Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 4

Who the hell goes shopping in a full suit of plate mail armour?

Remedios Custodio, apparently.

To be certain, the powerful Paladin struck a gallant figure, but Liam couldn’t help but wonder what the point of striking a gallant figure in a boutique was. His second question was: why was he in a boutique?

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted three members of the shop’s staff watching from afar as they whispered to one another. He wasn’t sure that he liked what he could make out of their conversation. Remedios paced around him like a hungry wolf or a worried robin, depending on how one looked at things. Occasionally, she stopped to hold up one article of clothing or another against him.

“Um…it’s alright if we get normal clothes, you know?” Liam said, “And don’t you think that equipment’s more important?”

Since he had been dropped into the Holy Kingdom with nothing but the shirt on his back, Liam thought it was a good opportunity to rearm himself. A few changes of clothing weren’t a bad idea, either. It wasn’t as if he was taking advantage of Remedios – it would all help out with their work, whatever that work was.

“We’ll get around to it,” Remedios said. “This place was on the way.”

She picked out another shirt from a rack nearby, which set off a new bout of whispers from the boutique staff. The corner of Liam’s eye twitched at what he heard.

The boutique catered to the well-to-do citizens living in the Prime Estates, so the staff was highly attuned to the currents of high society. Every movement, selection, and discussion that occurred within the establishment was potentially valuable to the country’s elite. Everything was noted, speculated over, and given significance whether it actually had any or not.

In short, everyone in establishments such as the one they were currently in effectively served as spies and information brokers. Remedios, however, had a painful lack of self-awareness. That in itself could serve as a powerful defence, so Liam wasn’t sure whether to just let her do her thing or somehow convince her to move on.

“If we’re going to get regular clothing,” Liam said, “what’s this stuff for?”

“Just in case,” Remedios said.

In case of what?

“But is this right?” Liam said, “Millions of people are struggling to get by out there while we’re shopping here.”

“Didn’t you hear?” Remedios replied, “Everything helps.”

“What does that mean?”

“Something about spending money giving other people work, that work creating more work, and so on. It’s fancy Noble stuff that I won’t pretend to understand, but they say that it’ll help the country recover.”

He didn’t get it. He also didn’t get why Remedios kept picking out pink shirts.

After buying exactly one pink shirt and a pair of nice pants that Liam was too afraid to wear, they headed out to the common areas of the capital. The first time that he and his sister had come to the Holy Kingdom, they visited Hoburns once to see what it was like, but the place had changed drastically since then.

Everyone was busy, but in a bad sort of way. The people all needed to be somewhere and looked desperate to get things done. Either that, or they looked dead on their feet. He was pretty sure that if someone tripped and fell, people would just treat them as a part of the pavement.

The sole exception to it all appeared to be Remedios. She did as she pleased, stopping to examine storefronts and various stalls, and the crowd simply parted around her. Liam was shoved aside several times and nearly knocked over twice since he didn’t seem to count as a part of her space. Maybe the pink shirt would have helped.

Liam pressed himself against a wall as Remedios stopped to examine the storefront of a cobbler’s workshop. Thankfully, it wasn’t long until she decided to enter.

“Welcome, dear customer…”

The shopkeeper’s voice trailed off as he realised who had come through his door. As Liam had already come to expect, Remedios either didn’t notice his reaction or didn’t care. The Paladin wasn’t particularly tall – she was pretty average, in fact – and she was half a head shorter than the shopkeeper. However, the sheer difference in presence between the two made it seem like she dwarfed the man as she walked straight up to the counter.

“Are you taking orders for leather harnesses?” Remedios asked.

Cold sweat beaded upon the shopkeeper’s brow.

“A-Apologies, dear customer,” he said. “Due to supply shortages, what we have available is as you see…”

Liam turned his attention away from the scene and focused on the shop itself. The first thing that jumped out at him was the fact that everything was locked away behind cage-like frames protecting every display and shelf. The second thing he noticed was that the shop’s inventory wasn’t fashioned out of leather, but straw.

Not that there was anything wrong with a good pair of straw sandals or woven slippers – most people used them – but it wasn’t what one would expect from a workshop in a country’s capital. The shoes, belts, harnesses, barding…everything on display was made out of woven grass or twine at best.

“Is that so?” Remedios said, “Let’s go, Liam.”

He could hear the shopkeeper’s sigh of relief when Remedios stepped back out into the street. They made their way past the crowds of the common districts back into the quiet within the walls of the Prime Estates. Remedios stopped at an intersection, looking around to get her bearings.

“Where are we going?” Liam asked.

“A different shop,” Remedios answered. “It’s a lot more expensive, but they should have something.”

