TO&FQ: Book 2 - Chapter 45 (RAW)

Chapter 45 - Late Fees A home without books is a body with no soul. - Marcus Tullius Cicero. Ferdiad Frest, former bandit and the least like

Chapter 45 - Late Fees

A home without books is a body with no soul.

- Marcus Tullius Cicero.

Ferdiad Frest, former bandit and the least likely of Seraphina’s Knights, was leading what passed for physical education in Aranthia: self-defence for ladies. He had the girls practising with an assortment of projectile weapons, and today they were learning all about the crossbow. 

Despite an affectation of stoicism, Seraphina could almost smell his embarrassment; the notorious philanderer was hemmed in by a garden of budding flowers, and the stiffness of his movements, along with the occasional catch in his voice, betrayed him.

He rapped a knuckle on the tiller of a training crossbow. “First rule,” he said, voice professionally flat, “the bow is only as steady as your stance. Feet apart, weight forward, lean into the kick like you’re bracing against a closing tavern door.”

No one got the reference, and an awkward silence answered him as he demonstrated a loose but correct stance. The student’s did their best to mimic him.

He then showed them the goat’s-foot lever of the weapon. “Alright, hook the stirrup over the boot, latch the prongs behind the string, then pull straight up with the back nice and slow, or you’ll strain something you’d rather keep intact.” 

In the tradition of new teachers everywhere, the joke fell flat, but the students followed his instruction.

Many of the noble-born students struggled at first, their sheltered upbringing leaving them short on the Strength required.  The commoners were far less dainty and had far less trouble, a fact not lost on Seraphina.

Of course, with her own superhuman Strength, Seraphina could probably hurl the bolts faster and harder than any crossbow present, but the lesson was still worthwhile. Understanding these weapons would help her judge what it would take to equip and maintain soldiers on a large scale. Even so, she found herself stifling the occasional yawn.

An errant thought of Eloise rose to the front of the young noblewoman’s mind. Dahlia, Eloise and Desdemona’s class, was having lessons with Sir Gallant—King Elidion’s man if ever there was one. The intense Knight of the Royal Guard unsettled Seraphina on many levels, and she hoped the lessons would not prove too trying for her friend—or, for that matter, that Sir Gallant would not try anything untoward.

“Next, come the sights,” Frest’s voice came, snapping Seraphina out of her thoughts. He tapped the tiny notch filed into the rear of the prod-housing. “Back sight, front sight, target,” he recited. “Line all three and breathe out before you squeeze the tickler. Don’t yank—stroke it, gentle as lifting a coin from a drunk’s purse.” 

Worried frowns answered his analogy. Seraphina shot him a glare, causing Sir Frest to cough apologetically.

The students loosed their first bolts against the innocent archery butts.

He knelt beside Miriam to correct her elbow, whispering an old trick: “Aim a hair lower at close range—these can kick high in a girl’s hands.” Her next shot thudded almost dead-center. Michelié’s quarrel, by contrast, drooped embarrassingly short; she huffed petulantly and glanced at Seraphina. With a long-suffering sigh, the lady spanned the weapon for her friend with a casual flick of her great Strength.

By the time the lesson started to wind down, the young noblewoman’s prediction had certainly run true. Frest’s off-hand tips, like: how damp bowstrings lose poundage, how lampblack on the foresight cuts glare, how a quick wipe of tallow keeps the nut from freezing in winter, were the small gears that made armies function. Such knowledge, she mused, was easily worth the price of a boring morning.

***

Having spent her lunch hour dutifully completing the requisite assignments—she dared not call it homework, lest traumatic memories resurface—Seraphina now found herself strolling leisurely through the picturesque streets of Meridian as late afternoon painted the city in hues of gold and amber.

Escorted discreetly by her faithful Knights, Smith and Gascoigne, who effortlessly managed an intimidating presence even from afar, Seraphina felt secure and serene. Miriam, her ever attentive maid, held aloft a delicate parasol that cast a gentle shadow upon her mistress, shielding her from the late autumnal sun.

