Chapter 25: The Price of an Alliance

Chapter 25: Chapter 25: The Price of an Alliance

It was still early in the morning and a bell clanged from the western quarter of the city. House Oakwood was no longer a topic of conversation for the merchants of the city. They had other things to worry about these days and nights.

Seris stood behind the long oak desk, a book of ledgers open on the surface in front of her. With one thumb, she pounded down on the last column of numbers.

A few months had passed since the day when nothing like this was even planned. This was the time when her memory and talent tortured her worst. Why?

She set the quill down. "Again."

The clerk swallowed. "Yes, Lady Seris."

"You’re sure? These numbers decide whether we devour the Emberwind business in one full swipe."

"Yes, ma’am, I checked it three times."

"Make it four. I want the number so beaten up that it finally makes some damn sense."

The clerk bent back over the books without a peep.

The sound of creaking wheels and lowing beasts echoed from outside the windows as wagons poured into the compound, all of them emblazoned with the Oakwood sigil, painted over a scratched-out Emberwind symbol.

They dumped piles of goods: rope, bandages, vials of colorless liquid, options for every type of adventurer currently infesting the western quarter.

They had taken everything from them; Allan had made sure of it, so that even when the patriarch of the Emberwind family was freed after three weeks, he had nothing. Absolutely nothing.

As for slavery, however, Seris, Allan, and the House Oakwood management had decided to leave that particular aspect of their "prosperous" past to sleep with the dead.

The clerk looked up at her, his voice trembling. "Ninety-one point six percent of the legitimate supply trade in the western quarter," he repeated.

Seris closed the ledger slowly, with a smile. "That’s going to piss a lot of Emberwind supporters off."

Allan strolled in, a scuff of dust on one of his boots. His attire was the very picture of a work-in-progress; far from finery, he looked like he’d be entirely out of place at the finest banquet in the land, and likely to trip over his own feet should he bother to don such attire.

"What’s going to piss people off?"

She opened the ledger to reveal the calculations he had been presented with previously. He ran his finger down the pages, and a slow smile spread across his face as well.

"You have cornered almost the entire legitimate supply trade in this part of the kingdom."

"Excluding slavery."

"I noticed. Very restrained of you."

"You’re not concerned?"

"Should I be?"

"Of course. Slavery does boost one’s business," she replied.

"I thought you and Lira hated slavery."

"Lira, yes. Me... hmmm. If it helps you, I’ll look the other way."

Allan came close, patting her head. "Seris, dear, I want this business to make you and Lira proud, not force you to look away."

"Hmmm... okay," she replied, looking the other way, hiding her blush and her small but easing smile.

Knock, knock.

There was a knock at the door. "Lord Oakwood, House Emberwind has arrived," said a low, bowing servant, his nose almost touching the ground.

Seris’s face shut down like a vault had slammed behind her eyes, and so did Allan’s.

"Who came?" he asked. "Is that fat cunt back?"

"No, my lord. It’s the heir, my lord."

Seris stood up. "Then let’s go and hear what the shiny boy wants... Whatever he offers, don’t say yes right away."

"You know me. I like a bargain."

"You say that way too easily."

"Your advice usually turns out to be right about thirty seconds after I’ve ignored it."

"And yet you keep ignoring it."

"I’m working on it."

"You’re not."

The three Emberwind knights of the guard, all of them newly outfitted with shining, clean armor, leaned against the stone of the reception hall.

Between them stood a young man in elegant black and silver. His short, dark hair was cut in a very close trim. A signet ring sat on the fourth finger of his right hand.

He watched Allan approach and broke into a very practiced smile.

"Lord Allan Oakwood."

"Cedric, was it? Please." He turned, noting the new furniture and the newly smoothed stone, and greeting the serving staff as if they were old friends.

"The stories didn’t prepare me," he said finally, his expression one of slight confusion. "They said House Oakwood was drowning."

"It was."

"And now?"

"Now it isn’t. Funny how that works, when the culprits are the ones who are drowning."

"Perhaps that’s why my father insisted I come here instead of sending a letter, like a normal person."

They sat. For a long moment, Cedric focused on Seris, a bit mesmerized by her eyes. "And this is?" he asked, his eyes still on hers.

"Seris. My western administrator."

"That sounds considerably more important than a secretary."

"Indeed it is. She’s the heart of my house," said Allan, with no further elaboration.

"I see... I see." He waved his hand as his servant placed a small box in the center of the table and opened it to reveal a rolled piece of paper sealed with a large red wax stamp.

"House Emberwind would like an alliance with Oakwood. A permanent one."

Pause.

Allan wanted to laugh, laugh out loud, but he controlled himself. "What kind?"

"Through marriage, of course."

The word stuck in the air like a brick. Seris’s fingers bunched up at the cuff of her sleeve and pressed flat in a sort of ironing motion.

"Hmmm... you came here for that?"

"Other things as well, Lord Oakwood." Cedric’s polished smile began to falter for a moment, and for a moment he looked as if he were arguing a real point.

"Your roads to the West, my mines, and the border fortifications of Oakwood, combined, would be more than just gold, my lord.

They would be the way that every adventuring party in the land would have to pass through to do business in the entire province.

And as for all that gold they would be making, Arclight has already taken notice of what you’re building here. A single house that controls the supply of food, of medicine, of weapons to the people of this land does not simply profit from the goods that it sells to the adventuring class.

It determines who will be able to buy those things at all. That is not trade. That is a seat at the Big Table, and it would turn this into a binding treaty rather than a temporary peace."

He continued.

