Chapter 305: The Royal Capital

Cathalan, the Royal Capital, was located eleven days of horse carriage travel north of Lyra city.

Baron Harlan Voss set foot there on a morning of drizzling rain. His body was covered in mud, and the expensive burgundy velvet coat had now turned a dingy color.

Looking down from horseback, he saw a sea of gray tiled roofs stretching endlessly, every house three or four stories high, with chimneys springing up densely like a forest. The people walking around were so crowded they bumped shoulders, and horse carriages trailed each other jammed tightly at the intersections. A group of porters walked while cursing at each other using a local slang that he could not understand a single word of.

Voss sat on horseback, trying to puff out his chest straightening his back to regain the majestic demeanor of an aristocrat. However, in this prosperous place, a provincial Baron was absolutely nothing at all. He had only traveled half a street before he was shouted straight in the face by a cargo horse carriage driver, telling him to quickly clear the way for people to go to work.

The first day, he went straight to the Petition Manor.

That was an endlessly long building, inside arranged more than ten rows of benches, the people sitting waiting crowded tightly. There were farmers going to sue lords, there were lords going to sue each other, there were merchants hugging whole chests of ledgers tightly in their arms, there was even a widow sitting crying softly from morning until afternoon without a single person bothering to come out asking inquiringly.

Voss solemnly held out his petition letter stamped with his hawk seal, certain in his belly that the wax seal would make people have to respect and revere him more or less. However, the clerk sitting behind the counter only glanced at the seal for exactly half a second, then coldly pushed toward him a wooden tag writing the number four hundred and twelve, his voice monotonous like chanting scriptures:

"Sir, take the number. When people call your number, you go in."

"When will it finally be my turn?" Voss frowned asking.

"Today we are calling to number two hundred and sixty." The clerk did not bother raising his head up.

Voss had to swallow his anger sitting waiting until pitch dark. When people called to number two hundred and ninety-four, they announced closing the door, chasing everyone out returning home, making an appointment to return tomorrow morning continuing queuing.

Arriving at the second day, he wised up.

He secretly slipped the gatekeeper two silver coins to be prioritized going up meeting straight a secretary inside. The secretary held the letter skimming reading through it, nodded, then said that petitions denouncing heresy matters must be transferred over to the Religious Affairs Board, petitions denouncing land grabbing matters must be transferred over to the Land Board, while the matter of detaining the Merchant Guild’s people belonged to the resolution authority of the Commercial Affairs Board. Those three boards were located in three different buildings, and wanting to submit into whichever board then mandatorily must recopy the petition into three separate copies, every copy paying a separate fee type.

Voss exhaustingly copied the petitions for a whole night. The next morning he went submitting fully all three places, paid fully three fee amounts, then continued the chain of days sitting waiting.

The eighth day, he gritted his teeth selling his best horse away to get money paying the inn rent.

The twelfth day, he bitterly moved from the inn in the large street area to a cramped inn located deep in the alley. The kind of inn where the walls were so thin he could clearly hear even the sound of the neighbor guy tossing and turning in the middle of the night.

The fifteenth day, butler Pym clattered finding the place, bringing the shocking news that the entire seventeen debt papers of the Voss family had been bought completely cleanly by people, and bought using face-value gold, bought quickly and neatly within exactly four days.

Voss hearing finishing that news his two legs went weak, slumping down sitting on the bed edge, his face cut losing a single drop of blood. He did not need anyone to point fingers calling names also had more than enough ability to guess who the buyer was.

While the pitiful Baron was sitting trembling in that stinking inn, in another more luxurious building of the Royal Capital, his petition letter was lying proudly on a mahogany desk.

That building was located right behind the Royal Palace, the walls built with dingy gray stone, narrow windows, the outside completely not hanging any sign at all. The citizens in the Royal Capital called it the Archive House, while the people working inside called it by the endlessly long official name that not many people bothered to remember.

The owner of the office room on the third floor was Count Aldric Thorne, the Royal Seal Keeper.

He was a man approximately sixty years old, his snow-white hair cut short, his sitting posture always perfectly straight. His voice was so soft the opposite person had to prick their ears tilting their head to hear clearly. He held the signet seal that the King exclusively used to approve onto decrees, meaning any paper wanting to have effect in this kingdom must sooner or later pass across his desk one time.

For twenty years now, Thorne had always maintained a habit that the entire Royal Capital knew but not many people understood meticulously. He created archive files for everything. Every land region, every aristocratic family clan, every merchant guild, every parish. Every file was only a paper stack clipped in a hard cover, but whenever there was any news sent back he personally neatly wrote adding a line.

The file folder named Lyra originally was very thin.

It was created more than a year ago, initially only having exactly one piece of paper recording barely that Lyra city had changed owners, City Lord Elric still remained in position but the actual power lay in the hands of a person claiming himself as the Holy Son. After that, that file folder just gradually thickened up. Complaining whining letters from the Church about the several armies dispatched down all failing disastrously.

Complaining letters from the Merchant Guild about Lyra’s soap and fabric crashing prices in the entire region. A report from the person dispatched going probing inquiringly around the region, sent back from winter last year. Several invoices buying Lyra goods found inside the ledgers of large merchants right in the middle of the Royal Capital.

