Celestial Hymn 14 (Patreon)

Celestial Hymn
Chapter 14

-VB-

“You know, torture is not good tool for interrogation,” I mumbled to myself as my soldiers prepared to fight once more, but I found myself remembering the bandits who clamored to give the best information they could so that they may escape true justice. “But it is a good supplement to good, old psychology.”

I promised them an escape, but also separated each of them as I received information.

The moment I got a conflicting information from the rest, I made an example.

I gave my two most ruthless and bloodthirsty men-at-arms instructions.

The rest of the prisoners watched as a man was butchered alive. Strips of skin flayed from the still living man, bodies cut and bones cleaned, castrated and fed to the wolves that came out at the smell of blood, and then when there was only a hoarse whimper left in the bandit, a single spear impaled him from his anus to his mouth.

Upon that impaled corpse, I had turned my attention to the now quivering and pale masses of prisoners.

And I asked nicely and quietly for the information I wanted.

Lies would be met with similar results.

Those who knew nothing kept their lips shut after the second liar met a worse fate as each of his nails and teeth were pulled in front of the spectators before all that which had been done upon the first visited him, too.

Those who knew spoke. Eager to sell each other and the persons who hired them if it meant leaving my accursed land with merely one hand removed.

Oh, I got what I wanted after the first death and three black-takers, but I needed to be sure.

I needed to be quite right and nothing could be left out.

So I was thorough.

So thorough, in fact, that even my men-at-arms, who were equally angry with the bandits, felt pity for them.

By the time my little show ended, I only sent two-thirds of the original number of prisoners to be kept in the brig until the black cloaks would arrive to take them to the north.

If they left my brigs as skeletons with barely any meat left on them, then that was all the better. If they survived and reached the wall, then they would be a valuable resource for the fight to come. If they didn’t survive the grueling travel, then they received the justice in a prolonged and much more painful way than I could have given them: of starvation, of exhaustion, and of hopelessness.

My men-at-arms stood ready before me. Outside my small castle, my levies stood ready in their own arms and armors.

“You all heard the bandits,” I said firmly and all of the men-at-arms nodded. The bandits had been a plot of the two neighboring lords, the two lords of the House of Penroses. “And you saw how many died to their blades.”

Three villages had been burnt, looted, raped, and destroyed by the time we stopped the bandits with our lightning speed response and brutal shock-and-awe assault. A hundred of my subjects had died.

Some of them had been friends and relatives of my men-at-arms and the levies and their families in the city.

“This is not about me. This is about you,” I emphasized as I looked over my men. “These lords think that just because I am an unknown compared to their long history that I - and thus you - are a free target. Tell me, men. Are we free target?”

“No!”

“Are we going to let them trample over us?!”

I winced internally as the Forge acted up right now and almost killed my momentum. Hmm? Oh. Okay, nothing again from Metallurgy.

“NO!”

“Then we go and fight them. We draw a clear line in the sand. This much further and no more!”

We pumped our fists into the air and shouted together.

“NO MORE!”

Because one was too many, three hundred moved.

-VB-

To be fair, I had sent a raven to Prince Renly with copies of the confessions.

Yes, they were confessions obtained under duress, but when all of the surviving leaders of the bandits gave the same confession after being interrogated separately, then those confessions suddenly had more weight to them and not easily dismissed.

Of course, they could have made up a story beforehand, but I made sure that anyone who tattled on such an event would … get rewarded. Perhaps even freed. No one took up on the offer, though.

And Renly gave me until he arrived there personally to solve the problem. If he arrived and the problem persisted, then he would solve it himself and strictly told me that no one would like his response.

It wasn’t like Renly’s usual letters, though. It made me a little suspicious, but I kept the letter safely and then gave that speech to my men-at-arms.

Okay, so the Penroses. They were of a single house, but had three different lords, one to my south and another two to my north. Of the three, the two Penrose lords to my north were involved in the bandit scheme.

And yes, it was a scheme.

The confessions the bandits gave me

Officially, they had one thousand soldiers each as their retinue, aka their men-at-arms and knights, but this didn’t take into account any levies they might be able to pull up.

Fortunately for me, amassing the levies to do anything took time. Weeks. Months.

I already had all of my levies activated, trained, and geared.

That’s how I arrived at the town of Hadlow and then at the Hadlow Keep.

“Who goes there with an army and break the King’s Peace?!” someone demanded from the top of the keep’s battlement even after seeing my banner.

The people of the Hadlow Town looked from not too far, and they were well within shouting distance.

“I am Alan Marris, Lord of Brownspear!” I shouted back up. “I have come to speak with Lord Penrose of Hadlow Keep! I came with my men here because I could not trust House Penrose to guarantee a lord’s safety, not after bandits have come down in massive numbers from the lands of the Penrose! I must also very much protest how poorly the northern Penroses are managing their lands! Why, compared to their southern cousin, it’s a mess!”

I heard the people murmur and whisper behind mel

As much as I wanted to be impulsive, I knew fighting would not get me what I wanted. In fact, there was a high chance that I might come under heavy scrutiny and enemies I don’t even know about will use it as a chance to put me down.

I had magic! I had technology! I had power!

…But I lacked manpower.

Maybe once I grew to the point of terraform entire castles with ease, then I might be able to cut loose. But I wasn’t there yet.

No, I needed to be careful.

That meant making some threatening moves but not following through with it.

… See? I could be less violent. (Okay, maybe my impulsive murder, however deserved of that bribe accepting and blackmailing bastard priest, may have gotten to me a little, but lay it off, my 21st century memories and moralities! I’m trying here!)

I blinked as the gates opened.

To my surprise, Lord Penrose of Hadlock Keep walked out in full plate armor and a hundred or so of his own men-at-arms.

… Was it me or were his men-at-arms shoddier in gear than my men’s?

“You come to my home with an army and dare accuse me such?!” the portly man yelled at me.

I snorted. “I only speak the truth. I have received confessions out of the bandits before sending them to the Wall.”

“Those are lies you probably created to find casus belli against me!”

“If I wanted war, then I would have war. I would have struck from afar. Don’t you worry about the details and worry about your failed scheme, because Prince Renly is on his way.”

The noble lord paused at that declaration.

“Would you like to deal with me or deal with Prince Renly? He sounded very angry in the letter he sent me,” I said before pulling out and waving a copy of that letter.

From the way his fists clenched, he very much did not want the Lord Paramount to come and butt in our situation here.

“Someone get me my salt and bread!”

'And so the negotiation begins...'