still filled with lists of tenants, maps of grazing fields, and the texts of legal contracts, you commit yourself to a good, long night's sleep. You are not entirely versed in your estate's workings, but you at least now know enough to be confident moving forward. You've taken the first step to becoming Baron Reddingfield in truth as well as in name.
On the morning of the fourth day, you bathe and dress in your best coat. You order the carriage hitched and readied; and head for Baron Torrenburg's estate. Courtesy requires you to introduce yourself to your nearest neighbour as the new baron, even though he may have no reason to remember you fondly after your father's failed attempt to arrange a marital alliance. You can only hope that the past has not prejudiced him too greatly against your house and pray that the conversation does not become too awkward.
Torrenburg House is not so different from your own residence. The drive is perhaps less holed, the walls in less disrepair, the outbuildings in better condition, but as a whole, it is of the same model as your house and the perhaps one hundred other country houses which dot the Wulframite hinterlands: too worn and too cramped to be the stately hall of a great lord, far too grand and ancient to be the home of a mere farmer or tradesman.
Lord Torrenburg is a solidly built man, his grey hair tied back and curled, as had been the fashion among the country nobility when your father was young. You think he would have made a good Dragoon officer, were he twenty years younger. Over cups of coffee and plates of biscuits, the two of you make inconsequential conversation in his parlour for the next hour. You take care to avoid any serious conversation and to steer clear of any topic which might cause offence or unpleasantness. Instead, you chat about the weather, the ongoing harvest, and the local news. You lament the poor state of your roads and he not-quite boasts about his effort to restore his village's shrine.
It is an amiable exchange if almost entirely without substance, the chatter of two country gentlemen discussing matters which would be utterly irrelevant to anyone who lived a day's ride away.
Part of you cannot help but enjoy the process of conversation without consequence after twelve years of almost nothing but the earnest discussion of war and statecraft.
Part of you is slowly going mad.
Thus it is both a sadness and a relief when, after your third cup of coffee, Lord Torrenburg brings a third figure into the room, a slight, snub-nosed young woman with long, mousey brown hair and a pair of darting hazel eyes.
"My Lord Reddingfield," he says as the girl steps forward to join you, "it has been some time, but I am sure you remember my daughter?"
You remember Lady Amalia d'al Torrenburg only faintly, and judging by how she moves around you, there's little doubt that she doesn't remember much of you either. The two of you exchange maybe half a dozen words altogether before she withdraws to the other side of the parlour, taking a seat next to her father.
Baron Torrenburg continues your conversation from before. At times, he defers to his daughter, though only long enough to allow a few words, delivered with a quiet, almost meek reserve. You suppose that's only natural. Women of your class are not exactly encouraged to speak their minds when in the company of men, be they husband or father. You wonder if she would behave the same way outside the shadow of her father's influence. But you cannot know that unless you were able to speak with her in a more intimate setting, and that could not possibly occur unless you were to try to court her.
Then again, perhaps…
No, now is not the time for such thoughts. The coffee pot is empty, and the biscuits are gone. Your visit, for all intents and purposes, is at an end. Lady Amalia escorts you to the door. Her father thanks you for a pleasant morning's conversation and sends you on your way. You spend the trip back to your estate thinking about what could have been.
And perhaps, what might be.
-
A pleasant surprise awaits you upon your return to the estate: a battered old horse van, direct from Tannersburg and aboard, a familiar face, or rather perhaps, a familiar form.
Faith was your personal mount in Antar, and now, by a slow, circuitous route, your old battle companion has returned to your side.
Your horse is no longer young or particularly spry, but Faith is still a warhorse trained, and you have little doubt that you will pose an imposing figure atop the saddle to the eyes of your tenants and neighbours.
Alas, you have only enough time to arrange the transfer of beast, tack, and saddle to a new place in your dilapidated stables before you must cut your reunion short. Your desk awaits, and there is still no small amount of work to be done.
-
For the next few weeks, as the last of the harvest is brought in and the last of the leaves fall from the trees, your time is occupied by three matters, each of no small importance.
The first is perhaps the one that consumes the most of your effort: the touring of your estates. Every day, you spend the early morning riding through the pitted and muddy streets of Reddingfield village wrapped up in a heavy overcoat to ward off the chill, greeting your tenants as they go out to their day's labours.
At a glance, you have no doubt that the whole practise seems rather frivolous, to spend hours riding about, doing nothing but saying "Good morning!" and "Saints go with you!" to men and women who only know you by name. Yet it is the very fact that they do not know you by appearance which prompts you to such activity. You are, after all, their new lord, the man to whom their rents and obedience are now owed. War has taught you well enough that an officer who cannot have his voice or face recognised by his men cannot command at all. You doubt it is very much different with the administration of an estate.
So, every morning, you continue to ride out, even as the mornings grow colder and wetter and the roads start to degenerate into a morass of mud. You continue until every one of your tenants is able to distinguish you by sight and know almost by instinct that it is you, and no other, who serves as lord and master.
