150 Kaisla's decision

Kaisla had taken her decision after her overlong investigation on whether Emp or Graube was more suitable to become the next great general. It was a difficult task and a very important one not only for the empire as a whole but for her own future too. Grandfather Aminui wanted her to marry the next great general to make sure she'd have a bright future so it did concern her on a very personal level.

She had come live in this small village to watch over his wife and try to figure out who he was but ended up having a hard time spending any significant time with him outside of sword training behind his house. Most of her time was used trying to educate his wife Calla or trying to control the impulses of the strange group of ladies gathered in this house.

Calla, despite being very lovely, was unable to keep her household under control. If Kaisla didn't do anything, this small house would soon fall into chaos. While Calla smiled, listened to others and cooked, Kaisla worked behind the scenes to insure that nothing would get out of hands.

She would stop the sisters from doing any mischief, she would stop the twins from causing a drama too extreme, monitor the more feisty girls and have them work out their excess energy outside and so on. This way, she managed to keep everyone in a stable mood for the new lady.

To be absolutely honest, everyone here should be mature enough to not cause problems to the household but the current situation was just as abnormal for them as it was for her. They were here to attend to a lady and help her in her tasks but she only cooked and relaxed all day. They were wondering what they were there for. As ladies-in-waiting, they also knew that there was a real possibility for them to eventually be uplifted to actual sisters which meant, turning into Emp's wives. However, meeting the guy for any longer than a meal proved to be almost impossible for all of them.

The man was always working on something and only spent a little time with anyone particular. Aside from Calla whom he favored by a large margin as a husband should, he barely ever met anyone for anything. He didn't push anyone away when they came to see him or just walked in on his work to watch but he didn't make any efforts of his own to learn about them either.

This left the group of ladies to feel like he had no interest in any of them. Kaisla understood that this wasn't the case. The others did as well in a way, after all, he didn't have any more time for the girls that already were there before them. Simply, despite their thoughts, the feeling didn't go away. They felt dissatisfied.

Thankfully, things would change pretty soon. Whether lady Calla was ready for it or not, she would soon have to face the court and lords as only wife of the household heir. At that point, the ladies reunited here would find a real meaning to their presence. Aside from this, they were recently prooven wrong twice over by the young lord actions.

With all of that said, it was difficult for her to truly grasp his character aside from the fact that he was very diligent in the tasks he had to complete and his own training. The man never missed training, neither his own or the training of the others. He was always there to participate and improve himself. He gained a lot of points in the books of Lanavera and Bailey for the training. Lusine found this behavior very dignified too and admired how strict he was with his own work as well.

She agreed this was a quality but it shouldn't define his whole character. It wasn't her task to determine whether he was able to fulfill the work of a great general, she only needed to find out if he would be more appropriate mentally for the post than Graube. This overly dominant trait of his didn't tell her anything and she had to work very hard to find out more about him.

In order to understand, she had to make a lot of efforts listening to him and everyone else around. She watched how he behaved with the others, spoke to Marcellia, heard about his previous adventures from the everyone and collected the opinion of all the girls living in the house.

Galana in particular had said something she thought very important to her decision, it hapenned at the same time as the events that changed the minds of the others.

This woman had a surprising amount of power in the household and according to everyone, she was the one that had known the young lord for the longest time. He trusted her with all his personal money and despite her rude behavior, he always listened carefully to her opinions and ideas.

At first, Kaisla hated her. The woman was way too disrespectful to her lord, she deserved a strong punishment. She was just a slave too, what right did she have to speak so insultingly to him? She was baffled that the lord never got angry or displeased by her behavior. Every time she called him an idiot, Kaisla got angry enough that she would have punched her right in the face. It was a slight to the great Muracier name, yet, Emp just ignored it and let it all slide like it was nothing.

Her grandfather Aminui was open minded too and didn't take it to heart when other lords spoke their minds to him but he did take action when unveiled insults where thrown at him or the imperial family.

She had thought he was weak willed but the others assured her not and she was once proved wrong too when a travelling merchant insulted the cursed-blood servant. When he heard of it, even though the servant in question didn't seem that upset to have been insulted and made to pay extra for her purchases, he still got extremely angry and walked all the way to the central place of the village to smack the face of the merchant twice and had him pay back what he took in surplus.

