by Robert Adams
"And those pensioned-out Middle Kingdoms men are doing really great things for us all, producing items that have never before been made here, things that we've always had to buy at vastly inflated prices from the traveling traders. Not only that, they're developing, introducing new ways of doing mundane things, easier, more economical ways. Their coming has put new vitality and drive into every trade and craft and business in my lands.
"Naturally, they haven't made the more old-fashioned native tradesmen and craftsmen any too happy, but it's just as I told the deputation of them—if they want to stay in their chosen fields, they'll just have to ape the practices and quality of products of their new competition. And that damned Kooreeos Ahndraios, who came to me blustering and issuing veiled threats because the Middle Kingdoms men who have taken to lending money here and there are offering it at better terms and lower interests than the Holy Church ever has; well, he may have, like the month of Mahrteeos, come in like a lion, but after he'd heard my thoughts on the matter, he left like a cross between a lamb and a well-whipped cur-dog, soaking his oiled beard with his tears. The Church has never had even a scintilla of competition in that field ere this, and if he and the Church intend to stay in the profession of usury, they are just going to have to match or better the terms and rates now being offered by these newcomers, that's all there is to it.
"Moreover, I promised the sanctimonious old fraud that should he sic any of that pack of ruffians he dignifies with the name 'Knights of the Ancient Ehleen Faith' on his new competition, I and the Council will do with them and him and all the other kooreeohsee precisely as High Lord Milos and King Zenos did with their like in the other Ehleen provinces of our Confederation—disband the 'Knights' (I've always thought the Church bullies called that because nighttime is when they ride to do their worst, being ashamed or afraid to show their faces in sunlight), round up the kooreeohsee, declare them all to be slaves of the state and put them to work on the roads or the rebuilding of city walls.
"But when I mentioned that I thought it was high time that agents of Council have an in-depth look at the tally sheets and books of records of all of the kooreeohseeahnee, throughout the realm, I then honestly thought that the old bastard was going into an apoplectic fit, then and there. Hmmm, maybe it might be wise to do just that. I'm sure that for all their holy-mouthing, these priests and kooreeohsee are as crooked as any other set of thieves in all the lands, and the amounts of illegally earned gold and silver that the High Lord and King Zenos were able to reclaim for their treasuries would surely be of great value to our own more modest one.
"I think I know just the man to put to the job of finding out just how much Holy Church is hiding, just how many fingers there are in just how many pies, just how many businesses of how many differing kinds are being funded with Church monies; and I think that this man will undertake this particular mission as a labor of love, too, for he has scant reason to love the Church and more than enough to truly hate it and all its clergy."
Stehrgiahnos Papandraios had been so ill when he stumbled, filthy, bearded, long-haired and miserable in his heavy, clanking chains, out of the cage in which he and his two fellow unfortunates had been borne all the weary, dusty, bumpy miles from Kahlkopolis to Mehseepolis that he was not even put up for sale with them, because everyone thought him to be dying, and he very nearly did do just that.
Deep in fever as he then had been, he recalled only bits and pieces of someone's having come into the slave pens, sought him out where he lay shivering and moaning, with his teeth chattering, and carried him out and away. He recalled only snatches of being bathed, shaved from pate to ankles, then bathed again and thoroughly deloused. Under skillful and careful nursing and feeding and care, he slowly regained his health, and that was when he began to wonder why anyone had taken such interest, invested so much in a state prisoner sure to be soon condemned either to a quick, relatively merciful death or to a longer and far less merciful one slaving away on road-building projects; that was where his two cagemates had been taken.
Then, of a day, when the last of the fever had departed and the worms had been purged from out his intestines, he was decently if rather plainly clothed and led from the spartanly furnished bedroom through a succession of corridors, up stairs, down stairs, and into and out of richly decorated rooms to finally find himself standing before a late-middle-aged nobleman seated in what looked to be a small study and writing room. While the seated man studied Stehrgiahnos with a pair of piercing black eyes, the slave studied him every bit as assiduously.
