The Porfian Princess: The Chronicles of Cornu Book 4

by L J Dalton Jr.

  When the celebration happened, the proud parents, Catrina and Mike, went out onto a balcony and showed the little guy to the crowd. There was cheering and foot-stomping. Jack was unimpressed and not happy with the noise, and he made his displeasure known.

  At first, Lauden seemed pretty interested in the new baby. He realized that this was somebody more his age. But since the baby didn’t get down and play, he quickly lost interest.

  The Porfian Dukes

  Duke Mako sat in his palace in Helike, thinking of what he can do and what he needed to do. When the tribute shipment from Koronus was intercepted, he realized that he would not receive any more tribute from that source. He was not overly surprised when Koronus was taken and Skelous was executed. The really alarming piece of news was the death of Samos.

  Mako had no doubt that Samos’ death was direct retribution and organized by King Menounos. It was the opening shot in the King breaking away from Porfian control. Once that happened, Gortyn would eventually slip from Porfian control as well. He felt it was between two and five years away. After that, the other two smaller cities would simply switch over. They couldn’t stand against the full power of the rest of Tantulus.

  This was all Leonades’ fault. He couldn’t continue as King; that was the simple truth. Removing him would free Porfia from the embargo and the economic harm it was doing. That would mean that they would have to withdraw from Tantulus. But they could either withdraw or be kicked out. The outcome was the same; just the means were different.

  He was sure that Duke Cadmael was thinking the same thoughts that he was. Together they could challenge the King. But it would be a close thing. They would have to rely on the heir, Bartrum, to eliminate his father when they assembled their men and marched on Peseus.

  To do that, he’d need to have more men, and he’d need to up the training of the men he had. His treasury could afford the additional expense. Leonades wasn’t the brightest, but he wasn’t stupid either. He would understand the danger that he was in and would increase the forces he had under him.

  Duke Mako would have to signal to the other Dukes what was going on. They’d need to plan. There was no way they could hide what they were doing from Leonades for long. Mako wasn’t sure what the King could do to threaten them; they were safe. If he moved sufficient forces to overcome one of them, the other could take the capital or trap his forces between the two of them.

  Finally, he sent an envoy with a cipher and some homing pigeons to Duke Cadmael in Larissa. The two of them were the most powerful dukes in the land, and the other two Dukes would follow their lead. He needed to start a conversation and keep it from becoming known to either the King or the Heir. He knew that they would eventually need to move against the King. It would be civil war, and he didn’t trust Prince Bartrum. He didn’t trust Duke Cadmael either. At the moment, their best interests are aligned. Later was another question.

  As time went on, he became more and more convinced that the ill-fated plan to attack the Nordian Royal family came from the heir. If the situation warranted it, he would stab his father in the back. There was little doubt about that. Of course, if either himself or Duke Cadmael fell in the insurrection, Bartrum would be there to pick up the pieces.

  Bartrum would play both himself and Duke Cadmael against each other. That had been the primary operating mode of the dynasty that ruled Porfia from the beginning. What else he would do was unknown.

  The wild card in all of this was the King himself. He wasn’t the brightest, but he was cunning. Could he see where things were going and do something to save himself? That would leave the country splintered. But Leonades would do that in a heartbeat to save himself.

  By sending his envoy, the die was cast. They could still go back, but that would leave them weakened in relation to the crown. He ordered the head of his Guard to increase their number by fifty percent and institute more rigorous training.

  When Duke Cadmael received the envoy from Duke Mako, he was pleased to see that Mako thought just like he did. Tantalus was lost, and the King had to pay for the loss.

  He’d already gathered a small group headed by his son and heir Eucleides. He considered this his war council. It consisted of only three people his son, the head of his Guard, Thero, and his cousin and most trusted advisor, Kasos. Kasos was the brains of the group. Cadmael gave him the cipher so that he could encrypt and decrypt messages.

