Felicia's Second Life Chapter 7 Part 2

Barmaid Felicia & The Glutton Part 2

"What the hell are you doing not ransoming anyone from Mruna?!" I yelled once we were back at the ship.

Count Suletrius, in his unchanging, broody face answered with, "The bratty prince raised the ransom. We couldn't afford to ransom anyone from Mruna."

"Prince Hans may be a brat but he is a fair negotiator. He wouldn't raise the ransom amount unless you pissed him off. You pissed him off, didn't you?"

He made a slight frown on that brooding face, which lasted about a second before it turned back into his usual expression. "How would you know that? No, there simply wasn’t enough money to ransom everyone."

"What's going on here, why are you making a fuss here, little girl?" a voice that was a little boyish, not yet a man came out of my cabin. The owner of the voice flamboyantly walked out of my cabin looking fabulously fashionable in his purple velvet tunic and pants with a large peacock feather attached to his equally fashionable hat.

It was our crown prince. The same one who ordered the charge on the muddy battleground of Harrow's Pass and caused the wholesale slaughter of our armies. It was the same prince that our king handed over to Prince Hans as hostage to ensure the safety of the captured soldiers and nobles.

"You bastard!" I grabbed the brooding Count Sulestrius by the fold of his shirt and whispered, "His Majesty specifically stated that he was NOT to be ransomed until everyone else was ransomed as well!"

"The others aren't important. What kind of noble would I be if I let our crown prince stay in that dank dungeon?"

You asshole! You think I'm just a stupid girl, aren't you? He's royalty, a crown prince! They wouldn't keep him in a dank dungeon! He'd be sitting with the prince and the nobles at a feast!

"Little girl, let go of that man! He was my saviour."

"As His Highness said," the brooding man in my hands agreed.

I let go of the worthless noble and curtsied in front of the crown prince. "Captain Felicia Belphere Metrune greets the Crown Prince, His Highness Prince Ono Rolenus Fevrus and welcomes the crown prince on board The Abundance of Lolipops."

"Captain?"

"Yes Your Highness, this ship is under my command-"

"What foolishness! Which idiot would put a little girl fresh from her mother's teats in command of a magnificent warship such as this? Quickly bring the real captain here so we can get home!"

Aren't you the one fresh from his mother's teats, you royal bastard? Whose fault was it that we're here in the first place? Ahhhh! Patience, patience, everything has its time and place.

"Mayhaps Your Highness would like to rest? It will take several days to reach the port. Since Your Highness came on board without a single retainer, may I offer my servant to serve your every needs?" I said while gesturing Lili to come closer.

"My lady?"

I held one of Lili's hands as I said, "Lili here has been taught from birth to serve me unconditionally. She can cook, very obedient and has a pleasing appearance I trust Your Highness will agree. If it satisfies Your Highness, would you like to have her serve you and obey your wishes for the duration of the voyage?"

"She'll do. At least someone on this ship knows manners before royalty. Bring me wine, girl, and I don't want anyone else disturbing me until we reach port," the prince said as he walked into my cabin and closed it behind him.

"My lady, I can't-"

"Hush, Lili," I pulled her close by the waist and whispered into her ears so that nobody else would hear, "I want you to keep him asleep. If possible, I want him asleep until we dump him off at the port in Mruna and into a carriage heading straight for the capital. Can you do that?"

"Eh? So you're not giving me to him?"

"Of course not, you're my friend. My family. Why would I give you to that douchebag of a prince?"

Lili hugged me gratefully. "I don't know what a doo-shu-beg means, but thank you, my lady! Yes, I can do it. I won't let him sully my body."

"Good, now off you go!"

"So can we raise anchor and set sail now?" the annoying voice of another annoying douchebag could be heard again.

Right. I forgot about this other douchebag.

"Give me back my 200 gold."

"Impossible, I don't have it. As I said, the prince raised the ransom and we had to use it all to ransom the crown prince."

"What about that promise you made six days ago to bring everyone home?"

"Mruna is just a poor and insignificant barony. By degree of importance, even a thousand of you Mrunas can't compare to the crown prince. We had to sacrifice the others."

"I see, so you broke your promise, squandered my gold and abandoned my people, did you?"

"Now, I did not squander-"

"Mr. Lustri! Do you see Count Suletrius and his entourage?" I pointed at Count Suletrius and four other noblemen.

"Yes, captain."

"Throw them off my ship."

