Robert Adams - Swords of the Horseclans

Frowning, Milo toyed with his signet. “Probably Harzburk, before it’s done.”

“Harzburk?” she exclaimed. “But the king is your friend, your ally. He sent the second largest body of troops that came from the Middle Kingdoms.”

“The King of Harzburk was never my ally, Mara, and I don’t think he has ever had a friend,” stated Milo. “The only reason he sent me troops was because of his overweening pride and his hereditary enmity toward the Kingdom of Pitzburk, by whom he could not bear to be publicly outdone!

“His goddamned nobles are the reason for it all. They outnumbered the band of Pitzburk nobles and I had to place them at opposite ends of the camp to prevent trouble, even before Zastros’ host arrived. Then, when the Southern Council and I had arranged for the withdrawal of their army, those damned fool Middle Kingdoms’ fire-eaters rode a little way out of camp and commenced a goddamned pitched battle! If I’d let them, they’d have merrily chopped each other into blood pudding.”

“But that’s childish,” Mara observed. “Why would hundreds of grown men fight for no reason?”

Milo’s shoulders rose and fell. “Their kingdoms are hereditary enemies, Mara. I suppose it’s in their blood. Why do dogs and cats always fight?”

“Because they’re both predators,” answered Mara. “Well, you’ll search long and hard to find two more predatory principalities than those two, Mara. I brought their melee to a stop by surrounding them with ten thousand mounted and fully armed dragoons, mostly Freefighters with some Kuhmbuhluhners mixed in, arrowing a few of them to get their attention, then threatening to slaughter every manjack of them if they didn’t put up their steel.

“The next morning, I set the Pitzburkers on the march, wounded and all. I sent along Captain Mai and three thousand Freefighter dragoons to ‘guide’ them and see to it that they switched over to the western trade road at Klahkspolis.

“Hardly were they out of camp than those damned Harzburkers had provoked a skirmish with the Eeree nobility. I was out of the castra at the time, riding a few miles with Mai and the Pitzburkers, so Greemos and Duke Djefree did the same thing I’d done the day before, except they weren’t as careful. They didn’t just put arrows into legs and targets and horses—they shot to kill. One of the men they killed was one of King Kahl’s many bastards.”

Mara groaned. “So now you feel Harzburk will declare war on the Confederation?”

Milo shook his head. “Oh, no, not that sly old buzzard. He’s called The Fox King’ for good reason, though he doesn’t quite understand how our Confederation works.

“As you know, Kuhmbuhluhn and Tchaimbuhsburk have boundary disputes that go back decades, but Kuhmbuhluhn’s had very little trouble with Getzburk and no one can remember any with Yorkburk; yet all three principalities—well-known satellites of Harzburk—have sent heralds to the Duke at Haiguhsburk declaring war, to commence in the spring, as do most Middle Kingdoms’ wars.

“Both the Duke and I are convinced that Harzburk is behind these declarations.”

Mara tilted her head. “But why doesn’t King Kahl just attack Kuhmbuhluhn himself if his people are so fond of fighting?”

“Well, for one thing,” said Milo, “because he’s not so honest and uncomplicated as you, love. For another, because if he were openly to attack a smaller state, his rival—Pitzburk—would attack him.”

“Oh, so Pitzburk is our ally?” she asked, then answered, “Yes, that’s right, they were the first to send us troops.”

“No,” Milo explained patiently. “Pitzburk sent us troops because we’re good customers; the Pitzburkers are no more allies than are the Harzburkers.”

Frowning with concentration, she finally shook her head sadly. “I’m sorry, Milo, I simply don’t understand it all. If Pitzburk isn’t our ally, then why would they attack Harzburk if Harzburk were to attack Kuhnbuhluhn?”

Milo drew himself up. “All right, children, tonight’s lesson will concern the Middle Kingdoms. These lands are bounded on the south by the river that we call Vohre-heeos, on the west by the Sea of Eeree, on the north by the Black Kingdoms and …”

“Oh, stop it, Milo!” she burst out. “Stop teasing me and tell me the answer to my question.”

He grinned. “I’m trying to, woman, just stop interrupting. Up until the disruptions of the Great Earthquake, three-hundred fifty-odd years ago, the Middle Kingdoms were just that—three big kingdoms: Harzburk in the east; Pitzburk in the west; and Eeree in the north. Subsequent to the disasters of the quake and the subsidence of large chunks of Harzburk and Eeree, these kingdoms fragmented into the beginning of the jumbled patchwork of domains we see today.

“Not having suffered damages equal to those of the other kingdoms, Pitzburk reorganized faster and not only reconquered its breakaway areas, but marched on to subjugate a good half of Harzburk, as well. Frightened by the growing size and strength of Pitzburk, Eeree joined with the unconquered Harzburkers, after about ten years, and the combined armies drove the Pitzburk forces all the way back to their own capital and besieged it there.

“That siege lasted nearly two years and might have finally succeeded, had not several things happened almost simultaneously. Having stripped the surrounding countryside bare, the besiegers ran out of food and began to fight each other, but the Pitzburkers were in such bad shape that they were unable to take advantage of the situation and break the siege. Then an army from north of the Sea of Eeree laid siege to Eereeburk at the same time that large-scale rebellions erupted in Harzburk; so both armies hurried home.

“The King of Pitzburk had died -during the siege and only the common enemy had held the nobles together; with the enemy gone, all hell broke loose in the western kingdom.

“So, what do we have today? There are only two actual kingdoms, Eeree having become a republic; but, though much shrunken in area, Harzburk, Eeree, and Pitzburk are still the major powers in the Middle Kingdoms. Then there are the great duchies. There were sixteen of them before Kuhmbuhluhn joined our Confederation, but all of the remaining ones are in some ways connected to one or the other of the Big Three. Next come the small fries, and some of them are really small, Mara, tiny; but all are more or less independent states and most are ruled by a hereditary nobility—peacock-proud and boasting a veritable catalogue of grandiose titles.”

Mara breathed a long, long sigh, saying tiredly, resignedly, “Husband, when are you going to tell me why Pitzburk will attack Harzburk if Harzburk attacks Kuhmbuhluhn?”

Pointedly ignoring this, Milo simply continued. “You and most of the Ehleenoee were horrified that the civil war that racked and wrecked the Southern Kingdom lasted for five years, yet almost the same thing has been going on in the Middle Kingdoms for over three hundred years.”

“But that’s different, Milo,” Mara interjected. “After all, the Southern Kingdom is an Ehleen kingdom, a civilized realm, while the Middle Kingdoms are only an aggregation of brawling barbarians, little higher culturally than the mountain tribes.”

“Wrong!” Milo asserted. “Wrong on several counts, Mara. First of all, although the peoples of the Middle Kingdoms and the peoples of the mountain tribes are of the same race, there is a vast cultural gap between them; in fact, it is you Ehleenoee whose culture bears the closest similarity to the mountaineers.”

Mara sat up quickly, bristling, her black eyes flashing. “I’ll take just so much, Milo, even from you!”

He raised his hand in the gesture of peace. “Hold on, dear, let me explain. What I just said is not completely true, not now, anyway, but it was true as little as thirty-odd years ago. Why do you think I directed the tribe here, rather than to the Middle Kingdoms or the Black Kingdoms or Kehnooryos Mahkehdohnya? Because in warfare, as in too many other aspects, the culture of all the southern Ehleenoee was a static culture, as the culture of the mountain peoples is a static culture.”