“Welcome Back. No big festivities for your return, I am afraid. The King wants to ask for your help.” Braydon welcomed Cinar back at the gates of Mapjess. He was glad that the man had returned so that he could get on with making sure that the various lords did not mess up his town. For the past few days he had been helping to come up with ideas to convince the other lords to agree to forming a more centralised system for commanding the troops on the field. And that had been as successful as Braydon thought that it would be. After Lani accepted, not a single other noble changed their position on the matter.

“Well at least I get to see him.” Cinar said with a slightly pained smile on his face, as they started making their way through the main street of Mapjess. Since the army had arrived there had been a noticeable reduction in people on the street, making it much easier to return to the lord’s mansion.

“What do you mean?” Braydon could not understand what Cinar was getting at. It was clear that he was not in the best mood but it escaped Braydon why it was.

“Despite being in the castle for over almost two weeks, I never once did see my daughter.” The sad smile lingered on Cinar’s face. It had been so long yet even after being so close, he still was not able to see his daughter.

“What do you mean you never saw her? I know that she has her work but she is no Rhydian, she should know when to take a break. Not to mention that Mireille should be attached to her at the hip, even if she forgot herself, I’m sure that Mireille would have dragged her back to the castle at least once.” Braydon could not think why Nela would not return back to the castle, it was not exactly like there were many places for her to stay long term east of the Brimstones. And there were most certainly none that were comfortable for a noble lady.

“Have I really been that bad of a father? Now my own daughter refuses to even come and spend some time with me.” Cinar let out a long sigh, it was not what he had hoped for from a reunion with his daughter after several years of not seeing one another.

“I can tell you that you are most certainly not a bad father. I would have been delighted to have you as a father over my own. There must have just been something unexpected that came up.” Braydon knew for a fact that Cinar was not a bad father, no bad father could ever have a daughter like Nela. Not to mention, Braydon had a pretty good example to use as a bad father. Though even he could not think of what that ‘something urgent’ could have been. Had it been that urgent, he would likely already know about it. It was his land and not knowing about the urgent matters would be a horrible indictment on his management capabilities.

“Hmm. What is it that the King wants? All I know is that he asked me to return to discuss an idea of his.” It was clear that, like Braydon, Cinar was not quite convinced that there was something urgent that kept Nela busy for two straight weeks. Instead he decided to return the conversation to the reason why he had even returned in the first place.

“He wants to avoid losing a battle due to a disjointed command structure. He’s proposing some changes to make the army easier to command from the top. Take a guess how many people have accepted so far.” Braydon tried to take Cinar’s mind off of unfortunate matters, unsure of how effective he would be.

“If I were to guess, maybe a third at most.” Cinar obviously did not have high hopes that many nobles would agree to such a plan either.

“Not far off, most of our faction has already agreed at this point, it is the north eastern lords that are being more of a sticking point. A number of my direct neighbours are apparently vehemently against it.” Braydon could understand why his direct neighbours would be against it. Given his relative closeness with the King and other powerful members of the royal faction, it was likely that if not him then one of his knights would be pretty high up the chain of command. If he were in their position, he would not feel so good about that either.

Though they were by no means the only ones that did not want to go along with such a move, almost all of the formerly neutral lords had expressed opposition to such a move. Those accepting were mostly those without many allies to being with, or those who did not have many threats to their land. Be that friendly neighbours or a lack of reason to desire their fiefs in the first place. There were not many such lords to say the least.

“And he wants me to try and convince them?” Cinar was quick to catch on, he was not unaware of his relative popularity. And since he had been called back to ask his opinion on the matter, it was not hard to put two and two together.

“Exactly, you are by far the most popular person here, His Majesty wants to try and put that to good use.” Braydon was not going to deny it. He had discussed exactly that with the King not a day earlier.

“Well I will want to hear exactly what this plan entails before I come to a judgement on it. I do not want to look like a fool if I am asked for the reason why I would support such a move.” Even if he shared a good relationship with the King, Cinar was still going to make sure that he was careful with what he endorsed. It would only harm their relationship in the long run if something bad were to happen due to one of them being negligent.

“Do not worry about that, His Majesty would love nothing more than to spend hours explaining all of the benefits that his plans would bring.” Braydon still felt phantom pain in his legs after the amount of time that he had spent standing there listening to it. He was just glad that he had chosen to sit when he listened to it the second time when the King explained it to Lani.

“Haha, he has done that before.” Cinar laughed clearly having experienced the enthusiasm that King Aled could show when he had an idea that he wanted others to support.