Road To The Crown 87 Digging The Graves Part 2

19th March 1574 (early morning)

"I don't think its a good idea to worry about this. Some will travel to Tarnow first, and some will get directly to the Pilzno. With how deserted those two places are after we pulled out all the troops we could, I don't think there will be any problem with accomodating everyone. Worst case scenario, we will just invite everyone to our own place in both towns."

Grabbing Elia by her waist, I started moving towards our own tent, still standing in the same place, surrounded by the same circle of carts, as if the storm that happened barely a few hours ago, never affected its area.

In the end, I couldn't be bothered to even speak to Peter. I wasn't so pride driven to improve my mood by ridiculing him right now. We fought, he lost, and now he was going to pay for his crimes, with his own wealth. That was one of the reasons why I preferred to catch him alive.

By pus.h.i.+ng Governor to side with me even before this conflict escalated, I set up the fertile ground for the future judgment on his head, hoping, that the small town he owned, the town of Ropian, would end up falling in my hands. With how unimportant those places were in the grand scheme of things, and how I was willing to give up the reaper guns for the Governor to manage, later on, I was quite sure that with the time remaining before this b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a King would start his escape, all my investments would elevate me to a position high enough to sit at the political table along with the other major powers, instead of acting like a hunting hound for one of them. Even if the chances of winning the crown for myself were nigh impossible, I believed I could still use the times of interregnum to my own advantage!

"Sir, from what we gathered, at least ten men of Peter, managed to escape before the bullets could reach them!"

By the time we reached the circle through the roundabout way that saved us from stepping on the bloodied battlefield, one of the veterans from the Governor's unit approached me with a short report of his. Just like I expected, while the battle looked like a total roundup, there were still some men that were quick-witted enough to see what was going on and pull back before the real onslaught begin. Considering their options, they would either ride for Pilzno or directly towards Ropian, but considering how both of those places were already stacked with the people of my own command, I didn't have to worry that much about them!

"Thanks, go and fetch the officers now, we will have a meeting."

As I send the solider off, he saluted to me with his fist and ran off to the distance, where some of the higher-ranking men were gathered.

"Meeting? What do you need one for?"

Puzzled by the sudden development, Elia moved to face me from the front, blocking my path towards the tent where the said meeting would take place.

"Weren't we going to continue what was interrupted by that b.a.s.t.a.r.d?"

Seeing a hint of disappointment on Elia's face, I couldn't help but smile both internally, and externally, before placing my hand on her head and rubbing her hair for a bit.

"Come on, won't you prefer picking it up in the comfortable chamber of our palace in Pilzno already? What's the point of suffering the cold of the outside?"

In fact, when she mentioned the problem with accomodating all the guests that would come to our wedding, while I didn't admit that she was right when mentioning it, that was actually the case! No matter how big the palace was in Pilzno, and how much s.p.a.ce I could come up with when locating my guests between the Tarnowian Castle and the small Palace building in the city itself, as long as the wedding would be as sizeable as it should be to fit my status of middle n.o.bility, even that much s.p.a.ce wouldn't be enough to fit everyone!

But while organising more sleeping s.p.a.ce shouldn't be a problem with the great relations.h.i.+p with Tarnowian innkeepers that I have, the same couldn't be said about the Pilzno itself, forcing me to split the entire ceremony between the most important quests attending the ma.s.s in the church of Pilzno, while all the lesser n.o.bles forced to stay in the Tarnow.

Yet there was one, very important piece missing from the picture.

Outside of Governor, and some of the neighbouring n.o.bles that I could alert in a matter of few days at most… We didn't really invite anyone!

In any normal scenario, ceremony like a wedding, would not only be planned few months ahead, with invitations sent long before the party itself to give the guest time to prepare both the gifts and for the journey itself, yet my hastiness at the Governor's camp made it impossible for me to fix that small mistake of mine, that could yield tragic results soon!

"Wait, do you want to go to Pilzno already? Didn't you just argue about the importance of burying everyone who died?"

Hearing my response, Elia simply stood in place, unable to make sense of all the opposing signals and information that I gave her. In fact, I couldn't blame her for it, as the idea of what should be done now was constantly changing in my own head!

"Yeah, I still plan to have everyone buried nicely in here, yet why is that supposed to stop off from riding for the Pilzno? It's not like we are going to pick the shelves ourselves!"

Just as we were about to reach our tent, all of the officers that I wanted to see already reached it, most likely jumping into a run as soon as they received the summons because otherwise, it would be hard for me to find an explanation how could they physically cover more distance than we did.

"Guys, while the process of burying everyone needs to go on until it will be fully finished, I need to get as many mounted troops as we can get. Not only I need a small escort to get to the Pilzno, but there is quite a lot of letters that I need to send as soon as it will be possible!"