A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

At the front of that party, Beam could see Lombard marching stoically, dragging the corpses of several goblins behind him by a rope. The other men with him were similarly well encumbered by corpses, though none were carrying quite as many as he, apparently lacking the strength.

Beam felt his mouth all open as he counted the amount they'd slain. There must have been twenty corpses in total. Goblins and giant spiders and then another creature that Beam didn't recognize.

Lombard must have felt him watching, even though he was such a distance away, for he sharply turned his head and locked eyes with Beam, pausing his march a moment as he stared.

Beam stared back for just a second. He saw Lombard's eyes flicker to the sack that Beam was carrying and then back to him.

Slowly, trying to appear as casual as possible, Beam turned away from him and continued his walk into the village, trying to pretend he didn't feel the set of eyes that were boring straight into his back.

Only when he reached the first set of houses was he able to properly relax again.

He realized something as he walked away. "Even Lombard was bringing back the corpses of the goblins… They must be pretty valuable."

Such were his musings. If even a knight – someone who Beam assumed was paid fairly well – saw value in the corpses of goblins, enough to bring so many back himself, perhaps they were worth even more than what Greeves was giving to him? Dominus had said such a thing in the past, but at the time, Beam had been happy to be getting any money at all, since he was so used to it.

Now, there was that 50 gold mark that he needed to hit. He was doing the best he could to avoid taking a loan from Greeves, for he knew what the merchant was like – nothing good would ever come from giving the man power over him.

He resolved to ask Greeves about the prices as soon as he saw him.

As he neared the marketplace, he noticed just how busy the streets were. The air was cold with the approaching winter, and the villagers were well wrapped up in their winter coats already, fighting the biting wind as it swept over the flat plains, down from over the top of the Black Mountains.

Winter was not the only reason that the market was so busy, of course. It was the influx of soldiers. For a small village like theirs, with a population of just a few hundred, the addition of a mere one hundred men was enough to cause a rather sizable shift in things.

As Beam entered the marketplace, he saw a few of those soldiers amongst the crowd of people bartering at stalls. He supposed that Lombard must have been giving them breaks from their duties in shifts, so as to not leave the camp undefended at any point during the day.

The soldiers carried themselves with an arrogance that could be felt even from a distance. Beam could see the villagers eyeing them warily whenever one got too close, and the soldiers seemed to love that wariness, that fear. Since they spent their entire lives following orders, it was rare for them, men of the serving class, to be able to flaunt their power, and they took full advantage of it.

Beam could see one of the soldiers leaning against a butcher's stall as he sat there with a smug look on his face, trying to coax the butcher into giving him a better price than he already was.

There was a long queue behind that soldier that he was holding up with his antics, and dissatisfied expressions sat on the faces of the villagers who were forced to wait, as the butcher stood there with a twitching eyebrow, trying to do everything within his power to get the soldier to move on.

Amongst that same crowd, Beam caught sight of Nila – she was rather easy to find, especially at this time of day. Beam saw her with her two adult attendants following her around like puppies, the very image of loyalty.

Their transition had been an abrupt one. Shocked at the amount of meat the little girl was able to bring in with her skills, they quickly realized it was within their best interests to stick by her and gratefully accept all the money that she was sending their way for their services.

The butchers had much the same attitude. The man that Beam had seen her form a deal with had stuck by her, true to his word. He took on all the meat that she was giving him with gratitude, knowing that he had an endless stream of customers now that the soldiers had moved in.

Nila was not the only one profiting from the soldiers' arrival. Greeves was doing quite well for himself too. He was standing outside his house when Beam approached. There was a contended grin on his face as he kept his arms folded and watched the proceedings.

Greeves called out to him, noticing his approach. "What a sight that is, eh lad? I've never seen the market so bustling in all my days. That there," he said with a point of his finger, "that's making me a lot of money."

"Which stalls do you own?" Beam asked.

"Those few there, but it's not just the stalls filling my purse. Every single sale here, they all serve to feed me up nice and fat. All these merchants know to pay a percentage to the man that keeps business booming, to the man that holds it all together," Greeves said, without a trace of irony or remorse in his voice.

Beam looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "You're a pretty terrible person, y'know."

Greeves laughed heartily at that. "Aye, maybe, but it works, so I'm not going to stop. Besides, it's not like I'm picking on the weak here, am I? It's just a normal tax, y'know. You shouldn't have a problem with it."

"Still seems pretty shady to me…" Beam said, though he couldn't say quite why it was.