Chapter 6

In the market of Ferrero, their most recent conquest east of Lloyds, Neia Baraja watched a crowd of hungry townsfolk line up for soup distributed by the Corps.

No, never mind hungry, they’ve had their spirits squashed.

Taking the town was a simple matter. The ranchers eliminated the town’s rural patrols when they left on their routes early in the morning, then a perimeter was created before her soldiers advancing overland surrounded the settlement’s walls. Two galleons sailed in to blockade the port after that, and then Neia declared their purpose to the town’s occupants. The royalists resisted, but gave up as soon as Neia’s offshore forces made it to the wharf and flooded into the streets with troops, opening the gates from within.

Unlike Lloyds, however, they were not greeted by cheering citizens following their victory. In fact, the citizens didn’t seem to care at all. There was no shock or anger – only listlessness. The only thing they reacted to was the food delivered from Lloyds shortly after.

“This is terrible,” Neia said. “They’re less like people and more like dying fish.”

“It’s pretty bad,” Saye agreed. “I wonder what the royalists did here…”

Neia thought that Hoburns and its prefecture were in a terrible state, but the sight before her was much, much worse. She feared how dire things would become the further east they went.

“How bad is this compared to where you grew up?” Neia asked.

“This is the crappiest town I’ve ever seen,” Saye answered. “There are a lot of places in Re-Estize and Baharuth that are awful, but the people there still at least have some fight in them. These people look like they’re just waiting to die.”

She couldn’t think of a better way to describe it than Saye had. Even Zombies had more life to them than the townsfolk did. Every man and woman lined up in the square didn’t speak to anyone else and Neia could have sworn they didn’t even register other people if they hadn’t made queues for food. They just stared straight ahead and shuffled forward periodically as if they had no energy or care for anything else.

At first, she figured she’d speak to the people after things settled down, but that seemed pointless with everyone in their current state. Her message of justice and casting aside one’s weakness would do little more than bounce off the veritable fortress of apathy.

“Miss Baraja,” an officer walked up to her and saluted. “Lord Lugo and his party have arrived.”

She followed the officer to the town’s wharf where Lord Lugo and four unfamiliar scions were observing the waterfront with grim expressions.

“Do you still think I’m in the wrong, Lord Lugo?” Neia asked.

“To be clear,” Lord Lugo answered, “we never disagreed with your assessment of the situation, Miss Baraja – only your methods.”

“Have you thought of a better way to liberate the people?”

“Not yet. But just because we haven’t doesn’t mean that this is the right way to do things. You’re simply ignoring due process because it isn’t expedient.”

Saye was right about how the conservatives would react to her activities. Over the course of the last week, Lord Lugo and his associates had little choice but to follow through and try to patch things up in her wake as the Sorcerer King Rescue Corps advanced into royalist-held lands.

“Is that what Duke Debonei thinks, as well?”

“Duke Debonei was livid when he heard what happened,” Lord Lugo replied. “He hasn’t rendered his response yet, but, rest assured, he will when he is ready.”

And when will that be?

Once again, Saye’s assessment of the two opposing factions and what they would be able to do was spot on. It was obvious, in hindsight. The Corps was the only force ready to act in the north and they would have free reign until someone could muster an effective response. Commander Lobo treated it as a race: one where the Corps had to become unstoppable before the Nobles could react.

“Have you spoken with the town leadership, yet?” Lord Lugo asked.

“Only to make sure they understood that we weren’t here to harm them,” Neia replied. “Otherwise, we left things untouched for you to sort out.”

Lord Lugo nodded to the other scions, who left in the direction of the town square with their escorts and aides.

“They’ll handle that end of things with little effort,” Lord Lugo said.

“Are you going back to Lloyds?” Neia asked.

“There’s something I must do here first. This town has gone stagnant. Stale. I need to get things moving again.”

Neia marvelled at how Lord Lugo not only seemed to always understand what was going on when it came to the workings of a town or fief and how to fix it. She and the Corps had little idea about those things and the best they could do was try to alleviate the situation with food aid and the like.

“May we come with you?” Neia asked, “If we learn what needs to be done, it should save everyone a lot of time in the future.”