What he saw was a stocky, powerful-looking man of a bit over middle height for an Ehleen. From his facial looks and his frame, he was most clearly of pure Ehleen stock, from his dress and bearing a nobleman, probably a high-ranking one—at least a komees, maybe even a thoheeks, thought Stehrgiahnos—and from his scars and the little bits and pieces of him missing here and there a veteran warrior. His black hair and beard were now heavily streaked with grey, wrinkles now furrowed his brow like a well-plowed field, and brown age spots were beginning to make their appearances on his muscular forearms and the backs of his big hands.
One of the two guardsmen who had brought him in shoved him rather ungently to his knees—not a difficult thing to do, that, for just then Stehrgiahnos still was more than a little weak from his long siege of illness—saying, "Who do you think you are? Only freemen may stand before the lord thoheeks!"
The seated nobleman then waved the two out. When they seemed loath to leave him alone with the tall, younger slave, he airily waved a hand and said, "You forget, my good man, I'm a soldier, too. I'll know what to do in the event he misbehaves himself." He smiled, patting the hilt of the short, broad-bladed dirk cased at his belt.
When the two spearmen had grudgingly closed the door behind them, the nobleman said, "Get up and seat yourself on that stool yonder, Stehrgiahnos." When he had been obeyed, he went on, "I strongly doubt that you remember me, for when you and the other two renegades were dragged up to confront and be judged by Council, you were swooning and raving with fever. I am Thoheeks Grahvos, just now your owner. I bought you from the state at a very reasonable price, since everyone else thought you dying."
"You did not, my lord master?" asked Stehrgiahnos.
The nobleman frowned. "When we two are completely alone, as at this time, Stehrgiahnos, you may get away with it, but if ever you speak without being asked to speak when others are about, you will have to be made to suffer for your impertinence. Remember that well, for I do not ever make false threats toward anyone, slave or free.
"But, in answer, no. You struck me as a survivor, a basically tough man, who could live out the fever and the parasites infesting your body if anyone could do so, just as you had survived your many wounds, as attested by your scars. It was those very war scars, in fact, plus what I learned of you from your two companions, from Grand Strahteegos Komees Pahvlos and from certain others of his officers that set me to thinking that there might be a far better use for a rogue like you than slowly grinding his life away at the bestial labor of road-building and suchlike.
"You were born and bred into a noble family, an old and respected Ehleen family, and you know the customs and usages of that world. You were once a lord of lands and a city, which means that you know that world, as well. You were a noble officer, at one time, and this fact gives you yet another sphere of in-depth knowledge. Then, for years, you ran with outlaws and bandits, lived cheek by jowl with the lowest scum of our lands— thieves, burglars, footpads, ruffians, rogues, rapists, slave-stealers, horse- and cattle- and sheep-lifters, cutpurses, highwaymen, kidnappers, professional bullies, abortionists, tomb robbers, army deserters and God alone knows what else and worse. This fact, which many would and do consider disgraceful, does, however, add to your possible value to me for my purposes.
"In my capacity as chairman of Council, as well as in more personal businesses, there are times when the covert use of an intelligent, educated, thoroughly unprincipled and honorle
ss rogue who owns an ability to move easily and knowledgeably in many strata of our society could be of some use to me. He must, of course, be a survivor, a strong, ruthless, shrewd man, skilled at prevarication and at acting parts in everyday living. From all that I've learned of you, I think that you are just that sort of man.
"Of course, Stehrgiahnos, the ever constant, ever present danger of employing such men as you in any capacity at all is that of making certain that their baser instincts do not lead them to forget their loyalties to their employer or patron—or, in this particular case, owner and master. However, I think that I have come up with the best solution to maintaining your firm loyalty and fervent support.
"You are an officially registered slave, and you will shortly be undergoing a branding, though on a very unobtrusive part of your body; so long as you behave yourself and remain useful to me, you will not be fitted with a slave collar, only an easily removable bronze bracelet bearing my seal, such as all my personal retainers—slave, free, common and noble—wear while in service to me.