Kaisla and many of the other ladies witnessed this and found the scene shocking, they had never seen him angry for anything before. His face would warp into something truly terrifying when he was.

Like all Muraciers, he had a naturally strong expression that made him look displeased and like all of them, when he truly was displeased, the air around him changed completely. When Aminui was displeased, his face didn't change at all but the feeling of it got stifling. His true anger was something even Kaisla had only seen a few times and those were scary memories she never wanted to experience again, even if she had never been the one to cause that anger.

Emp was similar, that time, he had not been all that mad but still showed a face that could make the people he knew pale. She wondered if it was less intimidating for those who didn't experience the usual calm Emp.

What the Porter sisters had once told her was right, Emp didn't care when he was the direct victim of words. He was impervious to them like a giant tortoise was impervious to butter knives. In reverse, he could not stand it when someone he knew was badmouthed or mistreated. Kaisla felt as if his reason flew out of his head whenever something like that happened.

This wasn't a good trait to have for a great general. If he could not control his mood like this, it could influence his decisions and lead the armies to ruin. She needed to take this into account. It also painted a huge target on his close circle for his enemies. They would all know soon that to truly hurt him or lead him into a trap, they only needed to threaten someone he cared for.

Even though it affected his chances of becoming great general negatively, the rest thought it was a good trait to have. They knew of many lords who barely cared for people working for them and would react to insults to their families only because it slighted them by proxy instead of actually trying to defend the victim. The many ladies serving Calla were even more pleased of this when they started to understand that they were also in the circle of those benefiting from this protection. Kaisla could easilly relive the event in her memory, it was what led her to the insightful discution she shared with Galana.

Emp didn't seek the company of everyone on his own but he did listen to them all and enjoyed their presence around him and his wife. Even if he didn't show it well, he did care and he did pay atetntion to what was happening around him.

One day a woman from the village came to complain about Bailey's wolves. She was loud and very zealous. She had no idea that Bailey was the daughter of a baron just like she had no idea that Emp was a Muracier but even if she knew, Kaisla had the feeling that she would still have campaigned to have the wolves executed.

Bailey is usually the loud one but this time around, she couldn't place a word and was one-sidedly yelled at by the woman. She looked pitiful and made herself small while anger stormed out of the woman's mouth. She must never have been berated this strongly in her life before, even if her precious "dogs" were insulted and threatened continuously, she couldn't defend them at all. Simply put, the woman was hysterical.

Anyone that tried to intervene got shouted at just as much, it was impossible to reason with her. That was what Kaisla thought until Emp showed up.

The grandson of her lord jumped from the second floor window and forcibly pushed his way between the woman and Bailey to shield her. The gaze in his eyes was complicated, what he felt was unclear. He seemed frustrated, maybe a bit angry at the woman, but he also seemed to pity her. Since she lived in the village, he must have known her for a while too.

Still, instead of siding with the woman he knew for a long time, he took the defence of Bailey. Even thought everyone knew he didn't like the wolves all that much and even if they all knew Calla was scared of them, he still chose to defend Bailey's precious "dogs".

"Cut it out now, those aren't the wolves that killed Vesa."

The woman showed deep hatred to Emp, so deep she almost looked demented. Kaisla later heard that this woman's son was in love with Calla before he was killed by forest spiked wolves. She heard that Emp was present at the time too as he was one of the young man's friends and failed to protect him. The young lord felt guilt towards the woman, he felt a part of responsibility in the death of the boy.

From the woman's point of view he let her son die, stole the girl he loved and then raised the same kind of wolves that killed his rival as pets. She couldn't possibly feel more slighted than what she felt right now.

The woman didn't even try to restrain herself and just gave the lord a violent slap everyone in the yard heard. Emp didn't move an inch, he just blinked in surprise. The girls gasped at the scene, this simple commoner just slapped one of the most influential man of the empire while he was already angered.

Anywhere else in the empire and it would have been a terrible offense, anyone else and the woman would have had to pay dearly for this.

After that, she screamed her grievances again yet the lord didn't flinch. He interrupted her with a tone so low it just drowned her acute voice. The scene looked unreal, she was being so loud yet her voice couldn't hold on against his words. She shouted over his words yet it was his voice everyone heard better.

"You can be angry at me all you want but you have no right to be overbearing or violent with the women living here. You don't get to harass my household because of Vesa. I know you are angry but none of this can bring him back.

