Great Kings' War

by John F. Carr

  "He must be the Knight's oath-brother," Nicomoth said, kneeling and pulling the dead man's cap over his face.

  "He doesn't look Zarthani," Kalvan said.

  "He is probably from one of the Ruthani tribes who live by hunting and fishing in the swamps of Hos-Bletha, Your Majesty. Some of them have turned to the worship of the True Gods and their warriors often serve the Zarthani Knights as scouts. Then they may swear oath-brotherhood with a Knight and he with them. To abandon an oath-brother is a crime no Zarthani Knight's honor would allow."

  Counting the possible Zarthani Knight and his oath-brother, the raiders had lost seven dead and one badly wounded prisoner. In return for two Hostigi dead and one wounded, plus two horses dead and four injured. Allowing for what losses the village may have suffered, the day appeared to have gone to Hos-Hostigos. Kalvan felt good about that.

  He felt almost as good about the simple chance to be in action again, able to fight his enemies with a sword and a pistol instead of parchment, pen and sealing wax. A Great King had to use more of the second than of the first, of course, but Kalvan knew he wasn't going to be happy doing all of his leading from behind a desk.

  By the time Kalvan's men had picked up the bodies, the wagon train was up to the village and Count Phrames himself had ridden in from the opposite direction—regular Hostigi cavalry, mercenaries and a handful of tattooed Sastragathi on horses that looked more fit for the soup pot than for the field of battle. Kalvan made a mental note to ask where the Sastragathi had come from, then a more urgent note to get at least some of the mounted men out of the village. The villagers' defenders now considerably out-numbered the villagers themselves; they were in as much danger of being trampled by their friends as they had ever been endangered from their hit-and-run enemies.

  Kalvan gave his men the order to clear the streets of villagers, then rode over to ask Prince Phrames for an escort.

  "By all means, Your Majesty," Phrames replied. "I'll send twenty of my men with your Guardsmen and you can all ride over to Tarr-Locra in time for dinner. I'll follow as soon as I've heard the villagers on what they've lost and told off some men to help them re-build. Phrames raised his voice. "We can't give back everything they've lost, but we can add it to the debt the Harphaxi are going to pay when we come to grips with them."

  A lot of cheering followed that last sentence.

  Kalvan turned his horse leaving Phrames to ride over to the largest unburned house and knocked on the door with his pistol butt. With Phrames on the scene, there was nothing more to worry about. Correction. There was nothing more to worry about in this village, or today. There was a Styphon's Own Lot to worry about if Zarthani Knights were coming north so soon. Six might just be scouts, learning the countryside and Hostigi tactics, but what would they be scouting for except a larger body—and where were they?

  Kalvan wracked his brains all the way to Tarr-Locra without coming up with a reassuring answer to that question.

  II

  Captain General Harmakros' page poured more wine into both men's cups, bowed and stepped back. Kalvan sipped at his, trying to keep his face straight; the wine apparently couldn't make up its mind whether or not to turn into vinegar.

  "Where did those odds-and-sods with Phrames and down in the barracks come from?" Kalvan asked.

  "The mercenaries were mostly men we were going to settle in Sashta, who couldn't find free land."

  Kalvan looked steadily at him. Harmakros sighed. "Or those who didn't want to settle down and become farmers at all."

  "I thought so. And the Sastragathi? They're a little far from home."

  "A couple of small tribes of Urgothi forced off their land by raiders coming across the Mother River, and some chief's younger sons."

  "No outlaws?"

  "None that I know of."

  For once Kalvan's attention to Xentos' rambling lectures paid off. "They wouldn't admit it if they were. But if the Sastragathi learn we are accepting their outlaws and forcing lawful warriors to serve besides them, the whole Sastragath would think twice before giving us aid. Not to mention the problem of keeping the outlaws from making off with everything that isn't tied, nailed or boarded down."

  Harmakros grinned. "Remember those gallows on the hill aside the stream that feeds the moat?"

  "They did look new."

  "They were busy, too, at least for the first half moon. After that, I think the survivors learned their lesson. Besides, we're feeding them much better than they ever ate at home."

