Those who escaped the nightmare of Seawright territory were lucky, and yet unlucky.
Houses burning. Earth corrupted by elemental forces. Towering, terrifying giants striding out of churning mist. And the friends and family who had died horribly beneath it all, everything clung to every survivor like a waking nightmare. Even after reaching the safety of Gulltown, even under the protection of knights and soldiers, the fear had never receded from the survivors' hearts for so much as a moment.
Because even the armored soldiers hadn't managed a decent night's sleep in days.
Many had no choice but to numb themselves with alcohol. Those too poor to even afford that much could only endure the torment. And since life as a refugee in another lord's territory was never going to be comfortable in this era, conditions were only getting worse.
Forget maintaining order among the refugees, Ser Philip was already struggling just to keep the soldiers in line and reporting in on schedule.
But at least the lord had returned safely, and she'd brought an unexpected pillar of strength with her.
Outside Gulltown, Rebecca surveyed the subjects gathered before her. They were ragged and haggard. Though Viscount Andrew had indeed provided basic shelter and food distribution, the charity a noble of this era extended to smallfolk was extremely limited. The fact that no one had frozen or starved to death was already a display of exceptional generosity on the viscount's part, far surpassing his peers. Rebecca couldn't ask for more.
And for those who had fled Seawright territory, the lord's appearance was a potent shot of morale.
The smallfolk of this era possessed neither great awareness nor psychological fortitude, and their loyalty to their lord was debatable at best. Rebecca was, admittedly, a kind and benevolent lord (mainly because the girl's head wasn't sharp enough to have learned the cunning and greed of her noble peers), but she'd only been in the position for less than a year. Given how poorly information traveled, many of her subjects didn't even know what their lord looked like.
But a lord's presence was still a rallying force. For these wretches who had spent days in a state of panic, all it took was someone stepping forward to declare they would continue to protect them. They didn't care who their master was or what she looked like. Centuries of feudalism had stripped smallfolk of much of their capacity for independent thought, but it had also made them remarkably easy to satisfy. In Wayne's view, this was a cohesion born of ignorance and naivety, but it was undeniably effective.
Only a fraction of the survivors had come to see them off; the rest stayed in Gulltown, watching over belongings or working to earn food for the group. Rebecca looked at these people, wanting to say something inspiring, but couldn't think of what. She turned to Ser Philip. "These people are in your care, Ser. Until we return, try to make sure we don't lose a single one."
"On my oath!" Philip straightened his chest. "I will guard every Seawright subject and every piece of Seawright property for you!"
"And don't forget the tasks I assigned you," Wayne added. "Viscount Andrew will provide the necessary support. Just send out everyone who's quick on their feet and sharp in the head, don't be stingy with the money. What they're doing is worth far more than coin."
"Yes, sir!" the young knight answered loudly, though he couldn't quite hide his confusion. As someone living in a closed-off era, specializing in martial skills, keeping up with Wayne's thinking was difficult. "But is it really that important?"
"Of course it is," Wayne smiled. "On a small scale it's gossip. On a large scale it's called shaping public opinion. Don't underestimate these intangible forces, once everyone starts talking about the same thing, even a king gets restless."
After making all the arrangements, Wayne and Rebecca boarded the carriage provided by Viscount Andrew. Traveling with them were Betty the maidservant, the ever-loyal Ser Byron, super-thief Amber, and twelve family soldiers. These soldiers could hardly be called handpicked, the total number of warriors who had broken out with Ser Philip was only about a dozen, plus the two who had escaped with Wayne's group, making fewer than twenty in all. Under these circumstances, assembling twelve fully equipped soldiers was about the last shred of dignity House Seawright had left.
The mature and steady Hestia was left behind to manage things on this end. But this "Aunt Hestia" was clearly worried about her niece's impending journey to the capital. She stood below the carriage, clutching Rebecca's hand, issuing instruction after instruction.
"Remember your station at all times. Don't disgrace the Seawright name, but don't pick fights with the capital's nobles either. Show proper respect when you meet the High King, don't break protocol. Don't throw fireballs at people, the capital isn't like our backwater. If you encounter something you don't understand, don't rush to answer. Consult the Great Ancestor or Ser Byron first, because every word you say will be analyzed six ways from Sunday. And above all, listen to the Great Ancestor, especially when dealing with other nobles. You're not good at that sort of thing, but the Great Ancestor is a Grand Duke, he knows..."
Wayne listened to Hestia's litany of instructions and felt his own heart grow heavy, because he really didn't know...