"Houses that are only friendly can stop being friendly whenever it suits them," Cedric said. "Houses that share blood have to work a lot harder to become enemies."

The curse mark on Allan’s wrist began to warm under the material of his sleeve, as if he had just been reminded of a promise made under duress. He looked to Seris, the displeasure already obvious in her eyes.

"Hmmm... please don’t tell me I have to marry an eight-year-old child, like all of you do."

"No, it’s... my sister," he said, hesitantly.

Silence.

Then Seris spoke up. "You should have led with that," she said in a flat tone.

Cedric smiled again. "I thought the lord would appreciate the dramatic... suspense," he said.

"Suspense is for people who enjoy waiting. We are not. We are busy people, busy devouring a certain house that thinks it can survive with a simple marriage."

"Seris..." Allan warned.

Cedric only smiled. "It’s okay. A wild one, I see."

Allan picked up the document and it felt heavy. In many ways, the young lord was right. This would be... revolutionary.

The mines would have to be dug, the roads to be built, and the guards hired, but for now he just let it drape from his hand like a laundry list, a wife at the bottom as the price for his endeavors.

[Investment Opportunity Detected.]

[House Emberwind. Potential Return: High.]

Then, smaller, almost embarrassed:

[Risk: Undetermined.]

Even the System didn’t know. Which would have been quite funny, had Seris not been sitting so close and so determined not to look at him.

"You don’t need to answer today, Lord Oakwood," Cedric said, standing up, looking at Seris for the final time.

"Good..." Allan replied, tossing the papers back onto the table.

"I am surprised, Lord Oakwood. I expected hesitation."

"I haven’t met your sister."

"Then perhaps that should be arranged." The man’s smile grew even wider as he sensed the end of the story playing out before him.

"Emberwind will send a formal proposal," Cedric said at the door, still grinning as if he had already won.

Even as the latch was shut behind Cedric’s back, Seris turned to face him, her controlled gaze staring deep into Allan.

"No."

"...I didn’t say yes."

"You were thinking about it. I know."

"I was pricing it. There’s a difference, Seris."

She looked the other way. "Not from where I was sitting."

She didn’t budge. The desk remained between them. Her arms were crossed.

"You know what, your marriage is none of my business," she said in a calm, almost formal tone, her eyes on his. "I do your books. I don’t do you."

"Seris..."

"Four more times," she said, walking to her office. "He said four checks. I should confirm the fourth," she said, sitting down and beginning to work, leaving him be.

It wasn’t a slamming of a door. That would have been easier to handle. Instead, he was given the quiet closing of a door and the soft click of a lock turning somewhere in the house he couldn’t reach.

Allan sighed, a deep sigh, a pressure rising at the back of his head. He was familiar with this.

"Women..."

That evening Lira was on the balcony outside his room. One of her legs was curled under her and she looked up at Allan.

The moonlight spilled down onto her in a lake of silver from above her and ran down her sides as if someone had tipped a bucket of it over her.

"You’re late."

"I had visitors. I thought you would join me and Seris as well."

She smiled, a fake one at that; Allan saw it clearly.

"Lira?" he said slowly, knowing that she already knew. "Seris told you?"

Silence.

He walked out to join her and stood on the other side of the railing, taking in her silence.

"They offered a marriage alliance," he said.

"And?"

"And I haven’t accepted."

"Did you consider it?"

"Every offer of value that helps get House Arclight and me through the winter needs to be looked at. Doesn’t mean I want it, though."

Lira looked at him for a long time. "You know what’s strange?" she said finally, her eyes locked on his. She wasn’t looking at him as if she was hurt by his decision.

She wasn’t looking at him as if she was angry. She looked at him as if she was trying to figure out a lock. She wasn’t sure yet if she was going to pick it or not.

"...And what’s strange is that tonight Seris seemed to get angry with you. She left half her hairpins on my dresser. I only know that because she only leaves half her hairpins at someone’s house when she needs to put her hands to work to keep herself from strangling the person. And unlike Seris, I’m not angry with you."

"That’s... somehow worse."

"Even Bela needs you," she said, and her eyes searched his face for a moment or two. "You’ve built a massive business, a huge network of allies, and the nobility seem to owe you favors.

And you’ve managed to do all of this in a few months.

Not just Bela. Lady Amelia needs you. Seris needs you, even if she’d never admit it to her own face.

But I don’t need you. I never have."

"Is that a threat?" Allan asked incredulously, forgetting to be smooth, but Lira didn’t respond. She continued on in observation,

"I’m trying to figure out if that makes me the one person here you’d actually choose... or the one person here you’d never bother chasing."

"...I don’t know how to answer that without sounding like a ledger entry, though," he said, acknowledging the problem. Which was, everything he said tonight sounded like a ledger entry. Even when it wasn’t.

"Don’t answer that as a lord," Lira said finally, tilting her head slightly. "Answer that as the biggest idiot to have ever walked into this world with nothing and talked his way into everything. All of it."

"Because the reason I want you here is none of your business," he added, keeping his tone rough. "I don’t have a return on that investment, by the way. I just checked."

Dammit, I talked like a ledger again, he thought.

The look on her face changed, but not into triumph. Something more complex, something potentially more dangerous, shifted across her features for a moment.

"Even if Master’s unique skill says I’ve got no potential?"

"...Yes."

No hesitation on his part, no program that she could have discerned.

The girl was right up against him in a flash.

"Allan."

"Hmm?"

"Your mark."

As he watched, the symbol started to glow. It was a slow-burning red pulse that grew in size and became a heavy, real thing.

"What of it? It’s just some tattoos I put on myself."

"No, Allan, I know what it is... I’ve seen this before."