Herald of Steel

At Lady Parthia's suggestion, Alexander was quick to nod to show his support.

"Yes. Lady Parthia speaks words of wisdom. We should try our best to make Miss Linda comply. Once she abdicates, and Lady Miranda is claimed as the family's head by the elders, we can then slowly sit down with the Heeat family and come up with a suitable compromise." The man was quite expectant of the results, and ended the proposal with,

"Perhaps we can even agree to let Qunetin take over the family once he comes of age."

Alexander slanted his eyes toward Lady Miranda as he finished, hoping to see a favorable reaction from the lady.

They had discussed this exact plan before, but before they were too 'poor' to afford it.

But now that they had much more valuable chips, it made Alexander a lot more hopeful about its success.

"That won't work!" Lady Miranda however did not seem at all interested and curtly rejected it saying, "You do not know Linda. She will not back down! Ever! No amount of promises to the gods and no amount the number of witnesses will be enough to hold her… no matter how sincere she might appear!" The tone used here was filled with absolute certainty, as Lady Miranda then added disdainfully,

"And besides, didn't all those elders already swear to the gods when they promised to make me the matriarch of the family? What good did that do? What credibility do they have to act as witnesses now? They will likely claim Linda to be the matriarch of the family the moment they get the first chance! No thank!"

The lady's voice sounded final and extremely conclusive.

It did not take a genius to see that Miss Linda was thoroughly disappointed in her family and was adamant about not trusting them.

And here her husband too seemed to agree, pointing to the fact, "We already gave Miss Linda a good position in the family before. But was she not grateful?"

Shaking his head, the man answered his own question, as he then finished by stating, "We do not see the point of doing it again. Let us try to find another way."

"....." Alexander would have to give it to the couple, they had a good point.

The elders, who would select the next heir were firmly in Miss Linda's pocket.

So for the following hour, the group went back and forth on what else they could do to let Lady Miranda win the family seat and how to do it.

But ultimately they found themselves circling back to this same thing- trying to use Miss Linda and the elder's captivity to somehow extract some kind of concession from them, and by extension Lord Parker.

This was a non starter for Lady Miranda, who insisted her sister and the elders were all the incarnations of the devil and could never be trusted to keep their word.

So seeing the bullish woman, Alexander decided to put this topic off to the side for the moment, saying, "Okay, let us come back To this later. Just because Miss Linda acted like that before does not mean she will do so again! Let us see what she has to say."

The man was still hopeful that after waking up to her new reality, the scheming lady would be much more amenable to his ways.

Alexander also assumed that Lady Miranda's past acrid interactions with the lady had colored her judgment, and this was the true reason why she was reluctant to make up with her sibling.

Which did have some merit as evidenced by how Miss Linda had objected to Lady Miranda's assassination, pointing to the promise with her grandfather, or killing Alexander as it would hurt her family's prestige.

These were not the acts of a completely amoral person.

But at the same time, the man also forgot to take into account his own biases, which was that his desperate situation might have colored his personal thoughts regarding the optimism about this matter.

It was very possible that Alexander might have seen the plan of forcefully subjugating Miss Linda as truly viable not because it made logical sense, but because he wanted to.

Because he could see no other option.

After all, Lord Parker with his 20,000 strong army was still breathing down Alexander's neck and the pasha honestly felt a slight trepidation thinking what the ducal heir was going to do once he got to know that his wife and son had been kidnapped.

Launch a brutal, suicidal attack on the solid lines to try and break through using brute force in a desperate attempt?

Incite the public even more, this time by using the fire as an excuse, to have them charge blindly against the lines regardless of the consequences?

Or try something else entirely, something that Alexander could even think about.

Alexander was honestly expecting it to be the second option because Lord Parker had done something similar before.

And this time, it was actually Alexander's fault- he did burn down tens of thousands of people's homes, inadvertently or not.

So Alexander assumed that the lord should be feeling very confident about being able to mobilize a large part of the hundred thousand strong populace and use them as volunteer meat shields, soaking up Alexander's hits and overwhelming even the impressive defenses he set up with sheer mass and quantity.

After all, there was only so much 5,000 men could do.

Thus Alexander was still trying his best to be diplomatic, hoping to come to an amicable conclusion, knowing that despite the single, sneaky victory he had just obtained, the huge unbalanced equation still remained.

He was going to need a lot more than one small victory to dig himself out of this hole.

And unfortunately for the man, it seemed Lady Miranda was ready to offer some of her own tools.

She might be doggedly determined to not give even an inch to her sister, and even very openly frowned at Alexander's instance, but she did not argue… for now.

Instead, she turned to give Alexander some surprisingly good news, stating,

"Lord Alexander, given the current developments, I have written to Uncle Janus, asking for his aid. He does not live far away from here, and should be able to respond soon."

This was of course great news, like the news of an impending thunderstorm after a drought, and so Alexander instantly cheered, forming a great grin and nodding,

"Great! Great! If we really have to fight we will need to every man we can find. How many can the great lord provide?"

Alexander in his excitement even addressed the small lord with honorifics, as he subconsciously leaned forward, his eyes twinkling.

It was apparent he was very eager for these men.

And few people could blame him given the mismatch he was facing.

Alexander could welcome even a single more man with open arms, such as his need.

However, the alacrity of his reply had inadvertently revealed a bit too much of his inner thoughts, or more specifically his inner dilemma, as all those around understood not everything was under control as the man in front of them was trying to portray.

Even the relatively verdant Lady Miranda would read this and so putting a fake thoughtful face, revealed with a warm smile, "If I remember correctly, he should be able to come up with 5,000 men!"

She did not want to disappoint her ally.

And fortunately for her, Alexander was too distracted by this large, oh so convenient number to notice an unnatural look on his counterpart as she said this, which at any other time, would have surely raised alarm bells in him.

Because just think about it.

Alexander, as a pasha, had 5,000 men with him.

The Margraves, a family which was comparable to him only had 10,000 standing men.

But now this lady was saying that the lord of a small, relatively young fiefdom would be able to raise 5,000 men at a moment's notice?

Preposterous!

It was such a tall tale that even Lady Nanazin, who knew almost nothing about warfare could sense something was off, and scanned Lady Miranda's placid face closely to try and identify what was it that smelled off.

While the much more experienced Lady Parthia easily spotted the fib, as she was quite experienced in the logistical know how of how a levy worked.

She had worked with her husband many times to issue the order.

She also knew of Lord Janus, Alexander telling the man's identity and his fiefdom before coming to Caira.

And from all that information, Lady Parthia was willing to bet half her fortune that there was no way such a small place would raise 5,000 levies.

The entire fiefdom would collapse before so many young, free, suitable men could be found.

At best it could raise 500, 1,000 if push really came to shove.

Thus at this realization, her lips suddenly began to quiver a bit, as she ruminated on whether to point this out.

But after considering it for a bit, she ultimately chose to keep everything to herself.

It seemed the poor lad really could use the good news, even if it was a lie.

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