by John F. Carr
“Your father is Grand Duke of a Great Kingdom and don’t forget it, Captain. He doesn’t make deals with bastards!”
“Bastard I am and Captain I was, when last we met in Zygros City. Now, I’m Captain-General and prefer to be addressed as such by those enjoying my hospitality!”
Sestembar’s hand reached for his sword hilt until he realized where he was. “One day you will go too far.”
Phidestros leaned backwards in his highback chair and hooted with laughter.
Sestembar could feel the heat in his cheeks. He lowered his head and thought of the fun he would have breaking this upstart on the wheel in the deep dungeons of Tarr-Zygros. When he felt his composure return, he looked up and said, “It appears we have opened this meeting on the wrong note. If it is my fault, I apologize.” The last statement went down so hard he had to gulp back the bile that it brought up.
“I accept your apology, Count. We will not bring up the subject of rifles again while you are in my house.”
Sestembar gulped again and nodded his head, not trusting his voice. When his composure returned, he said, “I also have very important news to tell you. Your father insisted that I ride all the way from Zygros City to tell you in person.”
For the first time tonight, he had the younger man’s full attention.
“Your cousin First Prince Pariphon has died of the flux.”
Phidestros looked thoughtful. “The Heir of the throne of Hos-Zygros is dead. Does that make me or my father the next Heir?”
“Blasphemer! Bastard ingrate! I ought to run you--” Count Sestembar stopped pulling his sword out of its sheathe when Phidestros drew a pistol out of a hidden compartment inside the desk and cocked it. Even with death staring him in the face, Sestembar couldn’t help but wonder why Phidestros did not mention his own brother as the next Heir. Does he know something I don’t?
“Try that again, Count, and I will gladly splatter your tripes all over the wall!” He shot the pistol into the ceiling, filling the room with fireseed smoke and small pieces of falling plaster.
Sestembar carefully put his sword back into its scabbard.
There was a knock at the door. A voice boomed, “Need any help dragging the corpse out, Captain-General?”
Phidestros’ laughter filled the room. “The day I can’t haul my own dead is the day I retire and run this tavern.” He quickly reloaded the pistol.
There was the loud tramping of boots walking away on the plank floor.
“Look Sestembar, I’ve never liked you, or your pretensions. I know all about you and the slum you came from. Don’t rise up or I’ll shoot! You can give my father his congratulations. Now that Great King Sopharar’s only grandson is dead he is next in line to be the next Great King. If I were Sopharar, I’d hire a regiment of wine tasters.”
Sestembar couldn’t stop the growl that wrenched from his throat. “You ungrateful, puffed-up popinjay. You will fall on Kalvan’s blade as fast as you’ve risen. If you live a hundred winters, you will never be more than a shade of your father’s--”
“Please, Sestembar, I weary of your insults. Say what you must and leave before I give you to my men for their sport!”
Sestembar bit his tongue until he could taste the salt of his own blood. “As I said before, your father sends his congratulations upon your promotion.” He paused to clear his throat to keep from retching. “He also asks that you think well of him and consider accepting this gift--five hundred gold rakmars.”
He removed the swollen saddlebag from his weary shoulder and slung it at Phidestros.
Phidestros caught it as if it were a cannonball, then threw it back against Sestembar with such force that it knocked him off his stool and onto the floor, half dazed.
“Tell my father he can keep his blood money! I will not be bought or bribed. He will have to fight his own battles with Kalvan to get one of his rifles, if he still has the mettle. And, you old man, come again to Hos-Harphax at your peril.”
“You ungrateful whoreson! You’ve got airs just like your slut mother--”
Phidestros stood to his full height, his big hands clenching and unclenching. “My Mother was a Princess in her heart and in her actions. A Lady, she was--too good for the likes of you or that swine that calls himself my father!”
Phidestros banged his heel on the floor twice.
Sestembar shouted, “You’ve gone too far--”
The big red-haired captain opened the door again and marched in with two huge companions.
