Herald of Steel

The lords let out a combined sigh of relief at Menicus's intervention, as they were understandably taken aback by Alexander's on spot interrogation.

After all, who could tell the extent of their project or everything that had happened in the last eight to nine months just from the top of their head and in one or two lines to keep the conversation short?

Alexander fortunately understood the hint,

He also found that light was quickly fading and his presence alone was holding a significant amount of the people, so he decided to leave the council meeting for another day.

Instead he turned to the four ladies behind him- the two queens, the recently rescued Pandria, and his prize- Arrya, and cordially gestured, "My ladies, you take the carriage. I will ride with my men on horse."

He said this because the carriage arranged for Alexander could only hold up to four people and as the lords had no knowledge of Alexander's extra guest, they were naturally unable to make the required adjustments.

The lord in charge of the carriage however still profusely apologized for his mistake seeing this and even pleaded to let him arrange for a bigger vehicle.

'My lord, a thousand apologies, I have a bigger one at the ready. It will only take me a small while."

He had chosen this carriage because it was faster to pull and easier to turn around tight corners."

Alexander of course did not blame them for this, and simply waved his request with an understanding wave of his palm,

"It's okay, I prefer to ride on horseback anyway. This will also let me see what all of you have been doing in the past year that I have been gone."

Alexander probably said the last sentence as a thrown line, but for all the gathered nobles it sounded like a venomous warning.

And this was despite none of them having done anything majorly wrong.

It seemed his prestige seemed to have grown to newer, never before seen heights after his supposed conquest of half of Galiosos.

….

Because it was already turning dark and most of the people were either in their homes or following him, Alexander did not get to see a proper look at the state of his city on his way to his manor.

It seemed that would have to wait for tomorrow.

The long procession of eager citizens finally ended when Alexander reached his home's places, and his bodyguards had the people dispersed using loud whistles and trumpets.

This finally let Alexander enter the place with peace of mind.

"Welcome, master! It is great to see the Great Mother has kept you in good health"

"Yes, we have always kept you in our prayers. I am glad to see they have not been in vain! We all rejoiced at the news of your victories. Praise master, praise the Great Mother."

The first two to greet Alexander were Ophenia and Gelene respectively, followed by Mean and Cambyses who kept a bit more respectable distance, sending more of an understanding nod and a light smile.

Of course, this was not because the other two were angry or anything with Alexander.

On the contrary, they did this because they knew Alexander very clearly favored them over the other two.

So instead of fighting over such a small greeting, Cambyses was gracious enough to let the other two have this one, winning some favorable points in the process.

As for Mean, instead of wasting her breath on words that had been already said, the much less tact girl craned her head to side and turned her attention else.

Bulging her eyes a bit wide, she asked in surprise at the two ladies following Alexander,

"Alex, who are they standing beside you? Your new mistresses? And… Ahhh by the gods, did you get one of them already pregnant?"

"....." The triumphant, grinning face Alexander had upon seeing his family instantly collapsed upon this unfair accusation, and struggled to keep himself from producing the most ugly smiles.

The four women however paid little attention to this change and having this pointed out, instantly turned their eyes onto the sights there.

They could not believe they had somehow missed them, possibly due to their great glee upon seeing Alexander, thus blocking out any periphery sights.

So with Mean's lead, the four naturally laid their eyes upon Pandria first, and immediately caused the young, pregnant girl to involuntarily shiver.

She was barely eleven, with still a generous amount of baby fat around her face, which visibly trembled upon feeling all those scalding gazes scan every inch of her body without restraint.

They contained a mixture of curiosity, surprises and even anger and hostility, as all four of them quite disliked the fact that their husband had just gotten a girl pregnant.

Cambyses even quite acidly mocked,

"Heh! I did not know your tastes changed so quickly Alex. Is this your new favorite? Did you forget us in just nine months? Hmmmp, indeed, I guess our cunts are not as tight as they used to be. What say, sisters?"

The sneering tone and vulgar language she used so openly right in front of everybody really showed her stance in this matter.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

And worse, she got two quick nods as her backing, only Ophenia choosing to hesitate for a second before even she turned to give Alexander a slightly hurt, pitiful look.

It seemed even the blindly loyal priestess had a hard time supporting her master's acts this time.

And this intense reaction came largely from an unwritten rule… no expectation between Alexander and the four.

It had been tacitly agreed between them that they would give Alexander absolute freedom to sleep around with whoever he wanted and do whatever crazy things took his fancy without even the slightest utterance of complaint.

But in exchange, they drew the line with children.

If Alexander wanted one of his mistresses to conceive, he would have to at least consult and nominally get approval from them.

The four did this after secretly agreeing to cut competition and wanting to only let their children inherit Alexander's wealth.

And although Alexander could clearly see the ploy, at the end of the day he still agreed.

This was because for one this let the man have all the fun he wanted without causing any problems at home.

And the much more important two, because he also was not interested in letting his lovers or mistresses conceive willy nilly.

It might sound very cruel but those girls that were gifted as slaves or presents, other than being very pretty and having a good time in bed had very little value to offer Alexander.

They were politically.. inert..

So Alexander would be doing nothing but increasing the amount of conflict in his house if he sired children with them- who would then inevitably start wanting things to better their lives and the lives of their mothers, leading to conflict with their siblings of more legitimate birth.

The good news was the presence of the miracle drug legummum made the deal between the two parties very easy to implement, even if they got accidentally pregnant, they could be made to safely abort even during the advanced stages.

Which was also why the fact that this young lady… no young girl was so heavily pregnant made the four so incensed.

They saw this as Alexander clearly and very intentionally violating their drawn boundary.

The rising tensions also did not go unnoticed by Pandria, for as green she might be in such affairs, she was still able to sense those hostile states and she felt very hurt and afraid.

From her side of things, her traitorous husband had just sold her to the highest bidder like some lowly slave, to a man she did not even exist until a few weeks ago, who then took her to this utterly foreign land even whose language she did not speak.

All to which she did have not the slightest say.

The whole sudden change was thus utterly alien to her.

Hence in response to the 'attack' from the four powerful ladies, Pandria quickly broke off eye contact and submissively lowered her head in fear, clutching the hems of her red, flowery dress with everything she had so that her small fair fists turned nearly crimson while desperately not to let out the drops of tear that were pooling around her eyes.

"*Sigh*, you are misunderstanding. Let me introduce you to the two,"

The concentrated attack only broke upon this intervention from the man of the house, who succinctly revealed why they were with him,

"She is Pandria, Lord Janus's daughter in law and a guest of ours. She is here to see our great city on behalf of them."

"And this is Arrya- she… um belongs to a new ally I made at sea. She was given to me as a token of our bond."

Alexander's clarification made the quad's look towards Pandria turn significantly softer, while they also now had the time to turn their attention to the second target.

Standing at the very back clad with a full black vein and a scarf over her head, Arryan seemed to be able to almost blend into the ambient darkness.

And when detected, she responded with very broken Azhak,

"Gre.. grateings,"

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