***Before…

We go through the poorer quarters of the city too and I buy things...bread, apples and hand out those and more coppers than was likely wise to those asking for alms.
I spend money there buying the things we need for my lands.
There’s a real difference in spending coin at a smithy for nails as an example when a high street smith would charge you four times the prices for the novelty of the neighborhood and their sign.
I can get more and give my custom here.
Where it’s dearly needed.
And I buy as much as I can find that we need here….hire three lads and a girl about my age from the streets to lift and carry and watch our goods.
Get leather right from the tanners in person and get charcoal from the burners' sons and daughters hard, hard work and it smells and I ignore that to meet the folks selling and making things.
Eat streetboil soup and sausages grilled on a pot of rough coals with my men and hires in the streets.
And give back my good turn of things by the light and the gods.
Food and coin...father said if you can use food and coin.
Food can fill a belly so that little coin would buy just a little bit of dignity.
You can’t put a price on simple dignity.
It also took a long time before I find a young man dressed as a beggar looking a bit too fit for being a beggar.
I give him a bread loaf and a few coppers and lock eyes with him.
“Tell Him I need a meeting.”
He stares at me.
We lock eyes for a minute or three.
“I’m Jack.”
“I’m Grace.”
“Not your title?”
“Titles aren’t actually the people Jack.”
He smiles then kisses my hand then he walks away. “I’ll let Him know.”
Him… is The Rogue, the master of the thieves.
He and I need to make an accord.
I’m going to ask him into The Meritas.

*And Now….

I honestly don’t know what I’m doing.

My life has gone from being a pretty young noble woman looking forward to parties and clothes and fairs and that middle kingdoms sheltered life. To war and being raided and fire and blood then plunged into the Capital and the largest human city on the continent and knighthood and Elves and martial training.

Being here in the city, really in the city is not my forte.

Honestly I’m winging it really.

I really didn’t have much of anywhere else to go so I did go back to my quarters although carefully and trying to keep an eye out.

Yeah there were people once I passed into the middle markets that I think were looking for me. Whitefist types and their sort. Some I slipped past easy enough and three others met me and cut me off before the palace grounds.

I didn’t run.

I moved to the middle of the street actually and they almost took the bait and came at me instead I kept my eyes on them and I dared them almost.

Come, come for me right here, see what happens.

Stared them down until I passed where there were guards and regular watchmen.

The Watch is paying attention as well especially after things that happened at the jousts.

I make sure that my area around my quarters is as secure as I can and once I’m home I get dressed down and go through some press ups and crunches and then do some katas and go through the moves in my fighting form over and over.

Training helps me think.

It’s like moving gets things going and shakes good ideas out of me.

I start making lists and taking stock of the things that I currently have at my disposal and in my accounts and sit and think for a good long while before taking a bath and changing my clothes and then heading out to the dining halls and joining the lesser nobles and knights there.

I sit with my Ladies Political Group and we eat and talk. It’s a lot of the standard fare but where it’s a women’s table and we spend a good deal of time together and I find more out about some of the gossip in the city.

I’m not Elizabetha I can’t see patterns in patterns but I do get that Auron Kingsland the man that destroyed my home has sway and allies here but he also has a fair stranglehold on the Midlands as well controlling access to the richest farmlands, grain and the easiest trade routes and that’s affecting prices and some people are suffering for it and others are making money from their monopolies.

It hurts as much as my early lessons with Sensei but I need to learn at least something of real politics, kingdom economics and the law plus noble laws and chivalry.

Books and myself are not great friends unless it was a book of fashion drawings with new templates of dresses or embroidery.

Or it was like that.

And…And again I’ll need money.

I’ve needs plus lands and men and I’ll definitely need to finance more.

I’ve some ideas but the best bet would be the Free Lists.

Training bouts with various weapons but most popular is still the jousting and the lance.

There's no political wins in this but there are fight purses that each person puts up and they must be matched in order for a fight to happen.

And there could be lots of coins to be had.

And I do have the advantage of being a woman that doesn’t know her place and there will be many, many that will want to put me into my proper place.

I thank the ladies and head off and get a strong boiled coffee and after shots of that I head to the royal library and start getting books signed out.

All the laws and technical things, but I look up training manuals and… I see it’s seldom used like they know everything there is to training as a knight and I find books, old books that have all these things in them and things that no one seems to use.

I sort of know training now and things my brothers and father and the men at arms did and this, these are different things.

I threw in some fiction of heroes, knights, revenge stories and a few women’s fiction like bodice rippers then I went looking for things for my office and… had to go asking for some things granted visiting nobles from the storehouses.

Huh? No one sells office things here?

Oh?

Oh!

I go back to my quarters and drink more coffee and think and think.

I made some notes and took a bath and then meditated and did my chi exercises and then went to bed.

In the morning I made more notes and then trained some more with my workouts in the morning and I went through katas again and my sword training and staff and spear and then meditation all before getting cleaned up and breakfast.

I take a blank notebook and a fountain pen for notes and one of the books to read and go enter the lists in jousting which are set up and planned and I’m in the sword, staff and spear matches and put up purses of ten silver for the sword and thirty for the spear and staff.

I’m good with those but it’s a not often challenged set of weapons and that’s why the bigger purses entice them for an easy win over me.

My men join me Lord Dale and Sir Tanley and Winslet and we talk of Winterbrook as I read and wait and make notes. I want to learn the lands and people as they see them but also what we need, they need as my vassals now.

There’s a lot.

We go into as much detail as they can with things like roadwork and bridges and then things that need care like water wheels and windmills and talk of crops and plantings and more.

All the while foes are lining up to put me in my place or to test my heard of and faked blade skills and those with other weapons. The money started to come in and the jousting challenges.

My men saw challenges too, it wasn’t hard to bait some of the louder nobles and armchair knights into sending their knighted staffers in and it becomes work, we’re training up our skills and we do have a few honest losses but it’s still work to win.

It’s padded armor with wooden plates and sometimes shields and real blows with the training weapons but it’s still work.

And once I have things put together I make my moves.

I write to the High King.

[Dear Sire

I have taken notice of a gap in the services in Whitehall that could need amending but it could also be a chance of revenue for the palace itself. I would like to discuss this with you at your leisure.

Princess Gracia Lyonnes.]

I was invited to his morning training sessions with the Kingsguard and I asked if I could invite my men. We were allowed and I told my men and we went and trained and had my meeting.

First and foremost they give you training clothes that have leather pockets with rare brass snaps that they add discs of lead weights in. And weighted gauntlets and boots. Forty, forty extra pounds they put on you to start.

One of the men looked at me. “Are you okay princess, it is very heavy.”

“Try a steel and bone corset and ball dress frame Sir, this is easier to move in.”

Which earned me some good natured laughter.

Then it’s running laps with these and a sword and shield and in three sections of the track there are ramps to climb and stairs to climb.

The High King is there training with us and an easy half of the knights in the order.

I get a lap in before he says.

“Princess come run as my flanker.”

As I’m the only princess there I took a place on his left and we started running.

He is in the shape of a real warrior that still trains because it's a habit, he sets a good pace but one he can talk and run with at the same time.

“You had an idea?”

“I have a great idea, your Majesty, but I wish to be paid for it.”

“Paid how?”

“Ten percent and lodging.”

“You have lodging.”

“I’m a princess, I want one of the ambassadorial bastions with the private walls, stables and quarters and and rooms.”

“That’s a lot.”

“I need a lot, I’ll be moving my vassals in and their staff as well and I’ll staff it, we won’t need castle staff but I’d be happy to take in pages and squires to do things as well as tradeswomen.”

“Tradeswomen?”

“Sire there are enough women in the realm, this city, this palace that’d be more comfortable with a woman doing a job. Now many brave girls that don’t have good chances at getting their trades and their apprenticeship hours can get those through me.”

“And that’ll be covered by you?”

“Yes, sir and I’ll do one better.”

“Oh?”

“I’ll pay rent.”

“Rent?”

“Yes, while noble law and chivalry demands you shelter me, you’ve done so. And even in ambassadorial terms of use the crown pays those bills. I’m offering to pay rent instead of you putting out monies and I’ll free up my quarters as well as my vassals quarters we are currently using and all of that should please your Chamberlain.”

He laughed and we did a ramp and then steps and he looked over at me.

“Your idea?”

“Sire an in palace store, a place where we can get and order paper, parchment, inks, pens, all manner of supplies for our offices and we can offer special stationary, designs, collectables, we’ll buy it here for convenience alone but add in things that’ll be considered gifts? Souvenirs of even being here in Whitehall have weight outside of it.”