"Should you ever try to run away, or give me strong cause to suspect you of having done so or be seriously considering so doing, I will make of you a gift to the state and you will then be gelded and put to work alongside your two fellow renegades, assuming that they still live at that point. State slaves just do not seem to live long at the tasks of building roads and walls; perhaps the loss of their testicles lowers their masculine vitality.
"Also, should you ever forget who owns you and allow yourself to become disloyal to my interests or those of Council, if it is for it that I then have you working, I will consider that disloyalty to be your prelude to an escape attempt and deal with you appropriately, as earlier detailed. Do I make myself quite clear to you, Stehrgiahnos?"
The old man assuredly had made himself and his terrifying intentions clear to his newest slave. Even sunk deep in his fever, he still could remember hearing the sobbing pleas and then the hideous screams as his two companions had been thrown, pinned down by strong, laughing men, then gelded, cauterized with one red-hot iron, branded with another, and dragged, sobbing and gasping, from out the slave pens.
At the command of Thoheeks Grahvos, he had related all that had befallen him in his life, the good and the bad, the honorable and the dishonorable, telling the full, unadorned truth for the first time in full many a year, omitting nothing.
Stehrgiahnos Papandraios had been born heir to a city and lands, eldest son of the late Komees Zeelos Papandraios of Pahtahtahskeera. With the sole exception of his twin, Hohrhos, he was the only male offspring of his sire to live past childhood; all their other siblings were females, so the two boys were brought up like the precious jewels that their family considered them, and when the time came to ride off to serve a stint with the Royal Heavy Horse of King Hyamos, the two had forked fine riding horses, while their arming-men and servants had led splendid fully war-trained chargers and pack beasts laden with the very best of armor, weapons, clothing and equipment. Both of these new ensigns had ridden, shortly, into their first battle, a brief war against the mountain barbarians; during the short campaign, Hohrhos had suffered a crippling wound and Stehrgiahnos had distinguished himself in fighting bravely against odds to protect his twin brother and another wounded officer until a squad had reached him and driven off the savages. Praise and promotion had been his reward, while poor crippled Hohrhos, borne back to his natal hold in a horse litter, had slowly recovered, his army days now done forever.
By the time that King Hyamos' senile despotism had sparked a full-scale rebellion led by Thoheeks Zastros, Stehrgiahnos was become a troop captain of the Leopard Squadron of the Royal Heavy Horse and had led his men in numerous smaller engagements prior to the great, crashing battle at Ahrbahkootchee, where the rebel army was crushed and scattered. In that battle, he had personally seized the Green Dragon banner of the rebel leader, and although it had been his commander's commander who had presented the prize to Strahteegos Komees Pahvlos, that same man had been so impressed with his subordinate's rare feat that he had, on the spot and before witnesses, offered the still-young man command of a squadron at a dirt-cheap price.
Stehrgiahnos, not of course having that kind of money himself, at once fired off a letter to his sire, not needing to point out the signal honor of the offer for an officer so young and lowly in civil rank; almost all commanders of squadrons were at least heirs of some thoheeks or other, if not already thoheeksee themselves. Some length of time passed, which Stehrgiahnos then attributed to the unsettled conditions in the intervening territory, but then the gold was duly delivered and paid, and he became one of the youngest squadron captains in King Hyamos' army.
And that army was kept constantly busy, riding and marching hither and yon, usually in small units, for years, trying to put down a rebellion that never really died, despite the loss of the flower of its army at Ahrbahkootchee and the flight into exile of many of the rest, including its charismatic leader, Thoheeks Zastros. But it then seemed that as fast as one head of the rebellion was severed, two or three more sprang up into full life in as many distantly separated spots around the far-flung thoheekseeahnee that made up the Kingdom of the Southern Ehleenohee.
