2nd Week of June, 1460
Suyren’s chapel was an old, ugly thing to a man raised beneath the architectural masterpieces of the 21st century. It was also likely the most beautiful building most of Suyren’s inhabitants had ever known.
It stood facing a ravine that cradled the valley beneath the town, its stone façade rising to the height of a modest two-story building before narrowing into a single peaked crown. There, fixed above the entrance, hung the cross of Christ, rendered in a bronze statuette more carefully worked than anything found in town, most likely. Time had dulled the metal, but not enough to rob it of its solemn weight.
Inside, wooden pews sat in orderly rows across the worn floor. Religious icons and thin painted panels adorned the smooth, polished walls, varying wildly in quality.
At the far end, dominating the small space, stood a man-sized depiction of the Lord carrying the cross, bloodied, bent, and beaten beneath the burden of mankind. Theodorus was struck with the sight. It was too raw for conventional beauty, too deliberate in its suffering.
This was meant to teach humility and sacrifice, and it lent the chapel a gravity that seemed to settle over the air itself, making every breath feel heavier than it ought to.
Theodorus understood the careful social engineering behind the spectacle. The Church had spent centuries perfecting this language. It did not merely decorate faith; it arranged the emotions of those into the neat little patterns that would feed the highest authority that sat on top. It was a sickening, self-perpetuating disease that he was intimately familiar with, more than he would have ever liked to.
He understood why the deacon of Suyren had asked that their first meeting be held here. If the priest meant to cow him with icons and crucified flesh, however, he would be sorely disappointed.
Zeno was already seated by the Father’s side when Theodorus arrived, leaning slightly toward him as the two conducted some hushed conversation. Both men rose the moment they noticed him approaching. It still threw Theodorus off how much energy people spent on these little performances of submission, how eager everyone seemed to prove loyalty before someone just because they were born noble.
“Strategos,” Zeno said, offering a precise nod.
“Hypostrategos,” Theodorus returned.
“My Lord,” the priest said.
Father Thaddeus wore the customary full beard of Orthodox clergy, thick enough to hide the softness of his jaw but not the nature of his face. He was a middle-aged man with pale cheeks, heavy lids, and the kind of small, watchful cunning that reminded Theodorus of a weasel.
“Thank you for meeting us, Father Thaddeus.” Theodorus eased himself into the pew, feeling the unpleasant angle of the wood beneath him. He wondered if that, too, was part of the trap.
“Please, the pleasure is all mine, my Lord.” Thaddeus bowed deeply, just enough to tread that thin line between sincere deference and practiced theatre. “It is an honour. We have not had the chance to meet properly, since you have not attended Mass these last two weeks.”
It was a subtle probe for information wrapped around a not-so-subtle barb.
“My apologies, Father Thaddeus,” Theodorus said, granting him the small courtesy of looking chastened. “I have been occupied by a great many duties since my arrival. Rest assured, I have been doing my due diligence in the quiet of my bedroom.”
That was enough to concede respect without conceding anything useful.
“I trust you have.” Father Thaddeus nodded with almost visible self-importance. “My Lord Zeno has conveyed much the same. Indeed, I cannot blame you. Between visiting nearly all your vassals and villages, you must be quite swamped with work.”
A cunning gleam entered his eye - faint, but sharp.
“I hear you have taken out a loan from the Pronoia holders,” Thaddeus said, tone still light enough to pretend at idle conversation. “And in the next days, your herders and village headsmen are to come as well, to discuss important details, no doubt.”
So, the tendrils of the Church burrowed this deeply.
Theodorus understood the message beneath the remark. Thaddeus was not merely informing him that he knew of the summons. He was reminding him that very little moved through the north without eventually passing beneath a priest’s eye. The Orthodox clergy had become indispensable to the social and internal management of the Theodoran provinces, and Suyren was no exception. They blessed marriages, recorded births, settled petty quarrels, and heard confessions.
With the decline of Byzantine authority, they had been among the great beneficiaries, wresting concessions, exemptions, and practical independence from a Crown too strained to refuse them.