The shop in question was another boutique located in the posh garden markets of the Prime Estates. Now aware of the wild assumptions that the people in the area came up with when they saw him together with Remedios, Liam concealed his presence as he closely followed the Paladin along the shaded lanes.

A pair of uniformed men straightened as Remedios made her way past. Liam frowned slightly as he realised that they weren’t in the uniform of the Royal Army, but the livery of one of the country’s great houses.

“What happened to the soldiers?” He asked.

“They’re getting ready to clear some land north of the wall,” Remedios answered. “I wanted to go with them, but the Holy King said I should stay here for security purposes.”

“So the Nobles sent their men to take the army’s place?”

“Yeah.”

Was that a good idea? He was pretty sure what would happen if domestic security was handled by a bunch of Reynaldo de Silvas. Liam glanced over his shoulder at the two men, but, with Remedios nearby, they were clearly minding their conduct.

“Here we are.”

As expected, the shop catered to the upper class. A smartly-dressed member of the staff lowered his head as they entered.

“Welcome, Miss Custodio,” he said. “How may we serve you today?”

Liam was abruptly shoved forward. The man almost managed not to take a step back in alarm.

“My Squire here needs outfitting,” Remedios said. “Armour harness, sword harness, boots, dress shoes, riding gloves…can you find him a saddle, too?”

“Of course,” the man smiled. “This way, sir.”

Freshly promoted to ‘sir’, Liam followed the man deeper into the store. Along the way, they walked past row upon row of shelves stocked with leather equipment. None of it was locked behind metal cages.

“How did you get your hands on so much leather?” Liam asked, “The shops in the city don’t have any.”

“As you may have noted from the sign,” the man answered, “this establishment is owned by a prominent house in Debonei. We receive our inventories straight from there.”

“They don’t sell leather to anyone else?”

“Common sense dictates that supply lines become exclusive with the Holy King’s new policies. His Divine Grace is surely a visionary: our profits have increased five-fold since he ascended the throne.”

“So you provide leather equipment for the entire city?”

The man laughed lightly at his question.

“As a Merchant, I will say that we would sell our goods to anyone who can pay for them, but our present clientele almost exclusively consists of the residents in the Prime Estates and several prominent Merchant companies.”

It sounded like a reasonable response, but, going by the man’s reaction when Liam was shoved forward, he would have probably called for the nearest guards to drag any commoner that entered the boutique away. They probably did that for the garden market in general. Since E-Rantel was very small compared to Hoburns, most of its upper-class boutiques were located in the common areas of the city. The degree of exclusivity found in the capital of the Holy Kingdom wasn’t something that Liam had ever experienced before.

There will always be snobby people, but is there any point in what’s going on here?

As far as he could tell, the equipment sold by the boutique was stuff that everyone needed. He didn’t get why they wouldn’t sell their goods to everyone that needed them. Money was money, after all. All they needed to do was open a stall in the city that people couldn’t tell was connected to their ‘establishment’.

“Since you mentioned that he’s a Squire, Miss Custodio,” the man said, “I assume you’re in the market for unenchanted equipment?”

“That’s right,” Remedios’ voice came from behind them.

The man stopped to quietly exchange a few words with another member of the boutique staff. After that, he brought Liam and Remedios to a magically-lit space near the centre of the floor. An hour of what he thought must be what a mannequin felt like passed before he slumped, exhausted, into a nearby chair.

“Your total comes out to twenty-nine platinum, Miss Custodio.”

Remedios pulled out her purse and dumped a bunch of coins into the smiling man’s hand. She didn’t even attempt to haggle.

“Thank you for your patronage,” the man and the staff members who came to join him bowed in unison. “The equipment will be delivered to your residence by the end of the day.”

The Paladin nodded once before turning on her heel and leaving without another word. Liam shadowed her, measuring out the cadence of her perfectly uniform steps.

“Weapon, next,” Remedios said.

“About that…”

“Hm?”

“I don’t use a sword,” Liam told her.

“Why would they assign you to me if you don’t use a sword?”

Didn’t we go over that earlier today?

“As I said,” Liam replied, “I’m not a Squire.”

“Then what weapon do you use?” Remedios asked, “A spear? A mace? I suppose I could work with that…”

“I’m good with daggers.”

“Huh?”

He nearly bumped into Remedios when she suddenly stopped in her tracks.

“A dagger isn’t a battlefield weapon,” Remedios told him. “It’s a sidearm, at best. You need a longsword or something.”

“I’m not supposed to be fighting on a battlefield,” Liam said. “I’m here to help you with other stuff. You can’t swing a longsword around in a city filled with people.”

