CHAPTER V.
Nicks world was upside down right now.
The Brother he thought dead was alive and to be married today!
Leon never even put a foot in the academy before all of this mess and now he walked out with a beautiful bride of his own!
That made him feel more pathetic than Leon having enough achievements to get the title of Baron.
The brat was always so bad with people that he thought that no matter what he would at least get a wife before him!
And his little brother saw fit to rub it in his face with glee.
The gods were cruel.
Now he was standing in the gate of the academy with his uniform just ironed and his best attempt to comb his hair into something respectable, Jenna at his side looking as pristine as she could manage… which was way more than he could. She too was likely to land a husband this year from what she told him.
There was also another girl with them, the scholarship student looking nervously from side to side as if waiting for someone.
Most other students that had planned to leave had already left so it was only the three of them here.
Well… seeing as both his younger siblings were likely to beat him to get married and he had like two and half years before he was considered undesirable he might as well try his luck with her. She was pretty and would probably get knighted when she graduated… he hoped so at least.
"Hello, I'm Nicks Fou Bartfart, second son of Baron Balcus Fou Bartfort. Pleased to make your acquaintance" he said as kindly as possible.
The girl's eyes widened when he said his name and she went from looking shy to a look of nervousness.
"Ar… are you Baron Bartfort's brother?" she asked, avoiding eye contact.
"He said son, not brother. Are you deaf peasant?!" Nicks wanted to cry, it was just like Jenna to scare the first new girl he had the courage to talk to in weeks!
"You should be nicer, Jenna!" He reprimanded his little sister. It was his duty as the older sibling to discipline her in the absence of their parents.
"Why though, she is just a commoner" his sister refused to acknowledge the need to apologize due to the difference in their status… typical.
"I'm sorry for her behavior" he said gently, maybe he still has a chance!
"Our father is the baron not our brother!" Jenna once again butted in, she seemed in the mood to lord over their… no, not their nobility, just her own.
"I'm sorry!" The scholarship student apologized frantically, much to Jennas enjoyment. "I thought you were related to Baron Leon Fou Bartfort!" she said, trying to explain that she has confused us for another barony family…even if he was pretty much sure that there wasn't any other family in the kingdom with their name, it was only them and their brother,,,
He facepalmed so hard anyone not involved would assume someone was slapped just now!
Leon is now an independent Baron, so he is indeed the brother of Baron Bartfort!
"Eh!? Are you okay?" he scared the scholarship student, just great.
"What is wrong with you?" asked Jeena him, probably more ashamed by his conduct than worried for his well being.
"Yes, I'm alright, yes we are Leon's siblings…" he ignored Jennas outburst at his words and continued "I'm sorry about the misunderstanding" he apologized for not understanding her in the first place.
"Leon is not a Baron!" insisted Jenna behind him.
"He was just promoted from what he told me yesterday… I thought he was kidding until he showed me his papers…" yea it's not that he didn't believe in his younger brother, but being promoted is something hardly believable in the first place, the House Bartfort is still struggling with the taxes they have as a barony to even think of being promoted.
And in one stroke of luck he was promoted and apparently has the land to back his new rank as well.
"He never even told me he was promoted!" Jenna said in disbelief, she wasn't even given the chance to doubt their brother… how typical of him… Leon is a man that values his brothers more than sisters but he hadn't noticed just how little he valued Jenna if he forgot to tell her that.
If what he told him was true then his father only found out about a month back and was asked to keep it to himself because… Zola.
As an independent knight Leon had nothing to fear from her but he wanted to repay his debt to their father without Zola stealing the money for herself.
According to Leon that money would be used to fix the infrastructure of the territory, such as the roads and the harbor.
"Hmph!" Jenna was not happy about being kept in the dark about this.
"Are you going to attend Leon's wedding miss…?" he asked, leaving out her name hoping that the scholarship student would introduce herself…
"I'm Olivia, n…nice to meet you" she said, attempting a curtsy. "Yes I'm invited"
"How come!?" Jenna asked aggressively, what is wrong with that girl! she wasn't like this when they were kids!
"I… I, I'm Mister Leon's…!"
"You are the moron's what? Lover, concubine, mistress?" Jenna asked again, seeing Miss Olivia stutter, unable to form a coherent sentence.
The blonde girl could only blush furiously and nod while looking at her shoes.
Him and Jenna?
They were both speechless and gaping like a fish out of water.
He didn't know how this was possible at all… He couldn't help but wonder what his younger brother was doing all the time he was gone?!
0x0x0
Mylene Rapha Holfort felt a pang of pain in her chest as she witnessed this wedding come to a close.