  He lowered his voice, although the boy was standing discreetly out of hearing distance at the far end of the chamber. "There is more food in Beshta than I'd expected. There must have been trading across the border into Hos-Harphax, just as we expected. Paying only in silver as far as I can tell, but there are a few court officials I wouldn't mind questioning rigorously for a day or two."

  "You haven't arrested anyone?"

  "I couldn't touch anyone important enough to know anything without Prince Balthar throwing a tantrum. I wasn't going to do that without asking. I just informed some of the merchants that the Great King might forgive their treasonable trade if they would sell their grain to his loyal soldiers at the same prices they paid for it. I wasn't going to make Beshtan grain merchants rich just feed a few hundred Sastragathi, I swear to Dralm!"

  Kalvan laughed. "I didn't expect you would."

  Apart from the initial act of hiring soldiers without proper authorization from his commander-in-chief, Harmakros had handled the situation well. However... "I'll forgive you this time, Harmakros. Only don't do it again. If you do, I'll have to dismiss you or stand accused of letting my favorites hire private armies."

  Kalvan had to force himself to continue, trying to ignore Harmakros' crestfallen expression. Maybe there was a remedy to that problem. Patents of nobility were a glut on the market after the blood letting at the Battle of Fyk. He would enjoy making one of his top generals a nobleman; only a few of the 'old' nobility might find cause for complaint—and to Styphon with them!

  "I don't want to lose your services, Harmakros, or disgrace you, but I don't want people like Skranga to think they can go off to the Sastragath and bring back a private regiment of storm troopers!

  "Furthermore, you were lucky this time. What if you hadn't found the Beshtan grain hoard? We don't want to hire more men than we can feed with what we have on hand. They'll just turn to looting our allies, then when the war starts, live off our enemies."

  "As Your Majesty wishes."

  His Great King was speaking and Harmakros would obey, although he obviously found it hard to believe there was anything wrong with living off your opponents' land. That didn't bother Kalvan; Harmakros was intelligent enough to realize sooner or later that in a war where the real enemy was Styphon's House, every bit of unnecessary damage done to the land of a potentially friendly or neutral ruler was bad strategy, even if it might look like good tactics.

  Harmakros emptied his wine cup, set it on the table, then made a gesture toward the page. He went out, closing and latching the door behind him.

  "You have him well trained, I see. Now all he needs is a pistol so that he can shoot Prince Balthames if the man takes his usual liberties with young pages."

  Harmakros turned red and swore. "If that Sashtan son-of-a-diseased-sow comes within half a march of the boy, I'll geld him myself with a dull knife!" He looked down at the table. "The boy is my son."

  Kalvan mentally reviewed what he knew about Harmakros' career, which wasn't as much as a commander-in-chief ought to know about one of his corps commanders: He knew that he was Kalvan's best friend here-and-now, discounting Trader Verkan who was based in Greffa. Knew Harmakros' troops worshipped the ground he walked on, and would follow him to Regwarn—the here-and-now equivalent of Hades—and back.

  Kalvan knew that Harmakros had enlisted in the Army of Hostigos at an early age, in his mid-teens. Knew he had worked his way up through the ranks solely on natural ability and a fierce disposition on the battlefi
eld. Knew he had never learned to read and was embarrassed about it. Knew he had an inborn sense of direction and could read the contours of a map like his own palm. Knew he was a trifle atrocity-prone—that would need some work. Knew Harmakros' father was a small time merchant who ran a stall in Hostigos Town selling herbs and medicinal ointments. Knew his mother was dead and that he had no brothers and sisters.

  This was the first Kalvan had heard of any children... "A bastard?"

  "Yes, his mother was the daughter of one of the Beshtan grain merchants, with an office in Hostigos Town. She's dead now, but his grandfather is a good man."

  Well now, thought Kalvan, that explained how Harmakros knew so much about the affairs of the local merchants.

  "Raised him, then told me about him when I visited him two moons ago. The boy was already so well trained for service that I knew I could take him with me and nobody would ask questions. He takes after his mother more than me."

