Herald of Steel

"People of Midshire! I am your new lord, Alexander!"

Standing on a podium at the marketplace surrounded by an escort of armored blue legionaries, a very flashy and gaudily dressed man in golden, flamboyant armor addressed the gathered crowd with this opening.

He found the crowd to be made of people from all walks of life, from regular day laborers wearing coarse linen and with callused hands and feet, to beggars and urchins with blackened, impoverished faces, wearing little more than rags, to plump and radiant merchants and nobles garbed in their finest, surrounded by their personal guards so as to not be touched by these 'lowly' masses.

And each group had a different expression when looking at the handsome young man standing high and tall.

A large number of them were understandably fearful and weary.

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Alexander was a totally unknown entity to them, one who had arrived at their city out of the blue one day with 20,000 fully armed men, who were still camped right outside their thin, short walls.

So without knowing the man's intentions, how could they not be wary? How could they not worry about the strong rowdy men stirring up something?

Others on the other hand were more curious than afraid.

These kinds of people were mainly merchants and peddlers, people who were used to traveling a lot more than the average peasant and had a lot more knowledge of the outside world.

So they knew why Alexander was here and looked forward to this once in a decade spectacle.

They could not remember the last time a city lord had never addressed them openly like this, at best they would be sent a few criers to notify them of things like tax increases, the birth of the lord's new son, some distant victory against the natives, etc.

So given that the new lord had welcomed nearly the entire city, these shrewd men were easily able to tell that something grand was cooking.

And lastly, there was the smallest yet most angry bunch in the crowd, consisting of powerful attendants from the nobility and other wealthy affected party.

They wanted… no they demanded to know why many of their family members had been arrested at the party, why they were not allowed any contact with them till now, why their homes had been raided in the middle of the night, and why their treasuries had been plundered by marauding soldiers.

Many of their women were even humiliated in the process, despite strict orders from Alexander to not touch anyone.

It seemed the soft flesh and alluring faces proved too much for some of the most hot blooded men, as they were willing to even brave potential military disciplining just for a chance to taste this rare meat.

…..

Perching himself up on the stage, Alexander did not keep the crowd hanging for long, knowing these poor folks had very little patience.

So slightly clearing his throat, he decided to keep his speech short and to the point,

"People of Midshrine, by orders from Lady Miranda Margraves, the Head of the Margraves family, I have been appointed to replace Baron Lamp as the head of the city. I am your new Lord!"

He strategically paused here to see the crowd's reaction and found there was little surprise among them.

There was some murmur and confused whispering, but mostly there was a sigh of relief.

It seemed most of the people had by now gotten the memo that their land had changed hands and were mostly worried about getting displaced by their new overlord like it had happened so many times over so much of history with newly conquered lands.

So with Alexander claiming himself as their lord and indicating he wanted to rule over them… that fear mostly went away.

As for Alexander claiming himself as Baron's Lamp's replacement and the city's direct administrator, well he decided not to sweat the small details here.

This would not matter to the people…. until he was gone anyway.

But as for a sort of compensation, Alexander then decreed with an insane order,

"And as my first act as Lord of Midshire, I announce an exemption of all taxes for the city and its surrounding villages for the next three years!"

"!!!"

If the crowd was not paying attention before, they were certainly now.

It took a while for the people to react to his declaration as Alexander did not speak their tongue, so they had to wait until the translator conveyed his meaning.

But once they understood it…

"Woooooo!"

"Is it true? Did I hear it correctly?"

"Three years! No taxes for three years. By the gods!"

"I cannot believe it! I… I can finally breathe! Hahaha, father can finally breathe!"

"The new lord is magnanimous! Hail Lord Alexander! Hail his rule!"

"Glory to Lord Alexander! Glory to his rule!"

Massive cries of jubilation swept across the entire city to the point one might be mistaken for thinking the very air and sky were shaking.

Alexander had of course been up to his old tricks here too, inserting some paid cheerleaders to pump up the crowd.

But this time, he really could have skipped on this expense.

Because nobody liked paying taxes, and especially not the rates people here put under.

So they naturally were beyond the moon to see them go.

People jumped, cried, and laughed with wild abandon, a look of near disbelief plastered on their faces.

While the nobles and their affiliated parties in the crowd wore a similar face yet different face, their disbelief coming from horror, astonishment, and even fear.

"Did I hear it right? Did he say 'all' taxes? All taxes! Thi.. this…"

"Absurd! Ho.. how will we run the city then? Who will pay the guards, the clerks, the servants, the…"n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

"Ridiculous! Where did this bumkin come from? Wasting your time!"

"I heard he is a slave from the free cities! Hmmp! It shows!"

"What a farce! Does he think we will just let him drive us bankrupt?"

"As if we would ever agree to this! Let's go! There's nothing here!"

"Shhh! Be a bit more patient son! They still have your father. We need to demand an answer!"

"Right! We are here to demand our lords and treasures back. Hmmp! Does this brat think he can simply take everything because he has an army? He has his backers, we have our own!"

"Mmmm… the others won't simply sit by if he dares do this! There is nothing to fear!"

The chorus of the nobles pumping each other up rang across the whole vicinity, each sentence adding to their collective courage.

They might not have the guts to oppose Alexander by themselves… but together, the sky was the limit.

It was just their words were overshadowed by the tens of thousands of more cheering voices, which suddenly went into a far bigger crescendo when they saw what was happening at the podium.

Chest after open chest, each filled to the brim with gold and silver, thick rolls of colorful fabric, expensive scent, and many things the people did not even recognize like ivory or clear glass, were being stacked around Alexander until he was almost 'walled in' by it.

"Woooooo!"

The common people had certainly never seen wealth and spectacle before.

So the joyous roar they subconsciously made was so loud and incredible that it even forced the furious nobles to turn their head away from each other and see what was all the commotion about.

And even they were stunned to see all that wealth piled up in such a visually striking way,

But this surprise was utterly dwarfed by what they heard Alexander say next,

"My people… this is all the wealth I confiscated from the homes of the greedy lords and officers…. taken unjustly from you as taxes! Taxes that according to the head of House Margraves herself- Lady Mirandaares illegal and not sanctioned by her family. So I have decided to give all of it back to you."

As the translator finished delivering these words, the reaction from both parties was as expected- utter jubilation and utter shock respectively.

And they both reached an even 'higher crescendo' when Alexander revealed the amount-

"Yes! That's right! With the end of this month, every free man and woman in the city will get 100 assas."

An 'assa' was a Sybarian denomination worth around 1.2 times that of a ropal- depending on the exact purity of the coin used.

So Alexander was offering them around three weeks of pay.

This was huge!

To put it into context, when Julius Caesar died, he left 300 sesterces to every free adult man in Rome- this was about 3 to 4 days of a skilled worker's salary (80 to 100 sesterces daily).

So Alexander was offering ten times the amount or twice that if you counted the fact that he was offering the money to both men and women!

Hence the tsunami like tidal wave of happiness gushing around the crowd was quite understandable.

Only the nobles were incensed to the point their faces turned bright red, to the point many of their eyes turned bloodshot.

They had come to demand Alexander their treasures back, but if he were to throw it away like that to the whole city….

"We must stop this!"

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