Dagena was being surprisingly unreasonable with my request. A simple request at that. I simply asked her to convince our siblings to join in the little exhibition of sorts I had planned.
"Rainald, it is absolutely tiring and exhausting getting Orson out from his bed," she huffed, sick of my constant prodding "And Oteri is simply a drag to talk to, half of the time I converse with him, he is hinting at his lack of funds for his needless debauchery."
She shook her head and took the hand of the commoner beside her, "As much as I owe you for keeping this secret from father," she waves their clasped hands in the air, "I'm really not willing to freely plunge myself into such provocative situations. I can help you out with your little, what did you call it again?"
"Tourist attraction." I offered.
"Ah, yes! I can help with that, I'm father's daughter too aren't I?" here she smiled sheepishly like she hadn't just thrown a wrench in my plans, lovely. Seems like I would be left on my own with convincing my other two deplorable siblings.
"Well then, since you desire to be so difficult," I let my obvious displeasure known with a tame glower, "You and Sir…?" I tilt my head to the side as I fall short of words, realizing I hadn't been introduced to the commoner standing hand in hand with Dagena.
"Ah, just Herbert will do, Lord Rainald." The dark-haired handsome chiselled chin commoner shyly bowed as he finally made an introduction. His sheepish smile and the way he avoided my eyes painted him with much suspicion.
I did not find him charming nor amusing to look at, the most handsome commoner men were the most ambitious in their youth. Many at times successfully marrying into wealthy noble families, often at the cost of said families. I would not dare put it past him to be one of said ambitious commoners.
"Yes…now, Dagena, you and Herbert here go meet up with Edward, I sent him to begin setting up the environment we'll be needing for this as well as making sure that word gets around about the existence of the new event." Again, I eyed the commoner beside her suspiciously, "But your little secret, Dagena, won't remain a secret if you wear it all around the house."
They give me curt nods and Dagena smiles to ease the disappointment I still felt about her not helping out with the boys. Watching them walk away I begin to review ways I could get Orson and Oteri to play ball.
Oteri was fairly simple to please as always, but Orson was whom I would meet difficulty. He and I just hadn't built a positive connection or even a form of rapport for me to pull favours. And he being blood-related and even worse; the heir gave me very little commanding power over him and his siblings. Had I had the commanding power I wouldn't have bothered wasting my breath asking Dagena to help out, a simple courier would have worked fine.
Not an hour in with the pin and I'm already faced with the limitations of my full power as Special Advisor. But still, I was Special Advisor for a reason, if I couldn't get Orson to bend over all on my own I'd have someone forcibly kneel him.
***
Dagena presently had no real cause to worry. Over the last few months, she'd been in constant turmoil about what would happen after she delivered her confession of love to the man she whose hand was wrapped around hers at this moment. She was a noble, and he was a commoner, years of theatre plays holding this same forbidden love theme taught her quite a bit of the dangers involved in pursuing such a prestige decaying relationship.
In the plays, there was always a chance the commoner, most times a woman but others a man, would be executed at the behests of the noble's parent. That was the worse that would happen to commoners in the plays, other times the commoner would be segregated purposefully by the noble's parent, taxed higher and even robbed of their little farmlands.
As for the noble, things went a bit tame, and along the lines of being locked up in their castle, having privileges stripped away, and in extreme cases, being disinherited, but that often worked to the effort of a happy end.
But Dagena knew and feared something even crueller happening upon herself and her little crush, and ironically, actually being accepted would be the cruellest punishment for her sin of lust.
If she were to be accepted, she would be disinherited immediately and quickly sent off into a matrilineal marriage, her lover, Herbert, would be given a private piece of land where he would work to pay for the marriage that would cost quite the sizeable sum, he was marrying into a noble family after all. This alone would take years to accomplish and they would be separate at that, out of contact with supervised monthly visits so they did not have a child out of wedlock as that would be another problematic issue.
Dagena knew very well this was a strategy commonly employed by Nobles to buy time and serenade their children with suitors they deem worthy. After all, the test of time was a cruel one, especially in love, and love as young as their own. And a man as young as Herbert would surely fold to the wiles of the women hired to seduce him in his seclusion.
