Past the trading district, the carriage enters the noble district. The hubbub of the town quickly dies down, while the spacing between buildings increases as well as the extravagance. Fancy tailors and jewelers become more prevalent, with space for carriages to come and go between the shops. Finally, in the center of the noble district, the Duke’s manor rises. To have such a large manor with a vast courtyard, gardens and servant houses speaks to the wealth and power of House Culaine.

As the carriage pulls up to the front gates, a pair of well-equipped guards in half-plate armor and wearing engraved ceremonial swords stops them.

“Halt. State your busi… ah, Lady Diane. You have returned from the investigation? I will let the Duke know you have arrived.”

Diane breathes a sigh of relief. It seems Gerard, the captain of the guard, is manning the gate today. Out of all the Duke’s guards, he prides himself on his professionalism and is the only one amongst the guards who doesn’t call her “the failure” or other names.

“Thank-you, Gerard. I shall be heading there directly.”

She gives a curt nod, and the carriage resumes moving. She is so focused on delivering her report, that she doesn’t think about why the captain of the guard is manning the gate, or even notice the bustling activity within the manor today.

Her carriage rides past numerous pavilions, fountains, ponds and gardens before it stops by the front door. None of the servants move to open the carriage door, instead she opens it herself and hops out.

“Thistleman, come with me testify before my Fa…. Duke Vermillion. I know it will be hard for you, but you absolutely must do it and tell him about what happened in Kurstwood!”

Uhhh... what do I say in such a situation? Hmm… I’m being asked to do something… I think I saw someone earlier who was asked to help at an Inn… how did they respond? Right! I will just do that!

Thistleman jumps in to a salute with a giant grin on his face, and shouts “Aye Aye, Boss Lady!”

Diane’s face turns red. All the servants are staring at her, as well as the guards by the front door.

“Ah… Ah…. Ah….. Just shut up and follow me!” Diane storms up the steps and through the door. She was so flustered that for once, she didn’t notice the servants and guards talking in hushed whispers to each other.

“Look, the failure is back.”

“Is it true she was born without magic? What an embarrassment!”

“If I was her I would have already given up. No matter how fancy her sword skills, without magic to reinforce them they are just for show.”

“I hear that the Confederation is having a lot of tension amongst the city states, some might declare no confidence to change out the chairman.”

“If that’s the case, maybe the Duke can send Diane! Since they use a factional skirmish to elect the winner as chairman, we could have her help the losing side and with her lack of magic, we would finally be rid of her.”

“If that’s the case, we could also send her to the church. I heard from the knights they denounced Emperor Hirihito, so there is a good chance she could get brought in to a fight there!”

Diane approached the gathering hall, where he would normally carry out his daily duties. Thistleman also followed behind her. He was attempting to emulate the way other kids walked around the time, and wound up walking with a half-skip every few steps behind Diane. He took note of every servant and guards face who spoke poorly of Diane.

While he could not do anything himself to hurt them, he would ensure, in no uncertain terms, that they would suffer terribly for the way they treated her. Diane is his master. HIS master. Any slight against her is a slight against him. Manipulating the terms of a contract are one of the finer points of being a Daemon. He had heard many tales in his younger days from his *former* fellow daemons. The world feared him. A Legendary Hero was called to kill him. Something like this… he can handle. Hahahaha! He looked forward to it so much, a malicious grin was revealed on his face for a moment. The servants who saw it hushed and recoiled immediately. There was one that looked especially shocked, he was the first to wish for Diane to be sent to her death! The man exuded arrogance, and had a sigil of a knight kneeling with his sword before the rising moon on his left chest. Shit!

Diane looked at the servants and then looked back, but by then Thistleman returned his face to normal.

“Ignore the servants. They don’t matter. Don’t listen to them. Don’t react to them. You belong to me and I am all that matters! Since you are mine that means you have worth, you must pay them no mind!”

… What? She must have thought they were recoiling because I was a peasant… SHIT! She just forbade me from dealing with them! I had just come up with a great plan too! This is Demon abuse! How am I supposed to manipulate the rules if you just drop something like that on me! Ahhhh…. And now I have to play the part of intimidated peasant so she doesn’t get embarrassed again…. This is so unfair… Consider yourselves lucky this day!

Thistleman makes a very resolute face, and then kowtows. He saw a peasant doing that to a noble earlier, so naturally that had to be the correct response. “Yes, my lady! You are absolutely correct, my lady! Please forgive this one, my lady!”

Nailed it!