“That is why the Prince appointed us,” Theodorus said, making mention of his own patron with an unfaltering smile. “A great deal of change is coming to the north.”
There was enough edge in the words that the priest seemed to take notice.
“Of the good kind, I presume.” Thaddeus’s voice lost a measure of its warmth. “The Church and the ruling House of the north have always enjoyed an amicable relationship, one both fruitful and harmonious. We can accomplish a great deal more together than apart. That is what God teaches us.”
He gestured openly toward the altar and crossed himself with practiced solemnity, as though the carved Christ behind him had been called as a witness for the defense.
Theodorus had to admit the man possessed a rare talent for irritation. He reminded Theodorus of a small-time con artist, one of those miserable predators who haunted scam centres in the modern world, spending their days picking clean the elderly, the lonely, and the naïve.
“He also teaches humility, Father, and warns us not to cling too tightly to vice.” Theodorus let his gaze drift over the polished icons, the bronze fittings, the finer painted panels that cost more than half the homes in the town. “Tell me, do you believe the present Church abides by such teachings?”
Thaddeus’s expression tightened into a deep frown. It was not every day that a priest was accused of vice and hypocrisy inside his own chapel, even by nobles and lords.
“With unquestionable sincerity and piousness,” Thaddeus replied, not looking away. “Much the same as you do yourself, my Lord.”
Nobles took their slice, the Church took its own, and everyone respectable pretended to forget about all the peasants bankrolling the entire arrangement.
“Your Eminence,” Zeno said, stepping in as the exchange began to drift toward rougher ground, “what Lord Theodorus means to say is that, while the previous arrangement may have reflected the old status quo, circumstances have changed.”
“Oh?” Thaddeus’s face smoothed itself back into genial patience through an impressive act of self-control. “How so?”
“While reviewing past accounts of dues and tributes, we noticed several irregularities concerning Church land.” Zeno spoke as amicably as he could manage. Unlike Theodorus, he seemed far more reticent to confront the clergy outright. “Many dues are not properly recorded, with amounts varying from year to year without clear rule or explanation. In some years, income due to Suyren never appears to have reached its destination at all: Burial fees, candle offerings, or marriage gifts folded into parish accounts, portions of tithed grain recorded at one measure when gathered and sold in another.”
This was the work Theodorus, Zeno, and Theophylact had been carrying out over the last few weeks, and the reason they had delayed this meeting for so long. Information was ammunition, and this was a battle they needed to win before the first blow was ever openly struck.
“Ah, those little tidbits.” Thaddeus waved them off with a smile, as if they were minor clerical confusions and not dozens of hyperpyra each month being redirected away from Suyren and toward already comfortable Church estates. “Rest assured, all of them rest quite comfortably within the bounds of legality as I understand them. These were arrangements agreed upon with the late Lord Adanis and his predecessors.”
“And do you happen to have a written, binding agreement for such oaths or tribute arrangements?” Theodorus asked, already knowing the answer.
“My good Lord Theodorus,” Father Thaddeus said, turning to face him fully. Whatever force the two lords had meant to bring to bear had clearly failed to subdue him. “If an agreement is laid out before the eyes of God, is there any need to mark it down on parchment?”
He said such a thing with the easy confidence of a man long accustomed to getting his way and arranging for the less pleasant arrangements the Church grew fat on. He understood such things were easier to defend when they had never touched ink. But Theodorus would make sure that it would come back to haunt them.
“For the new order Prince John wishes to uphold in the north of the Principality, I am afraid so,” Zeno stressed the Prince’s name and Thaddeus understood the meaning. They carried the backing of the Principality. Or at least claimed to do so.
For the first time since the meeting began, Father Thaddeus seemed to weigh the matter properly. The genial mask remained in place, but the eyes behind it sharpened. If opposing the new administration meant placing himself, and by extension his parish, against the Crown’s will, then that was no small thing, however deep the Church’s roots might run through Gothia.
“Very well, my Lords.” Thaddeus steepled his fingers together, “If you will allow me to be candid, I am quite sure what this is about. I will be the first to admit that the Church may have allowed itself some flexibility with the dues owed to Suyren in the past, but that flexibility existed in exchange for benefits that cannot be written so neatly into ledgers.”
