Herald of Steel

Alexander and the couple cleverly skipped mentioning the fact that Miss Linda and her son might very well have had the support of the former lord of the family at laying claim to the family's seat.

Which would then make Miss Linda's son Quentin the rightful successor to the family and that Lady Miranda and Alexander were the usurpers.

However, that narrative was too inconvenient for the latter.

They dare not say it.

And Alexander breathed a sigh of relief that there was no concrete will written by Lord Margraves about it.

Or else the game might have been already over.

But although Alexander managed to dodge that bullet, both he and Lady Miranda tacitly also understood that the entire family was against them and that the higher ups were much more likely to support Miss Linda than Lady Miranda.

A realization that made Alexander's headache a bit as he lightly cursed how Lady Miranda left herself to be left in the dark about such an important plot.

Alexander was not in a good situation.

Even the honeyed tongue he wished to rely on the negotiations did not seem likely to succeed here. Because Lady Miranda's and Miss Linda's power difference was too much.

And it made Alexander half lampooned the sheer nakedness of his allies, sighing to himself, "Her military is gone. Her family is gone. And even her money is gone. What is there left?"

Alexander was frankly astounded how Lady Miranda was able to lose all three pillars of power without her even noticing- the armed forces, the nobles, and the economy- all three swiped off her feet with her being none the wiser.

The old lord had been a shrewd one.

Or perhaps tricking the trusting and naive Lady Miranda did not take much effort.

She was after all only a twenty five year old girl and was just starting to learn about the family's affairs.

And even if she was not, even if she had been vigilant, why would she have distrusted her grandfather? He was the one who put her in the chair in the first place!

It was a deadly ploy that Alexander would admit even he could not have seen if he had been an inexperienced twenty five years old.

So he felt it would be unfair on Lady Miranda to be too harsh on her.

Which is why he decided to break the long, uncomfortable pause with a light, jovial smile and a gentle clap of his hand, "Well, whatever the former honorable lord was planning, at least the worst of it did not come to fruition. The gods work in mysterious ways I guess. This is evidence that you are favored, my lady!"

Lady Miranda was unsure how to feel about Alexander addressing her grandfather as 'honorable' given what he had just tried to do, thus giving Alexander a complicated look.

But her heart did not dislike it.

Perhaps it was the nostalgia, perhaps it was all the shared memories or perhaps it was the thick blood of kinship that dulled the pain of betrayal.

Or perhaps it was more because the old man had not gotten the chance to betray her.

Lady Miranda found it to be mostly the last one.

Because that single thought felt most comforting to her heart, her heart light and relieved that Lord Margraves died when he did.

She did not need to rise up in rebellion against him.

"*Nod*" Lady Miranda thus gave an appreciative light bow, not thanking Alexander directly because that would have made it like Alexander was congratulating Lady Miranda about her grandfather's death.

Thus she then quickly attempted to change the topic, promising, "I will be sure to try and find out about Lord Parker's real identity. Although I have a feeling we know it already."

The fact that the scion of Duke Heeat was in her territory yet she was kept completely in the dark about it left Lady Miranda both aggrieved and angry.

Which showed as turning away from Alexander, Lady Miranda's eyes suddenly became sharp like a phoenix's, before they swerved to gaze at her husband with an eagle stalking a mouse, "I also want to know why Uncle Nolan lied about this to me. Why did he claim Parker Heeat was an illegitimate son? You are to find out!"

As it could be easily guessed from the wording, Lord Nolan was Lord Cassius's father- the one who was sick… allegedly.

And it seemed it was he who had introduced the Heeat family's successor to Lady Miranda.

"Ye… Yes… of course. I will do it right away." While Lord Cassius, facing an infuriated wife the likes of which he had never seen before, was on his tiptoes to comply.

Although the tactless man also could not help but comment at the end, "But Miranda, I think it is best that we do not jump to conclusions. All of this was just conjecture. Sure it might look bad for Father, but I guarantee you he had nothing to do with this. There has to be another explanation."

But Lord Cassius's impassioned cry to maintain a level headedness was only venomously spat at by Lady Miranda, who barked with spite,

"I spit at your guarantee, Camius. Know that if Lord Nolan was in cahoots like grandfather and if he was the one who let those 10,000 men land to try and remove me, I will have him…."

The index finger that Lady Miranda was pointing with to make that threat visibly shook when she reached the end of her sentence, her lips only coming to a quivering stop at the last moment.

She did not think it would be prudent to say that work.

'Exceuted. You meant to say executed.' So Alexander finished it instead, inside his mind of course, as he enjoyed watching how pale Lord Cassius became upon hearing it.

He had never seen a man in this time period who sat up and down at his wife's words like he did.

A truly rare species indeed.

With Lady Miranda's mood turning from depressed and laconic to furious at being deceived by her entire family, Alexander contemplated whether to end the meeting there.

But thought better of it.

There were still things he needed to know, and if Lady Miranda was rude to him, Alexander did not mind taking his ships and turning around this very day.

Thus, after having got to know the political and military capabilities of Lady Miranda, which were basically nil, Alexander had one last thing to confirm, "Lady Lady Miranda, how much money do you currently have? Like exactly how much?"

how much money do you currently have? Like exactly how much?"

"....." To Lady Miranda, this question at first sounded like an invasion of privacy.

Kind of like how it feels when someone asks your salary.

But she also understood since she confessed to having money troubles, she needed to reveal the extent.

So in a slightly muted voice, Lady Miranda revealed, "Our treasury is touching almost the dregs. We have a few million Paysas at most. With this, we will be able to at best support ourselves for the next two to three months."

Paysas was the second largest Sybarian coinage, being almost equivalent to 3 to 4 times the Adhanian ropal- the exact number varying slightly depending on the mint it was produced in.

This was because the purity of the silver used in these coins differed slightly from region to region from where it was extracted and refined. So each mint had a unique sign to denote which region the coin was made in.

Also, unlike Adhania with its byzantine array of coins and currency, with almost every Tom, Dick, and Harry able to issue his own coin, Sybarsis had only one set of currency- which contained 10 coins of various denominations, all related to each other in a fixed amount.

These coins could only be issued by the council and not even the dukes could violate it.

In fact, one of the only ways to lose one's seat in the Confederation Council was by mining one's own coin, such was the strict penalty.

This was because being a mercantile nation, money and coin was Sybarsis's most potent weapon, both its sword and shield.

And no way was it going to share it with anyone, not even the dukes.

It was something that was decided almost since the country's inception- that the country must have only one currency, to be able to facilitate smoother trade and prevent any single one from trying to manipulate it.

Anyway, coming back to the topic, Lady Miranda's quoted number claimed that she only had around 15 to 20 million ropals left.

"That low! How?" Hearing which Alexander could not help but let out a surprised scream of incredulity.

This number was much, much lower than he had expected.

Because Alexander himself earned twice that amount every single week!

And given a majority of those sales were to Lady Miranda, he expected that she would be taking a similar amount of it too, via 're-exporting' those goods.

Thus according to Alexander, even if a lot of the goods were lost to the pirates, Lady Miranda should still have a healthy balance, and it even made him want to go check the Margrave family's treasury for himself to verify the claim.