  "I would have never guessed he was yours, if you hadn't told me."

  "Good. The problem is I have no legitimate children. Empedila—my first wife, a cousin of Phrames—was killed in a riding accident. We'd been married only a year and-a-half. I was about to contract a betrothal to the daughter of a minor noble in Nostor, when all at once Hostigos and Nostor were deadly enemies. I don't even know if Jomesthna is still alive."

  "What's the boy's name?"

  "Aspasthar."

  "So Aspasthar is the last of your house?" Kalvan wished he knew more about Zarthani inheritance laws and customs. One of these days if he lived long enough, he would be more of a Supreme Court Justice than a commander-in-chief and the more he learned about the laws he would be interpreting before that day arrived, the better for both him and Hos-Hostigos. Meanwhile, there was a solution that didn't require admitting his ignorance of law and custom.

  "I think I can see my way to making Aspasthar a Royal Ward with some kind of palace post suitable to his new rank." Kalvan said. "We can call him the orphan of someone who has deserved well of the Great Kingdom and leave it at that. We can even provide him with a small estate, so that you can marry again without your wife having to worry about any of her dowry going to enrich your bastard."

  That problem had caused a number of miserably unhappy marriages and more than a few wars in the Middle Ages, if Kalvan recalled correctly. He saw no reason to suspect that human nature was much different here-and-now.

  "Thank you, Your Majesty," Harmakros said: he was looking down at the table even more intently and Kalvan decided to look away until the Captain-General had gained control of his face. "Thank you, again, for one less thing to worry about if Galzar's Judgment goes against me in this year's war."

  III

  The freezing drizzle was making the courtyard into a skating rink when Count Phrames rode in before nightfall. The three men dinned in Harmakros' chamber on tough passenger pigeon, succotash and corn bread that could have been chopped up and used for case shot. Kalvan chewed the bread cautiously, dipping it into the succotash from time to time. He had a full set of sound teeth and wanted to keep it that way; here-and-now dentistry would have satisfied any Constitutional lawyer's definition of "Cruel and Unusual Punishment."

  Phrames ate little but drank a lot of wine from a barrel that was at least one grade better than that which Harmakros and Kalvan had drunk earlier. "If I had just one wish," he said after the fifth cup. "I would ask to be left alone with Balthar's chief tax gatherer for an hour. I wouldn't even ask for weapons. Bare hands would be enough." He gripped the silver wine goblet as if it were the tax gatherer's throat.

  "Better yet, what about an hour in Balthar's treasure room with a large sack?" Harmakros asked.

  Kalvan paused to re-load his pipe, saying, "You could probably pay for the whole Army of Observation for a year with what you collected."

  "Or I could pay Prince Araxes' debts to his nobles," Phrames said. "In return, he'd probably name me heir to Phaxos."

  All three laughed. A little investigation by Klestreus, chief spymaster, had provided an adequate explanation of why Prince Araxes was becoming the Great King of Fence-Sitters. He'd stayed out of debt to Styphon's House—give him that—but only at the price of going heavily into debt to eight of his richest nobles. That gave them a veto over everything Araxes did beyond choosing the menu for dinner; they were exercising it now on his foreign policy. Great King Kaiphranos had ruled Hos-Harphax with benign neglect, so the last thing they wanted to do was join a Great Kingdom where the Great King rode his nobles with a very tight rein. On the other hand, they didn't want to risk Kalvan's wrath by enlisting under Styphon's banner.

  "Not that Our wrath would be much to fear," Kalvan said. "At least, not for now. We have all the enemies we can handle already. But Araxes doesn't know that, and I'm not going to tell him. If Styphon's House had the wits to pay Araxes' debts, they could probably win him over, but right now I don't think they'd agree to do that even if they could agree on any policy at all about Araxes. It's pretty obvious that Araxes let the Edict of Balph out of the bag at least a moon before Styphon's House wanted anyone outside of the Temple to know about it. That gave us time—time that has been put to good use, too."