You could charge decently market up prices and fill a gap in services and reduce traffic at palace stores. Add in some coffee and tea, the sets and the raw things and snacks, take dining hall leftovers and sell them as snacks for those working late or the back shifts… and still charge more for the ease of it.”

He looks at me. “We’re not doing this?”

“We’re not and as it stands between the scribes for the courts and the nobles alone we’d be in steady supply and filling that need. Add in pens, ink, openers and even boxed kits. Whitehall pillows, handkerchiefs, bedding, all sorts of things they will buy.”

He’s smiling. “And it will free up time for Palace stores.”

“You can staff it with apprentices sir and give contracts to those making your base goods giving you another weapon or resource with the people, you could even employ women in need, sire with the royal embroidery seals alone.”

“Would that help?”

“Yes sire, in fact you could open a palace dress shop and sell copies of past fashions, designs, and royal house sewing gear like needle sets and threads.”

“Sewing?”

“Sewing, fashion, embroidery, it’ll sell to noble women or as gifts here as well as other things very easily sire, the very idea of Whitehall could sell it. I’d buy it before my circumstances and would have made a whole campaign in getting these things home.”

“And you want just ten percent of this in exchange for ambassadorial Quarters? You know that will state you are a Princess.”

“I am a Princess with sworn followers removed from her lands by a man seeking power through a stranglehold on middle kingdom trade.”

“You’ll be more of a target.”

“I survived sire and I'm hated by the misogynistic nobles and religious obsessives here. At least at this rate they need to get through my walls and staff and not involve others around this conflict as much.”

“Alright I’ll agree, we’ll get this signed and planned after training and before court.”

We did five rounds of the track before he replaced me with others and gave orders to those people about it. It was power… actual ministers and command staff going to do things immediately and setting their staff to the task all to get things done and fast.

And after the runs there was an hour of sparring and we were in the lowest of those training the new Kingsguard but they were still Kingsguard and they didn’t spar as much as they fought with us. Hard, fast, real break your bones strikes and shield work and tactics as well as the footwork and body blow moves with knees, kicks, elbows and more.

I lost half my bouts and my men lost most but they gained a few draws and I’m the only one with wins.

I’m rubbery exhausted but the guardsmen are looking at me with respect and hunger especially the ones that never fought me and want to. And my men, well I proved myself to them and then some in getting US here and the chance to do this and my political win just now and the skills I showed.

Oh… oh father the feeling that you get when you bond with your men, when you earn that respect that’s priceless.

We don’t get cleaned up. There's a meeting immediately to plan the store. There’s orange wedges with salt to eat and there’s bread with elven nut butter and thick beaten green tea with stimleaf and honey and lemon over ice and we go over my idea, refine it, and they took it further with dishes, glasswares and cookwares and other things that would have the Castle and Courts seal on it like a branding mark and that it will sell throughout the city and out further into the realm and nobility.

The store is seen as a great idea and especially if all placed in an area away from the main halls and with outside access so it can be opened very late or just remain open and between the shops it has in it night time castle traffic can be avoided for cleaners or just official staff.

Whitehall Galleria… with a stationary store, palace goods, copies of toys used by former royal children and one for clothes as well with the sewing idea and the sheets ect, a wine store, cheeses, a snack leftover store and it all became the palace market.

Ten stores for rent from other nations that we can charge steep rent on and they can push and sell goods from their countries to others here in the palace first.

And I signed the lease on my ambassadorial quarters.

And I paid twelve gold for the year's rent.

It’s a lot and not much but the point is that I’m paying rent and in business with the crown and that changes the power dynamic.

I told the others to pack and send messages home and arrange for people willing to come here and learn.

I headed over there first and took the tour, making notes.

It is a walled mansion that is four stories high and it has a separate wall of its own and stables, carriage house, rear garden, side gardens and one gate that goes out to the Palace grounds. It’s furnished with donations and left overs from former residents and I claim the attic as my own and the cellars are largely empty except a basic wine and cask room and I make notes on offices, training rooms, and weapons room and a smithy and more and put on a drive in getting it cleaned and loved in.

I assigned guards from Dale’s men and we all crashed pretty hard.

In the morning we raised my home flag and we headed for the jousting lists.

People have people watching me so the Flag of Lyonnes flying from one of the embassy bastions kicked the ant’s nest.

I sent out letters to my “women” offering them staff positions for them or girls and women they recommended as well as daughters and maids.

I sent out diplomatic letters to the Chaikanese giving them inside knowledge of the Galleria and the stores as well as The Elves and expressed desires to meet with their representatives.

The Jousts were… busy, very busy by the time we were jousting and word of my new residence had spread like burning oil and there were people mad at my good fortune and requests for matches came there that day.

I agreed if they staked a jousting purse in addition to the traditional losses and they had to put up fifty gold or a voting ticket… either vote and voice with me on an issue or withdraw your vote if I ask it and I make sure they’re written contracts and witnessed.

My gall has them wound up at my demands, a very much how dare she think this highly of herself and the urge to put me down very much got thicker in the air.

I build myself up with the wins, the momentum I have.

On the field I know my own strength and training, armor and gear and horses and take that in with me using my chi to put all that force in my lance strikes.

Letting that inner flow let me channel all the force of me and my horse.

And when they take me lightly, if they’re not really serious I hit them like a battleknight and break lances, strike helms, hit true and even snap shield straps and unhorse them.

Real jousters, serious knights, that’s another story and they’re hard matches, thrilling to me as much as the crowds and I have people cheering, ladies in my circle cheering, and others and Lady Aliantha is there halfway through.

And Tyloren is in my team being my herald again offering support and Sensei Kinsano is there with him doing Reiki on me, my men who are doing really well themselves and he even does a version of it on the horses.

I’m sick, demented, crazy… because I think I love this.

The rush, the running, the lance, the hits.

The smell of sweat, weapon oil, horses, hoof tilled earth and the crowds.

Even getting hit and hammered and bruised, taking hits that take my breath away and I see flashes of lights and impacts, even unhorsed it just… even when I lose I’m good with it.

And yes I do lose, there are knights out there that have jousted ever since their house taught them to ride their first ponies.

The lance, jousts, tourney, cavalry are the biggest, fastest way to honor, power and glory if you’re not a battleknight house.

And that means there literally are specialists.

I’ll be honest the only reason I won some is that I’m a woman.

I bend to hits like a willow, I have the leg strength of a woman and the hips, my hips actually give me a better and more stable seat than a man and that and being trained in chi helped me stay on when I shouldn’t have.

I pay out my losses and honorably shake hands with everyone I jousted with, some of them accepting my hand, others do not but the money flowed all the same.

People, people that hate me were paying for the new hate challenges and purses. I don’t get any votes owed but in gear and horses and the coin alone I made a huge mark.

It was a whole thing getting the gear and wins wrangled or ransomed back to those that lost.

Lady Aliantha joins me with some other elves from the grove and I explain the ideas and things I want to try and she lends me Tyloren as my Chamberlain as an elven knight assigned to MY nation and doing the work as a learning study in our peoples.

He moves in with a score of elves for teaching and security and doing things and Lady Aliantha and I talk of ideas and plans long into the night once we return to my quarters and she spends the night.

It’s not formal, it’s very much still two women together like Maia and I were but just one little difference that didn’t matter.

I am overwhelmed at points where she takes me to cresting waves of pleasure that most women never know.

And I get to let out the needs I have to do things to her, to be aggressive in bed. Not in a bad way but as if I was the man in things or something like that.

It vents something inside of me, it feeds it too.

I needed the lover and all the tenderness as well.

There is something I’m learning to love about a lover's touch when it’s a woman.

And the healing too, I literally needed her massaging me and singing that deeper than song sort of thing as she used her power with my nature and healed my hurts by using “The Way.”

The morning we parted ways and I took my excess wins to Regalliant Arms and sold those things off.

Jake was waiting for me just down the street.

“He says yes, you’re to come with me and alone.”

I look him in the eyes and he’s steady and I go with him letting Ty and Dale handle things and I was expecting either a well off area of town or the slums but instead he takes me through the streets on foot and through doors that lets us in and lock to stop those following.

And he gets changed on the way and he offers me new clothes and they’re trousers and a cattleman’s tunic and leather coat. I pulled the hood up before getting the jacket on and we ended up at The Kingdom's Scalehouse.

It’s the Royal Customs mini-fortress where goods are inspected and caravans are ordered in here before allowed anywhere else and I’m taken to Pricers Hall.

I’m taken aside and they ink my fingers and Jake explains fingerprints and that they keep them as records of members here and I have to not just sign a legal oath of my trades going through this Hall but a so mote.

He explained it’s two hundred gold to be a member here and I get mine for free.

Then we’re inside.