Infiltrating this party was not difficult, although with how things developed, this was probably the last time she will be setting foot here as a guest.
The ceremony was discreet, this was not a celebration, this was a mournful event, there were not many people here, she could spot a few nobles that were at House Redgrave's service mainly, there was also the Atlee girl in a corner looking subdued.
This may very well become her future one day.
Mylene knew that her fiance, Jilk, is among the ones who fell in love with this Marie character. And after witnessing Angelica's punishment she doubts the girl would have any ideas about opposing her fiance's dalliances, because her son would no doubt intervene to save his foster brother from an unwanted fate… They were at that age after all.
Another notable individual was the blonde girl surrounded by retainers, she was looking rather bored, she was here probably at her father's insistence, Dorothea Fou Roseblade was an infamous young woman whose notoriety reached even the palace, she dared to turn down the son of Marquis Framptom son's marriage proposal, it was clear that her presence here was just a sign that her House supports the Duke.
Mylene returned her eyes towards the main actors of this event. She immediately focused on Angelica.
The young woman she once mentored so she could become the next Queen was embracing her older brother Gilbert, an embrace that they may never repeat for appearances sake..
The young man who she was forced to marry was talking cheerfully with another young man that resembled him, a girl with brown hair in a long ponytail and another girl that shyly looked at the floor.
The second girl was his concubine… his sister may have thought that she was whispering but she was sure that everyone attending had heard that bit, even her could in her private balcony.
She knew of him of course, but only about his accomplishments, she was impressed by them and even signed his nobility titles.
How she regretted doing that. The scumbag dared to bring his mistress to his wedding with Angie!
This marriage was pushed on both groom and bride, she could hardly blame him for having a prior relationship… but by bringing his woman here he's hurt both of the young women.
The blonde girl had the decency to try to avoid offending the bride's family at least, she kept her head down and tried to not draw attention to herself. She could not see her face but her clothes suggested she was of peasant origins.
Probably a starstruck girl that fell for the dashing adventurer and eloped with him…
That young man made her own husband, the King, look respectable in comparison!
Angelica acted as if nothing had happened and ignored the other woman with aplomb as she accepted the last of the congratulations. That girl loved her stupid son, suffered a crushing rejection but looked regal even in absolute defeat… She would have made such a fine Queen…
"You dared to show up, Mylene!" The voice that called her belonged to none other than Duke Vincent Rapha Redgrave, there was no trace of kindness left in his voice.
She couldn't blame him.
After what her son Julius pulled with Angelica he had every right to be angry… but.
"Angie looks beautiful" she replied calmly, she was still this country's Queen and needed to keep bothersome lords at bay "The groom thought, is just a thug!" She hoped to keep things civil with the Redgraves and this was a suitable punishment for Angelica's indiscretions.
Mylene knew of course that the gi… woman, acted within her rights to defend her relationship, but she had cornered herself with the challenge and had to be censured.
"I've done my part as a father" Vince said with just the tiniest bit of anger leaking through his voice "Have you and his Majesty done your parental duties?"
He was, of course, asking if Julius was punished for his dalliances.
Being honest, it was Julius who cheated, it was Julius who acted out but… "The prince will be confined to his chambers until he has to go back to the academy" she said trying to make it sound harsh, but both of them knew it couldn't even be considered a slap in the wrist.
She turned around and walked out of the room. She couldn't even let her former friend have the last word, she knows that from now on they'll be on opposite sides and she must be on guard with him.
After today Redgrave House may become an even bigger threat than the Fanos Principality in the future.
Exiting the building she catches a glimpse of Angelica boarding a carriage that will get her to her exile with the man she now calls her husband.
She wished she could at least say goodbye to the woman she considered a daughter.
Instead she will have some keep track of her until she arrives at her new home.
She was too valuable as a potential hostage.
0x0x0
"Greetings Master" , a floating round object with a red eye, greeted them inside a room in her family's airship. It was quite a curious sight to see for Angelica.
It floated closer to her and hovered around her as if inspecting her, she didn't quite know how to react. Then the… round thing did the same to Olivia who looked close to having a panic attack just from meeting this thing.
"That's enough Luxion, You are making them uncomfortable if you haven't noticed!" Her new husband said with authority, apparently this thing… This Luxion was an entity known to him.
"Perhaps they feel this way because the Master forgot to mention my existence!" the entity now known as Luxion said in his artificial voice as if he was hurt to not have his presence being explained beforehand.
And given this Luxion's uniqueness she could get behind the feeling whole heartedly.