Dagena feared, quite frantically that this would be the fate to befall her and Herbert. Their little love story would be over before it even began if they got caught.
Dagena felt her hand being firmly squeezed, garnering her attention, "What bothers you so?" Herbert asked softly, his voice close to a whisper, and his smile entirely calming.
She squeezed back and looked up to meet his eyes, they come to a stop and on her tiptoes she stands to kiss him, "I'm just distracted by what Rainald said about father, he's right you know, usually is anyway," She turns away from their close quarters as she spied the annoyed look of one of the women acting as cooks for the festival, "should we really openly seek my father's attention? I don't think we'll do any good by having him focus on us."
Herbert had not lost his smile.
He cupped her cheeks into his hands, having her look up at him and whispered gently to her, "We need your father to send us away, he is not like other nobles, he might even let us be when he finds out." From this he took her into his embrace, cradling her by her head, "But you know what we need, we need to be free from your parents, our parents."
She nodded her head, gently rubbing against his chest whilst she did, "We should go, people are staring." Herbert only smirked in response and kissed her forehead, letting his hand fall into hers before pulling her along with him towards the designated stall.
It was there Edward was waiting for them upon a wooden, he was surrounded by many people and as usual, held a large brown record book. The two quickly found a place within the crowd formed around Edward and listened to the instructions he was giving out.
"…So as per the Special Advisor's orders, the space circled by these markers will be the designated area for the events he has planned." He cleared his throat and held out a scroll, "On here is a rough sketch of the building that will be used to house the Advisor's ideas, since this is a direct order, the Duchy will be redirecting all builders and smiths efforts into this, everything else is secondary."
At this, there were many mutterings and even some groaning, but none loud enough to be heard clearly.
Edward handed the scroll to a burly looking man before going on to clap once. "Silence." He spat, sneering over the crowd from the stage, "Keep your discontent to yourselves, the Duchy is sponsoring all of this out of its coffers and will oversee its management however it pleases." He gave them all one last glare and scolded them back to work.
Dagena smiled, letting go of Herbert she approached Edward as the commoners and workers passed by them took a second to bow and greet her. "Thank you, Edward, for putting them in their place like that on our behalf, I am qui-"
"I am only working in my own interests, like everyone else who has a salt worth of sense…" Edward quickly interjected, rebuffing any ideas of patriotic loyalty to the Duchy and it's ruling family, rulers changed after all.
Dagena, who had lost her smile at his words quickly found it once more, albeit in a weaker form. Regaining her composure, she swiftly redirected the conversation towards entirely more pressing matters, "Ah, yes, so where would you like us to be? Rainald mentioned I'd be pivotal to the success of his plans."
Edward grunted looking at the two, he turned away and seated himself, exhaustion written all over him, "Yes, definitely you, your part of the building is to be built first," turning his attention to Herbert who had yet to utter a word, he scowled as he spoke, "Although I am not sure how, uh, pivotal your boy will be, Rainald only asked for a random but rather handsome looking peasant male within your age."
Eying Herbert thoroughly, Edward shook his head disapprovingly, "We will arrange for someone else."
At this Herbert didn't bother concealing his discontent at the Stewards words, he probably thought himself quite the eye-catcher with his calloused hands, missing tooth and tanned skin. After all, he ended up in the loins of a noble, surely he must be worth a glance or several dozen.
He stepped forward, ready to have a voice at last and defend his wounded pride, "I beg your pardon, sir! But-"
"You are pardon." Edward quickly waved him off without a second thought, "I was wondering when you would apologize for offending me with your wafting stench. Do not come any closer though."
Instantly taken aback by his words, Herbert quickly lost any previous motivations, looking only to Dagena quite bitterly.
Dagena, catching his glance could only sigh, these were how things were and would always be between commoners and nobles, they were on either side of a long and thick line called feudalism.
Dagena grabbed a hold of Herbert's hand and addressed the Steward once more "Edward, we'll stay close by, send for me when I'm needed, alright?"
At this Edward smiled and lowered his head respectfully, happy they were leaving, "Yes, of course, my lady."
With that Edward was left, once more, alone to manage and implement the workshop of a dream the Special Advisor, Rainald, had imagined.
"This better work."