The wolves won't leave from here until she does and she isn't going anywhere until Calla does or she decides to leave of her own accord. Now turn back before you do something you'll regret. If you do not, I will drag you to your husband myself."

Bailey was the one that fit in the least in the group and yet, Emp still defended her against someone he felt so bad towards. This left a deep impression in the minds of the others as well as the way he ignored the slap.

In the end, Emp truly did have to drag her away by himself. She tried to slap him a second time but he caught her wrist on the way and didn't let it go again afterwards. Despite her violent reaction and shouts, he kept holding it and puled her away.

Then, after he came back, he gave the two Porter sisters the mission to keep watch throughout the nights from now on to make sure that the woman wouldn't come to try to kill the wolves while they slept.

"If she or the wolves get injured, you will have failed your assignment but the real consequences for this house will be way worse. Do not let me down and don't let her do something stupid. Don't try to reason with her either, just knock her out if she sneaks in the yard at night."

"Got it Emp!" "We're on it!"

The sisters were proud to be given this task but the rest felt a bit worried that they were the ones tasked with the watch. Thankfully, in the end, nothing hapenned.

That evening, at the dinner table, Bailey thanked him for intervening and then asked him about it with guilty looking face.

"Why did you defend my dogs if you don't like them?"

"I don't understand."

The lord was making that face he often did with one brow lower than the other as he tried to figure out the sense of what was said to him. He really had some problems understanding others sometimes and like that day, only a few around the table could figure out what he didn't understand in that simple question.

"Is it because I'm a noble that you pulled her away from me or is it to preserve the dignity of this house?" Bailey gave some examples of what she expected him to answer.

"This has nothing to do with nobles or the way people view us. Even if I don't like the dogs, you do. This is what is important. Those dogs did nothing wrong, I just can't accept any of you being belittled or yelled at for no reason. You should be praised and rewarded instead for having raised all those obedient dogs. I thought this was obvious."

It hadn't been obvious for anyone else than him but this did make them understand that he held more interest in them than what it seemed on the surface.

"Idiot! Of course it's not obvious! You barely acknowledge their presence! How are they supposed to guess you care about them?" Galana chided him in front of everyone.

Again the lord didn't feel the way she addressed him was a bad thing and just answered what he felt.

"So you're saying I'm not vocal enough about my satisfaction towards their efforts and presence? I thought that the fact I never complained about anything was enough. If I was dissatisfied with someone or something they did, I would have said so."

"But the lack of dissatisfaction doesn't mean you really appreciate it, it just means you don't dislike it! Normal people need to be told they did good because they can't know what you think in silence idiot! You don't even ask them for how they feel or their hobbies!"

The lord looked even more puzzled than before.

"Why do I have to ask about something I already know? Calla tells me all about it every night. If any one of you felt sad or lacked something, Calla would just tell me later in bed. Asking again for something I know is just a waste of time."

Galana looked really exasperated while the rest looked in bewilderment at the scene and the strange revelation. They just heard that the lord didn't seem to pay any attention to them because their silent lady was much more talkative in bed and told him everything about them every single night.

Emp being a Muracier, he didn't feel the need to explain anything or simply wasting time to verify the information provided by his trusted wife and just accepted it all at face value.

It was all just an unbelievable misunderstanding.

While Calla was very embarrassed to face all the stares of her attendants, Galana kept arguing with the lord for a while.

"Knowing about them from Calla doesn't mean you can just act as if you knew them personally idiot! Get your information from the source and speak to them like a normal person! People like to be talked to when they're not named Calla or Lea! They'd be happier if you spent more time with them directly instead of thinking that hearing about them from a third party is enough! Calla might speak about them a lot but she doesn't speak about you at all with us!"

While Kaisla disagreed with the way Galana spoke to Emp, her words were true. Getting information on Emp from Calla was almost impossible because she was so silent. Getting even the tiniest piece of info would take forever. Apparently though, she was completely different when alone with him.

The others gradually absorbed the revelations they just received and agreed with Galana that Emp should spend more time with them all as they were curious about their lord and the husband of the lady they assisted. Up until now, they rarely disturbed him even when they needed something because they didn't want to intrude or get in his way. Him not minding them was better than him being annoyed by their presence after all. After they knew though, things changed a lot and their interactions with the lord multiplied in a short time.