"I have to agree with… Luxion this time my Lord husband" she said as if experimenting with the foreign name for the thing that called her Husband: Master. The creature was probably a familiar that Leon found while he was out conquering dungeons.
"You are right I guess" her husband didn't appear to want to introduce the entity for whatever reason but did so anyway "This is the AI Luxion, a familiar I found in a Dungeon" he nodded and looked satisfied by that rather lackluster explanation.
"Is that all?" Olivia spoke for the first time that day and she was as disappointed as herself with the lack of detail.
"Yep that's all there is to it!" and Leon wanted to keep things that way… it was getting annoying!"
"Oh! Master you are not going to regale Your wife and…" Luxion said before turning towards Olivia as if to confirm her relation with Leon, the girl defaulted to look shy and stare at the floor before whispering concubine soft enough that she wasn't sure the familiar could have heard it or not, the creature however managed to hear her answer and continued speaking "Concubine with the tale of how I had you in my clutches ready to die until you started to babble nonsense?!" She and Olivia took a step back after hearing the artificial voice reveal that it had the man with them at death's door.
"Yes! I remember perfectly, but remind me Luxion: Who was the idiot, who was the incompetent that got distracted and defeated by that nonsense babble?!" Leon said while putting himself eye to eye with his familiar.
"You surprised me Master, your insane scheme to procure a mate from the Duke succeeded!" The white and red sphere said as if unwilling to admit defeat and looking intently at both herself and Olivia. "And you got two, I'm pleased to see you took my suggestion seriously." The creature seemed to draw pleasure by putting its master, her husband, in this uncomfortable situation.
"Your name is Luxion isn't it?" she asked, feeling safer after that little exchange between master and familiar, this was a subjugated enemy.
"It is correct, Mistress Angelica" it replied matter of factly.
"You acknowledge me as your mistress because I married your Master, is that correct?" she wanted to be sure, there were tales of familiars betraying their masters exploiting the wording of their contracts.
"You are not yet registered but once that is done you'll be able to give me orders in the absence of my Master" that was relieving information. "She" the creature said nodding towards Olivia "Will be registered as third in command too" Luxion follows a chain of command? with Leon at the top herself as second and Olivia as third?
"Hopefully you won't be registering anyone else" she told Leon who just nodded absentmindedly .
"I don't plan on marrying again or getting any more concubines… Unless of course sometime down the line Angelica approves Olivia as a second wife instead… but you would be the only two women I'll be taking" that was certainly a good idea, more concubines would become a hindrance for her.
"N.. no I'm fine without being re… registered!" Olivia said she had pressed her back against the wall and was looking around… there was something wrong with that girl.
Looking at Leon she could see that he could see it as well, but the expression on his face told her that he didn't know what to do about it.
They have taken Olivia in as Leon's concubine upon discovering she could use Holy magic, it was obvious that she could become an asset and was too valuable to leave alone. But they might have been too forceful in their approach. She remember Leon was clear about not touching her if she was unwilling which back then made him look better to her eyes,
But maybe from her perspective…? Of course! she has no reason to trust him, now that she was publicly acknowledged as his concubine she feels that he may not keep his word.
"Luxion, are there any disadvantages or dangers that come with one's registration in your chain of command?" she asked
"There are no such things, this is a procedure necessary to control my spare bodies" the familiar answered.
She was interested in what these spare bodies were exactly but it could probably wait, right now she had something to do.
"Listen, Olivia, I need to explain you something" she said, the blonde commoner directed her full attention "Leon is a Baron, independent of his father's House, we are a new branch of House Bartfort" she said gently, and paused for a moment, the girl nodded but was waiting for her to continue before making any judgment.
"That means that I'm the new Baroness Bartfort, the second most important person in our House, and that makes you the third person in importance, it means that you are Important to us" she waited for Olivia's reaction.
"But in the academy everyone kept telling me I was wo…worthless!" she protested.
"The academy is a petty little world full of lies!" she all but yelled, she had her own complaints with the academy, but that didn't make what she just said any less true.
"That's basically the same my older brother, Nicks told me about the academy" Leon agreed, having never attended that was the best he could do to help, she smiled at him. "That's one of the reasons I delayed presenting my lands and treasure to the guild. So I could be late to enroll. That place was awful enough to visit, I don't imagine myself living there for the whole year!" Angelica looked at him surprised, did he just admit to cheating the system to avoid the academy? what had his brother told him he was so repulsed by it.
"It is an awful place," Olivia said, agreeing with both of them. How bad was it for the commoner?
"So I was in the right, pledging myself to House Redgrave in exchange for a bride!" Leon said looking at Luxion with an I told you expression on his face.
