Chương 42: Chapter 41 - Unavoidable Circumstances

She explained her thoughts to Dustin, who seemed hesitant about the idea. Something about cornering a wounded animal. She decided to move forward anyways. If Lord Grivalt's eventual downfall caused any collateral damage, she wanted her family out of there beforehand, if possible. In her response to Lord Grivalt, she indicated that she wanted to help him out, as they were friends and business partners, but that she wanted to visit his estate in person to see the servants she would be purchasing.

She set the date for Saturday, the second to last day of the month. Surely Lord Grivalt would be open to whatever deal she offered, as his taxes would be due the next day. She did her best to keep from overthinking how the Saturday meeting might go, and buried herself in her sword practice. On Tuesday, she completed her first full rotation of all six sword forms that she was practicing without feeling any sort of friction or resistance in the transitions.

Wednesday, things clicked into place for her mentally, and Wind Form and Air Form both settled comfortably into her growing mental map of how the forms all fit together. Instead of six separate forms, they felt like a single, larger form. Like six different aspects of the same idea, or six different applications of the same principle. She started on the final three sword forms all at once – Stone Form, River Form, and Lake Form.

River Form and Lake Form both used flowing movements, and while she hadn't seen much similarity in their patterns when she first learned them, she did now. Her deep understanding and mental map of how the other six forms fit together seemed to already be helping in her understanding of these three final forms. Friday she won her spar, her third win of the week. One of her losses during the week had been to Olga. She had lost six points to two, but felt good about the match.

After the third round, Olga had only been up three points to two, but had ended the last round with a body shot. On a solid, flat surface, Kiara felt like she would have done better, but Olga was too good at using the terrain to her advantage. They had ended up in the dry river bed, where the footing was uncertain. Olga moved around as if she had the placement of every rock and pebble memorized, and took advantage of every time Kiara had misstepped.

With how anxious she was about the upcoming meeting with Lord Grivalt on Saturday, Kiara had opted not to teach any beginner's classes this week, focusing instead on her own training. She ended the week with 50 points in her class, although she barely glanced at the leaderboard on her way out of class. Friday night, she went to bed early, but found herself unable to sleep. Dustin was worried about her upcoming meeting, and had told her that he wouldn't be going with her.

In all fairness, he had warned her months ago that he didn't do well around violence, and would avoid violent situations at all costs. He was nervous about how desperate Lord Grivalt was at the moment, and determined it was best that he stay back at the Yountal estate instead of accompanying her. She did finally drift off partway through the night, but slept restlessly. She awoke after only a few hours of sleep, jerking awake in the middle of a nightmare.

The sun was already shining in through the window, so she got up and got ready for the day. After breakfast, she did some simple exercises in the courtyard to help chase away the last vestiges of tiredness from her eyes. She bid farewell to Dustin, then got in one of their carriages and began the long, slow ride to Lord Grivalt's estate. Not that the carriage was slow compared to other carriages. It was quite normal in that regard, and considerably faster than walking.

Compared to her jogging speed, however, it felt downright sluggish. She couldn't use her Strength stat to its potential in her sword classes, due to the dueling collars, but when practicing her sword forms at home, she went all out. When she ran full speed, the wind in her face would have been overbearing, if her increased Strength didn't also improve her lungs' ability to move air in and out properly.

While she enjoyed the feeling of moving so fast, an unfortunate side effect of running at that speed was that she often ended up splattered in bug guts. It was a problem she hadn't yet figured out how to get around. Upon arrival, Kiara entered Lord Grivalt's estate with two of her guards. Captain Soren, who had been briefed on the situation, had insisted on coming along himself, and followed her inside along with Estella.

Estella usually only acted as Kiara's bodyguard when Kiara was at home, but the seriousness of the situation, as well as Captain Soren's personal presence, had convinced her to come along as well today. The tension at her own estate had built over the last few days. Word had spread that she was meeting with Lord Grivalt at the end of the week, and everyone's anticipation had grown as the date drew near.

Having rescued some servants from Lord Grivalt's clutches previously, the opinion of Lord Grivalt among her own staff had dropped considerably. The general view that commoners took of nobles, in Kiara's experience growing up, was that they were powerful enough to demand respect, snobbish enough to avoid when possible, and wealthy enough that they didn't truly understand the common person's life.

She was sure her staff didn't know very many nobles by name outside of Lord Grivalt and Baron Norshod, as most of them had lived their entire lives in Easton, but Lord Grivalt's treatment of his own staff had heavily reinforced some of the uglier sides of those beliefs amongst the staff at her estate. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Kiara's own estate staff had walked on eggshells around her when they first were hired on.

That had mostly subsided by now – most of them had relaxed enough to smile when they saw her, and to continue on with their days after bowing politely. None of them walked around in fear anymore, which Kiara appreciated. She understood their general reticence toward the upper class, though. She honestly still felt some of it herself, having grown up with it, even though she now technically belonged to that upper class. That fear of what a noble could do if you offended them somehow was still engrained in her mind.

