Indeed, everything was taken care of. Excellent relations and mutual affection with the shadow ruler of the duchy had been established. He could safely return with a firm confidence in his rear. Only the steward remained, who always looked at him with hostility, but the duchess promised to resolve this issue by winter.
She herself was also pleased with the three days spent with Sir Blood. Intelligent and perceptive, very handsome and strong, he eased her loneliness and provided valuable advice, and before his departure, assured her of his sincere support. Such a thing was worth a lot, and she had not yet repaid him for his sister.
Passing through Savoyardi without problems was not possible. It was not even the huge number of people in the city streets; rather, the guard at the gate politely requested his lordship to visit the baron. Alexander had no intention of refusing such a small request, so his horse slowly made its way through the crowded streets.
Despite the city being "frontline" for the second consecutive year, the townspeople were having fun and celebrating the harvest festival. They were accompanied by numerous mercenaries and workers from merchant caravans. In the square in front of the church, a group of traveling actors entertained the crowd with simple scenes and music.
The rather poor spectacle and even poorer skills of the performers were quite popular among the locals. To clear his way, Alexander had to use his noble privilege to push aside the lower classes for the first time.
Naturally, Alexander did not hit anyone; instead, his "air shield" rudely shoved the distracted people aside and cleared the path. The curses that immediately followed ceased instantly when the inattentive onlookers noticed whom they had raised their voices against.
The square in front of the castle was occupied by a tent city. There were not enough places in the houses for everyone, so some of the mercenaries had to live in this manner. The vampires hired by Konstantin were placed outside the city, on the "dangerous" bank, but no one complained, such was the authority he had earned in just a year.
Overcoming the last obstacle, the vampire approached the closed castle gates. He was recognized but not allowed inside. The embarrassed guard asked him to wait. When the small cavalcade finally entered the castle courtyard, Alexander was quite irritated. It was completely unclear why the baron had issued such idiotic orders regarding him.
But the personally descended Savoyardi offered his sincerest apologies and shed light on the situation. It turned out that Dukon had chosen his castle as his residence, and all orders now came from him, not from the host. Even the invitation for the conversation was not from the baron. The damn local etiquette rules, where a higher-ranking person could command in another's house, sometimes led to such strange situations.
The archmage made a repulsive impression. His young body was flabby and weak. His skin was shiny with grease. His eyes darted around in all directions and seemed to be the liveliest part of his appearance, though they were also repulsive.
Four young maidservants were bustling around the mage, propping up cushions under his back and attending to him in every way. Having taken over the master's office, he did not even make an attempt to maintain the appearance of being a guest, as Duke Kas had done, for example. All of the baron's belongings had been thrown out of the office and replaced.
The air was filled with some kind of incense. Perhaps the human nose perceived them normally, but the vampire doubted it, judging by the baron's discontented nose-wrinkling. The archmage was lying on a small sofa, dressed in a luxurious robe of southern fashion. A carved goblet made of precious wood in his hand completed the picture of an important southern gentleman.
The kingdom of Elura, stretching from north to south, was divided into three conditional parts. The North, consisting of the crown's domains and two duchies. The Center, representing the domains of the king's personal vassals. And the South, divided into the domains of the remaining eleven dukes of the kingdom and the free city of Ur.
The southern dukes had never been particularly loyal to the king, and their love for the throne was not enhanced by history, as all of them had been conquered in later times, after the foundation of the kingdom, and did not originally belong to it like the northern and central provinces.
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