CHAPTER 903: A GATHERING OF SHAMEFUL OPPORTUNISTS

Loman looked around the Hanrahan great hall and fought back the urge to berate the assembled guests as if he were still a priest, speaking from the pulpit.

Everywhere he looked, he saw fresh, full faces that lacked any traces of the lean, harsh lifestyle he’d seen in the sunken cheeks and bony figures of the townsfolk he’d met in the poorest, outer areas of the town.

Here on the edge of civilization, as close to the frontier and the border with the demons who infested Airgead Mountain as a person could build a sizeable town, it was expected that conditions could be harsh. Raids in the fall and winter claimed the lives and livestock of many farmers every year, even if they weren’t on the scale of what had recently befallen the barony.

Even without raids, the conditions could be harsh, supplies from Lothian City and elsewhere in the Kingdom of Gaal were difficult to obtain, and simple illness claimed many lives each year. To live on the frontier meant that a man could live free, sustaining himself and providing for his family with his own honest work without becoming a bondsman for years just to obtain a deed to his farm.

It also meant facing a harder struggle than most people in the Kingdom of Gaal could imagine, where a single bad storm could tear whole families apart. Yet to look at the people here, it would be difficult to believe that they weren’t in the halls of a manor in Lothian City. The men wore tunics of the finest wool, embroidered with copper and silver thread, and their fingers glittered with heavy rings, while the fragments of conversation that reached Loman’s ears were enough to sour his stomach.

"I’m telling you, Aslac, this storm is an opportunity to the first ones who can move," a slender man with several silver chain necklaces hanging down his ruffled tunic said, gesturing emphatically with his goblet of wine. "If you don’t have a carriage and strong horses who can take you out in the snow, I’m willing to bring you along with me as a partner in this venture."

"Venture? I know you think yourself clever, Yvar, but what kind of mad venture would take a man out in this weather when there are demons lurking about?" Aslac asked as he cut into a large cut of beef steak on his plate before stuffing a mouthful of the succulent beef that was still pink enough to look bloody into his mouth.

"You’ve seen the damage here in town," the first man explained. "Think of how much worse it is for the outlying farms and villages. Mark my words, there are widows and orphans out there who will be lucky to survive the winter," he said after taking a sip of his wine.

"If those farmers die over the harsh winter," Yvar continued. "Then their deeds revert back to Baron Hanrahan or whichever local knight rules the area, but if there’s a widow or an orphan who’s still alive, then they can sign it over to one of us for enough coin to survive the winter and a trip back to the nearest town or village."

"Do you really think we’ll get away with something so brazen?" Aslac countered. "I promise you, if you can think of it, Baron Hanrahan can as well. I bet five sovereigns that he’s already planning on reclaiming those deeds to sell them to rich men from Lothian City in the spring! If we cut into his profits, it’ll be our heads that roll."

"You think I don’t know our baron?" Yvar countered. "I’ve already spoken to the Head Priest about doing some ’charity work’ for the Church, venturing out into the weather to find widows and orphans and bring them back to the Church. We’ll have the cover of doing the Holy Lord of Light’s work and be hailed as heroes for risking our lives to rescue women and children from the snow and the demons..."

"Besides," the scheming merchant added. "No matter how much we snap up, there are sure to be farms we miss and people who won’t sell or don’t succumb until the end of winter. Baron Hanrahan will still get his share in the end, so he won’t mind the crumbs we swipe from his table..."

The pair of merchants wasn’t the only ones looking to line their pockets in the midst of the tragedy. At another table, the owner of most of the town’s saw mills had launched into a lively argument about how much the price of timber could be increased without sparking protests, while the owner of an ironworks bemoaned the fact that he would likely sell little more than buckets of nails to people rebuilding their homes over the winter.

Everywhere Loman looked, the people with power and wealth in Hanrahan Town were openly discussing how to acquire more of both on the backs of the people who suffered the most because of the storm. The women in the hall, however, were looking for entirely different opportunities.

