Roland Green - Great King_s war

It didn't help allay his fears knowing that he'd done just about everything he could hope to do to improve Rylla's chances. He'd explained antiseptic theory to Mytron and some of the other temple priests of Dralm, as well as to the Chief Priestess of Yirtta Allmother. He would have taught it directly to the midwives, but they were even fussier about their guild privileges than the gunsmiths, who were still arguing whether or not bore-standardization for infantry muskets would infringe on their traditional rights! Taking lessons from a mere Great King was beneath the midwives' dignity.

At least they'd sworn to learn from Mytron and the others. If they didn't, all the guild privileges in the Six Kingdoms wouldn't save them. The midwives who attended Rylla were going to be clean and keep her clean if Kalvan had to stand over them through the whole birth with a pistol in each hand!

Kalvan pulled his hands out of Rylla's robe and looked at the maps on the north wall. It made him feel better to see something where he'd made a difference and would go on making one. He'd not only taught his General Staff to see maps as an important weapon, he'd established a Cartographic Office that was producing one complete set on deerskin and four smaller sets on parchment every week. The deerskin sets would go to the major castles, while the parchment ones went to the field regiments. With luck, every castle in Hos-Hostigos, every army commander, and most of the regiments would have maps before the campaigning season opened.

The first map was Hostigos-or Old Hostigos, now that it was the senior Princedom of a Great kingdom-Center County, the southern corner of Clinton County and all of Lycoming County south of the Bald Eagles. Hostigos Town was on the exact site of Bellefonte otherwhen, with Tarr-Hostigos guarding the pass through the Bald Eagles.

Then Hos-Hostigos, with its seven other Princedoms. Reading counterclockwise around Old Hostigos, from northeast to south, they were Nostor (a former enemy turned weak ally), Nyklos, Ulthor (with a port on Lake Erie), Kyblos (with its capital on the site of otherwhen Pittsburgh), Sask (another former enemy now turned into the gods-only-knew what kind of ally), Sashta (a new Princedom created originally as part of the alliance against Hostigos, which Kalvan had allowed to remain in existence as a favor to Sask and Beshta), and finally Beshta itself. That was the map Kalvan had studied most closely; he hoped he wouldn't need to do much if any fighting in Old Hostigos itself.

Finally, the map of the Six Kingdoms (including Hos-Hostigos). From north to south, they ran:

Hos-Zygros-New England and southeastern Canada to Lake Ontario;

Hos-Agrys-New York, southwestern Ontario and northern New Jersey.

Hos-Harphax (or what was left of it)-Eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and southern New Jersey;

Hos-Ktemnos-Virginia and North Carolina (the richest of the Great Kingdoms); and

Hos-Bletha-From South Carolina to the tip of Florida, part of Cuba, and as far west as Mobile Bay.

Kalvan didn't spare too much time for the Six Kingdoms map either; he'd long since decided it was a waste of time to worry about grand strategy for the war to overthrow Styphon's House. They didn't have enough intelligence about the enemy's plans, potential resources or high command-which for the time being meant the Inner Circle of Archpriests at Balph, the Holy City.

They might have been better off if the "Council of Trent" Styphon's Voice had called last autumn had been held in Harphax City as originally planned. Somebody must have realized that Harphax City was close enough to the borders of Hos-Hostigos to be full of Kalvan's spies, or at least people willing to sell him secrets for the right price. So they had moved the Council, Archpriests, bodyguards, baggage trains, old Uncle Tom Cobbley and all, to Styphon's House Upon Earth-the largest of the golden temples of Styphon. Balph was a two-industry town, trading and religion, with Styphon's House holding most of the cards. A mouse couldn't get in there without being vouched for by three upperpriests; Styphon's House might not understand the military value of security, but apparently it knew how to practice it.

Without knowing what was happening at Balph, it was impossible to tell if Styphon's House was going to step out from behind the Kings and Princes it had always used as front men and wage this war on its own. There were military advantages to either choice.

Making war by proxy was always risky; the proxies might develop minds of their own, as any number of Italian city-states had discovered with their condottieri. In fact, the cult of Galzar the Wargod encouraged a general brotherhood of all mercenaries and fighting men, and there was no way Styphon's House could do anything about that without appearing to declare war on Galzar Wolfhead.

Kalvan rather wished they would be that stupid; the war would be over by next winter if Styphon's House made enemies of enough mercenaries. However, he doubted that would happen. Supreme Priest Sesklos might be ninety-two winters (or ninety-five by his reckoning since the Zarthani did not name their children until they reached the age of three; a realistic acceptance of here-and-now hygiene and infant mortality) and past being a war leader, but some of the other Archpriests were said to be shrewd enough to head off militarily disastrous decisions.

On the other hand, the Kings and Princes might not be willing to be Styphon's front men anymore. They would now make their own fireseed, raise their own armies and go to war without the consent of Styphon's House. They still might need gold and silver to pay mercenaries if they wanted top troops. However, other people besides Styphon's House could now provide specie; Great King Kalvan I of Hos-Hostigos, for example.

Styphon's House could probably find a respectable force of allies if it were willing to pay enough, in both gold and power. Styphon was not a popular god, at least in the Northern Kingdoms. Few would fight for Styphon's House cheaply. The price of the rulers' aid might bring down Styphon's House as completely as any defeat in battle.

Except that then the countryside might be overrun by mercenaries whose employers could no longer pay them, living off the land, gradually turning into armed mobs and turning that land into a desert. The idea of the whole Atlantic seaboard winding up like Germany at the end of the Thirty Years' War turned Kalvan's stomach.

He reminded himself sharply that he was speculating much too far ahead of available intelligence and forced the nightmare out of his mind. What about the one man who would certainly fight Hos-Hostigos whether Styphon's House helped him or not?

King Kaiphranos of Hos-Harphax didn't care one whit whether Kalvan worshipped Styphon, Dralm, Galzar or water moccasins like some of the Sastragathi tribes. He did care that Kalvan was in rebellion against him, suborning the loyalty of his sworn Princes and generally committing treason, insurrection, usurpation, riot, robbery and spitting in the public streets. Proper Great Kings put down rebels, and even King Kaiphranos (known to all as Kaiphranos the Timid) considered himself a proper Great King.

What Kaiphranos thought and what he was were two different things. The man was well past seventy, and it was notorious throughout the Five Kingdoms that he'd always wanted to be a flute-maker. He'd never rule and now barely reigned. At best he drizzled. Left to his own feeble devices, he'd barely been able to rely on more than his own Royal Army of five thousand, less than half of it at all well trained or well armed.

His family was another matter. Kaiphranos had two sons, Philesteus and Selestros. Prince Philesteus, the elder, was a soldier with a reputation for courage, which would be more important than competence in the here-and-now army he was leading. Princes and barons loyal to Kaiphranos or wanting to get rich off the loot of Hos-Hostigos would follow him, and so would enough mercenary captains to make a useful difference.