by Tony Roberts
One of the men, an elderly, rough looking man, pointed to the far south west. “And the rebels in Taboz? It threw off imperial allegiance two years ago. We need to bring it back into our realm, your majesty.”
“Taboz can wait,” Astiras said. “We don’t have the manpower to cover that as well. All we can do, gentlemen, is to hold onto what we have and send the field army into one place at a time.” He looked at the marker that had been placed on the map for the field army – a purple and white flag on top of a figure of an armoured knight. He wondered if his son would do what was expected of him. He damned well hoped so.
CHAPTER FOUR
The wind blew gently through the hair of Jorqel Koros. A tall, upright figure of a man, dark haired, bearded, with a strong square jaw, he looked the part of a general. Although young to command the imperial field army, it was something he felt he was born to do. He had been lucky to have had a father such as Astiras, who had made sure that, besides the usual courtly education all members of the imperial nobility received, he also got a good martial one too. That was something many families these days sadly neglected. They fought with words, not swords. All very well in the court, but when you’re facing an enemy intent on pillaging your towns, raping your women – and men in some cases – and taking everything you had, then you had to meet them with steel.
He stood on the edge of a hillock, facing east, allowing the breeze to ruffle his hair and to watch as the blood red sun rose over the distant Aester Sea, a glittering expanse of water that separated the empire into its two halves. He breathed in deeply. He felt good. The omens were good. Some of those with him had worried unduly over the past few days about events in the capital, Kastan, but Jorqel had no fears. If something had gone wrong, he’d’ve felt it.
He turned to the men who stood close by, waiting on his command. “A new day, a new era, gentlemen,” he said calmly. “If events go as I believe, then a message will arrive today from Kastan and my father. We must be ready to move. Go prepare the men.”
The men bowed and turned away to attend their various duties. One remained, a heavily armoured, sword-carrying man who looked as if he’d been hewn out of granite. “More practice today, General?”
“Practice, practice, practice,” Jorqel muttered testily. “No, Gavan, no practice today. Make sure the chargers are fed and watered and that the supplies are stored tidily on the wagons. I have a feeling in my bones we’re going to be moving. We’ve tarried here for too long.”
“Very good, sir. Where do you think we’ll be going?”
“Probably north, though don’t count on not getting an order to move west. I like the thought of testing the army against some Tybar canines. About time we gave them a sound beating.”
“With only five hundred and eighty men? Hardly a force of conquest, is it, sir?”
“It’s all we have, Gavan. We have inherited what our predecessors left after squandering the biggest army in the known world. Fools. Quality endures; no matter we’re a tiny force now, we can beat enemies twice our number, eh?”
“Of course, sir!” Gavan nodded, then left to pass on Jorqel’s orders. Jorqel sighed at the back of the bodyguard. These men all had faith in him to bring them a victory. Such responsibility. What did he have? A troop of the imperial bodyguard, with their armoured chargers. Shock troops, but ones to use only in an emergency. Lose them and you lose your most effective weapon. Other than that, he had two companies of spear infantry, the backbone of imperial armies these days, and two companies of the elite imperial archers. Archery was a feared weapon and the empire had prided itself on developing very highly trained archers. Because of the lack of money to train a large sword carrying infantry pool, they had relied more and more recently on cheaper spearmen, designed to hold an enemy along their front while the archers picked off the opposition at arm’s length, or send cavalry in to hit them on the flanks or behind. Poor souls, they were merely arrow fodder. But he’d trained them and trained them, taught them how to stand and face charging cavalry, how to turn in a moment, how to fight a withdrawal, how to form circles and so on. They may be arrow fodder, but they were damned well trained ones.
He looked around at the camp below him. A large circle, a sea of tents. Men were rousing themselves, ready to eat their breakfast or to perform their morning ablutions. Those on guard duty were yawning and stamping their feet restlessly. They’d done their bit through the dark of the night, and now were looking forward to filling their bellies and having a rest. Jorqel smiled and looked away, back to the east, over the rolling terrain to the distant glittering sea. He’d trained the men hard, but he felt it had been worth it. They were more confident now, and once more were taking pride in their profession. Under most of the recent emperors and their courts, the military had been looked down upon and allowed to wither. An absurd policy, Jorqel thought to himself. When the army was the only thing that kept the empire safe, why neglect it?
Recent courts had put more emphasis on the law, or merchant classes. Jorqel snorted in disgust. What was the point in putting time and effort into those things if the very fabric of the state was allowed to rot? Senior members of the military had been derided and over taxed, and starved of funds to allow them to train men. So now the army was a shadow of its former self. The stupid thing was that these very same emperors and courts then blamed the army for the shortcomings and cut them even more. Every defeat was blamed on the army and their leaders, even though they were fighting with inferior numbers and equipment. Generals were fired if they protested, and so the senior echelons of the military had become staffed by court toadies and sycophants who had absolutely no strategic or tactical knowledge.
