Confront the Problem (Hart)

[Val Valencia]

58th of Ymiden, 518

The dancer had no figured out the whole of Rynmere. It was large, its own world inside the world and though she'd been to a few places none had been so spread out before. All the cities were tight clusters of many people while this was large and spacious, each with still many people. It was encouraging that she had yet to go everywhere but it also made getting appropriate help difficult, to say the least. The previous seasons events made her inclined to leave Andaris post haste but that didn't mean she'd forgotten her words. Val had said she would try to help and she would but each city she stopped in proved be uncaring of the shortage, uncaring of the problem as a whole or dealing with it among themselves and ignoring the other cities they were apart of. She liked to considering herself even tempered but this was all just a bit much for her, if not for the cat in her arms as the cart rolled along with Shoes her energy would explode and have no where to go.

But they did have somewhere to go and somewhere to be. None of the nobles had given her the time of day in most places, too spread out and uncaring but the settlements were more confined. Singular people ruling singular areas like small kingdoms, or so she hoped, and thankfully it seemed within the settlement a Dukes house was grand. Not to mention well known, it hadn't taken much for people to point her in the direction of who she was looking for though it was weird to her that he had the name of a different city with Rynmere.

"We sure picked a place to stay this arc didn't we, Door?" She rubbed the cats chin gently until her ears twitched and she pulled away, stretching and arcing as Shoes stopped his trot and Val sat up, "Shoes, its a weed not--oh."

Her reprimand stopped because the animal wasn't scrounging for food for once, instead they were at the edge of a large plot of manicured property. The house she could see a distance away was too large for anyone, she thought, the property too much upkeep. What did you even need a house that big for? What would get done if you were always cleaning? Val didn’t even like cleaning her campsites!

There was no gates she could but walls blocked off what looked to be a garden, the front of the house looking daunting if not open to invitation with any fences to bar anyone from walking up. Reluctantly but with purpose Val jumped off the cart and grabbed the front of Shoes reigns and gently urged him with her. The dancer didn’t know the Duke, had only heard of a name to ask for with laughter that told her no one would answer. But now she wondered if anyone would even answer the door. A few workers milled about but seemed intent on ignoring her, completing their tasks within the household right up until the dancer reached the steps of the ridiculously large home.

The person out the door was followed by another who looked like a typical stable hand but Val clutched her reigns tighter, ignoring the way they stared at her bed rumpled clothes and hair she hadn’t bothered to put up. With a shove of her hand she pushed the messy locks back, and smiled, “I’m here to see Duke Tristan!”

A raise of an eyebrow that Val met with a brighter smile before another question was shot her way with amusement, “And who is calling on him? He may be busy.”

“Val,” she chewed her lip nervously but tried to keep her smile and hold in a wince as she lied a bit, “He shouldn’t be because…because we have an apportionment.”

“…I see.” Without another word the door was shut, leaving Val waiting curiously with a stable hand who kept waited for the woman to give up her horse and cart. Which she had no intention of doing until she was sure the Duke would see her. If he didn’t she had every intention of camping on his steps until he did.

[Hart]

"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"
"Speaking in Common sign"

Tomorrow Hart would begin his journey around southern Oakleigh, and he felt he had a lot yet to prepare. Currently, he was going over the data he had collected in the first half of Ymiden, when he had done a tour of the northern and central cities of his brother's duchy.

His plan, starting the season, had been trifold. He'd meant to loosely map Oakleigh, if he could, and get an idea of its scale and territory. He'd meant to do a census and gather data on the people, and record the size of each settlement and how many people were within Oakleigh's purview. And he'd meant to personally invite the leaders of each city, no matter the size, to meet with him --or rather, the duke of Oakleigh-- at a later date, perhaps a season or two in the future.

The aim of the meeting, which hopefully Tristan himself would attend, was to introduce the local government officials to their duke and vice versa. It would allow Oakleigh's residents to speak on what they wanted from Tristan and the direction they wanted Oakleigh to be taken under his rule.

Currently, Hart was trying to map out Oakleigh's population by area. He'd made a copy of one of the crude maps he'd measured out on his journey in the north, and was trying to figure out how to represent city size by scale when--

--there came a knock at the door. Hart looked up and smiled when he saw one of Tristan's Estate staff. "Yes?" he asked.

"My Grace," the staffsperson said, "There's a woman at the door who claims to have business with you."

Hart furrowed his brow and leaned back in his chair, stretching. Business, he wondered. He was very careful to keep track of his appointments, as he liked to prepare for them ahead of time. He knew he didn't have any appointments today.

Still, "Send her in," he said. The staffsperson looked at him for a moment as if to say something, then just nodded her head. She went to the door.

In the corner of the room, Hart's personal guard murmured from where he'd been lounging, "Is this wise?"

Hart glanced over at him. "I want to be available to my constituents."

"And if she's not a constituent?"

Hart merely smiled and shrugged again.

Without another word the guard moved to the door, where he would intercept the visitor and check her for weapons before allowing her to enter. Hart turned back to his papers, and sighing, decided he wanted to go back to each city at some point, to do a more thorough census if he could. Perhaps, when Tristan came back, he could advise his brother to set up something like a bureau in each city, or at least an office in the smaller ones, where citizens could write letters to communicate with him directly.

As he was puzzling over how, exactly, that might work, and thinking perhaps he should have a line of communication set up between him and the merchant houses in Oakleigh, as well as the other duchies in the Eastern Settlement, there came another knock at the door. Hart straightened in his desk chair, and motioned for whoever was out to come in.

It was a young woman, younger than Hart but of an age with Tristan. She had rumpled clothes and messy hair, and Hart smiled and ran a hand through his own hair, which was never very tame itself and even less so when he was working. He stood and gave a short incline of the head, not really a bow, but something similar. As always, he was wearing clothes of the finest quality --Tristan's clothes-- but somehow, with the collar loosened and the sleeves rolled, he made them look less formal than they should have looked.

"Madam," he said, and indicated for her to sit if she would like, opposite him of the desk. "I am Tristan Venora, of the Oakleigh Venoras. Would you like refreshments? Cake, wine, tea?" He'd seen the guard check for weapons, and the man caught Hart's eye and shook his head slightly. If she had any weapons, the guard would see them removed, and the weapons would not be allowed in Tristan's office. Instead, they would be secured to a weapons rack outside the door. Hart didn't particularly think the young woman would be armed, but one never knew. Plenty of people carried weapons, for protection or otherwise.

"What can I do for you?" he asked politely. If she sat he would sit; if not, he would continue to stand. Standing, he would stretch again, as if he'd been manning the desk for a little too long. The guard moved to the side of the desk, and stood there close enough to loom. His manner was not intimidating, not quite, but he made himself ever-present, and Hart sighed but allowed him to stay where he was. There was no point arguing about the man doing his job, and besides-- after more than half a season as his brother, Hart was beginning to see the virtue in personal security.