“... mine. We had an agreement, three shirts in return. But he-” A young man says, gesturing angrily at an older man stood beside him.

“You liar! We agreed on two! Besides, all my cloth burnt up.” The older man throws his arms out wide. “What am I supposed to do? Pray that Vistol drops some onto my head at night?”

Reud grimaces, the arguing of the two men bringing on a pounding headache. His entire morning had been similarly filled with minor disputes, from whether someone had laid claim to a certain part of a building, to who owed whom money. They all came to him, to the large open room at the ground floor of the building Lilia and Reud claimed, to lay their disputes at his feet. Then they stand before him, expectantly waiting for him to produce the perfect solution for their problems.

“Enough!” Reud eventually says, silencing their bickering. Turning he addresses the younger man. “Killian, everyone in Srinaber has lost everything they had. Trying to force people to stick to agreements made before the Seekers destroyed your homes is not going to make you any friends.”

The young man opens his mouth to protest, but Reud holds up a hand. “I don’t want to hear any more.” Turning to addresses the older man. “Adarian, you are a clothier?” The man nods. “In that case, I will get you access to some cloth. Talk to Rachel, she is compiling a list of everything we are looking to buy. Then, you can fulfil your obligations.”

The two men look to one another, seemingly mollified. They bow to Reud, then turn and walk out, leaving him alone. Lilia walks in through the door as the two men leave, looking at Reud with a large smile on her face.

Reud rubs his temples. “Why do they bring all these petty problems to me? The first few days in Srinaber were fine, but now my days are full of dealing with all these trivial matters!”

Lilia stops beside him, giving his shoulder a comforting squeeze. “That’s the joy of being the lord. Having you mediate all these issues gives them all a sense that someone capable is in command, leading them on in the right direction. Right now they need that.”

Reud sighs. “I know, I just… I guess I just want to complain. Give me a pile of bones instead, at least that doesn’t argue back constantly. How many more today?”

“Just one more, shall I call her in?” Lilia says, smiling.

Reud nods. “Let’s get this over with.” As Lilia walks out the room, Reud sits back upright, trying to adopt a stern, leader-like pose once again.

A middle-aged woman walks into the audience room, her face partially obscured behind wavy brown hair. Her face bears the signs of a lost beauty, marred by gaunt, yellowed skin and great bags under her eyes.

“How can I help you, miss…?” Reud asks.

“Cecily.” She croaks out, her voice gravely.

Reud waits in silence, trying to remember where he had heard that name before. That’s right, this is the woman whose twins were taken by the Seekers!

Cecily peers around the room, squirting her eyes as she looks in all the corners.

Reud waits patiently, until eventually the woman breaks the silence.

“The Seeker said you’re a free mage. Is that true?” She demands.

Reud is taken aback. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Are you a free mage or not. It’s not a hard question.” Cecily spits out, glaring at him.

“I am, yes. Is that a problem?” Reud responds.

Her mouth twists into a smile that doesn’t touch her eyes. “You wouldn’t mind proving it to me then would ya?”

Reud considers the woman for a moment. What she was asking wasn’t totally unreasonable, in fact he was surprised he hadn’t been asked to do as much by Graham when he had arrived in Littlestream. To be allowed to practise magic a person needed approval from Lightire to do so, in the form of a brand on the upper chest. Only those who could prove their noble birth could apply for such a mark, and any mage without one was considered to be a free mage, to be killed on sight. A simple, yet effective, approach for managing those with magic in the conquered territories.

Finally, Reud reaches up, and begins unbuttoning his shirt to expose his chest. The woman steps forward, pulling her hair aside to squint at him. Then, for the first time since the audience began, her smile touches her eyes.

“I’m sorry, my lord.” She says, bowing her head. “I just had to be sure.”

“What, pray tell, does knowing that I am a free mage mean to you?” Reud asks, rebuttoning his shirt.

Her head droops, her voice dropping to a mumble. “It’s my children.” She looks up at Reud. “The Seekers took my babies, and I want them back!” Her eyes go distant, a solitary tear welling up and running down her cheek. “I know I’m not supposed to want that, but they’re mine, not his. I carried them, raised them.” Her voice gets louder, as the words start spilling from her lips faster and faster. “They thought I’d forgotten, just like Linota and Roesia. Fallen for his mind tricks. They wanted me not to care, but I do. He put the children in me, but they’re mine! How dare they take them from me.” Cecily grips her head, her clawed fingers turning her hair into a tangled mess.

Reud springs up from his chair, walking over to the woman with his hands outstretched. “Cecily! Cecily, relax, stay with me.” Stopping in front of her he looks her in the eye, trying to soothe the distressed woman. “Take a deep breath. In and out. In and out.” Slowly, Cecily relaxes, taking deep shuddering breaths in time with Reud’s own.

Once she seems calm enough, Reud risks speaking again. “Now, tell me again, but slower this time.”

Cecily draws in a deep breath, then speaks. “My children, Marla and Vorlo. The Seekers took them three months ago, just as I knew they would. You see, I remember how I got pregnant.”