Diane’s face turns so red, one could easily mistake it for a sea lobster-stallion. It is an extremely large, four legged lobster that can easily adapt to either coastline or sea. While awkward in the water, it gallops quite readily on land, and is known for its salty sweet flavor. Due to having been hunted to near extinction in Anastasia, it is quite rare these days and is most often imported from hunters in Ebenheim.

“I… I… focus on your report! The Duke is on the other side of this door! And make sure to treat him with courtesy and respect and no matter what, do not do that ever again!”

She immediately turns around and shoves the doors with all her might. Seems the desire to escape from that situation gave her incredible strength, as a very surprised looking knight watched this tiny girl opening these massive doors.

The knight is standing in the center of the room, wearing full plate armor and an Adamantium claymore strapped to his back. On the left side of his chest piece, a sigil of a gold shield with two red lions circling an ornate scepter.

A red carpet runs from the center of the room to the head of the room, where an authoritative throne of hewn rock sits, with large purple and gold banners behind it. On this throne is sitting one of the most powerful men in the Kingdom of Luthas. His physique matches his position, as he is a large man with broad shoulders. He has a well-toned jaw, and while he is dressed simply (or at least simply for a noble, which still includes numerous rings with rare gems and a large cape), you can see his muscles through how tight his arms fit in the sleeves. The most intimidating part of his face, though, is his cold blue eyes. They initially betray no emotion, although when settling upon Diane, it quickly turns to disdain. To his right, an aide sits at a table, with papers full of notes on the Duke’s decisions throughout the day, to be turned into appropriate laws and decrees.

“Duke Vermillion, as we have already spoken at length and concluded the majority of our business, I shall allow our guest here a moment before we finish up. I suppose such an… audacious entrance must be due to something important.”

As the knight steps aside in the chamber, the Duke nods for Diane to come forward. The disdain in his eyes replaced with fury, and his hands gripping the armrests of his throne tightly. This brat not only interrupted his meeting with the Imperial Knight Lieutenant Septimus, but brought a peasant in to his throne room? Why couldn’t she just die on one of her missions and stop embarrassing the Family? If Lieutenant Septimus wasn’t here… he would have just executed her at this point and covered it up. But perhaps… this may open a new way of dealing with her?

Diane steps in to the center of the room and kneels. Thistleman doesn’t move past the door, but instead stands with his arms crossed, looking disinterested at the Duke. It seems the Duke hasn’t noticed the blatant slight yet due to his focus on Diane, however Lieutenant Septimus caught it immediately. A small smile escapes his lips. Either that child is suicidal, or he has an incredible amount of balls. If this wasn’t a foreign kingdom, he would definitely try and recruit that kid in to the Imperial Knights as a squire and train him.

Diane’s eyes were pointed straight down, and she didn’t dare to look up. Her small body was trembling.

“Fath…”

“That is Duke Vermillion to you. Speak quickly!”

“Duke Vermillion, per your orders, I took my knights and mage to investigate the loss of contact with Kurstwood, the village you assigned to me. However, when we arrived there… we found the village had been completely destroyed. While we were investigating the city, we were attacked… I believe it was a Demon… Everyone… everyone who came with me, they all died… I am not sure how we survived but we managed to escape from it.”

Duke Vermillion realized his method of dealing with the stain on his family, and how he could get rid of Diane. He hid his malicious glee behind a façade of anger.

“So you interrupted my meeting with the Imperial Knight Lieutenant to tell me you allowed your village, the one I entrusted to you, to be destroyed and you managed to get all your knights killed in the process? And that the most information you could bring to me that is was some Demon who did it? The Demon Lord’s empire is on the other side of the Ocean! There is no way they came all the way from Ebenheim, ignored the Empire of the Sand, and laid waste to one of our villages! You cannot even properly identify the difference between a Daemon and a Demon! Such a disgrace cannot be tolerated in our Family!”

This is it, the crescendo! Furthermore, with the Imperial Knight Lieutenant as his witness, he would be able to justify his decision and defend it even if other noble families wanted to intervene in his affairs. Only in extreme circumstances can nobles be truly punished, let alone disqualified from inheritance. This stage finally gave him the tools to do so. Furthermore, he can use this situation to show the nobles as proactive and self-regulating, boosting appearances. Giving Diane Kurstwood as her only holding was the right decision, a village so close to the wilderness was bound to get destroyed by creatures marauding from the wilderness, especially if he never provided it any support. Although such a raid was supposed to take Diane down with it… not have her come back.