It’s bustling and busy and there are maps of Titan painted on slate wall sheets telling what rumors are from where. Fires, Floods, Droughts, Wars, Pests… anything and everything is on there thrice confirmed before going up.

Clerks talking about tons and available goods that the prices get estimated and adjusted to and notes posted on who and what company and trading coaster has how much of something and how available it is now and forecasted to be.

Jake explains that we have access to this but Trades still must go Through The Traders Guild for buying goods or stakes in those goods.

It’s like gambling but with so much inside information.

I see other nobles there, not the court rats but some real power houses and old crests I know. And a lot I don’t and there are people here doing business from places that I’ve never seen.

Another whole new thing.

A world I never knew existed thinking merchants and finance were boring.

You can smell the power here.

Auron is playing part of his war here, his presence out there effects markets here, prices.

Imagine buying wheat from fields he hasn’t harvested for his troops or burned and being able to sell it for the new increased…gods… the golds.

Jake takes me up a few wooden steps where there are tiers and there are almost dining like booths and all are facing the boards and there’s dozens of meetings going on and I’m taken to a booth on the top tier where they have a place selling office supplies, sweets, smokes and coffee.

I’m walked to a booth where this semi-scruffy youngish looking man is sitting with books and notes and an abacus all to one side and he’s handsome in this dressed up farmboy sort of way. Long hair tied in a club and decent clothes and a steel medallion with a fox head on it.

“Lioness, congratulations on your wins.”

“Thank you. I take it you’re the man I’m seeking?”

“I’m Fox.”

“It wasn’t what I asked?”

“I’m Fox, please join me.”

I sit and Jake leaves and a waitress comes over with a notepad and I look to him. “I’ll defer to your experience.”

He looks surprised but pleased.

He orders a bottle of something and a bottle of something else and pitchers of dark stout and food.

We wait until the very small bottle of whisky is brought, we pour shots and cheers each other before doing the shots of very very good whiskey and then settle in with dark stout fortified with a shot of date wine.

“You say you have business with The Rogue.”

“I do, I mean to bring him into the Meritas.”

“You do know he doesn’t need such.”

“I’m well aware but the people need the meritas, need rulers willing to do for the people until the point they might not need us any longer.”

“And still why The Rogue?”

“I need him, I do. Honestly my…our very real, very organized enemies, my enemies have nobles, armies, battleknights and clerics and temples not counting followers.

The Rogue, he doesn’t need us unless he wants the same things. But we need information, our own friends and channels because they built their own.”

“And you want mine?”

I smile. “Yours?”

He smiled back. “Answer the question.”

I finished my drink. “I want yours, or access to it and you’re at war already right? The church and its rules, sanctimony from the Lord of Light, the Whitefists, vs your businesses, the women, they’re already hurting your people right?”

His smile vanished and he looked serious.

“You’re not stupid.”

“I’m role acting my little sister Lizzy she’s ten times smarter than I am.”

He looked at me. “Smart enough, more than.”

I smile. “Lend me your support and I can help you and yours.”

“How?”

“First I can give you inside accounts on the fall of Lyonnes. Two I need staff I can access and trust your people will get good palace jobs and you’ll have them checked. Three I have an inside track on a whole new royal market and enterprise and will give you an in with no work and time spent. Three I need ladies in waiting and pages that might become more. I’m royalty, I have knights and can sponsor who I want. I can get people out, off the streets and out of bad situations and ends.”

“You’d do that.”

I look over to him. “Fox I’ll so mote and swear that.”

He looks at me intensely and a little angry. “Do it, put up and do it, I’ve heard people say they’d swear things before.”

I pour two more shots and pull my dagger and cut my hand carefully and look him in the eyes.

“I Gracia Lyonnes, daughter of the house of Lyonnes swear to the gods, to Fox before me and to the old magic that I will take in and support his folk, I will shelter them and train them and defend them like family and expect the same in return, fidelity for fidelity. So mote it be.”

There’s that thing, that twist in the fabric of the world as my blood burns white for a minute and the wound is gone. There’s a scar there but no wound.

Fox looks stunned.

“You… you did it, you… are you crazy, you don’t know me.”

I do my shot.

“I do, you’re smart, caring, you built this or run it, you’re honorable given the pass you bought me and you think I’m worth it. You’re a knight with a kingdom no one bothers to see and you defend it knife in hand and your heart on your sleeve.”

He stares at me and stares and he laughs, he laughs and laughs until he is in tears and then he looks at me wiping them away.

“That is the most romance novel inspired bullshit speech anyone has ever tried with me.”

He does the shot.

He pulls a black walnut handled straight razor with a thickened back end, not for shaving people. He cuts his hand. “By The Oath of The Rogue, I Fox swear by blood I will return the fidelity shown to me by Gracia Lyonnes the Lioness of Titan.”

His blood turns to smoke instead of godfire but I can feel the binding there too and I look at him smiling as another shot is poured with another date wine and dark beer.

“Oath of the Rogue?”

“The Rogue controls the divisions on the streets, does for them, you need elected for that but you have authority as you name swear before the guild leaders in a so mote and you become The Rogue. There’s other things to it like protections for all of us involved.”

“Oh, never new that.”

“Most people don’t Grace.”

“You called me the Lioness.”

He smiled and we drank. “The People are calling you the Lioness it goes with your wins and your last name.”

I wipe my mouth. “So let's get started.”

He invited clerks and Jake and we talked.

I retold the events at home, the attack, everything until the point I relived some of that in a bad way.

All of them got the losses and flashbacks and the hell it was.

We talked about the situation and that we’re likely looking at Auron holding up in Lyonnes and cutting off as much traffic and trade from the south and the east and west as he can and to build an army to come at Whitehall.

Jake pointed out that Auron had spies and might even have had other kind help getting the jump on Lyonnes.

Jake knows home having grown up in caravans.

“I need support until I can build enough forces to fight him and take back my home with the help of my sister's forces.”

Fox looks at me. “Angeline’s wedding will be a great way to get a battleknight. Braithholde makes them.”

“And I might be able to get them there through her… oh, oh yes!”

They’re amused and we talk more and drink and eat and he explains more of the finance stuff and I explain some of the things that I need built and made. The stuff from the books I borrowed.

Padded training mats, a hanging bag with sand, training weight designs, a rowing machine, a pedaling machine, weight sets with pulleys and some with bows you pull for the resistance, a grip trainer that’s squeezy springs and another that is for thighs and a frame with handles to do crunches.

Fox is enthralled as I explain these things and he and I draw them and talk over and over about them and he’s definitely schooled, he drew these things like he’s made blueprints before.

He’s educated or he educated himself.

And he knows people.

And there’s other things as well I’ve read of like reduced down cheese whey to powder, and soybeans and all their uses as food and protein and making soy milk which in truth is closer to making coffee and was taught to silk islanders by the elves.

The beans aren’t hard to get but the grinder and hot water stirring kettle is and needs to be made and but Fox is excited about that too as soy and tofu aren’t well known but are cheap and can help the poor and the street folks.

I write down as much of the lists that my new people need as well asking Fox if he can get these goods bought and send ahead of us going there without my name or my men's names attached to it. Smuggling goods out as it were to avoid the spies sending brigands or raiders after our goods.

“Buy from your people first of course, or people you have elsewhere.”

Winter is coming so I buy beef, salted, smoked, dried, tallow and innards all cleaned and salted, but the same for pigs, lard, and I buy deep stock.

Jake explained to me that it’s the boiled bones, other things cooked down and down with things like garlic and peppers and other ingredients but salt and spices and vinegar and then it’s canned. Sealed in jars with lids with wire made clasps they’re lined with wax and boiled.

It’s soup stock and it will last months on months because of that and you can feed a family a day or more on a jar and water and flour.

Definitely that, dried fruits, vegetables that can be tossed in soups.

Lumber, logs, boards, firewood, coal.

I plan for each village and hamlet for everyone under my new rule to get needed things.

And Fox arranges for it the head out of the city.

We talked and talked and talked and he recommended people and talked many of them up and I hire, sign on six right there as Bondsmen, men-at-arms under sworn contract and as I talk with them as they’re brought here Fox gets tailed coats made for them in grey colors and singlets adjusted for them quickly but looking like they’re employed.

We then go to their places with a wagon and load up their things, women, children and belongings and one of them is a woman, a single mother with more than a few scars and two children.

Hallice and she’s seen merc work amongst other things.

We go to Whitehall and I check them in and get them passes on lanyards but instruct their family to keep close.

The next few days is getting moved in, cleaned, everything checked and searched for secret passages and getting in cloth, and hiring some of my women in my women’s group to make new clothes for the children, setting up a classroom and Ty assigns one of his elves as a tutor for them and we get more staff sent by Fox.

