Summer came to the mountains, not with the languid heat of the lowlands, but with a fierce, clean intensity. The sun burned away the last remnants of mist in the valleys, and the northern oats ripened into fields of swaying gold—a sight that brought a quiet, profound pride to William's people. It was a vindication, a promise kept. Yet, as the harvest began, the season also brought a tightening of the noose from the south and a testing of the fragile new bonds in the north.
Lady Elyse departed Blackcliff with a grace that left a disquieting echo. Her proposal of a future marriage alliance was a seed she had planted in stony ground, and she was content to let the seasons water it. Her final words to William were a study in ambiguity: "Remember, a castle built only on rock can be besieged. A castle built also in the hearts of courtiers can endure." She left behind a lingering scent of jasmine and a subtle shift in how William was perceived within his own walls. The servants looked at him with a new, speculative curiosity. He was no longer just their hard, mountain lord; he was a man who drew the attention of royalty.
The practical weight of kingship, however, arrived with less perfume and more steel. A new delegation from the capital appeared, this one led not by a herald or a tax collector, but by a squat, humorless man named Scribe-Master Pellinor, an underling of Lord Morwin. He carried not a single decree, but a folio of them. He installed himself in the hall with the air of a man claiming conquered territory and summoned William.
"Lord Marren," Pellinor began, without preamble, peering through a pair of crystal lenses perched on his nose. "The Crown, in its wisdom, has undertaken a comprehensive survey of feudal obligations and incomes in the wake of the… recent unrest. Your grant, being recent, requires particular scrutiny to ensure its alignment with standard practices and its appropriate contribution to the realm's defense."
What followed was a week of bureaucratic torture. Pellinor and his two junior scribes picked over every aspect of Blackcliff's existence. They questioned the number of men mustered for the watchtowers, declaring the levy "excessive for a fief of this size and income" and suggesting a reduction by a third. They examined the toll agreement with Olaf, their lips pursing at the low rates. "These are not standard mercantile dues. They suggest an… unhealthy dependency on foreign trade." They even scrutinized the distribution of the northern seed, implying it was a form of undue influence over the peasantry that could undermine their primary loyalty to the Crown.
Their most damaging focus was on the Borrell pact. Pellinor had obtained a copy of the sworn oath—William never learned how—and he read its clauses aloud in a dry, condemning monotone. "A mutual defense agreement with a people recently in rebellion. A sharing of toll revenue with said people. The establishment of a regular council outside the purview of royal authority. Lord Marren, this document, in the eyes of the Justiciar's office, borders on the establishment of a private treaty. It undermines the Crown's sole right to make war, peace, and levy taxes."
William defended each point with weary, simmering anger. He argued that the reduced levies would leave the passes undefended. He explained that the tolls fostered peace, which was the Crown's ultimate goal. He insisted the Borrell pact was not a treaty, but a local compact for maintaining the king's peace on a lawless frontier.
Pellinor was unmoved. "Intent is not legality, my lord. Your 'compact' has the effect of creating a separate jurisdiction. The Crown cannot countenance shadow kingdoms within its borders." He presented his final edicts. The watchtower garrisons were to be cut. A new, higher royal toll was to be superimposed on Olaf's traffic, with the Crown collecting its share directly at the border, bypassing William's coffers. And the Borrell pact was to be "renegotiated under the supervision of a Crown observer," effectively nullifying its autonomy.
It was death by a thousand legislative cuts. If enforced, it would break the back of William's system. The reduced garrisons would invite the very raiding the towers were built to prevent. The new toll would make Olaf's trade unprofitable, destroying the economic lifeline. And turning the Borrell pact into a royal document would shatter the fragile trust he'd built, making Rorik and Joric see him as just another mouthpiece of the southern king.
"These edicts will destabilize the very peace they purport to protect," William said, his voice dangerously calm.
"Stability is defined by the Crown, Lord Marren, not by its vassals," Pellinor replied, closing his folio with a definitive snap. "You have one month to implement these adjustments. The Crown observer will arrive before the autumn moot to oversee the renegotiation with the… Borrell clans."
William was left standing in his own hall, the parchments of his unraveling lying on the table before him. He felt a fury so cold it threatened to burn. This was Daerlon's work, channeled through Morwin's legalistic machinery. It was a attack more effective than any army. He could not draw his sword against a scribe.
He summoned his council: Elric, Cuthbert, Kael, and, at the last moment, sent for Olaf. He laid out the edicts. Cuthbert paled. Elric's hand went to his axe hilt. Olaf, when he arrived, let out a low, disgusted curse in his native tongue.
"This new toll," the merchant growled. "It kills the route. I am a businessman, not a philanthropist. If my profit disappears, so do my wagons. Your people can eat their peace and their principles."
Kael had been silent, his face a thundercloud. Finally, he spoke. "My cousins swore an oath on steel, to a lord of the mountain. They will not kneel to renegotiate under some southern clerk's eye. They will see it as betrayal. The pact will become ash, and the raids will begin anew before the first snow." He looked at William. "You told them the king's peace was the air, not the ground. Now the king seeks to own the ground. You must choose which promise to break."
The air in the room was thick with impending ruin. William saw it all crumbling: the fields, the towers, the fragile bridge to the north, the loyalty of his people. He had built a dam against chaos, and the king's own bureaucrats were drilling holes in it.