Their leisurely procession wound through Meridian’s streets, where sunlight sparkled upon placid canals, casting reflections that danced across ivy-covered walls and intricately carved stone archways. Skilled boatmen guided Serenelles that glided over still waters, the murmurs of their passage blending with the distant sounds of market chatter and softly plucked strings from street musicians.

Eventually, their path brought them to Bookbinder’s Row, a district renowned throughout the Kingdom Aranthia for its devotion to the printed word—every shopfront a testament to literary opulence and scholarly pursuit. Paved stone gave way to cobbled streets, and here, leather-bound tomes lined shelves visible through polished windows, and artisans meticulously repaired old texts beneath the crystal glow of focused Zajasite. For Seraphina, the sense of pride was nearly overwhelming; she drank deeply of the atmosphere, savoring the knowledge that over three-quarters of the establishments lining these cobblestone streets were owned indirectly by her.

According to her newest ledgers, Seraphina’s near-total stranglehold on the printed word would repay every sovereign within two years. Soon, Meridian would be swept into a tempest, her press thundering day and night like a captive storm. Knowledge would no longer trickle; it would surge where she commanded and wither where she withheld. The very thought sent a delicious shiver up her spine.

And once she truly held a monopoly… then she would squeeze.

But that was not today’s priority. 

Now, she required the unrivaled craftsmanship of a certain Master Stacker Armsteel, a dwarf whose name and reputation preceded him. A dwarf, whom, according to her memories, she was sure was of decidedly negotiable morals. A flick of her wrist could have sent Miriam to haggle in her stead, but Seraphina desired more than results; she craved the visceral thrill of seeing her burgeoning empire from the ground level. To see how all of it would work.

Thus, she directed her group toward a small, unassuming shop, its humble exterior adorned with a quaint wooden sign depicting a gilded book crossed with two ornate keys. 

As the bell above the door chimed gently to announce their arrival, the first thing to greet Seraphina was a comforting, nostalgic aroma—vanilla mingling delightfully with the distinctive scent of aged parchment and worn leather bindings. This shop, too, belonged to her.

Within moments, a rustling from the back heralded the arrival of Master Armsteel himself. Emerging into view, the dwarf craftsman possessed a presence that belied his modest stature. His brown beard was trimmed short and tidy, framing a bulbous nose that dominated his broad face. Compact yet sturdily built—indeed, nearly as wide as he was tall—Master Armsteel wore a thick leather apron stained by years of his careful craft, an array of intricate tools suspended from his belt, each gleaming with careful maintenance.

Upon his head rested a curious apparatus, an intricate magnifying lens that hinted at the delicate precision required in his work, and the faint scent of glue clung to him like an artisan’s perfume. Master Stacker Armsteel had abandoned the dim, echoing mountain halls of his ancestors, drawn instead by the promise of fortune beneath Meridian’s sunlit skies and beside its shimmering canals.

“A good day to you, Lady,” he greeted warmly, his gruff voice softened by the sincerity of his welcome. His eyes, keen yet cautious, measured Seraphina carefully. Few girls fit the description of the Crown Prince Velens’ beautiful fiancée.

Not to mention, among his people, she was becoming rather well-known and regarded as a steadfast ally. Rumors whispered their way through the stone halls of the dwarven clans—rumors that, at the next moot, a vote might be cast to name her “Dwarf-friend,” a rare honor reserved for those who had earned the enduring respect of the deep folk. 

All it had taken was a handful of letters and an open invitation—a carte blanche to delve and dig beneath the rich, untouched soil of the Duchy of Sariens. In a matter of months, she had accomplished what decades of diplomacy had not: goodwill, genuine and glowing.

To her mind, it stood as one of the few tangible proofs of the merit of immigration, at least when the immigrants were skilled, industrious, and came bearing pickaxes rather than petitions and complaints.

And the dwarves, curious folk that they were, held art and beauty above all. In Seraphina, especially among the younger generations, they harbored an unexpected adoration for her beauty. According to her correspondence, her likeness had found its way into the subterranean halls, etched into stone, hammered into metal, whispered about over forge and fire. Word had even reached her ears that some among them had begun crafting small statues in her image. A delicious thought tickled her mind—could she market them? Dwarven made statuettes of herself, sold at concerts and events. It was not vanity, she reasoned. It was branding.