What that had done was to create an arm of society almost universally mocked and derided. But one good thing had come of it; it had allowed people like Jorqel and his father to raise small well trained units to rout the rebel forces in the recent civil war, and so that finally there had been no force left to face them. Not that the court was unduly worried, they had blithely carried on as usual, not caring that there were now no longer any units left to stop anyone marching on the capital. All they cared for was to make money and to enforce the law for law’s sake. Jorqel’s lips twisted in contempt. Bureaucrats. How he hated them! About time the lawyers learned that they administered the law, not made it. If his father had indeed seized power as had been planned, then now he would be starting to change all that. It just remained for the messenger to bring him the first imperial order under his father’s regime. Now it would be the merchants who got taxed, rather than given tax avoidance permits from emperors who came from that class or had family interests in trade. For the first time in decades, a military family had made a bid for the throne. And if it had succeeded, then may the heavens help those blood suckers.
Jorqel took one last look at the eastern horizon, stretched, then turned about and walked back to camp, escorted by two stern looking men, members of his personal bodyguard.
____
The coronation had gone well, as expected, and Astiras had been crowned in the High Temple by Gaurel Burnas. There had been little in the way of pomp and ceremony however, for Astiras had announced there was little in the treasury and spending it on unnecessary ceremony was uncalled for, especially in the new era of austerity he had just announced. The people hadn’t liked that piece of news, for they now feared more taxes, taxes that had been put upon them more and more in recent years. What these taxes had gone into paying for was actually more expenditure in the upper reaches of society, more luxuries for the top few court members, palace officials, merchants and lawyers.
Astiras had called for a meeting in the throne room in the early evening after the coronation. All the top officials had been ordered – not requested – to attend. Astiras now sat on the throne, flanked by smaller chairs. One was for the empress, Isbel, the other supposed to be for the heir, but as he was not there, Amne had been allowed to sit in his place. She was pouting a little; her new clothes had still not been
made, and her father had warned her there was little in the treasury to spend on luxuries like that. She would be given an allowance, and could spend out of that, but if she spent it all quickly, then she would have to go without for the rest of the next sevenday or so.
The throne room was filling up; people thronged the chamber around the edges, leaving a clear place in front of the throne. Nobody had the courage to get that close to the new emperor. The chamber was huge, running the length of fifty chargers at least, and the width was perhaps a quarter of that. The middle part of the floor was covered in a thick red carpet that ran from the entryway, a pair of ornate gold leafed doors, all the way to the steps that led up to the dais the throne was placed upon. Behind the throne were screens, all of beautifully painted wood and decorated with hunting scenes and murals of the glorious past of the empire. People could stand behind these screens and peer out through the many small holes in them, and see the room beyond yet not be seen themselves.
To either side of the carpet the floor was decorated in colourful mosaics, and two parallel rows of pillars ran down the room, one either side of the carpet, which supported the huge roof which was lost in the gloom. Stout beams of wood could be seen holding it up, these beams in turn resting upon the upper portions of the columns; it was wonderfully balanced, so that the weight of one beam countered the weight of another. The faint smell of wax permeated the chamber; servants had been busy polishing the wood that morning.
One immense coloured glass window stood above the dais where the chamber ended, and the fading day outside cast its dying glow through the glass. Illumination was also being provided by countless candles and torches.
Standing to one side of the emperor was High Cleric Burnas, and on the other side Teduskis stood, sword in scabbard, watching each and every person arriving and taking up a place so as to hear what was to be said. Only the carpet was being kept clear, and members of the palace guard ensured this. One could arrive and depart via the carpeted area, but one could not remain standing there.
Finally the doors were closed by guards and the emperor stood, his sword also in his scabbard, just to remind everyone that he was a soldier-emperor. He fixed a stern gaze on the assembled group in front of him. Merchants, lawyers, court attendants, scribes, officials, civil servants, officers. All those who were needed to run the empire. All those who were needed to be given the proper instructions to run the empire properly. Astiras grimaced, then cleared his throat. “People of Kastan, we are about to enter a new age. A new age in the history of Kastania that generations to come will remember with fondness, with pride, with gratitude. Yesterday the era of retreat ended, and today marks the start of the fight back!”
He swung his gaze across the assembled people there. Many were still waiting for words that meant something certain to them; they didn’t want rhetoric. “Yesterday we examined the imperial treasury,” he paused, his own anger at the terrible state of the finances still bubbling away under the surface, “and we found that unless we stopped spending money on useless and pointless projects at once, then there would be no money left to spend on the important things for the rest of the year.”
Heads turned to look at each other. Behind and to the right of Astiras Isbel shifted in her seat. The lack of money had been reluctantly revealed by Frendicus and a couple of tired looking assistants that morning. Where previously there had been hundreds of thousands of furims – the gold coin standard used by the known world as well as their own regional coinage systems – there were now merely 5,000. The army had to be paid; the infrastructure had to be maintained, such as the road system or water supplies; wages for civil servants had to be found.
Astrias continued. “As head of state I will be setting an example to everyone. From now on there will be no overspending. No expenditure on frivolous items. And as a result, I do not expect to see any different from any of you. If I do see displays of wealth or other such ostentatious vulgar displays in public, be rest assured that Frendicus here and his army of tax collectors will be paying you a visit!”