  Kalvan was able to bring the others up to date over the next round of wine. The three Agrysi Princes hadn't sworn allegiance or even revealed their identities, but they had not only pledged but paid enough silver to hire three thousand mercenaries. Count Euphrades rode in as an escort for the silver with two hundred and fifty men of his own, well mounted, well equipped and apparently well trained. He looked as if he'd intended to stay for the duration and pick up one of the bumper crop of vacant Princedoms the war was expected to produce. Kalvan wasn't so sure about that and was determined to prevent it if he could but he wasn't also going to turn away willing recruits.

  So Kalvan was hiring mercenaries after all. He was also improving the weaponry of his own soldiers, since both the Hostigi musket shop and Royal Foundry (located outside State College) were working full blast. The output of the Royal Foundry was now up since the weather allowed some overland transportation. Brass and iron were once again arriving. Not to mention the companies of pikemen who were training every day the weather let them, and all the captured and obsolete weapons that were going into the hands of the militia...

  To oppose this, Styphon's House was issuing unconvincing denials of designs on any true king or prince's wealth and volunteering to sanitize any "unconsecrated" fireseed. "At least, they haven't convinced those princes who see that the demon exorcising priests would simply be spies and paymasters for pro-Styphon factions," Kalvan added. "That seems to include a great many of the Zygrosi, including Great King Sopharar. He sent Rylla a beautiful set of silver armor, with a helm plumed in snow-owl feathers. She says she'll wear the silver plate when we storm Balph."

  "How is Rylla?" Phrames asked, a little wistfully, Kalvan noticed.

  "She says she's well. Brother Mytron and the midwives say she's well. Ptosphes says she's well. She looks well to me and there are so many prayers going up to Yirtta Allmother that the goddess must be clapping her hands over her ears!"

  He wasn't about to mention his fears over her pregnancy, at least not in Phrames' presence, and how he sometimes woke up in a cold sweat from nightmares about Rylla dying like her mother. He doubted that if he'd been in Phrames' place he would have taken things half so well, even if Kalvan were a "God-Sent Hero" who won his intended bride.

  It was his fortune and that of Hostigos that Phrames was a here-and-now Sir Galahad.

  "I just wish I knew what was being hatched at Balph," Harmakros said, attempting to steer the conversation onto safer ground.

  Of course, Styphon's House was like an iceberg; the important seven-eighths of it were out of sight. A lot of things that would eventually be dangerous to Hos-Hostigos were doubtlessly being plotted down there, but for the moment it didn't look as if Styphon's House would be able to convert itself to a proper Pentagon in time for this year's camp
aign; at best, Hos-Hostigos, would face not just an alliance but an alliance run by a committee—the Inner Circle.

  "There is an animal in my homeland called a camel," Kalvan said. "We have a fable about it." He described a camel and then told them about a camel being a horse designed by a committee.

  Harmakros paused to strike his tinderbox, lit a wooden splint and then his pipe. "Here's to Styphon's plans having humps, bad-breath and a foul temper."

  They drank to that toast, then Harmakros added, "Although the worst plans can still bring victory if there are good men that fight for them."

  He didn't need to say "Zarthani Knights."

  The Knights themselves were no secret; their plans for this year's war were, and were likely to stay that way. "I asked the villagers if they'd seen men who looked like the dead Knight," Kalvan said. "A few said they'd had, but only a six or a dozen at most."

  "Any House Master has sixty Knights at his personal command," Harmakros put in. "I suspect that Grand Master Soton has sent one of his trusted comrades north to do some surveillance on our forts and castles. Soton is not the sort of man to take the word of Styphon's priests on a military situation that could draw in two-thirds of his forces." As a young man, Harmakros had spent three campaign seasons in Hos-Ktemnos as a mercenary captain and knew the area and local politics quite well. He had liked the duty, but didn't like the priestly meddling of Styphon's House in everything from military strategy to local bordellos. Styphon's House had originated in Hos-Ktemnos and had fully franchised the place. According to Harmakros, "there wasn't a town small enough that you couldn't find a Styphon's House shrine, temple farm or domed temple within spitting distance."