I did more interviews and I took in kids of guild members to get them out of the way for things as Page-candidates and some as Pages some Dale choses as well with Fox recommending some honorable but gang and street hardened tweens that know enough to take the help and opportunity.

I’m getting a bargain here as well. People that are streetwise and tough and know hardship and can fight in their own way coming to me and that’s a great base.

I ask Fox to try and find other criminals, children that pass his standards, poachers, smugglers, cattle and horse thieves. They all have kids out there and families if he judges them honorable. I want people that can do woods work, track, hunt, be grooms and have that tougher edge.

He does find me some good smiths and tinkers, people that never could afford shops or lost them or have a disability.

Tyloren has his healers look to everyone we bring in and using the ways to heal what things they can, mend others, fix problems like bad teeth and hygiene.

I thank them all the time and we start training a few non magic apprentices in healer ways and medicines and herbs, some of my ladies too.
Four of them are learning to be nurses for their own reasons but also loyal and sworn to me.

The disabled street hires gave me the idea to ask my ladies of the same.

Their children.

Nature can be cruel, life can be cruel.

Children get sick, diseases hurt others.

I ask of children, children that were cast off or hidden because they’re mute, deaf, blind or crippled that we might find uses for them in my service.

They can’t believe it at first but I add in ramps and my tinkerers make wheelchairs and lap desks and some of these children are educated and can read, write, some can cypher.

Deaf children that some have learned to read people lips, some in other languages.

Fox’s people and Tyloren gives us all Signing Language.

I learn the Cant version of it, yes the thieves sign.

There’s a Cant language too but you need to live in it to get it, it’s a code of generations of slang, street tales, lessons and things you only learn from exposure.

But I was so right on this, these overlooked noble children have talent and they are dying to be of some kind of use and not a burden to their families.

Like Simon, trampled under horses at six and scared and crippled from being out and away from healers he was hidden away and just ignored. He understands the politics and houses, he understands the markets and I made him a room to use that, highlight what is going on, forecast changes, who might put what policy out in the courts when.

He’s smart, kind, eager and was hidden away because he is not perfect or normal.

I write to some of their parents as to their skills and works, I even send some funds awarded for service. I started correspondence with a few of these families grateful that their children have something…. Something that is worthy.

Building allies, votes.

Money well spent in every case.

Respect, respect, respect even someone no one thinks can do things needs respect and when you give them the damned chances, see past these really trivial potholes to them and let them do their thing it’s amazing.

I don’t hold a high table in my house, I don’t buy jewels or frippery. I put the money in my uniforms and my vassals and staff.

Food, healing, education, equipment.

I get my training and workout room up and running with the bags, weights, the sparring rings and things to train in.

Sensei kinsano holds lessons and teaches the basics and also some language skills and through him I hire some Chaikanese cooks and bakers. Noodles, soups, rice, steamed buns, knowing how to use more vegetables and stretch meat and using soybeans correctly.

It’s as much saving me coins as learning for my people.

And I include my women’s group having them over for work and our strategies and training.

I let them train, eat their fills, let them use the equipment and take instruction in exercise and defense and they get to dress in pants and trousers and not be constrained here by their birth sex.

With them I get uniforms made.

Grey but a steel like mineral grey, silver oat stalks as the brocaded edges of the clothing, nickel buttons and buckles and dyed leather tailcoats. Black trousers, good boots and gloves.

And my standard gets made.

A blue field with a silver willow tree and my fathers rampant lion on one side and my own lioness on the other and all the bordering requirements of a Princess.

The women designed these and I took them to Regalliant to get professionally made as well as flags and pennants and tapestries and badges on steel chains.

And I got a signet and seal made and registered with the crown.

My haters follow but more carefully now, more professionally now.

I’ve more people, more men in uniforms and with arms and pages I’m a force now going through places sometimes twenty strong.

And still the the Lists, still the fighting courts and still the legal courts getting in the way of the conservatives at each turn with their attempts at laws vs women and magic and witchcraft.

I have enough votes in court with my ladies and allies that I can edge things and I do.

And I fight back with laws to strike down dress codes, property ownership, push sewage works and things for schools and poor people and rights of women, immigrants and other races and ethnicities.

Most proposals are attacked and defeated but I still do them, assigning proxies and clerks to do the filing and leg work and everything.

Every law or change I put out they fight and is less time for their bullshit to get on the dockets for the courts.

Blocking them from their missions is my goal and I have my people doing submission after submission there waiting as soon as the doors open and guarded so they’re not bullied out of being first in line or close to it.

Many, many nobles do not have the patience for this at an extended rate.

Many are not used to waiting or resistance and they’ll leave and send challenges at me.

I get word from Lizzie of her misfortunes and the attacks but of incoming help from Maia and five hands of battleknights from the High King.

We talk about the attack and her warning from Christianna of Lyonnes.

And how that might be Christian.

Transformed?

How?

I asked Tyloren and Aliantha and both had no clue but Aliantha was very interested in meeting my potential brother or sister as it might be.

What would she look like?

Act like?

And from the little bit’s we pieced together via messenger Eagles she is a witch, magician, sorceress or something like that.

We send messages to Braithehold and it is.

Gods it is, she was transformed by magic.

Well Aunt Aurora was HIS daughter so yeah maybe she could.

Christiana came to Braithehold via the Dwarven Underground and had hurried to get to her closest family as she killed the communications device that the Dwarves had.

We make plans to meet at the wedding. We can only do so much by messenger Eagles really.

Until then I stay the course, doing challenges and messing with the courts. I up my training with more use of the gym gear, more of a private diet that helps me build muscle and Elven herbs that give my maleness a bit of a nudge. Aliantha tells me of them when asked and helps me take and use them and Kinsano pushes me as well by my request in longer martial training, harder things, and sometimes I slip out with Fox and take work in disguise doing labor shifts. Unloading or loading grain, lumber, beef, coal doing that hard work others do to one learn it.

I washed wool, did laundry, and worked as a porter.

Two learn the people that do it.

People get to meet Gracy, a plain speaking country girl that is doing anything to earn a few coppers and known to a few guild boys.

I don’t have to disguise myself much, really a fine brush dabs freckles on me as needed and a changed hairstyle and leather headband.

Three, each trade has a unique thing to it, you have to know how to lift, handle things, there are tricks you only learn by doing.

I swear dad, father knew so much of everything that he had ideas or firsthand knowledge of talking to our people.

I want to be the same, be that knowledgeable.

I make some trades based on what Lizzie could tell me of her plans and I place bets on my results in the Lists through Fox to make even more money.

I last right up until the start of fall.

Winter will force most of us home, lands, havests, preparations for Winters and being home. I lasted until court was suspended until past Yule and court was reduced to the civil matters and criminal ones for their season.

I left “The Gorgon” Auron Kingsland and his known allies with a civil suit gift naming them brigand, murderers, warlords andnin violation with kingdom alliance laws and name the temples as well that are involved and the unlawful accusations vs magic users and women and witchcraft is lllegal by kingdom laws.

There are stacks of cited research, copies and Fox has a barrister firm that he uses for his legit dealings handle this.

I’m demanding damages and pain, suffering, and another case demanding Auron leave Lyonnes and another case that his allies here be sued to pay me and my sisters damages and a trust of the people of Lyonnes money for every day he sits on my lands.

I don’t expect to win, I barely expect it to do anything but this will anger them, mess with their time off and drain their resources and stress their allies.

I’m going to live rent free in their heads and be a bad neighbor.

I prepared everything for going to Braithehold for my sister's wedding and the trip home to Winterbrook. I get everything ready to close up my embassy and I take all of my people with me, all of my staff and the women that wish to go and the kids too.

I had an entire hired caravan of goods and gifts and needful things that were with me bought from the poor quarter and stolen things from Fox we buy from his warehouses that he held for me until I was leaving and taking them out of the city.

My folks won’t care if it was lifted.

Hollen of Roan will be joining us as well as we can travel together most of the way before heading to his homeland and that is added security for both of us. We rode out of the capital together and once we’re a day away we met up with Fox.

Yes, planned.

Fox and his men and fresh horses and we change clothes, gear, fall colors and browns and things to blend in and to hide us and Hollen is taking care of my people for a share.

A share of?

We rode out from quiet camp to camp until we were outside of The Duchy of Kingland in The Eastern Mountains. Three days riding in burst paces and napping, three hours on two off. High energy rations and honey, stimleaf and green tea in toffee chews to do this.

And thanks to Fox we know where Auron has people, supplies, warehouses for his forces, and a secret estate where Fox thinks he’s hiding wealth from the Kingdom and the tax men.

Thieves doing things is one thing but trained knights, real soldiers, trained elves is another thing entirely.

