Chapter 158 - 106 : Year 11 - 19 War (1)

Chapter 158: Chapter 106 : Year 11 - 19 War (1)

While Castle Veymont settled into the happiness of its growing family, life beyond its walls carried on as it always had. Across the kingdom, nobles tended to their territories, merchants pursued their trade, and soldiers continued their duties along the borders.

Enwitra had its own affairs to attend to, and none would wait simply because a child had been born at Castle Veymont.

Tensions between the Kingdom of Enwitra and its neighbour, Varell, had been building for years. Their dispute over the borderlands had never truly been settled, particularly over a strategic corridor that connected important trade routes and offered one of the few practical passages through which a large army could advance into either kingdom. Enwitra had no intention of surrendering control of the region, while Varell had grown increasingly unwilling to accept the existing arrangement.

For years, the conflict had remained beneath the threshold of open war. Instead, trained martial artists from Varell had been sent across the border to target Enwitra’s nobility, striking at the families whose influence and resources helped maintain the kingdom’s hold over its frontier territories. Their methods were deliberate.

By eliminating nobles and heirs, Varell could weaken local leadership, unsettle succession within powerful houses, and undermine the kingdom’s border defences without committing its armies to a campaign that might provoke an immediate response from the Enwitran Crown.

The attacks had not gone unanswered in the political sense, but proving responsibility and deciding how to respond were different matters. Varell had maintained enough distance from the killings to complicate any attempt at retaliation, leaving Enwitra’s rulers to contend with the consequences within their own borders. Until recently, the Crown had been forced to weigh the growing danger against the risk of allowing a series of covert attacks to drag the kingdom into an open war.

That balance had begun to collapse with the assassination of the Potamini heir.

The Potamini family was one of Enwitra’s four great ducal houses, entrusted with an extensive stretch of the kingdom’s frontier. Its position was not merely a matter of noble rank. The family possessed the land, military strength, and political influence necessary to defend its territory, and its standing made it one of the pillars upon which Enwitra’s border security rested.

The death of its only surviving heir therefore carried consequences far beyond the grief of a single household. A ducal succession had been thrown into uncertainty, a powerful family had been struck at its most vulnerable point, and the kingdom had lost a measure of security along a frontier it could ill afford to leave exposed.

For the Potamini family, the tragedy was devastating. The loss of its sole surviving heir threatened the future for which generations had worked, leaving grief tangled with anger and the fear that their family’s legacy might never recover. They had every reason to demand justice, and they were not alone. Other nobles watched the aftermath with growing unease, recognising that if assassins could reach the heir of a ducal house, no title or inherited authority could guarantee their own families’ safety.

The Crown, too, had reason to be furious. The attacks had begun with targets whose deaths might have been dismissed by some as isolated tragedies or the misfortunes of lesser houses. But the assassination of a duke’s heir had crossed a line that could not easily be ignored. If such an influential family could be struck with impunity, what would prevent the same enemies from eventually targeting the royal family itself? The question was no longer confined to the safety of the nobility. It had become a challenge to the authority of the Crown and its ability to protect the kingdom.

Yet anger alone could not determine the response. An open war with Varell would demand enormous resources and expose both kingdoms to the consequences of a prolonged conflict. Without evidence sufficient to justify retaliation in the eyes of the wider political world, the Crown also risked allowing its rival to portray Enwitra as the aggressor. Those behind the assassinations had created precisely the kind of situation in which every possible response carried a price: remain restrained and appear weak, or strike back and risk a war for which the kingdom might not be fully prepared.

But restraint was becoming harder to defend with every passing day. The Potamini tragedy had transformed years of suspicion and resentment into something far more dangerous. Powerful nobles were demanding action, and even those who had previously favoured caution could no longer dismiss the possibility that their own families might be next. The Crown had to consider not only the threat posed by Varell, but also what continued inaction might do to its standing among the very houses whose loyalty sustained the kingdom.

The dispute was no longer merely a question of contested borders or competing trade interests. Every assassination had added another grievance, and the killing of the Potamini heir had brought those grievances close to a breaking point. The anger had been building for years, like a room slowly filling with gas, waiting for a single spark. ℯℯ𝑙.

