There were almost fifty people in the square when Jon emerged from the temple, including women and children. Even though the priest glowered at him, he didn’t walk down into the crowd. He stayed on the top step. The spot gave him just enough height that he could get a good view of the assembled group, and most everyone could see him instead of just the men in the first two rows. At a glance he recognized a few of them, but for every person he recognized there were five he didn’t. It didn’t matter. He'd given strangers this same message several times before. Hopefully here it would be as well received as it had been in other places.
“Some of you might recognize me, but all of you knew me once,” Jonathan said, raising his voice as much as he could while the crowd started to quiet down. For a moment he wished he had Lord Dalton’s trick for making himself louder, but he would make do. “I am Jonathan Shaw. True heir to the Wardenship of the region, and recently back from the deeps where I was imprisoned by the stone men for years. I’m sure everyone remembers the reason why. I won’t go into that now, but I can assure you that the dwarves will be held to account for every life they took that day, one hundred fold.”
No one was talking after that, but the flinty gazes he saw from some of the farmers meant that the silence wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Jon could feel the raw emotion radiating from the crowd for even mentioning such a taboo topic, and he swallowed hard before he continued. “Those days are behind us though, and I can promise you the future will be brighter. I’ve sent the previous Warden packing so that we can focus on rebuilding this village, and making it prosper as it did before, in my father’s time. Together we can—”
“You can leave off all those fancy words Mister Shaw” A voice from the crowd rang out. “You’re only making things worse, for you and us.” Jon took a moment to zero in on the heckler, but didn’t recognize him.
“I don’t think there’s anything worse than slaving away in the fields to sell most of your harvest to the dwarves, before handing over most of the coin you sell it for to the Warden,” Jon countered. “And I don’t think this village has many more harvests like that in it before it starves to dust and blows away. So, unless you disagree, maybe you should hear me out.”
“We’d hear you out if you had a plan,” another stranger shouted. This time there were several noises of agreement, and they only got louder as the speaker continued. “But you ain’t got one of those do you, and your fancy fire blooded powers won’t do much when the actual Warden comes back with a real force from the garrison. If you ask me, you’d better be gone before they get here, because none of us is going to fight them for you because of a few promises about a better tomorrow.”
“I don’t ask that any man here fight for me against Lord Burton’s men. I have no doubt that most everyone has heard how his last fight with me went. Perhaps one or two of you were even there last night.” Jon paused, giving them a moment to recall the darkest, most fantastic rumors that he was certain were making the rounds. “For those of you who haven’t heard though - last night ten men tried to kill me and I sent them running for their lives within a few minutes. Fifty won’t be much harder than ten were. The only difference between the two is that next time there won’t be as many survivors.”
“Talk is cheap—” another man tried to interrupt Jon, but this time he just talked over the heckler.
“I agree - there’s nothing cheaper than a braggart, but fortunately for all of us, I’m a man of action. I came here alone, and when the rest of my men get here in a few days, I’ll be leaving again. Then I’ll take all my trouble with me, along with any man that wants to fight injustice at my side.” Jon felt like his message was starting to resonate. He was forcing them to put the pieces together in their mind, because he couldn’t be someone so foolish that they couldn’t take him seriously as well as someone so dangerous that he didn’t bat an eye at fighting ten men at once. “I am not so highborn that I would ever force someone else to join me. Whether anyone from the Dulcine valley joins me on what comes next or not, my actions can make the kingdom a better place for the common man - not just the noblemen. Dalmarin isn’t my first fight with tyranny, and it won’t be my last.”
“Fine words from a fine young man,” another voice added. This time Jon recognized it as the soft old voice of Mr. Johnston, the baker. He’d been a fixture in the community since before Jon had been born, and someone he'd have to win over to get any support at all. “But all I hear is someone spoiling for a fight. Tell me Jonathan, what precisely do you think makes you any different from the men you seek to supplant by force.”
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“That’s an excellent question, Mr. Johnston. Let me answer it with a subject near and dear to your heart. Finely milled wheat flour.” That answer brought more than a few chuckles from the crowd. He could hear people asking what flour had to do with revolution, but he ignored them. “Specifically the forty pound sacks that the dwarves buy every fall and ship into the underworld never to be seen again. They used to pay the farmers around here half an eighth for that bushel of wheat, but if their rates here are the same as everywhere else they only pay three quarters of that now, don’t they?That’s why the king has increased taxes - to make up the difference.”