Remedios’ eyes went to the longsword at her hip. Liam’s eyes went to the aristocrats and servants who had gone from being shoppers to spectators.

“Where’s this Swordsmith?” Liam asked, “They should be able to forge daggers, as well.”

“Just around the corner,” Remedios answered.

“But that equipment we just bought was expensive,” Liam said. “It’s okay if we get something normal.”

“I always intended to stop by this place for a weapon on the way back. Kids shouldn’t complain when adults give them stuff.”

Their destination looked like yet another boutique, though there was at least a forge and anvil visible from the storefront. It wasn’t the barrel-chested smith hard at work that stopped to greet them, however, but another pretentiously-dressed shopkeeper.

“Welcome, Miss Cust–YEEAAARGH!”

The shopkeeper convulsed and crumpled to the ground with an ear-curdling screech. In his place, the smith appeared, glancing at the hammer he had touched against the man’s neck.

“Damn thing isn’t even hot,” he muttered. “What do you want, Custodio?”

“New Squire,” Remedios jerked a thumb at Liam.

“Sword?”

“Dagger, apparently.”

“Daggers,” Liam said.

Remedios and the smith frowned at him.

“How many?” The smith asked.

“Um…eight?” Liam answered, “That’s about as much as a longsword.”

“A dagger-wielding Squire…” The smith rubbed his chin, “Sign of the times, I guess.”

Liam was too tired to correct him. At least it looked like he was getting his daggers.

“Hey,” the smith gave the shopkeeper whimpering on the floor a poke with his boot, “go and pick out some samples.”

“But I’m burned!” The man whined, “It hurts!”

“I wasn’t even using that hammer, you damned street jockey!” The smith roared, “Now, move!”

The shopkeeper scurried off with an aiiiiieeeeee sound. The smith shook his head with a disgusted sneer.

“I swear,” he said, “if he wasn’t so popular with the noblewomen, I’d have fed him to my forge years ago.”

“How did someone like that survive the army?” Remedios frowned.

“I wonder. So, who’s the new kid?”

“Liam,” Remedios replied. “Gustav sent him over from somewhere. Liam, this is Hernando. The ‘Yellow’.”

“He’s a member of the Nine Colours?” Liam looked up at the man.

“Hey, we’re not all meatheads like Custodio, you know?” Hernando said, “I was recognised as the best Swordsmith in the kingdom.”

“…you can make daggers, right?”

A low chuckle rose from the man’s chest. Seconds later, the chuckle stopped and he stormed off into the back of the shop.

“By the gods, what the hell is taking you so long?! Why are you even on this side of the warehouse?”

“But she’s one of the Nine–”

“They’re here for weapons. They’re not some up-jumped Farmers looking for something shiny to carry around! You–never mind.”

Hernando’s dark muttering accompanied the sounds of rummaging coming out of the back. He reappeared with a crate haphazardly filled with short-bladed weapons, placing it in front of Liam.

“Why are Farmers coming to you for weapons?” Liam asked.

“Prestige,” Hernando answered. “I’m sure you’ve heard the court’s new policies. They’ve got criers everywhere going on nonstop about it.”

Liam nodded.

“Well,” Hernando continued, “the Royal Court’s been making good on the promises that came with those policies. The result is a lot of commoners running around with big heads, thinking they’re the new nobility.”

“Didn’t the criers say that they were giving out titles?”

“That’s true, but it’s not that common. What I’m talking about here is people doubling the size of their tenancies and coming to me to make them a golden sword or some other nonsense. A little bit of extra money fills people’s heads with all sorts of stupid ideas.”

“They can’t all be like that,” Liam frowned.

“Maybe not,” Hernando said. “But you’d be surprised how many get caught up with it. People are funny – they see other people do something and decide they have to do it too. In my line of work, you see it all the time. Hey, Custodio, remember that thing Lord what’s-his-face started a few years ago? The espada craze.”

Remedios snorted.

“Yeah. It didn’t last long.”

“The point is that it happened.”

“What’s the espada craze?” Liam asked.

“You’re not from the capital?”

Liam shook his head.

“Basically,” the smith told him, “some Noble made a certain type of sword ‘fashionable’. Suddenly, I’m buried in orders from the nobility for the damn things. A while later, the well-to-do commoners catch on and want them, too. It got to the point that the Royal Army was compelled to requisition them because the conscripts showed so much interest in the weapon.”

“Not that they had instructors for them,” Remedios said. “I don’t think the Count that started the whole thing even knew how to wield it. He just wore it all over the place and made it seem ‘elegant’. Actually, the more I remember, the more it pisses me off. Do you know how many patrols we lost because of that? If they were using spears, they’d have done five times better.”

