“There’s an idea, where I am from,” I began, positioning myself with my back to the fence and subtly adjusting my stance and body language to take on a lecturing demeanor. “The belief that…let’s see, how did they put it… All men are created equal. The notion that everyone has certain, for lack of a better term, human rights. Every person entitled to basic dignity and equal protection under the law, no one able to abuse or impose upon anyone else.”

Wow, it only took a few sentences of that for them to begin to turn on me. But that was fine; anger I could deal with, it was only apathy that would mess up my game here. I was going somewhere with this, it just called for a bit of crowd work to pick up my momentum.

“I gather you have not had the opportunity to study Fflyr history or jurisprudence, Lord Seiji,” said an older man whose blond hair was starting to shift toward gray. He appeared too dignified to scowl or mutter the way many of his fellow nobles now were, simply lifting his chin to give me a severe stare. “Those we now call lowborn are the descendants of a truly despicable race. Their position in modern society is their just punishment by the Goddess, and we Her divinely appointed custodians of their recompense. You tread, my lord, upon the dictates of law, faith, and celestial providence itself.”

I can’t wait to watch the lot of you burn.

“Interesting,” I said aloud, not having to fake a tone. It was interesting, and no less so for being horrible and stupid; I hadn’t bothered to acquaint myself with a highborn perspective on the matter. “I’ll have to dig up a book on that at the first opportunity. But no, rest assured I wasn’t finished. What we all know without having to be told is that there is not and has never been, anywhere, a place where that’s how it works. I’m aware of distant countries in which such egalitarianism is the law of the land, and even there, in practice it’s a bad joke. There are always the shepherds and the sheep, yes? Nah, don’t mistake me.” I grinned amiably, keeping my posture relaxed as the stirrings of antagonism around me began to relax into mere suspicion. “I was raising the moral argument preemptively, so as to dismiss it. Otherwise, I fear some of you might wrongly conclude I was approaching the topic from that direction.”

That extremely obvious, minimally ethical direction. All around me the gathered highborn had calmed down just as quickly as they’d grown angry, reassured I wasn’t about to suggest that they should try not to be sociopaths.

“I wouldn’t want anybody walking away with the idea that I’m somehow better than you,” I added with my most disarming grin. “No one who knows me would entertain that idea for even a second. Right, Aster?”

Amid the wave of chuckles at my little joke, Aster’s shoulders shifted minutely in a barely-suppressed sigh and she gave me an utterly deadpan stare that was as close to an Aster Look as she dared in front of this particular crowd.

“Indeed, my lord is famously astute in his social observations.”

Man, that lowborn sarcasm was a trip once you knew how to spot it. I could see how they got away with it; you’d come across like a pathetically insecure jackass if you reacted harshly to such an oblique prod.

“But anyway, we weren’t talking about me!” I gestured grandly toward Highlord Lhadron, who was still watching me warily, though he had also relaxed and even laughed. Grasping at poise however he could, or unaware of the situation I was putting him in? Not that it mattered; if he hadn’t been smart enough to avoid being in this trap, he was still fish in a barrel. “Rather than morality, it’s a question of…let’s see, what’s the word I want… Ah, yes. Insecurity.”

“I beg your pardon?” he exclaimed.

“My people eat well,” I said, affecting an idle, insouciant tone. “They’re dressed warmly enough for the season, and they have enough time off from work to relax. A productive employee is a comfortably fed, well-rested, properly socialized employee. I make sure they are provided these things because I want to get the best benefit out of them, and because…”

I paused, letting my smile extend subtly on one side, becoming an unmistakable smirk. A moment to let the tension build, to verify that the audience was still clinging to my every word despite how I’d momentarily antagonized them just now. Because of course they still were; I’m a master of my craft.

“Because,” I finally continued, holding Lhadron’s increasingly angered stare, “when I see a peasant bent over in a field scything wheat…or a donkey grazing in the next pasture over…there is no insidious little voice in the back of my head whispering, ‘there but for the grace of the Goddess go I.’”

He actually placed one hand on his rapier, probably goaded by the several indrawn breaths from the onlookers.. “Just what do you mean by that?!”

I glanced at the sword, just long enough to let him know I was dismissing the idea of it being a threat. In truth, I had no idea how skilled he might be; a rapier seemed to be an essential part of fashion for male highborn, but Nazralind claimed that only a relative handful actually studied fencing.

“What would you think,” I drawled, “if a jockey who lost a race vented his frustration by whipping his horse bloody, then shoved it in a stall without food or water? Aside from ‘I am going to eviscerate that worthless bastard,’ of course, that goes without saying. What does it say about a man, that he abuses a helpless animal?”

