David Drake: Tyrant

For the first time Demansk could remember in weeks, the smile on his son-in-law's face seemed genuine. "To put it mildly. Especially when they find out that we've agreed to his definition of where the territory of the Reedbottoms ends — which is going to come as a big surprise to the Grayhills, I can assure you."

"Good," grunted Demansk. "Keep him busy the rest of his life fighting off the damn savages, instead of us having to do it. And hope that his successor isn't as capable as he is. Or—"

He waved his hand. "But that's for someone else to worry about, half a century from now. We can't solve every problem. Did he also agree to provide assistance for the, ah, 'settlers'?"

Adrian's smile widened. Demansk felt his own heart lighten a bit. Damn, I like this young man. He's almost managed to crowd Barrett's memory out. Far enough, anyway, that it doesn't ache all the time.

"Oh, by all means. Prelotta will be delighted to assist us in relocating the 'new settlers' to that big chunk of land we're taking for ourselves in the southern continent. Why not? If we fill up the territory between Kallinek's Wall and Demansk's Wall, it means we'll have to keep troops along the new wall to defend the new settlements. Leaves him free to use his own forces to keep encroaching on his neighbors."

"He had no problem with the status of the, ah, 'new settlers'? Most Vanberts would."

Adrian shook his head. "He could care less that they're all a bunch of ex-slaves. He's smart, Father. Smart enough, I'm sure, to understand that many of them will give up farming, soon enough — tough business, that, carving a farm out of wilderness — and start drifting into Reedbottom territory. Even the least-skilled freedman will know how to do something that barbarians don't. The Reedbottoms just wind up absorbing some new members into their tribe, which they've been doing for centuries anyway, and get another boost. On things like this, they're. ."

He let the words trail off. Demansk filled them in for him.

"Better than us. Oh, yes, son, let's not deny it. There was a time, you know — back when the 'First Twelve' were just a bunch of ambitious pig farmers — when we Vanberts knew how to do the same. Of course, they weren't the 'First Twelve' then, either."

He ran fingers through his beard. "All right. That leaves Franness. And I assume he wants the surrounding territory included as well. Create a solid stretch of Reedbottom territory that extends into the northern continent as well as the southern. And gives him a city he can call a 'capital' while keeping a straight face."

Adrian hesitated. Clearly enough, he was half expecting an eruption.

"Spit it out, Adrian. Knowing Prelotta, I'd figured out already he'd be brazen. I promise not to do more than curse him for five minutes or so. Not you."

Adrian told him. Demansk cursed for five minutes or so. But, true to his promise, did not heap any of the curses onto Adrian's head. Although he did, more than once, give his — his— idiot son-in-law! — a ferocious glare.

But, when it was all over, Demansk ceased stomping around and sat back down on the stool in his command bunker.

"All right," he rasped. "Since you already agreed, I'd be undermining family solidarity if I overruled you. Of all things, I can afford that least of all."

A deep breath. "Done."

The smile came back on Adrian's face. A bit gingerly, at first, as if it was testing the waters. But, soon enough, in full bloom.

"If it makes you feel any better, Father, I'm really not being a sentimentalist about the whole thing. Sure, I suppose I still feel a tad uncomfortable about the way I 'betrayed' Prelotta last year. But not much — and Prelotta himself seems to have laughed the whole thing off. I'm really thinking much more in terms of the future. Let Prelotta have a capital — a real city, with its baths and fleshpots; for that matter, its libraries — and you watch how long that 'barbarian vigor' will last."

Demansk grunted. Abstractly, he understood the logic. But, deep in his Vanbert bones — which were as concrete as bones always are — the logic grated on him. Conquerors took cities, damnation, they didn't give them away!

"Look at it this way, Father. You'll be mollifying all the matrons of Franness whom Prelotta forced to bathe him and his chiefs. Giving them a certain status after the fact. One thing to be forced to bathe filthy barbarians; another, to have done it for a proper vassal lord and his nobles."

Seeing Demansk's eyes widen, he chuckled. "Oh, yes. He carried out the threat. Apparently, in fact, he forced all the matrons of the city to do it."

Demansk's eyed widened further. He was trying to picture. .

"How did he fit them all in? Not even Vanbert has public baths big enough."

"In relays, according to the story I heard — all three versions of it, in fact. He must have ended up the cleanest man who ever lived. Not a single matron of the city tried to escape the obligation, since the alternative he gave them was to have their daughters raped. Or the matrons themselves, according to one version."

Demansk put on a very histrionic frown of disapproval. "Shameful! If the matrons had been properly virtuous, they could have killed the bastard from overwork." This was followed by an equally histrionic sigh. "But such, I'm afraid, is the reality of the times."

He planted his hands on his knees and rose. "Done, as I said. And, who knows, you may even be right about the end result. But that's the future. Right now the question is: which one of us gets to handle the outraged delegation from the proper citizens of Franness? Been Vanberts for a hundred and fifty years, you know. They are not going to be happy at their new status."

But Adrian's smile didn't waver in the least. "Oh, you should, Father. Absolutely. It won't be hard to handle. Not for you, as Paramount. It occurs to me. ."

* * *

And so it proved. Demansk listened to the voluble protests expressed by the delegation — who seemed to consist of every single member of the city's former council of notables — for not more than ten minutes. Then:

"Well, if you insist, I'll take Franness back into the Confederacy. But I was just trying to be merciful. As Prelotta's subjects, you've done nothing wrong." Here came a frown so histrionic it might have caused any actor to die from envy. "But as my citizens, I note that you surrendered the city to barbarians without so much as a single breach having been made in the wall — and them with no siege train worth talking about! Under the stern and ancient law of our forefathers — and that much has not changed — I have no alternative but to decree the decimation—"

But, by then, of course, wiser heads were beginning to prevail. Notable after notable recalling various virtues of Chief — no, King —Prelotta; others commenting wisely on the need not to embarrass the Paramount by having him rescind a decision already made public; still others suddenly noticing the trade possibilities, what with Franness — because of its new status, of course — being the natural provisioning center for, ah, settlers on their way to their new farmlands. One old notable, who apparently had some Emerald blood in his family tree, even began opining on the significance of the distinction between Being and Becoming.

* * *

Two nights later, King Prelotta threw a great feast for the Confederate grandees who came to pay their first official visit on Vanbert's new auxiliary nation. Paramount Triumvir Verice Demansk headed the list of guests, along with a splendid pantheon of his closest associates and relatives. No mention was made, of course, of the regiment of regulars who accompanied him into Franness; nor, needless to say, of the fact that the siege guns — still in place — were kept trained on the gates of the city throughout; nor, even, of the odd custom of the Triumvir of having his food tasted first by the King himself.