3.42: Preparation – 2

With only five days left until my departure, I decided to check up on things I had been previously too busy for. To see if they would keep going without my personal supervision.

I found the physician of the erstwhile Great Company in the hospital, talking with Matilda’s niece.

“Master Darron, how are you doing?” I asked the broad man.

“Fine, Sire.”

“How is the physicians’ training going on?”

“Well, we don’t exactly get the same opportunities to work on men like that on a battlefield, but we’ve done multiple bone settings and a few amputations. The rest of the subjects have been dead animals.”

I cringed. I hadn’t had enough free time to work on either anesthetics or antibiotics, and with all the mining, logging, construction and smithing going on, accidents were bound to happen.

“But your people are learning fast,” he added, “especially this one.”

He slapped Emma on the back.

The short woman bowled forward.

My hands shot ahead to grab her shoulders.

She blushed as she straightened.

“So, should I start packing my bags?” Darron asked.

“No. I’d like you to take your time teaching everything you know to the people here. I’ll take you to Nobhart once I’m back from Nahnon in a few months.”

He nodded silently.

I turned to his star pupil.

“Hey Emma, can I talk to you in private.”

Her shoulders stiffened.

“Me, mi—milord?”

“Yes.”

I pointed to a corner away from the foot traffic.

She followed me.

“Didn’t I pardon you a few days ago?” I said barely above a whisper.

“You did.”

“Then why haven’t you visited Aprilia?”

She didn’t answer, keeping her head low.

I stepped closer to the short woman. Well, more like almost average height woman. With lacking nutrition, most peasant women here were around five feet tall. Emma was four-foot nine at most, and cute.

Odd how men didn’t want her just because of a few faded marks. Morons.

I bent down to whisper in her ear.

“Aprilia is going to be lonely once I’m gone. I want someone to keep her company from time to time. Could you do that, if you are open to it?”

She bobbed her head sharply.

“You don’t have to, if it’s too painful.”

She nodded weakly.

“Will you steal from us again?”

Her head snapped up.

“No!” she blurted out loudly. Then she bowed low.

“I’m very sorry about that. I’m not a—”

I pulled her up by the shoulders.

“She told me what happened. I understand.”

She looked up in confusion.

“I can’t tell you the details, but I do.”

I couldn’t exactly tell her how I had become a recluse in my past life, cut off from everyone else. She seemed to have sensed my sincerity, as she nodded again.

“Good. And make sure to extract all knowledge out of Master Darron before he has to leave. The people of Chadom need you.”

Her eyes glinted with resolve.

“I will.”

On my way back to the castle, I went through the forest of tents that surrounded the city under construction. The cloying smell of mold and damp earth was everywhere, overpowering everything else. My boots squelched on the muddy ground. Even with trenches dug to keep the water away, months of rain had turned it soggy.

Every tent was dirty; gray or brown in color, with edges frayed. They were not going to last through the winter, nor would they be enough protection from the cold. There were fewer of them now than when I had first laid my eyes on them, but not by much. Only a few hundred people had a sturdy roof over their heads. No wonder the people weren’t happy about me prioritizing the immigrants. It was a sunny day, so people had placed their clothes on top of tents to dry. Large spots of mold were visible on them.

I sighed. It couldn’t keep going on like that.

I found Baldov in the castle.

“Minister, wind down all the work in the industrial district, except for the critical work.”

His eyes widened.

“But the crossbows?”

“Will wait until the harvest is done. Focus on it and the housing first.”

I would have to somehow appease Laira.

The next day, I rode through fields of gold, stalks hunched forward from the weight of heavy seed-laden tops. A dozen farmers were swinging their scythes in large arcs.

The harvest had arrived.

I looked back towards the industrial district.

The sky above, that used to be slightly dark from the smoke rising from all the furnaces and forges, was as clear as still water. Only Aramid and Kovar’s workshops were running, building guns and cannons.

While checking up on the state of my nascent country, I still had to meet with the Council every day.

After a few more days of going back and forth, we finally agreed on a tentative Constitution.

After hours spent on the deliberation, I cracked my back, leaning back in my chair.

“Sire, was it necessary to add that law about national secrets and all those punishments?” Elder Erickson asked.

I turned to him.

“Yes. When the Council has people who don’t serve for life, it’s not optional.”

His lips thinned.

He obviously wanted to say That’s why you don’t include them, but he wisely kept his mouth shut.

“Speaking of secrets, it’s time to disclose some,” I said to him.

“What?”

“Let’s show some to the new Councilors. Every one of them is trustworthy, right?”

“I… I suppose. But what if they gossip?”

“That’s the risk we have to take. If the new government is truly for the people, some of them must be entrusted with its secrets. Otherwise, the People’s Council fails to live up to its name. They need to know our capabilities before they can make any decision in my absence.”

He sighed loudly.

“If… if you think it’s the right decision.”

I arranged for a demonstration and took everyone to the interior of the valley the next day.

It was a foggy morning, with a thin mist hovering above the valley floor.

As Lothar and I tied our horses to posts, the Councilors got out of their carriages, looking around nervously. Three covered wagons stood apart from each other in front of us, each surrounded by four soldiers.

Benno approached us.

“Everything is ready, Sire.”

