Herald of Steel

The fallout from the meeting would last the following few days, during which Lord Janus tried hard not to feel too frustrated over his wasted efforts.

He had taken a great risk when contacting the northern, knowing if even a single word was somehow to leak of this, not only would his own reputation go permanently down the drain, but much more than that, Lady Miranda would lose even the last bit of support she had left.

Most of the nobles here did not take colluding with those natives lightly so it could never come to light until the very near the end.

And as luck would favor him, Lord Janus did succeed in accomplishing that, forming a secret, rudimentary bridge of contact between the two.

Only to have his lady refuse refuse to cross it.

This naturally made the old man very bitter.

But in defense of Lady Miranda, the situation was also not clear cut for her.

Even if one sidestepped the political ramifications of shaking hands with them for now, Lady Miranda still personally remained very prejudiced about colluding with them.

And it was something she was taught from a very young age, with her parents and grandparents using one very recent event to illustrate their point.

This was also something Lord Janus neglected to mention, and so during one of their free gatherings, Lady Miranda filled Alexander in.

"My lord, it is not as if I do not appreciate our predicament and your grave desire for more men. But I think allying with these barbarians is like inviting the tiger to drive out the fox. We will simply be inviting more trouble than it's worth." She chimed in a calm, neutral tone before lightly pausing to shake her head, emphasizing her point heavily,

"And I do not say this out of spite or short sightedness. I say it because this is not the first time these natives tried something like this. About fifty to sixty years ago, they also came to us with a similar proposal."

"Back then, we were facing a particularly large scale rebellion, formed in collusion with many of nobles. When we were on the back foot, they promised the same thing they are to you now- fighting for us in exchange for some land after the war. And we agreed to give them a portion of the traitors' lands after the war. But when the time came, out of nowhere they betrayed us mid battle!"

Lady Miranda's gaze suddenly turned very fierce as she said it, her pearly teeth becoming clenched with hatred, as if she was having a hard time containing her bubbling rage.

While on the other side, Alexander produced a very surprised look.

Because he could not fathom why the natives would do such a thing.

According to him, rebellions were high risk, high reward affairs where the winner took all.

So if the northern people really could help the Margraves win, it was very reasonable to think the fiefs of those traitorous nobles would indeed become free and available. There was little chance of the deal falling out.

It made no logical sense.

And unable to think of a reason why for himself, Alexander ultimately figured that the reason was perhaps only known to the tribal chiefs of the time.

"Heh… I bet Uncle Janus never told you that my lord did he?" He was then suddenly brought out of his ruminating thought by this light sneer, as Lady Miranda scoffed,

"And why would he? Those barbarians will have the chance to betray us once more exactly as they did before. He is probably worried about revealing that."

"According to grandfather, at the time, the northern were placed in our left flank. But just as they were ordered to go meet the traitors, they suddenly turned and attacked our center. We were instantly routed, making that one of the most complete and utter defeats in our whole history."

"Many, many of my uncles and granduncles were killed by those scum, while both my great grandfather and grandfather were taken captives."

"In the end, the rebellion only ended once the Marsh family stepped in. But by then my great grandfather had been already executed by the treasonous nobles, while my grandfather was only rescued after paying an eye watering sum of ransom. We paid for our mistake for the next three decades!"

"...." Lady Miranda's revelation left Alexander in silence for quite some time, as he tried to piece together all the various disjointed information.

For one, he swiftly figured that the rebellion was probably intimately tied to Lady Miranda's great grandfather, and his death was one of the ways the Marsh family helped please the presumably victorious traitors.

Two, the ransom was so absurdly large that it made even a family as rich as the Margraves tighten their belt for the next thirty years. It was truly mind boggling.

And lastly, the natives probably got very little of the winning pie. Because if they had, their presence in Margrave's politics would probably not be so muted and their state so deplorable.

This made Alexander even more curious about what had caused them to betray the Margraves.

At the same time, he also grew cautious about allying himself with them.

Thus Lady Miranda managed to successfully transfer her doubts to Alexander.

It also did not help that when Alexander presented his doubts to Lord Janus and asked him why neglected to mention such an event, the old man simply swung his hands and brushed it aside like it was not even worth considering,

"That's ancient history! That was then and now is now! Things are different... the people are different... everything is different! My lord should not worry about such trivial matters!"
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"..." Needless to say, this hardly reassured the always skeptical young pasha, for he felt Lord Janus was being at best too trusting or even simply careless and cavalier.

Given the stakes, Alexander could hardly be birds of the same feather.

He was not willing to hand over the city of Caira over such a dangerous gamble and thus seemed content to simply let things be.

At least that was his initial thought.

But over the following week, Lord Janus began to wear him down, repeating the many advantages his fief could provide and highlighting the drawbacks of staying cooped here.

The old man begged, "My lord, it is alright if you do not want to ally with the northerners but there is no harm in at least talking to them, right?

And if you do not want to do even that, that's fine too. Come to my place anyway, I swear it will be better for you and your army strategically.

For one you won't have to worry about a contested harbor there. But here… there is no guarantee you can keep the Royal Harbor indefinitely.

If Lord Parker decides to throw all caution to the air and attacks with every ship he has, I am afraid win or loss will be up in the air. Your reinforcements will be no good if you cannot reach them."

In this way, Lord Janus pointed out the risk of simply staying still and digging in, before further adding,

"Plus, Caira is not nearly as important as Miranda is making it out to be. Yes… it is her ancestral home and has been the family's seat of power for many years? But so what? The only thing that matters in this conflict is the winner. Who has what now is null."

Following this great announcement, Lord Janus at last finished his urgings by lifting his finger and cunningly posing,

"As a matter of fact, if we play our hands correctly, we can even turn this loss to our advantage. Many nobles will not like a foreign ducal family controlling this historical city. The loss of this city might even turn out to be a boon for us in the long run."

Alexander however was highly skeptical of the last claim, because it was not like the nobles were unaware of what was happening.

No.

They were fully awake to the fact that the Heeat forces were already inside the city and that they were even actively fighting there.

But even then they firmly supported Miss Linda and thus supported the puppeting, all due to their own personal benefits.

Hence there was little chance that Alexander's few words could produce even the slightest breeze, much less a gale to make them turn them around.

The pasha was however moved by many of the other points laid out by Lord Janus, as they indeed made sense to him.

Combining this also came a few muted whispers from some of the officers who claimed that it would indeed be better to replenish their supplies.

While at the same time, Alexander's negotiations with the rest of the Margraves family members also stalled.

He had originally wanted to have these men bend their knees to Lady Miranda and then have them swear the lady in as their new family head.

But the stubborn old fools vehemently resisted, even when Alexander threatened them with imminent death.

They shouted,

"We declare ourselves neutral in all this. We are willing to help the family continue to run its businesses as usual. But not anything beyond that."

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