Chapter 304: Viscount Ainsley

The remaining two villages among the six villages submitting applications for merging lay on Viscount Ainsley’s fiefdom land, about half a day’s horse carriage ride West from Lyra city.

This time Kaelen decided to personally accompany. He said that just sitting at the City Hall listening to superficial reports would never truly understand what people were thinking in their heads. Sane completely did not object, he only silently ordered harnessing a decent horse carriage and dispatched an additional four people from the Department of Military Affairs accompanying escorting, Godfrey personally holding the carriage reins.

Along the way, Kaelen poked his head out the carriage window, the more he looked the more he saw a difference.

The road going into the Ainsley family’s territory was properly paved with crushed rocks, both sides had drainage ditches, wherever there was subsidence there were traces of people having just filled it back. The wooden bridges crossing the streams were all still very sturdy, the handrails not missing a single bar. Tenant farmers working in the fields seeing a strange horse carriage passing by looked up, but absolutely no one cowered bowing down or hurriedly slinked away hiding like on the Voss family’s land.

"This man manages his fiefdom land much better than that guy Voss." Kaelen nodded commenting.

"Better then the buying price will be tougher." Sane sat opposite, resting his chin on his hand answering: "A stupid person you only need to threaten one sentence and the job is done. A smart person then you are forced to pay money."

The Ainsley family’s manor was a two-story stone building nestled amidst a neatly trimmed garden. Here there were no god statues cast in glaring gold, nor were there iron gates with cumbersome elaborate patterns, only a row of old ancient trees and a spotlessly clean stone-paved courtyard.

Its owner personally stepped out right to the threshold to welcome the guests.

Viscount Ainsley was about fifty years old, having a skinny figure, his back slightly hunched, walking had to lean on a wooden cane because his left leg was crippled since childhood. He wore a simple moss-green outfit, on his hands still remained ink stains not yet completely washed off, clearly having just sat writing something.

"Greetings to you all. I have been waiting for you for these past few days." He bowed greeting very accurately following etiquette, then looked frankly at Kaelen: "If I am not mistaken then this is exactly Lyra city’s Holy Son."

"You are not mistaken. Greetings to you." Kaelen smiled returning the greeting.

Ainsley invited the entire delegation straight into the study room and not the guest room. The room was packed full of messy books and ledgers, on the table was spread a hand-drawn territory map, beside it was a thick notebook. He personally pulled out chairs inviting the guests to sit, then leaned on his cane walking detouring behind his desk.

Just sitting down, he immediately pulled out a handwritten paper stack placing it onto the tabletop.

"Before we begin discussing business, I ask permission to be honest." He tapped his finger onto the paper stack: "This is a full-text handwritten copy of the Lyra Covenant. I had to spend twelve silver coins hiring someone to stealthily copy it since spring, having read it back and forth probably up to four times already."

Elric sitting beside startled jumping in shock once.

Kaelen only smiled calmly: "How do you feel finishing reading it?"

"Feel scared." Ainsley answered curtly.

He flipped the paper stack open to a pre-marked page: "Your article twenty-seven writes that the Covenant binds all living beings residing or passing through Lyra city, excluding no one. These four words "excluding no one", I had to read up to three times before daring to believe you all wrote truthfully. Because if written truthfully then that law clause binds even your very own selves."

"Exactly so." Kaelen nodded confirming.

"Then hypothetically if one day the Holy Son himself violates the Covenant, then who will be the person stepping forward judging you?"

"The Lyra city Court will be the handling place."

"And you will obediently sit still for people to judge?"

Before Kaelen had time to answer, Sane had lazily spoken up first: "If he refuses to sit still, I will personally tie him up dragging him to the Court with my own hands."

Ainsley looked at Sane, then looked back at Kaelen, ultimately bursting into chuckling laughs. He laughed for a while then shook his head sighing:

"The twelve silver coins I spent hiring to copy this, turned out to be exactly the best bargain I have bought throughout these ten years."

The bargaining started right after that, and it happened much faster than Elric imagined.

Ainsley completely did not beat around the bush speaking reasons about ancestral land or family clan honor. He directly pulled the ledger out, reading fluently every year those two villages paid him how much rent money, deducting the maintenance costs for repairing roads, repairing bridges, raising caretakers then remaining how much profit. Finishing reading he snapped the ledger shut with a thud, speaking bluntly:

"Every year those two villages bring me a profit of about sixty gold coins. I sell you all that rent collection right, selling permanently, for the price thirty times one year, meaning one thousand eight hundred gold coins."

Elric almost sprang up standing. That price was exactly nine times more expensive than the price of Voss’s stream-side strip of land.

"Expensive." Sane said.

"Expensive." Ainsley admitted without a bit of embarrassment: "But you all will still grit your teeth buying, because you completely have no other cheaper choice at all. If you receive those two villages but do not buy the rent collection right, then arriving at the season I dispatch people down demanding rent, the villagers will not dare not to pay. Thus you will have to bring soldiers down blocking the road again. And once Lyra’s soldiers dare to block a Viscount’s people, then the next morning in the Royal Capital people will call that a rebellious act."

The room fell silent for a moment.

Sane tapped his finger onto the chair armrest, slowly answering back: "One thousand two hundred."

"One thousand seven."

"One thousand three, paid fully within ten days, gold counted hand to hand not complicated bills of exchange."

