Robert Adams - Trumpets of War

“And then there’s Thoheeks Theodoros, too; what a precious pair of obstructionists those two make in Council. At best, Theodoros is but the dregs of a vintage the best of which was of questionable merit.

One would think that he might have learned something from the examples of his sire and his elder brothers, but he is every bit as despotically minded as were any of them. His latest brainstorm was to suggest a law which would forbid, under penalty of enslavement to the state, the ownership of bows or crossbows by any man not in either the army or the employ of some nobleman or himself a nobleman, which is pure poppycock to any rational man.

“But worse than that, he visibly cringes at the mention of monies to be spent on the army and its needs. And he seems to be of theopinion that were we to surrender all of the border marches to the barbarians, they would leave us in peace forever. Had he ever been a warrior, I might think that he’d taken one too many blows to the helm; as it is, I’m of the mind that his wet nurse must have dropped him on his head.

“The one, saving grace is that neither of them is a spring chicken. Theodoros is almost my own age and Tipos is a good ten years my senior, so they won’t—God willing—be around to bedevil Mahvros for too much longer. Mayhap their heirs will be of sound mind, though in the case of Theodoros, I much fear that it’s in the bloodline of his house.

“Tipos, now, lacks an heir of direct line to succeed him. I would imagine he’ll name his young catamite, but Council is in no way bound to confirm that young man. Perhaps he has a nephew or a grandnephew or two of unselfish nature and open mind. We’ll see.

“But back to thinking about those who had soldiered here and have then been persuaded to stay on, I consider it a real accomplishment to have gotten Guhsz Hehluh not only to accept a vahrohnoseeahn in one of my duchies, but to also take to pensioning off wounded men of his regiment in others of my lands and cities and towns to seek wives and establish crafts and trades and businesses, few of them seeming to be inclined toward agriculture or animal husbandry. But with the way the mountain barbarians are flocking in at the offer of free land to farm and the way the Horseclanners who’ve stayed here all seem dead set on a life of breeding cattle or horses or sheep or, in the cases of Gil Djohnz and a couple of others, elephants, we’ll probably have enough folk to till the lands and produce beasts for us, shortly.

“And those pensioned-out Middle Kingdoms men are doing really great things for us all, producing items that have never before been made here, things that we’ve always had to buy at vastly inflated prices from the traveling traders. Not only that, they’re developing, introducing new ways of doing mundane things, easier, more economical ways. Their coming has put new vitality and drive into every trade and craft and business in my lands.

“Naturally, they haven’t made the more old-fashioned native tradesmen and craftsmen any too happy, but it’s just as I told the deputation of them—if they want to stay in their chosen fields, they’ll just have to ape the practices and quality of products of their new competition. And that damned Kooreeos Ahndraios, who came to me blustering and issuing veiled threats because the Middle Kingdoms men who have taken to lending money here and there are offering it at better terms and lower interests than the Holy Church ever has; well, he may have, like the month of Mahrteeos, come in like a lion, but after he’d heard my thoughts on the matter, he left like a cross between a lamb and a well-whipped cur-dog, soaking his oiled beard with his tears. The Church has never had even a scintilla of competition in that field ere this, and if he and the Church intend to stay in the profession of usury, they are just going to have to match or better the terms and rates now being offered by these newcomers, that’s all there is to it.

“Moreover, I promised the sanctimonious old fraud that should he sic any of that pack of ruffians he dignifies with the name ‘Knights of the Ancient Ehleen Faith’ on his new competition, I and the Council will do with them and him and all the other kooreeohsee precisely as High Lord Milos and King Zenos did with their like in the other Ehleen provinces of our Confederation—disband the ‘Knights’ (I’ve always thought the Church bullies called that because nighttime is when they ride to do their worst, being ashamed or afraid to show their faces in sunlight), round up the kooreeohsee, declare them all to be slaves of the state and put them to work on the roads or the rebuilding of city walls.

“But when I mentioned that I thought it was high time that agents of Council have an in-depth look at the tally sheets and books of records of all of the kooreeohseeahnee, throughout the realm, I then honestly thought that the old bastard was going into an apoplectic fit, then and there. Hmmm, maybe it might be wise to do just that. I’m sure that for all their holy-mouthing, these priests and kooreeohsee are as crooked as any other set of thieves in all the lands, and the amounts of illegally earned gold and silver that the High Lord and King Zenos were able to reclaim for their treasuries would surely be of great value to our own more modest one.

“I think I know just the man to put to the job of finding out just how much Holy Church is hiding, just how many fingers there are in just how many pies, just how many businesses of how many differing kinds are being funded with Church monies; and I think that this man will undertake this particular mission as a labor of love, too, for he has scant reason to love the Church and more than enough to truly hate it and all its clergy.”

Stehrgiahnos Papandraios had been so ill when he stumbled, filthy, bearded, long-haired and miserable in his heavy, clanking chains, out of the cage in which he and his two fellow unfortunates had been borne all the weary, dusty, bumpy miles from Kahlkopolis to Mehseepolis that he was not even put up for sale with them, because everyone thought him to be dying, and he very nearly did do just that.

Deep in fever as he then had been, he recalled only bits and pieces of someone’s having come into the slave pens, sought him out where he lay shivering and moaning, with his teeth chattering, and carried him out and away. He recalled only snatches of being bathed, shaved from pate to ankles, then bathed again and thoroughly deloused. Under skillful and careful nursing and feeding and care, he slowly regained his health, and that was when he began to wonder why anyone had taken such interest, invested so much in a state prisoner sure to be soon condemned either to a quick, relatively merciful death or to a longer and far less merciful one slaving away on road-building projects; that was where his two cagemates had been taken.

Then, of a day, when the last of the fever had departed and the worms had been purged from out his intestines, he was decently if rather plainly clothed and led from the spartanly furnished bedroom through a succession of corridors, up stairs, down stairs, and into and out of richly decorated rooms to finally find himself standing before a late-middle-aged nobleman seated in what looked to be a small study and writing room. While the seated man studied Stehrgiahnos with a pair of piercing black eyes, the slave studied him every bit as assiduously.

What he saw was a stocky, powerful-looking man of a bit over middle height for an Ehleen. From his facial looks and his frame, he was most clearly of pure Ehleen stock, from his dress and bearing a nobleman, probably a high-ranking one—at least a komees, maybe even a thoheeks, thought Stehrgiahnos—and from his scars and the little bits and pieces of him missing here and there a veteran warrior. His black hair and beard were now heavily streaked with grey, wrinkles now furrowed his brow like a well-plowed field, and brown age spots were beginning to make their appearances on his muscular forearms and the backs of his big hands.