“Let’s not overreact,” Aster urged. “It was a snowball. If that’s the worst thing anybody wants to do to you, you’ve made an unusually positive impression.”

“Biribo?” I demanded.

She sighed, but obligingly positioned herself such that Biribo could poke his head out of his pocket nest in her coat and remain hidden from view by both our bodies.

He did so, flicking his tongue out at me. “It was Hadder, the groom from the paddock back there. Y’know, the guy you trapped with Highlord Whatsit and made the focus of a very tense public display? He ducked around the corner of that shed just over there. Go easy on the guy, boss, it was a good hit! Dude’s got an arm on him.”

My anger had already begun to fade by the time he started talking; I had so many much bigger things to be angry about, and after all, it was just a snowball. At Biribo’s answer, though, the flames of rage were momentarily stifled by sheer surprise. Only momentarily. Then, they came back with a vengeance.

Hadder? The lowborn? The guy working himself to the bone and shivering in the snow without a coat, on whose behalf I had just thrown down with his oppressor? That Hadder had seen fit to…

Oh, showtime was on.

“You could’ve warned me,” I complained.

“Not without giving away the whole game,” he replied solemnly. “I didn’t figure a snowball was worth it. Also, that was objectively hilarious. Oh, and congrats, boss, you unlocked a new Wisdom perk.”

I had already turned and taken a step toward the shed he’d indicated, keeping a wary eye for anyone trying to creep away to either side. Now, I had to turn my attention back to my familiar.

“Oh? What’s that?”

His little triangular face was inscrutable as always, but still I could’ve sworn he was grinning. “Now keep in mind it’s not absolute control; the effect will vary based on the circumstances, the effort you put into it and the willpower of those subjected to it. And it won’t kick in if you just open your mouth and spill out noises. But, so long as you’re making an actual speech, a presentation backed by your skill at oratory and with some real intent behind it, the effect will make people strongly inclined to stop what they’re doing and pay attention to you. Congratulations, boss, you have gained the true power of the villainous monologue.”

“Wow,” Aster commented, “that one’s actually on brand, huh? I was starting to think these Wisdom perks would end up being more or less random or situational.”

Hm. Hmmm. Okay, this news did indeed make me feel better. Aster was right, this played very conveniently into my established aptitudes; I could get some real mileage out of this one. Thanks, Virya. I’d have to find time to celebrate properly later.

But first, to business.

“Cool,” I said aloud. “Aster, you go around the other side of the shed and flank him. Make sure he doesn’t skitter off.”

“I’m not doing that,” she said bluntly, folding her arms. “Come on, Lord Seiji. In the worst case this does not call for actual tactics. To be honest, I really suggest you let it go. A snowball’s not worth picking a fight over.”

“What do you take me for? I’m not going to fight him.”

“Then why is your sword out?”

“Come on, Aster, why do I do anything?” I countered, turning and striding toward the shed. “Dramatic effect.”

Feet are unmistakably loud in the snow, and I was moving for speed rather than subtlety, since I couldn’t count on my traitorous right hand to indulge my petty vendettas. Naturally, my quarry heard me coming and tried to run for it.

“Hey, Hadder!”

He froze mid-step, shoulders hunching, and slowly lowered his upraised foot back to the ground. There was the social hierarchy of this wretched country at work. Foreign or not, even explicitly out of favor with his liege, a lord was not something you could ignore or walk away from. A little twinge in the back of my mind hinted that me leveraging that in this manner wasn’t a great look, but I was too pissed off to stop now.

“How’s the boy doing?” I asked, putting on a smile that was just a smidge too broad to be believable. “I mean, you’re over here rather than brooding at the paddock, so I gather Thunder must be well on the mend.”

“Ah. Yes, my lord,” Hadder said warily. “We’re all extremely grateful to you, my lord. His leg seems all but perfect. He ought to be fine as the spring, until the next fool thing he does to himself.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” I came to a stop next to him, idly tapping the rapier blade against my boot. His eyes flicked nervously down to it and back to my face, and he belatedly folded down his hands at me. “So, what’s with the artillery?”