Not only did he not know, but the genuine Gwayne Seawright hadn't known either. When that founding hero died, Andraste had still been governed by a bunch of former smallfolk. Court etiquette of that era had basically revolved around drinking contests and shouting matches with the High King across the council chamber. Surely things had changed somewhat in seven hundred years...
But to avoid sending the already overwrought N-times-great-granddaughter into a complete meltdown, he placed a hand on Hestia's shoulder and gave her a reassuring look. "Don't worry. I know what I'm doing."
And so, with Hestia's relieved smile seeing them off, the carriage carried a Rebecca who knew nothing and a Wayne who looked like he knew everything onto the road to the capital.
At the same time, Ser Philip dispatched the people Wayne had arranged before departing.
They were sharp-witted individuals found among the refugees, along with locally hired folk from Gulltown who were quick of foot and glib of tongue. Among them were even a few ruffians and scoundrels who could be bought for a handful of coppers. Dealing with these types made the young knight profoundly uncomfortable, and the task he was sending them on struck him as utterly baffling. Their one and only job was to set off in every direction, head for every settlement where people gathered, slip into taverns, black markets, and the stinking hovels of slum quarters, and shoot the breeze with the locals.
Ideally, they'd also find some passing bards to shoot the breeze with.
And so, in the days that followed, a recurring scene played out across the Southern Marches.
Dusty-faced strangers with odd accents appeared in every crowded place, wearing expressions that were mysterious yet utterly earnest, and saying more or less the same thing.
"Hey, did you hear? Something happened to House Seawright down south! Their territory got destroyed by monsters and a dragon! They say it even disturbed the spirits underground, House Seawright's legendary ancestor rose from his coffin... You heard me right! Grand Duke Gwayne Seawright himself, awake from his eternal rest! He must have come back to destroy those monsters...
"Come on, why would I lie? Everyone in the south is talking about it. Just go ask around in Gulltown or Timberfell. And see these clothes I'm wearing? I'm one of the ones who escaped from down there. Let me tell you, when the Seawright ancestor came back to life, I saw the whole thing with my own eyes!"
Nearly everyone told the same story, and they all swore up and down that these extraordinary events were things they had personally witnessed, even the people who weren't part of Philip's original batch of agents would, nine times out of ten, make the same claim as the rumors spread.
If someone could have gathered all the rumors in one place, they would have been astonished to discover that at least a thousand people had apparently been standing in the burial chamber watching when the Seawright ancestor rose, and there must have been another ten thousand spectating from atop the grave...
But in this era, the people with the power to piece all this together wouldn't pay attention to street-corner gossip among smallfolk. And the people who believed and spread these stories... they simply didn't think that hard.
Meanwhile, in the carriage rolling toward Sunspear, Wayne was idly watching the scenery outside and contemplating how to face the High King who sat high in the Silver Keep of Sunspear.
He didn't know how effective the operation he'd tasked Ser Philip with would be, in fact, he didn't even have thirty percent confidence in it. This was a contradictory, benighted world.
The existence of magic made many things extraordinarily convenient, even convenient beyond what the era's development would suggest. But magic and other supernatural powers were concentrated in the hands of a few.
The people of this world hadn't yet, or rather, they saw no need to, convert magic into broader productive forces. So in the powerless lower strata of society, everything was backward to an almost unbelievable degree.
Communication meant shouting. Transportation meant walking. Rumors could fly through a single town at lightning speed, because tavern gossip was practically the only entertainment smallfolk had outside of work. But getting news from one town to another was ten times harder, because barren wilderness blocked most travel.
On top of that, local nobles imposed movement controls on their territories, without the lord's permission, a commoner who wanted to walk to the next lord's village to buy a chicken risked being hanged!
The joint travel pass signed by House Seawright and House Royce (Viscount Andrew's house) solved the movement-control problem, but not the other difficulties.
Still, making some effort was better than making none.
Wayne's goal was simple.
Spread the news of "Gwayne Seawright's resurrection" as widely as possible. The wider the better. It couldn't remain a secret known only in noble circles, it needed to become the talk of smallfolk and even the poor. If possible, it should escalate into the stuff of strange tales, of spine-tingling stories. And in fact, the rumors were already heading in exactly that direction.
These stories would be embellished with each retelling. The superstitious, ignorant medieval masses would add heaps of details according to their own understanding. Wayne didn't care about the specifics of those details, he just needed the stories to keep fermenting.
And then everyone would know that House Seawright's ancestor had returned from the dead, and that the legendary founding duke had awakened at the very moment the Others were attacking the kingdom...