Michael
An hour later they were all back in the council chamber waiting for Zen to reopen the meeting. Michael had spent most of the break calming himself and trying to guess what the archpriest would do with little success; he just didn’t know a lot about the man.
Michael didn’t have much time to ponder the issue further as Zen stood up from his seat and announced, “Welcome back, now that we have all cooled down a little bit we can continue the discussion. I hope that everyone can stay calm this time. Let’s hear some opinions from people who haven’t shared theirs yet. Archpriest Patheros what is the church’s opinion on this whole matter? Is there any divine guidance you can share with us?”
The priest stayed silent while he appeared to organize his thoughts, but Michael guessed that it was only a facade, and he knew exactly what to say.
“Milords, it is an honor for me to represent the will of the church in this meeting, as it is my honor to walk the path of Idas every day of my life,” the man began, every word carefully weighed. He continued for a few minutes talking of the grace of God and recollecting most of what had been said in the meeting before getting to the point.
“I have contemplated as much as possible in the last hours about the decision we are here to make. In the end, it was clear what I had to recommend. Lord Idas always told us to become strong as a people and with that in mind, I can’t suggest with a clear consciousness to leave the wealth and resources in the hands of a single count when they could be used for the betterment of the whole kingdom and its people,” he said, and the royal side of the argument nodded in agreement. Again, he preached for a while about the commandments of Idas and other religious dogma while Michael sighed relieved.
He had expected the man to be much more vehemently against him or even accuse him of colliding with heretics, non-humans, and mages but the Archpriest didn’t seem very invested in his arguments. His best guess was that Patheros thought that attacking the friend of the king so directly might put him at odds with Zen, but he couldn’t know for sure. For now, Michael was just happy with how it had worked out even if he was very suspicious of the priest’s motivations.
After Patheros was Duke Greeich’s turn to speak, he had a smirk on his face while stroking his white mustache slowly.
“We have danced around what should be the most important argument so much that even I nearly forgot about it,” the old duke said, he wasn’t as old as Duke Wallsten but still old. “You are all talking about compensation and who can use it better and whatnot. Even the priest ignored it, and he should be the advocate of morality here,” he gave the archpriest an amused glance, but Patheros didn’t react.
“I guess I am going to spell it out. Is it right to take the rewards of an achievement forcefully from the person who has achieved it? Is that the morally right thing to do,” he looked into the faces of the present men while talking and got a mixture of responses from dismissal to agreement.
“I have seen many kings in my time, with the end of the Twin Mountain Kingdom I have seen more than I ever wanted to. Good kings and bad kings, benevolent kings and tyrannical kings, selfless kings and selfish kings. King Zenial you will have to choose what kind of king you want to be.” Sounds of discomfort erupted in the chamber while Michael grinned at the directness of the duke.
“Pattro, morality will not protect our kingdom, we need to be practical right now,” Duke Wulfen reprimanded his equal.
“Practicality was always your path in life, Leopold,” Duke Greeich replied with a smile. “But understanding the finer things that motivate us and make us behave morally good are much more important than you give it credit. The world is not so simple. The people need to know that their king is a good king so that they will follow willingly and with enthusiasm.”
“I do understand the motivations of men quite well,” Duke Wulfen replied coldly.
“Then you can quite easily tell us what exactly the rest of the realm will think of our king if he actually goes through with this plan,” Duke Wallsten inserted himself into the conversation.
Duke Wulfen stayed silent while looking from one duke to the other before Duke Wallsten took it upon himself to answer his own question. “The nobles will be in uproar, the bards will begin to sing of the injustice that has been committed, and the peasants will hear and believe those stories. Your reputation will suffer, your Majesty. No one will want to take a risk like this again at the danger of the reward being taken away or they will start to hide their riches and fear your attention. The path to ruin is built with good intentions after all.”
Michael knew that Zen wanted to be known as a good king and be loved so he knew that this would hit close to his heart even if it was a low blow. This is also the reason Michael didn’t want to bring up this point himself because as his friend it would sting in a bad way. Zen was frowning already but Duke Wulfen wouldn’t just let them have their way.
“You are exaggerating. I will not deny that there will be those who are disgruntled by us infringing on the nobility’s autonomy, but those voices will be quiet and far between, and easily drowned out by the noise of progress that the king can make with the gain from the mountains.”
“Quiet and far between is a particular way of degrading a whole duchy,” Duke Greeich said with a raised eyebrow.
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“No one can expect the lords of Praanen to not be a little disgruntled, they are the ones who have to give up something, but they will be rewarded so I don’t think that they will disagree for long,” Duke Wulfen waved him off.
“I meant myself and my vassals,” Duke Greeich clarified bluntly. “I have made my misgivings about this plan quite obvious since this whole ordeal began, and I will gladly repeat them.”
“That won’t be necessary. You have made your position clear on the matter, but I am interested in the subject anyway. How bad will the reaction be to this,” Zen asked with a concerned expression, he was already on the hook and now the battle would be to keep Duke Wulfen’s side from calming his concerns.
