Herald of Steel

Listening to Lord Janus explain Lady Miranda's situation, Alexander could finally see how things had gotten to where they were.

The Margraves family faced stifling exports and a collapsing domestic market right when their expenses were peaking.

This caused their treasuries to rapidly shrink, resulting in a want of change in the leadership.

"Is the free trade agreement really unpopular with the people?" Hearing the gist of the thing, Alexander thus posed so to Lord Janus, pointing, "We also import a lot of duty free grain, meat, wine, timber, pottery, ores, jewels, wool, slaves, and luxurious fabric from you. The trade agreement should be beneficial to these people too, right?"

In Alexander's mind, the riches should have gone both ways.

"Ye… yes, you are right in that my lord. But… the volumes are not equal," Lord Janus slowly squeezed out the point, implying the agreement benefited Alexander more than Lady Miranda.

The Margraves bought multiple magnitudes more of sugar, iron, soap, and glass from Zanzan than they sold their own native products there, 5 to 6 times the amount.

But this was not news to Alexander.

In fact that was kind of the point.

Why would he have bothered with forming a free trade agreement if it did not benefit him more?

And Lady Miranda agreed to it because originally, the plan was for her to take these products and sell them to other countries and regions, thus making those people pay for this deficit.

But now that logical plan seemed to have hit a snag, as Lord Janus went to further say,

"While most of the people are generally happy with your products, it is the blacksmith guilds who are most strongly opposed, my lord. Given metallurgy and mining are our biggest industries, the guilds representing them are very strong. It is these blacksmith unions that want the agreement repealed. And using their connections and money they even managed to rope a few of the other trading guilds to their cause, putting pressure on us. *Sigh*, things there are not looking good." Lord Janus's face appeared dejected.

While Alexander could easily see how these guilds were tempting others- 'We are only the first! Next, it will be you. Now it is iron, soon it will be clothes. Then it will be salt and then lastly, they will even drive out our farmers with cheap grains. We must end this free trade right now!'

Most of these fears were overblown, but they would be really effective in stoking fear.

And also, most of these guilds tended to stick together, in a 'you scratch my back when I'm in trouble, and I will scratch yours' kind of way.

"Do all the guilds support Lady Miranda's younger sister?" Alexander thus posed.

"...Ummm… most do…but only a very handful few have actually explicitly announced it. For now, they appear to be content motley cheering from the sides. " Lord Janus's reply seemed a bit anemic as if he was unclear on the details.

This let Alexander understand the matter was an evolving one.

The Margravess's situation might be worrying but not yet dire, with only a few bad actors pumping up the crisis.

Understanding the economic situation that had led to this turn of events, Alexander then switched his attention to the political side, starting with the 'fruit' that this chain of events gave birth to- Lady Linda.

"Who is Miss… Lady Linda exactly? And why is she challenging Lady Miranda? I mean why is it her specifically? I recall Lady Miranda having several other sisters too."

"Miss Linda," Lord Janus began with an emphasis on the word 'miss', as if to say she was unworthy of the title 'Lady', before continuing, "is Lady Miranda's third sister. She is currently seventeen and is in laws with the Heeat family."

"And the reason why she can put her name into the claim is because currently, she is the closest member in our family who has a male heir. Lady Miranda herself is currently childless, and her second sister has only two daughters. This makes Miss Landa's son the most viable candidate."

As Lord Janus said, Alexander keenly noticed the elderly man gnash his teeth a bit, letting him clearly understand he was not a fan of the woman.

But Alexander did not poke, knowing now was not the time for listening to personal grudge stories.

Instead, Alexander turned his attention to what Lord Janus had said, picking a few inquiries from that reply,

"How does the rest of the family feel about Miss Landa's claim?" Alexander chose to stick to 'Miss' given Lord Janus's expressive distaste for addressing her as 'Lady', as he then went on to pose,

"Did Lord Margraves IV leave any instructions on how to proceed if such a thing happened? And why is Miss Linda even able to make such a claim? Shouldn't the family be waiting for Lady Miranda to give birth to another son? It is not like the Lady is dead right?" Alexander thought he could find quite a few logical flaws in this turn of events.

"*Sigh!*" While Lord Janus, instead of answering Alexander immediately at first sighed.

There was both comfort and discomfort when talking to a smart person.

Comfort as in they were easy to talk.

Discomfort as in they were very incisive, able to see through many twists.

Thus Lord Janus was forced to reveal, "That should indeed be the case. Miss Linda's claim should indeed be illegitimate… under normal circumstances. But the thing is, Lord Margraves did not put Lady Miranda as the head of the Margraves family. But only as the Regent Mother of the head of the family, which was Marcus. Thus officially, she only wielded power on her son's behalf, until he came of age. So with the child… gone… Miss Linda is arguing that Lady Miranda has lost her authority. And that now, it should be her elected to be Regent Mother on behalf of her son. And combined with the economic spiral we are in, many in the family seem to support her, if not openly, at the least tacitly," Lord Janus then ended with another sigh, "*Sigh*, if the Lord was alive none of this would have happened."

From that last line, Alexander was able to deduce that the late lord of the house had not left any clear instructions on how to proceed if Marcus died.

Should Lady Miranda continue to hold on to power until she once again gave birth to a boy?

Or should the power go to someone who already has a boy?

Alexander personally was of the latter opinion because that was also how Lady Miranda was chosen.

"Hmmm, looks like this Miss Landa has quite a strong case," Thus Alexander murmured to himself, much to Lord Janus's chagrin.

This was why the elderly lord had lampooned about talking to a smart man.

While Alexander finished with Miss Linda then switched his attention to the Miss's better half,

"What is her husband's position in all of this? Is the Heeat family behind this too? Do they have designs for your family too?"

"The Heeat's family's involvement in our affair…. I'm afraid I do not know." Towards these suspicions, Lord Janus was not fully in the loop, but strongly claimed in an acrid tone,

"However, I'm sure there are. Of course, there are! How could there be not! But it is likely only Lady Miranda and Lord Cassius are truly aware of the extent. Negotiations with the ducal family have been very secretive. Even most of the Margraves do not know how far along it is."

Seeing how Lord Janus repeated his suspicions about the Heeat's family hand in this matter, Alexander understood the elderly man did not approve of this allegiance.

Following this, Alexander then decided to move on to the next topic- the family itself.

"What can you tell about the Heeat family? And how are their relations with Miss Linda's husband, Lord Parker? Why are the Margraves switching allegiance from the Marsh Family? And why did you choose the Heeat family specifically?" Alexander bombarded the man with a great deal of questions.

"..." So many that Lord Janus at first felt even a bit overwhelmed.

Until he managed to recover, "Umm…. one of the ducal families, the Heeat family controls the Lynican region, which is located in the southern portion of Sybaris." By this Lord Janus referred to the part of land controlled south of the Central Sea, the section bordering the warring states and the Numadins- a group of nomadic tribal people.

Lord Janus further continued, "They control huge, almost never ending spans of lush grasslands, where they raise all kinds of livestock- sheep, cattle, goats, and most importantly horses. The family's horses are famous all over Sybarsis, and they even make up a large part of our cavalry. They are also famous for their leather products and quite a few large silver mines."

With the general introduction of the family completed, Lord Janus then moved on answering Alexander's next question,

"As for why the Margraves choose the Heeat family, I'm not sure about it myself. It was something Lady Miranda had chosen almost unilaterally one day…. So I'm afraid you will have to ask the lady about the details yourself my lord." Lord Janus frankly admitted his inadequacies.

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