Chương 26: Chapter 25 - Lord Grivalt's Estate

The house itself was large, although not as large as her own, and not nearly as nice either. The furnishings were sparse, and the rug in the entryway was old and worn. Even so, it was easily nicer than anywhere else Kiara had been prior to a month ago. Memories of her last time in this place came to her mind, unbidden. That jerk guard, Trevon, smacking her for no reason. Lord Grivalt refusing to see reason, and then not only killing her, but carrying out an unnecessary sentence on her family as well.

Fuming, she moved from her crouched position by the door and made her way to where Lord Grivalt's office was. She could hear him in there now, laughing loudly. The door was open, and Lord Grivalt sat at a desk, a plate of half-finished breakfast in front of him. A messy stack of papers sprawled across the desk. Grivalt lounged in the chair, his whisps of hair still slicked back with oil, the same as the last time she'd seen him.

Remembering that her invisibility kept her concealed remarkably well, Kiara stopped peeking around the corner of the doorway and walked into the room. No one noticed. That same guard, Trevon, was there, laughing with Lord Grivalt. They seemed to be friends, or at least friendly with each other. Another pair of guards stood lazily at the far wall, doing their best not to fall asleep. Kiara wanted nothing more than to pull out her sword and start swinging, but she knew that would be foolish.

Could she beat four armed men in a fight? She assumed her [Personal Spell Negation] ability would protect her from Lord Grivalt's magic, but she hadn't had a lot of chances to test it out. Even without his magic, he was a tier 2 mage. She thought back to her time with the travelling caravan. The guard captain had been a tier 2 mage as well, and was faster and stronger than Kiara. Even without his magic, Lord Grivalt might be more than a match for her, not to mention the other three guards in the room.

For now, she simply listened and observed for a few moments, but they didn't seem to be talking about anything worth listening to. Crude jokes and rude comments about anything and everything pretty much made up the whole conversation. She quickly left and walked through the rest of the estate, searching for her family. She found her mom in the kitchens, working with the other cooks on lunch preparations. The cooks all looked tired and afraid, similar to the vibe she got from the gardening team.

Her younger sister Ava was with a small crew of maids, cleaning. Her younger brother, Gabe, who was only three years old, wandered around nearby, with Ava occasionally glancing over to make sure he wasn't getting into trouble. Ava looked okay. Less tired, at least, than her parents had seemed. Her youthful resilience shone through, and Kiara even caught a glimpse of a smile or two as she checked in on Gabe.

Gabe had a small wooden horse, which her father Ron had whittled from a tree branch, and was playing with it in the corner of the room Ava was currently cleaning. Kiara drew near, and bent down to watch him play. He looked up at her suddenly and smiled.

"Sissy?" Kiara's eyes widened and her heartbeat was suddenly very loud in her head. Had her invisibility turned off? She looked down at her arm in a panic. If her invisibility had failed now, that would be very bad. Her arm was still just a faint shimmery outline in her vision though, so her heart rate calmed down a bit. And yet… Gabe was still looking right at her, an almost-confused look on his face. Kiara glanced behind her, but no one else was there.

Ava came walking over from where she had been cleaning and bent down near him.

"Gabe, I'm busy now, keep playing with your horsey okay? We'll play tonight, after dinner." Gabe glanced at Ava, then back at Kiara.

"Sissy?" he repeated, unsure.

"Yes, I'm your sister," Ava replied gently, ruffling his messy hair.

"No, sissy!" Gabe said, pointing directly at Kiara.

"Ki-Ki." Gabe couldn't pronounce his r's yet, so he always called her 'Ki-Ki'. She teared up slightly. Could… could he see her? Ava glanced in the direction Gabe was pointing, right toward Kiara, but she looked right through her. She turned back to Gabe.

"I have to get back to work, buddy. Keep playing with your horse." She stood and made her way back to the other cleaners, apologizing for the interruption, but they all reassured her that it was fine. Kiara even spotted some fond smiles on their faces as they glanced at Gabe. Kiara knelt down next to Gabe, keeping her voice low.

"Hey Gabe! Can you see me, buddy?" He nodded and smiled, glad that he had guessed correctly that it was her. He proudly showed her his little horse, holding it up for her to see. She ruffled his hair gently as well.

"Is that your horse? I like it. I gotta go now, but I'll be back okay? I'll be back in a few days, or maybe a few weeks." She gently kissed the top of his head, then stood to leave. As she got to the hallway just outside the door, Gabe dropped his horse and rushed over to her, hugging her legs.

'Bye Ki-Ki!" he said, looking up at her one last time. Then he turned and ran back to his wooden horse. Ava was already halfway to the doorway, rushing after the little escape artist before he got too far, but she stopped as he ran back in. Ava looked out the door curiously, but didn't see Kiara through her invisibility. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Kiara wondered how Gabe was able to see her. Or how he was able to recognize her, for that matter.

Shian looked nothing like Kiara had. Ava resembled Kiara more closely than Shian did. Still slightly choked up, Kiara watched her two younger siblings for a few more moments before heading back to the entryway. She had to wait longer this time, almost thirty minutes, but finally the door opened. It was another group of servants coming in, and she once again slipped out behind them before the door could shut. Then she made her way back home, feeling melancholy.

* Back at her estate, Kiara found Estella still posted outside her door. She quickly ducked into her room and dropped the invisibility, then walked back out. Estella nodded to her as she came out.

