From Londoner To Lord-Chapter 178 - 175. Mistrust

If that bastard even tried to ask something like that from her or the other women, or even if his eyes strayed where they shouldn't, she would directly go for his throat.

She looked at the young baron with steely eyes, judging how long it would take her to cross that distance between them if it came to that. He was standing maybe six or seven feet away from her. Would she be able to get there before the guards got to her? She wasn't sure, but she would certainly try if she needed to.

Could she still escape with her life if she did that? Probably not, but that was still much better than becoming a play thing for a lying, backstabbing young noble.

Then the young baron walked closer to all of them in the light of the two braziers burning nearby, and gazed at all of them.

This was it then. The moment of truth.

However, as much as Hyola tried to gauge his intentions, she didn't see the same arrogance and entitlement that was common in highborns. She hardly had much experience of meeting with nobles, but she had heard enough stories about them from the other slaves to know how they behaved with commoners.

She frowned as she looked at his face. If anything, he seemed to have kind eyes, and his demeanor looked warm and gentle. But why? Hadn't he told the guards to lie to the slaves so he could steal their wagons, tools and the nodors? Hadn't he brought them here to this jail to keep them as his own slaves without even paying for them?

Then why was she thinking that he had kind eyes? Maybe she was getting delusional because of hunger and cold. Yeah, that had to be it. She had barely eaten anything in the past few days after all. Yeah, she had to be on her toes, ready for anything.

Finally, it looked like the young bastard was ready to speak.

*******

~ Kivamus ~

He heard the sound of wagons arriving outside the gates and started walking towards there along with others who had come with him. It was dark outside, but in the light of the braziers burning nearby, he saw the sorry state of the stonecutters who had arrived here. He knew the journey had lasted longer than their estimates, so they must surely have had a shortage of food towards the end. He sighed. There was nothing he could do about the past, but he would do his best to take care of everyone under him from now on.

Looking closely at them, he realised that Calubo wasn't lying at all when he said that these people barely got anything to eat there. None of them had brought any belongings with them, with the worn out clothes on their backs probably being the only things they owned in this world. Most of them looked like they were malnourished, and their downcast eyes and the scared looks they kept throwing around made him realize how badly the bandits had treated them - likely more like disposable work animals instead of humans.

He walked a few steps ahead of others to speak to the stonecutters and noticed a tall and relatively well built young woman with red hair showing a multitude of emotions on her face. At first she looked scared, probably fearing the worst here. He was a noble, after all, and nobles had never given any reason for commoners to trust them at all. But then she seemed resolute to meet everything head on. He nodded at her perseverance. These people had everything taken from them and had been banished to a miserable life of servitude, but they still had some fight left in them. They hadn't given up. That was good. That was very good.

As he was going to speak, he noticed that Feroy took a step closer to him, with his hands on the hilt of his sword. He thought of telling him to give him some space to speak to the stonecutters, but then he thought better of it. He didn't see any danger to his life here, but Feroy must know what he was doing.

Finally, he looked at the people in front of him and began, "I know you all must be scared and confused. I have a pretty good idea of how badly Nokozal treated his slaves, and then you all had to go through a difficult journey to travel from the limestone quarry to Tiranat. But I promise you that your difficult times are in the past now. From now on you all will be taken care of, just like every other person in this village."

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All of the stonecutters seem to be hanging on his every word, but he didn't want to take too long here. "I know it won't be easy for you to adjust to life here, but I can promise you that you will get enough opportunities to live a better life in Tiranat than you have until now. But it's freezing here, so there is no point in standing outside in the snow."

He pointed to the guards, as well as the middle aged supervisor of the block who was standing nearby. "Follow them inside, and you will find a hot meal and a warm sleeping place waiting for you. Just by chance we also have a good stock of Losuvil leaves in the village right now. So anyone who is sick or has an injury - or even a small cut - can talk with the supervisor of the block and he will provide you with the required amount of paste, free of charge."

As he was going to turn around, he heard the voice of a stonecutter.

"But why?" the older man asked with distrust in his eyes. "Why are you doing this for us? You don't even know us!"

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"Why?" Kivamus repeated with a frown. "Because you are human beings and not possessions of a greedy bandit. Because you deserve to get an opportunity to live like humans."

He continued, looking directly into the older man's eyes, "One of my guards should have already told you, but I'll repeat it anyway. From the moment you stepped a foot inside Tiranat, you stopped being a slave of Nokozal. That goes for all of you. From this moment on, you will have the same freedom as everyone else in Tiranat, which means you will get the same rights and opportunities as any other villager in this place. That includes getting a reasonable wage for your work."

The older man looked like he had tears in his eyes, along with some others. A few of them seemed to be looking upwards, probably praying to the goddess, but many others still looked suspicious of his promises.

Kivamus exhaled. He could see that they weren't going to trust his words that easily. It would take some time for them to start believing that he wasn't lying, but trying to make it more appealing for them, he added, "We only got the news about your arrival just half an hour ago, so there wasn't much that we could prepare, but I've been told that you will be getting some warm meat stew, along with some freshly baked bread." He pointed towards the gates once again, "Now Madam Helga will show you inside. Eat up to your heart's content and take some rest. You deserve it."

"Come on now," Helga said to the stonecutters, and with some hesitation, one by one they started to move towards the gates. A few of them stopped for a moment to heat up their hands in front of the braziers, but it seemed like they were willing to listen for now. A warm meal on a hungry stomach on a cold winter night had to be quite tempting, after all.

Kivamus watched the slowly moving crowd as a couple of guards as well as the supervisor of the block also helped to show the way to the stonecutters. Once they were all inside the gates, he looked at Feroy. "You looked ready to cut someone in half earlier. What was that about?"

Feroy was still looking towards the gates. "You noticed that tall redhead at the front of the crowd earlier?"

Kivamus nodded. "Yeah, what about her?"

"That gal holds a fight in her, and I'm pretty sure she was hiding a shiv somewhere," Feroy explained. "At that moment, she looked ready to kill, with you being the only probable target here."

Kivamus frowned, castigating himself that he hadn't even noticed a threat on his life from so close. "But why would she do that? She couldn't possibly be an assassin sent by another noble, and none of the stonecutters could have known anything about me before today, certainly not enough to want to kill me."

Feroy snorted. "Despite your words about freeing them from slavery, they aren't going to believe it that easily. Anyway, that redhead didn't need to know any more than that you are a male noble. Being a young woman going to the domain of a noble, it would have felt to her that you had come to personally inspect the new slaves - likely to choose the best ones for yourself - especially the female slaves. I'm sure you can imagine the rest."

Kivamus just shook his head in exasperation. He could understand it alright, having personally experienced the schemes of greedy, unscrupulous nobles of this world. But he just wanted to make them feel welcome here, dammit! And all he had managed to do was to make the stonecutters suspicious of his intentions...

He gave a sigh. No good deed goes unpunished, after all.

Regardless, what's done was done. He could only hope that in the coming days they would see that they would be treated just like any other villager here, and hopefully that would take care of some of their misgivings about him as a noble.

Suddenly, he heard the sound of horse hooves from nearby. Turning towards the sound, he saw riders coming towards them from the south.