“I think that’s what stopped it in the end,” Hernando nodded. “Nothing shows people how shitty an idea is quite like a giant pile of corpses.”

Were people that stupid? He knew girls did that kind of thing, but it usually didn’t result in dead bodies.

“Anyway,” the smith continued as Liam went through the crate of weapons, “all that’s happening again, except upside-down, I guess? It’s all the common folk being recognised for their efforts that are setting things off. The successful rural folk are getting so big that they’re forming a faction of their own.”

“They are?” Remedios asked, “I haven’t heard of anything like that.”

“I’m sure you have,” Hernando said. “Everyone has. You know, Los Ganaderos?”

“…aren’t those guys just Lanca ranchers?”

“I wouldn’t call them just Lanca ranchers,” the smith leaned in on his elbow, waving his free hand around as he spoke. “Those guys had a huge head start on the new economic policies. Farmers growing crops are still waiting for the harvest to have their gains measured, but all the ranchers had to do was import cattle from the south and graze the land left untended after the war. On top of that, they’re being rewarded based on heads of cattle and spring is calving season.”

Liane looked up with a furrow on his brow.

“Isn’t that cheating?”

“It is what it is,” Hernando shrugged. “And it isn’t as if they’re making the numbers up. The biggest players in the industry have more land than a lot of High Nobles now and they’re treating it like the return of the hacienda of old. I guess the situation’s sort of the same as back then. Demon Gods, Demon Emperor, or whatever – it just means a whole lot of dead people and a lot of free land.”

Having lost any point of reference for the discussion, Liam memorised the terms he didn’t recognise before returning his attention to the crate in front of him. In the end, he picked out four daggers as long as his forearm plus four shorter ones to hide in his boots and bracers. Hernando arched an eyebrow at his selection.

“Looks like your new Squire means business, Custodio,” he said. “Since the Holy Order’s taking on Rogues, does that mean you’re going to start sorting out this mess we’re in?”

A frown slowly formed on Remedios’ face.

“What do you mean by ‘Rogue’?”

“I meant what I said,” Hernando replied. “Don’t tell me you wanted to order a suit of plate armour for this guy.”

Remedios turned her frown upon Liam.

“I told you what I was here for,” he told her.

“This can’t be right,” Remedios said.

“Why?”

“Because I’m a Paladin. You’re a Rogue.”

“…and? Captain Montagnés sent me over because I’m a Rogue.”

“You still want me to forge these blades?” Hernando asked.

“Yeah,” Remedios replied without looking at him. “But it looks like I’m going to have to have a good long talk with Liam, here.”

He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that.

“I know you’re probably excited about having your first Squire and all,” Hernando called out to Remedios as they made their way out of the store, “but don’t gobble him up.”

“I’m not Kelart, dammit!”

Liam pondered their parting exchange until he and Remedios reached the privacy of her manor. The way that buildings were constructed in Roble resulted in more open, visible spaces than Re-Estize, so it wasn’t difficult to figure out which room was which.

“Who’s Kelart?” Liam asked.

“My sister,” Remedios answered.

He froze in the foyer of the manor, eyes darting back and forth as he scoured the surroundings for Remedios’ sister. Followers of The Four were dangerous.

“You…you were being honest when you said what you said at the end back there, right?”

Remedios turned to favour him with a frown. She wasn’t just extraordinarily beautiful, but also ridiculously strong. So strong that he thought that a Death Knight might lose to her. Liam didn’t stand a chance if she decided to ‘gobble him up’.

“How old are you?” She asked.

“Fourteen,” he lied.

No, wait, I should have lied in the other direction.

Followers of The Four had this crazy notion that one became an adult at fourteen. He had become accustomed to claiming he was that age because they also thought that children weren’t supposed to do anything on their own. They were like extensions of their parents until they came of age.

That wouldn’t help him here, however. Claiming that he was fourteen made him fair game in the eyes of the Holy Kingdom’s women.

Remedios snorted.

“You’re cute,” she said, “but you’re also half my age. Don’t let your delusions get away with you, kid. Anyway, help me out of this armour – it was damn hot today.”

Liam hesitated as the scales of his reason teetered back and forth. Remedios didn’t, however, heading straight past the manor’s brightly-lit courtyard to the stairs on the other side. A Maid appeared from the second storey.

“Welcome back, Miss Custodio,” she lowered her head in a curtsey.

“Uh-huh.”

The Maid appeared to be accustomed to the response, and she raised her head after Remedios disappeared up the stairs. Liam examined her features as he reluctantly came forward. She bore the characteristic beauty of a Noble, so she was probably the usual sort of Maid that one could find across the northern Human countries. Her blonde curls shone with a silky sheen in the sunlight as she regarded him with curious blue eyes.