There was a heavy silence in the chamber. People were looking at each other in dismay. Frendicus, standing a little distance off to the emperor’s left, rocked on his heels for a moment, pleased that he had been given more power by the new emperor. His tax collectors would soon be flooding out from the palace treasury to claw money from those able to pay, rather than spending and wasting their time rummaging round the houses and pockets of those unable to.
“Furthermore,” Astiras now switched his gaze to the wealthy looking merchants gathered in a group to the right. “Those tax exemptions granted to various persons and institutions in this city are at an end.” The chamber exploded into noisy protest.
Astiras drew his sword and stepped forward to the edge of the dais. “Silence!”
The sound faded and a sea of faces turned to him. The emperor placed the tip of his sword on the ground and leaned on it gently. “I do not want to hear of any excuse about not being able to pay. I do not want to hear any excuse about prior privileges. Those are at an end. Each and every business will be assessed thoroughly and ordered to pay whatever tax is fair. What is not fair is that the poor in this empire are expected to pay their taxes while you wallow in your wealth and bribe your way to exemption!” He stared at them, red-faced in indignant fury. “Your greed and stupid selfishness endangers this empire, and as emperor I take that as a direct attack on me and my realm. And if that is so, I will take that as an act of war! And that,” he whirled on a surprised High Cleric, “includes the temples and priests!”
High Cleric Burnas opened his mouth a few times, but made no sound. Finally he managed to speak. “But-but the arrangement between Temple and throne is clear…”
“What is clear to me, High Cleric,” Astiras growled, taking a couple of steps closer to the stunned cleric, swinging his sword lazily but with a clear threat, “is that in the past previous emperors have taken bribes from you in order to grant you and your temples a tax exemption. Take it from me that this arrangement is over. From now on you will pay that bribe in the form of tax to Frendicus here, plus whatever extra Mr Frendicus and his associates work out is owed by the priesthood to the Empire.”
“This is intolerable! It is a direct attack on the Temple! You run the risk of divine wrath! Your position on the throne is not yet secure, Astiras Koros, and to rouse the wrath of the Temple is to invite disaster!”
Astiras’ face went a deeper red. The veins stood out in his neck and on his temples. Isbel caught her breath; she’d rarely seen her husband lose his temper but when he did it was time to steer well clear of him. She looked briefly at Amne, but her daughter was only looking at her father, as amazed by the spectacle as her mother.
“Don’t talk to me of divine wrath, you scheming blood sucker!” Astiras thundered. “All the time you pocketed money that should have gone towards recruiting soldiers that may have kept the Tybar tribes back, or enabled us to garrison those towns and cities in the east we lost to Venn and Zilcia because there was nobody there to stop them! From now on you will do your duty to the empire and pay for the upkeep of the army.”
High Cleric Burnas’ mouth worked in frustration. “I shall preach from the Temple, and instruct my clerics to do the same from theirs, that you are an evil and should be cast out from this realm.”
Astiras lost his temper. Nobody could have expected, least of all Burnas, the swinging backhand from the emperor that blurred through the air and crashed into the cleric’s jaw, knocking him off his feet and sending his high hat flying through the air. The muffled thud of Burnas landing on the ground was drowned out by the clatter of his staff as it bounced down the steps to the chamber below.
Gasps and hushed exclamations skittered through the air, then were gone. Only silence could be heard, and it was heavy and menacing. Astiras loomed over the wide-eyed priest, his eyes two points of hot anger boring into the cringing man. “You are no longer welcome in my palace, High Cleric. You have assumed t
oo much from your privileged position that you can challenge the authority of the emperor. I believe there may be districts other than Kastan that need your – divine inspiration. You will leave Kastan and take up whatever post I decide is appropriate to you in the next few days. You will never – and I make this perfectly clear – you will never return to Kastan again!”
Burnas’ eyes switched to the assembly staring open-mouthed at the scene. He saw Vacan Fokis, one of the powerful Fokis family, and senior lawyer in the empire, standing at the front, and pleaded silently with him.
Vacan, a slim, neat man with oiled hair and clean shaven face, was acknowledged as the best lawyer in the empire, and he had the backing of the Fokis family, a family that in the past had provided the empire with emperors. But these days they preferred to manipulate behind the scenes rather than take the hot seat at the top. Better to run the empire through puppets than take the heat directly themselves. You could always throw away a broken puppet and get another. No matter that one of their own had recently led the revolt in Lodria and had set up his own self-declared kingship in the town of Slenna.
“I’m not sure legally you can depose the High Cleric, your majesty,” he began, his controlled baritone voice oozing that correct mixture of arrogance and contempt lawyers who believed they were right the known world over seemed to display.
Astiras swung round. He was glad the man had spoken for it now gave him the perfect pretext to launch his attack on the class of people he saw as the root of the problems in the empire. “Don’t you speak to me of the law,” he growled. “You are a lawyer; I am emperor. Tell me, lawyer – who makes the laws in the Kastanian Empire?”
Vacan was aware of everyone’s eyes on him. He cleared his throat. “Technically, your majesty, the emperor, but as we all know your duties are far too onerous and the trivial matter of the law should be left to those who are best qualified to administer it and carry out its functions.”