This was a Hos of another color.
"If the people in that section don't want to live under the rule of Balthames, for which I shouldn't blame them, we'll buy them out and settle them elsewhere. We'll fill that country with mercenaries we've had to take over and don't want to carry on the payroll. The officers can be barons, and the privates will all get forty acres and a mule, and we'll make sure they all have something to shoot with. That'll keep them out of worse mischief, and keep Prince Balthames's hands full. If we need them, we can always call them up again. Styphon, as usual, will pay.
"I don't know how long it'll take us to get Beshta-a moon or so. We'll let Balthar find out how much gold and silver we're getting, out of this temple here. Balthar is fond of money. Then, after he's broken with Styphon's House, he'll find that he'll have to join us."
"Armanes, too," Ptosphes considered, toying with his golden chain. "He owes Styphon's House a lot of money. What do you think Kaiphranos will do about this?"
"Well, he won't be happy about it, but who cares? He only has some five thousand troops of his own; if he wants to fight us, he'll either have to raise a mercenary army-and there's a limit to how many mercenaries anybody, even financed by Styphon's House, can hire-or he'll have to levy on his subject Princes. Half of them won't send troops to help coerce a fellow Prince-it might be their turn next-and the rest will all be too jealous of their own dignities to take orders from him. And in any case, he won't move till spring."
Ptosphes had started to lift the chain from around his neck. He replaced it. "No, Kalvan," he said firmly. "I will remain Prince of Old Hostigos. You must be Great King."
"Now, look here, Ptosphes; Dralm-dammit, you have to be Great King!" For a moment, he was ten years old again, arguing who'd be cops and who'd be robbers. "You have some standing; you're a Prince. Nobody in Hos-Harphax knows me from a hole in the ground."
Ptosphes slapped the table till the goblets jiggled. "That's just it, Kalvan! They know me all too well. I'm just a Prince, no better than they are; every one of these other Princes would say he had as much right to be Great King as I do. But they don't know who you are; all they know is what you've done. That and the story we told at the beginning, that you come from far across the Western Ocean, around the Cold Lands. Why, that's the Home of the Gods! We can't claim that you're a god, yourself; the real gods wouldn't like that. But anybody can plainly see that you've been taught by the gods, and sent by them. It would be nothing but plain blasphemy to deny it!"
Ptosphes was right; none of these haughty Princes would kneel to one of their own ilk. But Kalvan, Galzar-taught and Dralm-sent; that was a Hos of another color, too. Rylla's father had risen to kneel to him.
"Oh, sit down; sit down! Save that nonsense for Sarrask and Balthames to do. We'll have to talk to some of our people tonight; best do that in the presence chamber."
Harmakros was still up and more or less awake. He took the announcement quite calmly; by this time he was beyond surprise at-anything. They had to waken Rylla; she'd had a little too much, for her first day up. She merely nodded drowsily. Then her eyes widened. "Hey, doesn't this make me Great Queen, or something?" Then she went back to sleep.
Chartiphon, arriving from the Beshtan border, was informed. He asked, "Why not Ptosphes?" then nodded agreement when the reasons were explained. About the necessity for establishing a Great Kingdom he had no doubt. "What else are we now? We'll have Beshta next."
A score of others, Hostigi nobles and top army brass, were gathered in the presence chamber. Among them was Sthentros; maybe he hadn't been at Fitra, but nobody could say he hadn't been at Fyk. He might have envied Lord Kalvan, but Great King Kalvan was completely beyond envy. They were all half out on their feet-they'd only marched all day yesterday, tried to sleep in a wet cow pasture with cannon firing over them, fought a "great murthering battle" in the morning, marched fifteen more miles, and taken Sask Town and Tarr-Sask-but they wanted to throw a party to celebrate. They were persuaded to have one drink to their new sovereign and then go to bed.
The rank-and-file weren't in any better shape; half a den of Cub Scouts could have taken Tarr-Sask and run the lot of them out.
THE next morning Kalvan's orderly, who didn't seem to have gotten much sleep, wakened him at nine-thirty. Should have done it earlier, but he'd probably just gotten awake himself. He bathed, put on clothes he'd never seen before-have things brought from Tarr-Hostigos, soonest-and breakfasted with Ptosphes, who had also been outfitted from some Saski nobleman's wardrobe. There were more messages: from Klestreus, in Beshta Town, who had bullied Balthar into agreeing to a truce and pulling his troops back to the line agreed on the treaty with Sarrask; and from Xentos, at Tarr-Hostigos. Xentos was disturbed about reports of troop mobilization in Nostor; Gormoth, he knew, had recently hired five hundred mercenary cavalry. Immediately, Ptosphes became equally disturbed. He wanted to march at once down the Listra Valley.
"No, for Dralm's sake!" Kalvan protested. "We have a panther by the tail, here. In a day or so, when we're in control, we can march a lot of these new mercenaries to Listra-Mouth, but right now we mustn't let anybody know we're frightened or they'll all jump us."
"But if Gormoth's invading Hostigos-"
"I don't think he is. Just to make sure, we'll send Phrames off with half the Mobile Force and four four-pounders; they can hold anything Gormoth's moving against us for a few days."
He gave the necessary orders, saw to it that the troops left Sask Town quietly, and tried to ignore the subject. He was glad, though, that Rylla had gotten out of her splints and come to Sask Town; she might be safer here.
So they had Sarrask and Balthames brought in.
Both seemed to be expecting to be handed over to the headsman, and were trying to be nonchalant about it. Ptosphes informed them abruptly that they were now subjects of the Great King of Hos-Hostigos.
"Who's he?" Sarrask demanded, with a truculence the circumstances didn't quite justify. "You?"
"Oh, no. I am Prince of Old Hostigos. His Majesty, Kalvan the First, is Great King."
They were both relieved. Ptosphes had been right; the sovereignty of the mysterious and possibly supernatural Kalvan would be acceptable; that of a self-elevated equal would not. When the conditions under which they would reign as Princes, respectively, of Sashta and Sask were explained, Balthames was delighted. He'd come out of this as well as if Sask had won the war. Sarrask was somewhat less so, until informed that he was now free of all his debts to Styphon's House and would share in the loot of the temple and be given the fireseed mill.
"Well, Dralm save your Majesty!" he cried, and then loosed a torrent of invective against Styphon's House and all in it. "You'll let me put these thieving priests to death, won't you, your Majesty?"
"They are offenders against the Great King; his justice will deal with them," Ptosphes informed him.
Then they had in the foreign envoys, representatives of Prince Kestophes of Ulthor, on Lake Erie, and Armanes of Nyklos, and Tythanes of Kyblos, and Balthar of Beshta, and other neighboring Princes. There had been no such diplomatic corps at Tarr-Hostigos, because of the ban of Styphon's House. The Ulthori minister immediately wanted to know what the new Great Kingdom included.
"Well, at the moment, the Princedom of Old Hostigos, the Princedom of Sask, and the new Princedom of Sashta. Any other Princes who may elect to join us will be made welcome under our rule and protection; those which do not will be respected in their sovereignty as long as they respect us in ours. Or what they may conceive to be their sovereignty as subjects of this Great King of Hos-Harphax, Kaiphranos."