We took an extra day in quiet to get in position, cold camps, rations and we have plans, Fox has plans.

Auron has took a lot of manpower with him, he’s relying on his reputation to guard his lands. When we move it’s fast and quiet. Elven “Ways” putting people to sleep or affected enough we have the advantage of slipping in.

Taking guard posts right after they switch out and leave. Some taking the guard post, some others took the guards as they left and were intent on going home or to the barracks.

Elf magic, blackjacks, typing them up… some, well Some were known to Fox who told me of them as rapists, thugs, killers in uniform too old or lazy to march, some partly retired, some just rich enough for easy duties but all of them scum.

I don’t do the deed but he’s not lying, so I let him get justice.

Some of them knew Fox and either pissed or shat themselves when they recognized him.

They died fast.

I’m mad at things I see in Kingsland’s Duchy.

His people are poor.

Taxed hard, thin folks, food for the nobles and his army.

A whole prison bastion and jails that might as well be dungeons, two gibbets platforms with a dozen ropes on each.

Crow cages and even crucifiction.

Fox looks as mad as when I caught that glimpse as we talked when we first met. He planned for this though… we did.

We hit the jails first with white phosphorus and magnesium in a tar and sawdust sort of dough that burns through the bars, windows, the gated doors… we plied it like clay and it burned so hot and fast it was like butter.

We storm the Jail houses hard and fast releasing everyone we can with hammers and chisels and getting them to flee.

That engages the guards and some of our men start fires that draw attention at the same time.

We hit the Prison next as chaos is going on and scatter as many people as we can out of there.

Fox knows people here, some of them and gives them orders and sends some of them away with spare weapons and swords but a few stay with us, trained men with swords and scores to settle.

We free livestock, we break fences, stockades and leave absolute chaos and one very specific group killed some of Auron’s cattle and pigs.

We loaded them on stolen wagons and they fled with a boon to us and a blow to him.

Tyloren uses “The Ways” to remove the scent and preserve the flesh from rot or bugs and hold the blood in place.

We can’t touch his castle, we can’t, it’s too big, too defended and we left in a hurry getting to where the chaos cover our escape as what forces that were in the castle rally. I feel sorry for the poor, I feel sorry for the things we destroyed too.

But Auron needs weakening.

And this with winter bearing down.

And we meet more of Fox’s people and switch things up to confuse the trails and we headed for that secret estate.

It took some time to get there up in one of the high valley passes in the mountains and the place is fenced in with a wall and a guard post and a gate and thick forests beyond that.

We left the horses with people we picked for that and went in on foot.

The elves were getting disturbed, angry looking.

I whisper to Tyloren. “What, what’s wrong?”

He whispers back. “Goblins, Goblins and worse here, it’s bad Gracia.”

“A danger to the kingdom?”

“Yes, if it’s as many as we think he can sweep villages away, small towns with them and Wargs as well.”

“Untrained though, we’re fighters.”

“True, but this, this will be different Gracia, deadly, no quarter, these things are evil.”

“Then we can’t leave them, we get in position, you use your archers and back us up as we draw them out.”

We have a quiet meeting and we can’t can’t let these things loose to kill, brutalize, rape and murder people, we can’t.

And honestly they are not that far they couldn’t raid The Riverlands and soften Elizabetha up.

And if he takes the coast, that port.

He’d even have a backed reason to do it.

The monsters.

Fox looks so mad.

He was shaking with rage.

But he locked it down, he locked it away.

There are eight elves with us, there’s thirty two of us here and half are professional fighters.

Six of us have bows and are good enough to use them.

The elves snipe the Goblins and Wargs in the forest on watch doing patrols. Up over the walls like they were nothing and killing the gate guards and opening the gates.

We make sure there’s nothing at our backs.

Then we head out into the open and we have targets chosen for our bowmen.

They see us and there’s war cries, howls, screams and they come rushing us.

We’re the draw, and it definitely worked.

Elven arrows taking the ones outside of our hunting bow ranges and an elven longbow drops them hard and fast and the ones that get through that we shoot ourselves and the few that get through our shooting are on us and were fighting.
And this is a whole other fight with a different kind of foe than anything I have faced.

Goblins… Monsters of stories.

Most here were a little over four of five feet, yellow skin tinted green and liver spotted and definitely afflicted and greasy, like faith based greasy as in not washing. Added to that is the clothes and what does look like intentional greasing up maybe for versus the damp or something.

Pointed noses, batish ears, filed teeth and inhuman eyes, too big, pupils that are too big too… heads in a sick way a bit too big for scrawny bodies.

Tough scrawny bodies, dog eat dog fight for everything you can lean bodies.

I could feel the malice, the hatred in the violence, they wanted to more than just kill us.

Insane, they were insane in they hate and that leads to that thing that only madmen can do. Add in hide armor and boiled leather in places or tin or bronze plates here and there, and covered in weapons, knives, shivs, swords called goblin cleaver a sort of curved saber made roughly but like someone crossed a calvary blade with a meat cleaver.

The Wargs are… well they are like if you made a rideable cross between a feral brown bear and a spotted hyena.

Claws and that bone crunching bite.

Immediately it became a matter of professional killing.

I’m training to be a knight, a warrior, this isn’t the wondertales thing of hack slash battles, it’s move, dodge, block, and use the blocking to get you an opening, neck veins, eyes, slitting throats, it’s ending the immediate threat to you as fast as you can instead of fighting in the stories.

And I fight with my men that way, I lead the men that way, lead by example, careful, careful, sneaky, smart.

A warg goes to claw, cut its paw under the swing, the bite… drive the sword in or feed it the edge of your shield and as soon as those jaws are busy go in through the eyes.

It’s fast, violent, massively bloody.

It’ll be burned in my brain the rest of my life.

The elves join us as more come from the building here and they fight exactly as they’ve taught me but better.

Better reflexes and ages more experience and they retrieve arrows as we press into the place.

This was a nice place, not Auron’s unless he didn’t care that they wrecked the place.

They’re living in it, they’re camped inside of some of the buildings and there were people there.

Were…they ate them but there is every indication of so much worse as we went through and there were scenes, leftover acts in the beds never cleaned up.

Fox was crying, in a cold deadly rage but he was crying.

“Are these your folk?”

(Sniffle) “Not my blood, but I’m from this godsdamned Duchy and he did this to us.”

“So this run is personal?”

“Yeah… I was six when his men killed my Da for disobeying some fat greedy fuck. My mother was nearly killed and trampled by the same bastards and they raped her and my sister before casting us out of our shop.”

(Sniffle) “Grew up in Valhalla, my mother walking and begging us there doing anything she could, and in the poor quarter is where I grew up.”

I rubbed his back. “Then we don’t let him do this.”

“Fuck no, and fuck him.”

“I’ll let you have that honor Fox, I just want to kill the man with my own blade.”

“I’ll help you do it.”

“I know you will.”

The Main house was… dangerous but lucky? Alien?

Ty said there was a caster inside, that wards were laid against intruders on the doors. It is an old stone manor house complete with trellis sections and ivy and they never thought that people would be here, much less assault the place or storm the place in through the upper floor windows.

That was the alien thing, it was like they really didn’t understand the structure of a place like this, like they didn’t get how real fighters would use these weaknesses.

The danger was the Hobgoblins.

Bigger, smarter, better fed than their minions outside they are what happens when a sub species gets enough of an edge they get more food and resources.

Actual boiled leathers over braided cloth that has glass rings sewn to it, and better quality weapons and actual training in how to use them.

Room to room we have better numbers, we had at the start surprise and we have elves and we have bows. An elven warrior trained in a bow doesn’t need much room or an opening to get a shot in.

But they had weapons too.

Half had light crossbows made of bone or horn and brass or bronze and while not as good as our bowmen they had skill and practice and we took injuries, then there was the hatchet like throwing irons like I had seen in southern jungle weaponry in books and of course knives and swords and they were all blooded warriors.

And they were very strong, not like they trained for it but they were stronger than most commoners.

It was this room by room war of bait and switch, hide and sneak in the fighting as frontline fighters like myself were distracting them from bow shots or dagger from Fox’s men.

This was different too than the outside Goblins; this was like taking a barracks.

These were settled in and waiting troops.

There wasn’t much in the rooms here that wasn’t ransacked but it looked cleared out first and not carefully before they moved in like Auron’s men took everything that might have been here.

The Hobs though did have things that looked like they got paid.

But that was for later.

By the time we cleared the upstairs we were met at the main staircase by a large group of their forces and it became a bow fight and thrown weapons and about seven or eight minutes into the fight there was a set of roars and there were two huge eight foot dair brownish black furred hobgoblins in armor and with massive morningstars and they charged up the stairs at us and I heard Tyloren yelling “Dire Goblins!”