Lhadron’s grip tightened on the handle of his sword, though he was still not drawing it. “You cannot begin to compare—”

“It says,” I projected right over his voice, which was easy because nobody had ever trained him in public speaking, “that he has a desperate need to feel bigger and better than somebody, and is too pitiful to actually earn that pride in comparison to any real peer of his. It is the action of a sad, silly, insecure little man whose every waking moment is defined by his desperate need to make some living creature fear him—and his inability to impose his will on anyone or anything whose respect would actually be worth something.”

“Your ignorance has escalated into insult, Lord Seiji,” Lhadron barked. “You know nothing of this land, or these people. The lowborn must be kept—”

“—in their place,” I finished in unison with him. “Subordinate and ruled over by their betters. Correct? But that’s just the point. That,” I pointed behind me at Thunder, who obligingly whinnied, “is a creature who could kick you from here into the core, and I don’t see him being starved and frozen. He certainly has issues recognizing who is master here—and yet, there he is, in his paddock, under control. Control which is exercised gently but firmly, because that is how one maintains control. Deprivation and violence are not useful in keeping the lowborn down, Lhadron; if anything, nonsense like that is why Dlemathlys suffers regular lowborn uprisings. Ah, yes, I forgot to mention I am not entirely ignorant of your history, after all. The easiest way to prevent the lowborn from rebelling is to deprive them of any reason to. To actually live by your own rhetoric: regard them as less valuable than the horses. Tend your animals well. It’s plain that you know how. And yet, you don’t.”

I took one step toward him, bringing myself uncomfortably close and not even glancing at the hand that was still clutching his rapier so hard it trembled. Instead, I held his gaze, my own stare relentless, but mocking.

“The good shepherd tends his flock. It’s a sad, pitiable little boy who beats and starves them for the sake of his own ego. After all, what sort of pathetic loser feels gratified by exercising power over sheep?”

“That,” he whispered, “is a step too far.”

I raised an eyebrow. All around were whispers and mutters, a susurration of uncertainty. For a moment, I wondered if I’d misstepped. I knew the dynamic here, or thought I did; the fact that most of these fuckers were guilty of the same shouldn’t stop them from reveling in Lhadron’s humiliation and piling more on top of it. Or so I had assumed. Were they going to take it personally instead? If things went in that direction…

“That reminds me, my lord,” an unexpectedly familiar voice said from the nearby crowd. “You did make the rounds of our village and ensure the lowborn are properly set up for the winter?”

“My dear, I could very nearly take offense,” Highlord Adver Yviredh replied, turning to his wife with a raised eyebrow of his own. “Surely you don’t mean to suggest that I am so lacking as a man that the suffering of our serfs would bring me some satisfaction?”

“I have rather more respect for you than that, husband, as I would hope you know,” Lady Elidred replied with a fond smile. “I am also aware that you get as distracted by your hunting parties as Highlord Lhadron is by his horses, and have been excited to no end by the early onset of winter. Do you recall last year, when you obtained that red wolf pelt and forgot—”

“For heaven’s sake, Elidred,” he exclaimed to the accompaniment of titters from the surrounding highborn. “I’m certain Brynder saw to any outstanding needs, especially since we were allotted a shipment of grain and medicine from the capital; such are his standing orders. But if you are determined to undermine our poor steward, I will risk the insult of asking him.”

“Ah, well, so long as Brynder is instructed thus as a matter of course, I’m certain it has been seen to.”

I spared them barely a flickering glance, not wanting to betray any hint of recognition. It was slightly disappointing to find the Yviredhs here, but maybe that wasn’t fair; they were good sorts for highborn, but that qualifier still made them the kind of people who’d come to a standing carnival to gawk at zombies and bet on horse races. Besides, Lady Elidred had just made the definitive addition to my little bit of theater, and I wasn’t feeling inclined to judge her too harshly in that moment.

“Oh, quite, the value of a good steward simply cannot be overstated,” another highborn woman added in a light tone. “Our Thandlewyn is a blessing from the Goddess, I tell you. Needless to say, the lowborn on Clan Ildureth’s estate are properly fed and clothed for the season.”

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“Indeed, could you imagine letting your villagers be seen without coats in such weather?” a younger lady with particularly pale blonde hair smirked, with that kind of vicious friendliness at which privileged women so excel. She looked sidelong at Highlady Emminit, who wore the stoic expression of someone far too dignified to seethe. “The embarrassment. Were my Clan so apparently destitute I shouldn’t dare show my face!”

