Chapter 36: Chapter 36: A ‘Relaxing’ Few Days

Braydon felt quite relaxed. A couple of the sources of his headaches had been dealt with, he now had a foothold on the Fiverian side of the Brimstones and now controlled a fairly large population centre. It did not mean that all his problems were gone but he thought that he could go at a more steady pace for a while. There was not much he could do until the first profits from his mine started coming in in a couple of weeks anyway. His thoughts came to an abrupt halt when Rhydian and Corban entered his study. ‘What now?’

“Sire, now that the mercenaries have left we need to sort out the troops of the late Barons.” Rhydian stated after he came in. ‘So much for a laid back foreseeable future.’ He now understood why the two men had come.

“And where are they at the moment?” Braydon knew he had to get involved in this to some extent, even if Corban was the best equipped to sort this issue out. He was still the lord of this place, he needed the troops to fight for him. Never even going to see them would not exactly endear him to the men.

“For now they have been camped outside of Mapjess, the garrison needs better organising than we were able to do in a couple of hours in between battles. There is also  the matter of patrols and increasing your standing army.” This sounded like it would take more than one day. Braydon knew that he would probably be spending the next week in Mapjess, so he wondered if he would be able to get a proper look at how the town is like. Shuttered up and covered in blood does not really give anywhere an accurate portrayal.

“Since we are going to Mapjess, I would like for you two to select members of the garrison to take up your current positions in the castle, effective immediately. We will discuss further on this once we see the position that Mapjess is in.” Braydon’s command was accepted by both men, the castle garrison was now functionally operational so it would not be difficult for replacements to take over. Though Corban looked worried about this, he was not a knight like Rhydian so he did not know what his new role would look like. At least that Braydon was bringing him along meant that he had something in mind, it was not going to be a straight demotion at the very least.

“Well, pack your bags. It seems like we are going to be spending some time in Mapjess. I am sure there is more than just the army to sort out when we get there.” Braydon did not know how things were managed there, he might need to overhaul the administrative system of the town if he was unlucky. He didn’t really know how good of an overseer Baron Monrow had been.

“Sire.” “Sire.” The two men greeted as they went to get things sorted. Steven also took his leave to go and fetch Gerald, he was still Braydon’s guard after all.

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As their group rode towards Mapjess, the temporary camp came into view. It was big. Much bigger than Braydon had expected. It had not felt like such a large number when they were scattered about over two battlefields, but now they were all together Braydon saw just how many there were.

“Just how many men do we now have?” He could not help but ask. A normal viscounty would usually have three or four hundred men, not including any garrisons. Of course, this was not a normal viscounty, being the size of a small earldom but even then he would not expect such a territory to amass more than 500. He already had about 70 on hand, some of which would become a part of the new garrison. But the camp before him suggested there were more than 400.

“Not including any men we already had. We have gained about 550 more men. Only this does include whatever garrison members there were from the town, so you won't be having a 600 strong army. Remember these were all hired from the Barons’ old land, so you will not be able to recruit many more either.” Rhydian explained so that Braydon would not get his hopes up about such a large army. Though it seemed that Braydon did not mind this in the slightest, he only had 70 men before this, now he had several hundred.

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“This should be enough that we are no longer stretched so thin.” Corban made a good point, 70 men had not been anywhere near enough for Braydon’s needs before he got this new land. It would definitely not be enough now.

“Hopefully we find some competent administrators, or at least some clerks in Mapjess. I presume you do not want to write out the registration for several hundred men after the last time.” Braydon mentioned, causing Corban to remember the clerical work he had done before. Corban was suddenly very enthused about finding at least one person who could take up that role. He was a man of the military, why would he ever want to do such an insanity inducing job?

“It is useless talking about this right now, we haven’t even entered the town yet.” Rhydian commented. And it was true. Speculation would do them no good as of now and they were not far from seeing the situation for themselves.

“Then let us head to the mansion and take stock immediately.” Braydon replied as they were coming up to the town gates. They were closed right now because there was no proper garrison in place, and disorder brought by the movement of people a few days after the battle would not be helpful. Hopefully that would be changed by the end of their stay, trade was vitally important for towns. Even if those like Mapjess did not get many traders, it was still a significant portion of its income and food supply.

As they entered the town, it appeared more lively than it had during the battle. But that was not a high bar to cross, the citizenry had locked themselves in their houses whilst the battle had been raging. Now there were one or two people on the streets but not as many as a town should have. 

“Why are there so few people on the streets?” Braydon asked the guard when they were being let through, sure that this was not enough people, even if it was a small town.

“It still feels to the people like they are under a lockdown, Sire. The gates have not opened up and there are no traders about. It probably will not change until things resemble normal a bit more.” The guard responded, enforcing to Braydon just how important it was to get things set up as soon as possible.

“All the more reason to get things sorted, Sire.” Rhydian mentioned as they were riding through the town's main street.

“You do not need to tell me twice. Hopefully the servants at Monrow’s old residence will prove to be a useful bunch, otherwise this is going to take much longer than it needs to.” Braydon was of the same mind as Rhydian. He just hoped that there would be some good people, he was sorely starved of talents for managing his territory. His current people amounted to Rhydian, Corban, Colin and Nela. That was good for making the top decisions but there was nobody to carry them out or managing on the day to day level.