  The cipher was deceptively simple yet difficult to break. It was based on a book. The date of the message written clearly at the top of the message lets the recipient know what page in the book to use. Then the first thirty unique letters were used to produce the substitution grid for the thirty letters in the Landian alphabet.

  The Envoy did know that Duke Mako was increasing the number of Guards that he had by fifty percent. Duke Cadmael ordered Thero to do the same and to increase training. He was also instructed to study how the rebels had overcome Skelous’ Guard and to see if anything could be copied from them.

  Cadmael and his war council met and discussed what needed to be done. That they would have to dispose of the King wasn’t a question. They needed to plan when and how. Colonel Thero felt that if they could assemble a force of between five and six thousand men, that would be sufficient to force the King’s removal. Cadmael was sure that the Heir, Bartrum, would remove his father the first chance that he got. His question was the same as Duke Mako’s, what could Leonades do to change the equation to his advantage.

  The one thing that came to mind was that he would eliminate Bartrum. It was what Cadmael would do if he suspected that his son, Eucleides, would move to replace him before his time. It appeared that Leonades had put too much trust into his heir. Bartrum effectively controlled the spymaster, which meant that Leonades only found out what Bartrum wanted him to know.

  The council studied the situation and agreed that as soon as Koronus was stabilized, King Menounos would move to take complete control of the capital. The Porfian advisors there now lived in fear for their lives. The number of Porfians in the Guard was insufficient to secure the capital. Eventually, all the Porfians would have to flee. The best guess was that it was no more than two years away.

  Once the capital was secured, then they would move on to Gortyn. There was no way it could be held without a significant loss of life. That would be unacceptable. Plus, if there weren’t slaughters of Porfians in Koronus or the capital, then the Porfian population would not be keen to fight to the end. They’d take what they could and head back to Porfia.

  Based on this analysis, they had between three and four years to prepare to take down the King. They’d have to be discreet. They wouldn’t trust the heir with any of this. If they could sow disinformation on what they were doing, that would help. They would claim that they were worried about an insurrection like the one that took down Skelous, and therefore they took action to save the country.

  Kasos studied the situation and then spoke to the war council. “That we will move against Leonades is a given; the question is when do we move?” The others nodded their agreement. Kasos went on. “Right now, we are putting times on when things will transpire in Tantulus. Those are our estimates, based in part on what we hope will happen.

  We must realize that those estimates may be too optimistic. Things could move a lot faster than we can imagine. I don’t think that we can wait until we’ve totally lost Tantulus to act. If we do, even Leonades could see the writing on the wall. We must move against him as soon as we are ready. We need to move quickly so that he cannot improve his position.”

  The others thought about that and reluctantly agreed that Kasos was correct. They may well have less time than they thought. The discussion then turned to what they could do to get ready to confront Leonades quicker.

  Leonades

  The King’s mother, Melita, was worried about her son and herself. She had been watching Bartrum and his mother Solara plot for a good long time. The plot against Nordia had come from that pair, and they’d convinc
ed Leonades that it was his plan. Melita knew that her son was vain enough for that to work. He had to see that Tantulus was lost, which would mean the Dukes would move against him.

  What he may have missed is that his heir wouldn’t hesitate to put the knife in his back at the first chance. She knew her son well enough that if she brought this up prematurely, he would dismiss it out of hand and then be too stubborn ever to admit it might be true. If her son fell, she would wind up in Bartrum’s harem under Solara’s thumb. She knew what she did to his brother’s mothers. That would be mild compared to the humiliations that she would endure. Solara was a vindictive bitch and was also inventive. She resolved to take her own life before she allowed that to happen.

  While his mother was secretly worried, Leonades was slowly coming to the conclusion that Tantulus was in danger of slipping out of Porfia’s hands. When he discussed this with his son and his spymaster Baron Edelhord, they assured him that while Koronus had been taken, the rest of the realm was firmly under their control. They also assured him that once the northern kingdoms gave up their efforts to punish Porfia, they would be able to take the city back. They urged him to play the long game.

