Chapter 23 — The Road to the Royal Capital

"Come on! Why would I lie to you? Everyone down south is talking about it—go ask around Tansang Town or Linmu Town and you'll hear the same. And see these clothes? I fled from the far south myself, I'll have you know. The very moment the Cecil ancestor came back to life, I saw it with my own eyes!"

Nearly everyone told the same tale, and every one of them would swear at the end that these outlandish things were things they had seen with their own eyes. Even if they were not the ones Sir Philip had first sent out, the fellows who later spread the rumors would nine times out of ten say the same.

If a single person could have gathered all these rumors into one place, he would surely have been astonished to discover that, at the moment the Cecil family's Xuanmai Sect was revived, no fewer than a thousand people had stood in the burial chamber paying their respects—and ten thousand more had been gathered outside upon the grave mound, watching…

Yet in this age, those with the means to do such a thing paid no attention to these rumors bandied about the streets and alleys among the mud-caked common folk—and those who believed and spread such tales… they simply never thought too much about anything.

And in the carriage now rolling toward Saint Frost Rest, Gao Yang sat idly watching the scenery outside while pondering how he ought to face the king enthroned within the Silver Keep of Saint Frost Rest.

He did not know how great an effect the task he had given Sir Philip might produce—in truth, he had not even three parts' confidence in it. This was a contradictory and benighted world. The existence of magic made many things extraordinarily convenient, convenient even beyond the measure of the age; yet magic and other supernatural powers lay in the hands of only a few. The people of this world had not yet—or believed they had no need to—turn magic into a broader productive force, and so in that lower society bereft of power, everything was inconceivably backward.

Communication relied on shouting, transport on walking. Rumors could spread through a town in a flash, for tavern gossip was, truth be told, the only entertainment commoners had to fill their hours after labor—but for news to travel from one town to the next was ten times harder, for the desolate wilds obstructed most movement, and on top of that there were the nobles' restrictions on the movement of people within their domains. Without their lord's leave, a commoner going from his own village to the next lord's village to buy a chicken risked the gallows!

The travel permits jointly signed by the Cecil family and the Leslie family (Viscount Andrew's house) could solve the problem of movement restrictions—but could not solve the difficulties beyond that.

Still, making some effort was better than making none at all.

Gao Song's aim was simple: to spread the matter of "the Cecil ancestor's resurrection" as widely as possible—the wider the better. It must not remain a secret known only within noble circles; it had to become hot talk among commoners, even among the poorest. If possible, it should spread until it became a bizarre tale, a chilling story. And in truth, those rumors were indeed developing in precisely that direction.

With each retelling, the news would be worked over again and again; those superstitious, benighted medieval folk would add heaps of detail according to their own understanding. Gao Yang cared nothing for the specific content of those details—he only needed the news to keep fermenting.

And then everyone would know that the ancestor of the Cecil family had risen from the dead, and that that legendary founding Grand Duke had awakened when monsters attacked the kingdom…