"You even got the one you were aiming to Master, congratulations!" Luxion complimented Leon, but in doing so he revealed something that she couldn't ignore.
"You asked for my hand in exchange for your allegiance!?" That was too absurd to even contemplate.
"Mister Leon, is that true?" Olivia asked excitedly at the prospect…
Angelica didn't know what to think of this revelation!
"To become a priest one must aim to become the pope!" Leon raised his hands in surrender, but then glared at Luxion, they really had a unique relationship.
"Then you knew Lady Angelica from before!" Olivia seemed in higher spirits now that the topic was switched to romance.
"I heard Zola's daughter talk about… " Leon hesitated for a moment when the time to say her name came. "Angelica once or twice when I was a kid, she was always jealous" he said with a terribly wide smile, no that was no smile, that was a smirk.
"Then you heard from me from your half sister?" She knew little about Leon's family; they had no achievements to their name, but she knew the names of his father: Barcus, and his legal wife, a woman named Zola.
"With how much her kids look like that Elf servant of hers, I doubt we are related at all!" Those were heavy words, but there was the fact that there was no way elves or other demi humans could produce a child with a human woman.
"So you believe that your Father's titles and land will go to a bastard?" Leon was far from the first to complain about this, legitimate or not such claims were the cause of much inner struggle in the world in general, not only the kingdom.
"I'm sure of it, But I have no way to prove it to the crown," her husband said resigned.
"We are getting off topic here" Angelica interjected, it would be all too nice to be able to prove that this Zola woman had given birth to bastards, that would be a quick way to take control of her father in law's land, but as Leon said, there was no way to prove it.
"Oh yes! We were talking about how I was smart enough to avoid the academy weren't we?!" Both herself and Olivia glared at him with varying intensity.
"First and foremost, Olivia, outside the academy we will be surrounded by my father's vassals so we won't face any kind of harassment from our peers, you have nothing to fear" she tried to reassure the commoner girl, guessing what was the cause of her near terror for the nobility she had came in contact with.
"Second, Leon, are you getting any kind of formal education?" this was important, she just hoped he wasn't the typical warrior who thought it was offensive to use one's head.
"Tsk, yes, My liege arranged for a tutor, although we will be paying her from our own funds" he didn't look particularly bothered by it other than the funds part, and that she could agree with, she had no idea what they had at their disposal yet.
"Very good, I hope you give your best!" She tried to intimidate him with her eyes only, it worked for her all the time with her followers, well former followers now, it however didn't have the same effect on her Husband, he looked rather amused by her attempt, that was kind of unexpected.
"I'll learn don't you worry" he said with resignation, At least he knew and accepted this was something he had to do.
"Don't trust him Mistress Angelica, Master is the type that needs constant incentives to operate!" Luxion interjected, making her husband go pale for a second before retaliating.
"You aren't insinuating that I'm planning to slack off, are you Luxion?"
"I remember when you committed to train every morning and how I had to wake you up every day and see that you do it!"
Before the two of them could start their squabble again someone knocked the door and interrupted them.
"My lord Dinner is ready" someone called from outside, this was a good time to stop and eat as any and she was hungry too.
"Come in," Leon said, changing his attitude immediately.
The door opened and a maid she recognized as her personal maid: Cordelia Fou Easton entered with other two she didn't recognize.
They were carrying trays full of delicious looking food. She couldn't recognize the dishes but they smelled good, so she was satisfied.
Her new family settled down on their seats and then the maids put the plates on a small table prepared for the three of them.
"Will you be staying with us Cordelia?" She asked the maid, she knew she had no right over her now that she was officially outside of her father's protection, but she had always had Cordelia at her side.
"If your Lord husband will have me, I'll gladly stay at your side Miss… Mistress Angelica" Angelica looked between Leon and Cordelia back and forth.
"Are you the only one that'll be coming?" Leon asked, it was a sensible question as far as Angelica was concerned.
"Yes, only I, my lord. The rest do not wish to abandon the service of the Duke" she said and the other two maids lowered their heads but said nothing else.
"Seems reasonable, Angelica, Olivia and me will be under your care" Leon said and she felt a relief in her heart, at least her oldest friend would be staying with her. "What's your name?"
"My name is Cordelia Fou Easton my lord Leon…" Cordelia looked at Olivia and then at Angelica asking how she should refer to herm Angelica mouthed mistress "Mistress Olivia"
Olivia looked like she was about to panic after hearing the Maid's call her Mistress.
"You are a commoner no longer Olivia" Angelica told Olivia "From now on you are the esteemed Lover of this House lord"