Phidestros pointed to the Count. “Geblon, take this bag of rubbish and throw it into the alley, before I wring his neck with my bare hands!”
“Gladly, sir. And what about this saddlebag,” he added, hefting it as though it were full of feathers.
“Pass it out among the men--the spoils of war!”
The three men laughed and the Count felt huge calloused hands grab his ankles. Sestembar tried to struggle, but to no avail. The soldiers bounced his head off the stairs as they dragged him down the staircase by the feet. He almost passed out twice. Have to keep my wits, or I’ll never escape!
Halfway down the stairway, Geblon paused to open the saddlebag and began showering the soldiers below with golden rakmars--enough gold to ransom a baron. In the riot that ensued, Sestembar always thought himself fortunate to escape from the One-Eyed Boar losing nothing more than his hat, jacket, and shirt.
Limping away from the alley, Sestembar was bruised from head to toe and promised himself revenge upon the ingrate for each and every insult. Phidestros, you will pay for this in blood and treasure! His rage and wounded pride were all that kept him warm until he reached his quarters, with four bruised knuckles and a broken arm--received when a thief attacked him with a cudgel. Sestembar had taken the blow on his left arm, disarmed the thief and beaten him to death with his own crude stick.
For a day that had started off so well, the killing was the only bright spot in an otherwise absolutely horrible evening. Worst of all Sestembar would have to replay it all again in detail to the Duke! Only the thought of all the gold Sestembar would make in his dealings with Hos-Hostigos gave him any solace. Yes, let Kalvan deal with Phidestros; Eudocles’ get was lucky, but like all things his good fortune would soon run its course. It was too bad he would not be there in person to savor that comeuppance.
II
Geblon knocked, then pushed the door open. “What was all that about, Captain?”
Phidestros smiled. “Payback. The Count came to inform me that my cousin had died.”
Geblon frowned. “Cousin?”
“You know that my father is Great King Sopharar’s brother, Duke Eudocles?”
Geblon shrugged. “I’ve heard the rumors and the two of you look very much alike ...”
“Well, they’re true. Eudocles was my father, although I did not learn of it until last winter.”
“Not a good father.”
“He has helped my career with gifts of gold from time to time through his intermediary, Count Sestembar. The men must have wondered why the paychests were never empty.”
Geblon smiled. “Yes, we did. For a while, we thought you were raking in gold rolling bones! But none of the boneshakers knew you.”
Phidestros laughed. “But, I want you to keep it to yourself. That’s an order.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t want this story on the streets.”
“Probably a good idea, since it might give Lysandros reason to suspect your loyalty.”
“Exactly. I don’t want him to suspect that I’m in my father’s purse!”
Geblon hooted! “That’s a good one. Not after what you did to that Count and his saddlebag!”
“That would read to the Great King as subterfuge. Lysandros doesn’t trust anyone because he’s a backstabber and a regicide. I suspect he fears that someone might do to him what he did to his older brother, Kaiphranos. I just pray to Galzar he’s not an oath-breaker, as well!”
“I haven’t heard him tarred with th
at brush,” Geblon said. “Although many a tongue in Harphax City has been wagged over how convenient the old King’s death was for Lysandros . . . But most of the suspicions have been aimed at Styphon’s House.”
“Always a good target, but maybe not the right one in Kaiphranos’ case ...”
“Well, like Kaiphranos, young Prince Pariphon, the heir to the Ivory Throne, died a most convenient death--at least, for my father.”
“You don’t think...”
“Lysandros and Archpriest Anaxthenes aren’t the only ones in the Five Kingdoms who know how to use little vials of poison. My father is as ambitious as Lysandros and far less squeamish!”
“Hmm.”
Phidestros paused to strike sparks with his tinderbox, blew the tinder aflame, lit a pine splinter and then his pipe. “Today was independence day. I turned down my father’s moneybox because I wanted him to know that I can’t be bought and I’m not about to play lapdog for my father’s ambitions--even if he may well be the next king of Hos-Zygros.”
