NovelNext Chapter 148: Payment for the Soil Singer
Chapter 148: Payment for the Soil Singer
They rode back to the castle in silence.
The farmland sat behind them as they went, the dark soil visible even in the fading light, stretching across the eastern section in a way that still caught him slightly off guard every time he looked at it.
It now looked peak!
Just a few more touches and it would look like a normal and proper farmland.
The dark was still new enough to notice.
Darion dismounted at the gate and handed the reins to one of the stable workers, one of the eleven new ones, a young man who had been doing the job since the recruitment and was already moving around the horses with the calmness of someone who had been doing it much longer.
Seren did the same too.
Then he went to find Garren.
He was at the great hall, reading a book.
"Count out two hundred gold coins for Seren," Darion said to him.
Garren looked at him for a moment. His face didn’t do very much but there was something in the pause that suggested the number had been well noticed.
Two hundred gold was not a small payment.
Still, Garren didn’t question it. He didn’t comment on it. He just went.
Darion sat at the table with Seren and they waited. She had her hands flat on the table and was looking at the wall across from her.
Garren came back with a small cloth that clinked when he set it on the table. He stepped back.
Seren pulled it toward her and opened it and counted. Her lips moved slightly. She got to the end and looked at the pile for a moment, then tied the cloth again.
"Thank you," she said.
She stood, picked up the cloth, and walked up the stairs to her room.
Garren watched her go. Then he looked at Darion.
"She leaves tomorrow morning?" he said.
"No," Darion said.
Garren’s eyebrow moved slightly. "No?"
"She’s staying."
Garren thought about that. "She said so herself?"
"She did."
The older knight nodded slowly, working through it. "She has no obligation pulling her anywhere?"
"She doesn’t have much pulling her anywhere in particular," Darion said. "Percvale has started to feel like a place that fits her. The archers... the people she knows now." He paused. "She doesn’t have many of those."
Garren was quiet for a moment.
"That’s good," he said finally. "She’s been genuinely useful here. Not just the farmland, the archers would not be what they are without her. That matters for what’s coming."
"Yes," Darion agreed.
They sat for a while after that, the two of them at the table. They were no so familiar with each other that Garren felt like Darion’s best friend. They were men who had been making decisions in this room for months and no longer needed preamble to get to the point.
Darion thought about the farmland. The farmers were working. The carpenters were ready to move in once the planting sections were established. The livestock pens needed building. Seeds were in the ground in the early sections. There was a sequence of things to execute and the resources to execute them.
He could start moving on all of it tomorrow.
"We’re not starting the pen construction yet," he said.
Garren looked at him.
"Thandor first," Darion said.
Garren sat back slightly, considering that.
"We’re about to start investing heavily into rebuilding," he said. "Livestock. Infrastructure. Construction projects."
He looked toward the cracked hall around them briefly.
"Before we commit fully, I want to settle things with Thandor properly."
That was the smarter move.
The debt discussion earlier had reassured him somewhat, but reassurance wasn’t certainty.
Percvale was finally stabilizing. The last thing Darion wanted was to pour money into livestock and rebuilding only for political problems to appear immediately afterward.
If Thandor became hostile later, things could become complicated very quickly.
Better to understand their position first.
Garren slowly nodded as the reasoning settled in.
"...That is sensible."
"It’s safer."
"And if things go well?"
"Then we return and continue rebuilding properly."
Livestock purchases alone would consume a considerable amount once they started seriously. The same went for construction work and future military expansion.
Darion wanted clarity before moving further.
Garren rested one hand against the table thoughtfully.
"The farming should continue without issue while we’re gone."
"It will."
"Senior knights should manage it," Darion said. "Two of them, rotating, present on the farmland during working hours." He paused. "The carpenters are on hold until we’re back. No pen construction starts until I’ve had the Thandor conversation and we know where we stand financially."
"That makes sense," Garren said. "Spending heavily on construction before clearing another major debt is the kind of thing that creates problems later."
"Exactly."
Garren stood. "I’ll make sure the senior knights understand their responsibilities before we leave."
"Tell Seren too," Darion said. "She’ll want to know."
Garren nodded.
Things should go as planned.
The senior knights could oversee it easily enough.
The farmers already knew their responsibilities. The farmland work had structure now. Garren himself had organized most of it already.
The carpenters could wait several more days before beginning.
Nothing urgent would collapse in their absence.
"When do we leave?" Garren asked.
"Tomorrow morning."
The older knight nodded once.
"I’ll prepare the horses and select the escort."
Darion exhaled quietly after that.
Thandor. A half-day ride. A Baron who had been young when he lent money to a dying territory out of genuine decency, who had watched the territory fail anyway, who had stopped pressing the debt because pressing a dead barony was pointless, who had been watching from a distance ever since.
That man was going to wake up tomorrow and not know that the Baron of Percvale was getting on a horse and riding to his territory to have a conversation.
He would never have expected that. Darion was certain the man must have dismissed the place to be a Barony for unwise Barons
Darion was looking forward to seeing his face.