Necromancer: Kingdom Building with My Legion of Undead Knights-Chapter 42: The Negotiation

Knights led them through the streets of Valdenmoor.

Darion tried to look like he wasn’t staring at everything, while his knights did the exact opposite, looking like they were in some fairy land.

Garren on the other hand stared at it all similarly to Darion.

The roads were paved properly. Not just patched up enough to get by, they were actually maintained.

The stones sat level. The edges were clean. The buildings along the main street were in good shape, and people were using them.

Shops were open. People walked around with that easy way you move when you’re not hungry, when you haven’t been hungry for a while.

A blacksmith was working somewhere, the ring of his hammer carrying down the street. Market stalls had actual variety, not just one sad pile of bread with a guy standing guard over it. Multiple stalls, multiple things for sale.

He kept his face blank and just took it all in.

Finally they arrived at the castle, which was big but not ridiculous. It was solid stone, the mortar in good shape.

A place someone had been taking care of steadily instead of fixing things only when they broke.

The great hall they took him into was warm: a fire burning, the floor swept, the whole room clean and usable.

King Aldric was already there.

He was a broad man, dressed plain and grey at the temples. His face seemed to have this look of a rich king who was slightly proud.

He stood up when they came in and looked at Darion the way older men look at younger ones, sizing him up, not ready to make up his mind yet.

"Baron Darion," he said.

"King Aldric." Darion matched his tone. "Thanks for seeing us."

"I didn’t expect you’d come," the older man said.

They sat across from each other at the table. Garren next to Darion. Some aide standing behind Aldric’s right shoulder. Aldric didn’t bother with small talk. He just looked at Darion like he was waiting for him to start.

So Darion started.

He kept it simple.

He had been Baron for less than two weeks. When he got there, the barony had no food, no money, a hundred and twenty-one starving knights, farmland that hadn’t been worked in years, and a debt he had nothing to do with.

The fourteen thousand gold was borrowed by a dead man, spent by a dead man, and ignored by a string of dead men. He got the mess, not the choices that made it.

In the two weeks since, he had gotten food back in the barony through hunting, started rebuilding the knights, and begun working on getting the eastern farmland going again. Things were moving up, and he could prove it.

He wasn’t asking to cancel the debt. He was asking for six months, enough time to show that Percvale under him was different. After six months, they could talk about a real repayment plan.

He finished and waited.

King Aldric hadn’t moved while he talked. The man didn’t interrupt or do any of those little things people do when they’re just waiting for their turn to speak. He sat there after Darion finished, hands flat on the table.

Then he said: "No."

What?

Darion didn’t let his face change.

"What you’re saying makes sense," Aldric said, and he sounded like he meant it. "You didn’t borrow the money. You didn’t waste it. You’ve might have even done more in two weeks than the last few Barons did in years, from what I hear. I’m not arguing with any of that."

He paused.

"But the debt belongs to Percvale, not to you. My father lent that money to the barony in good faith. The barony took it. The barony owes it. You’re sitting in the Baron’s chair, which means the obligation is yours, no matter how you ended up there." He looked straight at Darion. "That’s just how it works."

"Six months costs you nothing," Darion said. "The eastern farmland isn’t producing anything right now. Taking it gets you land you’d have to fix up yourself. Give me six months and I’ll start paying you actual money instead."

"Taking the land gets me something I know I have," Aldric said. "Your argument is solid. But you’ve been Baron for two weeks, and Percvale has spent thirty years breaking promises. I have no way to know if you’ll still be Baron in six months. Or if Percvale will actually be able to pay. Or if I’ll be sitting here having the same conversation with whoever comes after you."

He said it without any meanness, which somehow made it worse. He wasn’t trying to hurt Darion’s feelings. He was just laying out the math.

"I’ve been patient. I’m out of patience."

"Then tell me what would change your answer," Darion said.

Aldric thought about it for a second. It was the first moment that felt like there might be somewhere to go.

Then: "Fourteen thousand gold in the next thirty days."

He stood up. That was it.

"I’ll have the transfer documents ready so the process is smooth when the time comes. Safe ride back, Baron Darion."

Darion was seriously disappointed but he tried to hold it in. He said nothing as left the castle with Garren and his knights.

They rode out through Valdenmoor’s gates and onto the road.

None of them said anything.

The landscape went by: the good farmland, the working mill, the maintained road slowly turning back into cracked, uneven ground as they got closer to Percvale. The afternoon light was flat and gray. Their breath puffed out in little clouds.

Garren finally broke the silence.

"He wasn’t wrong," he said. "About the track record."

"No," Darion said. "He wasn’t."

More road and more quiet. They were faster this time actually than when they headed for Valdenmoor.

"What are you thinking?" Garren asked.

Darion had been thinking since they left the great hall. He had been thinking the whole ride out of Valdenmoor and the first mile after. He had arrived somewhere that wasn’t fully clear yet but was starting to take shape.

"Tell me everything Valdenmoor has ever done to Percvale," he said. "Not just the debt. Everything. As far back as you know."

Garren looked at him.

"Why?"

The walls of Percvale showed up on the horizon. Gray and a little uneven against the sky, the same as always.

"Because I want the full picture," Darion said, "Before I decide what I’m going to do about this."