“Why is it that nobody in Mapjess wants to drink with me?” Gerald sighed as he looked for the next place to hide as he drank whatever alcohol he had found that morning. That he had found it in the morning was the very reason that nobody wanted to drink with him, not that Gerald was going to care what time of day he drank. At least Aran agreed with him. Little consolation for Gerald, who was not in Midbury with the man.

“Perhaps because they know that you have work to be doing. That or I am scarier than you.” When he heard the voice behind him, Gerald froze before letting out another long suffering sigh.

“I didn’t even get a swig before you found me.” He turned around to face Braydon, who still felt half asleep even if he did not look it. And when he heard that Gerald had not managed to start drinking he at least felt some energy return. It meant that he could focus on something other than his usual job as he gave that to Gerald.

“That is what I intended, now I have a job to do. Go do it.” Braydon knew that he would get a start out of Gerald after saying it like that but that was exactly what he was looking for. There had not been many people to joke around with for a good while for Braydon. He may have gotten along well with Ethan but not in the same way that he did with Gerald. Not to mention that Ethan was also a noble of the same rank as himself, he had to be much more careful in his interactions with him. Not because he feared offending Ethan so much as there being many other nobles around. Nobles who would not hold a great opinion of him if he were to act with Ethan like he did with Gerald.

“And why do I have to do your work? There are plenty of things that Corban would be more than happy for me to help him with. You should know by now that he doesn’t have nearly enough people who can really arbitrate a dispute.” Gerald was right, Corban himself was pretty much the only person that was free to deal with such things.

Braydon and Roan might have helped out every now and again but they had their own things to do. Anybody that was subordinate to Corban was all but guaranteed to not have sufficient standing to deal with a dispute between the troops of other lords. They were all common garrison men, and the lords often decided to get involved in the disputes if they were bored enough.

“Then do you want to be the one to spend the rest of today with a highly upset Nela? And you should have heard enough about what is happening to know why she is not happy.” Braydon felt much happier now that he had managed to get the reaction he wanted out of Gerald, who quickly realised that he had been used for exactly that purpose. And he could hardly say that he wanted to do that instead. Gerald was usually second in line to Nela’s teasing and mockery when Braydon was not around, and she did not pull her punches nearly as much as she did with Braydon.

“So what was it that you needed me to do?” Gerald immediately changed his tune when he thought about dealing with an irate Nela. There was no way that he would survive that. Physically he’d be fine, but Gerald never was afraid of getting in a fight. But Nela had shown both Braydon and Gerald alike that she could make them very uncomfortable with just words alone.

*knock* *knock*

“Come in.” Braydon heard the reply come as some as the first knock sounded, it was clear that Nela had been awake for a while. And that was only confirmed further when he entered to see her completely ready despite the early hour.

“I hope that you have slept well.” Braydon greeted slightly awkwardly. He guessed that he was like this normally but it definitely felt more awkward than usual. Especially since Nela had obviously not slept all that well. It was very early in the morning and no matter how well she hid it, there were still signs that she had not really spent much time asleep.

“About as well as I look.” Nela obviously knew that she was not at her best. Though it was definitely forgivable since she had just found out that she had missed seeing her father and that he had gone to a fairly dangerous part of their defences. Such revelations were not exactly conducive to a great night’s sleep.

“As much as I’d like to continue talking about yesterday’s matters, there are some other things that I want your opinion on.” Braydon decided that he would try a different approach from the day before. Since Nela would likely not be leaving Mapjess until she saw her father before her, he had a bit more time to try and talk to her about other things. And other things happened to be what he technically employed her to do.

“You probably wouldn’t like to talk about yesterday’s matters, but I agree.” Nela had him there, Braydon really did not know what to say that could improve Nela’s mood nor did he know how to get her to talk about whatever problem she had had over the past few weeks. If there had been nothing else, he probably would have braved her upset to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible, but there just so happened to be a civil war. And she was his strategist.

“Then should we start by moving somewhere more comfortable for discussion?” Braydon knew that Nela’s chambers were fairly comfortable but they were not exactly the best place to be talking about more official matters. And since the study had basically become the King’s room by this point, they had to settle with one of the spare rooms in the mansion. As they made their way through the halls, it was not hard to tell which rooms were in use. There were servants in the places that people were using. Braydon could not think why the mansion was so big, even if it had once been owned by a relatively rich viscount many years ago. Not that he was complaining, the spare rooms were coming in handy now that so much of the building was taken up by high ranking guests and war planning.