"Wait, you can't do this! We're the kingdom's negotiators, we're envoys of the Duke of Renus and the King himself!" Count Suletrius complained as the crewmen threw the nobles one after one into the water.

"And you've done a fantastically poor job of obeying the king. Be grateful that I let you off here instead of shark infested waters."

I tried to show the nicest smile I could make while watching Mr. Lustri threw Count Suletrius into the water himself. It was very satisfying to see these blue bloods swimming in the blue water, their expensive clothes soaked and the dyes of their robes leaking out into the water. I had Mr. Lustri drop them an empty rowboat as it looked unlikely that they would be able to swim to shore. In case you forgot, we weren't allowed to bring the ship into port, so we had to set anchor outside the port.

"You'll pay for this!" Count Suletrius cried after he climbed into the rowboat in his drenched expensive clothes.

"I've already paid, you bastard! You robbed me of my 200 gold coins!"

"You little bitch! Your money was so little it was completely useless. Compared to the prince your family has no value, utterly worthless! You should be happy that they're being sacrificed for the greater good!"

"I want ten archers on deck now!"

The crewmen immediately opened the arms casket containing bows and arrows. One of the ransomed noblemen, a titled count from some western county approached and asked me to forgive Count Suletrius. I didn't know this guy, and I made it perfectly clear that his opinions wouldn’t count unless I asked for it. I couldn't forgive someone who would leave my family to rot in the enemy's dungeon.

"Fire warning shot!" I ordered as the archers fired into the waters around the rowboat, intentionally missing the five noblemen.

"Do not forget that as captain, my word is law. If you do not start rowing away by the count of five, I will have you executed for the offence of mutiny and insulting my house's honour. It will be an execution by arrows. One!"

I didn't even need to count until five, as they started scrambling to row away the moment I said 'two'. It would've been funny, watching them row in circles, but my anger was still quite intense. So I wasn't able to enjoy the spectacle even as the crewmen laughed at the formerly arrogant noblemen's antics.

Now, what should I do about the Surfesian prince?

Ah before I forget, could someone please remind me once we got back to Mruna to market the toilet paper as Suletrius Paper? I'd really like to hear someone say, "I wipe my butt with Suletrius every day."

******

The next morning, I sent a messenger begging the prince for an audience.

"Lady Felicia Belphere Metrune thanks Prince Hans Lord of Lytis for granting me an audience," I said while performing a curtsey, with my eyes looking at the floor.

In Forlendia and Surfes, women had no rights, except those granted to them as well as the most basic ones. In most cases, women were only expected to be seen, but not heard. Although it wasn't common, there was no law to protect women who speak out of turn in public from being stripped and flogged on the spot. Women were also expected to turn their heads down and never look up in defiance.

Duke Cladis who died 82 years ago was an extremely famous example of this difference in treatment. It was said that he married a daughter of one of his noble vassals after his first wife died. She was said to be very beautiful but because of her very strong character, nobody wanted to marry her. The story went that every time the girl raised her head or refused the duke, she would be stripped naked and put in stocks in the middle of the city for days. Let's not mention what could've happened to a beautiful naked noble girl who incurred her husband the duke's wrath for the entire time she was in stocks unguarded. Her mind broke after a month and she was thrown out in shame when she became pregnant.

While Duke Cladis was one of the most extreme examples, such injustice did happen frequently. It had been better for women since Duke Cladis's time due to new laws that protected noblewomen. It was owing to the fact that noblewomen were all mothers, wives, daughters and sisters of noblemen, but there would still be men with such old values. I couldn't know if this prince in front of me was something like Duke Cladis or more like my father, who had always treated women with respect.

"Metrune? Are you related to Baron Alphonse Lartes Metrune from Mruna?" the enemy prince asked while sitting on his throne of white marble.

Only a prince yet already acting like a king. To be frank though, I was actually expecting someone a lot older. Daddy Soom and Daddy Malor did say the prince was young, but I wasn't expecting him to be THIS young! He couldn't possibly be older than 15.

THIS is the lecherous prince?

"The baron is my father, Your Highness. I am the only daughter of the Metrune household," I said, still curtseying.

Come on, you douchebag. Tell me to stand at ease. My ankles and knees are starting to ache from maintaining this position.

"I wasn't expecting to see his daughter here. Your father is a good man. He delayed my soldiers enough to allow most of the common soldiers to flee. Otherwise, they would have all likely been slaughtered by my men."

"I am grateful that Your Highness would speak so highly of my father. He is indeed a good man and it is my understanding that he is still here?"

Ah no good. I'm starting to wobble on my feet.

