We recently saw how Armad summoned his palace judge and tasked him with a job other than the usual.

Up until that moment, his actions were more inclined towards that of the late prince. Two days after he incarnated, he had started feeling at home in his new body. His mind had started taking control of the other mind.

The first thing that signified his control was the thought of his father.

Soon afterward, he had summoned the judge. From what he had learned through his elder sister, Hidaya, their father had lived since the First era. The era before the Long Interval.

He figured that since his father was a Wilberforce and had lived since the First era before Ururu, he was probably known to the judge.

There were thousands of people in and around the palace and the judge may find him among them.

But after a deep and careful thought, the judge told him that he knew no one called Taidara. Still, he promised to write to his people over at the capital to help him search.

They spent some time chatting and soon they arrived at the dreaded topic: food.

The judge bowed his head "Your Highness, I am well aware of your open-handedness, but you have to consider the predicament at hand first.

"The stock of food in the palace is fast dwindling, and at the moment, farmers and hunters around the city are afraid to go out for work. Those lawless bandits are on the prowl again and they have killed seven hunters in the last two days."

He shook his head regretfully.

"The ones that were set free were only allowed to live as a warning to the remaining hunters. The food in the palace can take us a few more weeks if we go on as usual. But taking out food from our reserve to feed those vagrants will only accelerate the rate at which we will all starve. For it only will last for a few days in that case."

He paused and bowed low in his chair before adding, "I feel I must warn you of this unsavory development, Your Highness."

Armad's face clouded but he immediately schooled his thoughts. He knew it would come to this. It was just a matter of time before his dealings with the kitchen staff came to the knowledge of the judge, least of all the large amount of food brought to him.

The late prince had entrusted the care of the palace to the judge, while he attended more to the welfare of his subjects, his legion, and upping his cultivation.

That was why for this past year, the palace staff felt more at home with the judge than the prince, his generosity notwithstanding.

Armad knew that it was only a matter of time before the surreptitious passage of food from the kitchen to the prince's chambers became known to him.

Of course, he would know the fact at face value, the cover-up story, but not the real one. The judge was still unaware that it was Armad who had been eating all the food and not imaginary vagrants.

He was told that the food was stored in Armad's bag. And he believed it because this wasn't the first time for the prince to take things out of the palace for the poor.

And he mostly disguises himself when doing that. That could explain why Musa found it easy to make this story up and feed it to his colleagues and they believed him without questions.

Armad sighed at length. He was aware that the bandits and the free states surrounding the city would take advantage of the King's Legion's rebellion. They would surely try to benefit from that as best as they could.

But Armad could swear that they were being pushed into it deliberately, especially by Ikenga, his half-brother. He had thought this over and over since he appeared but he never expected the city to be under siege so soon.

He shook his head. "What is your counsel then? The vagrants aren't going to stop eating just as you won't, so what counsel do you propose so that food will avail all in the palace?"

Armad had no intention of stopping or even reducing his newfound ration.

"The only other way, Your Highness, is to send out your guards to go hunting." Replied the judge. "But I must confess your Highness, that this isn't without any loopholes. We are at the moment under watch from enemies and sending your soldiers could expose them to an ambush.

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"As far as I am concerned, we should wait until the bandits openly attack the city. But before then, we also need to talk about how best to defeat them. I am sure they won't touch you because they dare not touch a prince.

"But the townspeople especially the underprivileged would be the worst affected whenever the bandits break into the city.

"They will kill the victims and take their women and children back to the jungle. That had always been their motive for coming. They will also take any food and provisions they found here, with them.

"Your Highness, the people would flee the city if that happens and everything we have achieved in the past year would be destroyed. All the people who have returned because of the peace that was found recently would be lost.

"I think we should concentrate on how best to strategize and find ways to stop the actuality of this menace in the eight days that are left to us."