  Leonades always enjoyed spending some time in the harem. There he did mention the fall of Koronus and the assurances that he’d gotten that they would be able to take it back when the northern kingdoms gave up. It took some very astute questions from his mother and a couple of other women in the harem he was fond of to make him question that assumption.

  That was the linchpin for many of his thoughts about the situation. One night after sex, he was talking to his mother. “You know, I am starting to wonder whether Bartrum and my spymaster are right about the situation in Koronus.”

  Melita saw her opening. “It never hurts to have more than one source of information, son. While your father relied on Nester on important things, he always made sure to have other people bring information to him so that he could compare it to what Nester was saying. Once or twice, he found Nester was mistaken, and it saved your father from making a serious mistake.”

  That got Leonades thinking. He knew that Pylenor had been a close friend and confidant of his late son, Rolond. Pylenor was part of a successful merchant family in Peseus. They had branches in all the cities in Porfia and Tantulus. He would know what was going on.

  Leonades invited him to the palace for lunch. At lunch, Leonades asked him about his business in Tantulus. Pylenor sighed. “Well, as I’m sure you’re aware, Your Majesty, Tantulus is a mess. We expect to lose our branch in Koronus within a year. What we will get for it is unclear. The new Duke isn’t going just to appropriate the businesses and give them to his citizens. He will force us to sell at a significantly reduced rate. He argues that we took them from their rightful owners, and then they were killed. So at least we’ll get something.

  He is, unfortunately, correct. However, we have done a lot of work to grow what we were given and expect proper compensation. We can hope, but rationally we need to plan to get very little.”

  Leonades probed further. “When the northerners give up on the idea of punishing us, then we can retake the city, and your business can be restored to you. Do you agree that this is possible? I need to know your honest opinion.”

  Pylenor didn’t think he would be in danger telling the King the truth, so he did. “I have to disagree with that, Your Majesty. The rebels that overthrew Duke Skelous were peasants that were trained in Sudlund by the Nordians. To put it simply, they mauled Duke Skelous’ Guard. While many of them will go back to being peasants again, there will be a core that will stay in the Guard. These former fighters can be recalled. I don’t see anyone wanting to spend the blood necessary to overcome them. That is assuming that the northerners do give up, which I think is unlikely.”

  The King was surprised and more than a little shocked. He managed to keep it off his face and looked curiously at Pylenor. “Tell me, Pylenor, what do you see in the rest of Tantulus?”

  “The same, Your Majesty, the same. It’s just the time scale is different. King Menounos is moving to take back the capital. I’m sure you heard about Samos.”

  “I was told that it was a robbery gone wrong. Do you disagree?”

  “I’m not sure who told you that, but very few people in the capital believe that. Samos and his son were killed in a very respectable part of town. Robberies and murders don’t occur there. Also, it wasn’t a robbery. Two people walked past them, and they left Samos and his son dead on the street. It was an assassination out and out; the wounds weren’t fatal. The knives were poisoned. It’s most likely that the King’s hand is behind this.

  The remainder of the Porfian advisors are staying away from the Palace and would leave if the King let them. He has let them know that they need to stay. He can overwhelm the Porfian contingent of the Guard anytime that he wants. They know that as well. If faced with an aggressive move by the King, they will leave.

  Our intelligence indicates that the King is waiting for the changes in Koronus to play out. If they are done peacefully, and there is no bloodshed, then he will move in Akari. It will make it easier; he doesn’t have the overwhelming force that Duke Harlold has in Koronus. He is bidding his time and seeing what will occur. We expect him to move in a year or two. A year after that, and we’ll be out of the capital as well.