“Well, hey, maybe that’s your problem,” I said cheerfully, winking at Lhadron. “Maybe you should get a steward! You know, someone paid not to project despair over his tiny member onto valuable assets.”

I can only describe the startled bursts of laughter as delightedly scandalized. Good; that was what I was going for. As always, I knew my audience.

“And with that, you venture beyond insult into provocation,” Lhadron snarled, finally whipping out his sword. He took a step back while doing it, which spared me having to do so. “You are a poor guest, sir, and for your several offenses I shall have satisfaction on the field of skill!”

My, how they loved that. A less well-bred audience would probably be cheering; these only gasped and swooned, but the gleeful anticipation radiating from all sides was a palpable force.

“Mmm…” I made a show of looking him slowly up and down, not reaching for my own sword. “Meh. I decline.”

Lhadron’s sneer morphed into one of triumph. “I might have known such an ill-mannered lout would reveal himself a coward at the first opportunity.”

“Coward, am I?” I said quietly, making the surrounding highborn lower their own noise level to hear. And, I freely admit, enjoying having enough control over them to do that. “I think you’ve misunderstood, Highlord: I am not refusing to fight you. I refuse to meet you in a duel because—as I have just explained at length—I will not acknowledge you as someone with whom any question of honor could possibly exist to be settled.”

I took a step closer, ignoring his bared blade.

“But if you want to fight? I’ll fight you, Lhadron. Feel free to pick any weapon you like—full armor, if you wish. Bring along as many of your Clansguard as it takes to make you comfortable. In fact, by all means toddle down to the King’s Guild encampment and hire yourself a few Blessed as backup. I’ll gladly wait on your preparations. Me? I have everything I need right here.”

Firelight. The spell was harmless, of course, just a light source. But it was an unfamiliar spell, being one of my combined originals, and looked an awful lot like a handheld fireball. If, as now, instead of holding it aloft I kept it contained in a hand dangling at my side, fingers clenched into claws, it looked like something horribly destructive just waiting to be unleashed. With a series of gasps, our well-bred audience began backing away.

“And Lhadron?” I added pleasantly. “Clear your schedule for the day. Keep in mind you are dealing with someone ornery enough to make a spectacle of all your deepest character flaws in front of your entire social circle. This will not be over quickly.”

His eyes widened and he looked warily down at the spell, in just the way I refused to at his sword. The anticipatory whispering from all sides was rising in a crescendo.

Lhadron did rally in an, I admit, impressive gambit to save face.

“Only a man with no honor of his own would meet a challenge on such terms.” Deliberately, pointedly, he sheathed his sword. “Clearly you think as little of my integrity as I do of yours, Lord Seiji. It would seem there is, indeed, nothing to prove, then.”

It was a decent conversational ploy, and I might have let him get away with it if I wasn’t here on specific business which required his very public comeuppance. And also, his people were cold and starving; fuck this guy.

“That must be very frustrating for you,” I said calmly, regarding him from half-lidded eyes. “Would you like us to all clear out so you can whip a servant about it?”

They didn’t snicker, that’s the kind of noise only commoners make, but the outburst of mostly-stifled laughter from all sides had a distinctly spiteful quality which conveyed the same effect. Lhadron’s jaw clenched and color rose in his cheeks, but he didn’t acknowledge the onlookers by removing his stare from me for an instant.

“I thank you for what you did for Thunder,” he said curtly. “Sincerely. Now remove yourself from my lands and do not return.”

I drew out the moment just another couple of unnecessary seconds, flaunting his authority because—and I cannot stress this enough—fuck this guy, but at last I deigned to nod.

“I am here on paladin business, after all. I need to somehow find him and check in, but I arrived with the shipment of supplies he wanted. I assume we’ll be moving out shortly.”

Lhadron swelled slightly with a slowly indrawn breath, and I dared to hope he was going to insist on me departing now. First rule of leadership: never give an order you know won’t be obeyed. It would’ve just been the cherry on top of this whole event if he proved so inept as to undercut the tattered remains of his authority that way, but alas, it seemed the Highlord had more sense than that. After a moment, he simply nodded curtly, turned, and stalked away toward the barn.

The assembled highborn made way for him with much smirking and a few outright titters. Highlady Eminnit turned and followed her husband, not even sparing me a glance.

“Well, you heard the man,” I said cheerfully. “Best be moving out. Come along, Aster.”

They shifted aside to give me an exit from the crowd as well. Off I strode, my heavily-armed shadow trailing me as the gathered highborn began drifting away even as they devolved into happily malicious gossip. Hopefully they’d have the sense to put some distance between themselves and the horses before getting too loud. I gave that a coin toss’s odds, at best.