The farmers in the crowd might not have been touched by some of his high minded rhetoric before, but wheat was their livelihood, and suddenly so many of the men that were tuning him out before were now standing in rapt attention. “How can that be? The cities of the stone men consume more food than ever. I’ve seen them. So, the price should be slowly rising, not falling. The answer is complicated - but it comes down to this: they’re using their dwarven magic to drain swamps and redirect rivers and lakes to make deserts bloom so that every year there’s more farmland than the year before.” Jon smiled, gesturing broadly, “There’s nothing wrong with that. Turning the world into a garden is a blessing from the gods, but when they do these things they’re making sure that they're the only ones that benefit. Our kingdom has enough food to make sure no one ever needs to go hungry again, but some grow fat while others starve. That’s the injustice I aim to fix.”
“They drain swamps and move rivers,” a farmer asked in disbelief, trying to wrap his mind around the very idea. Jon considered launching into a discussion of steam shovels and blasting, but quickly decided against it. It would be like the times he’d tried to explain how magic worked to the dwarves: funny, but ultimately fruitless. Besides - he had a much better idea closer at hand.
“Consider this temple to be the whole of the kingdom of man,” Jon said, giving the priest a meaningful look. “Every year you pay the gods your portion just as you pay the king his, but every year the temple falls further into disrepair and ruin, just like the houses of the village and the trade roads. All those tithes, I mean taxes must be going somewhere though.”
“Now you wait just a minute,” the priest protested, finally getting some idea of where Jon was going, “These are spurious accusations, by an outsider - an outsider that knows nothing of the hardships we’ve faced as a community!” Jon ignored the priest and let him rant for a moment as he finally walked down the stairs to his horse. The crowd retreated before him, giving him space as they were finally invested in where this was going.
“I’m sure that Lord Burton offered the same sorts of justifications the last few years, didn’t he?” Jon asked as he started to pull a random assortment of finery he’d grabbed from his manor before his trip today just in case he found an excuse for a visual aid. He produced a silken emerald green dress which he handed to the closest woman, an artfully painted porcelain vase which he handed to another man, and finally an embroidered throw pillow. “That the money he raised in taxes went to vital improvements? What did he tell you - that it was for bandits? For the roads? These trinkets are what all that money actually went to - finery for his daughters and a house full of expensive decor that no one needed.”
“How many hours did you slave in your fields so Lord Burton could buy pillows?” Jon demanded, changing his tone as he sought to invoke the anger of the mob. “How many days did you go without before harvest so that he and his well stocked pantry would never need to? Some of you had been to my father’s house before he passed. Shaw Manor has always been a lovely home, but you know in your hearts that it was never an ostentatious one. Not like the frivolous monstrosity it is now.”
“What’s that got to do with the temple though,” someone asked, obviously confused. It was an excellent question Jon thought, allowing him to pivot perfectly back to where he wanted the anger of the crowd refocused: a visible target that wasn’t him.
“Perhaps that is a question better asked of your priest. He is a very well fed holy man isn’t he? He still has time to powder his face and bleach his vestments even as the walls of his temple cave in around him. The gods suffer so that he will never need to - just as the former Warden taught him.”
“That is an outrageous lie!” the priest yelled, but he backed up towards the door as he did so. He could feel the crowd turning against him as easily as Jon could.
“There’s only one way to prove that holy man,” Jon said as he mounted his horse. “Show them your chambers. Show them that you live as simply as they do and that you have nothing to hide from the good people of Dalmarin. Do that and they’ll know I’m a liar.”
The priest’s only response was to disappear inside the temple and lock the door behind him. That lit the crowd on fire more than anything Jon would ever say.
“There you have it,” he added as he started to ride away. “You asked how I’m different? I’m different because I reject luxury and I fight shoulder to shoulder with my men. If any of you would fight with me, then meet me for breakfast tomorrow morning at Shaw Manor, and we’ll talk about what comes next.”