A New Star Chapter 110 (Patreon)

The whole day was going to be just as tedious, and I psyched myself up to get on with it and headed for the next destination. I had a list, albeit a short and not fully complete one, of the local nobles and dignitaries. Cambria was overseen by a count, the head of the surrounding county, of course, and who had his primary residence in the city. Technically, I had done correctly in going to see the mayor first, as the person overseeing the city was appointed to such a position, also technically, under the remit of the Crown. The count, however, might take a different view, taking offense at being seen second over that pompous dirtbag, but then again, what the count didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

I found the estate easily enough, a large manor in the middle of the city just two blocks from the city hall, clearly a building that had been built before the city hall itself. The grounds were surrounded by a high stone wall of a light brown stone, likely something quarried nearby, with iron spikes at the top and a heavy, wrought-iron gate facing the street. As was appropriate for a noble house of good standing, there were guards watching the street and keeping anyone from even attempting to enter the grounds or disturb anyone within.

“Halt!” exclaimed the guard on the left, holding his pike across the entrance and glaring at me. “This is the estate of the count. No riffraff! Begone!”

“I wish to meet with the count, at his convenience, of course,” I replied calmly, showing the man my signet.

“Showing me some design I don’t recognize isn’t going to get you a meeting, lady. As I said: Begone!” he replied, waving the polearm at me in a threatening manner.

“A random symbol, is it?” I asked, and both guards perked up at that, likely from the tone of my voice. “Well, if you think it’s a random symbol, not much to be done about that.”

“That’s right,” the first guard said, nodding, but the second guard was not so sure.

“Maybe we ought call the butler, Bran,” the second one muttered.

“Ah, nonsense,” Bran said, the first guard giving the second a glare. “We see this all the time. As for you, lady, be lucky we don’t haul you off for this.”

“Oh, I should feel lucky for the way you’re doing your job?” I inquired, my voice of deepest ice. “I was going to be polite about this, but I think I won’t.”

Before either of the guards could respond to that little provocation, I flexed my power, clearly way more than they expected. Neither man was a slouch, I can certainly give them that much, but anybody one would stick on gate duty to shoo away random callers wouldn’t be a heavy-hitter, either. Speeding myself up with Time, I crushed them both with Gravity, slamming them into the bricks of the walkway with a rattling clamor, their armor setting up a din as they fell. Too bad for them that they hadn’t caught me in a better mood, but I let them get crushed into the bricks of the sidewalk as I walked forward, entering the grounds and heading for the manner. One of the guards tried to croak out something, but even I hadn’t swatted him with a burst of ice, his voice would have been too weak to reach anyone.

Reaching the main entrance to the manor, I knocked on the door heavily, waiting a moment for a response. Say what one wants about the count and his estate, he did run a rather tight ship, as it was but a handful of seconds before a servant opened the door, a rather good time when the household had no reason to expect random guests, given the security. Before the man could speak, I showed him my signet, hoping to get a bit of a better response than from the gate guards. I knew my family wasn’t much involved in all the latest political maneuvering, not in the way many other families were, but it was a bit ridiculous that people couldn’t even recognize our house’s seal.

“I would like to speak to the count, if its all the same. If you don’t recognize the signet, I would be happy to show it to the man himself,” I said, my tone still rather cold. “And, if I have to crush everyone in the estate into the pavement before someone wakes up and realizes something important is happening, I will do so, but let us leave that for now.”

“No need, Lady. I recognize that sigil, of course, and will inform His Lordship. Please, this way,” the butler said, looking at the guards at the gate as he gestured me inside with a bow. “My Lady, forgive the impertinence, but could you…”

“Of course,” I replied, letting the guards go with a snap. “I might have the temerity to suggest your estate guards have a brief refresher on the noble house coats of arms and who uses what symbols. I wouldn’t want such a terrible accident to be repeated without any ill intent.”

