8th May 1574After moving out of the royal palace of Wawel, where not only did the King spend his days but also where the burial chambers for all the legendary kings of the country were located, we could finally get out and go for a walk.
"I still can"t believe it! To think that you dared to molest the handle of your sabre in the presence of King"s advisor and go away with it scot-free!"
As we walked through the streets of the capital, I couldn"t help but blush while hearing the words of Jan. In fact, if it was for any other situation, doing so could cost me my head if Peter was keen of keeping his pride even for the sake of huge backlash from the n.o.ble community, and there wouldn"t be anything I could do about it!
"Get off his head. How would you react if it was you thinking that he was attempting to poison us? It would be the first occurrence when someone was aiming for our lives!"
One of the main profits of the situation was that despite being otherwise rather silent and polite, Elia suddenly found back her energy and was ready to fight off any bad words directed at me for the situation that occurred or any other reason while basically pus.h.i.+ng my entire arm so hard to her body as if she wanted to merge with me at once.
Thinking about this now, I had to admit that while I respected Jan as a person and politician, not to speak about how thankful I was for all the help he offered in my projects when the push came to shove, the only person I could think about was Elia.
It was the potential danger to her life that made me so bold in presence of royal representative, and I knew deep within my soul that if my misguided worried were to turn out to be true at that moment, I would have no qualms in cutting him down for as long as it would take for him to fess up where was the antidote!
"Don"t worry, don"t worry, beautiful. I"m not going to blame nor steal your dear husband, so you don"t need to choke his arm so hard! What will you do if his blood flow will be blocked?"
Instead of taking Elia"s reprimand to his heart, Jan only laughed even louder, to the point that people pa.s.sing by us as we walked on the street started looking at us as if we were in a dire need of meeting with local enforcement squad just to make sure no satanic heresy would soil those lands.
"Guys, calm down. Rather than bringing some shameful and recent memories, how about you tell me what you think about the deal in the first place."
While I considered my offer to be a great deal for all the sides included, especially with how I could use this opportunity to befriend the future King of Commonwealth who despite never learning the Polish language was considered one of the best rules this poor country ever had in its entire history and definitely the best-elected king out of all that drove the commonwealth into its dire situation.
Additionally, by forcing my intention to create a transit station at the border near the end of our negotiations, I made sure that by the time smaller steam horses would be created, or I could finally find some time to work on the blueprint for the turbine-based engine, I would have a perfect place to use it on a great scale!
Even before receiving any answer from my companions, I could see a constant stream of steam-powered s.h.i.+ps coursing through the white river from the Hungarian border all the way to Tarnow, where one of the biggest markets would be created, only to follow even further along the Vistula all the way to the city of Gdansk! (Danzig)
"It went surprisingly well. I think you somehow managed to convince him that building a road connecting all our lands could be considered a national project aimed at increasing the wealth and pride of every n.o.ble in the country!"
With Elia still driving on the energy, she got when she realised how far I was ready to go in order to protect her from any form of harm, she was sure to compliment me in the best way she would find plausible, and while it was a lovely feeling to get a cute, young woman like her fawning over me like that with the obvious prospects how would the day end between the two of us from the deep hunger in her eyes, this time it was Governor"s response that I wanted to hear.
"Honestly, this time I will have to agree with your wife. You managed to put forth the benefits for the entire country that he could flaunt to the king. If I were to be precise, the way in which you outlined all the reasons why you wanted to do this road and the other projects was a brilliant move. By focusing him on those aspects of the deal, you didn"t give Peter any chance to look deeper into the matter… but…"
Hearing the hesitation in Governor"s voice, I quickly connected the dots and finished for him.
"But we don"t know if he won"t realise those other points that I kept hidden when thinking about this entire matter. After all, getting any King to abolish custom on even the smallest part of the border? If not controlled properly, that would lead to a disaster!"
Just like I did with Peter, I lead the talks in the direction I wanted it to follow since there was still one point that I wasn"t so sure about but had to verify with the people living in this age. After all, what was rational in my mindset, wouldn"t necessarily look like that in theirs!
"But to fight that, I proposed this transit station. By pus.h.i.+ng all of this trade to the Tarnow, we can make a rule that all trade happening there is free from customs, but everyone profiting there has to pay a tax on their profit instead!"