Chapter 2: Broken Knight

My father, despite what personal flaws he might have had, was without a doubt a brilliant merchant. As he often liked to tell all of his children, when he was a young man he emigrated to our province of Iskander, an underdeveloped province on the edges of the empire, from the seat of the imperial family in the Imperial Province in order to seek his fortune. He’d carved outa niche for himself in eastern Iskander, importing luxury goods from all over the empire for the nobility who could afford such things. Over the years he’d put to use all of the charisma and charm he denied his own family in order to become a successful local fixture. Orlandus devoted decades of relentless and absolutely tireless work to elevate his business to it’s current privileged position and that, if nothing else, is something that will always garner at least some small measure of genuine respect from me.

No matter how successful and even influential he’d become, however, there were still certain expectations that he couldn’t get around no matter how much he might want to. For all his success and ambition my father was still ultimately a commoner. So when the noble Lindenberry family asked for something, and if it was at all reasonable and within his power to give it, then it was expected that father would provide whatever it was with a smile while at the same time being grateful for the opportunity to be of service. Otherwise if he did not then there might be certain… consequences for him and our family, both business and personal. Thus, I knew he’d had no choice but to push this task on me if the Lindenberry’s had requested my presence. I just wished that he had been less distasteful and unpleasant about it.

Why bring any of this up at all? Because I strongly suspected that the issue of nobility was the biggest reason why my relationship with my father had deteriorated to the degree that it had.

Apart from our personal home and out near the main road we had yet another building that was worth nearly as much, a building whose main purpose was to conduct business and receive our oh-so discerning and important customers. The receiving area of the “shop” we had set up was decked out with all of the expensive decorations and trappings that any discerning noble would expect from a place where they chose to do business. It was unbearably pretentious, naturally, and worth more than a common man could expect to make in a few decades, but stating my opinions aloud would do nothing but agitate people and create needless conflict.

I’d been waiting behind the counter for nearly half an hour, trying and failing to concentrate on reading a book when the sound of the small bell above the front door announced the arrival of new customers. I put the book away and placed a pleasant smile with a great deal of effort, as if my face were suddenly closer to the consistency of metal rather than flesh. However I made very sure not to show any teeth when I smiled. I’d been told, repeatedly and at length, that people found my full smile to be somehow deeply unsettling. I had a mouth that was far too wide and with seemingly too many teeth to be considered pleasant in any manner of form. Frankly even in the mirror I couldn’t see what the big deal was, but after that one time I literally sent a small girl running and made her cry with nothing but a polite smile, well, I suppose that was when I started to consider that maybe there was something to what people kept telling me after all.

I’d never met the Lindenberry’s personally before, their seat of power being more than two day’s ride outside of our city of Coria, but there was no one else the three people walking into our shop could possibly be. The man and woman were younger than I had expected, perhaps in their mid thirties, their clothes a mix of fine furs and immaculate and expensive clothes in various shades of grey as was the tradition for the nobility in Iskander. Expensive but tastefully understated jewelry subtly adorned the necks and fingers of all three. Iskander was a hard land with what at times seemed like perpetually grey weather and everyone form the lowliest stable boy to the ducal Beleth family who ruled the province reflected this in some way. With the two adult nobles was a young boy of maybe eight years, grey eyed and wearing a miniature version of his parent’s clothing that he didn’t seem all that comfortable in. In contrast with the two adult’s refined and almost haughty poise, his eyes were wide when he walked in, gaping at all the expensive decorations and items on display in our shop like a country bumpkin. Seeing that stirred some emotion from me, and I decided then and there that I liked the boy.

“Lord and Lady Lindenberry,” I said in greeting, instinctively moving to bow to them before catching myself. Even after three years I still wasn’t used to my new status. Instead of bowing I gave them a respectful nod of my head instead. With my business smile firmly on my face, I continued and spoke my lines from memory. “It is an honor to have you personally visit our humble place of business. Your order is fully accounted for and ready for you to take possession of at any time you wish. If there is anything else the Chapman family can help you with, or if you simply wish to finalize your order, I am at your service to help in any way that I can.”

