Chapter 26 The Request of a Certain Ex-Knigh (1/2)

Knight General Quince Turney had had to deal with many strange and fantastical requests in his long and successful career. He believed above all else that his his career had been so successful in this peacetime because of these requests. The noble class of the Eldovian Empire was something to be marvelled at, though, those in the right position would know that their position also gave them certain priveleges.

These privileges came in all shapes and sizes. Some were as simple as requesting a little extra force for a sanctioned mission. Others were eccentric to the extreme, such as escorting several crates of an unspecified substance to a particular location, and then turning a blind eye to a particular lords...fetish.

In short, nearly all of these requests at Fountain Ridge had to be sanctioned or disposed of by Knight General Turney. His success had weighed on the fact that he was capable of judging which of three categories these requests fell into:

Menial Tasks - those which could be carried out without impact to the economy or social order of the province

Disposable Tasks - those that were not worth doing nor reporting.

Impactful Tasks - those that were reported to the local Duke for him to have a say in matters.

Whether or not the requesters approved of the Knight General's sharing nature or not was not a matter he concerned himself with. He had been in this role for twenty years, the last thing he was going to do was make a decision that could very well bring the weight of the entire Kildare Family down on his shoulders.

That is, until he received a certain letter from a certain exiled man.

The day that Quince Turney received that letter was quite plain. A typical spring day. The sun was shining, interrupted intermittently by white fluffy clouds that decorated the sky as they saw fit. A light breeze was blowing into his office through the window, rustling the documents and forms weighed down by various weights and trinkets.

With his reading classes sitting delicate on the bridge of his nose, Knight General Turney had been busy going over a report from a recent feud in the market place of Fountain Ridge's capital, Agua. The feud itself seemed trivial at first, there were two vendors who were fighting over rights to own a certain stall front. The problem was that this storefront was on a corner that was considered prime real estate. The previous owner had left the establishment to his son, one of the fighting vendors. But this Vendor's uncle had sold the stall to the second Vendor in the disagreement, then run off with all the profits. Needless to say, the report detailed how Knight Captain Harding had had quite the headache after listening to the dispute for nearly four hours the previous morning before insisting he bring it up with his Knight General. It other words, Turney can have the pleasure of dealing with you.

As the General decided on a way to resolve the matter, his Scribe, a young man named Sam, entered with the mail.

”I have the mail for you, Sir,” Sam said.

Turney barely glanced up, ”Yes, yes, put it on my desk, anything urgent?”

”Not that I can see, Sir, though there is one letter that has made it quite the distance, the return address says it is from Cordon, that tiny village on the edge of the Greenvale Forest in Arkia. It must have taken at least a month to get here-”

”Give me that,” Turney said immediately, completely abandoning the report before him and standing to walk swiftly to the table where the Scribe had left the letters. Sam was quite taken aback by this. What would the General have to be so concerned about from someone in such a middle-of-nowhere remote town? Nevertheless, he handed over the letter, and the General looked at the address intently.

It read simply: The home of Phillip & Anna, Cordon, Arkia.

”You are dismissed, give me some peace,” Turney said softly.