“Oh, a most wonderful idea, My Lady,” the butler said, understanding the subtext where I was chastising the household but also giving them an out so it didn’t turn into a whole big thing. “I shall have tea served.”

The butler was very professional, ushering me in to wait in a sitting room while signaling staff during the walk. I had no more taken a seat and settled back into the chair than a maid appeared in the room with a very fine tea service, calmly brewing a cup. Only the fact I could detect her elevated heart rate from such a close distance gave away that she was more nervous than she appeared, but the count’s staff operated at a highly professional level. Any one of them would have been more than readily accepted at our estate, which was no small thing to say, either.

I had only had time to accept a cup and blow on the tea softly to cool it a bit, using the faintest trace of Ice to adjust the temperature slightly, when the butler escorted a middle-aged man into the room. I rose at once, understanding the proper forms of courtesy. If it had been my parents sitting here, they not only could have but would have, according to the rules of etiquette, remained seating and acknowledged the man with a nod. Given that I had no title myself and was the guest, rising and bowing was a proper courtesy, hand over my heart and a specific degree of inclination in my waist.

“Sir Count,” I greeted him, noting that he had returned the perfect bow, the angle and gesture exactingly correct.

“Lady Alexandra,” the count returned. “I haven’t seen you since the reception six years ago. My, how you’ve grown in that time.”

“Count Milton, you honor me,” I returned. A bit banal, but people loved their pleasantries. “It’s good to see you after so long. Forgive me for dropping in unannounced; I happened to find myself in Cambria on a small bit of business and thought I should pay my respects.”

“Not necessary, Your Grace, but much appreciated all the same,” the man replied with a warm smile, taking a cup of tea himself. I didn’t detect anything unusual in him, either in his face or manner of speech or with his body the way I had heard the maid having an elevated heart rate. “And about the guards at the gate-“

“Think nothing of it now, Sir,” I said with a wave of my hand. “Industrious men working hard at their duty.”

“Of course, of course,” count Milton said, leaning back in his seat. “But you do surprise me, Your Grace. I hadn’t expected that your family would have any business this far south, unless it’s to address the matter of the grain prices?”

“Well, not exactly,” I said, taking a sip of tea. “Now, Count Milton, can I entrust you with a little gossip?”

“Well, I’m not one to get into needless matters,” the man said, but belied his words by leaning forward in his seat a bit.

“I have it on good authority that there is not just a certain smuggler operating in Cambria, at least, as of late, but that said smuggler is moving some of the alchemical goods that should be flowing through proper channels,” I said quietly. Nothing I said there was a lie or misleading, it was just burying the lede a little bit as I steered the count with what I would reveal.

“My! Smugglers! And nothing to do with the grain pricing or the recent trouble?” the count exclaimed, leaning back and patting at his slightly large stomach. The man wasn’t as out of shape as some of the nobles I had interacted with in the last few years, but his temples had started to go to gray and he had started to let himself slide as his age was catching up with him. Still, his bright green eyes were rather piercing and I could see the wheels turning even as we spoke.

“Yes, that’s right,” I nodded before shaking my head. “But tell me, Milton, what exactly is this with the grain prices? I confess, I haven’t really stayed abreast of what’s going on in the general market lately, so absorbed in my alchemical research I’ve been.”

“Oh yes, we all know how you love to put your head down in the lab for days at a time,” Milton said, but there was no mockery there. More than a cover story, which I would have been grateful for in the first place, it had become known that I preferred to spend my time in my lab whenever I could, even when we had visitors at the estate. Enough tales had spread over the last few years that I was a well-known alchemy fool at this point, which also went some way to pushing side the far fewer, and far smaller, rumors that popped up from time to time about my martial prowess.

“Anyway, the grain,” Milton said, taking a sip. “Well, Lady Alexandra-“

“Please, Milton, just call me Alex, or Alexandra if you must,” I interrupted him with a wave of the hand before taking a another sip of the richly steeped tea.

