Viscount's Pov continued...
Sitting in the now much more empty room Viscount Durtch observed Deor, the only council member he spared.
"Lord Knight Durtch, I would like to take this chance to apologize for my short comings. I am deeply sorry for letting my greed overcome me. I have allowed myself to be foolish before your grace."
30 whole seconds passed and not a word more was said after this between the two men. The Viscount continued to observe Deor, a power play that worked flawlessly, as Deor was left more than unsettled.
"Council Member Deor, do not forget the mercy I have shown you today. Although you will keep your seat, you will no longer be able to participate in any major projects in the future."
"Understood Lord Knight Durtch, I thank you for magnanimity" although he said this, Deor couldn't help but feel his heart grow cold. Losing the ability to participate in any major projects meant being delegated to a managerial worker, with a bigger salary. That's if you put it badly, putting it nicely howerever, would make you out to be a bigwig still having the majority of the benefits of being a council member. These benefits being status, prestige, influence over subordinate workers, much bigger pay, influence within the town and more. Still, he lost the ability to participate in big projects and this has weakened his power over the towns direction and future. He couldn't help but wish he could smack some sense into past Deor before he offended the viscount. After all they all knew they were in the wrong trying to pressure the Viscount to give them more of the pie. They thought it would work out as the viscount's relationship with the count over him was...strained to say the least. But with the giant reveal that he was infact an elite aurna knight changed things big time. His status was technically higher than the count's.
"I will leave the task of recruiting the new council members to you. Do understand if they are not up to par, the blame will be on you. I'll leave first, don't disappoint me, Deor..."
The Viscount stood up and walked out of the room, hiding a deep frown on his face.
"Deor if you don't appreciate the mercy I've shown you, then you can only join the other former council members in the grave."
He didn't desire to reveal his advancement to the advanced rank until his son became adult. That's because he has been trying to avoid joining the royal army for 5 years now. Once it was revealed that he was at the Elite aurna knight rank he would be asked to step away from his family to have an audience and celebration with the king. Usually this wouldn't be an issue, but his situation was very peculiar. An entire Kingdom hated him to the bone. Along with that many nobles within even this, his home kingdom hated him. More importantly he was avoiding gaining the attention of an old acquaintance he has deeply offended.
This was because of how he got the rank Viscount, having exposed the scheme of the Northern kingdom,(the Snowborn kingdom), they received a huge backlash for the incident, as his king the king of Mid-eastern kingdom or The Royal Kingdom took full advantage of the situation and further spread the news of this situation to other neighboring kingdoms. This of course hurt the Snowborn kingdom's trade relations greatly. A Kingdom located in a desolate cold barren land was now having a harder time maintaining their trade terms, and probably now have to pay more for a smaller amount of much needed resources like food, wood, and water. Naturally they would hate the man that created all this grief by exposing them. To Garner said hate the now Viscount had eagerly stolen all his best friends notes and plans behind his back, and snatched all the credit, accepting the hatred of the Snowborn kingdom along with it.
This wasn't the only thing that restricted him, who cares if an enemy hates you, they're your enemy after all! No, what truly held him back was his former best friend.
"Apparently our relationship wasn't that deep, it went both ways, I was willing to betray him for the opportunity to become a noble. And he secretly had dealings with nearly half of the nobles under the king, and never told this "best friend" of his about it. With said lack of knowledge I backstabbed him and he had half the nobles under the king make it clear there's a problem between them and me. Because of this the amount of merit that was able to at least reward me with the title of count actually fell down to only Viscount status."
"Still, I got the noble title all the while disguising my combat rank. This was because I didn't want to be hounded for recruitment into the royal army. This was also to protect my pregnant wife. After all once it was revealed that I was actually a royal knight ranked combatant, I will most certainly be thrown into the center of the storm of schemes by the nobles. Back then my wife and child on the way might not have been spared. Even as a royal knight I wouldn't dare underestimate those nobles. But more so my former best friend. There was absolutely no way he was just a guy from a wealthy family I believed him to be before. No mere wealthy family could make half the nobles, even marquises, move for them against another."
"Something isn't right about him. I am scared of what he might do if he found out that I'm actually a advanced ranked combatant. Since I backstabbed him he was able to get half the nobles to stand him up before the king. I am not stupid enough to not see that the guy I backstabbed is something more powerful than atleast the usual noble."
Viscount Durtch felt many complicated emotions as he thought about his situation, and how he got there. He couldn't say he didn't deserve it. He absolutely did. But his actions has also endangered his wife and child. It hasn't even been a year since he revealed himself as the mastermind behind the crack down on the Snowborn kingdom's scheme, and he and his wife has encountered 7 assassination attempts. With the last 2 encounters having a knight ranked combatant along with 4 warriors and 7 warriors, respectively, trying to assassinate them.
Thinking back to when he revealed his aura to the council members, each and every single one of them was instantly marked as someone he needed to kill later. Out of all of them he decided to spare Deor from the murders he was about to commit. He knew it was foolish to expose himself now, but he did it anyway. The stress he was feeling from constantly being on edge, was getting to him. He knew that, but that only made him realize how much more his wife must be suffering.
He was a hated individual, but she, his wife, with the status of the wife of a hated man still went before the other nobles. She still had to go through labor to bare their child. Who knew how many snidy remarks she must have to deal with from the other noble ladies? Who knew how much hardship she went through to land the deals she was able to scrape in with such a horrible reputation? What about his son's future? What troubles will he have to deal with because of his father's decision, no, his father's mistakes.
He had put a huge burden on his family. Not a soul else to blame but himself.
"I will do my best to be the best father, husband, and protector of you, my dear family as I can, even if it costs me my life..."