Chapter 18 — Viscount Andrew
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
If there was any place left in Tansang Town that could keep Gao Heng from being utterly disappointed—any place where one might still catch a glimpse of an otherworldly charm that combined classical beauty with elegance—it was the wealthy district in the north-central part of town. A few streets and a single wall separated it from the slums outside, and all the respectable folk of standing lived in this relatively clean and tidy quarter.
Here stood handsome two-story houses, each built of pale gray stone and cedar wood. On the balconies that jutted from the upper floors, dried fish and cured meat hung in the sun—the unmistakable badges of a prosperous household.
Although Tansang was on the whole merely a town, nowhere near the scale of a city, those who lived in the wealthy district still called themselves citizens—gloriously and proudly.
They were free men, they could pay every manner of tax, and they held respectable jobs in the town: big men such as farm owners and mine foremen.
And today, these personages of standing stood on their balconies, just as they did any other day, with the dried fish and cured meat hanging behind them, discussing the latest happenings with their neighbors. Anything even slightly interesting deserved to be talked over at length—and the most talk-worthy thing of late was, without question, that great affair in the Cecil domain.
Tansang Town and its surrounding lands were the fief of Viscount Andrew, and the Cecil domain bordered the Viscount Andrew domain. True, vast stretches of wasteland lay between the prosperous heart of each holding, but there was still an official road connecting them; thus, even in this age of poor communication, word of what had happened in the Cecil domain had spread through all of Tansang Town well before its time.
First a crowd of people, looking like refugees, had fled here under the leadership of a knight and a dozen or so soldiers. Then came the news, spreading far and wide: the Cecil domain had been utterly drowned and destroyed by a great host of monsters and an elemental tide.
This appalling calamity was like something out of a bard's wild invention. The townsfolk, who had lived many years in peaceful times, refused at first to believe any of it—but the refugees and the bedraggled soldiers had in fact entered the town, and hard on their heels Viscount Andrew issued his orders: a stricter curfew was enforced, and patrols around the town were increased. And so the absurd and terrifying tale became fact.
The townsfolk promoted the calamity in the Cecil domain from idle mealtime gossip to... serious mealtime gossip.
At first they had only traded a few words when they happened to meet in the taverns. Now they had to stand on their balconies, with dried fish and cured meat for a backdrop, to discuss the matter in earnest.
And while these personages of standing were discussing how the Cecil family, its sun already setting, had finally met its end for good, the head of the Cecil family had already passed through the wealthy district and the church district and entered Viscount Andrew's castle.
However wretched the life of Tansang Town's poor might be, Viscount Andrew's home was magnificent. In truth, thanks to the wealth of the domain itself and his family's skill at amassing fortune, the castle this viscount had built was far finer than the shabby little fortress in which Rebecca had grown up.
After the visitor's identity had been announced to those within, Viscount Andrew's steward invited Gao Yang and the others into Xuanyue Castle. They were led to a spacious, brightly lit reception hall and seated behind a long mahogany table to await the viscount's audience.