Necromancer: Kingdom Building with My Legion of Undead Knights-Chapter 40: Letter

Darion read the letter again.

The language was still formal and courteous the second time. It didn’t improve on closer inspection.

He folded it and held it out to Garren, who took it.

The man had been expecting something like this, more like dreading it. He knew a day like this would come, where one of the kingdoms who lended them money would ask for it back.

What he had not expected was that it would be so soon.

"Valdenmoor," Darion said. "Tell me about them."

Garren read through the letter once, folded it back along its creases, and handed it back.

"Valdenmoor is the largest territory within two days’ ride of here," he said. "Their leader calls himself King Aldric the Second, though that title isn’t recognized by the Emperor or anyone with the authority to grant it formally. He declared it himself about fifteen years ago and nobody in this region had the strength to tell him otherwise, so it stuck."

He paused.

"In practice, recognized or not, the title fits. He commands somewhere between three and four thousand knights. His territory is well-resourced, they have mines in the northern section, farmland that was never touched by the invasions, trade routes that have been running profitably for decades. They are not struggling."

Darion looked at the letter in his hand.

"And the previous Baron went to them for money."

"The previous Baron before last, actually. The debt is older than it looks. It was borrowed during the period after the Varrel invasion, when Percvale was trying to rebuild and had nothing to rebuild with. Fourteen thousand gold at the time felt like a lifeline." Garren’s expression didn’t change.

"It was never paid back. Not a single installment. Every Baron since has either ignored it, promised to address it later, or died before doing anything about it. The debt has been sitting there, being ignored for long enough."

"And now someone in Valdenmoor has decided to stop ignoring it."

"King Aldric’s father was the one who made the original loan. Aldric inherited the ledger along with everything else when the old man died. From what I understand he’s been patient about it for years, more patient than most would have been, but patience has a limit and apparently thirty days is where his runs out."

Darion set the letter down on the table.

He thought about the eastern farmland. Currently it was barren and unproductive and had been for years, but it was still land: Percvale’s land, the ground that had once fed the barony and would again if he could get it working.

Handing it over to settle a debt that predated his involvement by decades was not something he was willing to accept as inevitable.

"What are our options," he said.

Garren was quiet for a moment in the way he was quiet when he was deciding how honest to be.

"Realistically? Two. We pay or we negotiate." He paused. "We cannot pay. That leaves negotiation."

"And if negotiation fails?" Darion asked.

"Then Valdenmoor sends four thousand knights and takes the farmland anyway, and we watch them do it because sending a hundred and fifteen against four thousand is not a battle, it’s a burial." Garren was being as honest as he could be.

"I have watched this barony go to war when it shouldn’t have. I watched what that produced. I will not advise you to repeat it, m’lord, not at our current strength."

Darion stood and walked to the window. The courtyard below was quiet, a few knights moving through their morning routine, the cook crossing from the kitchen building, a horse standing at the stable door in the cold.

He understood the arithmetic. He didn’t like it but he understood it.

"You think I should go myself," he said. It wasn’t quite a question.

"I think sending a letter in return achieves nothing. Aldric has already made his position clear in writing. What changes the position of a man like that is sitting across from the person he’s dealing with and being made to engage with them as a reality rather than a line item in an old ledger." Garren paused. "You are young. You are new. You inherited this situation. Those are facts that read differently in person than they do on paper."

"Or he sees a young new Baron with a crumbling barony and decides the thirty days was generous," Darion said.

"That is also possible," Garren said honestly. "But it is still the better option than the alternatives."

Darion turned from the window.

He had known since reading the letter the first time that this was where it was going. The logic was clear enough, you couldn’t solve this from a distance, and you couldn’t solve it with force, which meant you had to go and sit in front of the man and make your case in person and hope that the case was good enough.

He didn’t love it.

Going to another man’s house to ask for patience was not a position he had any interest in, but the position he had interest in and the position he was actually in were different things and had been since the prison cart.

"How long is the ride?"

"Half a day. We could leave tomorrow morning, arrive by midday, and return the same evening if the meeting goes quickly."

"And if it doesn’t go quickly?"

"Then we stay the night and return the following morning."

Darion nodded slowly.

"All right." He picked up the letter and set it on the shelf beside the fireplace. "Just the two of us?"

Garren considered that. "A small escort would be appropriate. Two or three knights, enough to indicate you travel as a Baron rather than a petitioner, not so many that it reads as a provocation."

"Fine. Three knights, your choice on who." Darion moved toward the door. "We leave at first light."

He was already thinking about what he was going to say when he got there, and more importantly, what he was going to do if saying it didn’t work.