I Need a Kerrn or a Stentor ... can I take it as my one Free Relationship?

The subject says it all. If I need a Subordinate, can I use my one Free Relationship to acquire it, or do I have to spend the two required circle points? Note that the question is meaningful if all my other relationships are 1D (complicated or with the other side).

I’d say yes, it’s a relationship! But subordinates follow slightly different mechanics from other relationships, so I was wondering what everyone else thought (and what was the author’s intent!).

You may. It’s even done in the example in character burning!

Meant to answer this a long time ago. It’s actually the advice I gave my players when making their characters, since a beneficial relationship costs 2cps but an adversarial costs 1cp. So I told them to take their 2nd in commands or whatever as the free one, and their enemies as the costed one.