Austin Feugard was mentioned in the previous installment of this history, at a time when he still appeared as a nobleman. During this time he demonstrated the skills of the Aillesterran curiosity called a chameleon. He dressed in the manner of the common student at the academy, although he was not enrolled there. With a simple wool coat embroidered with his family’s heraldry, an embroidery of blue thread rather than an audacious gold for example, and a matching cap the only eye-catching feature of the man was his handsomeness.

When Lucius met the man courting his sister, a gold broach had been pinned to his chest. With his older brother cast down by the king, and the spate of deaths surrounding him, it was he that was the Duke of the East. Normally, such an audacious usurpation of power would have brought the region to political civil war, but the Bureaucrat's Coup had caused so much damage that nobody could yet oppose the young lord. Especially when he had the backing of the merchant guilds in the east.

They met on the street, but exchanged no more than pleasantries before retiring to an office owned by the academy roughly between the main campus and the alchemical work houses. With the door closed, Lucius scowled. “Is this your way of thanking me?”

Austin laughed. “It’s good for you, isn’t it? I’m letting the whole world know that you aren’t my enemy, Lucius.”

“I was forced into that position.”

“And I apologize,” the man said magnanimously.

“So, you plan to dazzle Aria with attention and then leave her? Aren’t you supposed to marry the princess?”

Austin sighed. “You’re as familiar with the angel as I am, aren’t you? Kassie is like a pet. I won’t be allowed to put my dirty, male hands on her for years. The world will have changed by then. I applaud your… brotherly reaction, but I assure you that if I were to take advantage of a rural lady, it would do more harm to my reputation than to your honor. If I find myself in need of companionship, I think I’ll follow your example and win myself a mistress or two. I’d like to prove that we can be friends. Let’s talk business for example.”

Lucius cocked an eyebrow. “The Feugard wealth comes from grain and from trade, and is largely spent provisioning the northern garrison.”

“The same can be said of yours, though your food comes from the Misty Isles, while my people reap the bread basket of the empire… when it isn’t trampled and burned by armies. Farming needs to change, however. It needs to modernize in ways that the common folk aren’t equipped for. For the past few decades, we’ve been experimenting with different cycles of crops and comparing our yields to other farms and would you like to know what we’ve learned?”

“The soil perishes.”

“Precisely,” Austin said, steepling his fingers. “We never quite noticed before because cities were always growing. New cemeteries had to be plotted. New roads cut and the rivers would ripple across the land. Floods left some fields fallow for years and some wars harrowed regions to the man. Vassermark is bursting with people now and the demand for grain is insatiable. Some families have poured their wealth into buying up land and wringing it dry of its fertility and they are now deep in debt while people fight for food. It’s quite the disaster, isn’t it?”

“That’s why we’ll be going to war again soon. Either we’ll conquer more land to plow, or we’ll have less mouths to feed,” Lucius said.

“The king wills it, but personally I have no desire to go to war. Not in the traditional sense. If Aillesterra bends the knee, we’ll just have more people in need of food, unless you believe that legend. And even if it’s true, I would still leave that work to others.”

Lucius mirrored him, elbows on the desk between them. “Go on then, what is it you’ve wanted to tell me?”

The nobleman laughed. “Am I that transparent? Lucius, I intend to support you as the general of our armies. A leader who can lead from the front and never be slain. A clever one too. There will be those that oppose it, but most will weigh your… possible involvement in the coup against the work you do for us. Bring us victory and the dissenters can be silenced. You already have the most important asset of power. The people are enraptured by you. The only thing you’re missing is what I can provide you.”

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“And that is? Because the only thing I want is an official pardon from the king, and you can’t give me that.”

Austin crossed his arms and shrugged. “Truth be told, I thought I could offer you that but nobody expected you to have allied yourself with Acheliah. She humiliated him through you. He’s quite furious. I hear he won’t even see his fiancee some days. That pardon is a future problem. What I’m offering is the wealth necessary to arm an army. To pay the wages of the soldiers, to buy their food and sharpen their weapons. Whether we are attacked by Skaldheim first or wage against the fey folk, you’ll be spending an amount of money incomparable to anything you’ve done before. Together we will be unstoppable.”