"We do not have a month," William said, his mind racing over a precipice. "We have until the Crown observer arrives. And we have the autumn moot with the Borrells before that." He looked at Olaf. "You need profit. The Borrells and the Red Elk want goods. I need my towers manned and my pact intact." A desperate, audacious plan began to form, born of the same instinct that had driven him up the cliff. It was not a move of defense, but of radical, dangerous initiative.
"Olaf," he said. "What if your profit was not in grain and amber alone? What if the Silverflow mine… had a northern partner?"
All eyes fixed on him. The mine's output belonged to the king. To divert it was not just disobedience; it was treason.
"The king takes the refined silver," William continued, his voice dropping. "But the process creates waste. Slag. Rock. And… there are lesser veins. Tin. Copper. Not worth the Crown's notice, but valuable to a smith in a free city or a northern hold. What if a portion of that 'waste' was processed separately, quietly, and found its way north via your caravans? Your profit margin widens considerably. You can afford the king's new toll."
Olaf's eyes narrowed, calculating. "A risky enterprise. If discovered…"
"If the mountain roads become too dangerous due to reduced garrisons, all trade stops anyway," William countered. "This ensures the trade continues, and grows. It makes you, me, and the Borrells partners in something the Crown cannot see. It binds our interests with gold and secrecy, stronger than any oath."
He turned to Kael. "You will ride to your cousins before the moot. Tell them this: the king seeks to interfere. I will not allow it. The pact stands. And to prove it, their share will not be just tolls from southern grain, but a percentage of metal—real, smithable metal—from the heart of the mountain itself. But in return, I need men. Not for my levy, but as 'free traders' and 'guides' who can supplement my garrison at the towers. Men who answer to the pact, not to the king's roll."
It was a breathtaking gambit. He was proposing to secretly skim the king's mine to finance a private, cross-border alliance and raise a quasi-military force loyal to that alliance. He was building the very "shadow kingdom" Pellinor had accused him of dreaming about.
Kael stared at him for a long moment, then a slow, grim smile spread across his face. It was the smile of a man who recognized a kindred spirit finally embracing the ruthless logic of the mountains. "They will listen. Metal is a language they understand better than any other. I will go."
The next weeks were a frenzy of covert action. William, with Elric's unwavering aid, identified a trusted mine captain, a grizzled man named Gareth who cared more for the mountain and his men than for distant kings. A small, hidden side-tunnel was reopened, not towards the main silver vein, but towards a known, neglected seam of copper and tin. The work was done by men paid from Olaf's advance funds, sworn to secrecy. The ore was crushed and processed in a isolated, camouflaged shed near the mine, its output indistinguishable from common waste to the casual observer.
Kael returned from the north with Rorik and Joric's answer, delivered not by parchment but by a single, ancient silver arm-ring, intricately knotted. "They agree," Kael said, placing the heavy ring on the council table. "The metal seals it. Twenty of their men will come, and twenty from the Red Elk clan, as 'trail wardens.' They will serve under my command at the towers. The pact is iron, now."
When the Crown observer, a priggish young lordling named Sire Reynard, arrived at Blackcliff, he found a fief outwardly complying with the king's edicts. The watchtower garrisons appeared reduced on paper, their numbers made up by the new, rough-looking "wardens" who were logged as civilian contractors. The new royal toll was being collected at the border—a fact Olaf grumbled about publicly while his ledgers were quietly balanced by the covert metal trade. And when Reynard insisted on attending the autumn moot to oversee the Borrell renegotiation, William readily agreed.
The moot was a tense, theatrical masterpiece. William, Reynard, Kael, Rorik, and Joric stood in the stone circle. Reynard, in his fine velvet, tried to dictate terms. Rorik and Joric played their parts to perfection, feigning a volatile, barely-contained hostility, speaking in broken common tongue, and ultimately "agreeing" to a rewritten pact that was, in essence, the same as the old one, but couched in sufficiently obfuscating legalisms to satisfy the observer. They signed with clumsy marks, hiding their intelligence. Reynard left feeling he had tamed the savages and reined in an overambitious lord, utterly unaware he had witnessed a carefully staged play.
That night, back at Blackcliff, William stood on his battlement. The three beacon fires burned. A fourth, smaller fire now glowed from a new, hidden outpost near the mine's secret works. He held the heavy Borrell arm-ring in his hand. It was cold, solid, real.
He had paid for his promise. He had crossed a line from loyal vassal to something else—a sovereign in practice if not in name. He had committed treason to keep faith with the people and the peace he had built. The king's silver sat in the vault, a hollow symbol of a loyalty that was now a lie. His true treasury was the covert stream of base metal, the loyalty of northern clans, and the wary trust of his people.
Lady Elyse's words came back to him: "A castle built only on rock can be besieged." He was building a castle now of secrets and shadow-alliances, a fortress invisible to the southern eye. It was stronger, and far more dangerous. The price of the promise to protect his own was his own place in the lawful world. The boy who sought a noble's title had become a lord who ruled by his own code, perched on a precipice of his own making. The fall, if it came, would no longer be just from a cliff, but from a much greater height, and the rocks below were lined with the accusations of traitors. The unforgiving mountain had forged him into a weapon, and he had just turned its edge against the hand that supposedly wielded him.