Now, throughout Enwitra’s noble circles, the question was no longer whether the kingdom could continue to tolerate the attacks. It was how much longer it would be before the Crown was forced to answer them with war.

By the fifteenth year, it had become increasingly difficult to believe that war might still be avoided.

For years, Enwitra’s nobles had demanded a response to Varell’s attacks. They had watched their peers fall victim to assassins, seen heirs murdered, and waited while the Crown weighed the risks of retaliation. The Potamini tragedy had brought their anger to a breaking point, turning what had once been a dispute over border security into a question of the kingdom’s authority and the safety of every noble house.

Now, the signs they had been waiting for were beginning to appear. The Crown was no longer merely investigating the threat or exchanging protests with its rival. It was preparing the kingdom for the possibility that words would soon give way to steel.

Along the frontier, garrisons received orders to increase their vigilance. Fortresses and border strongholds reviewed their defences, inspected their stores, and made arrangements for additional provisions. Patrols became more frequent, and reports from scouts and border officers were examined with greater urgency. Commanders were instructed to pay closer attention to unfamiliar movements beyond the frontier, while the men under their authority were expected to remain ready for sudden orders.

The kingdom was not yet assembling an army for an immediate invasion, but its first line of defence could no longer afford the habits of quieter years. If Varell intended to exploit Enwitra’s preparations or strike before they were complete, the border garrisons would have to be ready to meet it.

The movement of information became more important as well. Royal messengers rode between the capital, the frontier fortresses, and the estates of the great nobles, while trained messenger birds carried shorter dispatches between locations where speed mattered. Reports of troop strength, available horses, stored provisions, weapons, and other military equipment were requested from noble houses throughout the kingdom.

Those responsible for answering the Crown had to examine their own records, consult their officers and stewards, and provide figures that could be relied upon. A lord could no longer satisfy the royal administration with a vague promise send It’s army when called. The Crown needed to know what each house could actually provide, how quickly it could be assembled, and what resources would remain available to defend its own lands.

For many nobles, those requests brought a sense of grim satisfaction. They had spent years demanding that the kingdom treat Varell’s actions as the threat they were, and now the machinery of the state was finally moving in that direction. Their response was swift.

Household officers reviewed their soldiers’ equipment and readiness, armourers received orders to repair damaged mail and prepare additional weapons, and horse breeders and merchants found themselves dealing with more enquiries about suitable mounts. Some houses began purchasing grain, dried meat, salt, cloth, leather, iron fittings, and other supplies that an army would consume in enormous quantities.

Others arranged for their existing stores to be inspected and replenished, ensuring that their retainers could be fed and equipped without waiting for provisions to arrive after a royal summons.

The wealthier houses had advantages, but even they could not prepare for war through money alone. Food had to be collected and stored before it was needed, horses required fodder and care, equipment had to be repaired or replaced, and supplies had to be moved to places where they could be used. Stewards who had once concerned themselves mainly with the needs of their estates now had to consider what would happen if hundreds or thousands of additional mouths needed feeding.

Merchants supplying grain, iron, leather, and military goods began to notice the change in their customers. As demand increased, prices rose in some markets, and those who expected the situation to worsen hurried to secure what they could while supplies remained available. Others held back their stocks, hoping to sell later at a higher price. Even people with no intention of taking part in the fighting began to feel the approaching conflict through the cost of ordinary necessities.

Within the noble estates, the preparations took different forms according to each house’s resources and responsibilities. A frontier lord might concentrate on strengthening the garrison under his authority and ensuring that his soldiers could respond at short notice.

A house farther from the border might devote more attention to assembling its contingent, purchasing supplies, and arranging transport for the journey to the royal muster. Those with substantial revenues could afford to build reserves early, while smaller houses had to balance their obligations to the Crown against the cost of protecting their own lands.

No single order could make every house equally ready, but the requests for information had forced them all to confront the same question: what could they contribute when the call finally came?