He didn’t turn that grayish color lowborn did when going pale, but only because he already somewhat was due to the cold. “Ah…your pardon, my lord, the what?”

“The snowball.” I allowed my smile to fade by several deliberate degrees.

“I…” Hadder swallowed heavily. “I’m not sure what you—”

“Right, because I was looking the other way and didn’t see it coming, you assume I don’t know who did it. It’s clear you haven’t had to deal with a lot of sorcerers, buddy. You’ve made some unwarranted assumptions concerning what we can or cannot do.”

He inhaled deeply, his breath quivering through some combination of fear and cold. “My lord, please—”

“Relax,” I ordered, dropping the smile entirely. He didn’t, but I wasn’t going to fault the disobedience because…I mean, obviously. “It’s not as if your Highlord is going to listen to any complaints from me, and I hope you don’t think I’m petty enough to stab you over a thing like that. Wait, never mind, the local highborn are exactly that petty, aren’t they? Then no, Hadder, you are not in danger here. I would just like to know why.”

I leaned forward, forcing the smile back into place, and he subtly leaned away to a matching degree.

“What gives, man? I thought we were pals. We were bonding over how cool horses are and how fucked up it is that they get treated better than you.”

“What?” he burst out, then clamped his lips together.

“Go on, that’s a start,” I encouraged. “Let’s hear your thoughts. Would it help if I made it an order?”

I could see the guy cycling through emotions; that alternating sequence of anger and fear was so uncomfortably familiar it was easily recognizable to me despite his efforts to keep it contained.

“Lord Seiji,” Aster began in a concerned tone.

“Highlord Lhadron is a great man!” Hadder suddenly burst out, finding his gumption just before she could rescue him. “And who are you? Where do you get off coming to Clan Ardyllen’s own lands and—and— He didn’t deserve that!”

I could only stare at him, a howling void of disbelief taking the place of my outrage of a moment ago. “…excuse me? Are you on— Look at yourself, man! You’re half-starved and shivering, and whose fault is that?”

“He’s cornered by a crazy man with a sword,” Aster pointed out. “There’s some fault in several directions, there.”

“You have no call to humiliate the Highlord in front of his peers, you— Who are you to say how a fief should be run? I’m proud to serve Clan Ardyllen, and a man who shows such care for his family’s legacy and our horses!”

He finally broke off at the noise of me raking my sword against the side of the shed next to us. Funny, I didn’t recall deciding to do that. I had little thought to spare for it, though; the fury had come back during his last sentence, stronger than before, and I was finding it harder than usual to ride that wave with my usual control. Maybe that production I’d put on for the nobles a minute ago had drained my batteries.

“So that’s what you’re into, huh,” I said quietly. “A man abuses and deprives you, treats you with nothing but contempt, and you’re so in love with him that you’d bare your teeth at somebody who just points out that that’s what he did. A dog has more pride. If you love getting kicked around so much, I can very well—”

“That will do, Lord Seiji.”

Getting snuck up on this time was my own fault, I’d been distracted and barely conscious of my surroundings. To the point that it even now took some effort to tear my attention from the new object of my ire and turn to glare at Lord Ruell, who had stepped up to us while I was focused on Hadder. His fox friend was lurking impassively behind him, her eyes darting between me and Aster.

Ruell also had a naked rapier in his hand, and no trace of his previous joviality in his expression.

“Welcome to the conversation,” I snapped. “I guess I can’t say this party is by invitation only, happening out in the field like this. To bring you up to speed, Ruell, this guy is a dickhead and I am in the midst of explaining this fact to him.”

“Yes, I heard,” the elf replied. “Well and good, old boy, I confess I’m rather inclined to take your side on the philosophical question at hand. You brandishing a sword at the chap is another matter. If you must oppose a man whose ideas challenge your own, Lord Seiji, meet him on grounds that give him a sporting chance. In this case, that means words, or snowballs, eh? Raising sword or spell to a man who can use neither is shameful.”