Lord Lugo nodded and walked past them. He didn’t go far, entering the Fisher’s Guild a block away. A pallid man at the front desk looked up at him, then rose to his feet when he registered the lordling’s well-tailored appearance.

“Lord Lugo of House Agrela.”

“Hernandez, Guildmaster. You’re with these fellows that took over the town?”

“I arrived with some staff who will assume management of the town and its surrounding fiefs,” Lord Lugo replied. “While we get started, however, I’d like to know what measures were taken to force the citizens into this abhorrent state.”

“What didn’t they do?” The Guildmaster laughed helplessly, “They took control of everything, draining us until there was nothing left but a husk.”

“How did they justify their actions?”

“For the greater good of the Holy Kingdom, I guess. They said we needed to help feed people inland until the harvest came in. We were glad to help, at first, but things just got worse little by little – enough that we didn’t notice until we realised how bad things had become.”

“What did you do when you did?” Neia asked.

“We brought up our concerns with town hall,” Guildmaster Hernandez answered. “By then, it was about a month to the harvest, so the lordling running things implored us to hold on until then. It was reasonably unreasonable, if you get what I mean.”

Neia nodded in understanding. They had worked hard to see their results to fruition, so enduring their hardships for just a bit longer was, as the Guildmaster put it, reasonably unreasonable. It was the same trap that everyone victimised by the royalists fell into, taking advantage of their trust and goodwill while appealing to their resilience.

“Did they do anything to enforce their ordinances?” Lord Lugo asked.

“They had officers in port checking on the catch from morning to night. Even if anyone wanted to put a little bit aside for themselves, they wouldn’t be able to escape notice.”

“I see,” Lord Lugo said. “Are there any other notable concerns?”

The Guildmaster sighed, looking past them to the office door.

“Our shores are overfished,” he told them. “We caught as much as we could to meet the market’s demands. Then, last week, a Merfolk Lord swam into port the other day to warn us that we were violating the Holy Kingdom’s treaty with his tribe.”

Neia swallowed. It was no wonder everyone looked so dead. The town had lost its main source of food and its people had nowhere to go: they were literally just waiting to die.

Fighting the Merfolk in the sea was an impossible prospect. Fighting them at all would probably doom the entire Holy Kingdom. Their shores would be overrun by all manner of aquatic denizens with a Sea Dragon or five tossed in for good measure. They could only respect the maritime treaties and stop fishing until the sea recovered its stocks of fish.

“We can tide you over until the harvest is delivered,” Lord Lugo said. “Make sure all of your members know so they aren’t tempted to sail out. We can’t risk them angering our neighbours.”

“How will we pay for everything if we can’t work?”

“We’re hiring mariners to crew our galleons,” Neia piped up. “We can even pay for a season’s work up front if you don’t mind being paid in provisions.”

“Better than nothing. Where do my people sign up?”

“Speak with the captain of the Sea Sprite,” Neia told him. “They’ll be delivering supplies to and from Lloyds, so they can take anyone who wants to become a sailor back to the city with them.”

“I’ll let them know, miss.”

Lord Lugo went over a few odds and ends before they left the office and made their way deeper into Ferrero. Neia looked up at his handsome features, which were set in an expression of deep thought.

“Is something the matter?” She asked.

“Just planning ahead,” he answered. “That storm pushed back the harvest by a week or so, so it’s just starting to come in. How many ships have your people captured so far?”

“Not including the ones that we took at Lloyds, five. They were all bound for the wall with conscripts.”

As favourable as their progress with intercepting royalist ships seemed, it had also created an unexpected problem. Every Galleon had four to five hundred soldiers and, short of the royalist officers who were held captive in a secluded prison camp near Bast, they all joined Neia’s cause. They now had a bunch of ships, but, if they didn’t want to pile up more debt, supplies would be tight until they secured the northern harvest.

“The shortage of fish stocks is a problem that will spread beyond all along the coast,” Lord Lugo said. “As the schools thin out, more and more of our aquatic neighbours will evoke the treaties to mitigate the damage.”

“Don’t they have farms?” Saye asked.

