Münchhausen et al

Usage examples of barons.

For they would be fighting neighbouring armies under the gaze of barons, dukes, and kings, while most of the Western garrisons spent their time putting down bands of goblins and chasing outlaws under the supervision of swearing sergeants or the occasional officer.

Kethol, Pirojil and Durine getting their pay and getting themselves out of here, just as soon as this council of barons was over, and the ice had cleared in the south.

Everywhere he went, there seemed to be a plethora of baronial tabards, each bearing a different crest, although he knew that there were only a dozen or so barons that were fealty-bound to the Earl of LaMut.

For every landed baron, there appeared to be a couple of court barons, which meant there were dozens of squires, pages and other servants hurrying from one place to another, each wearing a mark or badge which he considered worthy of deference, but which was summarily ignored by everyone around him.

Kethol wondered if that was just to convince the locals the two court barons were there to keep an eye on each other or if they honestly disliked each other.

The other part of taxes seemed simple enough to him - the barons collected taxes, sent some to the Earl, who kept some and conveyed the rest to the Duke, who probably did the same thing and passed along a bit to King Rodric or Prince Erland.

Then, one by one, Steven Argent had a quick practice rapier bout with three of the other barons, including Morray.

Verheyen said, the last of the barons to repeat the words, in a voice that was just a trifle louder than necessary.

The estrangement if not hostility between the East and the West, represented here by the LaMutian barons on one side and by these two court barons on the other, was not going to be mended here, but it would be ignored for the time being, at least publicly.

Earl had been here, the obvious solution would be for the Earl to explain to the feuding barons that he viewed the present situation as a test of their own leadership abilities, and that he would remove any who flunked that test.

Tsurani: they would be here in LaMut, and barons at a council in LaMut would only have had their own personal guard, so any hostility between the various elements would have been a minor problem, rather than a serious threat.

Durine looked over towards where the nobles were, Steven Argent, Lady Mondegreen and Baron Morray were gone, leaving Barons Folson and Langahan to rejoin the other nobles on the far side of the room.

And yes, it had been important to separate the factions of these fractious barons in this once-in-a-lifetime combination of too many of the wrong troops in LaMut, too few of the right ones, and a blizzard locking them all in the city.

Steven Argent had just laid this matter in their hands, and gone downstairs to gather the remaining barons together for an impromptu council, and to announce that he had chosen Captains Kethol, Pirojil and Durine to investigate the murder of Baron Morray and Lady Mondegreen.

There was some grumbling, the other night, about the court barons getting the good suite.