Herald of Steel

Following Alexander's 'rejection', the angelically beautiful lady decided to disregard everything around her and began to vent her anger in the most vocal way possible, and thus soon enraged shouts began to drift out of her room.

This was considered very rude in Sybarian culture, as it was expected the occupants of the rooms, both men and women should keep their business confined within the four walls.

Plus, like many other things of the time, women were expected to be especially quiet, always soft-spoken, and never raising their voices, lest they be labeled as shrews.

But Miss Linda could not care any less about that right now.

So much so that the guards posted outside heard the enormous disturbance and started to wonder if they should go in and check what the heck this was all about.

But stopped at the last second as they recalled their very clear order- guard the door and ignore everything else.

This proved to be a prudent decision given Miss Linda was still without any clothes, and madly dashing around the room breaking, smashing, and knocking everything in sight- glass pieces, ink bottles, candle stands, drink jars, wine goblets, you name it.

Her bloodshot eyes made it seem like she had gone mad and by the time was she done, for she eventually did tire herself out, the entire place looked like it had been hit by a tornado.

In fact, that tidal wave that had hit Caira four years ago might have done less damage to her room than what she had currently done.

But the furious lady did at long last run out of steam and as the lady calmed down, she swore to the gods-

No matter what it took, no matter what happened next, she would have Alexander, regardless of whether he consented or not.

Or in simpler terms, Miss Linda vowed to force herself on Alexander… which was quite the departure from how traditionally these things went.

But it seemed that Miss Linda had by now become obsessed with the man.

No longer did she care for the original reason why she wanted to sleep with Alexander, which was initially to frame him as assaulting her and use that excuse to kill him.

But instead, now, she looked to only satisfy her own ego.

She wanted to have Alexander just to prove to him that she was irresistible- that nobody could deny her.

Because up until now she had to do little more than curl her finger and smile at them, and the 'dogs' would come wagging their tails.

But here, despite having gone to such lengths, she still failed.

This was unacceptable.

And thus with the promise to fix this and set the record straight, Miss Linda got to plotting- trying to come up with various kinds of stunts that she could pull to get the man when the next round of negotiations came.

One of which was posing that she would only agree to hand the family over to the Lady Miranda if Alexander slept with her and could fully satisfy her… among other such demands.

And while Miss Linda thought of these, she also began to look forward to what the family's elders had to say regarding the current developments, and whether they were truly in favor of her elder sister.

Something which, after calming down a bit and thinking for a while, the lady found highly dubious.

Because it was plain to see if the family were to be turned over to Lady Miranda, the de-factor ruler of the place would really be Alexander.

And although the old elders might greatly value their lives, even that had their limits.

Alexander's proposition in its current state would still be hard to swallow for them no matter what.

Now, some might say, well isn't siding with Miss Linda the same, with just the label changed?

Just the Heeat family instead of Alexander?

Well, yes and no.

Yes, in the sense that the Margraves were destined to become fossilized under a power, meaning the conflict was not about 'independence'- as in fighting Miss Linda, who had the backing of the evil Heeat family who wanted to puppet the entire fiefdom, against Lady Miranda, who stood as the lone bulwark for freedom, equality, and fraternity.

No, if Lady Miranda won, her family would be effectively under Alexander's thumb.

And if Miss Linda won, it would be the Heeat family.

So the conflict was more like which master they got to be under.

And this is where the 'no' in the argument came in, as most Margraves wanted to actually choose the Heeat family, but were prevented from doing so by the 'official head' of the family, who wanted it to be Alexander.

This however to the rest of the family made no sense.

Because the Heeat family was a ducal family from their own country, and could readily provide all that they needed- which was a voice in the confederation council and a deal promising safe passage for their trading ship through the popular maritime routes.

Something that Alexander of course could not.

Nevertheless, it seemed that the man wanted to forcefully make the family comply by using pre-existing agreements and promises as an excuse and military force as a method.

And when it was said aloud like this, it became little wonder why Margraves were so much resistant towards Alexander.

From a third party's neutral assessment, it was Alexander who was largely in the wrong here.

This was a statement that could also be backed up by evidence, as judged from the current developments, which were not admittedly not going according to plan- despite their capture, the Margraves elders were still resisting Alexander's coercive tactics.

If on the other hand, the Pasha had been from another ducal family, say the Kaiser family, they would have likely capitulated long, long ago, but Alexander's inability to provide them with the solution they truly needed, i.e.- free and safe trade routes,as well as his identity simply proved too difficult for these old coots to overcome.

They saw him as being from another country and thus a total stranger to them.

Not only that, he was even a stranger in the country he was from, as his birthplace, background, and upbringing were less than savory to say the least, a slave mercenary from an unknown land, thus making him seem less reliable even in the regular Margraves family member's eyes.

All these reasons worked to make the elders who represented the family feel very apprehensive about the man,

These were all the reasons why despite Alexander's heavy weight, the Margraves were usually cold toward him.

Typically if someone you did almost a billion ropals worth of trade with came to visit, you would be much more welcoming.

But despite Alexander's massive economic weight and his forceful arm twisting, the elders remained surprisingly stubborn, refusing to nominate his candidate.

The simple fact of the matter was that it just made no logical sense for them to choose him over Lord Parker- economically or culturally.

And Alexander lacked the forces to overturn this discrepancy militarily.

Miss Linda would get to understand all these over the few days as she held several councils with the elders while pretending to consider Alexander's offer the entire time.

The conclusion they would come to is that they should currently stall and hang on tight, putting all their faith in Lord Parker.

That with his numerically vastly superior army, the man would be able to soon break through Alexander's lines.

While Alexander, although half suspected this, decided to nevertheless play along, he too playing for time, playing for Lord Janus's reinforcements to arrive.

Thus the talks between the two sides continued even though it was basically drool at this point, an utter exercise in futility, each trying to advance his own agenda.

While back in Lord Parker's camp, they too were plotting on how to break the deadlock.

With the center character of that endeavor being Lord Bernard.

The stunning man would be eventually able to make his peeved boss understand that it would take much longer than one day to cordon off all the sections of the underground water system, and many more to dig new tunnels towards the sea and flood the channels with undrinkable saltwater.

Something which Lord Parker, after being shown the site and the amount of work that would be required to be done, reluctantly agreed.

Although this was also here the jealous Achillas decided to put his hand in, whispering to his lord,

"My lord, cutting off the food was okay, but cutting off the water too… won't my lady and young master be affected too?"

In this way, he subtly tried to stop the works, just to spite his rival, to stop him from getting the credit.

"...."

Lord Parker had of course discussed this issue with Lord Bernard too, and that man's opinion was that the siege would never go for so long.

He confidently swore that once Alexander realized he had no water, he would kneel within the first day, saying,

"Alexander is not going to risk his and his 5,000 men's lives just for Lady Linda and Master Quentin. Especially not when we will swear to spare him and all his men's lives. He is a smart man."

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