“I don’t think so,” Lord Lugo answered. “There are thousands of tribes of Merfolk and other aquatic Demihumans living off of our coasts and almost all of them hunt fish as we might hunt wild game. The natural consequences of overfishing are no different than overhunting, which is precisely why licences and rights are required to hunt and fish. Well, I suppose villages don’t get stomped flat by Sea Giants if one overhunts deer, but, if we had Forest Giants, they probably would.”

“What sort of plans were you trying to come up with?” Neia asked.

“It amounts to a new logistical challenge. We must assume that the entire northern coast will be affected by this and make the appropriate preparations. The north will keep its harvest if your plans go as expected, so, in the long term, things should be manageable. In the short term, however, the entire northern coast will need more food from the south.”

“Does the south have food to spare?”

Lord Lugo shook his head.

“I’m not certain. Supplying Los Ganaderos and your followers wasn’t much of a problem because there are relatively few of them. We’re looking at feeding over a million people for the next few weeks with this new development. The south sent a sizable portion of its spring harvest to the north under the assumption that the late harvest in the north would see that food come back. To put it simply, there’s about a one-month block where the south feeds the north and vice versa until the south reaps its autumn harvest.”

“But the north doesn’t have an autumn harvest to return the food with,” Neia noted.

“Certain crops that can be grown more quickly,” Lord Lugo said. “We’ve been encouraging the tenants under our management to grow them for the autumn harvest. It seems like the royalists have been as well judging from the territories you’ve kicked them out of so far. Weather permitting, the additional harvest will allow everyone to comfortably last the winter.”

“What if we don’t get that harvest?”

“Then we all eat a lot less,” Lord Lugo smiled slightly as he shrugged. “I’ve occasionally heard what you’ve been saying about us southerners, but that food sustaining the north was originally food earmarked for the south’s consumption. It was a genuine sacrifice for the good of the country – not some handy surplus easily parted with.”

They arrived at the town square and Lord Lugo went straight to the Merchant Guild. A hollow-cheeked receptionist greeted them with a polite bow.

“Welcome to the Merchant Guild,” she said.

“I am Lord Lugo of House Agrela. In the interests of getting Ferrero’s operations back in proper order, we had a few questions for the Guild concerning the activities of the former management.”

“Of course, Lord Lugo,” the receptionist replied. “Please, follow me.”

The receptionist led them to an office where an elderly man was busy emptying files from a cabinet. He turned to look at the door when the receptionist cleared her throat.

“We have nothing more for you to take,” he told them.

Lord Lugo turned a dubious eye on Neia.

“You pillaged the town?”

“What? No! Why would we do that?"

She was beginning to wonder if he genuinely thought they were pirates or something. Well, it was true that they were stealing ships and taking the coast by force, but they had a perfectly understandable reason for that.

“I think he meant that for you,” Saye told Lord Lugo.

“Me? Why?”

“Something something evil southern aristocrats…”

“That’s slander! Wait, you haven’t been spreading strange tales, have you?”

Lord Lugo cleared his throat and turned back to address the Guildmaster.

“I’m not sure what you meant by that, but we’ve come to do nothing of the sort, Guildmaster, erm…”

“Rolo.”

“Rolo. The royalists have done an abhorrent thing here and we only seek to set things aright. To do that, we need to know what they did to cause so much damage to the land and its people. As the master of the Merchant Guild, you may also be aware of any ulterior motives that may have been harbouring.”

“Motives, huh…”

The Guildmaster closed the cabinet and went over to his desk.

“Aside from the usual,” he gestured to the seats across from him, “they were…demonetising Ferrero.”

“Demonetising?” A crease appeared on Lord Lugo’s brow.

“To be more blunt,” Guildmaster Rolo said, “they were purposely extracting coin from the town’s economy. Transactions with the outside – which were entirely under the former management’s control – tended to result in a net loss of coinage. The Guild estimates that nine-tenths of Ferrero’s currency supply is gone.”

“…”

A thoroughly confounded expression crept onto Lord Lugo’s face. Neia shyly raised her hand.

“What does that mean?” She asked.

Lord Lugo and Guildmaster Rolo exchanged a look.

“I suppose the vast majority of urbanites–”

“Why do you have to emphasise that?” Neia frowned.

