Herald of Steel

"Lindaaaaa…" Upon hearing her younger sister humiliate her and her honored guest, Lady Miranda could no longer restrain herself, as she instantly burst into a booming voice few had ever heard, swinging her arms wildly,

"Watch your tongue, you scheming witch. This is our guest. How dare you slander him? You think anyone seriously believes your claim that someone could loot the temples in a city guarded by 20,000 men without your permission? You have not even captured a single one of these 'miscreants', so where did you get the gall to talk to your elder sister like this?"

"Not only are you incapable of defending this city, but you even sent a mob to this very mansion. Did you ever stop to think for a second what would have happened if Lord Alexander's men were not there to stop them? How could you!"

The straightforward Lady Miranda could no longer take this tedious beating around the bush game and lambasted her sister with all her grievances in one go, venting her heart out in front of everyone.

Which was a very bad move.

Because in Lord Nolan's eyes, it was Lady Miranda who seemed to be the aggressor, as Miss Linda did not reveal any animosity at her, only towards Alexander, an outsider.

"Slander?" Miss Linda appeared shocked by her sister's acquisition, her angelic face turning pale and hurt, before it suddenly morphed into a taunt,

"Who is the one slandering here, now sister? When did I ever send a mob here? This is where we live. Where my own family lives! Where my son lives! Have you gone insane? This was all the doing of him! To play the victim. I can't believe you cannot even see through this."

Miss Linda was quick to shift the blame on the ever present Alexander, and then venomously turned to grind her teeth, "I never knew people could be so black… so base and low…as expected of a mere slave."

Even the temperate Alexander felt like his head and heart were burning after hearing this.

This shrew really knew how to hurt people.

Miss Linda hated Alexander for rejecting her advances that day.

And this hatred then made her do things that in turn made Alexander truly want to tear her from limb to limb.

And this was coming from a man who usually had a soft spot for women, as seen by how he did not much dislike Lady Felicia even after learning of her manipulations.

But here, the hatred Alexander felt for his pathological liar was something else.

It was loathsome.

"The feeling is mutual." So he could only clench out these words, thus saying that he too had not seen someone as base and low as her low.

While the one who had been all quiet until now, Lord Cassius sighed in his heart observing all this.

Even the man could easily see just how talented Miss Linda was as a politician.

She had effortlessly turned black into white, leaving even the ever eloquent Alexander in a pit.

His wife's defeat in her hands was really not unjust. And the beautiful lady's current acquisition of power was no fluke either.

There was indeed a reason most of the family supported her.

Then feeling the air turn acrid and explosive, Lord Cassius decided to quickly step in as the mediator, and in a gentle but strong voice asked, "My lady, this is not the place for such conversations. My father is not well and requires rest. So please let us continue this conversation sometime elsewhere."

'Leave!' All these words really worked to say this single word.

"Hmmph!" And to this Miss Linda let out a snort, before coldly shooting a single shot towards Alexander, "Give us the gold and we can have peace," and then imperiously sauntered off.

Alexander could not believe he was hearing this last sentence, where was basically being shaken down for money.

"....." And all the optimistic mood the three people had come here with was ruined by this one encounter.

Until the withered voice of Lord Nolan broke them out of the acrid net, "Miranda, come my girl! We haven't seen each other for so long! Come, let me see my dear daughter."

The weak but sweet voice was like soothing rain on the lady's burning heart, so the lady quickly answered, and then quickly rushed to the lying men, for the next few while spent some time, the trio exchanged some general greetings, and introductions.

Like Alexander's, towards whom the old man turned his weak head to address with a misty eyed stare, "Ahhh! I have heard great tales of your success, young lord. To think you achieved so much at such an age. We are glad. We are glad. We are glad that you came to our aid in such times of our need," before his stare suddenly turned glassy and his voice croaked,

"Pity.. pity…pity… I'm too old to witness more. I would have loved to ride to war with you."

Alexander found it hard to believe that a man whom he had met for only a few minutes was saying these things.

He had rarely met such a friendly man, both in this life and the previous, and seeing him, he could understand how Lord Cassius had turned out how he did.

He had his father to follow.

Towards the old man's comment about his age and frail health, Alexander gave some polite remarks, assuring him of great health, and dismissing his illness as trivial, before finally, Lord Cassius got to the issue they were here for.

".... Father, the temples in the city have been repeatedly attacked. And the people are in arms. Please ask Lady Linda to not drag the innocent people into our dispute." After detailing all the occurrences of the previous day, Lord Cassius ended with this.

It was determined beforehand that since the man was his son, it would be best that he presented their case.

"Hmmm…." After hearing all of this, the bed ridden man hummed in contemplation, before finally stating, "This is indeed serious. I will talk to Linda. But I do not believe she is that kind of girl. This might very well be a ploy from the Kaiser family."

Alexander thought was complete bullshit, but before he could interject, the old man suddenly grasped Lady Miranda by her hand and urged, "My daughter.. whatever disagreements you may have with your sister, you and Linda must stay together. Only united can we pass this difficult trail."

Which was all fine and good, but in Alexander's view, the old man was really not providing any good solution.

He must have surely seen how hostile Miss Linda was right in front of him, yet he was talking about reconciliation.

What reconciliation?

Alexander turned to signal these thoughts to Lady Miranda.

To which the lady deftly avoided making eye contact, as if she did not want to discuss it.

Instead, she then turned to the other big matter she was here for, the matter about the ships.

Here she proposed that due to the increased chaos in the city, they should move all the ships from the Great Harbor to the Royal Harbor, as well as the various other cities along the coastline.

'To protect them miscreants,' as she put it.

"Miranda! How can you say that?" However, the old man would have none of that, as he firmly rebuked, "Those ships hold the last bit of blood for our family. Wasn't it you who was saying just the other day how bad our books were? And now you want to cut off even this? What was gotten into you?"

"Even the monthly rent the merchants pay us for the port is significant. We can at least cover the dock workers who work under us with that. What will happen to them? I do not recall old James having such a granddaughter!"

Lady Miranda felt ashamed.

While Alexander felt frustrated.

This was not the time to be trying to win over the public.

That ship had sailed a long time ago.

And so for the following half an hour, Alexander tried very hard to diplomatically show the man their own difficulties, where he bought up all the points except the military one- the one where they feared an outflanking maneuver by the enemy.

And the reason for this was because he did not trust the old man with his information.

He seemed to have very close access to Miss Linda, so Alexander did not want to leak this intel to the other side, should they try it preemptively.

It was only after a lot of cajoling that the old man even decided to consider it, promising- "Okay, I will hold a conference with the leaders of the guild about it soon," something that quite displeased Alexander.

He saw this as nothing more than a flimsy play wanting for more time.

And thus left the room with little more than flowery promise.

While the moment the three left, Lord Nolan's weak eyes turned strong, and then sometime later, a strong, gruff voice didactically reverberated from the chamber as he addressed a certain lady, "Linda, you are the one James supported. I will support you too. So whatever you think is necessary, do it. I will be your eyes and ears."

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