Compared to the men in the hall, the women were even more elegant, especially the young ones who had been brought out specifically to catch the eye of the young Lothian lord and any of his companions with vices to indulge in. Bodices were cut low and deep valleys of cleavage were framed with fine lace or adorned with glittering necklaces, while elaborately embroidered corsets nipped in waists that were already elegant and willowy.

"Look, Roseen," a straw-haired woman with a lithe figure that could almost be called boyish said as she pointed at the arriving lords. "Lord Loman looks even more handsome and dashing now that he’s out of his priestly robes than he did this spring."

"Since when do you know Lord Loman, Cossot?" asked a raven-haired woman with assets that were as generous as her friends were sparse. "You’ve been boasting about watching Lady Ashlynn’s wedding all year, but if you tell me that you spoke with Lord Loman, I will call you a liar to your face."

"I only said two or three words," Cossot said, smiling smugly at her shorter, curvier companion. "My father is one of the best whitesmiths in the march, you know. He supplied some of the decorations for the wedding, and he personally poured the constellation mobile that Baron Hanrahan gave Lady Ashlynn to hang above the crib of her firstborn. Lord Loman even praised the work, saying it would bring good fortune to his niece or nephew to sleep beneath the stars of the heavens."

"And now you think you can use that to slip into his bed?" Roseen said boldly. "You know that even if he’s left the Church to be a lord, he’ll never marry a commoner. Your chances of bedding him are as good as my chances of touching the stars in the heavens."

"I wouldn’t dream of marrying him," Cossot said, blushing fiercely as the idea of wearing a beautiful white gown like Lady Ashlynn’s and walking down the aisle of the grand temple in Lothian City to wed Loman Lothian flickered through her mind. "But when he marries, if he needs a nurse-maid for his children, wouldn’t it be good to be ’close at hand’? And I could help him ’practice’ for his wedding night..."

Loman’s face heated at the bold suggestions put forward by the gossiping women as he realized that he was the most ’eligible’ and desirable guest of the occasion. Of course, the daughters of the wealthy merchants were only looking for opportunities to worm their way into his bed, either for a night during his stay or as a way to escape the small town life of Hanrahan Town by entering his service on a more permanent basis.

It was the chatter about the daughter of one of the knights in attendance, however, that turned Loman’s embarrassment into slow simmering fury.

"Did you hear that Sir Thorryn Quarrie brought his daughter to offer up as a lady-in-waiting when Lord Loman takes a bride?" one woman said, more loudly than she intended after her second cup of strong wine.

"No, that can’t be!" another woman said in disbelief. "Drema Quarrie is only twelve years old, she’s far too young to have her maidenhood offered up to anyone."

"Old enough to catch a lord’s eye," the first woman countered. "And you know how those noblemen are. Some like to ’train’ girls young. Lord Loman was a priest, he’ll only want a woman he knows is pure and picking her up so soon..."

The very idea that he would want to touch a girl who wasn’t even a woman yet was almost enough to make Loman march over to the table to berate the women for their gossip. What kind of holy man would dare to touch an innocent child? Did these people think that he’d turned into his brother, Owain, the instant he took off his vestments?

But as much as the gossip about him and his preferences infuriated him, there was an element of the gathering that got under his skin even more in the wake of the tragedy that they’d witnessed as they arrived in Hanrahan Town.

Outside of the Barons’ keep, people were hungry, cold, and digging their deceased loved ones out of collapsed homes. Meanwhile, there was an obscene amount of food piled up on the tables of the great hall. More than enough to feed every man, woman, and child sitting at the table four times over and encompassing everything from freshly slaughtered venison and boar to tarts baked with sweet, crisp apples brought all the way from Kade barony.

Taken in with everything else, and perhaps because of the needles of other conversations that had worked their way under his skin as he scanned the great hall, Loman could no longer hold himself back as he turned to the portly baron, choosing his words with great care as he searched for a way to give vent to the seething feelings in his heart...