Approaching the capital city of the Goa Kingdom was a relief for several reasons. It was good to be done with your long journey, but also the state of the infrastructure leading up to the city was remarkably well cared for.

Some kingdoms didn't have the capacity to maintain their roadways, and some kingdoms let them rot unless they were paths commonly traveled by nobility or the Empire. Oftentimes the maintenance of such farm roads and trade routes fell to the people who needed them the most.

Between merchant-maintained and farmer-maintained, you found you preferred the latter over the former. Merchants would often opt to set up informal checkpoints, and while the fees could be manageable, sometimes the enforcers were not. Farmer maintained roads were often of better quality, since farmers would simply walk their livestock over the roads.

Repeatedly.

This made for remarkably smooth and wide roadways. The only downside being that these paths often reeked. But the stench of manure tended to be less headache than dealing with those who were full of it.

You hadn't traveled all the roads between Lulusia and Goa, but the roads between any two kingdoms were rarely traveled by nobility. As a rule, anything more than three days was worth the cost of magic, so any nobles who traveled by carriage further than that were either poor, miserly, or trying to win the favor of the masses.

Technically, you fell into none of the three categories, because you were neither important enough, nor powerful enough, to command the wealth that was associated with your name. But more to the point, a good infrastructure was a good sign.

You had no care for useless opulence, and no desire to deal with vapid royals. A functional kingdom was the sign of functional royalty, and that was the bare minimum you had hoped for. Most nobility married for politics, so you'd long since set aside the ideal of love, even more so when your father died. Your Uncle might not have loved you as warmly as your father had, but if this was how you could repay him then so be it.

None of this sat in your heart as malcontent. It was what it was, and you had only to make the best of what you could within those lines. It was far easier to find joy when those around you were competent.

Just inside the main city proper you found an inn. You had funds enough to put yourself and your small retinue up for a month of days, so it wasn't an issue to get everyone rooms and get them settled. Everyone was road-weary, your coachman and knights more so than yourself, you were sure. You provide each with ample funds to eat as they pleased, and to drink with consideration toward your destination the next day.

Small in number, but your Uncle did not send you to a new country with fools, and you were grateful for their collective competence. Something you would miss after tomorrow, since all four would take the long journey back to Lulusia. Another kingdom's knights would not be provided entry into Goa's castle, unless they were your own personal guards, and even then the King could deny them if he so desired.

Such an action would cause strain between the two lands, but as you did not have personal knights, it wasn't something for you to be worried about right now.

You paid handsomely for a hot bath to be brought up to your room and prepared. It wasn't an easy process, and an inn just inside the city gates wouldn't have many who would request it, but it was worth the cost. You cleaned most of the muck and grime of the last week off before even getting in the bath, making use of it to soak for a long while until you caved in and washed your hair.

Basic cantrips had kept you and your small entourage mostly clean during the long travel between Capital cities, but they had limits. Cantrips couldn't clean as well as proper baths, and the longer you went between one the harder it was to get accumulated grit and grim free. The week and change wasn't too terribly long, but you were used to bathing far more regularly, and could

With a bath at your disposal there was no reason to delve into anything more advanced. Another draw of cantrips was that they didn't leave any marks and were almost impossible to track, unlike advanced magic, which could draw unwanted attention. The restrictions upon it could also come back to bite you, so it was better to avoid even considering it until you were properly settled.

Simple clothing was your choice for the evening, and you went down into the inn's common areas to eat and relax. The best part about your upbringing was how you could easily fit into two very different worlds.

Life on the road wasn't about etiquette, and until you'd gone to your Uncle's castle, all you had learned about socializing was from fighters and rowdy tavern keeps and campfire gatherings. As long as you dressed down you weren't anything more than a young lady enjoying a meal after having traveled. It was unlikely someone would match you up with the noble who came in earlier - the very idea of nobility dressing down was taboo. Besides, all you wanted to do was eavesdrop for a couple hours while nursing some ale and a hot bowl or two of stew.

Most of it was expected. News about an expedition to the Northern border to cull the monsters. Those happened about once a month, depending on the ferocity of the beasts, and how much their bones were worth. There was some scattered chatter about how the Crown Prince's fiancée was due to arrive any day now from the kingdom of Lulusia, but no one seemed to say much beyond that.

It was good that there weren't any rumors about you or your cousin, but it was a little interesting how little the people were talking about the royal family of Goa at all. Some kingdoms barred commoners from speaking to nobles first, but no one barred them from speaking about nobles as far as you knew.

You weren't even sure how such a thing could be enforced. People would just start talking in code anyway, but there wasn't even a sense of that in the idle chatter of the inn.

Even if they weren't going to talk about concerns or joys or praise, commoners still gossiped the same as anyone else. You didn't hear them mention any other noble households, at least not directly. People mentioned some when they were talking about the expedition, but they were merely listing who was going and who wasn't.

Maybe the people were tense for some reason, related to the nobility or not, and it had trimmed down their desire to gossip. You drained the rest of your drink and were about to step away when a shout caught your attention. A small gesture from you kept the guards away - you weren't trying to draw attention to yourself.

"Say that again, you rat!" One man bellows, standing up, and over, the one who had raised his voice first.

The smaller man seems unbothered by the other's size, finishing off his drink before responding.

"I said yer a fool." He repeats, standing up and squaring off despite barely coming up to the first man's chest. "How could you think the Grand Duke would only take 'alf as many knights as usual fer any other reason 'dan the prince forced 'im?"

The taller man visibly bristles. "You'll call him the Crown Prince, as is proper!" He bellows. "An' he wouldn't put his brother in harm's way like that! The Duke's just too arrogant to ask fer extra help!"

Ah, that explains a lot, you muse to yourself.

There was a deep divide in the kingdom, at least among the commoners. People didn't gossip cause it was easy for it to turn into a squabble over the smallest things. Usually this sort of divide only happened when there was an impending war of succession on the horizon, but there were no other signs of it. The Grand Duke had no desire for the throne, and the Crown Prince would be solidified in his position the second he was officially engaged.

But these people were really passionate about their stances. Already the rumors you were aware of were proving to be at least slightly wrong. There wasn't any true malice in their bickerings, and they weren't referring to either party as cruel or unjust; whatever the cause for the divide was, it wasn't some sort of "good vs evil" situation.

That probably just made it more complicated, and drove the dividing lines deeper. Nebulous concepts often caused people to dig their heels in even deeper than objectively clear-cut ones.

"Yer precious lil' Prince can't even-."

"OI!" Someone else bellows over him, smacking the smaller man across the back of his head. "You mind yer tongue, or you're gonna lose it." He admonishes.

You knew the Crown Prince was adopted. It wasn't a secret, and maybe there was a point of contention among the people that made small concerns larger in their minds. Commoners could get more bull-headed about bloodlines than even some nobles. If you believed in the Divine Clause as something more divine and less legal, then a little fanaticism wasn't surprising.

Turning away and heading to your room, you wondered what it was that the Prince couldn't do.