Lèse-majesté

Part 31

Chapter 30

It was eight days later when Astrid and her retinue returned to the capital. The damage Julius had caused the fiefdom had been much more extensive than she had originally anticipated. Miners and farmers had gotten beaten when they had voiced that they could no longer work, little medical help was dispatched, the grain and wheat Julius had distributed as alms had been mixed with sand and those that could not pay taxes had had their houses burned to the ground.

Not to mention they had lost the mercenaries. The man that had escaped their grasp in the castle could have been none other than the mercenary leader himself. Astrid still cursed him every chance she got. Soon it had become apparent that he had withdrawn every last one of his men from her area. Also the matter of Julius's not-so-mysterious backer needed to still be resolved.

"What's on your mind?" Hiccup asked as he noted Astrid looking out the window at the busy streets of the Capital. They were now passing through one of the many marketplaces and were thus moving at a much shorter pace due to the congestion.

"Just the situation in general." Astrid sighed. "Once I get back home I will need to coordinate the other knight squads to deliver more supplies to the fiefdom. The prices of goods are also going to be inflated with the amount of visitors the city will be getting soon. The Founding day celebration is coming up and it's always hectic during that time. Also all the social obligations....."

"It looks like what you need right now is a break," Hiccup noted which caused Astrid to let out a strangled laugh.

"If only it was that easy," She muttered humorously. "You claim to be some Chief of Vikings so surely you must know that governing and social obligations take a lot out of you," She snarked. Hiccup had the grace to look ashamed as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"I.. uhm... Sorry," He apologized. "You're right. I did tell you I was a Chief. It's just... well, I haven't been Chief for long. And.. yeah... our ways of governing are very different."

"If you don't mind me asking, what happened?" Astrid asked more out of curiosity. She looked to her left to see Atali dosing off with a half knitted scarf on her lap.

Hiccup ran a hand through his hair as he briefly looked out the carriage windows. "We were going to have a big feast because three ships of Vikings had come back safely from a very successful expedition and hunt. The previous year's big hunt hadn't been that fruitful so everyone was in pretty high spirits."

"Wait," Astrid frowned for a moment. "Your hunting parties go away for weeks. How is the meat still edible?" She queried.

"We've learned how to preserve food." Hiccup stated. "The Viking isles are much more to the north so there is much more snow. Freezing meat in a hole with snow isn't a problem. There's also pickling, drying, salting and smoking," Hiccup then elaborated. "We can pickle vegetables but only when the merchants have vinegar for sale. You can sun-dry the meat but that takes a long time, and the more common preservation method we use for meat and fish is salting. Smoking is done only for food that has a large amount of fat."

"That's..... Very interesting," Honestly, Astrid was surprised. "I have actually never eaten food that has been salted before." She admitted. The Kingdom prided itself on its harbor and its fresh seafood that was taken straight from the sea to the market and to the tables of inns and families. There was also no need to hunt as large farms and agriculture dominated much of the territories.

"So yes, we were planning a large feast for our returning hunters," Hiccup said as he continued the tale after his explanation. "That night before the feast began my father was poisoned."

Astrid gasped in shock as she had not been expecting that. "Things got pretty chaotic after that," Hiccup confessed. "With dad being bedridden the governing fell onto me and mom and then the kidnapping happened."

"The kidnapping of this 'Light fury'?" Astrid asked, skepticism in her voice at that part of the story.

"Yeah, we don't really know what happened." Hiccup confessed. "Toothless, my Night fury," He added to avoid confusion "Rushed into the village in a panic a day after dad got poisoned. He bowled over at least five able-bodied Vikings before we could calm him down. It took us a bit longer to figure out the problem. Dragons are deceptively smart but we don't speak the same language," He added as an afterthought.

"So what happened then?" Astrid asked quietly.

"We strengthened security on the isles in case there were more disappearances but apparently by then it was too late." Hiccup confessed. "The tranquilizers we found had feathers belonging to birds from the mainland. I couldn't just up and leave immediately so Gobber decided to head out first."

"I see,"

"You still don't believe me," Hiccup noted.

"You got to admit, it is pretty farfetched," Astrid uttered. "I mean honestly, firebreathing reptiles... that's the stuff of mythology here. It's right alongside cyclops and trolls."

"I don't know about the other two but dragons are real and I'm willing to prove it to you." Hiccup stated. "Though Gobber will probably swear up and down that trolls have been stealing his left socks."

Astrid raised a brow at that but Hiccup continued. "Look, will you give me a chance to prove it? We can stop by Gobber's shop. I'm sure Toothless would be relieved to have another person's help. He hasn't been too happy about the progress in finding his mate, and to be honest, neither have I. I hate to admit it but Gobber and I have hit a wall. The twins are probably out of options too as there are only so many places they can search with their ambassador status,"

"The twins?! The Thorston twins?! I knew there was something going on there!" Astrid exclaimed causing Atali to groggily wake up.

"Uhm... yeah..." Hiccup said sheepishly.

"Miss..." Atali questioned having been woken up.

"We're not home yet. You can go back to sleep," Astrid told her. Atali did just that as the carriage continued down the busy cobblestone streets.

"You say you can prove it?" Astrid asked more seriously now. "I don't condone kidnapping and if what you claim is true then this is a serious matter. IF what you claim is true," She stressed.

Hiccup nodded and Astrid then proceeded to tell the coachman and her knights that they would be making a small detour. They ended up stopping in front of Gobber's blacksmith shop. Atali who had woken up again proceeded to follow her mistress out of the carriage.

Hiccup who was standing by the front door of the apparently closed shop proceeded to tell Astrid to not make any sudden threatening moves as he had no idea to how Toothless would react to new people. Especially not with him being so high-strung about his missing mate.

Hiccup opened the wooden door with a creak and what they found wasn't what anyone was expecting. Everything looked like a normal blacksmith's except for the rather disgruntled short man stuck on the rafters and a rather large black reptile sitting on Gobber.

"Toothless!" Hiccup admonished as Astrid noted that the 'dragon' was biting on the prosthetic brush Gobber had as an attachment.

Atali held her hands in front of her mouth at seeing an actual dragon and Astrid was flabbergasted as well. She now felt a bit bad about not believing Hiccup in the first place. So far he had never lied to her. Before Hiccup could even introduce Toothless to the others the dragon had slinked his way over to Hiccup, pounced on him, licked him from head to toe, smacked his head with a paw and then proceed to bodily drag the auburn-haired man by the pants up the stairs.

"TOOTHLESS! NOT THE PANTS!" Hiccup shouted but to no avail.

"What just happened?!" Astrid exclaimed as she watched a black tail disappear up the stairs.

"Oh don't mind them lass," Gobber said finally getting up. "Toothless just misses him,"

"Oookayyyyy...." Astrid uttered.

"Hey guys.... Now that Hiccup's back, CAN SOMEONE GET ME DOWN FROM HERE!" The short guy stuck on the rafters yelled.