Geblon whistled. “Well, after your heroic defeat of Prince Eltar you certainly don’t lack for willing ladies and well wishers. As Captain-General of Hos-Harphax, you don’t need your father’s charity, either. But what about his army?”
Phidestros shook his head. “We have no lack of bodies to throw at Kalvan’s guns. And I need no further debts to my father, who only found his son when he proved useful. Besides, I had Captain Lythrax follow Sestembar the moment I learned he’d arrived in the City. Lythrax saw him meet with a suspected Hostigi intelligencer.”
“Lysandros lets one of the Usurper’s agents run free in Harphax City!”
“Yes, it’s easier to follow a hawk in the sky than in a forest. My question is: Was this meeting my father’s idea, or Count Sestembar’s?”
Geblon shook his head wearily. “Things were much simpler before Kalvan came to Hostigos.”
“But not so interesting, or profitable. I don’t trust either Sestembar or my father; nor, I suspect, do they trust each other! When I return to Hos-Zygros, it won’t be to further my father s ambitions.”
III
This year the snowfall in Hostigos had been heavier than usual so Kalvan was unable to complete Royal Infantry bayonet training drills. Nor had the War of Three Kings allowed a demonstration of the new massed firepower tactics, since they’d been fighting barbarian armies of combined arms, including chariots, horse-archers, lancers and warriors of every stripe, including many that wouldn’t have been out of place on the battlefield of France under Edward III and the Black Prince at the Battle of Crecy!
It was the Royal Army pikemen who were giving Kalvan fits. They felt that using an arquebus or musket was a demotion; it was going to take time and success on the battlefield to convince them otherwise.
He’d had more success with the blacksmiths. His new leaf springs had made everyone happy, from the guild masters to the wagon drivers. The design had been based on the springs of a side-swiped Amish carriage he’d once attended to while a Pennsylvania State Trooper. No one had been badly hurt in the accident and he’d had ample opportunity to inspect the buggy’s undercarriage.
The leaves of the springs had been easy to duplicate, but it had taken over a year for the Hostigi blacksmiths to figure out how to connect the leaves at the end of the spring. Once they’d solved that problem, the local artisans were soon at work fitting the Conestoga-style wagons they used locally with springs. They’d even installed them on the Royal Coach. The springs would be a good source of export income the day the Fireseed Wars came to an end.
The new semaphore system was up and running, and he was able to send and receive messages to the Royal Army of Observation based in Beshta in less than an hour, instead of a day by way of pony express. Now they could follow the movement of Styphon’s Grand Host, as the Harphaxi were calling it now, when the campaign season arrived. The Hostigi army command would have as close to instantaneous communication with the Beshtan border as was possible here-and-now.
Styphon’s House had been a faster learner and nastier opponent than he had expected in the military department. Not only did they have good generals in Grand Master Soton and Captain-General Phidestros, but some of the best troops in the Seven Kingdoms in the Order of Zarthani Knights and the Sacred Squares of Hos-Ktemnos. Phidestros’ surprise capture of Tarr-Veblos had been a great propaganda victory for the Harphaxi as well as a big morale boost. Suddenly Great King Kalvan didn’t look invincible anymore, even though he’d been a couple hundred miles away when the castle had been taken. Of course, since when had truth taken a front seat to the Big Lie . . ?
It didn’t help that the war against Styphon’s House was taking a lot longer to wrap up than anyone had predicted, even on the other side of the divide. That Styphon’s House had deep pockets, with the Temple Treasury and Styphon’s Great Banking Houses, was no surprise. What Kalvan hadn’t expected was Styphon’s House initiating a Counter-Reformation in the guise of Archpriest Roxthar and his Holy Investigation, a brutal witch-hunt that echoed Torquemada’s Inquisition. The rumors were vile enough to make Kalvan and everyone else in Hostigos glad they lived a long way from Balph.
The recent illness of Sesklos, Styphon’s Own Voice, had hit the Inner Circle like bacon fat on a campfire. According to Skranga’s spy network in Balph, there was growing resistance to the Holy Investigation among the Inner Circle. Unfortunately, there was little good news for Kalvan with this development as both parties were intent on dismembering Hos-Hostigos and the ‘Daemon Kalvan’ should he be unlucky enough to survive the defeat of his forces.
