as
Emelia and in a way they were a lot alike. She had been sheltered
by her father and had little experience with others. At the same
time, Ash had been pushed away by others and pushed others away.
Emelia was the first person he had started to get close to. He
still didn’t know if it was love, but he felt comfortable when he
was with her.
Shaking off the thoughts that plagued his
mind, Ash rinsed the soap from his body and entered the bath.
Emelia watched him, but since he could only see her eyes it was
hard to tell what she was thinking. Slowly he walked over to where
Emelia was and sat down next to her and let himself sink deeper
into the water while stretching out his arm and wrapping it around
Emelia’s shoulders. He didn’t say anything, Ash just pulled Emelia
close.
Emelia didn’t fight against his pull and
brought her head out of the water and lightly placed it on his
shoulder with a content smile on her face.
After the bath, they dressed and sat down to
eat. Emelia’s declaration was the last thing said and neither of
the two could find anything to break the heavy silence that now
hung over them. Though they were trapped in silence, they still sat
close together and there was no feeling of dissatisfaction from
either of them.
After eating, Ash and Emelia went to the
study. With the news that a war might break out, Emelia was working
on checking on her personal forces so that if the King called for
troops, she could at least meet the minimum requirements demanded.
Emelia’s father had neglected keeping a large group of soldiers and
instead only kept a well-trained group of knights. The reason for
this was because the adventurers in a region could easily be hired
to preform most duties normal soldiers could do without the
constant cost of upkeep. The downside was that in times when the
King called for troops, it would take every knight to obey the call
to arms, leaving the duchy weakened for years. Right now Emelia was
making a general call by ordering all the knights within her lands
to take on three squires for training.
The knights had the right of conscription so
they could take anyone older than fifteen as a squire but they were
limited to have no more than five at one given time. It would take
two to three years before most squires would be trained enough to
fight in a battle, but if push came to shove Emelia could still
conscript adventurers into her personal army when the king called.
They would be more expensive in the short run, but would still be
cheaper than keeping a large standing army year around. Also, if
any of the adventurers fled from duty, which was a good chance, it
would give her a bad reputation with the royal army and King but it
was the best solution she could come up without mass conscription
for a war that may or may not happen.
While Emelia worked on the troop issues, Ash
had been tasked with figuring out the cost to hire enough
adventurers if the need arose along with the cost projections of
the added new squires. The Hawkwing duchy had a number of lesser
nobles but she couldn’t use them for troops for a war since the
King would call on them from troops as well. Currently there was
only two hundred and sixty-two knights under Emelia’s command.
While squires didn’t receive pay, their families were given a sum
upon the conscription and they would also need equipment and fed as
well. The payment to the families was only ten gold, but when you
took into account that they were planning to conscript over eight
hundred squires it added up to eighty platinum coins. The cost for
food and gear changed depending on the skills of the knights. While
Ash said knights they had different knight guilds that could only
be entered by those sword to a lord. Like common guilds, they had
unique skills and most of them were seen as far stronger than those
of the common guilds.
The people belonging to the Dark Knight Corps
were the cheapest to outfit as they used short swords and leather
armor.