And everybody could see what was happening in Nostor at the moment. He understood, now, why Xentos had opposed intervention; Nostor was too good a horrible example to sacrifice.
So they all signed and sealed it. Secret police, to make sure they live up to it; think of somebody for chief.
Then they feasted for a couple more days, and there were tournaments and hunts. There was also a minor scandal, carefully hushed, about Princess Amnita and one of Tythanes's cavalry officers. Finally they all began taking their leave and drifting back to their own Princedoms, each carrying the flag of the Great Kingdom, dark green with a red keystone on it.
Darken the green a little more and make the scarlet a dull maroon and they'd be good combat uniform colors.
THE weather stayed fine until what he estimated to be the first week in November-calendar reform; get onto this now-and then turned cold, with squalls of rain which finally turned to snow. Outside, it was blowing against the window panes-clear glass; why can't we do something about this?-and candles had been lighted, but he was still at work. Petitions, to be granted or denied. Reports. Verkan's Zygrosi were going faster than anybody had expected with the brass foundry; they'd be pouring the first heat in ten or so days, and he'd have to go and watch that. The rifle shop was up to fifteen finished barrels a day, which was a real miracle. Fireseed production up, too, sufficient for military and civilian hunting demands in all the Princedoms of the Great Kingdom, and soon they would be exporting in quantity. Verkan and his wife were gone, now, returning to Grefftscharr to organize lake trade with Ulthor; he and Rylla both missed them.
And King Kaiphranos was trying to raise an army for the reconquest of his lost Princedoms, and getting a very poor response from the Princes still subject to him. There'd be trouble with him in the spring, but not before. And Sesklos, Styphon's Voice' had summoned all his archpriests to meet in Harphax city. Council of Trent, Kalvan thought, nodding; now the Counter Reformation would be getting into high gear.
And rioting in Kyblos; the emancipated slaves were beginning to see what Samuel Johnson had meant when he defined freedom as the choice of working or starving.
And the Prince of Phaxos wanted to join the Great Kingdom, but he was making a lot of conditions he'd have to be talked out of.
And pardons, and death-warrants. He'd have to be careful not to sign too many of the former and too few of the latter; that was how a lot of kings lost their thrones.
A servant announced a rider from Vryllos Gap, who, ushered in, informed him that a party from Nostor had just crossed the Athan. A priest of Dralm, a priest of Galzar, twenty mercenary cavalry, and Duke Skranga, the First Noble of Nostor.
He received Duke Skranga in his private chambers, and remembered how he had told the Agrysi horse-trader that Dralm, or somebody, would reward him. Dralm, or somebody, with substantial help from Skranga, evidently had. He was richly clad, his robe lined with mink-fur, a gold chain about his neck and a gold-hilted poignard on a gold link belt. His beard was neatly trimmed.
"Well, you've come up in the world," he commented. "So, if your Majesty will pardon me, has your Majesty." Then he produced a signet-ring-the one given as pledge token by Count Phebion when captured and released at Tarr-Dombra, and returned to him when his ransom had been delivered. "So has the owner of this. He is now Prince Pheblon of Nostor, and he sends me to declare for him his desire to submit himself and his realm to your Majesty's sovereignty and place himself, and it, under your Majesty's protection."
"Well, your Grace, I'm most delighted. But what, if it's a fair question, has become of Prince Gormoth?"
The ennobled horse-trader's face was touched with a look of deepest sorrow. "Prince Gormoth, Dralm receive his soul, is no longer with us, your Majesty. He was most foully murdered."
"Ah. And who appears to have murdered him, if that's a fair question too?" Skranga shrugged. "The then Count Phebion, and the Nostor priest of Dralm, and the Nostor Uncle Wolf were with me in my private apartments at Tarr-Nostor when suddenly we heard a volley of shots from the direction of Prince Gormoth's apartments. Snatching weapons, we rushed thither, to find the Princely rooms crowded with guardsmen who had entered just ahead of us, and, in his bedchamber, our beloved Prince lay weltering in his gore, bleeding from a dozen wounds. He was quite dead:' Skranga said sadly. "Uncle Wolf and the high priest of Dralm, whom your Majesty knows, will both testify that we were all together in my rooms when the shots were fired, and that Prince Gormoth was dead when we entered. Surely your Majesty will not doubt the word of such holy men."
"Surely not. And then?"
"Well, by right of nearest kinship, Count Phebion at once declared himself Prince of Nostor. We tortured a couple of servants lightly-we don't do so much of that in Nostor, since our beloved and gentle Prince… Well, your Majesty, they all agreed that a band of men in black cloaks and masks had suddenly forced their way into Prince Gormoth's chambers, shot him dead, and then fled. In spite of the most diligent search, no trace of them could be found."
"Most mysterious. Fanatical worshipers of false Styphon, without doubt. Now, you say that Prince Phebion, whom we recognize as the rightful Prince of Nostor, will do homage to us?"
"On certain conditions, of course, the most important of which your Majesty has already met. Then, he wishes to be confirmed in his possession of the temple of Styphon in Nostor Town, and the fireseed mills, nitriaries and sulfur springs which his predecessor confiscated from Styphon's House."
"Well, that's granted. And also the act of his late Highness, Prince Gormoth, in elevating you to the title of Duke and First Noble of Nostor.."
"Your Majesty is most gracious!"
"Your Grace has earned it. Now, about these mercenary companies in Nostor?"
"Pure brigands, your Majesty! His highness begs your Majesty to send troops to deal with them."
"That'll be done; I'll send Duke Chartiphon, our Grand Constable, to attend to that. What's happened to Krastokles, by the way?"
"Oh, we have him, and Netzigon too, in the dungeons at Tarr-Nostor. They were both captured a moon-quarter ago. If your Majesty wishes, we'll bring both of them to Tarr-Hostigos."
"Well, don't bother about Netzigon; take his head off yourselves, if you think he needs it. But we want that archpriest. I hope that our faithful Baron Zothnes can spare us the mess of blowing him off a cannon by talking some sense into him."
"I'm sure he can, your Majesty." He wondered just who had arranged the killing of Gormoth, Skranga or Pheblon, or both together. He didn't care; Nostor hadn't been his jurisdiction then. It was now, though, and if either of that pair had ideas about having the other killed, he'd do something about it in a hurry. Court intrigues, he supposed, were something he'd have with him always, but no murders, not inside the Great Kingdom.
After he showed Skranga out, he returned to his desk, opened a box, and got out a cigar-a stogie, rather, and a very crudely made stogie at that. It was a beginning, however. He bit the end and lit it at one of the candles, and picked up another report, a wax-covered wooden tablet. He still hadn't gotten anything done on paper-making. Maybe he'd better not invent paper; if he did, some Dralm-damned bureaucrat would invent paper-work, and then he'd have to spend all his time endlessly reading and annotating reports.