For just a second, I was powerfully tempted to swivel my full attention to Ruell—along with a Windburst, since he wanted to bring spells into this. Where did he get off—

And that snapped me out of it.

What the hell was I even doing? Hadder was clearly a high-spec ludicrous assclown who deserved the most scathing dressing-down I could deliver. But that wasn’t what I was giving him. I looked down at my sword, and the scratch it had raked in the akorthist planks of the nearby shed wall. At Hadder, clearly terrified for his life and held upright mostly by sheer outrage. That was…painfully relatable.

The whole time on Dount, it seemed like I’d been dealing exclusively with assholes who had too much power, who weren’t used to facing anyone who would and could stand up to them. It was…not comfortable, finding myself on the other end of that dynamic. Usually when I backed up people who needed help, they were grateful. What the fuck was this guy’s problem?!

But he was some guy who worked with horses and had an unreasonable attachment to his abusive, neglectful liege lord. He wasn’t a murderer, or rapist, or Void witch. Just…some guy.

“You know what,” I said, having to exert some real effort to keep my voice even, “you are entirely correct. I am…pretty embarrassed at having needed the reminder.”

In a careful motion, I sheathed my sword. Yeah…embarrassment was not something I dealt with often, these days. For some reason I was finding it harder to sublimate into showtime than anger.

“And when I think about it further, it turns out I don’t have the patience to have this argument properly. Here.” I dipped a hand into my inner coat pocket—which I’d had to have specially sewn because it wasn’t fashionable for Fflyr noblemen to be able to carry stuff—and pulled out a gold halo, which I tossed to Hadder. “Go buy yourself a damn coat, for fuck’s sake. And…whatever else.”

Now that I was more familiar with the asinine currency on this world, I had come to be aware of just how badly I had over-bribed Captain Norovena on our first meeting. In hindsight I still considered it money well spent, given the level of cooperation I’d gotten from him ever since, but still. A gold halo was not a small amount of money, as evidenced by the way Hadder was suddenly gibbering.

“My lord, I can’t—this isn’t—”

“Just go, please,” I said quietly.

He tensed up, then folded down his hands at me—a bit awkwardly, given the coin still clutched in one—and turned to scurry off.

“And Hadder.”

He froze again, mid-step.

“It occurs to me, belatedly,” I said at his back, “that the highborn you’re accustomed to probably have no idea what a working man’s life is like. They don’t imagine that someone like you could possibly have any pride and can’t comprehend the inherent condescension of tossing money at somebody. I just want to make it clear that this is deliberate in every nuance. I want you to have something for your trouble, for my bad behavior and because you clearly need it… And also, screw you, idiot.”

Slowly, he turned his head to peek at me over one shoulder.

I was too emotionally tired to even fake a smile anymore. “That’s all. Resume fucking off, please.”

So off he fucked, while the fucking was good. Putting some distance between himself and the unpredictable rich sorcerer was probably the wisest thing he’d done today.

“Ingrate,” I muttered.

“Quite so, eh?” Ruell sheathed his own sword, again grinning in that casual way of his which made me realize that this dude was very adept at showtime. God, I hoped this didn’t turn into another Lady Gray or Jadrak situation. So far, everybody I’d met who was a decent match for my own skills had been nothing but trouble. “I do say, Lord Seiji, you’ve quite a knack for maneuvering on the fly. That was all very well executed! Right up till the end, there. And we’re none of us entirely at our best when confronted by the unexpected, eh?”

“Aster,” I murmured, “remind me to listen to you more often.”

“You wouldn’t listen to that if I did,” she replied, folding her arms but smiling faintly. “Don’t worry, I’ll clock you one if you ever actually go too far. I was getting close just then.”

“I’d hope so. It’s in your contract and everything.”

“That sounds rather…other than standard for the local King’s Guild, eh?” Ruell commented, glancing back and forth between us. “If you’ll pardon my outthrust opinion, ol’ chap, I think I see where you went wrong back there. Tell me, what do you make of the fact that these folk haven’t risen in revolt, given their conditions?”