To this particular dwarf, she was not just a powerful Aranthian noblewoman—she was a celebrity. And Seraphina smiled, slow and subtle, tasting the power she held over this earnest creature like one might sip a rare, heady wine.

Master Armsteel had only just fished a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles from the cavernous pocket of his leather apron—still squinting as he settled them on the bridge of his nose—when Seraphina’s fingers snapped, the crisp sound cracking through the workshop like a whip.

At once, her Knight, the competent by decidedly average-looking and utterly unremarkable Gascoigne, handed her a satchel.

She drew the scarlet-leather tome from the bag as though she were unsheathing a sword, before gently placing it upon the counter. The fist-sized gem in its cover glimmered like a watching pupil; for a heartbeat, the dwarf’s awestruck features were reflected in its depths.

“The Realm of the Four Gods,” Seraphina said, savoring the dwarf’s sharp intake of breath. “I want a second copy. It must be perfect in word, ward, and weight.”

Master Armsteel ran his calloused thumb across the human-hide binding, muttering the old dwarven blessing for uneasy spirits. “Six months, my lady. No less. The calligraphy alone must be redrawn by a master illuminator,” he rubbed the back of his neck. “And, the warding lattice will require a runesmith and a lapidary capable of cutting a stone of an identical resonance.”

“Six months is unacceptable. When coin flows, stone yields,” she added, remembering a dwarven aphorism. “Assemble a scriptorium if you must—a master calligrapher, two rubricators, an illuminator, a binder, and a rune-wright. Secure a lapidary from the Jewelers’ Hall. Pay them triple guild rate. Hire more if necessary. Twice as many, ten times as many if need be. You will finish this in a fortnight.”

The dwarf’s brows knit behind his bushy eyebrows. “A fortnight—if, and only if, I can lay hands on a replacement heart-stone. Stones of that size and clarity don’t sit in shop windows, even in Meridian. The price will be—”

“Lady Seraphina… must you go to such lengths?” Miriam asked worriedly. “Can’t you just take it out again? Our accounts are not yet…”

Seraphina raised a hand, instantly silencing her maid.

“Exorbitant? It matters not.” She pressed a purse heavy with gold coins into his palm. “Take what you need and then some. I will have the extra delivered tomorrow.”

It was easy to hand over such an exorbitant sum over namely, because the young noblewoman would be receiving around seven tenths of it back as the owner of the establishment.

Armsteel’s grin split the braided thicket of his brown beard as though a gold vein had just been struck. Greed, after all, was not a sin among dwarves but a virtue—polished, admired, and sung into ballads. And here lay a commission fit to crown the very anvil of his reputation.

“Then let it be done,” he rumbled, voice like quarried stone. “I’ll put word out at once. Yet I’ll not deceive you, milady—the gem you require will be neither cheap, nor perhaps, entirely of lawful origins.” He spread his hands in a shrug. “But then again, surface laws shift quicker than scree in spring melt, I have learned.”

“Promises bore me, Master Armsteel,” Seraphina replied, her expression sharp enough to carve into steel. “Results do not. Deliver, and you win the personal favor of the future queen. Fail, and the name of Armsteel will be spoken in the same breath as oath-breaker for generations.”

A low whistle escaped the dwarf. “You are everything the rumors claim, milady.”

“And what is it they claim?” she asked, a silken threat coiled beneath each word.

“That you are as strong as the bones of rock and dwarf-blooded in spirit—more so than the eldest greybeards themselves. Your hunger for gold is a bottomless mine, your hoard a mountain.” The reverence in his tone rang like a temple bell.

Among the dwarves, no accolade reached higher. Seraphina answered with a luminous smile, bright as newly-poured electrum, unleashing the full gravity of her overwhelming Charisma. Light seemed to bend toward her, creating a halo around her hair.

Under this assault, Armsteel’s last reservations crumbled like brittle slag. In the forge-heat of that smile, he became a willing and true believer. 

And Seraphina… well, Seraphina, drank in the moment, savoring the birth of another fanatic to her cause.