Lord Lindenberry scrutinized me, and it was clear where his son had gotten his eyes and looks. “You are Ser Garrett Chapman, then?”

I had of course known this is why they had been interested in me but even then I had to resist the urge to tiredly sigh as I kept my business smile glued to my face like a rictus corpse. “That is correct Lord Lindenberry. I am indeed Garrett Chapman.”

Lord Lindenberry’s face said that he was slightly disappointed and not particularly impressed. I’m not sure I could blame him, since in the eyes of most people I scarcely cut a heroic figure or looked like one of the heroes of tales and legends. While I was slightly taller than average, my build was slim and I knew I likely looked downright skinny in the robes I was wearing while I acted the part of a merchant. Rather than having a granite jaw and a build to match like my father and my brother, I instead had inherited the long, thin face and pointed chin of my mother. My black hair was mess of tight curls kept regulation short and my eyes were an ordinary brown. My mouth was wide and my nose too big for my face. In short, I did not meet people’s expectation of what the soldier I was – had been? – should look like.

The boy however, bless his innocent soul, did not seem put off by my less-than-heroic appearance. He approached the counter guilelessly, staring at me with wide eyes and a slightly open mouth. “Are you really the hero of Emerald Passes? Did your legion really kill ten times their number during the final battle?”

I winced slightly, the boy’s careless words suddenly unleashing a flood of memories. Barbarians carelessly throwing themselves against our entrenched position over and over, unheeding and uncaring of their losses as their shamans whipped them up into berserk furies. Of brothers and sisters I’d lived and bled with for over half a decade falling one by one, my despair and fury as our numbers were slowly ground down further and further. My hands gripped one another tightly out of sight in an effort to stop them from shaking.

“Elias, have some tact,” the boy’s mother reprimanded gently. “Is that how the heir to a noble house ought to behave?”

The boy, apparently Elias, looked properly chastised at Lady Lindenberry’s words. “No, mother,” he said, ducking his head.

I swallowed thickly, the byplay thankfully giving me enough time to formulate an appropriate response. “Tales of my exploits have been wildly exaggerated, I’m sad to say,” I demurred. “We in the 13th Legion were only one legion out of many at Emerald Passes, and every one of them went above and beyond in performing their duty to the empire. Besides, I am just an ordinary person, not a Breaker,” I said with an affected casual shrug. “How much impact could someone so low level possibly have, really?”

“It is precisely because you are not an Ascended that the tales of your exploits are so important,” said Lord Lindenberry as he approached the counter, his earlier hesitance seemingly forgotten. “Tales of high level Ascended sundering mountains will always have a place, but for most of us tales of an ordinary man or woman acting heroically in defense of our empire resonates in a way those titan demigods simply cannot. Tell me Ser Chapman, what is your level?”

I hesitated in answering, both because the question was somewhat rude and because I never liked even giving the impression of bragging or showing off. “I achieved [Level 20] during the war,” I admitted with some reluctance.

The look in Lord Lindenberry’s eyes changed, and it took me a moment to realize that the look he was giving me was one of cautious respect. “A worthy achievement. Few even come close to reaching their level cap in their lifetime.”

That was true. Leveling was relatively easy for people, in the early levels. Almost unavoidable in many cases. It was only once an individual reached around [Level 10] that leveling up required active effort from the part of the individual in order to continue to level up. One had to deliberately seek to improve and push their current limits, each new level becoming more difficult to achieve than the last. Someone who managed to reach [Level 17] or [Level 18] in their lifetime was well respected and generally considered a master in their Class. Pushing all the way to [Level 20] in one’s lifetime was very rare and generally required feats of truly astronomical weight and difficulty.