This encounter greatly helped Kaisla grasp more about Emp, it made her job a lot easier to complete afterwards too. The day after that, she went to see Galana in the study while Emp was in his workshop and interrogated her about his so called "stupidity".

The lord did look rather clueless on a lot of subjects and seemed ignorant throughout many discussions. She wanted to have the opinion of the girl calling him idiot all the time on this subject.

Galana shook her golden blond hair with a sigh and explained her thoughts politely to Kaisla. Her rebellious demeanor seemed to only apply to Emp. Everyone could see her clearly get angry whenever someone stated some wrong fact about anything but she always tried to remain polite with the ladies. In a way, this made it worse because it made it obvious that she knew she shouldn't speak that way to a noble.

"He lacks some knowledge but he's not an idiot, he can learn things easily and can think properly for himself. I think he's much more intelligent than me."

That was the sort of thing Kaisla would never have expected her to say. This woman spent her days improving her knowledge by reading books and practising magic. Mage were known to be ridiculously smart after all, it was obvious this woman was aiming to be one of talent.

"But you call him idiot all the time." Kaisla questioned with a frown.

"He's got no common sense is what I mean, he doesn't understand the purpose of head taxes if everyone included lives on the same piece of land that has already been taxed for example but he can calculate the amount in an instant. More importantly, he doesn't understand how to interact with people.

He's brilliant in many other subject though. He doesn't lack knowledge about the world and can do the work of a scholar just fine, what he lacks is knowledge about the people living in that world. He's an idiot in common sense, you only need to think about yesterday to see that, but he's intelligent everywhere else. You only need to tell him something once for him to get it and remember but he's like a little child and always wants to know the reason behind everything. He ends up knowing more than everyone else and then doesn't understand why the rest doesn't reach the same conclusion he does.

I'm not trying to be mean to him, I'm trying to teach him common sense. When I met him first, I truly thought he was an idiot but I was wrong, I was the stupid one. There is no real meaning behind me calling him an idiot. It's like calling Svae fishy. It's just that sometimes, we need to tell him straight up what he's doing wrong or he won't notice. The day I'll stop calling him an idiot is the day he won't need me anymore."

The thought made Galana look sad so Kaisla thanked her for the explanation, excused herself and left.

Months more passed after that in her observation. One day, she got up and sat at a small table placed in the room she shared with Lanavera and started writing a letter. She had learned all that she could and gathered the opinions of the ladies too, from his wife all the way down to the cursed-blood slave Svaenaha.

Now, her decision was taken, it was time to inform her grandfather Aminui of it. Her heart throbbed in worry as she wrote. It was very stressful, so much so that she had tried her best to delay the writing of that letter as much as humanly possible.

She couldn't help but fret about the words she was placing on paper. The content of the letter wasn't anything fancy but its results would be life changing for her. She kept getting distracted and turning embarrassingly red on her own. She was telling her grandfather who she thought should be her husband and the next great general after all, she couldn't escape picturing the future.

Whatever she wrote in the letter, in the end, the meaning would be summarized with, "this is the guy I want to marry."

She hadn't felt so good about being told to marry the next great general and she hadn't felt better about being told to choose between the two candidates. One was for her an old man she didn't hold dear to her heart and the other was a complete stranger. Over the last few years though, she did warm up to him.

It was embarrassing to say or even think about but she felt that it wouldn't be so bad to be an actual part of this household instead of just attending to Calla.

The man was like his grandfather but younger, he was much closer to her age, was a sensible person and his first wife was great too. He was an objectively better partner choice than his uncle Graube, both for this and for the title of great general. Neither him or Graube were perfect but he was more of a Muracier than Graube who was born from a branch ever would.

She tried to convey that in her missive using many arguments, comparisons and justifications. This wasn't about her heart after all, this was about who would lead the armies of the whole empire in the future. She wrote things like how Emp had a more supple way of thinking and acted less rashly in general than his uncle. How he cared profoundly for those around him making him less likely to waste troops like Graube did even though it made him vulnerable. She wrote about how he sometimes looked clueless about simple things but also how he was willing to listen to other's opinions to improve himself.

When she finally put down her quill, the letter had grown to span six whole pages. This was all she could think of that could influence her grandfather's decision. Despite all her efforts, this didn't mean that Aminui would choose Emp in the end, she could only suggest and wait nervously.