The surprising news was reports of growing resistance among the normally placid inhabitants of Hos-Ktemnos towards the excesses of the Investigation. Unfortunately, it was too little and too late to help Hostigos. Great King Cleitharses’ reputation as a bookworm meant that he’d rubber stamp any proposal Styphon’s Inner Circle proposed regarding the forthcoming spring campaign. It was unfortunate for Hos-Hostigos that the Ktemnoi tercios, man for man, were the best troops in the old Five Kingdoms.
Kalvan was all for the venal and greedy Old Guard; they were easy to understand and counterattack. Reformers like Roxthar bred discontent and fanaticism. The Investigator’s excesses were worse than those of Savonarola, and it appeared to Kalvan that he had out-heroded Herod-- the tyrant who destroyed all the babes in Bethlehem. Hostigos needed a gung-ho Styphon’s House like it needed an outbreak of the Great Pox!
The Plague was another one of his ever-present worries, considering the sorry state of here-and-now hygiene. He had, with Rylla’s enthusiastic help, introduced soap to the middle and upper classes, but it was too expensive for the average Hostigi to buy. Once this war was over he was going to see that every Hostigi got ten acres, a plow and a bar of soap.
Outside, the wind howled past the tower. The fire blazed, and in the sudden illumination, Kalvan hefted the chunk of limestone from the nearby Heartridge Quarry and studied its surface as though it might reveal the key to how it was turned into Portland cement. He’d lived among cement buildings and driven over cement roadways, but he had not given any thought to how it was manufactured. Just a quick trip to the hardware store in Bellefonte to buy a bag of concrete: mix with sand, gravel and water--voila, cement!
He seemed to remember something about baking the limestone, but the new iron smelters had proved too hot. The limestone had to be ground into a powder, but they had gristmills for that. Thankfully, the waterwheel was commonplace here-and-now. Kalvan had given a lot of thought to introducing steam engines, but he had to be careful how quickly he accelerated the pace of mechanical innovation. The last thing he wanted to see was the lovely Pennsylvania countryside filled with smokestacks, sweathouses and tenements like Nineteenth Century London. It could happen--look at New Delhi or Hong Kong.
Maybe concrete wasn’t such a wonderful idea after all! Unfortunately, with the introduction of gunpowder and cannon shells he’d already released the Genie of Modern Technology. Maybe
he’d have to come up with some kind of atonement, like Albert Nobel with his Peace Prize, after the newspapers confused his brother’s death with his own and he got an ‘opportunity’ to read his own obituary. Somehow the Lord Kalvan Peace Prize didn’t have the same ring to it, not with here-and-now armies growing from late medieval minuscule numbers to the massed ranks of the Thirty Years’ War--all within the space of a few years!
Kalvan sometimes wondered what would have happened if the sideways time traveling machine had spit him out while he’d been stationed in Germany, during his remaining tour of duty after the Korean Armistice. Judging from the fact that there was no known contact with Europe or Asia, things must have taken a very different turn in Europe from his own world. It was possible that the Indo-Aryans, who’d migrated over the Himalayas through the Gobi desert and across the Aleutians, were the ones who’d settled Greece--the Dorians. He remembered his freshman history professor telling the class that the Shepherd Kings, the Hittites and even the Medes and Persians were Indo-Europeans. Had the ancestors of these civilizations bypassed the Middle East for a migration route to the New World? If so, how would this have changed the course of European/Middle Eastern history?--profoundly, if the civilization here in North America was any example.
The lack of contact between the Old World and the New World told him, using Occam’s Razor, that Europe was still in a pre-industrial state. He had heard rumors of a warlike people who lived in the far north of Hos-Zygros and spoke a strange tongue, which sounded similar to the Norsemen--but it was all hearsay. When the war with Styphon’s House was over he meant to travel as far as Labrador and find out for himself.