Gala

January 2nd, Year 501 of the 3rd Era. Gala sits in her study as the snow falls outside. Currently, rummaging through a couple of notes that were sent to her when one catches her eye. It has a black seal of a hydra. She had never seen anything like it before, so she got her letter opener and sliced it open. Inside reads:

For the Earl Regent of Wailing Wind,

Hello, Gala. I hope everything has been going well for you over the last couple of weeks. I bring some good news. Due to the success of the suspension of slavery within the city, I have decided that your rule shall be spared as long as slavery does not continue in the future. Also, we shall no longer provide protection for the “deathmen”. You shall do with them as you please.

Sincerely,

Lia Meyer

Gala sat there with her jaw on the floor. Never did she expect the People’s Lord to leave them alone without concessions, but one could argue that banning slavery was a concession. She slumped back in her chair and thought about what this could mean. She could finally destroy the “deathmen” and move on with her reforms. A smile crept across her face.

#

The next month and a half were turbulent times. First of all, Lucius died in Nero’s arms; second, it became obvious that the alliance to the east was going to lose to the Lake Republic; and three the “deathmen” were finally put down. They didn’t achieve it until the last days of January, but when they reached the end, Gala spent the rest of the day smiling.

Of course, it was still possible that people were still offering insurance policies on people, but they were no longer public, no one was willing to bet, and the few people who were killed had policies taken out on them a couple of days before. It became like every other city in the world with a collection few bounty hunters until the city guard’s detective found out who they were and arrested them.

Now that the “deathmen” and the People’s Lord were gone from the city, nothing was stopping her from pursuing her reforms, with the next one on the list being to get like-minded people on her payroll, but she needed a reason to fire the people who were taking up valuable jobs. The treasury was slowly recovering, but Gala needed a way to further increase economic activity so she thought about what the people do for most of her day. She thought back to when she could still take walks without people harassing her, and there were always people hurling buckets of water across town. If there was a way to install water pumps around the city and get like-minded people to install them, it could lead to something.

So, she went to Gatherstorm to get a loan. The city’s coffers were not suited enough to embark on this journey so she fired the city treasurer and spent a long while looking over potential candidates on the carriage ride to the city. Some of her advisors told her that going to Gatherstorm by land might not be a good idea and to wait for spring when the water melts so she could travel safely by water, but Gala pointed out that Nero traveled across an entire continent, and he was fine. The advisors shut their mouths after that.

Before she met with the treasurer to get approval for the loan, Gala went to see her dad. She found him sitting in the throne room by himself, but he didn’t sit on the throne but on one of the benches. She walked up the aisle and sat next to her father. “Hello, Dad,” She spoke.

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“It’s nice that you are back in Gatherstorm,” Maximus responded. “I think it’s been too long since I’ve seen one of my children.” His voice sounded oddly reflective. Gala had a feeling something was wrong and asked Maximus if everything was alright. “I am not allowed to make mistakes,” said Maximus. “But sometimes I feel like my life has been one.”

“You are going to have to start making sense,” Gala told her father.

“I spent my entire life waiting for the perfect moment to achieve the destiny of my ancestors, and I let the opportunity slip by. It was the right choice to do, but I wonder how the history books will look back upon it.” Though he had a reflective tone, moments of spite slipped through.

“You’re still in mourning, aren’t you,” Gala deduced.

“How can I not be?” Maximus asked. “She was my wife, and ever since then, everything has gone wrong. The heir to the throne almost died in the mountains, and now he is chasing a man who is out of his league. I fear the People’s Lord will be a permanent thorn in the side of the kingdom. If people would only listen to their leader. I did everything right. It was coming together and now?” Maximus shook his head in frustration. “I have to trust my son that he’ll do the right thing.”

Gala padded her father on the shoulder. “I’m sure Romulus will be a good king.”

Maximus scoffed. “Romulus? King? It’s hard imagining him as king. Sitting on the Griffin Throne, giving out orders. He would be good at ruling, but I don’t know about leading. The military doesn’t seem to like him, the earls aren’t impressed about what he has done, and he makes reckless decisions.” Maximus sighed. “You should probably go to whatever you came here for.”

“Okay,” Gala said. “But before I do, I want to ask you another question.”

“I’m not telling you who your mother is,” Maximus said.

Gala’s mouth hung open as Maximus interrupted her. She thought about asking anyway but nodded and stood up to leave.

The meeting with the treasurer went worse than what Gala would have liked. First, the guy didn’t show up on time, and Gala sat there impatiently. She had come all this way, and the guy didn’t show up to a meeting at nine o’clock. What else was he doing? The man was probably still in bed for all she knew. But seven minutes after nine, the guy walked through the door and sat down behind his desk.

His office was plain and bright, which was exactly what a treasurer needed. A bright surface with no distracting furniture, but obviously something distracted him on his way here. Gala tried to stop getting mad about the treasurer’s arrival time for the meeting, but she had come all this way, and this was how she was repaid. It felt wrong.

Gala expected the treasurer to give her the loan without any issue, but the guy wouldn’t stop making excuses. “We are stretched thin, the treasury fails to see a use in such a project, the military is also requesting funds,” were some of the excuses that the treasurer gave, but Gala did something that she didn’t like doing that often. Using her position as the king’s daughter to get what she wanted. When the treasurer heard this, he nudged more in her direction but also warned Gala that if he was an earl or a common man and didn’t hold intermediate power, the threat she gave would have been laughed at. She was a bastard daughter, after all, not a true one.

Eventually, the treasurer gave up the money, and it would be on a carriage to Wailing Wind that afternoon. Gala didn’t have time to say goodbye to her father as she wanted to be on the road by sundown.

When she got back to Wailing Wind, she didn’t waste a second of time and immediately hired her new prospects to the head of the city guard, the head engineer of the new water pumps, the city treasurer, the chief tax collector, down to the head of the janitorial services in the castle. Every man who managed a group of workers for the city now believed in a crucial principle: serve the people first, not the boss.

The water pumps were now in the process of being installed all over the city. The now stringent hygienic standards that Nero would approve of, and so many were built that Wailing Wind became the city with the most amount of water pumps per capita in the Kingdom of Qar.

The foundation blocks were now in place. The people were happy that a leader who sat in the castle was working for them. The city guard was happy that their leader was tough on the “death men” and the treasury was happy that Gala was partly responsible for saving them from defaulting on their debts. The checklist became fuller by the day, and Gala chuckled in disbelief at the sight. It was working, everything was coming together, and the wind of reforms flowed through Wailing Wind.