“She…she asked me to help her out of her armour,” Liam told the Maid in a low voice.

“You are Miss Custodio’s Squire, are you not?” The Maid asked.

“I’m not,” Liam answered.

Her curious gaze turned mischievous, and her fingers came up to cover her growing smile.

“In that case,” the Maid winked, “good luck.”

Damn these heretics…

The Priests at the E-Rantel Cathedral always warned of the hedonistic excesses of those who had fallen away from the faith. Liam felt that they had understated their case. Followers of The Four got married when they were kids, insisted that people could be whatever they wanted to be as long as they worked hard and weren’t stupid, and supplanted the sacred tenets of The Six with all sorts of made-up nonsense.

Liam padded down the main corridor of the manor’s second floor, cautiously peeking into every open door. He found Remedios in the solar on the southern end, hopping up and down as she struggled to pull off one of her boots.

“Finally,” she said. “Help me out, here.”

The Paladin sat back on her bed, stretching out her right leg. Liam came forward, forcing himself to look at the boot and only the boot.

“I thought that every Paladin had magical equipment,” Liam said.

“We do,” Remedios replied.

“Then why is this boot stuck? Isn’t enchanted armour supposed to fit the wearer?”

“I ask myself that every damn time,” Remedios said.

“You’ve been a Paladin for a long time,” Liam dug in his heels as he tugged on the boot, “shouldn’t you be used to this equipment by now? Or at least fixed this stupid boot?”

“This armour is new,” Remedios told him. “Well, sort of. It’s Gust–erm, Captain Montagnés’ old armour.”

“…why are you wearing his armour?”

“Because he’s wearing my old armour.”

Confused, Liam’s gaze slid up Remedios’ well-shaped calf. He forcefully slid it back down.

“I don’t get it,” he gave the boot another frustrated tug.

“It’s the Grandmaster’s regalia,” Remedios said. “Gustav is the Grandmaster of the Holy Order now, so he’s the one who wears it.”

Was the Grandmaster’s regalia enchanted for office work and everyday tasks? Maybe the reason why Remedios went around the city in her armour was because she was used to her old equipment.

“What does the armour do?” Liam asked.

“They’re a bunch of sacred relics that have been passed down through the generations,” Remedios told him. “It’s the best set of armour in the Holy Kingdom.”

“Then shouldn’t the best set of armour in the Holy Kingdom be on the Holy Kingdom’s strongest warrior so they can fight the hardest battles?”

“Huh? What are you talking about? Rank and position determine who gets what. We’re civilised people – only savages do what you described.”

He wondered if everyone in the Holy Kingdom thought that way. Since Smith Hernando mentioned that people came to him to commission prestige items to reflect their new station, they probably did.

Five minutes later, they managed to get the boot off. Liam looked away as Remedios wriggled her liberated toes and rolled her ankle.

“You can’t steal anything if you’re going to work for the Holy Order, Liam,” she said.

“What?” He frowned, “Where did that come from?”

“You’re a Rogue, right? A thief.”

“I’m not a thief. Just because I’m a Rogue doesn’t mean I run around stealing everything.”

“Yeah? Then what do you do?”

Liam bit his lip, wondering how he could explain. To the followers of The Six, everyone was something. There was nothing inherently wrong with what they were or what they could do. Followers of The Four, however, believed that everyone was free to be whatever they wished to be. Being a Rogue meant that one had chosen to be a criminal and the fact that Rogues did things that were commonly associated with criminal activity was irrefutable proof of that.

It didn’t matter that Rogues could be found doing all sorts of things. Those Rogues were just magically seen as something else. A scout, an Adventurer, a…

That might work…?

“Captain Montagnés recruited me as a thief-taker.”

“A thief-taker?”

“Something like that,” Liam said. “You heard Hernando, right? The moment he realised what I was, he thought that the Holy Order was going to ‘start sorting out the mess we’re in’.”

“Mmh…”

He got the other boot off while Remedios stewed on his words. She had already removed her greaves, so Liam had no choice but to move up.

“So how does this work?” Remedios asked, “You’re going to find criminals for me to drag in? That doesn’t sound too bad…”

“It depends,” Liam answered. “People don’t conveniently stand around waiting to get caught. I’m not a Ranger, either, so I can’t track. A lot of what I do will probably just be investigating things trying to figure out what’s going on.”

“That sounds like it’ll take forever. We should get started right away.”

Remedios put her boots back on and left the solar, leaving Liam speechless at the foot of her bed.

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