Herald of Steel

Alexander watched the currently ongoing blistering snowstorm safe from his room in the mansion with a pleased heart.

Because as stated in this report from Remus that was in his hands, the men were able to get most of their water needs from the snow deposited by this storm, about two thirds of it, while the remaining was able to be filled by the water from the newly dug wells.

This meant that Alexander was able to keep his stock of stored water in its entirety intact, while at the same time, the men had unrestricted access to their drinking water, thus raising morale in camp very high.

It was a win- win.

And with this, it seemed Alexander had managed to at least mitigate some of the effects of Lord Parker's strategy, even if he could not outright overcome it.

While his men were busy earning their living as such, Alexander could not unfortunately kick back and enjoy the show from his room.

He had wished that with winter settling in at full force, he would be able to find himself with a lot of free time in his hand, there being little to do other than wait for his reinforcements to arrive.

But much to his chagrin, Alexander found himself burdened with his own type of work.

There were many tasks inside the mansion that needed his attention.

The most pressing of which talks with Lady Miranda.

The topics there involved mainly three things- what to do with the Margraves members in the mansion, what about the reinforcements that Lord Janus promised, and lastly the most important one of all- asking for outside help, be it the Kaiser family, Governor Strauss, or the northern barbarians.

And here, to reveal the bad news first, it seemed that Lady Nanazin was wrong about her judgment of Lady Miranda.

The lady had indeed gone a bit mad.

Or perhaps mad might not be the correct word.

It would be more accurate to say Lady Miranda had become a bit too assertive, following through with whatever she said no matter if it made sense or not.

It was almost like she was trying to overcompensate for her earlier indecisiveness by being too decisive.

At least that was what it seemed like, as despite several days of rest, the names on her list did not decrease, despite Alexander's urgings.

Sure, there were some banal subtractions, such as of some maid who might have looked at her wrong, or one of her distant cousins making a rude comment about her figure, but these people were small fries not even worth a second look in either Alexander's or Lady Miranda's eyes.

Their inclusion or exclusion made absolutely no difference.

The people whose lives did make a difference though received no leniency from Lady Miranda.

And this was despite hours of Alexander trying every trick in the book to get the lady to reconsider.

He told and re told her about the importance of these people to her and her family, their irrelevance in any plot with her, the neutral nature of their existence- meaning they swung whichever way the winds blew and even just asked her to simply postpone the macabre event to a later date after they had won the battle.

During all these, Alexander had even figuratively gotten on his knees to plead,

"Forgive them for now! Show them you are a benevolent ruler who knows how to forgive her retainers even after they have committed a crime. Show them you are better than Miss Linda. Win them over with kindness."

"This will surely help you get the family on your side. Especially now that Lord Nolan is not there to scramble things from the inside. We need them… now more than ever."

"And if they choose to be ungrateful even then… well then you would be within all your rights to kill them."

However Lady Miranda remained unyielding and absolutely adamant, constantly repeating,

"*Snort*, No! They are rebels. Snakes that will lash out the moment they get the chance. What use should I have for them? All they do is smile in front of me while plotting behind my back. They will only work to hinder me. I don't need them."

It seemed that these men had betrayed the lady one too many times, and thus burned the last of the bridges.

The obstinate lady was hence determined to go solo, preferring to have no friends rather than fake ones.

Which Lady Miranda perfectly reiterated to Alexander, and then finished by swinging her arms and dreadfully chiming,

"Since Lord Pasha wants to kill them anyway, then it is better to kill them now than later. We should not delay good things. And that way I can start looking for loyal people to fill those posts right away. It will make things much faster."

Thus it was made clear to Alexander that the lady was dead set on cleaning the house.

She would not raise these snakes no matter how much their perceived worth might be, as she at last unequivocally declared to Alexander, "I will not speak about anything else until those old farts are dead."

Alexander of course did not agree with Lady Miranda's assessment and felt she was being too hasty.

Even if she wanted to kill them, she did not need to do it right here, right now, as Alexander pointed out clearly to her many, many times, over and over, asking her to have patience and be more strategic about it.

But it was all ought.

"...." And Alexander certainly found himself frustrated by this officious display, as he swore to himself, 'Who is actually the powerhouse here… her or me?'

Given how Lady Miranda was acting, you would think she was the one with all the army and the men, while Alexander was just a househusband.

Not the other way around.

And it got to the point that he felt like reminding her that, it was him who was the one in charge here, not her.

But for the sake of being allies and getting along, as well as the fact that he thought the lady was still in grief, he restrained him.

However, that also meant that over the following days, Alexander would find these talks with Lady Miranda that went nowhere extremely frustrating, to say the least.

One side wanted blood, while the other wanted to wait, and so none of them budged.

And by the end, the only reason he did not flip out on her and started calling her names such as crazy or a lunatic was because he had Lady Nanazin to vent.

Given the season and situation, the Adhanian Queen had little else to do other than spend her time with Alexander, so she could always be there to let the man vent, both physically and mentally.

Lady Nanazin would always be there to lend the man her ear as Alexander would angrily recount all the futile talks he had with Lady Miranda, with Lady Nanazin just sitting them, drinking copious amounts of wine while nodding like chicken at everything he said, "Right!", "Mmmmhh", "Ohh gosh!", "No! How could she?" "She should not have done that", and many such platitudes.

This was the mental venting.

While the physical venting did not really need to be elaborated.

With little more to do than tiresome meetings and waiting, Alexander decided to entertain himself with really the only way the people knew how to in this time period- by being intimate.

And the curvy lady was of course more than happy to comply, spreading her legs whenever and wherever her master wanted.

After Miss Linda's escape, the measures Alexander placed to prevent such repeats were undoubtedly draconian.

Thus it suddenly made the huge place appear very empty, making the duo feel as if they had the whole place all to themselves.

Hence the two quickly made the place their oyster, as Lady Nanazin made sure to service her man in every way she knew how, there to cater to every whims and desire of her man.

Alexander thus found himself swimming in a pool of debauchery as the Adhanian Queen let the man have free reign to all her facilities.

Among all of his he particularly loved to use her mouth whenever he wanted, be it their room, an abandoned part of the corridor, or while they were showering, as Alexander would ask Lady Nanazin anytime anywhere to open her warm cavern and invite his hot, swollen meat in.

And no matter the place, the Queen would readily kneel, spread her legs, and then sometimes even tantalizingly lift her long gown to let Alexander relish the look of her healthy, meaty thighs, and offer a slight glimpse of her underwear, the light, and dark shades working to create a mesmerizing pattern.

She would sometimes even giggle the joke, "If master can guess the color of my underwear, you can even make me walk around the house without it for the whole day."

Before drinking the hot stuff down in one go!

Of course, if Alexander wanted, he could have made Lady Nanazin walk around the house completely naked without any clothes, not just her underwear, and the madly in love Queen would have undoubtedly obeyed.

But that was not the point.

The point of it was to play a fun game.