To Theodorus’s eyes, Father Thaddeus cast a damning figure. A petty villain in his dim little den.
“You will not find in your accounts how the Church lent legitimacy to the lords who ruled here. You will not see how priests in distant villages ensured that the people paid their dues dutifully. Nor the dissent we have quieted with well-placed sermons, or the fear of sin we have turned into obedience.” He spread his hands slightly, as if offering them a gift rather than confessing to manipulation. “There is much we can offer you.”
As he spoke, Father Thaddeus’s back seemed to swell, framed by the narrow shafts of pale light filtering through the space behind him. The richness of the icons, the heavy scent of wax, the carved suffering at the altar, all of it gathered around him.
“There is no reason for us to be at odds,” He said, smile returning. “We are all children of God, and besides.” His smile turned vile and ugly. “The flock has more than enough sheep for us all to shear clean and still leave our appetites sated.”
Theodorus was nearly seized with the impulse to smack the priest across the face. His fingers twitched against the edge of the pew.
This was exactly the rot he wanted to tear out by the roots, the smug, sanctified greed that wrapped itself in holy language while draining the same peasants it claimed to shepherd.
Zeno noticed the brief silence. More importantly, he noticed Theodorus’s reaction. Cataloguing and storing away the interaction in his dark eyes.
“The sheep are fleeing the flock, good Father,” Zeno said, stepping into the space before Theodorus’s temper could fill it. He spread his hands in a placating gesture. “Do you not see how many men have turned to banditry because they have been spent by undue burdens and taxation?”
“Hah.” Father Thaddeus snorted, abandoning the last remnants of pretense. “So you mean to ease their suffering by cutting away our slice of the pie while leaving your own untouched. I see.”
“No,” Theodorus snapped. “We will do our part, rest assured, holy Father. We intend to introduce a lower set of taxes, fairer, cleaner, and easier to understand. The Church will follow suit. These subjective collections, interpretive obligations, and half-remembered privileges will be straightened out, and Suyren will have what it is owed.” The threat hung in the air, and Zeno glanced sharply at him.
“Do not forget that God sits above even kings, my child,” Father Thaddeus said, his tone dropping into something colder.
“You will soon learn,” Theodorus replied, his mouth curving with a keen edge, “that in this Principality, the gameboard has changed, your eminence.”
Zeno’s hand fell on Theodorus’s shoulder and squeezed hard enough to hurt. The message in his eyes was plain.
Control yourself.
Father Thaddeus was silent for a moment, collecting himself and fighting not to bristle. Theodorus took a strange, petty pleasure in seeing the priest’s composure fray. It was unbecoming, perhaps, but after listening to the man speak of shearing peasants with that sanctified smile, Theodorus found it difficult to care.
“I hear you wish us to lend you aid in administrative matters, is that not so?” Thaddeus asked. The hands he had held steepled in placid calm were clenched shut now, knuckles white. “You might not find us as forthcoming with help as you believe.”
“Your Eminence,” Zeno said, the sole remaining calm voice in this discussion. Theodorus at least had the control to step back from the conversation. “That would be a service rendered, for which you could expect to retain certain… benefits to which you are accustomed. Rest assured, there is room for negotiation.”
That visibly calmed the priest, at least.
During their prior discussions, Zeno had pushed hard for this concession to be included, unlike Theodorus, who favored a hardline approach. In the end, they had met in the middle.
The arrangement was not perfect, but it would allow them to cut into clerical corruption while still wringing valuable use from the Church’s reach. More importantly, it would lay the first stone in what was supposed to become a workable relationship between church and state in the north under the new administration.
Or at least it had been supposed to.
“Thank you once again for your time, holy Father,” Zeno said, bowing his head with practiced courtesy.
“Thank you, holy Father,” Theodorus echoed. He followed the gesture a heartbeat late, unable to keep the slight stiffness from the motion.
“Not at all, my children,” Father Thaddeus said, his eyes narrowed slightly. “Rest assured, I will discuss this matter with the Metropolitan in detail. I bless you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” he said rotely.