Ainsley narrowed his eyes. He looked at Sane for a long time, then nodded concluding: "One thousand five hundred. And I ask for an additional two conditions completely unrelated to money."

"Speak."

"First, I want to be allowed to buy your goods exactly at the original price, quantity enough to sell at my small market. Soap, fabric, needles and thread, iron tools, anything is fine, every month supplying one carriage trip. I do not ask for free, I will pay money fairly."

"Done." Sane agreed immediately: "But goods sold at your market must be sold exactly at the listed Lyra price. You sell more expensively even just one coin then right the next month the goods carriage will not go down anymore."

Ainsley nodded agreeing: "Reasonable."

"And the second condition?"

The Viscount remained silent for a moment, then finally slowly spoke, his tone having completely lessened the sharp bargaining appearance from earlier:

"I have a nephew, being my younger sister’s son, this year seventeen years old. His parents have both passed away, the family on that side also has completely nothing to rely on. I want to send him over to Lyra, putting him into working some petty runner position inside your City Hall. Doing anything is fine, copying trivial papers is also fine."

Elric frowned slightly. Anyone hearing that also understood what the act of sending family members over laying low inside other people’s apparatus meant.

But Sane actually answered immediately, completely without hesitating taking a single second: "Done. Just let him come over."

Ainsley froze, truly surprised: "Are you not afraid he will return recounting all confidential matters for me to hear?"

"You just let him come over." Sane smirked smiling: "In Lyra there is completely nothing needing to hide at all. Ledgers pasted publicly outside the wall, court sessions opened judging publicly in the middle of the market, you want to know whatever then just dispatch people arriving freely seeing. Only one thing I tell you beforehand, him coming over here then must learn the job from the lowest position going up, writing one word wrong in the ledger will also be punished like everyone else. If he can endure hardship then three years later you will have a nephew knowing how to work. While if he cannot endure it then you feel free welcoming him back, I do not keep him."

Viscount Ainsley looked at him for a really long time. Ultimately he stood up, leaned on his cane walking detouring around the desk, holding out his hand.

The buying and selling paperwork was established right that afternoon. Hollis and Beatrix did not tag along on this trip so Elric had to personally draft it, drafting to wherever Ainsley checked reading to there, occasionally he pointed out a spot with loose wording forcing Elric having to correct it. He nitpicked using sarcastic but extremely reasonable words, to the point ultimately Elric both bowed his head correcting and sweated profusely.

When Ainsley saw the guests off right to the gate, the sky had already leaned into the afternoon.

Ainsley leaned on his cane standing by the steps, silently for a moment then suddenly raised his voice saying:

"Permit me to say one more sentence outside this buying and selling matter."

"Please do." Kaelen answered.

"That monster and heresy matter that the Voss family is being idle going around blabbing everywhere, you all do not need to bother too much for what. In the Royal Capital completely no one has the spare breath believing those nonsense stories anyway." Ainsley spoke slowly: "The thing truly making the Royal Capital keep an eye on you all is another matter. You all brazenly erected a city having a separate court, having separate laws, having separate soldiers, having separate money. And since the day you promulgated that Covenant until now, you have never paid returning to the Royal Capital even a single tax coin."

Kaelen silently listened.

"I have paid taxes to the Royal Family for twenty years now, every year paying fully, so I know very clearly." He tapped his cane down onto the stone ground: "And I also add speaking this point here for you all to calculate anticipating the path. Since winter last year, there have been people up there dispatching people down to this region to secretly ask inquiringly about Lyra already. They asked very carefully, but completely did not ask about gods and deities, they only asked you all gathered how much profit and raised how many people. That matter had happened since quite a long time before Baron Voss carried the petition up suing you."

Sane narrowed his eyes asking: "Do you know who that is?"

"I am only a petty Viscount in the province sir." Ainsley smiled faintly: "But the person coming down probing inquiringly carried a travel pass stamped with the Royal Family’s seal. That type of paper then completely not everyone has the ability to request successfully."

On the way back, inside the horse carriage was silent for a very long time.

Elric sat hugging the wooden chest containing papers, his face bewildered like a person having just been swept their pockets entirely clean by someone yet still having to bow their head thanking. One thousand five hundred gold coins flew away whizzing in one afternoon, exchanging for two villages that he himself had not even had time to see what their faces looked like.

"He is truly smart." Ultimately Elric mumbled: "But my two Lords, why did you agree letting his nephew come over working? Is that not exactly personally inviting his eyes and ears into our own house?"

"Because he completely has absolutely no intention of planting people into our place." Kaelen answered instead: "He essentially is exactly sending his nephew away taking refuge."

Elric was stunned.

"He leaned on his cane standing throughout an entire session, unable to sit for long, yet personally handwritten recording ledgers and not handing it over for the butler to do." Kaelen continued saying: "A person like that then knows very clearly how many more years he still has to live. He sold the rent collection right to take face-value gold, sent the nephew into a place having proper laws, only then feeling at peace closing his eyes planning matters afterward."

Sane sat opposite, crossing his arms looking at him, his lip corners curling up: "Baby, you are beginning to become terrifying you know."

"I only learned from you entirely." Kaelen answered deadpan, then leaned his body resting on Sane’s shoulder, closing his eyes.

The horse carriage clattered running fast toward the East direction.

Behind their backs, the sun was setting down behind the hills of the Ainsley family’s territory, while in front of their faces, Lyra’s city wall had already begun appearing faintly in the evening glow.