Herald of Steel

Listening to Lady Miranda and Lord Cassius go on reveal how they were trapped by the behemoth known as Sybarian council, Alexander could not help but lampoon to himself, 'Fuck! Just my luck to choose the worst losing side.'

Going by what was revealed to him, he could not help but see only darkness in front of him.

How was a small pasha who was a slave just five years ago and had no experience in commanding a fleet going to fight the navy of a superpower able to muster millions of men?

Even just those pirates that Lady Miranda alluded to would be more than enough to lay waste to his trade routes.

And who knows, perhaps even lay siege to Zanzan!

This sudden thought instantly made Alexander's hair stand up on edge, as he reasoned to himself,

'Yes! Given how the Sybarian Council is salivating over the Margraves family's wealth, it might very well only be a matter of time before they choose to come and capture the city itself. Why drool over the harvested fruit if you could just take the garden itself?'

Alexander suddenly began to realize how all his new discoveries and inventions were drawing all the wrong eyes, and it made him feel very restless.

The idiom - 'It is a sin for a beggar to clutch on to pearls' began to ring like an alarm bell inside his mind, and his heart wished little more than to immediately fly back to Zanzan to try and think of a defensive strategy.

'Calm down! Calm down!' But such alarmed thoughts only lasted for a few scant seconds.

For logic soon returned to drown it and the rational part of his brain dictated to him,

'Since the Sybarians have not attacked us yet, and only want us to pay a toll, it means they are till now content to trade and make as much gold as they can from it. Yes, my commodities should be priceless to them. So being merchants, their first thought should be to trade with us. Not conquer us like some of the other 'barbaric' powers. I can use that to buy myself time.' Alexander was finally able to spot a tiny stream of light in the midst of a pool of utter darkness and his heart rejoiced.

Things were not nearly as dire as the paranoid man was imagining them to be, as he further reasoned,

'Sure, I would bet half my kingdom that in the future our relationship will start to sour when they start running an enormous trade deficit with me. But not right now. Right now, those families that will be able to sign trade deals with me will be able to make gold hand over fist.'

'In that respect, I'm like the newly emerging Roman empire. And Sybarsis is like Carthage. And just like them, we can be close allies until the first Punic War.'

Alexander only let out a sigh of relief upon reaching this logical conclusion, reassured his city was not about to face an imminent siege.

Following which he then began to try and think of various ways to use this information, i.e.- what exact deal should he strike with Sybarsis, which family he should strike the deal with, and even whether he should ditch Lady Miranda in favor of Miss Linda or even select a brand new candidate from the family's roster.

And as various names surfaced into his mind, one familiar name struck a chord,

"Did the Kaiser Family have anything to do with your rates?" Alexander could not help but pose, remembering his old enemy.

"They surely did!" And at their mere mention, Lady Miranda eagerly jumped on that topic like an excited cat, instantly screeching out, "How does my lord think the council knows got to know about our trade so quickly? Because of those bastards!"

"After they found they could not beat such in a fair fight, they started doing these behind our backs. I even heard that the extortionate rates were the Kaiser's family idea. Their lord had apparently sent our Zanzan imports as gifts to all the dukes, along with a letter describing their exorbitant worth and thus proposing we should pay our 'fair share'! Fair share they say! That bastard!"

Lady Miranda's lack of swearing vocabulary still did not detract from the fuming anger she felt towards that man as she repeated the 'joke' in a pitched voice.

While her husband tried to calm her down by stroking her hand, before turning to chime to Alx in a bit more level headed voice,

"Of course, it would not be correct to lay all the blame on the Kaiser Family, my lord. The extravagant worth of our goods would have become apparent to the council sooner or later. And then such a thing would have naturally happened. The Kaiser family just hurried it along a bit."

This statement was quite logical.

But if Lord Cassius's desire was to keep his wife placated, then he really should have kept his mouth shut.

As it instantly got a solid snap from Lady Miranda, who barked at her husband,

"Would you shut up and stop defending that cur of a family! I know your brother is married to one but you don't have to suck their cock so much!" The loud shout really went to show how was the captain of the ship in this family, as Lord Cassius visibly shrunk at the sight of his imperious wife.

While Lady Miranda went off on another tirade,

"If not for those bastards, we would have had more than enough time to get under the protection of a ducal family. Then we could have paid them a small cut and none would be the wiser. Everyone knows how long those sloths at the council take to even decide which side of the bread to butter first. So if not for the Kaisers, we would have been fine. Not like now, left abandoned like a naked whore in the middle of the streets!"

Alexander almost guffawed hearing the rude analogy and could not help but scratch his assumption that Lady Miranda lacked a good cursing vocabulary.

Furthermore, this intervention by the Kaiser family also led him to connect some other detached dots as Alexander turned to Lady Miranda to comment,

"Is this where the Heeat family comes in? Did they offer to negotiate the rates of the route with the Confederation Council for a cut of the profits?"

That seemed like the most obvious development.

"No! We approached them." Lady Miranda however corrected Alexander's assumption, before going into details,

"You see my lord, the Heeat ducal family is one of the most 'special' ducal families of Sybarsis. They are one of the few families that do not have a merchant fleet for trade. But instead, they hire ships from other families in exchange for their produce, which are various livestock and an unimaginable amount of silver!"

"This is where we came in. We approached the family thinking that we could use promise them our expertise in shipbuilding, in return for the family negotiating safe passage on our behalf. We did this because we knew the ships we were capable of making using Lord Alexander's techniques were several times more durable than anywhere in the world."

At this point, Lady Miranda's voice suddenly turned from enthusiastic to bitter,

"But who knew, it was all a ruse. Instead of a helper, we had just invited a wolf into our home. The Heeat family only pretended to be interested in our predicament so that they could swallow our family whole and take everything for themselves! Half of those 20,000 men that I told you about are theirs."

As Lady Miranda said, she pointed to the south side of the city where presumably stood an army, ready to attack the mansion.

And after saying this, her tone went from bitter to heartbreaking, "I still want to tear my heart out every time I remember how easily I let those bastards dock into the harbor. Just let 10,000 men waltz into the city without a thought! Idiot!"

The lady once again began to clench her teeth while berating herself, pressing her lips so strongly that Alexander was afraid she was going to break them.

"It is not your fault, dear! We did not know the real numbers." While her husband quickly tried to comfort her, pointing out, "They at first claimed they were only Lord Parker's bodyguards and part of the delegation. And by the time we noticed, it was already too late! How could we have known of such treachery?"

As for Alexander, hearing this flimsy excuse, could not help but roll his eyes, and subconsciously blurt out, "How the hell do you mistake 10,000 men for bodyguards?"

And then he instantly pursed his lips.

Because Alexander did not actually mean to say this out loud as it made the other side look foolish.

But the story was so tall, that it just came out.

Fortunately, neither of the couples seemed to mind, as Lord Cassius replied,

"We did not know. They landed at the harbor under the cover of the night in secret. Some members of the family had already defected to Miss Linda by then. *Sigh*, the enemy had us surrounded even before we could wake up to them."

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