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[mightymushroom]

Spymaster C
The more wall we knock down is more wall we need to repair afterward.

Question 2: What’s with i.e? I know how it’s used but why those initials?

Latin: id est

[Rockeater]

Spymaster C

[King Zultan]

Spymaster C

[TricMagic]

C, with A as secondary plan.

[Cnidaros]

TURNTURNTURN
You go with the Spymaster's plan. At dawn, riders are sent out around the wall, shouting about the 2 gold reward to all who would hear. At the same time, you make sure you're seen in full regalia by the guards on the wall, showing them beyond a doubt that their prize prisoner has escaped.

It takes a while to see the effects. An hour later, when the men are growing restless, a banner of surrender is raised over the main gatehouse. You gather a sizable escort of knights and freeriders, remembering what happened the last time you approached that gate, and ride in.

It's total chaos. Clearly, there was a fight between loyalists and turncloaks, but if the men now kneeling before you are any indication, the turncloaks won. You try to ignore the fact that they were hunting you down last night, and pardon them. Can't expect to pull this trick off again if you kill all the defenders, after all. The rest of your footmen pour into the town, meeting nearly no resistance. Looks like you managed to avoid a lot of bloodshed.

The castle is a different matter. There's no banner of surrender, but the main drawbridge is lowered, so you take it as an invitation to ride in. Parts of the castle are aflame, though the fire doesn't seem to be spreading. The interior has been thoroughly looted, down to the missing silverware. Halfway up the stairs a man hails you.

"Baron Reece, milord!" He holds up a severed head. Ewww. "Got into a bit of a scrap with the other fellows, so this was all I could get. I'll be taking that 2 gold now, if you don't mind."

You're kind of disappointed that you didn't get to actually meet Baron Reece face-to-face, find out what all this was about. But you pay the man the 2 gold regardless, and send him on his way.

632 AS, Mid Spring

A few days after you return to Tyneset, you call another council meeting to handle the miscellaneous fallout of Baron Reece's little rebellion.

"The peasants have all been sent back to their villages, my liege." That's your Marshal. "Some of them are disappointed that they didn't get to loot anything, but that's their business. The dwarven stone-slinger was interesting, though, I would have liked to see it in action. Oh, and Reece's brother Lamon escaped in the chaos."

"There's the issue of Merclefield itself to consider." The Advisor, and his expression tells you he didn't approve of your actions there. "The town is being ruled in your name by one of the captains, but we'll need to formalise this arrangement. You can either take the title of Baron of Merclefield for yourself, or give it to someone else and make them a new vassal. Baron Axel's put forward another cousin of his, Lyell, for consideration, or you could elevate one of the townsfolk, though they might have no experience of rulership."

The Steward, a little worse for wear but mostly recovered, simply passes you another tiny scroll.

Treasury 5

What? How did it get so low? "Well, you lost the 2 gold ransom when you were captured. Then the Marshal had to raise an army; while the peasants fight for duty and not for coin, we still had to spend to arm and supply them for the siege. Then, you paid the 2 gold reward for Reece's head. And we didn't pillage the town, because it would be dishonorable to do that as they surrendered. You'll have to find some more money before your taxes to Duke Wolstan are due next month, since you'll need to send them to him before your other vassals are done with collection."

Your Spymaster adds, "I've interviewed as many of Baron Reece's personal guard and staff to figure out why he did it." Good, you like some initiative in your subordinates. "It's probably best if I explained it privately, though."

Just then, a messenger interrupts the meeting. "There's a dwarf to see you, sire. Claimed you invited him to visit?"

What should be done with the Title of Merclefield?
A) Take the title for yourself, add Merclefield into your personal demesne
B) Make Axel's cousin, Lyell, the new Baron
C) Ask the townsfolk to elevate one of their own to Baron

Who will you talk to first?
A) Talk to the Spymaster
B) Talk to this dwarf

[Naturegirl1999]

AA

[mightymushroom]

That's ominously odd, if the Spymaster can't speak in front of the other councilors. Could just be professional habit, though.