He escorted them only as far as the chapel entrance, and Theodorus could feel the priest’s gaze on their backs as Zeno led the way down into Suyren’s sloping streets. Neither man spoke. Their small entourages followed a few paces behind, boots scraping over packed dirt and loose stone, the guards and clerks pretending not to notice the tension gathering between the two lords.
Theodorus walked with his jaw clenched so tightly it ached. Zeno kept half a pace ahead of him, head held high, eyes fixed forward in the impassive anger a man showed when he had learned to leash his temper. Seen from afar, no one would have known which of them was Strategos and which was Hypostrategos. In that moment, Theodorus looked less like the man appointed to rule the north than Zeno’s dangerous, undisciplined right hand.
By the time they reached Suyren’s royal study, Theodorus was furious. Zeno was scarcely better.
“Leave,” Zeno ordered the guards at the door, his tone frigid. Once they withdrew, he shut the door behind them and turned fully on Theodorus. “What were you doing exactly?”
Theodorus sat in his chair without answering, fixing his glare on a splinter jutting from the edge of the desk as though it had personally offended him.
“Making enemies of the clergy is not what we accounted for,” Zeno said. “Our control over the region is tenuous at best. We still have a discontented population and a potential famine on our hands if the Crown does not come through. We cannot afford to have every countryside parish speaking ill of us now.”
He placed both palms on the table and leaned forward, forcing Theodorus to meet his gaze. Theodorus made certain his back was straight when he did.
“We have not even ratified the grand village charters you insist upon,” Zeno continued. “I have been thoroughly forthcoming about the various innovations you want to pile atop one another, however unorthodox they may appear at times.”
His tone was biting. Only now did Theodorus properly understand that Zeno had not merely been tolerating those measures out of curiosity or convenience. There had been a cost to his support, one he had chosen not to parade before now.
“It is one gamble after another,” Zeno said, eyes glacial. “I recognize that the desperate situation in the north calls for radical measures, but this is not a playground. We are ruling over an entire frontier.”
“I am well aware of that fact,” Theodorus said, letting his temper show. He was not some moody teenager to be lectured as though he had overturned a table for lack of attention. “I have put in the work to ensure every endeavor I have pitched can come to fruition, and you reviewed the proposed budget for each. It is well within reason.”
“Provided we manage to wrest away control of at least part of the tribute currently being siphoned off by the Church,” Zeno countered, hinting at the fact that such a thing seemed more unlikely now. “With the lower taxation system you insist upon, we will be bankrupt otherwise.”
He stressed those last words with particular care. Of all the measures Theodorus had proposed, this was the one Zeno had resisted most sharply. Understanding that lower taxation might produce comparable, even greater, revenue in the long term by leaving villages healthier and trade less strangled was difficult for a noble raised in the 15th century to comprehend, even one as astute as Zeno. Taxation in the Middle Ages revolved around stealing all the surplus you could before another noble or the church did.
“And now,” Zeno continued, voice sharpening, “even that is in jeopardy because of your childish outburst.”
“Are you not sickened by the way these so-called spiritual leaders talk about their flock?” Theodorus lashed out.
“It is the way of the world,” Zeno said with a scoff. “The strong take, and the weak give. I had thought you understood at least that much, Theodorus.”
Theodorus rose so abruptly that his chair scraped hard against the floor. “I do,” he said, turning away toward the window before the sight of Zeno’s controlled disdain made him angrier than he already was. Outside, the last of the evening light had begun to bleed out over Suyren’s roofs, leaving the study in a grey half-dark. “I slipped. I got angry when I shouldn’t have.”
He could admit that much, even if the admission tasted bitter.
“But the threats were not unwarranted,” he continued. “We hold the backing of the Prince. If we mean to extract real concessions while negotiating from a position of power, then we cannot be meek about pressing our advantage.”
He knew he was finding excuses for the lapse in control, but that did not mean he was telling a lie. Power unused had a way of being mistaken for weakness, especially by men like Thaddeus.