"Lady Yountal. How was your art session?"

"Ah. Uh… good, I guess. I may have drifted off for a bit. Did I miss anything while I was asleep?" Estella nodded slowly and smiled gently.

"It did seem awfully quiet in there. Nothing to report, milady." Good. That meant no one had visited her room while she was gone. Which meant no one knew she had left. Except Gabe, somehow. She had only been gone for a couple of hours, and didn't expect Dustin to be back for some time still. She spent the rest of the day familiarizing herself with the estate house and grounds a bit better.

After a few hours of exploring, she felt like she had visited each part of the grounds and poked around the house enough for it to feel at least more familiar, if not like home yet. Estella followed her around dutifully as her personal guard for the day. When Dustin returned in the afternoon, Kiara immediately pulled him into an empty room to see what he'd been able to find out. He followed with a look of mild curiosity on his face.

"So, how'd it go?" she asked once they were inside with the door shut. He chuckled and scratched his chin.

"I haven't been home for a full minute yet, milady."

"Ah, come on," she complained.

"Cut it out with the lady stuff and the formality. I get it, in public we have to maintain that image, but when we're alone like this, just talk to me like you used to."

"Like I used to?" He raised an eyebrow. She rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, as a friend. Like you did for the past month. Before all of this." She gestured around at the room and the house.

"Everyone's been bowing and scraping all day, and I'm sick of it. I need people I can talk to like a normal human being, Dustin." He relaxed his stiff posture that he'd been maintaining as her 'estate manager', and smiled broadly.

"Fair enough." He plopped down on the nearest couch and kicked his feet up on the armrest.

"Ah, that's nice."

"So? Spill it. What did you find out today?" she urged.

"Well, today I visited the local builder's guild." He stared at the ceiling for a moment with his lips pursed.

"A pretty forlorn group of gents, that. Suffice it to say, Easton is not in the path of growth." She furrowed her eyebrows at him questioningly. He noticed, and expounded.

"Um, it's not growing at all. People aren't flocking to Easton, so to speak. So the builders guild around here mostly functions as a repairs and maintenance guild, as there isn't a lot of new construction." She glared at him.

"Dustin, get to the point! What are we doing about my family? What did you learn about Lord Grivalt?" He snorted.

"It's all connected, Shian. It's wise to start at the local builder's guild, to get the lay of the land. The point is, real estate is cheap, land is cheap. Financing a store front won't be a problem, you see." She didn't see, but she nodded along anyway. Well, she did actually see, as it was a pretty simple concept, she just wasn't all that interested. He kept talking, "So the question is, what kinds of businesses do we want to start, and why. We have a few motivating factors.

We need to develop business relations with Lord Grivalt, and we need to become profitable. As far as being profitable, businesses can have their own internal ecosystem amongst themselves, so it's wise to distribute our efforts in a few areas that all build on each other." She put her head in her hands and pulled on her hair. He was going to bore her to death. It was a good thing she had taken the time to see her family one last time today, because this conversation would be the death of her.

He tilted his head to the side as he looked at her.

"Hmm. It's clear you literally don't care about this."

"I really don't," she confirmed with a nod. He cleared his throat.

"Ahem. Okay. Good. In that case, I'll skip through the foundation of how I figured all of this out, and take you right to the precipice." She leaned forward in her chair in anticipation.

"Lord Grivalt… is broke." Huh. That wasn't what she'd been expecting. It made sense, in retrospect. His estate hadn't been furnished very lavishly, and his servants all appeared overworked.

"Not just poor," he continued, "flat out broke. He's been slowly selling off his family's heirlooms to make ends meet. His little jurisdiction that he manages, your home town village and the surrounding area, doesn't produce enough tax income to be profitable with the size of estate that he runs. He would basically have to reduce his estate staff and guard force to just a few people to stay solvent.

"So, he has indentured servants working his estate as a workaround, but that still doesn't cover the cost of his guard unit. So, he sells his family heirlooms to help make ends meet. He also runs a small wine business here in Easton, but it only turns a small profit each year."

"So, how can we use that?" Kiara asked, hoping Dustin had the answer already. And he did, because of course he did.

"Well," Dustin mused, chewing on one of his fingernails, "he has to pay taxes to Baron Norshod here in Easton, regardless of how his own jurisdiction is doing. He's responsible to manage his estate properly and stay profitable, or he may lose his title as a Lord.

"If we can get him desperate for money, we could easily work out a deal for us to buy some of his indentured servants. I would have to see the estate to gauge how much longer he can hold out just by selling things, but my guess is quite a while."

"Why do you need to see the estate?" Kiara asked.

"If he has fancy art pieces, then he's still decades away from running out of money. If there isn't any art remaining, but it's furnished properly and he has nice silverware and dish sets, then he's at least a few years away still from being destitute. If the furniture has started to go, then he's maybe only a few months away from ruin." Kiara chimed in.

"He's only a few months away from ruin." Dustin looked at her for a moment, then sat up sharply. The relaxed, contemplative posture was replaced by something more predatory.

"You went there? You saw inside the house?" She blushed slightly and looked away. She'd put in all that work to make sure no one knew she had left, and then pretty much immediately told Dustin once he was back. Oh well, it was probably fine if he knew, right?

"Yeah," she admitted.

"How?" he asked quizzically. She hesitated for a moment. She had already trusted him with so much, could she trust him with this? Were there things about herself and her situation that she should keep secret, even from her closest family and friends?