They took several arrows right to their chests without slowing and taking the bravest breath I think I had drawn yet in my life I stepped into their charge and at their legs with my shield and I bowled over one as it crested the top of the stairs and I scrambled to not fall all the way down the stairs and I hamstrung the one that I hadn’t attacked and blood sprayed out as I got him with a chi pushed swing of my sword and caught him across the back of both knees making him topple back and with a scream I dodged his fall and swung down chopping off his head.

Tyloren and the other elves shot the one I had tripped over and over with their bows at point blank range before Dale put a sword through its eye and brain.

I kicked the Dire Goblin’s head down to the Hobs and they stared at it and by the time they looked at me I had jumped all the way down from where I was at and landed on one with crunch and struck the Hob beside him with a two handed those stairs and cut him from collarbone to out of his ribs taking off that whole section in a single blow.

Friendly arrows whipped past me and my people following me and their morale broke.

You could see it, their heavy shock fighters died that fast and I’m in there killing and there’s elves there too.

Some are fleeing crashing out of windows messing up those spells some died from the magics lighting themselves on fire as if doused in oil and others that get out our archers drop before they get to the woods.

The Ballroom, or the Great hall or Parlor was next.

There was another Diregoblin in there in heavy bronze looking plate armor and a shield with him were Wargs in there as well as several Hobs in much better looking gear, better grades of cloth, metal,cleaner looking like officers and there was bunks and gear and things as well as what looked like an impromptu temple made of infernal looking tapestries and a statue of a horned Hobgoblin in bronze with twisted features and a mouth in the statue that looked like it had been being fed blood, there were three robed Hobs there and they cursed and screamed things at us and their warriors and what looked like their leader said some words that sounded like they broke and twisted the air and I saw their troopers go defensive to guard their faces…

“Shields!”

Their leader unleashed this burning thickly smoking ball of fire and it flew at us and hit one of Fox’s men we released from the prison and I hid behind my shield and there was a blast.

A blast and a wave of heat and smoke and it was thick and burning at our eyes and throats and it smelled like the worst of tar or pitch and soot was everywhere falling through the air and the enemy fighters were on us.

If I wasn’t able to keep calm or move as fast as I can or have the endurance that I have built up I would have run out of strength fighting these bastards and died making a mistake that would have been fatal or crippling.

And they were fresher and they were better than the other ones and it literally became a back and forth until someone made a fatal mistake.

We were losing people in this though.

Tyloren and the elves were using the Ways to counter the Hob clerics and unravel their spells or something and Fox was fighting the Diregoblin in a sort of cat and mouse duel with him keeping him busy but not able to do too much to him other than piss him off.

I dropped my fourth Hobgoblin and desperately looked around for anything to use and nothing that really stood out to me was there that fast in their camp.

Camp…I looked at the fireplace and the gods were being kind because there was something on the coals in the fireplace bubbling away.

Adrenaline and desperation pushed me as fought and dodged the fighting until I got there and grabbed it off the coals by the handle and it was really heavy and I put as much chi into my strength to push myself to do this.

I ran that damned cauldron through the fighting and in behind that Diregoblin and swung that pot in from behind him and up between his legs splashing the boiling contents all over his privates.

I had never heard something that huge make such a high pitch screaming screech as it dropped its weapons and grabbed at its crotch and I screamed again and chopped off its head as it bent over in agony.

The fighting stopped with people looking stunned and the enemy took and I grabbed the head and threw it at the priests and they watched it and I followed it up with another scream and a two handed throw of my sword end over end and buried it in the chest of the bastard that roasted Fox’s friend.

Tyloren and his elves rushed the other two.

I stood there watching and panting as my men stared at me and Fox stared at me covered in blood and gore and panting like a feral beast.

The tide turned at that.

I picked up that giant morningstar and used it to finish the fighting as we outnumbered these things and we finished the place.

We searched the place and tended to our wounded and tended to our dead.

Between the Goblins, Wargs and the Hobgoblins and Diregoblins here and the dark priests there was a company here, a mobile company of troops here.

We searched the place and from top to bottom and we took just the left ears that would be enough to prove we killed these bastards and Tyloren said that The Dwarves paid bounty and that we might as well collect it on the way to Braithholde.

The elves skinned all the Wargs as the pelts are still furs and still good and Dwarves would pay for those as well and they make good trophies.

We took some of those as well in weapons once we’ve cleaned them.

And the officers had some good weapons. Southern forged “effreeti'' steel weapons a blue grey steel that was very valuable and not often traded in the north but there were several good daggers and a few swords that they had and I claimed a longsword that was set with what looked like payment of this metal but with a kiss of silver in the swirled pattern and a guard that was designed like roses with blooms on the quillons chased in silver.

The edge was remarkable and it looked like it was fired with some sort of protective ceramic as well.

There was money, it was coin from the old Dracir Empire in the south a long dead nation of mages akin to Blackhand that wiped themselves out but had according to Tyloren a vast enough empire that their mints were quite sound and the coins were still in common circulation in the south.

There were also gemstones, many kinds and what some would call lesser stones but there was enough of garnets and agates of all kinds and quartz and obsidian of which definitely came from the south and would be valuable here.

The hobgoblin clerics had some gold and they had gold inset jewelry with rubies and some other stones and some of it was just jewelry but anything we thought was foul and cursed we let The Elves handle and deal with.

The cellars were warded and not by the hobgoblins and they were trapped as well with an arbalest, that’s a heavy crossbow and a tripwire swinging blade trap.

Ty took care of the wards draining the power from them slowly and Fox took care of the traps and down in the cellars were crates of rations and supplies, sugar, booze, flour and things that you would need to feed troops.

Food that would be used to invade The East and The Riverland and Lizzy most likely.

And there was a war chest, a war chest of what looked like coppers and silvers and a decent amount of gold and likely plundered from his own people but there like a pay chest.

We collected everything that we could and some of the others went for the horses and we found a stash of three wagons out back that was storedfor the invasion since Wargs don’t pull things and we took any salvageable weapon, every bit of brass, bronze and once we were sure we had everything and our dead preserved by Elven magic we burned it all.

Fox did that as well as The Elves; he was an experienced arsonist and Elves could use the ways to feed the fire.

We lit the manor and we lit the woods. We used some of the spirits to set up the fires and were well away when they caught but we burned down the secret manor house and stores and we didn’t even leave him the timber to use.

We push it leaving,not fast but we push long and we make time with distance and we rely on the elves likely a bit much in watching us and taking care of our hurts and our wounds.

I hurt like crazy with aches and hurts that I never felt in the fight, sprains and blisters and a ton of bruises and mangled clothes and armor.

At one point some of us sleep in the saddles until we make it to one of our rally points to meet up with the others that raided Kingsland Duchy.

We shelter at a steading that Fox tells us is Dwarven allied more than Kingdom and that we’ll be safe within the walls once we pay for our safety.

It was a good negotiation with us having proof of our kills and there is a respect thing and that we have booze and meat with us and we make a deal with that and with some of the southern coin as well.

Blackbrook steading was a godsend with hot baths and them willing to cook and make food and clean beds.

Tyloren helps me with my healing and I work with him doing what Reiki I know from Sempai Kinsano and with Elven ways helping and I tend to our people and my men.

We drink but not to the point of getting drunk but we do feast and we tell stories about the battles and who did what and then we sleep. It’s not enough honestly after all of this but it had to be and we pack up and get re-organized with our packing and after talking with the others we leave some of the meat and some of the dry goods from Auron’s stash with them as a friendship gesture between Blackbrook steading and Lyonnes and Winterbrook.

Fox and I part ways after a few hours riding together, talking over plans and this we want to both do and trying to look forward to things rather than steep too long in what we just saw and lived through.

He heads back to the city with enough swag and he takes the southern coins as payment able to spend those with trades and with southern merchants and he takes a measure of the supplies as well that he can pass out through the poor and people that need it.

We hug our goodbyes and not just a warrior's armclasp and we share a tender kiss between friends parting with a “Be safe, and Merry Yule.”

It’s not a passionate kiss but it was a good one.

But it was…we’re sworn to each other, we’ve been through this together, this was friends for life kind of a kiss.

This was dad with Aunt Aurora.

Which had me wryly mulling that over as we rode north and east heading toward the real north and the central mountains and again pushing it until we arrived at Highford.

Highford is just that, a river crossing area that is for the Northwine river that flows out of the mountains and this is the southern part of all of that. It’s where my people are waiting with Laird Hollen of Roan and we’re greeted with cheers and horns.

We spend the night together camped by the riverside and we re-organise again with each group dividing again and I pay Hollen his cut of things for watching over my people and my goods that we were taking and The Roanish cook for us with spiced and roasted mutton done in a fire pit and filled with root veg and apples and pears along with spices and stewed pots of long simmered bean and soup.