Nodding, I turned to the elected Councilors.

“I am about to show you one of the biggest secrets of our nation. Your authority comes from the people’s trust in you. Now I am extending mine. Please do not break it. What you see here does not leave this place.”

The ten men and women nodded silently.

On my signal, Benno said out loud. “Reveal!”

The men swept the covers off the three field cannons. Gleaming bronze caught the morning light.

“Cannon one, ready!” he shouted.

One of the men unscrewed the breech, while another brought a brass cartridge forward.

Another stepped back and blew on his slow match.

A fourth one took the long cleaning rod and pushed it through the now open tube, scrubbing the inside clean.

As he stepped aside, the soldier carrying the cartridge pushed it inside.

The one holding the breech screw put it back in, while the third man punched a hole into the powder bag with a long spike, through the aligned holes of the cannon and cartridge, then shoved a fuse through it.

The crew commander, holding the slow match, approached, made sure the cannon was pointing correctly and gave the match to his number two.

“Fire!”

They cleared the cannon’s behind and the Number Two lit the fuse.

Nothing happened for a few seconds.

Then, the air rocked with an explosion.

A cloud of gray smoke billowed outwards from the cannon, which had rolled back several feet.

Downrange, dirt exploded from the already pockmarked hillside.

The Councilors stared.

“Cannon two, ready!” Benno shouted.

The second team went through the same motions. A bit more sloppy in their execution, but not too bad.

Another hit.

“Cannon three, ready!”

It fired close to its target as well.

But, I wasn’t smiling.

While the first team was working together like clockwork, the third one had acted like drunks, stumbling into each other. And these were simple, direct shots at targets only a few hundred meters away. We hadn’t even gotten to long-range indirect fire yet.

Granted, the men had had the cannon for only a few days.

“I assembled the team only five days ago,” Benno said cautiously.

“It’s fine. I know you will do your best. Just try not to use up the entire powder store in the process of training. We don’t have much.”

He nodded sharply. “I won’t.”

When I turned back, the elected Councilors were frozen, their jaws still open.

“The new defender of Chadom,” I said. “No amount of armor or training can save a man from it. Once our men get some more training with it.”

They remained too stunned to reply for a few more moments.

Then the questions came.

How many could we build?

How far could they fire?

I smiled.

Finally there was a government I could entrust Chadom with.

Lothar and I rode back together after the Councilors had departed on the carriages. My guards rode at a distance.

“I am left astounded every time I see them,” Lothar said to me as our horses trotted back to Cradle under the sun. “Is your world full of such weapons?” he asked in a hushed tone.

I looked around. The guards were far enough that they couldn’t hear us.

“Yes,” I replied. “Even more dangerous ones. Although we are approaching the limit of what we can make.”

“Dare I ask why?”

“I don’t know advanced metallurgy, and hydraulic systems aren’t easy to make.”

I gave him a side eye.

The man didn’t ask me about my world often, because that always ended up in me asking questions about his past, which he did not want to reveal.

“You sure you don’t want to come with us to Nobhart?” I asked him. “You would get to see your family.”

He immediately stiffened.

“No.”

“Why?”

“I couldn’t face them.”

He stared ahead.

“I… I don’t know if I could keep my composure. Maybe some other time.”

I waited a while to let him think on it.

“What am I supposed to tell them?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Eirica?”

His eyes hardened.

“Same.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“What if she finds herself attracted to the man who now inhabits her former lover’s body?”

He shot me an irritated glance.

“Stop goading me. It’s not going to work.”

Then his expression hardened further.

“And don’t play with her. You’ve got plenty of women already. It’s not like you could marry her.”

“Hmmm…”

“What?” he asked testily.

“I am actually planning on getting the Church’s permission to let me practice polygamy, so I can marry Aprilia.”

He suddenly became pensive.

“Huh. The Church does allow it, doesn’t it? It makes sense in your situation.”

I looked at him in confusion. His demeanor had just flipped.

“It’s not a terrible idea, then,” he said after a while.

“What?” I said out loud, my eyes wide in shock.

“You are a thousand times better than that prick Eirica was forced to marry.”

He looked into my eyes.

“You have my blessing to pursue her.”

“You—you’re actually fine with me marrying her?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why not? After all, you’ll be touching her with my body,” he said in a slimy voice that made me shiver in disgust. “Any children you have with her and every other woman will also be mine. Even the future king of Nahnon is going to be my child! Good job, Messiah!”

“Ugh,” I retched in disgust. Unlike my bride-to-be, I was not a cuckold.

I didn’t know if ‘Lothar’ was serious or not, or trying to deflect, and I didn’t dare discuss it.

Then an idea came to me.

“You know,” I said slowly, “a marriage between a high-ranking officer of Chadom and a Nahnoan noblewoman would strengthen the alliance between our realms even further. It would be a good match.”

His smile disappeared.

“No,” he answered immediately.

“But you get to be with the woman you love!”

He shook his head.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

There was something behind that refusal.

Something the bastard didn’t want to share.

“Are you going to ever tell me?”

“Maybe. It doesn’t affect you or Chadom in any way, so please back off.”

I kept staring.

He didn’t budge.

Finally, I let it go with a sigh.

“Fine. Suit yourself.”