  Then it is just Gortyn. Gortyn will fall if faced with a strong force arrayed against it. They can do what they did to Koronus. Their Guard can either come out and try and fight them, or they’ll surround the city and starve it out. Once Gortyn falls, the other two smaller cities will surrender. I expect that Gortyn will just see the inevitable and turn it over to whoever Menounos wants.”

  Leonades nodded. “King Menounos has no heir. Who will take over from him? Also, who will rule in Gortyn?”

  “Prince Arken of Sorbia is in Koronus now. It appears likely that he will succeed King Menounos. Princess Alla, King Menounos’ daughter, is joining in Prince Arken’s marriage. That will give him more legitimacy.

  As to Gortyn, the speculation is that they will bring in an experienced Duke. My guess is Duke Marvon of Centralia. He has no heir, and Princess Catrina is due to succeed him. They’ll simply move up the timetable, and he’ll come and take over Gortyn. That will provide a solid ruling group. Duke Harlold is going to marry the daughter of Duchess Morvinia. She was raised to be a ruler and will help Duke Harlold.

  This will change Tantulus. They will become more and more like the northern kingdoms. We’ll see some of their innovations brought into the kingdom.”

  The King thanked Pylenor for his insights, and they spent the rest of the meal talking about trade and what was going on in the merchant community. After Pylenor left, Leonades was deeply troubled. Was Pylenor’s information off, or was the information he was getting wrong?

  Over the next few weeks, he met with several prominent merchants over lunch. A couple of them had ties to Tantulus. They had equally pessimistic outlooks on the future of Tantulus. After this information, Leonades was convinced, the information that he was getting was wrong. The merchants' livelihoods depended on their knowledge of what was going on where they traded. While one could be wrong, it was unlikely that all of the large merchant houses were wrong.

  One night Leonades was relaxing in his harem. His mother had sent Issa, one of his favorites, to be with him. She always got him to talk and was intelligent. The King told her about the situation in Tantulus and how he wasn’t getting good information. Issa cuddled up to him. “Leonades, could this spymaster be betraying you?”

  It was a simple question, and he got to thinking. Later that evening, he sought out his mother and talked to her about it. “Son, who picked this spymaster?” She knew that Bartrum had picked the people who would vie for the position, but she wanted her son to realize it on his own.

  “Bartrum did. You don’t think that he is betraying me?”

  “It’s not unheard of, son. Of course, this Baron Edelhord could be in the employ
of one of your enemies.”

  Leonades thought about it for a couple of days. If Edelhord was conspiring with his son, that meant that at some time, his son would put a knife in his back. If he was in the employ of one of his enemies, he had to find out who. He would take the spymaster and make him talk. It was best that Bartrum not be in the capital when this was done.

  At their weekly lunch, Leonades told Bartrum that he needed to visit the Dukes. “Bartrum, this trouble in Tantulus may spill over into our realm. Duke Mako will be upset that Koronus is temporarily lost to us, and it will no longer send tribute to him. That is going to hurt him financially. You need to visit them and let them know what our spies have learned. It may be a few years away, but we will recover Koronus, and once again, they will pay tribute to Duke Mako.

  I don’t want to reduce our income from Tantulus, but if you feel it is necessary, offer a small percentage of it to Duke Mako.

  Oh, I’ll be increasing the number of men in the Guard. I feel that it’s essential to make a strong showing so that the others wouldn’t be tempted to attack us. I may be worrying about nothing, but better to be prepared than caught wanting.”

  Bartrum was secretly thrilled. He knew that the Dukes would move against his father. This would give him a chance to co-ordinate with them. Subtlety was the name of the game; he would be able to deny anything, and so would they. His father intended to deal with his spymaster once his son had left the city.

  Big Plans

  Mike was getting into the grove of being a parent. Jack was a well-behaved baby. Not much fussing or colic or any of the other horror stories he’d heard about. Jack was perfectly happy to sleep on his father or anyone who was holding him. There was no shortage of those people with parents, grandparents, great grandparents, an aunt, and a couple of uncles.