We drink, we drink and talk and there is a party for our folks at what we had pulled off and that we were headed to Winterbrook and then to the wedding.

It’s a bit of a holiday celebration as well as there is a good deal of bounty for my people in all of this and for the Roan peoples which means this year they’ll be returning home well off and very successful and that will reflect well on Hollen.

We only stayed the one day to rest and recover and parted ways with Laird Hollen. He’s in a more northern realm so he needs to be home sooner and we’d both like to get to where we need to be.

We posted scouts and guards just in case and after a decent breakfast we parted ways and wished all of us a “Good Yule” and a “Good Winter.” and we head out and to Winterbrook.

Winterbrook is sort of on the way to where we are heading overall with regards to The Dwarven lands and Braithholde.

If you headed out from the Capital and the plateau we are North and East but we’re right on the cusp of The King’s Realm which is the Northern end of The Middle Kingdoms. It is up and just in the deep forests and nestled in the Lesser Hills. These are still hills but not like the true mountain foothills, these are covered in old growth forests and in some of the more settled regions farmland.

We’re about a strong ten day ride from The Capital and the Same to The Eastern Border.

So we were riding back towards the rest of the Kingdom from where we were and through thick woods and forests and varying lands. There were a few tolls here and there but nothing we couldn’t pay and most of the nobles and lords and ladies were nice enough to greet us, some waved the fees as we didn’t ask or demand the right of hospitality.

If some of them were nice people and treated us kindly I did leave the toll and a Yule gift of just a few of the less quality gemstones we had with us and a wish for a good winter in a parting handshake.

No use not leaving a good impression.

We watered horses and had a few drinks and used their Jakes and if there were inns or meals we ate something fast and hot like the local stew and we’d often get bread and cheese to take with us and eat on the way.

Once we were in freelands and the wilderness we rode but took enough time to keep an eye out for hunting and foraging with the elves helping with that.

The fall scenery was amazing, the mists from frosts or fogs, the changing leaves, and we’re riding through hilly country so there are times when there are just amazing views.

There is something that just sits right about horses and fresh air and riding through trees grown over and over themselves so you’re riding through these wooded cathedrals, and when there is sunshine filtering through.

And we do get some foraging done here and there, herbs for medicines or for food, bags of chestnuts at one grove we had found and we nabbed a family of boars there rooting around and there were mushrooms and we made some sport with my young ones and such that are with us and having them try a bow or a crossbow and going for rabbits or squirrels or birding game.

You just have to give them the chances, be with them as they try, deaf, mute even those with mobility issues can do things even if they are hard and even if they need help.

Teach them how to help with the animals, look out for things, read trail sign and hunt a little and clean their kills and even cooking, I’m learning some of these skills along with them and I go through paper as I make notes and write their folk and get them to do that too as best they can as well.

Dale had watchers for us on our roads and we were welcomed warmly as we arrived at Winterbrook and we had people waiting for us and it was well organized with some wagons to take extra weight and freight and they had hot green stew waiting for us.

Green stew is just that greens cooked with bacon or a ham bone with garlic and onion and some potatoes and thickened with a little milk and flour.

It’s cheap but it’s food and it’s rich enough to take the edge off and it’s hot.

We shared our cargo and we rode in together.

He had used some of the money I had been giving him to hire watchers, out in the woods in places there were a few folks that were hired to look out for troubles with better built deer blinds and they had a few signal options including some good homing pigeons.

Something I’d not have thought of.

And there were clear signs of Winterbrook as we came to the lands and there was even a marked line with someone having taken whitewash or paint and painted the tree trunks along the boundary lines.

Another good idea.

There have been work done as we ride in towards Winterbrook there are clear marks where there were ruts and holes in the road that are filled with stone and fixed up and someone has made good spaded out ditches and there is good draining here and as we enter the township there is cleared decent streets and while not cobbled or flagged they have seen sawdust and shavings at some point and then a good amount of gravel.

There is a fairly proper town as we pass through with businesses and streets and decently made structures on mortar and cobble cellars and beams.

It’s a small town but it is a town.

Lyonnes as a town had two parts there was the township itself which was based around our fortress and was walled and had 4 districts in a square. We were old and a developed farming land so we had all the gleaned stone from all the other generations used so we were mostly a stone built township with wooden buildings out in the poorer and newer parts of the town and then there was the farmlands and surrounding areas that did as they could but very often they were Cob houses.

I can see Cob homes out at the town edges.

Those are thick walled and cured mud homes.

There is a crowd half formed in town to see us coming in and there’s waving and cheers for Dale and there a few makeshift Lyonnes flags made and people looking for me or for well a lady in a dress.

I waved to some and took off my helm and took my hair out of the pins and shook it out and there’s some applause and I waved at them some more and we rode to Winterbrook Castle.

It is just outside of town and it has a Cob made wall that isn’t quite twenty feet high and I suspect was more to stop the winds and weather than raiders and there are matching buildings of various kinds like you’d expect in a castle.

Once we pass the walls gates we are on wide road paths that are flagged to the front doors and to the outbuildings. The house is a strong and solid stone manor house that looks like it is made to defend with copper shutters and glass windows that look good and thick and heavy oak and brass bound doors and it is solid and basic and it is four stories high.

Small in length and width compared to my current embassy house and a quarter the size of Castle Lyonnes but it is home.

His wife must have been steadily busy because things are fresh painted everywhere or lacquered andpolishe and stones have been scrubbed and there’s the flags out and raised now that we are here and there are staff out waiting for us as well as what looks like family including Lady Reba.

Dale’s wife.

She is an older woman and she is dressed well but still like she can move and do things in it other than sit and do embroidery. She has her hair braided very fancily and she looks worried and she was watching me intently.

She waited until we were dismounted before she and her ladies in waiting greeted us and offered bows.

“Princess, you honor us by our vassaldom and coming here to winter with us.”

“Lady Winterbrook you do me honor with your words and kind welcome, I am glad of our alliances and sworn to each other in these trying times. I apologize for bringing an overfull house to you but the times being as they are I dare not leave people behind.”

“A Princess and Elves we are blessed to have these chances, Princess.”

“Well I promise to be a good guest inasmuch as I have brought extra supplies and more for the winter for not just the tables here but for the people as well. With luck we might be able to address some of the wish list of things needed and repaired here.”

“Anything would be a kindness.”

“Then let us take a tour and send out word for a muster of the folk for three days from now so we can mete out the Yuletide gifts from my coming home to Winterbrook.”

We get settled in and we partner up into rooms with some shared two and three deep but we’re warm and we’re dry.

I get a good hot bath and a nap before we have a welcoming dinner and feast with Dale’s vassals and merchants and senior staff and yeomanry and I wear a decent dress that I brushed the wrinkles out of and we had what I think was a fine time.

I danced and not in my usual way that would have been just with the handsome you men but I danced with all that looked like they could use a dance and a smile man or woman and even some children.

That night ended with tales of the jousts and courts and letting folks know what we were doing there and trying to stop and what we were fighting for.

Oh the difference when the people know what’s going on and can talk freely to you about it.

Our cups got a little strong but I slept deeply that night.

And the day after we were all business.

We take the tours of the Castle and the property and outbuildings and I’m making my own notes on repairs and things that we can do and place things.

Yes, place things.

One being the building of a growing house.

We had bought the things that we needed to frame it with the first wagons and we dug a half cellar and then we placed in the frames and mortared them in solid.

Then it was boards for most of the walls and tar coated cloth tarps that have been covered in sand as the sealing for the walls.

The top three feet and the roof are “glassed” ; it's the saved bottoms of wine bottles that have been glued into leather rings and the rings are sewn into thick canvas sheets. Light filters through according to Fox who had had this made for us that some illegal herb growers use.

We put in some piglets in a sturdy pen and some laying hens as well and they will give off enough heat as well as the light of the day and we build shelves and trays and fill then with earth and compost and we start planting herbs and lettuces and other greens and things like radishes and the elves helped in the whole thing and we have plans for using this close to spring to pre-start our crops.

If this works well I’ll think hard about framing it properly and getting glass panes made. This is an experiment really to get things planted and grown as seedlings and to give us an advantage.

The metals, the bad weapons, the brass, bronze and all of the things we took from the Goblins and Hobs and others went into the smithy and the ferrier and tinker/tool maker as even if it is poor grade weapons it’s tool metals that we didn’t need to pay for.

And that takes off expenses, honestly workable metal that you even just have to melt down saves money.