“I do not know what grievance you carry against the Church,” Zeno said, exhaling through his nose as he pushed long, slender fingers against his temples, “but invoking the Prince’s backing is only useful if he actually supports us. Otherwise it is a bluff, and one that will backfire. The Crown has always had to hold the Church in wary balance. I am not sure Prince John would openly oppose the clergy over some missing tithes and village dues, just because…” Zeno trailed off when he noticed Theodorus had turned from the window, wearing a small smile at that.
Zeno’s eyes narrowed at once. “What do you know?”
Theodorus did not answer him.
Which was an answer in and of itself.
For several heartbeats, the room sat in silence. Zeno regarded him coldly, a mire of calculations working behind his dark eyes. A faint shiver of realization passed through him.
Did Theodorus have direct ties with the Prince?
“Leave,” Zeno said at last, the authority in his voice rising more from instinct than thought. He needed time to think, and the order came out like a reflex from a man accustomed to being obeyed. The more layers he peeled back from his appointment in Suyren, the more he seemed to realize what deep waters he had been cast into.
Theodorus stepped forward instead. “I do not think I will, Hypostrategos.”
For all their shared authority, for all the compromises that had been made to govern the north, Theodorus was the Strategos. In Suyren, the final voice of law belonged to him.
“In fact, I think you should leave.”
It was not a pretty assertion of leadership, but Theodorus felt it was the one the moment demanded. Zeno was a dangerous player, perhaps one of the most dangerous men he had met in this world, but Theodorus could not allow himself to be dominated by him. If he yielded here, in his own study, after the first serious fracture between them, his new authority would become tenuous at best.
Zeno’s jaw clenched.
For a moment Theodorus thought he might refuse. Then the Hypostrategos straightened, the anger vanishing back beneath the rigid mask of discipline.
“Of course, Strategos.”
He gave a stiff bow, turned, and left the study without another word.
Theodorus remained alone in the dimness, the sun now fully set beyond the window. The room felt colder now. The stone brittle.
When power was handed to ambitious men and they were told to share it, conflict was inevitable.
And now cracks had begun to show.
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A few days later
Pantelis had heard plenty of stories about the fancy halls of Suyren, mostly from other poor folk who had been forced to climb up there and grovel at their betters’ feet for a little mercy on taxes. A few times, he had done the same himself. More often than not though, he had not even been granted an audience, left to argue with the Steward outside over some new levy being added atop the old ones, and having to flat out tell him the next tithe wouldn’t be coming.
Certainly, he had never been invited by a presiding lord to feast in the Great Hall.
He would have wagered his last good chicken that this was the boy’s doing. Anything strange that happened in the north these days seemed to lead back to his new lord sooner or later.
Pantelis was not sure he liked that at all.
“A-Ah, M-Master Pantelis,” the Steward greeted him. “W-Welcome, I am happy to see you.”
The man was always a sorry sight to Pantelis’s eyes, all nerves and fidgeting hands, though it was surprising enough to find him standing personally at the keep’s gates to greet the village headmen, Suyren’s stone walls looming behind him.
“I can’t rightly say the same back, Steward.” He had heard the man’s name a few times over the years, but never bothered to learn that damned twisted, complicated thing. “Last time I was here, you didn’t do much for me.”
“T-This time, I believe I can,” The steward said, and there was something steadier under the stutter today. Pantelis found himself cautiously intrigued. Cautious being the important word. He had seen enough of this place to know better than to trust any kindness that came from inside its walls.
The Steward led him not toward the Great Hall, but straight to the granary.
That alone made Pantelis’s mood sour. He had stood here more than once, watching his village’s lifeblood measured away into another man’s keeping, each sack carried off like a piece of winter stolen.
Pantelis felt the difference in the air as soon as they stepped inside. Before, the granary had always smelled faintly of mould, but now the space appeared to be dry and airy, with fresh gaps opened high along the walls to let the wind move through. The grain had been set atop raised wooden pallets instead of being piled directly against the floor, and the stores were divided into separate portions of different sizes, each marked by a small tag covered in neat little scratches Pantelis could not read.