“I mean…” I gestured vaguely at the village. We were a bit of a distance away, but people could be seen moving between the buildings. “Look at ‘em. These people are too hungry and cold and beaten down to even think about that.”

“Sure, makes sense as far as it goes,” Ruell agreed with a casual shrug. “Rather hard to square with the reality of a chap who has the gumption to huck a snowball at a powerful sorcerer, though, eh?”

I hesitated, considering. He wasn’t without a point.

“Very well, what do you make of it, then?”

“That’s the thing about ruddy blaggards like that Lhadron and his ilk, y’know. One can only hope they’re inept enough to try ruling by nothing but fear and force, and that hope is usually forlorn. And even those who are so bloody stupid often enough answer to someone more competent who restrains their worst impulses. Keeping people in line on a large scale while squeezing them for every last drop they’re worth requires additional technique. The trick’s fairly simple but dashedly tricky to counter—one just has to get ‘em to identify with their own oppressors. It’s easier to do if they’re deprived of any other source of purpose or allegiance. If done right, the victims will fight to keep themselves in chains, like as not. Same reason one oughtn’t be hasty to intervene when a bugger’s beating his own wife; half the time she’ll turn on her would-be rescuer with claws out. And, it’s the reason one can rarely goad a populace to rise up with just a stirring speech.”

I genuinely couldn’t come up with an answer to that off the cuff, just staring at him while I absorbed the insight. He…well, I wasn’t sure how accurate all that was, but it very much seemed that he wasn’t wrong. And that…that was a problem. I was just a fuckin’ Dark Lord, here, all I had to work with was violence and propaganda. If that wasn’t going to work in every case… Damn it, nobody told me I needed to hire a…a sociologist!

“That’s quite the dose of perspective,” I finally said aloud. “You sound pretty well-versed in this stuff, Lord Ruell.”

“Not from firsthand practice, I am relieved to say,” he replied with a wry little half-smile, which immediately faded. “But plenty of observation. It’s…if not the oldest trick in the book, a chapter one staple of a very early edition. In Lancor it’s wall-to-wall chivalry, tradition, and patriotism—very handy for keeping the peasants in line, eh? The Emperor, bless him, seems to do his best for his people in good faith, but the same cannot be said of all the Houses.”

“Having an Emperor in charge who enforces even a thin veneer of justice has to help.” I glanced back at the village again; Hadder had long since vanished from view. “Coaxing the barest scraps of virtue out the highborn is going to be a lot more complicated if their subjects actually defend them. Fucking hell…”

“I know you care about people, Lord Seiji,” Aster said quietly. “I know you were just putting on a show for those nobles, talking to them in a language they’d understand. But nobody else here knows that. What Hadder and the other grooms heard was you making a big, grandiose speech whose central thesis was that they are basically livestock and their persecution is just mismanagement. I really hope that got the results you were aiming for from the highborn, because you definitely didn’t make any friends today.”

“I rather think it will help.”

Okay, this time it wasn’t my fault. We all whirled to confront Rhydion, who had just…fucking manifested from around the side of the shed. You can’t walk that quietly on snow, especially in metal boots! The stealthy way he moved had to be an effect of that artifact armor. What the hell else could it do, and how much of a pain in my ass was it going to be to find out?

“You have a gift for political theater, Lord Seiji,” the paladin said. “That was an inspired performance, if risky. But as matters turned out, I believe you’ll have started a…fashion. Highborn are nothing if not susceptible to trends. In the weeks to come it will be very much in vogue to display well-fed lowborn in sufficiently warm clothing to other well-to-do visitors. Of course, that will be a starkly temporary state of affairs and is unlikely to reach everyone on the island to begin with—and it certainly addresses none of the underlying problems. But coming at this moment, with the early winter and large stockpiles of food and materiel just waiting to be circulated, it should be exactly the push needed to ensure security until the season changes.”