C A

[Nirur Torir]

C) Ask the townsfolk to elevate one of their own to Baron
It sounds like -Money, but we'll be fine on that once we get the industrial revolution started.
I'm wary of giving more power to our other baron, when the industrial revolution will break the balance of power, or taking it ourselves and risking upsetting our duke right before we might need his goodwill for late taxes.

A) Talk to the Spymaster
Spymaster first. The dwarf probably won't be offended since we were just captured, but we should aim to make the spymaster meeting fast and delegate any actions we need to take in response.

[ZBridges]

CA

[Rockeater]

CA

[Cnidaros]

TURNTURNTURN
You decide to arrange a small election in Merclefield to elevate a new Baron, and the Advisor say it'll be done by next week. You dismiss the rest of the council, and tell the messenger to keep the dwarf waiting. Then you ask the Spymaster to explain the whole deal with Baron Reece.

"Well sire, as far as I've been able to find out, he really did think you were going to revoke his title. The surveyors were a minor irritation in the grand scheme of things, but they were the start. He believed you were looking to take stock of his lands to find some minor error in tax collection as a pretext for revocation. This isn't helped by the fact that you visited both Throvis and Axel but not him, which looked like you were gaining support from your other vassals to both reassure them of their titles and gather their support to match him militarily. Of course, you didn't visit him because of the scheduled wedding, but from his point of view, wedding Axel's cousin on extremely short notice, without even getting to know the bride beforehand, hinted at some deal that had been struck to ensure Axel's support in return for the marriage. It set the stage for some relation of the bride to take his title. I believe the Advisor warned you of the dangers of marrying into a vassal house."

"At that point, he didn't attend the wedding because he feared for his own safety in your castle. He did send his brother Lamon in his stead, but you didn't speak to Lamon then either. After the wedding, your Steward didn't put your case for better tax collection across well - to him, it merely confirmed that his suspicions you were looking to find or fabricate some evidence of tax evasion. It would have been better if you'd gone in person to explain your new ideas, but you were busy with the bookkeeping. He then began raising a militia, and you showed up with your guard and some knights a week later."

"Now, he's thinking that you have an army waiting somewhere further away, and this small force is just here to lure his own forces out to be smashed so the town can be easily taken by storm. Under normal circumstances, he would likely have waited for the army to show up, and surrendered when it became clear he had no hope of victory. But then, you made an extremely unwise move." The Spymaster leans in, his eyes intense. "You went to parley with him, alone, unarmed, and easy to capture alive. Put yourself in his shoes, he's trapped, facing a larger army which is going to defeat him one way or another. Except if he has one very valuable hostage, whose safety can be threatened to stop the entire army - which is you. He would have been a fool not to take you prisoner, and he wasn't. So that's how the whole story played out. My liege, I cannot stress how lucky you are to be standing here alive right now. Jared and Jeren are good at what they do, but infiltrating a sieged town, then the castle, and getting two prisoners out alive is never easy."

Ooops. When he puts it that way, it does seem like you should have seen this coming. What should you do now? The Spymaster sighs, "Well, at least you've chosen to elevate one of the townsfolk to the Barony, instead of installing Axel's cousin or yourself, so it doesn't look like Reece was right all along. I haven't found any actual evidence of tax evasion, but we could fabricate some to give you a retrospective casus belli to explain the whole thing and paint yourself in a better light than just vassal mismanagement. Finally, Lamon's still at large and has a claim to the Barony, so we could dispatch men to hunt him down and tie up that loose end."

Decisions?
A) Fabricate evidence of Baron Reece's tax evasion
B) Don't slander the dead

A) Hunt down Lamon
B) No, those men could be better used elsewhere

[Glass]

BB.
If Lamon shows their face again, we can hopefully clear up what happened, though I for one currently do not plan to allow him the Barony. That was quite literally open rebellion.

[Rockeater]

BB not really surprising

[ZBridges]

BA.  Letting this guy get away could create a lot of headaches for us.  For example, he could come back with an army to press his claim.

[King Zultan]

BB