Chapter 528 — Another Deal

It was an enormous expense.

But it was worth it.

Victoria studied the one-handed sword in her grip—a gift from Gao Yang after the contract had been formally signed. It was nearly identical to every blade she had seen at the side of a Cecil soldier; the only difference was that the Cecil family crest had been scraped from the hilt and replaced with the crest of House Wilder of the North.

It was excellent work, with stern lines and scrupulous engraving, its surface all but free of flaws. As a mass-produced piece of equipment it was finer even than the weapons carried by the royal knights, and here were thousands upon thousands of swords identical to it, every one of them without the slightest deviation.

That sense of uniformity gave Victoria a feeling of "power."

These could not be the finest weapons Cecil had, for no one but a fool would haul out his most guarded reserves for coin unless he had no other choice—but they were at least better than what the royal army now carried, and that was enough.

Watching the Northern Duchess stand there lost in thought over the sword in her hands, Gao Yang found memories surfacing unbidden in his mind—memories of Gao Yang Cecil—and he thought of Snow Wilder, the first Grand Duke of the North, that powerful mage who on his last visit to the South had talked with Gao Yang Cecil through the whole night.

The system of the Four Duchies had by then been established, and the central kingdom and the four grand duchies were striving together to build Anseth. Yet that Northern Duke had asked a question that seemed strange at the time: what if one day the kingdom's greatest threat was no longer the magic tides beyond, but the guardian dukes of the Four Marches themselves?

Snow Wilder had been devoted to the study of history, above all the aristocratic history of the Gondor Empire, and perhaps he had glimpsed some hidden peril in the Four Duchies system that circumstances had forced upon them. Unfortunately, Gao Yang Cecil of that year had no answer to give him—three days later, Gao Yang Cecil died on the battlefield.

Gao Yang came back to himself, looked at Victoria, and asked, as though casually: "Do you think Anseth's crisis will end when the civil war ends?"

"If we win, it will," Victoria raised her head and spoke as though stating a fact. "Wells Moyne is the rightful heir to the throne. So long as the royal army can defeat the eastern rebels, the nobles of Anseth will inevitably unite again; and so long as the nobles unite again, Anseth will be whole once more, and the crisis will resolve itself."

"...I see," Gao Yan nodded. "Then let us return to the city first."

Victoria blinked, a trace of bewilderment hidden beneath her placid features. She had vaguely sensed a flicker of disappointment in Gao Yang's minute expression, then decided it might have been an illusion. Seeing that he had already set off, she did not press the question, but hurried two steps to the magic-carriage and pointed at it. "Duke Cecil, this thing you call a magic-carriage... do you sell them too?"

Gao Yang halted and glanced at her with some surprise, then smiled faintly. "Sooner or later we will. But not now—we cannot build enough of them yet. Half a year at the earliest. And if you wish to buy one, then once you are back you had best repair the Royal Road first."

Victoria bowed her head deeply. "I will. Roads are the lifeblood of the kingdom. When the snows melt, my first task will be to rebuild the Royal Road."

After returning to the lord's manor, Victoria soon took her leave; she had to go back to the Autumn Palace and reckon precisely how much coin the royal army could now produce to buy arms. Gao Yang did not linger at the manor either. He quickly boarded the magic-carriage waiting at the gate and ordered the attendant driving it to make for the merchants' quarter.

Mechanical vibration rose through the chassis. Sitting inside this magic-carriage, which looked rather ahead of its age, Gao Yun let out a soft breath—and then on the seat beside him a layer of shadow suddenly stirred, and Amber's figure emerged from it.

"That duchess looked like she was bleeding from the purse," Amber said, blinking. Wherever she had been secretly watching from, the creature had clearly been hovering around Gao Yang the whole time. "I bet she's sunk every coin she'd set aside for a dowry into this."

"It is a vast sum. Even if half of it can be offset in goods, it exceeds what the Saint Sunil treasury can bear. Yet Victoria still chose to accept—so she truly hopes this civil war can end quickly, and that the royal army can win quickly."

"Didn't stop you from fleecing her, though," Amber said without missing a beat. "You really went through with it. She's your junior, after all, and by noble standards a decent enough person—and you didn't even knock off a discount."

Gao Yang glanced at Amber and said slowly: "...The royal army cannot save Anseth."

In the hands of the royal army those gold coins could only be fed slowly into the battlefield on the Spirit Plain. Better that they be turned into gears and levers of the magic-industry than let them be consumed to no purpose.

Amber blinked, then stroked her chin. "So what are you going to do now?"

"Go meet another group of people who likewise cannot save Anseth."

The magic-carriage passed through the administrative district of Xuanyao City, through the ring avenue, and soon arrived at the merchants' quarter on the city's western side. Before long it drew up before a tall, newly built structure—

the Cecil Merchants' Hall, a place kept expressly for receiving great merchants and honored guests.

Behind a second-floor window of the building, a young nobleman with short brown hair watched the street quietly. When he saw the magic-carriage approach, he stepped back and moved away from the window.

There were several others in the room, all dressed in fine silk or wool, wearing brooches or carrying mechanical pocket watches. They looked every inch the merchants—but from the extreme wariness and sharpness in their eyes, and the bearing in their every gesture, one could tell at once that they were more than merchants.

One of them saw the brown-haired young man leave the window and rose to ask, "Young master, is something the matter outside?"

"No need to worry. It is him," the brown-haired young man nodded and said gravely. "He has only one attendant with him. He should be up shortly."

The others in the room relaxed somewhat, then followed the brown-haired young man to the door and waited quietly.

Moments later, footsteps sounded...

In the room of the Merchants' Hall, Gao Yang met those special guests.

Over the past three days he had had Victoria and the other visitors from the capital tour the markets, the city streets, every place arranged in advance—and he himself had not been idle. What he had been doing was making contact with these special guests.

The door closed behind him. Gao Yang looked at the brown-haired young man before him and gave a slight nod. "Marquis Belk, it seems you have followed my advice and not wandered about."

The brown-haired young man—Belk Loren, eldest son of Silas Loren, Duke of the East—bent at the waist and saluted Gao Yang as a junior would, and the others saluted as well. Afterward this young man, barely past twenty yet already of the mid-tier, could not help saying, "It is not comfortable, staying cooped up in a room."

"Leaving the room would be far more troublesome," Gao Yang said, taking a seat with Amber on the sofa at the center of the room and looking at Belk Loren, who had likewise seated himself. "The heir of the Duke of the East appearing in Xuanyao City is hardly a good signal—and I am sure Victoria would be delighted to use the occasion to make Silas Loren lose his beloved son. You could not beat her in a fight."