The fee to appoint Shieldmaidens is based on the CK2 version. It's there to indicate that you are using that amount of gold to arm and supply your newly recognized shieldmaiden their gear and what not.

@Wolfskrieg requested this fee be removed.

You can quickly edit the mod to remove the fee by going into the mod files and commenting out one line.

1. First, find the folder where the mod is. This can be found in your steamapps folder, the path should be similar to the following:
   C:\..<where ever you install steam>..\steamapps\workshop\content\..<numbers indicating the game the mods are for>..\..<another series of numbers indicating the mod itself>..
   or with numbers
   C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\123456\123456789
2. To ensure you are working with the correct mod file, find the descriptor.mod and open it with Notepad or your text editor of choice. If it has the line
   name="Shieldmaidens"
   then you are in the correct folder.
   
3. Now that you're in the folder. Click down a couple folders from common > character_interactions
   
4. In character_interactions open up appoint_shieldmaiden_interaction.txt with Notepad
   
5. Look for the following line
   cost = { gold = appoint_shieldmaiden_cost }
   (it's line 348) and add a
   #
   in front of it
   
6. The line should look like this now
   #cost = { gold = appoint_shieldmaiden_cost }
7. Save the file
   
8. Boot up your game, no more fees

This makes it a bit more unbalanced so, use this with caution.