Castle Heart
As the weeks began to pass Castle Heart geared up for war and since Castle Heart was one of two primary invasion grounds, we would be receiving part of the Pervalian Offensive Army while the Seaward Duchy to our north was set to receive the other part. My biological father Duke Jarod and my mother Duchess Minerva were due to arrive in another week. At this point the Castle looked like a cross between military staging grounds and grand festival. Ducal visits were very rare, even to a strategic domain like Agile Valley, which controlled one of the prime way's into Aurelia.
As such everyone was eager to get to Agile Valley and rub elbows with their Duke. Even our 'rivals' from the neighboring barony had deigned to visit our Castle Heart. Though Baron Kayer's hot blooded actions had iced over near immediately upon receipt of Dad's reappointment as the Knight Commander of the Ducal Army. It was rumored that Duke Jarod also intended for Gerald to take overall command of the invading army as it's grand marshal, placing even himself under the command of Gerald. With the arrival of the Duke and Duchess eminent, everyone was scampering to turn Castle Heart into a palace.
The fact that their arrival also coincided perfectly with my birthday did nothing to help the situation, as it was presumed that my birthday would become a state affair. There were even wild rumors that King Eddard would be coming, but Dad had told me privately that it was just a rumor he had started himself in order to give the Duke an even better welcome at the expense of his vassals and neighbors. Entirely untraceable back to him, of course. Dad was devious like that.
The great hall had been completely washed from top to bottom and back again by drudges, and then Dad had the mages come through and beautify the place with mage lights of Green and Gold, the ducal colors, mixed with soft white lights for vision. The banners on the wall had been changed so that on the right side of a set of three thrones was the Ducal heraldry while on the left was the personal heraldry of Gerald, who had restored his heraldry to include the spear-and-sword of the Knight Commander. All along the sides of the hall were banners representing all of the nobility and heraldry of the fiefs enfeoffed to Castle Heart. The rough pews had been changed out for padded individual chairs and the tables were freshly repaired, polished, and enchanted to shine and glow unnaturally, all the while being covered in a mountain of silver and gold cutlery borrowed from a branch of the Temple of Fortune's bank.
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It was taken to such an extreme that Dad even had the mages magically clean and polish all three stone walls, to include gatehouses and towers. The castle grounds had been freshly mown and edged, the trees trimmed back. Even the damn Royal Highway that lead directly to Castle Heart had seen repairs and enchantments to make it seem like... just more!
I think you get the idea. Over the past few weeks Castle Heart had been turned from an imposing military fortress primed to defend the Kingdom into an imposing military fortress primed to defend the Kingdom, but extra shiny.
But preparations for what was apparently going to be the party of a century disguised as a festival were still overshadowed by the preparations for war. Castle Heart normally held a garrison of ten thousand men with five thousand auxiliary personnel from cooks to engineers and porters. That number had already swelled to thirty thousand and was projected to reach the two hundred thousand range before the levies stopped coming. Already literal tons of dried foods and soldiers rations had been carted in to support the massive army. A legion of black smiths worked on everything from arrow heads to swords and armor. The Kingdom had been preparing for this war for the last five years, and every ounce of gold that could be spared was pushed into the effort. With all the fresh iron flowing in from the Duchy of Iron, it was predicted that we would be able to arm everyone in some form of armor, vastly increasing our common soldiers odds of survival on the battle field.
Even more impressive, at least to me, was the collection of Mages who had shown up over the last few weeks. Nearly three hundred mages had been gathered by Arch Mage Theresa and Master Dorman in preparation for the war. They had been busy plastering Castle Heart with the latest and greatest defensive enchantments and warding the entire countryside against insects, rodents, and disease. A total of five hundred mages had been called to participate in the Hexenguardian front with four hundred and fifty of them due to leave with the army.
All in all, when someone told Dad to prepare for war, he did it with gusto. When someone else was willing to foot the bill for the war preparations, he spent money like it was his last day on earth, feverishly purchasing arms and armor, skilled labor, food stuffs, animals - damn near everything that an army needed was purchased from as far as the kingdom capital. I am sure he upset more than one market with his largess, but since the Duchies and the Kingdom were paying for it, no one really cared except for the Kings treasurer, who was rumored to have passed out after one particular invoice.
As summer approached, so too did my biological parents and my birthday. And a war in which I would be an active participant. Why was I more afraid of my parents than war?