He felt something soft scratch at his boot, and Pantelis looked down to find a grey, mangy cat slipping past his leg, ribs showing beneath shabby fur. It gave him one yellow-eyed glance, decided he was beneath consideration, and continued its patrol between the sacks. Farther in, another cat watched from atop a beam, while a third nosed along the wall.
“F-For the rats,” the Steward explained, gesturing toward the bony little beast. “W-We picked up a f-few more from the streets.”
Pantelis grunted thoughtfully. He had heard of the practice, but had never seen Suyren bother with it in such numbers. Rats had always been treated like rain, sickness, and tax collectors. Miserable, unavoidable, and somehow the peasant’s fault in the end.
“That’s all fine and good,” Pantelis said as the Steward stopped before one particular pile. A tag had been tied to it with a strip of cord, though the marks upon it meant nothing to him. “But what exactly are you wanting me to see?”
“The grain meant for your village.”
Pantelis turned so quickly his knee popped enough to be heard. The boy lord stood near the entrance, hands folded behind his back as if he had been there the whole time. For a moment, the surprise of his arrival superseded the meaning of what he had said.
When Pantelis finally gathered himself, he managed to let out a hoarse “What?”
He was quite pleased with himself that he’d managed even that.
“You heard me,” the Lord said.
There was an unmistakable smile on his face, as though he had played some cruel little joke and was pleased to see it land. He walked closer, boots quiet against the swept floorboards, his fine clothes sitting at odds with the grain dust and half-starved cats.
“From the last time we spoke, I received the distinct impression that your village was struggling to feed itself. I told you then that change was coming. And here it is.”
Pantelis looked more closely at the offered pile.
It was a tidy sum, no doubt about that, but not a miracle. Enough to scrape by and keep bellies from groaning for a week, perhaps a little more if the women stretched it thin and the men pretended not to be hungry. A pittance, if one was being honest.
But a pittance was still more than any of the previous lords had ever offered without first taking twice as much in return.
His eyes drifted across the granary. Other piles had been sectioned off in the same manner, each with its own little tag. Pantelis could guess well enough that meant they were for other villages.
Which raised the obvious question.
“How in God’s name do you mean to feed yourselves, then?”
“Oh, you need not worry about that,” the boy assured him. “I have secured a food relief package from the capital.”
“And so you’re just handing it away?” Pantelis asked.
His old instincts stirred. Pantelis’s intuition told him that it couldn’t be so simple, and his life had taught him that nothing ever came free, least of all from men who sat in halls while others worked in fields.
“Of course not,” the Lord said, dismissing the idea as if it had never deserved consideration. “It is payment for work I will have you do.”
“What sort of work?” Pantelis asked, suspicion waking fully now.
“You will learn soon enough,” the Lord said.
Then, with that same infuriating little smile, he turned and left them standing among the sacks, who looked less like a reward than a trap now.
Pantelis watched him go with a sinking feeling in his gut. Lords and their schemes never ended well for the little man.
...
Pantelis had expected a lord’s feast to be all polish and waste, the sort of meal where half the food existed only so noblemen could prove they could afford to throw the other half away, but no.
The meal that awaited them in Suyren’s Great Hall was plain. Thick bread, lentils cooked soft with onion, wedges of hard cheese, salted fish, boiled greens, and a stew with enough meat in it.
It was hot, hearty, and filling, and for hungry men it hit the spot in a way few things could. Pantelis wondered if this was the type of meal the new lords feasted on these days.
Pantelis ate slowly, but around him, other headmen were less cautious, tearing into bread and stew with avarice.
It did not take him long to understand what was happening.
The boy lord had invited most headmen from the larger villages near Suyren. A feat to be sure, considering there were two dozen or so villages scattered through the highlands. There were enough of them to occupy a respectable portion of the Great Hall.
Pantelis guessed the boy had planned for this when he had made his little tour, going village to village to speak with the headmen and introduce himself in person.
That thought sat in Pantelis’s stomach heavier than the stew.
He realized soon enough that the Lord had offered the same bribe to the others as he had offered him. It showed in the smiles, soft shoulders, and in the way some men leaned toward one another as if drunk on relief, though the beer doled out helped with that as well.
