Imagine Warlord! Jaskier and Bodyguard! Geralt. Except neither of them know that’s what they are.
Jaskier is a viscount, and he inherits the estate shortly after meeting Geralt. He makes a few changes that first winter in Lettenhove, firstly being setting up a council to make decisions in his stead that will serve the people, made up of trusted advisors and peasants he can personally vouch for. Secondly, having no need for the coin himself, he insists that the majority of the collected taxes be invested into the education and support of his people, as well as put towards increasing the reward for the services of any witchers that need to be hired.
(Okay, so maybe he’s a bit biased, but he’s seen how much Geralt is paid on average to risk his life on contracts and finds it offensive that he can make double that some nights playing his lute in a warm, safe inn. It’s not right, and he refuses to encourage such backward practices.)
Jaskier returns the next winter, surprised to hear that he’s apparently gained new land and citizens. Apparently, the people of the neighboring estate practically begged to be taken in under the viscount, something about nasty lords who steal their food and money, and hearing that Lettenhove never lost loved ones to monsters.
Which was…not what Jaskier was planning when he put in the orders he had last year. But he should have considered the fact that most nobles were utter pieces of trash, really, and that it wouldn’t take long for word to spread that Lettenhove warmly welcomed witchers of all sorts. And he can’t exactly fault his advisors for sort of going to war with the nearby estate, especially considering it was a rather peaceful affair.
Apparently the lord paid his soldiers so pitifully that they simply refused to fight for him, and simply handed him over to be executed, his kin banished upon pain of death. Which, Jaskier thought was a bit extreme, until he heard exactly what the noble was spending so much coin on that he’d left his people starving.
Face pale and visage hard, Jaskier agreed to let his advisors do what they saw fit with those brought to them for punishment, on the grounds that adequate evidence was found condemning the guilty party.
And every year Jaskier returned, he grew less and less surprised to see that his once small estate had grown even larger. It got to the point, eventually, that Jaskier had to assign vassals to the farthest portions of his land. Not to mention he was forcibly plied with a xenovox from one of his mages—and since when did he have mages?—that he may continue to provide council and wisdom while on the Path for the other three seasons of the year.
It was rather annoying to have to do viscount work year-round, but he supposed if it was for the sake of his people, then it was a responsibility worth bearing. And while it did eat into his song-writing time, he found it wasn’t that much of a hassle to simply use the communication device when Geralt was on his hunts. The result was he wasn’t just sitting around bored while he waited for the witcher to be done anymore, and he didn’t come home in the winter to a mountain of paperwork. Really a two birds with one stone situation, if he thought about it.
And he was vaguely aware, in the way said bird adds twig after twig to make a nest, that he was accumulating a rather…large, amount of land. But what was he supposed to do? Start turning people away who were in desperate need of aid? Begin treating his own citizens like little more than cattle for slaughter, which is how most other nobles seemed to see peasants?
No no, there was really nothing for it. If those other lords wanted to keep their people, they should have been nicer.
Meanwhile, Geralt wasn’t completely oblivious that something had changed with his bard. He figured it had something to do with the new Warlord of Kerack, who had taken over enough of the kingdom for the king to have considered it an act of treason. He’d heard nothing definitive yet, but there were rumors of a war, of the king fearing his own soldiers would turn on him no matter how much money he promised them. Apparently, money didn’t do much good when it wasn’t enough to support the soldiers’ friends and families, who had suffered greatly at the cost of extravagant banquets and gaudy decor.
Geralt knew that Jaskier was some lower noble from the kingdom, and that he was likely worried about how his people would fair if the warlord targeted them next. The witcher also knew that while Jaskier didn’t care to live the life of a noble, stuck in a manor all day and being forced to sit through meeting after meeting, he did truly care for his people, if the eyebags and satisfied smile he wore every spring said anything.
Thus, Geralt was unsurprised when he had to defend the bard from more and more attacks, assassins and kidnappers intent on harming Jaskier, likely so that the warlord would have an easier time with taking over the man’s lands. After all, Jaskier had no (legitimate) children or siblings, making it far too simple for the warlord to control the bard’s lands as soon as he was gone.
Still, after the fourth attack in two weeks, by a particularly skilled group of hired mercenaries that almost got the better of the witcher, he decided that enough was enough. He couldn’t risk leaving the bard alone at this rate to take contracts, and he needed to know who he was dealing with to better protect his traveling companion.
So he used axii to interrogate the man he’d purposely left alive. Geralt actually gaped as the mercenary explained that he was hired by the king to take out Jaskier, who was apparently the very warlord Geralt was worried about harming the bard.
And Geralt was extremely pissed off that the bard had neglected to give him some very vital information about his identity, until a rather high pitched voice squeaked:
And the witcher had to move quite quickly to catch the bard as he passed out.
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