Your second duty is a rather warmer one, if somewhat more tedious; for when you return from your morning ride, you have only time enough to eat a light lunch before turning to your office to put the administrative affairs of your estate in order.
True, you have sworn your oath before the King and made yourself known to your tenants and neighbours, but that does not mean there are not other matters related to your assumption of the title which demand somewhat timely action. First, there are the letters to Grenadier Square and the Duke of Cunaris in Fernandescourt, informing them of your new address so that your half-pay might be routed properly. Then, there are inquiries to the Intendancy regarding matters of law. You must look over your father's subscriptions to the city broadsheets, so you may continue the ones you favour and cancel the ones you mislike.
Perhaps most importantly of all, you send letters to the banking houses which hold your family's debt, settling the outstanding interest they are owed with a combination of the assets your father left behind and a portion of your own wealth.
The third matter is the one that is perhaps most vital to the proper administration of your fief: the twice-annual collection of rents, timed with the first planting season and the last harvest. Under normal circumstances, the rents would have been your only source of reliable income, and although your half-pay and royal annuity go some way to covering your expenses, only the rents levied upon your tenants can bring in enough money to keep your finances stable.
Thankfully, this is a task in which you do not need to be personally involved. Instead, it is Saundersley who goes out every morning, armed with a copy of your ledgers, to visit the plots and cottages your tenants have rented from you and exact the coin they owe you for the privilege. Every evening, he returns with the collected rents, bound for your strongbox, and a stack of receipts bound for your records.
It is a task that Saundersley performs with his customary stolidness, a matter which gives you little trouble until the very last day when your solicitor hurries into your study with a stack of folders under his arm and a worried expression on his face.
"My lord, I think we may have something of a problem," he reports as he places a thick sheaf of papers on your desk. "I was presented with this not an hour ago."
You look down to see a long list of names, almost all of them recognisable: they are the names of your tenants printed in a rough, unrefined hand. A handful of names are accompanied by signatures. Most carry only an illiterate's mark next to them. The list goes on for page after page until it seems every tenant in your fief has put ink to it.
"What is it?" you ask.
"A petition," Saundersley replies. "It demands that the rents be lowered for next spring and kept at that rate thereafter. Given the current hardships which they must endure, it may not be an unfair imposition."
Your eyes narrow. Your tenants have every right to petition you, but your rents are your livelihood. It is not a matter on which you may concede ground easily. "How much?" you ask.
Saundersley swallows hard. "By a quarter, my lord."
"Saints above! That is no small amount!"
"No, my lord, it is not," Saundersley concedes, "but given the circumstances, I have no doubt your tenants consider such a drastic reduction more than reasonable."
"Cutting rents by a tenth, perhaps," you muse, "or even an eighth, but this?" You shake your head in disbelief. "Surely this year's harvest could not have been that bad?"
Saundersley grimaces. "It is not a poor harvest which is the issue, my lord. It is the fact that nobody can afford to buy what is harvested. The towns have been just as badly pressed by the King's taxes as we have, and they do not have the coin to buy all the produce they once did. I think the return of all the men who went to Antar may have made things even worse."
You nod pensively. As much as you might hate to admit it, Saundersley is likely right. With the tens of thousands of men who once made up the King's Army in Antar returning home at the end of the war, there must be a surfeit of healthy men competing for what jobs exist in the towns and cities, a situation sure to drive wages down. It is a wretched thought that your fellow soldiers are only making the situation worse, but that doesn't mean that it might not very well be true.
Your solicitor clears his throat quietly. "Now then, about this petition…".
"Your thoughts, Saundersley?"
"You are still new to your seat, lord," Saundersley ponders, "and your tenants still do not know what quite to make of you. Acquiescing to their requests may ease their anxieties."
"It may also ruin me," you point out. "This fief's revenues are not much greater than its expenses. If those revenues were to drop so precipitously…".
Your solicitor nods. "That is true, but here you have a chance to make an early impression on your tenants," he notes. "Remember that they are not Antari serfs. If they are displeased, they may well leave. If they are happy, they will stay, and their high opinion of you may even attract others. Their goodwill may prove to be a more valuable resource than coin. This is an opportunity to win a great deal of it."
And how long will that goodwill last when you are forced to make economies to keep yourself afloat? When the tenants realise that lower rents mean no more money to repair the roads or fix the cottages? Will you still have their goodwill then? Or will they simply think you are a fool?
Saundersley looks down at the petition, then gives you a grim little smile. "I think I have made my thoughts on the matter clear. Do you have a decision, my lord?"
[ ] [RENT] "It is not an unreasonable request, given the circumstances. I'll grant it."
[ ] [RENT] "Times are hard for all; I cannot afford to lower rents anytime soon."
[ ] [RENT] "Lower the rents? No, I think I'll raise them instead."
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] [RENT] "It is not an unreasonable request, given the circumstances. I'll grant it."
...man, wooing Katarina is going to take the wind out of her sails if we don't fuck it up. (There's a good chance we fuck it up.)
...man, wooing Katarina is going to take the wind out of her sails if we don't fuck it up. (There's a good chance we fuck it up.)