Not only were the soldiers, troopers and their officers all overworked throughout these difficult years, but with conditions in the capital at Thrahkohnpolis in utter turmoil following the death of the old king and the contested accession of his son, the troops were no longer in any manner well cared for, often having to forage the areas through which they marched, even pillage, in order to keep themselves and their animals fed and clothed and equipped, having to strip dead or wounded rebels for arms and armor to replace their own battered or broken gear, taking remounts at swordpoint, war-trained or no, whenever and wherever they could find them in the suffering lands. And naturally in such an army in such condition, desertions were common, with scant hope of replacements.
Then, in a manner often afterward questioned but never yet explained, the new king, Hyamos' son, and his entire family had suicided for no apparent reason, some of them doing so before unimpeachable witnesses, all in
a single day and night, leaving no direct-line heirs to take the now-vacant throne and grasp the loose, dangling reins of the kingdom now virtually reeling about in a state of near-anarchy. That had been when a former-rebel thoheeks, who had managed to purchase a full pardon of King Hyamos after the debacle at Ahrbahkootchee, one Fahrkos Kenehdos of Bahltoskeera, which triple duchy abutted the royal lands, marched in with an overwhelming force scraped up who knew where and first seized Thrahkohnpolis, then had himself crowned king.
King Fahrkos had summoned all units of the widely dispersed Royal Army back to Thrahkohnpolis and then had set about purging it of any and al! officers who had remained loyal to their king and their oaths during Thoheeks Zastros' disastrous rebellion, replacing them with a host of rebels. Because of his intemperate, vengeful actions, a large proportion of the Royal Army simply rode or marched away, some in whole units, some piecemeal. Nor did those troops who stayed make any move to stop their old comrades, though they did prevent King Fahrkos' rebel forces from interfering with or interdicting the departures.
Of course, not one thrahkmeh of the long-overdue back pay had been proffered or collected by any officer, soldier or trooper, so by the time that Squadron Captain Stehrgiahnos and his few hundred officers and troopers finally rode onto his ancestral lands, they were become a force of de facto bandits, simply in order to survive the course of the long, hard journey.
Their arrival was timely, to say the least. A relatively small band of rebels were besieging the hold of the komees, which hold had been fighting off attacks and slowly starving for some weeks. However, although possessed of slightly larger numbers, most of these rebels were at best amateurs at real warfare, and the tough, professional warriors of Stehrgiahnos went through them like a hot knife through butter, killing or wounding more than half of them, capturing their camp and baggage and loot, and chas
ing the survivors of the fight like so many hunted deer, coldly butchering those they managed to catch and so horrifying the rest that many of them ran their horses to death or near it, then staggered on until they fell of utter exhaustion miles from the hold they had sought to take, having along the way discarded anything and everything that might weigh them down or retard their flight. Many a man of these wished to have kept at least a spear or a sword when found by the farmers and villagers he and his band had been robbing and abusing during recent weeks.
Stehrgiahnos had entered the hold to find that he now was komees, his sire having died of a wound taken in one of the earlier attacks, his crippled brother, Hohrhos, and the elderly castellan, Behrtos, having ordered the defense masterfully, despite the many things they had lacked and the few ill-trained effectives they had commanded.
As soon as affairs permitted, he had closeted himself with his twin. "Hohrhos, this was bad enough, but I think it to be only the bare beginning, and it will assuredly get worse as it progresses. That rebel bastard Fahrkos has had himself crowned king, and the army is deserting him in droves for good and sufficient cause. Soon there will be no army worthy of the name in all of the kingdom; then all hell is certain to break loose on us, and this hold is indefensible for long and against any really strong force, especially against one whose commander might know what he is about.
"Therefore, I think we should abandon the hold, strip it of all usable or valuable and move into the city. With my men and the folk already resident, plus those from the countryside who're sure to seek shelter with us, we should be able to hold those walls against most any force we're likely to see away out here in the far provinces. We can start collecting supplies of all sorts, weapons, armor, horses and mules, kine of all kinds. . . ." He noted his twin's frown and asked, "What's wrong with the plan?"