John Carr - Siege of Tarr-Hostigos

"Yes, like the counterweights on a portcullis."

"Exactly, so I used the idea of counterweights on the carriage bed, only with a cannon instead of a drawbridge."

"Ingenious, old friend. I swear by the Wargod's Beard, this recoil gun carriage looks like one of Kalvan's wonders. Now, how many of them can you build by spring?"

Kyblannos looked crestfallen. "I can have eighteen six- and eight-pounders on Kalvan-style carriages ready by spring, and maybe four more on these recoiling ones." He held his hands out. "For these new recoil carriages, there's not enough time. They take three times as long to build as the Kalvan, I mean, new-style carriages, and we're still working out the kinks in the rigging."

"I was afraid of that. Do your best. I'm going to need all the mobile guns you can build for me. The Usurper's got the edge on us there, but maybe we can show him a surprise or two."

As Prince Ptosphes followed Cleon into Kalvan's private audience chamber, Kalvan couldn't help but notice how much the Prince had aged since his arrival here-and-now over three years ago. Ptosphes' hair was almost all gray and his goatee had turned from rusty gray to silver. His shoulders were no longer bowed, as they had been after the disaster at Tenabra, but his head still drooped. And something new, Ptosphes' breathing was noticeably louder.

"Have you been chasing after the Princess Demia again?" Demia had suddenly gone from tottering to sprinting and was wearing out the entire corps of Royal nursemaids.

Ptosphes answered his words with a smile that lit up his face. "No, it's those damn stairs. Have you noticed how they just keep getting steeper?"

"I've noticed," Kalvan answered. One of these days the war with Styphon's House was going to end and he would have time to get around to building the long delayed palace he'd been promising Rylla. Kalvan wasn't sure of the design yet, but he'd promised himself no more drafty castles and high stairwells. Tarr-Hostigos was not only impossible to heat but had staircases that were both too narrow and too high for comfortable climbing.

As the Prince lowered himself into a chair, Kalvan loaded his pipe, tamping down the leaf carefully so that none spilled. Styphon's House's ban on selling goods to Hos-Hostigos hadn't dried up the flow of trade, but it had raised the cost-especially of items that were made or grown, like tobacco, in the southern kingdoms. A big tobacco shipment had been confiscated two weeks ago by Hos-Harphax customs agents, which meant that tobacco was temporarily in short supply. Of course, Kalvan could have commandeered all the tobacco he wanted, but he made an attempt to share the lot of his people. He didn't want himself or his Princes to grow isolated the way the Tsars of Russia had: a course of action that had led to their eventual overthrow.

Ptosphes started speaking hesitantly as though he didn't want to offend his Great King. "I've gotten letters and visits from several important people who are most unhappy about the nomad children that have been arriving by the wagonload for the past few days. They want to know what your plans are concerning the Sastragathi orphans." The First Prince paused, his face blushing. "I think they're afraid you'll settle them here in Hostigos."

Kalvan reined in his temper. The fact that the children were mostly dark-skinned was implied but not spoken. The Zarthani had waged a war of ruthless extermination against the native Indians and had succeeded in eliminating them in the Five Kingdoms, except in the southernmost Kingdom of Hos-Bletha. The Indians, or Ruthani as they were called here-and-now, flourished on the Sea of Grass and to the south in Mexico and Central America where the cannibal Mexicotal ruled-about South America nothing was known.

Despite the Indians' disappearance several centuries ago in the Northern Kingdoms, there was still considerable prejudice against them. Kalvan had anticipated this problem and was having a large former baronial estate that had reverted to the crown refurbished as an orphanage. The Hostigos Town foundling homes and orphanages were already filled to bursting with children whose parents had died in Styphon's invasion in the Year of the Wolf. Any townspeople who wanted to adopt children had more Hostigi candidates than were wanted.

Instead, Kalvan decided to put the children under Royal protection; that would keep the townspeople from pestering them, but it still didn't solve the problem of what to do with what was becoming a wholesale migration of Ruthani children-seven wagons had arrived today alone. In fact, watching the first wagons had reminded Kalvan of stories about the Children's Crusades where the boys and girls who left Europe to fight the Infidel in Acre and Tripoli and re-take Jerusalem had been badly used. Most of them-those who hadn't died of disease or wounds-had ended up in chains and a life of enslavement by either their French and Venetian transporters or the Byzantines and Latins whom they'd come to protect.

"Let me level with you, Ptosphes. I'm taking these children to help my friend Warlord Sargos out of a bad bind, and because I know that if I don't take them no one else will, which will mean starvation and slavery for the majority of them. These are the children left behind by the Ruthani clans from the Sea of Grass, many of whose parents were exterminated by our army or the Zarthani Knights. So in a very real sense they are Our problem."

Ptosphes sighed. "I've seen them-a heartbreaking sight-small children, many in rags, who look like they haven't eaten a good meal in moons. Sadly, our townspeople don't share my feelings. Some believe we're harboring an enemy who will someday turn upon us, or invite their kin into Hostigos."

Kalvan nodded, then paused to light his pipe. "About what I expected. I'm only keeping them at the Royal barracks while the army is out on maneuvers. I don't intend to house them in Hostigos Town."

Ptosphes nodded. "Good. That news will take most of the heat out of the fire. There's no room here anyway."

"I agree. I'm having the Duke of Northgate's old estate rebuilt."

"Yes, he died in the Year of the Wolf with both his sons. Is it big enough?"

"It will be after I'm finished," he answered. "If necessary, I'll get the Army engineers involved."

Ptosphes nodded. "I would not want to see the children living in tents through the winter like so many new arrivals in Hostigos Town. When does Sargos want us to return the children?"

Kalvan shook his head. "He hasn't said so, but I don't think he wants, or expects, them back."

Ptosphes looked as if he were about to make a comment, but instead paused to take his pipe and tobacco pouch out of his pocket. He filled the barrel with tobacco and used his tinderbox to light a wooden splinter. As soon as the tobacco was lit, he drew deeply. Then he exhaled and, through a cloud of smoke said, "I know the Great Gods have given you wisdom beyond mere mortal men, but it will take more than a miracle for the people of Hostigos to understand why we should provide and care for what appears to be an army of Ruthani children."

"Army-" Kalvan jumped up from his chair and banged his desktop, spilling a clay bottle of ink. "Thank you, Ptosphes! That's it, Janissaries."

"Janissaries? What is that?" Prince Ptosphes had a puzzled look on his face.

"A Janissary was an elite soldier, who fought for the Turks-a great people far beyond the Cold Lands."

Ptosphes shook his head as though he had a hard time imagining anything beyond the lands of their ancestors. Zarthani myth cycles variously mentioned the Cold Lands as either a former home or land of the gods.

"Many winters ago the Great Kingdom of the Turks needed soldiers who were both loyal and fierce fighters, so they kidnapped tens of thousands of young children from the Balkan princedoms within their domain that refused to recognize their suzerainty." Kalvan didn't even attempt to go into the religious conflict and the fact that the Moslem Turks were 'kidnapping' Christian children and then raising them to fight in their homelands and abroad. If Styphon's House were ever able to raise fanatical armies the caliber of Moslem armies, his time as Great King of Hos-Hostigos would come to a very quick close. "The Turks raised these children to be among the most feared warriors of their age."