“Diane, you have disgraced our Kingdom and have proven your incompetence! You do not deserve to be called a noble, and are nothing but a hindrance to any who could fall under you. For the good of the Kingdom, I retract your status as a noble and banish you from House Culaine! Begone!”

Such a performance would be sure to impress Lieutenant Septimus! He was confident in his decision, however he couldn’t garner any clues from Lieutenant Septimus’ face. Except… the Lieutenant wasn’t looking at him at all.

Duke Vermillion followed Lieutenant Septimus’ gaze. Then he realized it… as Diane hurried out of the chamber, her eyes holding in her tears, that peasant was staring at him with clear hatred! He did not bow, he did not pay respects, and instead turned his back on him as Diane grabbed his hand and drug him through the door!

This insult! The nerve! He was far too angry for words… the Duke launched a poisoned blade at incredible speed towards Thistleman. While publicly killing his daughter would be considered unacceptable, nobody would care if he killed a peasant who insulted him. However… the dagger never made contact with Thistleman. Strangely enough, it seemed to miss his head by mere millimeters… and struck his chief butler square in the neck. The same one who earlier wished to send Diane to her death.

The Duke stood flabbergasted… he never missed before. Has it been too long since he last practiced his blade? And the commotion… I just merely missed but nobody should have noticed other than the Knight Captain? Then he saw who he had struck… In the Kingdom of Luthas, it is a regular practice to send children who are not inheriting land to work for other noble families as servants and debutantes in their houses, particularly in the hopes of building favor, alliances or seducing inheriting children in to their families. The person he just killed would bring a lot of trouble indeed, as it was none other than the fourth son of Count Horatio. While the difference in rank is significant… that man alone is considered one of the four pillars of the Kingdom, with the other three being himself and the Kings two brothers. This would bring a lot of trouble, he would need to cover up with an excuse quickly! Pinning the blame on the peasant as an assassin… that would work!

However, before he could speak…

“Duke Vermillion, as it seems you are insistent on killing people in your halls over a report of danger to the Kingdom, I suppose we have nothing left to discuss here. In the Empire, we do try to maintain a somewhat higher level of civility. As this pertains to my mission here, and with the King’s permission, we will be heading north to Kurstwood. I pray you will have some more restraint with your subjects in the future.”

The damage is done. This will bring an incredible amount of trouble his way. Duke Vermillion swore to remember the face of that peasant. He is not known as one of the pillars of the Kingdom for no reason, and once things get settled with Count Horatio…. Which knowing him, would likely take a very long time… he will punish Diane and that peasant.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Diane runs out of the manor as fast as her little legs are able, dragging Thistleman behind her. She needed to leave here as fast as possible, and her Father is clearly in a killing mood. He even killed Asimore! She was certain that if she didn’t get out of Duke Vermillion’s territory, he would use her banishment as an excuse to kill her.

She could see the coachman parked alongside a magnificent carriage of black, gold and red hues. However, she didn’t have time to consider it.

“Hey Coachman, we need to leave, now!”

“Aieee… what is the hurry little miss? We just got here… this old man needs his rest…”

“The Duke just banished me and he killed Asimore!”

“What?!? Ahhh… this is trouble indeed!”

The coachman knew his career working for House Culaine was over. The Duke would likely vent his anger by killing anyone who was ever closely associated with Diane within his domain, and if he couldn’t outright kill them, he would pressure and ruin their lives with ruthless efficiency. Although to make such a mistake as killing Asimore…. That was most unlike him.

“Hurry, jump on! I have family in the port city of Njord, and that city is part of the King’s Territory. I can take you there with me, and while I certainly won’t risk harboring you, we will at least be safe from his immediate reach there.”

“Thanks… and… I am sorry, but I never did ask for your name.”

“Don’t worry about it… in fact, I would be just fine if you kept calling me coachman. The saving grace of peasants like us is that if nobody ever cared to learn our names, then it makes hiding away from aggrieved lords all the better.”

The coachman smiled a large toothy grin as the carriage hurriedly left the estate. Diane at that moment also learned an important lesson on the wisdom of the weak.

“So Diane… are you going to ever let go of my hand?”

The fact she was still holding Thistleman’s hand after running with him all the way through the manor, and while riding with him in the carriage, suddenly came in to sharp focus.

Her face turned so red, that even the red sheen of the reddest apples could not compare to its radiance.

She made a sound so unladylike at that moment that she swore Thistleman to secrecy on it for the rest of his life.