9.2

Jewel sighed.

Why did so many people live so close together as this?!

She had visited Kaeketeh once a year since she was nine winters old, but she had never fully realized what the vastness of the city’s ten-thousand people meant!

Honestly more than were recorded might be in Kaeketeh at any given moment. There might only be ten thousand who officially resided and worked in Kaeketeh but many hundreds or sometimes thousands more moved through it!

It was at least half of the army that had marched with Jewel to war.

And now there was a terrible lack of trained and experienced footmen to maintain order and peace of so many men, women and children crammed too close together, whether they be strangers or residents.

Rochford, Valasect and Dewgrove did not have the same number of footmen combined as Jewel had cursed. And not all of those were available to be sent to Kaeketeh or skilled in managing the work required. The training in arms and conduct were the same, but the needs of Valasect, Rochford or even Kliatbatrn paled when put up against the responsibilities that had once fallen to the Countess’ Men!

The gate and bridge watches alone! At least middletown mostly had families and people of means to see to their own order.

But Gate Town?

The surrounding huddle of buildings just outside it?

Two thirds of Kaeketeh had turned to lawlessness and near outright banditry!

Her decree had at least stopped them from stringing up the ‘cursed waifs’ on street corners stripped, beaten and violated. But horrors were still happening despite how Adelyne was taking to her new responsibility as ‘speaker for the streets’.

The probably still no longer a thief had a rapport with the people in Gate town which fed Jewel with a vital line of information. Like a gryphon rider scouting the lands ahead of a march the young woman walked through the city to gauge what was on the horizon of tomorrow for Kaeketeh.

If only the news she could bring were better.

For every dozen of the former footmen whose wellbeing was known, there was at least one that was missing or confirmed dead.

And Adelyne only had so much pull with her home (although surprisingly more than Jewel had expected from a mere thief girl). Still where the waifs were not being victimized they were as often enacting violence of their own.

In the days after their release one no longer saw any of them traveling in numbers fewer than four after dark. And most had taken to carrying staves or clubs and what leather mail or arms they could afford on the pay Jewel had released them with. Many were also taking to covering their mouths in cloth at minimum.

Other waifs were starting to favor wooden or leather masks!

And the complaints about them were far too numerous for the sparse skeleton of a trained guard in the city to address. Even with serious fines and punishment for false claims.

There had always been thieves, beggars and the like in Kaeketeh. She had smelled and seen them every year, But now warring packs of brigands, whether waif or ‘full-man’ were out in the night. Houses and stores had been burgled!

And in the midst of a city with at least a third of it on the verge of dissolving into chaos every night Jewel was trying to win over her remaining vassals!

Why was this not a matter of headmen or other confidants to provide common law in Kaeketeh?

Because Countess Bathory had found a way to strike back at Jewel from beyond her own burnt and scattered pyre! The Countess’ men had consisted of the entirety of the people of Kaeketeh’s means of appealing for common law!

As far as her curse was concerned every arbiter of common law or advocate for her subjects in Kaeketeh of lower birth had served in the Countess’ footmen.

At least any that she could still find signs of!

Because those that had not befallen to the curse had fled the city!

Jewel and her allies were all alone in Kaeketeh.

Stolen story; please report.

It was just her, what vassals were willing to lend footmen (with concessions in their obligations of course), her family and a few true allies.

And the Guilds.

Jewel had not been prepared for the guilds.

She had read of them, she had a passing familiarity with the idea. Thurzó spoke of his own domain’s guilds sometimes in his letters. But Jewel was otherwise caught aghast by them.

Rochford and Valasect had no need of guilds. There were freemen, some headmen to represent the common law of the peasant concerns. And little else for the Lady or Lord to worry about. This was all very sensible for good simple villages of a few hundred.

But Kaeketeh was a city of just shy of ten thousand by the ledgers.

From one season to another a hundred or so might die, or be born, or slip away or into the city. With so many not only was there horrific amounts of shit and other waste.

But instead of having a sensible handful of people skilled in crafts the city had hundreds!

In every craft and trade! In some trades Jewel had never even heard of!

Guilds for iron working, for fishing, for boat making, for carpentry, for ‘gathering night soil’. Guilds for the brothels and baths and drink houses. A Guild for the stone workers (little that there were).

Even ones for porters and merchants.

Jewel would not be surprised if there was a guild for the filthy thieves and beggars in this city!

And where at least Jewel’s vassals seemed at least slightly cowed by her act of cursing over seven hundred men for the crimes of betrayal to the city of Kaeketeh and the Countess Bathory?

The guilds were quite politely and insistently, nay incessantly complaining!

Weavers guilds and dyers guilds!

“If we could make a deal for good Rochford wyrmthread and cloth Countess? Shameful really having the price so high with you here with us.”

The guild for the nightmen (which horror of horrors when Jewel found out what they did!) had been especially cross with Jewel because apparently one of their members in high standing had a son that was one of the cursed!

There had been an oh so polite and perfectly calm man in her courtroom that had quietly threatened her without even stepping a toe out of courtesy due her station.

“Well given the troubles we just might not be able to do our duty Countess. Streets at night are no longer safe for the carts see?”

The Baker’s guild had sent an equally polite man last morning saying that given all the difficulties there just wasn't going to be as much bread available at the keep.

“Deeply sorry Countess, but we bakers have to rise well before dawn, and it is just so perilous now. It’s everything we can do to see the good people fed.”

And then there were the millers.

“Well we can’t even hire enough guards to watch our carts Countess, shameful really I try but just can’t always make a delivery cept in daylight hours.”

Jewel felt like the entire city was slipping away from her. All of these guilds smiled and apologized and the worst part is hardly any of them were lying! No if she pressed Jewel always got the truth of the matter. They always offered a higher price to cover the costs she had genuinely caused them.

But there was only so much that silver could solve. Kaeketeh was like a wounded animal bleeding out now. All because Jewel had wanted to enact justice!

It felt like everything was just about to collapse around her.

And all of this was when she absolutely could not afford to have it happen!

She needed the city to be stable, to be safe, for it to be secure so that she could leave and return home and settle things in Valasect! So that she could continue working with Paul on all the intricate alliances and graciousness required by their roles! She probably needed to see to building a larger feasting hall given all the people that needed to see her!

Her little stone manor house was apparently far too small for the sheer volume of personages she could expect to treat with as the countess of Viznove. Even with the expansion of most of the rooms and chambers for Jewel’s comfort!

But before any of that she needed secured vassalage from all the barons and other lords of Viznove. She needed the city to be stable and secure! She needed to not have to worry about where her breakfast was coming from! She needed to settle the matters with the guilds and somehow rebuild the entire apparatus of common law in Kaeketeh!

Jewel’s wings flared out, her neck arched, she touched both sides of the chamber and the ceiling of this accursed feasting hall!

She had barely had a chance to escape this single room in five days!

She had not had a chance to fly in twelve!

How was any of this right?!

Jewel was the Countess!

She was the final law in the land of Viznove!

Supposedly Jewel was the ruler of these lands and yet she felt more powerless then she ever had in her life!

It made the fire in her chest lash out and try to crawl free from her throat.