It was a pretty tactic, he had to give the boy that. Feed hungry men, show them the grain they could carry back like heroes to their villages. Let them taste relief first, then ask them for whatever neat little concession you'd hidden beneath the tablecloth.
As if summoned by that very thought, the Lord rose from his high chair.
The hall quieted in uneven waves. Beside him stood another noble Pantelis did not know, a thin, severe-looking man with dark eyes and a posture too straight to be natural. He had to be important, if his place at the boy’s side meant anything, though he didn’t look much too pleased.
“My friends,” the Lord began, his voice carrying cleanly down the hall. “I hope you have been well, and that the feast has been to your liking.”
A soft cheer rose from several places along the tables. Pantelis did not join it. He had no quarrel with the food, but he was old enough to know that clapping before the bill arrived was foolishness.
“Today, I wish to speak to you about an important matter,” the Lord continued. “When I came to each of your villages, I told you that we meant to formally charter each community into a single recognized body. You would no longer have to rely entirely on intermediaries to speak for you. Your village would have its own voice before Suyren, one acknowledged by law and not merely by custom.”
Pantelis heard a few pleased murmurs at that. Men liked the sound of having a voice, especially men who had spent their lives being told to lower it.
“A chartered village,” the Lord said, “will be able to hold obligations in its own name, pay its dues in an orderly fashion, bring petitions, answer charges, defend its rights, and reap the rewards of its own labor. It will be treated not as a scatter of households to be squeezed one by one, but as a community with standing.”
Nods passed around Pantelis. Fools. They were ready to sign the damned thing already, without even knowing what it meant.
“However,” the Lord said, and the hall settled again, “what I did not reveal before today was the crucial piece that ties the whole design together.”
Suspense thickened across the tables. Even Pantelis felt himself lean forward despite his better judgment.
“To ensure that no man suffers endlessly beneath the yoke of his betters,” the Lord said, “we will begin granting land back to those who truly earn it.”
He paused, letting the words find every ear in the hall.
“To you.”
The rough warmth of the feast vanished as though a door had opened onto winter. Men stopped smiling in disbelief. The expressions along the long table were singularly varied, but all similarly astonished before the proclamation. The great hall was so silent Pantelis could hear a spoon clatter to the ground on the other side.
The Lord of Suyren was giving peasants land holdings, the very thing that distinguished nobility from peasantry?
What?
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Author's notes: I guess the main topic of this chapter would be the seemingly irrational decision to antagonize the priest taken by Theodorus (I have not read the comments yet so I might be mistaken, haha). As a reader of K-B stories myself, I too have raged quite a bit at main characters making seemingly bad decisions to serve whatever reason the author, in his infinite reason, has cooked up.
In this specific case I didn't actually plan for the meeting to go poorly, it just ended up that way given the background I had written for the original Nikos Karagiannis. One comment that stood out to me in a previous chapter (a long time ago) was that for all that Theodorus tries to paint himself as a Machiavellian, callous strategist, he is anything but. And that is exactly true! It is one of the central dilemmas regarding Theodorus's character and one of the few ways I can add wrinkles to his storyline and leave room for the character to grow. Initially I wanted a purely callous, ruthless protagonist, but one thing I realized early on was that it would leave the character feeling flat and cut off a few ways for the character to grow. While he could technically learn to have feelings and that was one place I could take it, it would be very telegraphed and monodirectional. This ambiguous, ruthless/emotional limbo leaves the reader guessing whether he will be emotional or rational and leaves him room to grow in either direction.
I also think that as long as the story openly acknowledges the situation, it isn't as infuriating. If Zeno had not reacted poorly to Theodorus's foolish decision, or if no consequences came of it, I think it would irk readers a lot more as it would break immersion. Like this, maybe you can feel that I realize it is not the best objective move, but there are reasons for it, and bound in believable circumstances in both the world and the characters.
Apologies for the cheap cliffhanger. Again couldn't end the chapter on a closing beat without having an awkward length. You seemed relatively open to me just ending scenes halfway through as long as enough content was in each chapter, but let me know if you'd rather I end on a different note than a cliffhanger.
As always, thank you for your support :)