“Well, let’s hope,” I said, watching him warily. “Nice as that sounds, I’m rather concerned about the rest of the ‘not everyone’ you referred to. Just because the highborn can blithely condemn people to starve to death in the snow doesn’t make it tolerable.”

“I don’t think anyone suggested today’s work settled the matter,” Ruell said in a performatively casual tone, inspecting his fingernails. “Rampaging across a whole island is rather on the implausible side, but in smaller more specific cases, at a time when lots of packages are scurrying about hither and yon? It wouldn’t surprise me if the odd parcel goes astray just where it needs to. These things do happen.”

He met my eyes and smiled disarmingly. I considered him for a moment, then granted him a shallow nod. These things did happen, if someone made them happen.

“Are you acquainted with the Yviredhs, Lord Seiji?” Rhydion inquired.

I did not freeze up or otherwise react, just turning a blankly questioning look on him. Goddammit, asshole, stop being so perceptive! I am TRYING to con you!

“The what?”

“The lady and her husband who intervened in your…presentation. It was such a well-timed interjection and so perfectly executed to achieve the results you sought, just when they were in question. I could not help but wonder if it was pre-arranged.”

“Oh. No, I had no idea who was going to be there. Maybe I should make an effort to remember the less horrible ones, but to be honest, all those highborn kind of look alike to me. Speaking of which, I specifically did not notice you lurking about. And you tend to stick out.”

“One would think so,” he said vaguely. “In any case, Lord Seiji, I realize this has not been a perfect outcome, but realistically, no such was ever possible. You have likely achieved the best result that could have been hoped for. Between that and your useful information concerning the squirrel tribe and ‘witch’ in the forest, may I presume that you are prepared to join us in moving out?”

“Excuse the hell outta you?” I said sweetly. “The deal was that you help me get food and stuff to the population. I distinctly recall you doing fuck all while I did that myself. Have fun zombie hunting, Rhydion.”

He regarded me from behind his visor, inscrutable as always, and then shifted his head minutely toward the other main party to this conversation.

“Forgive me for my rudeness, Lord Ruell, but I wonder if I could prevail upon you to give us a moment?”

“Now, how can I rightly call such a well-phrased request rude?” the elf replied airily. “Not to worry, old boy, I’m sure I can find something in this delightful shindig to occupy me for a bit. Lord Seiji, Miss Aster, it has been an absolute pleasure from top to bottom. I’ve a strong feeling the fates will bring us together again soon. Till then, ta!”

He sauntered off. Arrkeen studied me with a terrifyingly neutral expression for a moment longer before turning to follow her master. I was left reflecting that the elf was probably right. Even not knowing what the hell that guy’s deal was, I had a very strong feeling I was nowhere near done having him underfoot.

Something to look forward to.

As Ruell trotted off, I turned an expectant stare on Rhydion and folded my arms. In truth, I still fully intended to come along on his expedition, if only because recent events in my own neck of the woods meant I could not afford to have him or anyone else from the King’s Guild rummaging around in beastfolk territory without me there to supervise and deflect their attention as necessary. But he had spectacularly failed to make himself even slightly useful, and I was absolutely going to milk a few concessions out of him for it.

“The situation on Dount is politically rather unique,” the paladin stated calmly once we were alone. “There are few polities wherein absolutely no one would observe events in Cat Alley and the Nest, as well as the ouster of Lady Gray and the subsequent peculiar change in bandit activity on Dount, and connect a character like the Healer to a foreign lord with an odd soft spot for the downtrodden and a rare specialty in healing magic. In most countries—even, I daresay, in most provinces of Fflyr Dlemathlys—the emergent pattern would have already prompted direct action from the local governor, if not higher. This is Dount, however, and most of those who even could draw those connections are either uninterested, insufficiently compensated, or actively disinclined to pursue the matter.”

He paused. The bastard did a dramatic pause—to me—while I stared at him in shock.

“Of course, things would immediately become very different if a person of sufficient standing were to spell it out for them.”

Snow crunched under Aster’s boots as she very subtly shifted to a more ready stance, facing the paladin. I, for the moment, could still only stare at him.

The motherfucker.