The true essence of a country was its people, and those people increasing in population, spreading, and gaining wealth was how a country prospered. That was the philosophy that House Riga centered itself on, and from their perspective, the majority of the lords of Baldemost had too narrow an outlook, were obsessed with ideals with no real substance, and mistook the possession of military power for the use of it.
Those lords said that loyalty to the king was the basis a kingdom needed to flourish. Raising strong kings should be what the kingdom’s system hoped to accomplish.
That was not wrong.
But when the king was the only great man, the country would decline after his death. Alkan couldn’t believe how many people failed to see that the founding king’s death was an indictment against that system.
It was true that buildings need a pillar, living beings need a spine, and families need a head of the household. However, if you were to set sail across the ocean on a ship with only one sail, the voyage would be a perilous one.
Why did no one realize that the second-generation king made the first head of House Riga a duke as a clear expression that he wanted to build a country where the king and the lords supported each other?
For most of the lords who clamored for loyalty toward the king, the word loyalty was nothing more than a decoration on their behavior that was driven by jealousy toward other houses and the desire to bring profit to their own. In the end, all their attention was on their own house, and they didn’t spare a thought for the kingdom.
A good example of such a lord was Earl Wezor.
House Riga had a long-cherished desire. That desire was to establish an economic community between the Baldemost Kingdom and the coastal region on the northwest of the continent. This was the greatest wish of the first head of House Riga that he entrusted to his successor.
The west coast of what was currently the feudal states of Fenks had been a good harbor since olden times, had an excellent and large-scale salt pan, and also possessed developed marine-processing technology.
Their trade with the western archipelagos was flourishing thanks to their advanced shipbuilding technology and naval strength, they had the technology to process all the minerals from throughout the feudal states of Fenks, and there were wealthy merchants with financial power that surpassed that of some kings.
The wealthiest cities in the northern part of the continent were all clustered together in this region.
The Baldemost Kingdom needed to be tied to that region. Not through conquest or by demanding allegiance but by becoming equal trading partners and enabling people and goods to move freely between the kingdom and the northwest coast. That was what the first head of House Riga said would be the key to the kingdom’s development.
House Riga had gradually increased exchange with the cities along the northwest coast over a long period of time. The house had also worked to decrease animosity with the powerful feudal states of Fenks, which were located between the Baldemost Kingdom and the cities along the northwest coast.
Then a day arrived when those efforts paid off enormously. In the year 1040 of the Royal Calendar, House Nadal of the feudal states of Fenks declared its return to allegiance to the king of Baldemost, thanks to intermediation from Alkan’s father, Molzora, and the head of the house was named the Baron of Paulo.
Molzora was thirty-five years old at the time. Alkan was only four years old, but he remembered well the festival-like bustle and joy in his household. From then on, he would be reminded at every opportunity of the importance of House Nadal’s declaration of allegiance.
The lords in Fenks defended their territory using corps of soldiers called the Northern Knights, which boasted unrivaled strength on level ground with their heavy equipment and unique battle formations and tactics. The lords of Fenks all acted independently and did not interfere with one another, but they would band together when it came time to face a foreign threat.
The lords of Fenks called Baldemost a country of cowards. They looked down on it as a country created by nobles who fled from the weak south. They didn’t even take kindly to citizens of Baldemost passing through their territory. Fenks had become an impossible obstacle in House Riga’s attempts to trade with the northwest coast.
Baldemost then regained House Nadal’s allegiance. The Northern Knights of House Nadal were known for their exceptional strength. Gaining House Nadal’s allegiance meant adding their military might to the Baldemost Kingdom.
Also, by integrating the baron’s domain of Paulo into Baldemost, the kingdom drew closer to the northwest coast. House Nadal also had many relatives in the central region of the feudal states of Fenks, and you could almost reach the sea just by lining up the territories of those relatives.
House Riga moved forward carefully with preparations for establishing trade routes.
Then an incident occurred in which vassals of Earl Wezor were massacred by a group of government officials in the territory of Lord Daina of the feudal states of Fenks. The vassals were on their way back from buying jewels in a city of commerce on the coast in preparation for a marriage ceremony.
They were captured and killed despite possessing a permit to pass through that land, and their killers fled with the jewels. There were no excuses for their deaths. Lord Daina admitted fault and sent envoys to apologize.
When Molzora heard this, he jumped for joy. Lord Daina had always been prejudiced against Baldemost, and he was in opposition to the opening of trade routes. Molzora could use this incident to silence Lord Daina. If he handled the situation well enough, he might even have been able to win Lord Daina’s support for the trade routes.