Chapter 18

A man knocked on the door of the carriage. Opening it up I found a man dressed in armor that was at least as extravagant as any of my new clothes. “What’s your purpose for visiting lesser queen Andrea?” The man asked.

I was guessing he was some type of captain of the gate guard. “I’m a new swarm baron here to pledge my allegiance to my liege and request a micro core factory.” I answered.

“Name?” The guard asked as he pulled out a piece of paper.

“Anthony Sterling.” I said and then watched him look for my name on the paper.

“There you are. I just need to see your nano cube in order to confirm that you are a new baron.” The guard said.

I hadn’t been expecting that part of the verification process. Then again it seemed logical and wasn’t a big deal. Originally a paranoid part of me had worried about someone stealing my swarm cube. Then I found out about all the reasons they couldn’t do anything with it.

First my mental swarm connection would give me a location for the cube. So finding it if it was stolen would be easy. Second, the cube itself was locked to my dna. Nobody else would be able to use the cube, even if I died that wouldn’t change. It seemed a bit harsh since the cubes had value. But I could understand why someone had set them up that way. The entire universe would be far more bloody if you could steal the core factories of other swarm lords and knights.

I showed the guard the screen and he waved me through the gate. On the other side was a massive piece of land. From what I had been told it covered nearly a hundred square miles. The wall we had just gone through surrounded the entire area and was constantly patrolled by hundreds of swarm knights and tens of thousands of mages.

On the other side of the wall was a castle that made castles on Earth look like hovels. Part of me had known it would be impressive. After all it was the home of someone that ruled over ten million planets. The average population of those planets was over a billion. If queen Andrea got just a dollar in taxes from each of her subjects she would be hundreds of thousands of times richer than the richest person on Earth.

The castle itself covered a dozen square miles. At first glance from this distance it was easy to mistake it for a city instead of a single massive building. It had to be that large just to house the queen’s subjects and attendants. From what I had been told, between a tenth and a fifth of the swarm counts and dukes under the queen that visited the castle at least once a year.

If it had just been housing a couple dozen swarm dukes and even a couple thousand swarm counts that would have been easy. The problem was the size of their retinues. The average swarm count was in charge of around a thousand planets with a combined population of roughly a trillion people. Which meant they often traveled with a retinue of hundreds of servants, administrators, and guards.

Considering all of that, if anything the castle was a bit too small. I was guessing it was intentional. Nothing like shoving swarm barons into rooms the size of a cupboard to discourage them from disturbing the queen with trivial matters. It would have to be something important for them to be willing to wait weeks for an audience in such conditions. Especially when they were used to living in sprawling mansions on the planets they ruled. And it wasn’t like they would be able to complain when the counts above them were staying in suites that were smaller than most New York apartments.

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Luckily my rooms were a tad bit better than the average baron. It was perhaps the size of an average hotel room. Smaller than a counts room, but I would only be here for a few days.

There were two reasons for the better accommodations. First it was expected that a certain number of new barons would be presented to the queen each week, so accommodations were set aside for them. Second it was always possible that new swarm barons were actually swarm counts. In which case forcing them to reside in a tiny room would be a bit insulting. First impressions were important, even if no swarm count or countess would ever dare to complain to the queen about their accommodations. Only the dukes and duchesses had that much power. And even they would hesitate before lodging a formal complaint about anything.

Immediately after arriving I had to change into formal wear and head towards a designated waiting room. Faye stayed behind and I was only accompanied by half a dozen guards and a single administrative assistant. The assistant was just there to carry stuff for me and make a record of anything important. For instance if I was granted rulership of any planets it would be important to record which ones. Having to come back and ask what planets I was in charge of would be embarrassing.

It was still three hours before I was supposed to meet the queen, but I quickly realized journeying through a city sized castle was no easy task. It took half that time and required asking for directions multiple times before I arrived at the waiting room.

Which meant I was still going to be waiting for well over an hour. Considering the importance of this meeting I wasn’t going to complain though. I’d rather be an entire day early than five minutes late.

I had done some studying on swarm politics and what I found made me nervous about this meeting. My life was literally in the queen's hands. She could kill me without any legal consequences. Although depending on the circumstances her reputation could take a hit. If her reputation was bad enough some of the swarm lords below her may choose to change their allegiance to a different swarm queen or king. Although that would be less of an issue if the queen could make a claim that I had severely insulted her or intended to attack her.

Leaving a liege was frowned upon by swarm society. Leaving also impacted the possessions of a swarm baron directly. It was rare for a swarm baron to own any of the planets that they ruled, most of them were owned by their liege. In addition most of the swarm knights were considered part and parcel of the planet they lived on, unless they had given a swarm baron their direct allegiance.

For a swarm count, leaving meant they lost their barons, unless those barons chose to follow them. Swarm counts usually directly owned at least a few planets, which they would retain. A duke leaving was similar to a count leaving but on another scale since there would be around a hundred counts below them and ten thousand barons.

The main point was that I was practically worthless in the eyes of someone like the queen. She had around a million swarm barons below her. I couldn’t even compare myself to those barons since I was brand new. If it wasn’t for tradition I probably would never meet her unless I was part of a swarm count or dukes retinue. If I was being totally honest I would have preferred not to meet her. Knowing that with a mere thought she could kill me was disturbing.

Unfortunately tradition dictated that if I wanted a micro core factory I’d need to meet her and swear my allegiance. Although technically I could pick a different lesser swarm queen or king to swear allegiance to. Queen Andrea was considered the owner of Earth though, which meant I’d lose any opportunity to rule Earth if I picked a different lesser swarm queen or king.