People always seemed to think that me reaching [Level 20] at a young age was special, or somehow made me special. They were wrong, of course. There was very little that was special about me except perhaps my skills at arms. Me reaching [Level 20] during seven years of war wasn’t anything to brag about. It was a fluke, and as far as I was concerned everyone in Marvelous Company and even my entire legion who survived to see the end of the war should have earned their [Level 20]. Not just me.

Feeling slightly annoyed, I gave in to a whim and used my [Observe] skill on Lord Lindenberry.

Level: 15 (13 Noble, 2 Equestrian)

Name: Linus Lindenberry

Skills: Bureaucratic Facilitator I

Status: Healthy

Stones of Apotheosis: 0/4

Not terrible, but not particularly impressive either. I’d had two skills to my name by the time I’d reached [Level 15].

“So Ser Chapman, is it true you were knighted by the Supreme Legatus himself?” Cut in Elias before I could reply. “How did it happen? What was his [Level]? What was it like?”

I looked at the boy, my smile beginning to slip from my lips as I thought back. “I’m not sure about his [Level], but he was rumored to be at least [Level 85]. It is true that I met him, briefly, and that he was the one who knighted me. I’m not sure how to describe him. He gave the impression of an existence not so much a man, but rather a living embodiment of the empire’s military might. Standing next to him made you feel like a flimsy piece of cloth in presence of a barely contained hurricane. He was… well, he was both exactly what you’d expect of the emperor’s go-to man for military matters and at the same time so much more than that,” I shook my head of the memories before reasserting my business smile. “The Ascended truly are something else. Standing before someone like him was a once in a lifetime opportunity and one that feels overwhelming even to remember. Words to describe a man like Supreme Legatus Liang Italus would inevitably always fall short, I’m afraid.”

The boy looked at me with wide eyed wonder, apparently quite enthralled by my somewhat lackluster storytelling skills. “Why did you come back to work as a merchant and not stay in the legions?” the boy asked.

Nightmares, blood, feeling like one more blow might finally shatter me forever, I thought. However the answer I gave was quite different, with the added benefit of not being entirely false. “My family needed me. You know what they say, young lord. Familia Ante Omnia.”

“Family before all others,” translated the Lady Lindenberry, looking pleased. “It is good to see that dear Orlandus instilled such a righteous moral character in you, Ser Chapman.”

“Duty to family, duty to the liege lord, duty to the emperor,” intoned Lord Lindenberry with a grave nod.

Young Elias, however, didn’t look particularly convinced. “You were a hero, Ser Chapman. Couldn’t you have kept on in the army? Become an officer? If you had the favor of the Supreme Legatus, doesn’t that mean that you could have become one of the Ascended, too?”

Yes, I quite possibly could have. Not the Supreme Legatus himself but one of his many aides had come to me afterwards with an offer. A promotion from enlisted man to officer, with the possibility of four Power Stones being offered to me after a total of twenty five years of service. At that point my noble knightly title would have been upgraded to being hereditary rather than just being limited to me. I could have become a career military man, with the possibility to rise higher than any common born man had any right to even dream of.

In the end, however, I could not accept. A lifetime, potentially many lifetimes, of killing other men was not something I could agree to. Only seven years of that life and already there was barely a man left at all.

Though I tried to maintain the pleasant mask of a smile, my lips and face nonetheless began to feel tense and strained. “Perhaps, young lord. However a quiet life, surrounded by loving family, that is what I wished for after the war.”

Elias looked rather put out and unhappy at that and for one hot moment I hated the boy. Perhaps something had shown on my face because Lord Lindenberry was suddenly rather quick to pull his son back and move on to business at that point. I eagerly latched on to the change in topic with both hands, finalizing the Lindenberry’s rather large order of imported wines, books, sweet meats and cheeses from our neighboring province of Galia.

It wasn’t a moment too soon when they finally left, niceties and polite words of farewell feeling like acid and ashes in my mouth.