The Dreaming Goddess

Chapter Seven: Dishonor

Brisgald loomed like a claw reaching up to scratch the sky on a terrible horizon. Its keep was shaped like a crowned skull, and its towers were crooked and twisted. The villages around it were impoverished and laboring. Here or there, you could see merchants selling their wares. Some were as far away as the Furbearers of Southern Antion. There were also the pale and dark-haired men of Escor. Their roofs could have been better maintained, with roofs decaying and overgrown roadsides.

Meanwhile, the people were sick, starved, and malnourished. The militia, such as Vanion, had seen their drills. The backbone of the Harlenorian army needed to be kept in shape according to the regulations.

What would Borinius do if he had to raise an army? What would the people do if they had to submit one? It was the expectation that the people be strong enough to represent themselves. Was he trying to keep them weak?

As he walked on, watching an ox cart pass him by with a fat merchant, Vanion felt a sense of resentment. How did these men who were not warriors have more prosperity than him? They were buying up cartloads of grain and taking it down to Antion to feed the people there. King Andoa II created an extensive grain supply system for the populace. But as he aged, that supply system had become corrupt.

Vanion suspected that large amounts of the grain bought were being sold elsewhere. Likely to Sorn, who had little farmland and had not used the usual markets. House Kaba was well known for this trick, using black markets to bypass the normal channels. And those channels were worth less, with the Thieves Guild getting ever more powerful. The King's Road was filled with tollhouses and required endless bribes. So most people had to take backroads, where bandits wandered.

Vanion saw the bodies of men left hanging from trees as a warning. Birds had pecked their eyes out. A sign said that they were thieves who had been caught stealing food. An armed guard clad in heavy armor stood guard by them. Vanion approached them.

"Tell me, why are you men posted here?" he asked.

"Duke Borinius commanded that these be left to rot," said the guard, standing up straight. He had a beard and looked to not be hungry, but he looked uneasy about the corpses. "I'm to make sure no one comes along to take them down."

"What could they have done?" asked Vanion. One of them was a child. "Stealing food is not normally punished by hanging. Instead, the courts almost always order them given a redemption quest."

The guard bit his lip and looked incredibly uncomfortable. The commoners walked past the gallows laboring. "Well, there have been a couple of bad harvests these past years. Borinius sells many crops for a profit and uses them to buy luxuries and weapons. Some of these peasants tested his patience one too many times by asking to keep more of their crops. He had them hung.

"And so many people are going hungry now that there just isn't enough food. So everything has become a hanging offense, like in House Korlac out west."

"And what do you think of this?" asked Vanion. Vanion had always disliked John Korlac, the Heir to the House. The man maintained a ruthless order in his country. He hung criminals whenever possible. Though no one was going hungry like here, he was a shrewd politician and great warrior.

"It doesn't matter." said the guard. "I'm a man at arms. Borinius sees to it that my family and I are well-fed. What happens to these is his affair, not mine."

"Of course," said Vanion. "I apologize for asking." If someone didn't make it their affair, everyone here would die. But, of course, this would never have happened if King Andoa II hadn't abolished the militia system.

It had been created by Anoa the Bright to make sure the commoners could kill tyrannical nobles. It would take a mass uprising, but it gave them bargaining power. But in an era of peace and prosperity, the idiots had traded away their spears for silver. And now that silver had been melted into a collar.