They could ruin your life, with no recourse being available to the commoner. That's just the way it was. Wealthy houses, like Kiara's, while not nobles in title, enjoyed a lot of the same privilege and power, as they generated a lot of the tax income that kept the ruling class in power. House Yountal then, was lumped into the same mental category as the others, and Kiara was treated with deference. Her easy going nature at the estate and her insistence on doing most of her own chores helped, though.

Even though they had only been in Easton for a few months, Dustin worked fast, and their name was well known amongst the other wealthy houses in the city. True to his promise, he had avoided growing their businesses too fast in any one area, maintaining mostly amiable relations with the other wealthy houses. They hadn't received any threats yet. In fact, House Yountal had already been invited to a few of the fancy balls held by other noble or wealthy houses in Easton, and Dustin had attended some of them.

He had tried to convince Kiara to come, but she had very little interest in that sort of thing, and had made him go by himself. In anticipation of returning with some additional people in tow, Kiara had brought two carriages to Lord Grivalt's estate today. Captain Soren had brought four extra guards along as well, although they remained hidden in one of the carriages while Kiara made her way inside with Captain Soren and Estella.

As they entered the main house, a servant led them to Lord Grivalt's study, but avoided entering himself. When they arrived at the door to the study, he simply bowed and gestured with his hand that they should go on in. He looked scared, as if he had led them to a lion's den, and was afraid of being eaten alive if he entered himself. The door was open, so they didn't bother knocking. Inside, Grivalt was hunched over his desk, engrossed in reading a paper in front of him. He looked furious.

Kiara realized that Dustin had handled the niceties of these situations in every past experience, and she wasn't sure what to say. How should she comport herself? Her mind went back to the books on etiquette among high society that Dustin had made her read, and she settled on an approach. She was here as a guest, and deserved some amount of honor and respect as such. She was here to participate in a business transaction, and should carry herself with an air of dignity and refinement.

She cleared her throat when Lord Grivalt failed to notice their arrival. He glanced up at the noise. He searched for Dustin, and when he couldn't find him, his face soured.

"What do you know of this?" he asked Kiara gruffly, holding up the paper he had been reading and waving it around wildly. She gave him a flat stare. She obviously had no idea what he was holding, why would he expect her to know? She was reminded of her first interaction with the man, back before her death, and how frustrating it had been trying to reason with him. She wondered once again if his intelligence was lower than average.

"I have no idea what you're holding," she retorted with a glare. All of her thoughts of etiquette had gone out the window at his tone. If he was going to be rude, then she wouldn't put herself through the mental strain of trying to maintain one-sided civility. He glanced at the paper, surprised by her comment, then exhaled in annoyance and extended it out to her. She stepped forward and took it, looking it over. It was another update from their merchant entrepreneur.

She was surprised it had arrived already, she had thought the next one might not come until Monday. Before she took in the contents of the letter, she silently reminded herself that although Lord Grivalt had already set the tone for a less civil meeting than Dustin would have wanted, she could still practice the etiquette lessons Dustin had her read about. She shouldn't allow herself to visibly gloat at the bad news she was sure to find in the letter as she read through it.

To Houses Yountal and Grivalt, This week saw us leave Westfall and enter into the barren region of Torrence. It seems the roads are less travelled than we expected. Some are too thin for the passage of wagons, others have become overgrown from lack of use. After a full two days of attempting to clear a path for the wagons, we were forced to leave them behind. In retrospect, this may have been the better approach from the start.

We will travel light until we reach Jenpor, at which point we will purchase new wagons for the goods we acquire. The obstacles to acquiring direct imports from Antalon are manifesting themselves in earnest now. It is becoming increasingly apparent why others have chosen to import through the established trade routes that wind through The Capital instead.

The unforeseeable and unavoidable circumstances aside, I do still see a possible future where these trade routes bring us a profitable outcome, but would like to gently remind each of the esteemed houses that all investment comes with certain risk. I, your faithful steward, am working day and night to overcome these challenges, but am duty bound to set proper expectations with the new information available to me.

I now expect the journey to take a few more weeks than my initial estimate, and the increased expenses from the extra travel time and the many setbacks may dig deeper into our profit margins than we had hoped. I applaud your generous patience, and implore your continued support. Your faithful steward, Mister Tenor Fantastic! Really, it was so good.

Kiara was sure that Dustin would have opinions about how this might affect this very meeting that she was about to have with Lord Grivalt, but on the surface it seemed to strengthen her position even further. The hope of his investment was quickly receding from view, and he would be forced to do business on her terms. With his tax deadline tomorrow, he couldn't afford not to. She had high hopes that she would walk out of here with her family today.