Cass put that encounter behind her, she refused to think about it again if she could help it. She made her purchase and went back to the castle and returned to her lessons. Lord Hall wanted Cass to begin her duties within the next few weeks, Owin would be helping where it was needed and her first assignment would not be particularly challenging, but Cass was nervous. As a Hand, her duties were a mix of diplomacy and military commanding, and Cass did not really feel she was capable of doing that.

However, Lord Hall would only laugh in response and express his admiration for what she did in Beergmutar- and collar or not, Cass could not possibly refuse him.

Her very first actions as her Master’s hand was to travel to the Rence Barony, a little south of her Master’s territory, and meet with the Baron Rence regarding his acceptance of glyphed soldiers. Baron Rence was against the concept, and Cass was supposed to convince him.

“The Rence family are fairly orthodox mages,” her tutor said. “The current Baron Rence, while capable of magic, is much better known for his business dealings which is not uncommon in their line.”

“An old house that has never risen above the Baron title,” another tutor had told her. “Some of the more highly ranked houses look down on them for this, but their stability is something to be admired.”

When Cass asked Owin, he laughed and gave a derisive reply.

“They got burned every time they tried to reach up,” Owin snorted. “So now they are afraid to try for more and spend all their time trying to solidify their own position.”

“Weren’t they the same rank as the Rattan family?” Cass asked, confused.

“My family was gifted their title long before their territory as a reward for valor on the battlefield.” Owin explained, “originally we were a knight family, and then unlanded Lords, and then unlanded Barons, before finally gaining lands. Compared to the Rence family, we were rising stars- until my father inherited the estate anyway. He was less capable, and you know the rest.”

To summarize, the family was not very powerful- but was very proud and internally stable. A consistent line of mages, but without any unique talents or powerful casters, though knowledgeable enough to understand glyphs. She needed to establish why they were wary of the glyphs and to convince them otherwise.

To do this, Cass would preferably rely on discussion and logic- but there were other things that Cass would have available to her as a Hand of Sarius Hall. Namely, she had some authority to utilize the resources of Lord Hall and could use them for negotiation. However, Cass was forbidden from doing to much in that regard, at least until she had learned more about the Hall’s territory and its situation. So all she was given was an amount of money that could be used in the negotiations, which was a pittance to the Hall Household- but a vast amount of wealth to anyone else, even someone like the Baron Cass would be negotiating with.

“So you must be wondering, why all of this effort?” Her Master was her tutor today, much like he used to teach her about magic. Of course, there was far more tension this time, but Cass was not unhappy about that. “Why does it matter if some minor Baron does or does not do anything and how does this relate to the struggles between Clare and myself.”

“The answer is simple on the surface, but complicated beneath that.” Hall explained, “Clare herself essentially has no power. Technically, she is mine and is subservient to me, but that is an anarchic tradition and the reality is that women in the Empire are no longer simply decorations. Further, she is an agent of her family, and is wielding their power within the household in an attempt to corral and restrain my actions. De jure, I would be the Head of the House, de facto, she would be.”

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Hall sighed, putting his hand to his head for a moment seemingly in exhaustion. “As I have said before, I have hid from my family for so long that I lack connections and power of my own. However, these glyphs come from me- every lord who accepts them is accepting a bit of my influence and allowing me to make connections and allies. The more power I have, the more I push back against Clare and her family and if I can defeat them solidly, I can put this threat to rest.”

As for Hall’s and Cass’s relationship- not much was said. Her Master had to have a male child with Clare- an heir- and the very thought of that made Cass depressed, angry, and jealous. Cass herself was a threat to Clare. A perfectly loyal servant with powerful magic and incredible glyphs, she was a card the Clare wanted to remove from Hall’s hand. But Cass could not claim to understand the whole of the situation- was her Master’s father just going to sit back and let this power struggle happen? And how would this end? As she moved to take this position for her Master, these were questions that she could no longer ignore.

This wider view of the world that Cass had been given was… Overwhelming.

Just in terms of the size of Empire- Cass had never understood it until these lessons. Tyine, the capitol, was actually quite close to Beergmutar. The western areas of the Empire were quite small, whereas the north, south, and east were massive. For nearly a year, parts of the south had been in rebellion- and that had hardly affected the rest of the nation. The boundaries of the Empire were not decided by the strength of their opponents, but by indomitable walls of nature. To the west, the mountains. To the south, the desert. To the east, the ocean, and to the north the forest of the Elehven.

There were several cities near the size of Tyine, and dozens of towns of moderate size all throughout the land. The gears of this nation's politics moved in ways Cass could never have imagined as a child begging for scraps, and now this is the stage she was being groomed for.

Baron Rence held a small territory in the southeast, not very far from Lord Hall’s lands. A warm and fertile grassland with many rivers that ran through it, many would call it idyllic. Cass would see when she arrived there, but the carriage ride out would last an entire week. Cass herself could simply run the distance much more quickly, but there was a lot of preparation and decorum that went with being a Hand. For one thing, she would have Owin, Natalie and Svala attending her and for another she would have a small detachment of soldiers accompanying her as well.

It would seem like a waste of time, but Natalie looked absolutely adorable dressed as a maid- and Cass was not in any real rush she supposed. Birdie, now renamed Svala, also had cleaned up well, though Cass had seen that before she had ended up in Beergmutar. Owin was perhaps the most surprising, or the least depending on your point of view. The brutal thug that Cass had met on her first day in that dungeon was now a dapper, noble looking gentleman- on the outside anyways. His personality was unchanged, just as brutal and domineering as before and if Cass had been the same girl she might have been intimidated. However, instead she considered him to be an effective tool in her arsenal and she would be relying on him and his knowledge during this trip.

She would have to, because she could tell there was more going on behind the scenes that she was unaware of. Hall sending Cass away so soon and with so little training and education… It just seemed strange, but she would not question it now. She would question Owin about it later on the trip out and hope that she could get a better idea of the situation.

Idly, Cass wondered if there was any way to speed all of this up. All of this information being shoved down her throat… No, a glyph of learning would be impossible unfortunately. Maybe, when she had time, she would do some research into that idea. Before she left Cass was going to have the new invisibility glyphs added to her own. They were two small glyphs that would fit within the glyphs on her back and she was looking forward to testing them out- though she did not really think she was going to get an option as her Master’s Hand.