Author's Nightmare: Chapter 154 (Patreon)

Shango POV: Day 144

Current Wealth: 213 gold 21 silver 32 copper

It was the day of the ball, and my wife was still mad at me. That much was to be expected though, such things tend to happen when one arranges a ball knowing that it will make one’s wife mad. Honestly I was starting to get tired of Phelia’s attitude. She’d sustained it for the entire day since our last talk. If Solitaire were here, no doubt, he’d be able to explain exactly what was going on in her head. That’s what empaths were good for- stupid people, angry people and crazy people. Logical reasoning was all well and good, but aimed at human behaviour there were a lot of cases where it fell through. 

Fortunately I had bigger concerns than one person, even if she did have unfettered access to my genitals. We were soon dealing with the arrival of our guests.

And holy fuck, were there a lot. 

I mean of course there were, they were poor people. Growing up as a billionaire’s son did give me a bit of a sheltered experience of the world, but I knew enough to know that there were always more poor people. They were like something as numerous as cockroaches, but that Solitaire didn’t headbutt you for comparing the working class to. And they just kept coming. 

Phelia was hanging close by me, something about marital duties to be seen together in public, and she was doing a good job of controlling her feelings. Ish. They still showed on her face. Clearly she had never trained for the levels of tolerance needed to put up with so many lower-class presences at a time, and each new handful which slipped into the hall were straining her already thin patience ever more. 

I was fairly sure she wouldn’t snap, she was too clever and controlled for that. But I could practically feel the next few weeks of my life becoming even more infuriating as her brain whirred away to coin some new and unusual punishments for me. 

But they really did just keep flowing into the place, and poor Phelia looked like she was approaching breaking point. 

“There’s so many.” She hissed. “Hundreds, thousands. How can you expect to watch them all at once? They’ll have the place pilfered.”

“I’ve moved all the valuables out of the sections we’ll be allowing them in.” I told her. Phelia relaxed slightly.

“That’s something then.” She noted. “At least you can understand their tendency towards thievery, if nothing else about them.”

I was actually starting to get annoyed now. I usually have a strong tolerance for casual evil and bigotry in other people, you need to where I’m from, but Phelia seemed to be doing her best to test that to its limits. 

So it was a relief, then, when Arthur made his way over.

“Lady Velaharo.” He breathed, eying Phelia and grinning so warmly that I thought my wife might drop dead from a handsomeness overdose. “I must say you have surprised me, this event of yours- allowing all these poor, impoverished souls to escape the cold and eat their fill for this night- it truly warms my heart.”

Phelia eyed him, not seeming to know what to say at first.

“Oh, well, I, uh. This was actually-”

Arthur cut her off with a hand on her shoulder.

“Truly, you are a cut removed from other nobles. Too many of our kind allow themselves to remain closed off to the plight of the common man, to blame them for their own misfortunes even as they starve and die. It is wonderful to know you and your husband are not one of them.”

Phelia’s face burned like a tomato, skin reddening with a flush that almost made me worry if she was going to pop something. She smiled, though.

“Thank you Sir.” My wife beamed. “But really, the work was all my husband’s.”

She drifted off at that, mood seeming lifted. It was only when she’d left out sight that I turned to Arthur and slipped him the sack of silver.

“Nice work.” I told him, as he pocketed the cash. “You really do know how to lay it on thick.”

“Yes, well, charming noblewomen can be as important as charming the men sometimes.” Arthur smiled. He really was annoyingly handsome. Bastard. 

We shared a look of appreciation though, one scumbag to another, and he made his way off to continue bodyguarding. 

“He’s going to be busy.” Alora told me, having snuck up behind me, somehow, without my hearing her. Even in steel lamellar armour. I didn’t jump though, used to this now. 

“How so?” I asked.

Alora looked at me with a glare that made the sun seem cold.

“Because you invited hundreds of strangers into our base of operations, we’re both going to be very busy. Tonight is the best chance to kill you anyone’s going to have for a long while.”

I winced, seeing her point. “Sorry about that.” I murmured. “But it’s necessary, long term survival winning out over short term.”

Alora swore, and stormed off. I figured that was about as close to an accord as I was going to get with her on this, and headed away to see to my own business too. After all, I was the reason these people were here. I was the one who needed to win them over. 

It was really not categorically dissimilar to doing the same thing with the nobility of Elswick, save for a single key detail. These people offered a lot less in terms of mutual benefit.

Which was understandable, because they had virtually nothing. But it still meant that every deal I granted was, in some small way, a diminishment. I’d not been presumptuous in saying it was a basic lack of altruism and decency that motivated their dismissal by the other nobles, or even that it was a tiny bit stupid for my rivals not to appeal to such a great mass of human life. But this, of course, was the basic motivator. Cost-benefit. There wasn’t much profit in appealing to an impoverished underclass. That was, in fact, in accordance with their civilization's design.

Some of them, really, I wished I could have granted anyway. Most had a point, some had a purpose worth dying for. But there were far too many of those for one man to die for them all, and so I had to be careful in picking which ones I took on. I ignored the majority of them, always polite and cordial but never committing.

There were spies here, I knew it. There had to be. If I were any of my enemies, and even half my actual intelligence, there would be spies here, and so, I knew, there were spies. Best not to let them see what I was doing. Let them think this was just a search for new deals, see me spending my night whittling away the hours in attempts at finding them. 

Smokescreens were important when the whole world had its eyes on you, and only just less so when a whole city did. 

One man did stick out to me of course, there would always have been at least one. Henry Grimworth, visiting on behalf of the Jeleheim. He was a tall man, for a commoner, and rapier-lean with skin like hard leather, dark hair and darker eyes. He had that grim, hooded look to his gaze that I recognised from Solitaire. A mad dog, ready for violence to emerge at any moment and agitated with every time it didn’t. He spoke gruffly and without mincing too many words. I could appreciate that, I was a busy man tonight. 

“Lord Belahont.” He began, nodding, but not quite bowing. “Thank you for doing this, and for hearing me out.”

“It is important to be aware of what the little people think.” I told him, diplomatically. I didn’t miss his face twitching at that. Like Solitaire or Elizabeth. 

“Yes, well, I’ll be brief. I represent the Jeleheim, a group formed to combat the growing cruelties and abuses of the Dead Edge. I believe you’ve had a run in with them before. We’re limited, for now, but growing in power, and with a noble like you behind us I know we could do more to help people. To genuinely make Elswick a better place, a better place for all.”

Well, that sounded good. It sounded very good- and useful. This one had a touch of violence to him that spoke of a strong capacity for getting shit done. 

“I see, how nice for you.” I replied, keeping my face and voice carefully apathetic. I saw the grinding of teeth and the dropping of eyes as I did, and actually felt a stab of guilt to be crushing the man’s hopes so thoroughly. But it was necessary. I couldn’t just pounce on this.

I knew for a fact there were spies here. 

“Is there anything else you wished to discuss?” I asked, resisting the urge to throw in some banal comment about shoes or whatever else. If I ladled it on too thick, a word-for-word report would make it obvious to anyone who’d actually spoken to me that this was just a ploy. Even as things stood Viras might see through it anyway, it still bothered me how little I knew about him.

“That was all my Lord.” Henry replied, eyes dropping to the ground and, I didn’t doubt, barely hiding some expression of utter fury. “Thank you for your time.”

I watched as he trudged off, and made a note of his name. Then I moved onto other matters.

There were, of course, so very many things that demanded the attention of a lord of my status.