Chapter 23 — The Road to the Royal Capital

Those who fled the nightmare of the Cecil domain were fortunate, and yet unfortunate.

Houses ablaze, land corrupted by elemental power, monstrous giants striding out of the chaotic mist, and the kin and friends who died horribly beneath it all—every last thing clung to each escapee like a nightmare. Even safe within Tansang Town, even under the protection of knights and soldiers, fear had not receded from the survivors' hearts for so much as a moment.

For even the soldiers in their armor—few of them had slept soundly these past days.

Many had to numb themselves with drink; the poor wretches who could not even afford to get drunk simply endured their torment. Add to that the fact that, in this age, a refugee landing on another lord's territory could never hope for decent living conditions, and the situation grew all the worse.

Never mind keeping order among the refugees—Sir Philip now found it beyond him even to keep the soldiers in hand and have them report in on schedule each day.

But thankfully, the lord had returned safe, and had brought with her an unexpectedly powerful pillar of support.

Outside Tansang Town, Rebecca looked at the subjects gathered before her: ragged, haggard, worn to the bone. Though Viscount Andrew had indeed seen to their basic shelter and food distribution, the charity nobles of this age gave to commoners was extremely limited; to have kept these people from freezing or starving to death was already a sign of that Viscount's exceptional kindness—far beyond his peers. Rebecca could not ask for more.

And for those who had fled from the Cecil domain, the appearance of their lord was a tonic potent enough.

Commoners of this age had no great awareness or strength of mind, and loyalty to their lord was, truth be told, nothing much to speak of. Though Rebecca could be counted a kind and friendly lord (chiefly because the girl's head did not work well and she had never learned the cunning and greed of her noble peers), she had after all been in her post less than a year, and given how poorly information traveled, many of her subjects did not even know what their lord looked like.

Yet the lord's appearance was still an encouragement. For these poor souls who had lived days of dread, it was enough that someone stood up and declared she would continue to protect them. They cared not who their master was, nor what she looked like; centuries of feudalism had stripped commoners of much of their capacity to think—and had also made them very easy to satisfy. In Gao Yang's view, this was a cohesion founded on ignorance and folly—but it was effective, nonetheless.

Those who had come to see them off were only a small portion; the greater number remained in Tansang Town, tending belongings or working for everyone's food. Rebecca looked at these people and wanted to say a few words, but truly did not know what to say, so she turned to Sir Philip: "These people will still be in your care, knight. Until we return, do your utmost to make sure not one of them is lost."

"By my oath to you!" Philip drew himself up. "I will guard every subject and every last coin of the Cecil family for you!"

"And do not forget the task I gave you," Gao Yang said. "Viscount Andrew will provide what help is needed. Just send out all those with nimble legs and quick wits, and spare no expense—what they are to do is worth far more than money."

"Yes!" the young knight answered loudly, though he could not quite hide his bewilderment. As a man living in a closed-off age and devoted wholly to the martial arts, he found it hard to keep pace with Gao Song's thinking. "But… are those things really so important?"

"Of course they are," Gao Rong said, rising. "Put it small, it is gossip; put it large, it is the effect of public opinion. Never underestimate these formless forces—once everyone begins talking about the same thing, even a king will grow restless."

After the arrangements were made, Gao Yang and Rebecca boarded the carriage Viscount Andrew provided. Traveling with them were Betty the maid, the ever-loyal Sir Byron, the surpassingly skilled thief Amber, and twelve household soldiers. These soldiers could hardly be called hand-picked, for the warriors who had broken out with Sir Philip numbered only a dozen or so in total; add the two who had fled alongside Gao Yang and his party, and the full count came to under twenty. Under such circumstances, scraping together twelve fully equipped soldiers was the last face the Cecil family had left.

The mature and steady Hetty was left behind to hold things together on this side, but this "Aunt Hetty" was plainly rather worried that her niece was about to set out for the royal capital. Standing below the carriage, she clutched Rebecca's hand and admonished her endlessly: "Always remember your station—do not disgrace the Cecil name, but do not clash with the nobles of the capital either; be respectful before the king and do not break the rules; do not go hurling great fireballs at people, the capital is not our backcountry; when you meet something you do not understand, do not rush to answer—consult the Ancestor or Sir Byron, for every word you say will be speculated upon a hundred times over; and above all, above all, obey the Ancestor, especially when dealing with the nobles. You are no good at that sort of thing, but the Ancestor is a Grand Duke—he understands…"

Listening to Hetty's instructions, Gao Yang's heart grew heavy as well, for he truly did not understand…

Nor was he alone in that—the genuine Gao Yang Cecil did not understand either. When that founding hero died, Anshu was still governed by a pack of mud-caked yokels; the court etiquette of those days consisted largely of drinking contests and shouting insults at the king across the throne hall. Surely, seven hundred years later, things could not be the same as they were then…

But to keep his already neurotic great-great-grandniece from flying completely to pieces, he still rested a hand on Hetty's shoulder and gave her a reassuring look: "Rest easy. I understand it all."

And so, beneath Hetty's relieved smile, the carriage bore the utterly ignorant Rebecca and the Gao Yang who only appeared to understand everything onto the great road toward the royal capital.

At the same time, Sir Philip dispatched his people according to the arrangements Gao Yang had made before departing.

These were the sharp-witted folk found among the subjects, and the nimble-legged, glib-tongued sort hired locally in Tansang Town—among them not a few thugs and scoundrels who could be bought for a few coppers. Dealing with such people made the young knight profoundly uncomfortable, and the task he set them made him feel all the more at a loss. All they had to do was set out in every direction, make for every place where people gathered, slip into taverns, into black markets, into the foul hovels of the slums, and then shoot the breeze with the locals.

Ideally, they would also happen to shoot the breeze with any traveling bards they met along the way.

And so, over the following span of time, this sight appeared frequently across the southern lands: dust-stained strangers with outlandish accents turning up in every crowded place, wearing mysterious yet utterly earnest expressions as they recounted more or less the same thing:

"Hey, have you heard? Something's happened to that Cecil family down south! Their domain was destroyed by monsters and a dragon! They say it even stirred the dead beneath the earth—that legendary ancestor of the Cecils clawed his way up out of his coffin… No, you heard right! The one and only Gao Yang Cecil, awake from his long sleep! He must have risen to destroy those monsters…