“Because that’s how it is,” Lord Lugo told her. “The vast majority of urbanites take money for granted. Specifically, its supply and circulation. To them, money is considered a constant. In reality, it isn’t. Institutions like the Merchant Guild and its affiliates work to make sure that cities and towns stay highly monetised.”

“…I didn’t know that,” Neia said. “But why?”

“Because money is a valuable tool. Without it, conducting business – especially over long distances and in complex economies such as those one would find in towns and cities – would be much more inefficient.”

“Does that mean they’re doing it to the villages, as well? Most of the people live out in the country.”

The Guildmaster snorted.

“No offence, miss, but the countryside isn’t worth the trouble. Over ninety-nine per cent of the Holy Kingdom’s money supply is its towns and cities.”

“No wonder everybody sees the countryside as poor…”

“An entirely unfounded perception, mind you,” Lord Lugo said. “The idea that rural regions are poor is purely the delusion of those who see coin as the principal measure of value. Villages have limited coin, but that’s because it is only used to conduct occasional transactions with the local urban centre and travelling Merchants. For everything else, we have a more efficient method.”

“What’s that?”

“Credit.”

“Oh.”

She knew that rural regions mostly dealt in credit, but she thought it was because they didn’t have money. Well, that was true, but, as Lord Lugo said, she thought they didn’t have money because rural regions were seen as poor by urbanites, not because they didn’t need money in the first place.

“Is that why Nobles don’t seem to care much about money?” Neia asked.

“In part, yes. Also, it’s not just Nobles, but everyone who lives in rural areas. What is important are relationships, land, and military power. Society cannot exist without those three pillars and money is useless when the vast majority of people don’t have immediate access to the markets that favour its use. Also, it disincentivises criminal activities since villages aren’t defenceless targets sitting on giant piles of money that can be used in distant markets without drawing scrutiny. Oddly enough, as the Guildmaster mentioned, this fact also prevented the rural areas from being targeted by the royalists’ tactics.”

“So those ridiculous stories about Nobles being extravagant and wasteful are true,” Saye said.

Lord Lugo regarded the Bard with a vexed expression.

“You really have a way of planting barbs,” he sighed. “That is an unfortunate truth, however. A poorly-raised Noble can get their houses into deep financial trouble due to their perception of money. They’ll spend coin like water, taking on debts under the mistaken belief that they function like the system of credit used on rural fiefs. But cases like that are exceedingly rare in the Holy Kingdom…I think there was maybe one bit of gossip about it in my father’s generation and I’m half certain that it was fabricated as a cautionary tale.”

“So are the people going to be alright even if all their money’s been taken away?” Saye asked.

“Yes,” Lord Lugo nodded. “As I mentioned, money is not necessary to live. What needs to be done in Ferrero is something well within the Merchant Guild’s capabilities.”

Guildmaster Rolo nodded with a grunt.

“You want us to function entirely on credit while we rebuild our money supply. Does that mean you intend to allow us to return to regular operations?”

“Yes. We conservatives never resorted to the same tactics as the royalists. Going straight back into regular trade will cause chaos for Ferrero due to the scarcity of coin; we need to give this artificially warped economy time to realign itself with the west.”

“Very good, Lord Lugo,” Guildmaster Rolo said. “I’ll call in the town’s guildmasters for a general meeting. I trust you’ll be there to answer any questions our members have?”

“Of course, it will also be a good opportunity to introduce the new administrators.”

As they turned to leave, Guildmaster Rolo spoke up again.

“One last thing, Lord Lugo.”

“Yes, what is it?”

“Ferrero is part of Navir Prefecture. Will we be trading with Lloyds now?”

“For the time being. Hopefully, the state of things here in the east won’t last for much longer.”

Did that mean he fully expected the Corps to continue pushing eastward until the entire coast had been liberated? Or did he believe that something else would happen? She hadn’t even put any serious thought into taking Navir yet.

Back outside, most of the people who had come out for soup had returned to their homes. Though they had only worked for a few hours, the Corps members who helped distribute the food looked as drained as Ferrero’s citizens. She couldn’t blame them: just dealing with the sheer weight of hopelessness in the town was extraordinarily depressing.

“What do you think the royalists’ goal here was?” Neia asked Lord Lugo, “It’s hard to believe that this result is for the good of the Holy Kingdom.”

“I can still hardly believe that they’d do this,” Lord Lugo answered. “As ambitious as they are, they should, by and large, still be good people. Their territories in the south look almost the same as ours, and our management of Rimun and Lloyds Prefecture mirrors that.”

“Could it be that someone else is manipulating them? A leftover Fiend from the invasion working in the shadows, perhaps?”

“As outlandish as it might have seemed a year ago,” Lord Lugo replied, “it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. In fact, I can only believe that an external influence is working some demonic curse upon the country.”

“What about the thing you discussed with Guildmaster Rolo?” Saye asked.

“The thing I discussed…ah, you mean the royalists’ motives for plunging Ferrero into its sorry state? On that front, it seems obvious what their plans are.”

Neia couldn’t understand even half of the back and forth between Lord Lugo and the Guildmaster, so it was anything but obvious to her.

“Could you explain exactly what they’re doing?” She asked, “Maybe there’s something we can do about it while we advance.”

“Well,” Lord Lugo said, “My first thought was that they were trying to force Ferrero into the same system of credit that they’re used to working with. It truly is better than using money on a local level. Not only is it easy to manage, but it’s very informative. We get a written record of what goes where in every part of our territory. With the requisite analysis, it allows us to predict economic trends and identify problems.”

“But that can’t be the case because they haven’t done it in any of the places we’ve liberated,” Saye said. “Even the labour camps they set up around the cities use scrip.”

“Indeed. This leaves one other strong possibility: they intend to use it for foreign trade. If one assumes that they’ve drained nine-tenths of the north’s gold, they now possess tremendous economic clout. Their first move will be to strike a death blow against the conservative faction by cleaning out the trade fleet with their ill-gotten gains. They may even purchase ships wholesale. If that comes to pass, their economic dominance over the Holy Kingdom is all but assured. Caspond will be even more of a powerless puppet than he already is.”

“Would Prince Felipe let that happen?” Neia asked, “The conservatives plan to support his bid for the throne, right?”

Lord Lugo shook his head.

“It doesn’t work that way. The trade fleet is just that: a trade fleet. The admiralty sends warships along to ensure their safe passage, but each trading vessel belongs to a Merchant company. We have no legal right to stop them from trading at any port.”

“Sounds like you’re screwed,” Saye said.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Lord Lugo gave the Bard a look. “We just have to act quickly once Prince Felipe arrives. The Wind of Rimun will arrive from the north, and if we control the north, we get to trade with the fleet first and inform them of the situation in the Holy Kingdom. Anyway, I need to get together with the other scions and prepare for the meeting. After that, I need to go back to Lloyds and inform the Duke of what we’ve learned. I’ll be back with the next group of administrators tomorrow – please don’t commit any atrocities on your way east.”

Neia punched Lord Lugo in the shoulder, then puffed her cheeks as the lordling walked away with a laugh. Once he disappeared into the town hall, Commander Lobo and several officers walked up to Neia and Saye.

“You should have hit him harder,” Commander Lobo said.

“I’m shocked that I hit him at all,” Neia replied.

“I wish I could’ve done that back in the army. A lot of those Noble whelps needed a few good smacks. I take it we’re in the clear?”

Are we?

Neia looked down at her hand. It was as if the tension between herself and Lord Lugo had mysteriously vanished. If anything, it felt as if she was closer to him than before.

“He asked us not to ‘commit any atrocities’ on our way east,” Neia said. “So he knows it’s futile to complain, at least. Are we ready to march?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Commander Lobo said. “Three companies disembarked with Lugo and the ones we advanced to Ferrero with will rest up in town. Things are going as smoothly as can be expected.”

“Great,” Neia smiled. “What about Mister Morro’s arrangements?”

“The ‘discipleship camps’? We’ve already sent Rangers to survey Sierra Norte for suitable sites. It’ll likely take a week or so for them to report their findings.”

“We’ll need at least that long to take the next set of towns,” Neia nodded. “Let’s move on, shall we?”