We parceled out the bolts of cloth from the markets and canvas as well as herbs and salt and some of the spices, Spice bark, Cloves, cracked and imperfect nutmegs and pepper and sweet pepper and yellow root as well as good jars of things like molasses, refined lard, and fig jams and candied citrus peelings and soda and bricks of yeast and dried meats and fruits.

Yes, some are 3rd rate, broken, cracked, stolen but it is still more than my people had. And they get to keep the sacks and the wicker baskets these things come in.

And I pay bonuses for those that work for me.

Men-at-arms get 10 coppers as a bonus of my investiture here, the Corporals and Sergeants get 15 and 20. Servants and staff get a copper bonus for every year served as well.

Most of the things we brought will go to the castle and here but over the three days it takes to get the people to come here and meet me and get the offered supplies.

And during that time we take a census, get them examined by the healers and we assign housing numbers and give people signs with their numbers and we mark the numbers on a map we have made of the town and the fief.

I pooled manpower and we built a message/post office as we added to the township hall.

We made it an office for the local post and we can deliver the post with pages and page hopefuls under their already paid taxes. We need them to do patrols and get better at riding as well as knowing people and this fits all of those things.

We make a job for a sorter and a scribe to pen letters there and for outside of the fief post we can gather those to the castle and send them out with the messenger knights.

Of course charging for envelopes, packing and writing letters for those who can’t write to pay for the staffing.

I introduce boxes for getting one’s post as well.

And we build with as many hands as I can muster a shared bathhouse and laundry. Just a lot of tubs and a mortared “Tank” for heating water with a room to dry off and have some tea or a drink.

I hired several widows and older women to run it and the baths are wooden barrel baths and there’s a set of heavy tarps dividing them but it is a public bath. So there will be cleaner folk and cleaner clothes and less diseases.

Aunt Aurora helped my parents set several of these up in villages and it changed things.

And while we were doing all of these things we trained, we trained with the new pages and those that sought out service like in my guard and troops and I hired men and young bachelors and extra sons and even daughters if they wished. We built a barracks inside the walls of the keep and we made it very simple. A raised mortared partwall to build on with heavy beams and then straw stuffed under the flooring to insulate it and a good floor over that.

We made post and strung beds with woven grass matts the elves made for the mattresses from cat tails from the marshes. We made wooden lockers and there’s a jakes and a fireplace. Everything else is done at the keep or out in the field.

It was needed too. All in all I took forty people into service and those were mouths that their families wouldn’t need to feed.

We used that time and manpower to go through the lands and fix problems.

Chopping and piling and storing wood, mortaring or tarring and sand sealing cracks in things for winter, fixing fences, doing repairs, we trained as we learned the land, the new addresses and we did patrol but while we did we talked to the locals and did everything that we could do to get ready for Winter.

Like hunting, there was always a bow or crossbow ready to take game as we encountered it and some went to the larders and some we just gave to the closest families nearby.

I pushed it and pushed it and we got all that we could get done, done as it got cooler and cooler and after a fortnight and three we packed what we needed and we rode out for the Dwarven lands.

I leave orders and pay with a few crews of lads that are hired to cut timber and to dry it for lumber and buildings and I put out an offer for good flat building stones as well.

We can store all of those over the winter but I want to build a school for the town and more things.

I take counsel with Dale and my knights about what will be needed to take and what gifts we can bring and what to do about meeting the Dwarves and then we leave. He and they stay to cover things in their lands and to work on our plans.

I take my men with me, I am told that I will be able to reasonably house and feed them in these lands and they need seasoning and experience.

I pack a decent amount of funds and treasure that we had and we leave Winterbrook and we head north east and into the deeper hills and forests and toward the mountains.

We hunt, gather, forage as we go and the men learn to march and we do morning and evening drills with weapons and Tyloren and his folk help me with their powers and magic and healing.

The deep forests of the lesser hills are amazing and dense and scary, there are so many ups and downs in the lands and the terrain that the very loosely named roads are not much better than game trails and make an excellent barrier to the dwarves.

The actual real foothills to the mountains are harder barren of forests but with their own ecosystem.

I have to say there is something about sitting on your horse in the morning so high in these hills that the lesser hills and forests carpet out far below you.

Then you get to turn and see the actual mountains shining in the morning sunlight and so huge and high and awe inspiring.

The dwarves have more use here so there are real roads, with solid bottoms and few holes or ruts and ditches but not just those but there are rest areas where there are natural springs and some smart and kind soul made stacked stone hearths and there are loose seats and benches in some of them.

And it seems we keep going up and up until we finally get to this wall.

It looks like a stone tower and a gate just out of the cliff face enough to get a good look from the tower of the lands around and beside that is a massive gate in the cliff wall.

We announce ourselves and dwarves come out with weapons and crossbows and the like and they check us out and over and then we’re let inside and we’re put through cleansing bathes and made sure that we are clean.

Tyloren assures me that this is faster because we are with elves and The ways dispel sickness.

Then we are assigned a guide that will help us travel under the mountains and through their systems instead of mountain trekking until we got to Braithe.

I was picturing something more cramped but Dwarven places are solid and large and they are roomy and they are just plainly built for generations to come.

I’m amazed and getting my parents and all of the older people that told me all of my life I have not seen the world.

They’re right I never could have dreamed these things up.

We by no means get to see that much of their realm honestly, and they’re very formal about it. Like them, letting us travel like this was a matter of honor and I had the impression of hospitality and politics that I know nothing about. I do notice that they are very formal with the elves and it’s like that sort of thing you know has a long background that led to that very formal treatment of each other.

If you don’t get that neither race is human or has our base natures and values then you might see it as being adversaries but this, this is something else.

Militarily I’m jealous as even the light troops escorting us and guiding us past certain spots are well trained and all of their gear looks better than most of ours.

Elves live thousands of years but dwarves are not as long lived but they’re still longer lived than us seeing old and infirm ages about four hundred to five hundred years.

All of the long lived races see their learning and skilled trades as loves and often spend decades learning them so the level of creation and invention and quality is a big part of their magic.

Imagine that kind of skill as the base for every industry of a species pretty much and that’s half the power of the elder races.

The fact that we are so alien and what they value is so different from us is likely what has kept the peace between us all. Humans with that sort of power would be reaching for more power and conquering.

I want to actually know more about both races and I envy Elizabetha and her tolerance and thirst for books.

And while the hospitality is very great it’s stilted and I try and do my best to be respectful and mannered while they lead us through and honestly mostly around their territory and I’m sure we bypass several dwarven communities and villages and steadings.

Even out here on the borders the reality shows itself as I see where they’ve been and traveled and marked and I still revel in seeing statues and toms and works of art that are breathtaking like who carves a rock face with a spring to look like a crying woman? Why are there artfully crafted stone steps or rails in places where they’re useful but are so well worked it’s hard to guess why? So much works and hours for something so few would use or see?

But I kind of get it.

Art and folk art and this skill in landmarks is part mapping and navigation and a declaration of culture and clans and likely a whole bunch of things and it works.

I don’t know the finer points but with notes or a map I could navigate these “roads”

I do not demand a single thing from them as we travel and offer to share our food and what we do have to a point and we’re thanked for our consideration as well and we surface at the mining town of Braithebook named actually for the war memorials and the monastery that is there and it’s home to mining, smelting, smithing and battleknight studies shops and has a lot of dwarves here and it’s the only place where the mountains have a trade road running through it but up the Braithe arm of the mountain chain.

We camped here and had to so we could adjust to the thinner air and we literally had to take that kind of break and we were given a large warehouse cave to stay in and I was there our second evening when I heard horns and seen Grandfather’s flags on poles as Elizabetha was arriving in town with standard bearers and mountain horses and ponies and mules and she had wounded with her and they looked like they had been is a battle getting here and in front of her was horses pull a cart and they had heaped the heads of dozens of these…Goblins? Trolls?

I watched her riding in and she changed clothes before coming into the walls and she was dirty with the fighting still on her face and she had braided her hair into a “Roan” styled (Dutch) braid and her slender dark haired body looked like she lost her youthful weight and she has been burning more than she’s been taking in and she’s in a leather jerkin over a hooded woolen hooded tunic and she’s wearing her own standard on an actual tabard and I can see the ring on her necklace and she has grandfathers heavy battle sword draped over her shoulder as she rides slowly with Roanish soldiers and horsemen and mercenaries I think but she has knights and squires with her as well.

She looks like our mother Deidre resurrected and off to lead troops to war and she’s looking over the “Town/City” and I walk out to greet her letting out a long whistle we often use while herding cattle on the plains and for caravans and I watch them all look and I’m actually shocked and warmed at the warm smile on Lizzy’s face when she see’s me.

“Gracie!”

“Lizzie!”

A year ago you’d never tell me I’d be in pants and armor and running to hug my baby sister.