It didn't mean that Emp would accept her as wife either even though she believed he would do it if Aminui asked him to. Even if she developed feelings for him in the future, feelings different than friendship, she might end up being wife in name only.

This was all a problem for the future however, right now, the most important was to fill the position of great general. She stamped her seal onto the letter and brought it to Emp so that he could transfer it to his grandfather this same day. His magic bag was often used for this sort of thing by Calla so she thought it would be much easier this way.

It felt particularly strange to place a letter speaking about him into his hands so that he could transfer it but this was after all a duty she had pushed back for far too long. It needed to be done today. It shouldn't have taken her years to come to a decision, her heart had been clouding her reason. She should learn to control herself better.

She showed him the letter in his workshop while she was thinking this but was quickly brought back to reality because of his reaction.

The young lord looked at the letter with that clueless frown of his however and refused to take it.

"It's the wrong seal."

It was her turn to frown now. How could it be the wrong seal!

"What do you mean the wrong seal? That's the Grovgar seal, it has always been like that."

He shook his head and explained what he meant to her with a very serious face. It was the sort of face his grandfather made when he'd listen to war reports.

"Granfather insisted that you are family, if you're family to him then you're obviously family to me as well. You've lived here for two years, I know you, I know what you are on the inside, a Muracier. You're family to all of us, you're part of us already, part of the house and name. Where the Muraciers set their house, you'll find your home too, that'll always be true.

I'm sure that this was what grandfather intended anyway when he started all of this. He said he wanted you to be forever a part of us so he wanted you to marry into our house but I don't think you have to. Whoever you give your offering to can't possibly change that and whatever name shows on your hunting card doesn't either. I don't care whether you call me husband or brother as long as you know you belong in the Muracier house. That seal is wrong, the Muracier's wall should be stamped on that wax. At least place both, I will not move that letter until you do. Is this more clear or am I saying something strange again?"

He seemed to be genuinely worried about whether he was saying something nonsensical again or not. It could have been very funny but it was not.

"N-no... Sorry, I understand... My lord. I'll be back shortly, I forgot to say something in it."

Kaisla was shaken by his words instead, his voice turned her world upside down and devastated her mind. She improvised an answer and fled the room in a hurry, leaving her lord confused.

She turned his words into her head a few times over and threw the letter she had taken hours to write into the fire of the main room. What she first wrote was all wrong, that wasn't it at all. She didn't need any arguments to justify her choice, it sent the wrong message, this wasn't like her or even close to worthy of what a Muracier would say.

She ran up to her room, took the quill again and wrote the letter anew from scratch. This time, it was much shorter, honest and straight to the point. Something her grandfather would understand properly. Her heart beat like crazy as she turned the paper black with ink, she felt almost feverish. What Emp just said had moved her, she wanted to convey this to their grandfather.

\u003c Dear grandfather Aminui,

Emp has to be the next great general. We are family, husband or not. Grandfather, he's the lord I wish to serve and will serve once the forest takes you back. Even if Graube takes the title somehow it is him I will follow. I can feel that truth echoing in my whole being since I saw it. It is clear to me now, please understand.

From your granddaughter for ever and always, Kaisla.

P.S. I am having fun here but I can't wait to see you again. His wife Calla is a fine woman and a great cook, I think you will be fond of her once you get to know her. She is not a great warrior and her will seems weak but I know that she hides a great strength of spirit.\u003e

Her footnote was almost longer than the actual message but this was exactly what she wanted and needed to convey. She was satisfied with this new message. This time around, she didn't stamp the Grovgar seal on it and brought it as is to Emp.

He took the folded message into his hands as she presented it to him and prepared the wax right away with a satisfied smile.

"Are you not going to read it?" She asked teasingly.

"I was taught that reading the letters of others is a bad thing to do. I don't need to either, if it concerns me, grandfather will tell me."

Kaisla giggled at his answer and shortly after, the wall sealed the letter and this subject.

Later, when the old man received the message from Emp's hands, he was surprised by the seal on it.

He read the letter alone in his room and the corner of his mouth rose into a rare smile. He folded it back and placed it in an inside pocket of his coat, close to his heart.

"My house might just live on after all. Now he needs to leave his mark on the field and it's my win."