Armad scratched his temple without speaking. What the judge said was quite on point. There is no stopping it. It was also to do with someone or a group of people egging them up. But it was all up to the fact that the bandits also were only too happy to pass such an offer.

Bandits have always thrived on raiding cities, killing men, and taking their women and children hostage. Their property is also taken or destroyed.

This barbarism was their culture and couldn't do without it. Whenever there was any lapse in security at one of the neighborhoods, those savages feasted delightfully on it.

They have lookouts posted around who give them information and as soon as there is a lapse in security of a certain city, they terrorize it.

Their attacks were usually to be expected, and the lack of it would have been surprising.

Since the resignation of the Legion, Armad had felt a certain kind of unexplained terror for the impending attack. According to the judge, the townspeople would be sent into a panic even if they managed to defeat the bandits. Their panic could cause loss of lives and even kidnappings.

The late prince's success in the past year would be brought to naught and the people would revert to living in fear. Their livelihood would be affected and they would stop going out of their homes to work.

That could render the current developments around the city stagnant.

He took a deep breath. "What course of action is best taken by us if we are to address this?" He asked.

"Well, Your Highness, my wholehearted counsel is that we should have two thousand men on standby apart from your men. And I think we should initiate some kind of training for the youth in these following days. Every youth in the city from age fifteen and above should be made to learn archery.

"And according to my research, most of those bandits aren't cultivators. The cultivators among them weren't more than five thousand. But the bulk of them are without any form of cultivation.

"The townspeople that would be taught archery would help a lot when they are armed and stationed on the rooftops. Their orders would be to take out any strangers on sight."

He paused when he reached here but he gave Armad a meaningful look before he went on.

"As for your men and captains your Highness... You ought to brief them on their most important duty. The palace isn't the right place for them to stay but around the city and on the battlement.

"Those are the points of entrance for the bandits, as you know. I know that you keep them in the palace near you to keep you guard. But in my opinion, running away and allowing the bandits to enter would give them free tickets of destruction even if they would be defeated afterward. Your will is my command, Your Highness."

Armad was well aware that the judge disapproved of his hundred-man captain squad staying at the palace.

He knew that it wasn't the norm in the capital. It was considered taboo for infantrymen to live in the same quarters as their superiors. Especially a superior who happens to be a Wilberforce.

The judge took that as downgrading to the prince's parentage. But Armad didn't care. He orchestrated a special kind of respect to be accorded to his men.

And also it was only a hundred of them. The captains alone, but the remaining one thousand and nine hundred were posted to various points of the city.

Some of them worked the morning shift, while others took over from them in the evenings.

Everything considered, Armad would hear none of that last advice. As for the first counsel, he was game.

"I concede to your first advice about training the youth." He told the judge. "You are permitted to go and explain to every citizen the situation we are in. But while doing that, you must take note of two things: No one should be forced. Any youth above fifteen years old should be given a chance and an explanation. Tell them that if we come out victorious, the least payment wouldn't be less than a hundred ayrid. But don't force it on them if they refuse. Also don't admit anyone no matter their size if he isn't up to fifteen years old.

"The second condition is to avoid recruiting a sole breadwinner. No breadwinner however strong should be admitted. How will his family fare if such a man dies in battle?

"And lastly, do everything orderly. I don't want a situation that would throw people into a panic when they think that some crisis is impending.

"Keep them calm and relaxed and show them that it is just a minor thing that will soon be contained. In short, what I am asking from you is not to terrify them more than they already are."

The judge nodded in approval. These conditions spelled out by the prince are really on point. But he still needed to talk about food. Talking about food for him was more important than the impending invasion of bandits.

For him, it would be a great dishonor to wake up one day and find no food in any palace inhabited by a Wilberforce.

It would be an all-time scandal that would feature in books and his name was sure to be mentioned. It would be a disgrace to himself and his descendants over the ages. So he wasn't about to let Armad squander all the food to feed some vagrants.

"Umm Your Highness about the food..." he started to say but Armad waved him off.

"Hold it."