From behind, Thunder let out a long whinny with a distinctly plaintive quality. I admit, it made me hesitate, but I kept moving without looking back. He was fine now, and I couldn’t afford to get emotionally attached to every creature which crossed my path.

“That was an interesting ploy,” Aster murmured as soon as we’d put enough distance between us and the highborn to permit a passably discreet conversation. “Seemed risky, if you ask me.”

“Did I?”

“It’s just that I could very easily see that going in the other direction entirely. If the Yviredhs hadn’t happened to be there and picked up what you were laying down and decided to chime in and help… Well, just seems like that whole thing was salvaged by a lot of sheer luck, that’s all.”

“Nothing’s a sure thing,” I admitted, “but that outcome was by far the likeliest. It’s just bullying, Aster—both the way they all treat the lowborn and the way they treat each other. It’s the only way those fuckers know how to treat anyone, I suspect. The point is never any particular thing being picked at, but the dynamic. The sheer enjoyment of exercising power over someone else, of hurting them because you can and because they can’t stop you. It doesn’t matter who or why. I just had to make him the target, and they jumped on the chance to show him up by having their peasants be better off than his. I can’t say how much they’ll follow through, but…it’ll be something.”

“You have this way of sounding so authoritative when you talk about human behavior,” she commented. “I can never be sure how much of it you’re pulling out of your ass, though I’ve picked up by now that the answer is never ‘none.’”

“Yeah, well, trust me, this dynamic is extremely familiar to me. I’m basically an anthropologist of cliques. There is…a bullying problem in Japanese schools. To put it mildly.”

From the corner of my eye I saw her glance at me, then sigh and shake her head.

“Yeah. Somehow the revelation that you were bullied as a child makes way too much sense.”

I stared ahead at where I was going, refusing to look in her direction. “I wasn’t.”

There was a moment of silence before she answered.

“Hah. You know what, that actually makes even more sense.”

“Hey, don’t judge me,” I snapped. “I was the musical kid with mediocre grades and a foreign-born mother. You don’t get to opt out of those social dynamics; the first thing I realized in high school was that the only choice on the table was which end of it to be on. Kids get driven to suicide by this shit—regularly. Well, not at my school, I’ll have you know. Some feelings were hurt, some indoor shoes hidden and a few fake love letters sent, and that was as far as it went. The teachers won’t do anything and parents never know what’s going on, but I can tell you that what does keep a lid on the worst of it is when the ringleader turns the cruelty of the whole group on anyone who tries to take things too far.”

Our feet crunched in the snow; we were skirting the outside of the village, heading straight back toward Rhydion’s camp on the outskirts rather than going back through the muddy streets.

“You know,” Aster finally said, breaking the silence, “every once in a while, you just randomly open your mouth and spit up something that suddenly makes me understand exactly why Virya picked you, of all people on your whole world, to be the Dark Lord.”

“What the hell is that supposed to—”

I was completely unprepared. The impact struck me right on the back of my neck, causing me to stumble forward. What was that?! I very nearly cast Heal out of reflex, barely managing to restrain myself lest I give away the whole game; we were far enough from any crowds for private conversation but in plain view of the whole village and outlying camps. How bad was it? The nape of my neck stung, numbed by the blow, preventing me assessing the damage. Okay, it couldn’t be too bad, though, I wasn’t paralyzed or anything and I still wore my hidden amulet that would protect me from any lethal hits.

Aster had instantly spun and whipped out her sword, and during the next three seconds we both took stock. Finding no immediate threat, she straightened from her battle-ready combat stance—and it occurred to me that Biribo was still silently hidden in his nest in her coat pocket, which he wouldn’t have been had anything actually dangerous been headed my way. Okay, then I must be fine.

“You’re fine,” Aster said, echoing my conclusion. Turning to me, she brushed at the back of my shoulders. “Not even a rock hidden in it.”

“Hidden in—” No.

“Yeah, it’s just snow.”

It was. I could feel it running down my back, now, where it had slipped under my collar. Snow, immediately melted by my body heat and turning into an utterly miserable sensation as ice water trickled under my clothes in this frigid air.

A snowball. Some absolute motherfucker had hit me with a snowball. In the back.

Instant fury cleared away the uncertainty and worry, banishing even the chill.

From the vivid coloration of the South American tree frog, to the spread-winged threat display of the Canada goose, to the eponymous warning of the rattlesnake, nature is filled with countless ways of conveying the all-important message, the most important signal that can be transmitted up and down the food chain: Do not fuck with me.

I had my own methods.

“Aaaaalllll right,” I drawled, pulling out my sword in a slow, deliberate motion. “Showtime it is, then.”