"Yes, he's still here. By the way, why are you still doing that?"

"Eh? You mean the curtsey?" I asked in surprise.

"Yes, isn't that uncomfortable?"

"Very."

"Oh right, must be one of those stuffy Forlendian customs. Carlton, give the lady a chair."

The man beside him, a knight in partial iron plate armour by the name of Carlton brought out a high-backed chair and placed it behind me. I said thanks as I sat on the chair and rubbed my ankles as discreetly as I could.

"So let me guess, you're here to ransom the baron?"

"Yes, as well as the others that Suletrius didn't ransom."

"Good. Do you have the money?"

"I'm afraid Count Suletrius cheated me of my money. I only have 120 gold left on me and this I offer you, Your Highness," I said as I urged Koito to come forward with the chest containing 120 gold. I had Koito open it and show it to the prince.

"My lady, this is nowhere near enough. I thought I made it perfectly clear in my letter to the Duke of Renus that the ransom for soldiers from Mruna is 200 gold?"

"Please have mercy, Your Highness, I have no more money. I brought 300 gold but Count Suletrius took 200 of it. I had to sell my personal jewellery to get another 20 gold. I have nothing left on me except this dress," I pleaded as I let the waterworks flowed.

Tears, a woman's most powerful weapon. Of course it was fake, but he was a man, how would he be able to tell the difference? Just to make it more believable though, I rubbed my eyes with the fingers that was still covered in dried onion juice. Onion ninjas for the win!

"I'm afraid no matter how much you beg me, it's still nowhere near enough. I suppose I can allow you to ransom both the baron and your brother with that amount out of the sheer goodness of my heart, but what about the other hundred soldiers? Are you going to leave them behind like Count Suletrius did?"

"Hundred?" I asked with my eyes red and teary from the onion ninjas, "But only 29 soldiers from Mruna were captured, wasn't it?"

"Yes, but they left behind 112 Forlendian officers as well."

"That's the whole total of the lower ranked officers that were captured at Harrow's Pass!"

"Yes, he only ransomed the nobles and the prince."

I'm gonna kill that bastard.

"But he brought 5400 gold, shouldn't it be more than enough for everyone?"

"I don't know anything about 5400 gold. I only received 4900 gold. Out of that, 1800 gold was the prince's ransom."

I'm gonna kill that bastard, beat him to pulp in my automated smithy and then I'm going to stab that bastard's face with a blunt knife.

"H-how much in total?"

"Because the young lady of Metrune household herself came to beg me, I'm willing to reduce it to 400 gold."

"But that's more than triple what I have now!"

"I'm sorry, my lady, not my problem. Unless you're fine with taking only the baron and your brother with you, you have to pay me 400 gold coins to release them all."

I felt the colour drain from my face as I contemplated the amount. I could in theory, go back to Mruna and bring enough money, but it would take two weeks to return to Lytis. Who knew what could happen within that time? Besides, unless I sold all the noble heirlooms, I still wouldn’t have enough.

"I have some trade goods in my cargo hold. I can give you a monopoly on lolipop candies and alcohol-"

"Stop there."

I stopped.

"I don't deal in trade goods, only gold. I know nothing of commodity prices or futures and I can't be bothered to learn it. I am a warrior. My place is on the battlefield of swords, not the battlefield of tongues."

"Uuuu... I shall return again." There was no other choice but to admit defeat this time.

"Don't take too long. I'm quite tired of having to feed more than a hundred enemy soldiers. You will probably see a familiar head at the end of a pike on the castle wall if you wait too long."

What can I say to such a threat? How can I maintain a superior position when I have nothing to back it up with? Should I threaten him with a localized war if he did that? With what army? My single ship? The mercenaries with my small amount of gold compared to his 4900 gold?

"I beg my leave, Your Highness."

"Carlton, please escort the lady and her men to her carriage."

The knight Carlton bowed and led us out to the castle courtyard where my carriage was waiting. We rode out of the castle feeling depressed of our failure to ransom the others. As the carriage neared South Market, I told the driver to stop and walked out of the carriage.

"Princess!"

"Koito, take the gold back to the ship. I entrust you with its care. I'll go back to the ship myself later."

"But princess, where are you going by yourself? Also, my name is Keito."

"Just going on a walk. Don't worry, I know my way around."

"Alek, get down from the carriage and escort the princess!"

I looked at Alek, one of Koito's henchmen, as he got down from the open seat behind the carriage and I said, "Fine, but don't get in my way."

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter