02.49: Accountability
The next morning, Laira found herself in the infirmary.
She hissed as the physician reapplied a tincture on her wounds.
“Your wounds should heal within a week or two, Majesty,” he told her. “Do not use your hands until then.”
“Thank you. How is he doing?” she pointed to Korrin, lying on the nearby bed.
“Other than the broken leg and a few broken ribs, he seems fine. He is young. He should recover in a few weeks.”
She gingerly walked up to the young knight, swathed in bandages, but awake.
His eyes found hers, then the ground.
“I’m sorry for putting hands on you, Your Majesty,” he said weakly.
She couldn’t help but smile.
“No need, Sir Korrin. It is only thanks to your bravery that I am alive. If you hadn’t thrown me like that…”
She bent down to plant a kiss on his bruised cheek.
“Once you are well, ask me any favor, and it shall be yours.”
She put a finger on her cheek. “Other than maybe putting your hands on me again. You will have to challenge my betrothed for that privilege.”
He smiled at her attempt of a joke.
“I don’t need any reward, Majesty. I was just doing my duty.”
“And you did it very well, even risking your life. That deserves a reward.”
Seeing his faltering strength, she got up.
“Get well soon, Sir Korrin. Nanon is forever in need of brave sons like you.”
He nodded weakly.
She looked around but found the Lord Commander of the Royal Guards missing.
“Where is Sir Arnulf?” she asked the physician.
“In the garden.”
She found him sitting on a bench, looking at the trees, one of his arms in a sling.
Bruised and battered, the middle-aged man still looked like the ideal knight from the stories her father used to tell her.
She’d die before admitting to anyone he was her first passion.
He tried to rise upon her approach, but she waved him down.
He bowed as low as he could.
“I apologize for failing you again, Your Majesty.”
“Not your fault, Sir Arnulf,” she said, sitting beside him. “Finding out such plots isn’t your job.”
“I failed at my job as well. It was young Sir Korrin who saved your life. If not for him…”
“We’re all suffering from Oberstein’s absence. If anything, we should be blaming him,” she said, smiling faintly. Hiding the dread within.
That maybe he was dead as well.
Laira closed her eyes and took a long breath to steady herself, holding back her emotions.
She was losing people she could trust.
First her father, now Ragenwald and maybe even Oberstein.
“My condolences, Your Majesty,” Arnulf said, voice choking. “Despite Lord Ragenwald’s actions, he was a very loyal man.”
“He was,” she whispered.
They sat there for a while, listening to birds singing in the trees.
“Do you need anything from me?” she asked.
“No, Your Majesty. Might I suggest that you consider Sir Theobald for the position of Commander of your guard?”
“Nonsense. You’re not that old. Focus on convalescing and nothing else. I want you in your best shape once you are up.”
He nodded, smiling.
As she walked to the throne room, Laira noticed in time that she was stomping, and slowed herself down. She had to have this meeting before the funerals, or she would not be herself afterwards.
The doors to the throne room groaned as they swung wide to welcome her.
The local vassals were already there, standing in groups. Their spines stiffened as she approached.
Everyone else had been kicked out.
Good. This is going to be messy.
They bowed in unison.
Ignoring them, Laira walked up to the throne in slow, measured steps.
This had to be done here, not in the meeting room.
The guards at the base of the dais struck their halberds.
She turned, gathered her skirts, and sat. Only then did she look at them.
“Let us begin.”
On the right side stood Counts Rotenhall the stout, Kravenstein the corpulent, and Reidmark the tall. On the left stood Counts Brunthal and Goldfurt; the sensible ones.
Reidmark piped up. “Your Majesty, all of Nanon is relieved to hear you are well. God’s justice will surely find the fiends who dared attack you.”
She inclined her head in acknowledgment.
“You have our condolences on the passing of Lord Ragenwald,” Kravenstein said, bowing low.
“Thank you, my lord,” she said in a dry tone.
“Majesty, we have been petitioning to discuss the matter of our relatives’ treatment by your army for days. Our Houses have stood with yours for generations and yet your army is throwing out our relatives as if those long-standing bonds mean nothing.”
“My lord,” she said, voice even, “it is only because of our long-standing bonds that I have extended your Houses the courtesy of relocating or ‘retiring’ its members. The lower-ranking officers just got kicked out. If one of your vassals had undermined your forces, would you just let them be?”
“Of course not! They would face God’s justice. Made to do penance.”
Just give us a slap on the wrist, please.
She kept her calm.
“If their crimes were bloodless, maybe. But that’s not the case. They might not have directly killed their comrades, but their hands are covered in blood. What of General Hrodric, who lost his son, and many other fathers and mothers like him? Do they not deserve justice?”
