Banquet (Part One)

Romon left the Royal Palace in a carriage, with several empty carts following behind, and returned to the luxurious hotel where he was staying.

The room rates were painfully high, but the place was worth the money. If the owner dared charge that much, there had to be a reason.

Staying there made trips to and from the Royal Palace much easier. The Royal City might be called a city, but its sheer size dwarfed any ordinary county town. Visiting nobles who owned no property there generally stayed somewhere near the palace.

For one thing, it made audiences with the king and attendance at court banquets more convenient. Riding a carriage across the entire city whenever something came up was troublesome and wasted far too much time.

For another, the Royal City's highest-ranking nobles lived near the palace. At first, this arrangement had simply made it easier for the king and his ministers to discuss affairs.

The direct result, however, was that land near the Royal Palace had become astronomically expensive. Anyone without real power had no hope of buying any, much less opening a business or living there.

The closer a plot was to the palace, the more precious it became. Money alone could no longer buy it; ownership was a mark of status.

Emerald Street was where noble estates and the finest hotels and restaurants gathered. The district was vast enough to hold the homes of thirty percent of the Royal City's nobles, yet exclusive enough that only nobles dared stroll its streets at their leisure.

Those who lived on Emerald Street belonged to the upper reaches of the noble hierarchy. Lesser and middling nobles generally settled nearby or farther away.

Even a wealthy provincial noble like Romon was only a middling figure in this city crowded with