A Conniving Man

Writers: Avery
Date Posted: 19th October 2017

Characters: Yusanis, Goulan
Description: Goulan takes the next step in his plot against the Steward.
Location: Amber Hills Hold
Date: month 1, day 3 of Turn 9
Notes: Mentioned: Zathris, Benani, Nohria, Siya (NPC)

Yusanis sighed as he looked over the hidework on his desk. He needed to
both put together an after-action summary of the Turnover celebration and
its effects on the Hold, and tweak his new Turn estimations. He wanted to
get them both to Lord Zathris by the end of the sevenday. But he'd been in
here for quite some time looking at them, his head was hurting from the
effort, and he still felt like he had nothing to show for it.

His stomach grumbled audibly. That made him look over at his timekeeper.
It was after the midday candlemark. He should eat something. Shards. How
had it been this long and yet he hadn't gotten done what he needed to?

Yusanis stood up from the desk, not even bothering to move the hides into
a different position, and stepped out from his office into the area where
the understewards worked. "I'm going to lunch. If anything comes in that
requires my signature, set it on my desk," he ordered, before stepping out
to find food.

Goulan had been waiting for his chance to go into Yusanis' office
unsupervised. Oh, he was in there legitimately every day, but typically
that was when he was providing existing reports to the Steward for
signature, or having his work checked. He hadn't had the opportunity to
sneak in there and get his hands on reports written by Yusanis himself.

And that was critical to his plans. He needed to get a few more samples of
how the Steward wrote, so that he could use his talent for handwriting
forgery to start mimicking the other man's work. Right now, all he knew
was how to forge the man's signature.

Oh, that was a useful enough talent. After all, he could use that to
pretend that the Steward had marked off on reports that he hadn't actually
seen. That would let Goulan set Yusanis up as bad at his job. Especially
if he made it look like Yusanis had signed off on reports that were too
short and he could make it look like he was skimming. That alone might get
the Steward fired.

But it might not be enough. Maybe Yusanis was smart and clever-tongued and
could pass it off as maybe an accident of figures and keep himself in Lord
Zathris' good graces. Goulan wanted to set Yusanis up in a way that was so
obviously stealing from his employer that the Lord Holder would _have_ to
fire him.

Then Lord Zathris would need a new Steward, and who better to choose than
someone who'd been a loyal understeward for Turns? Who'd actually grown up
in Amber Hills, unlike the string of disappointing foreign Stewards? Who
better than the man who had been the one to turn in his boss when he'd
seen how he was undermining the good of the Hold? Who had risked his own
job in service of the truth and the Hold?

That was one way Goulan could get the position he coveted.

It was the easier way to do it. The benefit of handling it that way was
that it wouldn't be nearly as messy as a regime change. Also, Goulan knew
Lord Zathris and what he expected from his men.

But Lord Zathris had also overlooked him when it came time to replace the
last Steward, and when it was time to replace the one before him. That was
something that rankled Goulan, caused acid and anger to churn in his gut.
That resentment was why he had not turned in his brother when it turned
out the man had started working with bandits who were harming Amber Hills.

He had considered turning his brother in, when he found out. There were
advantages. It would have helped expose the bandit group that had been
plaguing Amber Hills, and that would have garnered him praise. People
would have finally _looked_ at him as a hero, a good man. But it wouldn't
have made him Steward.

Instead, he'd interrogated his brother about what the bandits were doing
and why. And what he'd found out had pleased him. They weren't just random
bandits who were picking at Amber Hills to survive, the kind that could
easily be chased to pick on a weaker Hold instead abd didn't have goals or
ambitions.

No, this group had a mission. They were being funded by Malachite Gulch,
who had always wanted more of Amber Hills' territory. Malachite Gulch had
been able to lure away border cot- and minor holds when Amber Hills was
occupied by its rivalry with Amethyst Cliff. Once Amethyst Cliff had been
destroyed, Amber Hills had expanded its territory and had to deal with the
refugees, it had been distributing those out, and with the new influx of
greater people the border had stabilized. Bad for Malachite Gulch.

But with the death of Lord Benaroy and the ascension of Lord Zathris, the
Heir of Malachite Gulch had developed hopes that he could go back to
picking away at the Hills territory. At first Lord Zathris had seemed
competent, but then he'd bungled security so badly that Lady Benani was
kidnapped. If a single unhinged individual had done such havoc, what could
a funded group do?

And so the man had put together a group of disaffected individuals and set
them at his rival. Goulan's brother had joined up, eager at the promised
chance to go from fields laborer to owning his own whole cothold if the
leadership changed over. And then Isaren had told Goulan everything about
the plans, and Goulan had developed ideas.

If he could make it look like Yusanis was cheating the Hold...and that
Zathris was enabling and encouraging this to get rich at the expense of
his holders... It would need written proof of multiple treachery that he
could provide. Combine that with Nohria's encouraging of the Hold's women
to distrust Zathris, and the holders would get furious at Zathris. There
might be unrest. Riots. A territory in chaos.

And then Siya's betrothed could come in, promising order and stability if
the holders just joined up with Malachite Gulch. Siya's bloodline would
legitimize it. He would get his rightful position as Steward of Amber
Hills. And it would all be due to Goulan and his work.

But in order to get there, he had to go get those papers. Goulan waited
until nobody was looking, then stood up and strolled into Yusanis' office.
He set down the report he'd been working on, then casually lifted a few of
the papers Yusanis had been working on off of his desk and took them back
to his. He'd practice handwriting tonight.

Last updated on the October 27th 2017

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A Conniving Man