And now were the three complaint petition copies of Baron Harlan Voss, sent up from three different departments, all three were transferred straight back here.

Thorne patiently read all three copies, reading very slowly. Finishing reading he picked up a pen underlining exactly four spots, which strangely enough, completely no spot was related to monsters or heresy.

The first spot: two hundred gold coins paid fairly for a gravel rocky strip of land.

The second spot: twenty-five copper coins for one workday, paid right in the day without owing debt.

The third spot: a store selling all kinds of items at the one price of ten copper coins.

The fourth spot: a court opened judging cases publicly in the middle of the village, even having a person stepping forward defending the accused person.

He sat silently looking at those four underlined lines for a very long time, then reached his hand ringing the bell calling the secretary in, calmly telling him to go invite Baron Voss arriving to meet.

Voss was led into the room right in that afternoon. He just stepped through the door, seeing the powerful Royal seal placed proudly on the table his two legs went weak, almost dropping to kneel down onto the floor.

"Lord Baron, please sit." Thorne pointed his finger to the opposite chair, his voice still soft and slow: "I have a few questions wanting to ask you."

"Lord Seal Keeper, I ask to take my honor swearing before the God of Light that everything I wrote in the complaint petition is the truth..."

"I do not ask you about the gods and deities matter." Thorne politely interrupted: "I ask another matter. Before Lyra proceeded to dig that canal, every year the four villages in the north of your territory paid returning to you how much rent money?"

Voss opened his mouth intending to speak then closed it back. He stammered for a moment, ultimately had to lower his head telling the truth that that ledger matter was held by the butler, he did not clearly remember the number.

"Then the number of tenant farmers having left your fiefdom land since the beginning of the season until now is how many households?"

"I... I estimate it is more than half."

"You did not order people to count properly?"

Voss lowered his face to the ground not daring to answer.

Thorne leisurely opened the file folder, flipped a page, then read with the voice still soft exactly like discussing the weather:

"Those four villages every year paid you about ninety gold coins. Since the beginning of the season until now there have been a total of forty-one households leaving your land, among which thirty-four households are currently doing labor for Lyra city. Seventeen debt papers bearing your name have been bought completely cleanly by people in just exactly four days, the buying price in was nine hundred and sixty-eight gold coins."

Voss snapped his head up, his two eyes widening in terror.

Those three final numbers he also only just heard Pym crying reporting back a few days ago, and the report was not even fully accurately complete.

"Sir..." He stammered: "You... you also know even that matter?"

"I know those matters because I record them down. While you do not know because you never bother recording." Thorne gently closed the file folder, intertwining his two hands together resting them on the table: "Lord Baron, I speak straight with you one matter. Your petition sent up denouncing Lyra of three crimes, but all three cannot be used."

"Why cannot they be used?"

"The heresy crime then just let the Church worry about it, the Royal Family since ancient times does not interfere in the Church’s matters to avoid getting the reputation of trouble. The land usurpation crime is not established, because you were the person personally signing the selling deed and personally stamping the seal, while the villagers self-wrote the application asking to merge and no one dragged their necks forcing them to go. The crime of detaining the Merchant Guild’s people then even more so no, because inside the Merchant Guild’s wagons there were thirty chain-footed people, and the kingdom’s law strictly forbids transporting people across boundaries without declaring paying tax. That crime if dragged out into the light then the Merchant Guild will be the one dying first."

Voss sat blankly as if someone poured a dipper of freezing cold water straight from the top of his head down.

"Then... then what did I wade walking up here for?" He asked in shock, his voice completely cracking.

"You came up here to act as a witness." Thorne smiled, a smile looking very benevolent: "You are the first aristocrat in this kingdom having lost land into Lyra’s hands without taking a single sword or blade battle. Your testimony is very valuable, therefore I hope you just linger staying in the Royal Capital for another period of time. As for the accommodation expenses matter then you take care of it yourself, the Royal Family does not have a budget amount to spend for that matter."

Finishing speaking he rang the bell, the secretary stepped in, politely inviting the pitiful Baron outside.

The room door just closed, Thorne pulled the Lyra file folder to before his face, opened to a pure white page, carefully dipped his pen into the ink bottle.

He sat pondering for a very long time, then neatly wrote down three lines.

The first line: a city having a separate court, separate laws, separate soldiers and separate currency.

The second line: never having paid returning to the Royal Family a single tax coin since the day promulgating the Covenant.

The third line: the Royal treasury this year is suffering a deficit of one hundred and thirty thousand gold coins.

Finishing writing those three lines, he called the secretary in one more time, issuing an order to draft a paper dispatching a Royal Special Envoy down to Lyra city to inspect on the spot.

"Who should be dispatched to go, sir?" The secretary asked.

"Ambrose."

The secretary froze slightly: "Sir, Mr. Ambrose just finished exhaustingly going inspecting the three Eastern provinces returning, he has not even had time to rest for a single day..."

"Exactly because of that it mandatorily must be him." Thorne answered, his eyes still not leaving the file folder: "I do not need a person going down there only to find ways proving Lyra is guilty. I need a person going down there counting really accurately, then returning telling me the truth seeing how much that city is ultimately worth."