Her voice breaks and she stops, sucking in deep breaths to collect herself. Then, voice steady again, she continues. “Everyone thinks the reason that I never said who the father of my children was is because it was some spoken-for man. That is not true.”

A hard edge enters her voice. “I do not know his name, and I’ve only ever seen him twice in my life. The first time was when he… when I got with child. He was so charming, so powerful. It was intoxicating, for a time.” She pauses and her eyes go distant. After a few moments she seems to come back to herself, and she continues. “He came again, maybe half a year after that, when my belly was swollen with the twins. It’s all fuzzy, but I think he put something else into me. Something that burned like fire, and did something to my children.”

She stops, letting out a keening moan, tears running down her cheeks. “My babies. Oh my babies, where are you?”

“Cecily, it’s okay.” Reud says, keeping his voice low and soothing. “Just tell me about the man, who was he?”

She turns her head, hiding behind her hair. “He did something to my head, made things hard to remember. Made me forget him for many many years. Something must have gone wrong, because I remember him, unlike Roesia, unlike Linota. His face haunts my dreams, his eyes glowing violet, a spiralling scar running down his cheek.”

She looks back to Reud, her eyes filled with pain. “He wasn’t with the Seekers when they took my children, but I know he sent them. Please, my lord, bring them back to me!”

“Do you have any idea where the Seekers may have taken them?” Reud asks.

She shakes her head. “When the Seekers come, they always put the children into black wagons, but I do not know where they go after that, if I knew, I would get my babies back myself.” She looks up at him. “When I realized you were a free mage, I knew you must hate the Seekers as much as I do. If you are half the man you claim to be, you will help me get my children back.”

Reud smiles at her, trying to seem collected. It wasn’t a lot to go on. “You have my word, I will do everything in my power to find your children, and punish the ones responsible for taking them from you.”

Cecily studies his eyes. “Thank you, my lord.” For a moment, a brighter, happier woman shines through. Then the moment is lost, and the dejected expression slides back over her face again. She gives a clumsy curtsy, then turns and walks out the room.

Reud collapses back into his chair, turning over what she said in his head. The Seekers had impregnated, then experimented on this woman. For what purpose exactly? To produce children with magic?

Rachel enters the room, drawing Reud back out of his thoughts. Trailing behind her is Lilia, the pair of them striding over to him. Over the past week Rachel has really proven her value, stepping up to help with organizing and managing the day to day running of the growing compound. She’d picked up a lot of the day-to-day business of running a village from her father, and was putting it to great use.

“What was that all about? She sounded a little distressed.” Lilia asks.

Reud sighs. “That was the mother of the latest kidnapped children, wanting me to rescue them. It seems it’s all linking back to the Seekers after all.”

“Rachel, what do you know about the Seekers black caravans?” Reud asks, looking at the woman standing to Lilia’s right.

“Black caravans? Hmm, not much. I think I’ve heard of them going in and out of Avonford, but not much beyond that.” Rachel says. “The Seekers like to keep their affairs rather secretive.”

Reud lets out another sigh. He did love a mystery to be solved, but the Seekers were a real headache to deal with. It seems all his problems curve back around to them. High time he started to stamp out their influence in his land. If only he had the time to focus on something like that.

Looking up at Lilia he gestures around the room. “I wish you’d deal with all this instead, there’s so many other things I could be doing. You know speaking to people isn’t my strength.” Reud complains.

Lilia puts up her hands, smiling widely. “Oh no, I wouldn’t want to deprive you of the pleasure.” Her face goes serious. “Honestly though, you’re doing a great job. People are starting to trust you.”

Reud sighs. Turning to Rachel he addresses the young woman. “So how are things looking for Srinaber?”

Rachel stands up straighter, brushing her blonde hair behind one ear. “The city itself is developing nicely. The barricades have all been turned into proper walls now, and focus has been turned to fully rebuilding the most stable buildings into homes. Beyond that, however, not so good. We have enough food for a month at most. Trading with the neighbouring villages we can get another months worth maybe, but they are also stocking up for the winter, and are unwilling to sell. If we ration carefully, we can maybe extend those supplies out to three, maybe four months, but it’s certainly not enough to last till spring. We need a larger trading partner.”

Reud settles back in his chair. “Do you have any suggestions?”

Rachel thinks for a moment, fiddling with her hair. “Maybe Avonford? It’s just up the river. If we repair the docks, and prove we have money to spend, then we can entice some merchants to travel further down the Seine to Srinaber. Then they will bring us everything we need without us needing to lift a finger.”

Reud taps his chin. Avonford again, it seems he was overdue a visit to that city. “Lilia, what do you think?” He asks.

Lilia smiles and spreads her arms wide. “Don’t ask me, you two are the ones trained in statecraft, not me. If you both think it’s a good idea, then that’s good enough for me.”

Rachel nods to her, then turns back to Reud. “The only problem is getting there. We don’t have any horses, and building ships will take too long. Though we can reach Aldsville and Nileshurst on foot now that the way down to the Great North Road has been cleared, it’s a whole other matter to walk all the way to Avonford. It would take weeks! And each night you’d risk being eaten by magical beasts.”

Reud sits forward, smiling. “For that, I have an idea. Leave it with me.”