“Not as cataclysmic as the esteemed dukes might want to make it look like, no one will think of you as a tyrant, any vassal with the kingdom’s prosperity in mind will see that this is the best way to go,” Duke Wulfen replied.
“I don’t understand why you are so vehemently against this. The duty of a noble is to protect the kingdom and if the kingdom is prospering then your lands will too,” Count Gretten added in Michael’s and Duke Wallsten’s direction.
Michael stayed quiet listening intently to every sentence, but Duke Wallsten wouldn’t leave this alone.
“Would you leave such an opportunity without any argument? A chance to make your people’s lives better. This is a real chance for Praanen to catch up to the other duchies, break out of its rank as a frontier, and finally become an equal to the other duchies,” Duke Wallsten retorted more emotionally than Michael had ever seen the old duke.
Count Gretten chuckled dryly as if the duke had just made a joke and then said dismissively, “It would take decades for Praanen to reasonably catch up economically and militarily even with these resources, it’s unrealistic. The amount of development the kingdom could do with the resources in such a long timeframe would majorly overshadow the effects it would have down south.”
Duke Wulfen watched the whole exchange with a frown, certainly wondering why Duke Wallsten had moved the conversation in a direction that benefitted them with the unreasonable expectations that the duke had stated. He glanced over to Michael and saw a glint in his eyes just as Count Gretten finished up his statement and his eyes widened. He quickly gave the steward a warning glance, but it was too late.
“Unrealistic you say? Leave the mountains with us for five years and Praanen will have caught up or even exceeded the other duchies militarily and economically,” Michael stated with a confident expression and the room fell silent.
“That is just ridiculous,” Count Gretten exclaimed, “How desperate are you to keep the riches to yourself to make such an outrageous claim? Over half of Praanen was settled barely fifty years ago there is no way that you could succeed in building it up to such an extent if half the land is frontier wilderness.”
He wasn’t completely wrong, the counties of Reen, Emall, and his uncle’s fief Grent were mostly wilderness with Reen being the most developed and even in Reen, there was less than half the population of other counties in more established counties.
“Then it should be a great deal for the kingdom,” Michael said with a grin and Duke Wulfen growled at his underling to finally get him to keep his mouth shut. “The kingdom won’t have to spend as much money to develop the mines and if I fail in what I have claimed then I will turn over everything without any resistance or demanding any compensation. Either way, the kingdom will either have a duchy that develops up massively and brings much higher tax income and military support or it will receive a fully established mining operation for free while being able to use its own funds for defense.”
Duke Wulfen shook his head at this point knowing that he had lost this round which was quickly confirmed by an excited Zen.
“Are you sure that you can pull this off,” he asked with an awestruck tone.
“If nothing cataclysmic happens then I am certain that I can do what I promise,” Michael replied confidently because he knew what was in those mountains. It wasn’t just the minerals, it wasn’t even just the magical materials that no one here knew about, the thing that made him completely sure was the presence of an ancient dragon that had already agreed to help him with his vast knowledge and his drive to reform and rebuild his lands.
Zen grinned excitedly, always one for grand gestures and confident declarations like those that a hero in an epic tale would make, and announced, “Then this is what we are going to do. The cleared part of the Ereic Mountains will remain in the possession of House Rowan for the next five years, upon which point we will judge if the condition that the Duchy of Praanen has grown to match the other duchies of the kingdoms has been fulfilled.”
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- Somewhere in the Palace -
“I apologize for my misstep, milord. I should have known that they were trying to bait me,” Uther Gretten said while trying to avoid the eyes of Duke Wulfen. He wasn’t actually his direct vassal with his lands being in the central duchy of Regia but in reality, he was completely subservient to the powerful Duke.
Leopold sighed and shook his head. “It was a long shot anyway. There was little chance to convince the king to take away the mountains from his friend with how the cards are laid right now. The only chance we had was shocking them into doing something foolish and antagonizing His Majesty.”
That obviously hadn’t happened, even if the young Rowan had lost his temper for a short while he had said nothing that could have been used against him regarding this meeting. Leopold would probably still let the boy’s accusations of nobles being corrupt leak to worsen his reputation and maybe make his own vassals angry. It wasn’t personal, quite the contrary he was impressed by the boy and if he were his vassal Leopold would have celebrated, but in the situation, as it was, he was dangerous so Leopold wouldn’t pull his punches just because the young count was a child.
“It wasn’t a total failure though. We have a clear avenue to salvage this situation now, the only thing we need to do is make sure that he fails in what he has promised and then he will lose the mountains and not even get any compensation,” Leopold added with a slight smile.
Uther scoffed and said, “I don’t think we have to do much on that front, milord. As I said in the meeting, it is utterly impossible that Praanen catches up to the other duchies in a mere five years.”
“Don’t underestimate Duke Wallsten, he might be an old man and appear to be quite passive, but he is shrewd and ambitious. Not to mention that the kid has already done some unexpected moves and will definitely throw caution and conventional wisdom to the wind to reach his goal,” Leopold admonished the smaller man.
“Of course, milord,” he shrunk under the criticism.
“We will go back to your earlier suggestion, let us see if we can’t get his vassals to be a little trouble,” Leopold said with a dark smile.