“Yes, yes, quite right Alexandra,” he said, nodding. “Well, as I was saying, the grain harvest this year has run into some strange problems. The harvest last year was lower than initial predictions, but it wasn’t enough to worry us. Now, however, there’s a strange sickness affecting the crops.”

“A sickness?” I asked, quirking one eyebrow. I managed to keep the calm facade, but inside I was already troubled and placing some bets about what, exactly, this sickness was.

“Yes, and it’s the damnedest of things, forgive my blue language,” the count said in a huff. “The crops seem to be fine, as it were, everything going well. I’ve even gone out and walked more than one field myself after the reports kept coming in and it’s so odd. I will go and see a field of wheat, golden and heavy and ripe for the harvest, but two days later, the heads of the wheat will be withered and dry and dying. It happens seemingly at random.

“One man’s farm is just fine, while another man has his whole crop ruined. My seneschal and I have pored over the books several times and interviewed witnesses, but we can’t make heads or tails out of it. There’s no consistency; one man might be poor as can be and only have an acre to his name, just trying to feed his small family. The next had a hundred hectares and is rather wealthy. Then, someone who leases the land they are working is hit. It’s almost as if it is entirely random, but that makes very little sense.”

“And have you identified the cause? By that I mean have you identified the disease or pathogen or creature that is feeding on the crop?” I asked, though I was rather sure of the answer.

“Not yet,” Milton said with a deep sigh. “We’ve had a dozen experts now examine the wheat and gotten a baker’s dozen of opinions on the issue. One man says it’s those tiny, microscopic life that the scientist are talking about, eating away at the crops. Then a female scholar with decades of experience says it looks like what happens when a certain tiny worm, aligned with properties of death and decay, eats plants. When I pointed out we had found not a single worm or other small pest species, she got rather into a huff, insisting it appeared like those little rotten hide worms. Then an old acquaintance of mine said it was a curse, and now look where we are!”

Milton had thrown his hands up in disgust, fortunately having put his tea down before making the gesture. I shook my head and scanned the house while doing so; it didn’t appear the count had anything to do with the smuggling of the death-aspected goods, not unless he was a serious actor of immense skill, but that didn’t rule out someone else. It could be family members, or servants, or even others that were involved, which was another reason I wasn’t being entirely forthright with my claims even with the man knowing my parents.

“Milton, this sounds rather serious,” was what I said in response. “Has the Crown been informed of the conditions?”

“Of course they have,” he said, still agitated. “And you know what they told me? Sometimes there are bad years and we have to make due with what we have. Utter poppycock, forgive the language, but then again, they haven’t generally taken that much interest in what we do here, not as long as the grain rolls in.”

“I should think it would be a bigger concern,” I said mildly.

“You would think so, but it’s not as big a problem as it first appears. Not yet, at least,” he said, losing some of that fire and deflating a bit. “The truth is, while Cambria is important as the breadbasket of the country, we source plenty of food from other places. The whole crop could fail and it wouldn’t destroy the country, just make us feel a decided pinch, mostly in our purses. There would be bad times, for sure, and there are people that would end up going hungry, far more than usually do in a year, but the storm would blow over.”

“Hmm, this seems related,” I said, seeing the count brighten at that. “The goods I’m tracking include things that could easily be used as poisons or irritants to plants and animals. Have any animals died?”

I was leading Milton on a bit of a goose chase with that one, but he answered happily enough, “No, no. No dead animals, not in any unusual ways, no more than normal predation and hunting. But, for truth, you think it could be the supplies or potions you are tracking? One of the experts did say poison was possible but unlikely.”

“Well, we could combine theories,” I said slyly. “Many potions and poisons take on aspects of their creation. If someone included some powerful rotting or even decay affinity, your lady with the worm theory might have been closer than first appeared.”

“Ah, yes, that could be so,” Milton said, shaking his head. “I’m afraid I would have to defer to you, Your Gra-ah, Alexandra. Matters of potions and pills simply go over my head, as they do with many these days.”

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