Lucius made a show of looking around the office. It was plain but it wasn’t empty. The sound of smith hammers could be heard, beating beside the roaring furnaces as coal smoke streaked up to the bleak sky. “You have a money making scheme, don’t you?”

“Not a scheme,” Austin said with a laugh. “A technology! Invented by none other than King Charles himself and made possible by your expeditions to the south. It’s ley energy. You’re already familiar with the cannons his engineers made, but what he devised is a new paradigm. The cannons transmit and amplify impulses, turning a small hammer blow into a great thrust. For centuries, people thought it was more dangerous than it was useful. A stone that could strike you back. But there are principles to the magic at play. With nothing but some clever geometry and a spring, wheels of ley can produce continual rotation.”

“Until they are exhausted,” Lucius interjected. He knew full well how long a ley rod could take to renew its store of energy. It was a troublesome matter to store quivers of the stone shafts, as they fought for energy like too many wells in the same city.

Austin nodded. “Multiple wheels are needed, this is true. But it does not require men to turn, it does not require animals nor the flow of a river. You can build one of these machines anywhere and have it spin and spin. Such as at the mouth of a flooded mine to run a pump draining the shafts.”

Surprise got the better of Lucius. “What mine did you buy?”

“One that the Ashe family had no use for. I had to sell quite a bit of farm land to do so, but people have been clamoring to own the land they work for generations. Let them. The wisest will thrive and spread their cycling of crops. I will be putting my family’s finances into the ancient mines. First, it will be a silver mine, but the kingdom hungers for coal and I’ll supply that too. I imagine some people will have quite an adventure seeking out forgotten mines for the bounty I’ll put on them.”

“Have you tested the machine?”

Austin the same shrug that every conman in history has given, when challenged on their claims. “There’s a matter of craftsmanship that needs to be refined. It works in principle, however. We have a model in one of the workshops.”

“And has it occurred to you that you might be making an enemy of the king by extending this friendship to me?”

“You think the king will have you killed?”

“No, I think he keeps half a dozen blades to my throat because it’s funny.”

Lord Feugard laughed. “Am I to believe you haven’t been dulling those blades these past months? Lucius, I’ll make a more firm display of my intent to collaborate with you, for the good of the kingdom.”

“And what would that be?”

“I’m sure the king will recall you once more. I’m not sure which group will riot next, but someone is bound to when the weather breaks and the farms clamor for laborers. My gift will be prepared when you return. I assure you I will do what is in my power to stay any dramatic events from occurring before the king is prepared to march his armies. Enjoy the first year or so of your son’s life. When you aren’t being dragged around the city to look at murders.”

Lucius scoffed at the man’s rueful grin. Just that morning, Lucius and Theo had apprehended a man half-dead in the cold who had murdered a royalist during a brawl. Some nearby soldiers had allegedly found him with injuries sustained, allegedly, during the attack. I have skipped over the details of this case because it was but one of many bloody incidents that Lucius encountered, but had little narrative appeal to it. The man died before they could hang him and was soon forgotten by all but the record keepers.

“Well, unfortunately there are always more corpses for me to see. If you find yourself in need of many ships to outfit your mines, I believe you’ll find aid through the Wavefront Corporation. Toying with a woman’s heart isn’t good for your reputation however. I’d suggest you find yourself a proper spouse,” Lucius said as he rose from the desk.

“I may have to look outside the empire…”

“Care to join me when we march on Aillesterra?”

“A people led by a mercenary commander? I doubt I’ll find much there. Perhaps this summer I’ll travel to Jumeaux… I hear there’s quite a beauty there.”

“If they can be extracted from the church.”

“Perhaps there won’t be a church for much longer. Their angels are gone. The wisdom remains, but they’ll have to seek refuge in power somewhere.”

Uncertain whether Austin’s interest in Jean was honest, or another allusion to the expanse of his information network, Lucius wished him well in his endeavors.

It would be weeks later that Austin’s promise was made good on, like two men hugging with knives to each other’s backs.