PLAN IN MOTION

A whole month passed without further incident. During that time, Rollo left him alone and If not for the once in a while beating from Thrall, Joda would have sworn the house had left him alone.

At first, he had been puzzled why Rollo wasn't going for his head. Later he had been worried the Merchant's son was planning something even bigger and more painful for him. But after two weeks of waiting for something to happen which never did, he stopped worrying.

Instead, Joda spent his time exercising his new body in his prison. He was still being fed twice a day and the nourishment, although small for a growing body was still enough to help his muscles grow. Coupled with his daily martial arts training, Joda was no longer looking like the frail weak thing he was when he had been enslaved.

Rollo on the other hand had already set his plan in motion and was doing his best to make things perfect. He had stopped beating the insolent slave to give him a false sense of security and also because he really didn't have the time to. He had so much to do and so little time. The kingdom was planning to raid a samurai village and he had been asked to join the soldiers.

Luckily for Rollo, the raid wouldn't happen until after his plan had been executed so he didn't panic too much. What had made things difficult though was the daily training he had to attend to prepare for the raid. It left him little time to spend at home and even less time to worry about the filthy slave even though he really wanted to get him back for all his blatant disrespect.

Rollo used whatever time he had left from his daily training to butter up his father. Thrall didn't like Rollo as much as he liked his daughter. Rollo had been a troublesome child from birth and had brought him too much trouble than he cared to remember. If Rollo hadn't insulted someone, then he had beaten someone. If Rollo hadn't stolen from someone, then he had forced himself on someone.

All these mess took a lot of effort to clear up. Not to mention that it put quite the strain on Thrall's purse which was the deciding factor in Thrall and Rollo's strained relationship. A Merchant's biggest role was protecting his purse. Anything that threatened a Merchant's purse had to go, but since Thrall couldn't make his son "go", he had instead refused to humor him anymore. Rollo's behavior had put his business in far too many danger zones. He had once come very close to losing all his contacts because of Rollo and that had changed his behavior towards his son.

Rollo on the other hand hadn't cared much about his father. All he cared about was having fun whiles he still had his freedom. He had only toned down on his fun after his father had reduced his daily coins.

Rollo had raged and cursed for a long time but when his father refused to increase his coins, he had learned to live with what he had. His anger at his father had never been abated though and this had further strained their already weak relationship to the point where they could go weeks without seeing or speaking to each other.

Things would have continued this way if not for Rollo's desire to punish Joda. He was now trying to rebuild a relationship he had long given up on and it wasn't easy. Rollo needed his father's connection to get some people to attend his birthday where he hoped to put his plan in motion.

He would humiliate that slave by showing his superior skills, catch the eye of the authoritative figures he hoped his father would invite, and then mend he and his father's relationship once and for all at the same time. Three birds with one stone. A simple but brilliant plan. The only problem was that Thrall was proving difficult. He was refusing to invite the figures Rollo needed to witness him that day.

Thrall had very few favors left to cash in with the top figures in the town and didn't want to waste it on his troublesome son again. Especially not for some damn birthday. These people were mostly rich and very busy. And some of them even worked for the great Viking king in his castle.

Asking them to leave their duties for some child's birthday would be akin to ridiculing their duties which could bring trouble in the near future.

Still, Rollo refused to budge and kept pestering his father until Thrall had sent out invites in anger. He had taken particular care in wording said invites to inform the recipients that the occasion he was inviting them to was nothing important and that they were free to sit it out because he wasn't calling in any favors. As expected, all the people Thrall sent out his invites to sent him replies telling him how busy they were and how sorry they felt about letting him down. All of them stood him up except one.

It was the Royal trainer. His name was Orion, and everyone knew him as a very powerful man, third only to the royal couple. Thrall had no idea why such a powerful and busy person would want to waste his time on a middle-class Merchant's ceremony.

Thrall knew Orion and he had never expected him to even remember him much more grace his house with his presence since the Royal trainer owed him no favors. He had only sent him an invitation simply because it was the right thing to do. Thrall was very surprised but his surprise soon turned to scheming.

Maybe this foolish birthday wasn't such a waste after all. He could use this opportunity to get into the Royals' good books. Such a relationship would do wonders for him and his entire household in the future. It pained Thrall, but it would be best if he paid his foolish son's birthday party some real attention.

Rollo had been disappointed when his father told him that no one apart from his friends had accepted his invitation. Disappointment had later turned to anger and just when Rollo had been about to say something really nasty, his father told him the rest of the news. Rollo couldn't believe his ears.

The biggest fish of them all not counting the royals was coming to his party? This was even better than he had hoped for. Even him with his unfounded optimism had never thought for once that anyone from the king's Court would come to his party.

With Orion coming, he no longer cared for the others who had turned him down. All he needed to do was get in the Royal trainer's good books and he would be set for life. Rollo's birthday party was only a week away and as far as he was concerned, his preparation was over.

All that was left was for the servants to do their duty and for him to wait patiently for the day when he would put that filthy weakling in his place. Or so Rollo thought since he hadn't seen Joda in almost a month and so had no idea that the filthy weakling was growing faster than a poultry hen on the devil's weed.