“And that leaves us with two candidates then.” The King announced with some exhaustion. It had only been a couple of hours since they started nominating people to be the leader of the army but it felt to him more like a century.

The fact that he even had to go through the process of the noble nominating candidates showed just how little power he had and he had to sit through and watch it all happen before him. If he had even a little more sway over the opinions of his own nobility then he could have just chosen from the candidates that they suggested rather than the tedious slog of removing them from the running one by one. Unfortunately, if he had that kind of influence he would likely not be facing a civil war at all.

“So the first man is Earl Downs.” The King paused to look towards the man. It was quite clear that he was used to being the centre of attention in gatherings of nobles, mainly because the northeastern nobility tended not to attend court sessions in Boshil. But even then it appeared that it had not gone to his head. Though Aled was unsure if he were truly humble or that he saw the other candidate as a worthy man.

“And the second is Sir Kelly. Since he is being nominated for the position, would somebody go and fetch him. I am sure that Viscount Fiton would not mind him taking a temporary break from his duties?” Throughout the past few hours nobody had actually gone to fetch Rhydian, there was no need.

The royal faction had not proposed another candidate and there was no way that they were not going to support him. But now that there was only one other candidate there was a distinct possibility that the northeastern nobles would all back Earl Downs, and the King would likely be forced to nominate him if that happened. It was not to say that Earl Downs was a bad choice, but the King would much prefer that it was somebody of his own faction, even if by association.

“Of course not, there is nothing more important right now than the cause of defending the Kingdom from its enemies.” Braydon was hardly going to say no. If Rhydian were chosen to lead the army, that would be a massive boost in prestige for him and if they won, part of the glory would go to him as Rhydian’s liege. There was no real downside for him.

“Then we shall have a small break until he arrives. I am sure that many of you are tired of standing around for so long.” Aled said more for his own sake than for the rest of the people there, even if he had not been standing himself. And the various lords were more than willing to agree, it had been several hours already and there was sure to be several more after the break. That they could even take a break from such an important meeting was a bonus.

“How are discussions going?” Almost as soon as Braydon had found a quiet corner, Nela found him to ask about the meeting. Her proposals were being discussed, so she had a reason to be interested even if she did not have any skin in the game.

“Well, we have barely even talked about your proposal but there is stiff resistance to the idea of further splitting our men to guard the river when Duke Burn’s ships can do it for us. Mainly headed by Earl Downs.” Braydon gave the short version of what had at least been the first hour of the meeting. He often wondered how something that could be said in a few sentences could have taken so long to talk about.

“Then what was being discussed for so long? Choosing who will lead the army?” Nela asked, that was the only other thing of importance that she could think of.

“That and my matter with Viscount Sharpe, which has gotten a whole lot more complicated now.” Braydon just sighed thinking about it. If he had known that Sharpe would run off he would have at least chosen to beat him up first, now he didn’t have the chance to do even that.

“What happened for it to get more complicated? Does he have some powerful ally that we didn’t know about before?” Nela was confused, even if Viscount Sharpe had the backing of some powerful northeastern Earl, that should not have been enough to stop him from at least getting severely reprimanded.

“We don’t know yet but it could be more true than you think. Instead of turning up to the meeting, earlier this morning, he took his troops and left. And we suspect that he has either decided to just go home or was secretly allied with Duke Ryder the whole time.” Braydon was not happy with either possibility but he knew which he would prefer to be true. And seeing the immediate look of concern on Nela’s face he knew that she thought the same way.

“Has he been found yet? Even if he left at dawn he cannot have gotten that far.” Nela knew just as well as him that even if Viscount Sharpe only had a small force that would likely be enough to severely injure her father’s defences if Duke Ryder chose to attack from both sides.

“Scouts have long been sent, they should be returning soon with the news. In the meantime, we have been discussing who will lead our men.” Braydon moved onto the thing that had by far taken up the bulk of their time so far. And Considering that Duke Ryder might attack at any moment, it was the most important.

“And by the sounds of it you are not done yet?” Nela could already guess that they had not finished discussing the matter from Braydon’s resigned sigh when he thought of going back into the meeting to discuss more.

“Exactly, though things are looking very good for us. We have gotten it down to two candidates, one of them being the aforementioned Earl Downs and the other being Rhydian. We took a break specifically to go and fetch him.” When Braydon said that Earl Downs was one of the candidates, Nela had a serious look. She had obviously heard of the man before and took him just as seriously, not to mention that he had opposed her proposal. If he were chosen, it was likely that her proposal would not be followed. But she had a look of surprise when Rhydian was mentioned. She had obviously expected it as much as everyone else had when it was first brought up.

“I’m impressed that you managed to get him considered.” Nela was glad that it was someone she had a good impression of as their candidate. She knew just as well as anybody else that her father could not be moved from his current position, so she had been worried that they would not have a good choice to propose.