“That was the work of the Norrgalese savages!”
“They succeeded only because the men who came to his rescue were under-equipped. Their armor was as thin as parchment and spear points half-rusted. And not for the lack of funds. I checked it myself. My father did his duty, but someone here betrayed him.”
Her voice came out low and cold.
“Someone took what was meant to save men’s lives and stole it. I am tempted to call it treason.”
They reeled in shock, whether real or feigned.
“Your Majesty, you are still shaken from the events of yesterday,” Reidmark said in an oily voice. “It would not be wise to make such hasty—”
“Careful.”
She raised a finger.
“The General conducted a thorough audit of the Royal Army and his findings were horrifying, to put it mildly. A third of the men we ‘retired’ couldn’t defeat a squad of bandits even if they tried. Almost all of them were found to have stolen from my treasury. You would trust our entire realm’s security to men such as them? You speak of loyalty, which these ‘illustrious’ scions of your houses don’t even possess! How are we going to face Vozoran with men such as them as officers?”
She had scoffed at Jack’s idea of a centralized military as a pipe dream, but as she looked at the effete men standing in front of her, looking at her as if she was the culprit, she understood his reasoning.
Relying on these self-serving, short-sighted fools would be a folly. The crown had to stand on its own.
“So you would replace us with peasants?” Rotenhall said, his deep voice reverberating in the throne room. “Thieves and murderers from the slums?”
“Those men have been vetted by several veterans of my army. They might be poor and weak, but they are loyal. Do I need to remind you that our enemy might have a force as large as the entire population of our realm? I am preparing to face them.”
“Or preparing to subjugate us?”
She looked at the men surrounding her.
They wouldn’t take being made irrelevant lying down.
Nor could she afford to sweep them out of her way entirely.
Not yet.
She had to walk a tightrope.
“I am not the one whose intentions are in question, my lord.”
She reached to her side and brought out a parchment.
They looked at it with uncertain eyes as she unfurled it.
Her bandage swathed hands stung, but she kept going. It was a long document.
The steward took it from her extended arm and handed it to them.
Their mouths moved silently as they read it.
With each passing moment, their eyes widened and jaws tightened.
She suppressed a grin of satisfaction.
Even when the clerks had shown her their work, she had found it hard to believe.
A single innovation in bookkeeping had unraveled theft that had been going on for decades.
I’ll have to thank Jack for that somehow.
Her spy network had confirmed it all. Disgruntled retainers loved to talk, especially when offered pouches of coin.
Then, there was the amnesty.
“Not only your family members in my army have been stealing significant sums from me,” she said, “but you as well. I have concrete proof of your under-reporting of taxes. On top of that, you three have been meeting at odd times at odd places. I wonder why?”
That made them glance at each other, but for a fraction of a heartbeat.
Rotenhall straightened up.
“Are you in a position to threaten your direct vassals, Your Majesty?” he said, his voice gaining some strength. “Both Duke Stormhaven and Grauberg sent proxies to pledge loyalty to you.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits, but he carried on.
“Rumors are that Duke Stormhaven has stopped responding to your letters.”
She cocked her head. “And you think I can not handle him without your support?”
His eyes widened upon seeing a faint smirk on her lips.
“My lord, were you there when I announced my betrothal?”
He shook his head.
“Someone you knew must have been. Did they tell you about the weapon demonstration my betrothed arranged afterwards?”
His face froze. “You don’t have any of them.”
“You think I gave him the massive ‘reward’ of thousands of gold for nothing?”
Her lips curved into a smile.
“I wonder how Stormhaven will fare against a few hundred soldiers armed with those weapons, let alone someone with a much smaller force.”
She let silence reign for a few moments.
“So what will it be, my lords? Should I have you all detained and dragged in front of a court for decades of theft and conspiring against me?”
Finally understanding their position, the rebellious Counts froze, then bowed their heads one by one.
“We beg for your mercy,” Rotenhall said weakly.
She straightened on her throne.
“First, you will let me recruit some of your men into my army.”
A flinch.
“Second, your heirs, or their children will be educated at the court.”
They stiffened, as if struck physically.
She didn’t like it, but only hostages would keep them in check.
“Majesty, that is—”
“Mercy. Third, my people will go through your financial records and try to recoup a part of the money you have been stealing for decades.”
She raised a finger. “None of that is negotiable.”
The men stayed still. Kravenstein looked to Reidmark, who looked to Rotenhall.
None spoke.
Rotenhall began, “Can we have some time—”
“No,” she cut him off.
“I need your answer now. Would you rather face me after the funerals? I imagine I would be a lot more temperamental. I am, after all, only a woman.”
They bowed in unison.
This wasn’t obedience, but submission.
Enough for the moment.
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