Portos took his barely touched goblet from off the desktop and took a sip, then sighed. “The biggest and, to Pahvlos and many another noble officer, most important reason is that the present method, with all its undeniable faults, is the traditional method in armies of the Southern Ehleenohee. The most pressing reason that this was not adopted by Grahvos and the rest when Tomos first advised its adoption, years back, before Pahvlos came, was and is the simple fact that the Council could not and cannot afford it … yet.
“Hell, Bralos, I dislike it as much as any other officer or man. I would much rather be putting such funds as I come by into my new duchy, rather than using them to clothe and equip and feed my troops, but they are completely dependent on me and I realize that fact, recognizing my responsibility to them and to the army.
“But until, if, when, Council sees fit to step into the management of the army, has the necessary income and effects a reorganization of sorts, you and I are just stuck with making the best that we can of an old, bad, but long-established situation.”
“All right, then, if the squadron is to be my responsibility, I want it to be my sole responsibility, my lord, all of it. I want leave to buy the present horses from Council, the furnishings for them and my men’s weapons,” said Bralos.
“Sweet Christ on Your Cross!” exclaimed Portos. “Man, do you have any conception of the kind of money you’re speaking of laying out here? Just how rich are you, anyway?”
Bralos nodded. “Yes, I know the figure almost to the coppers, my lord, Sub-strahteegos Tomos and I added it all up with the help of a quartermaster officer and a remount officer, both sworn to secrecy. It will put somewhat of a dent in my present finances, but I still can afford it.”
“Why do you want to do such a thing?” demanded Portos, incredulity in his voice, a stunned look on his face. “It … the thing just makes no sense to me.”
“Should I leave the army, for whatever reason,” answered Bralos, “I want to go with the knowledge that the men who served me so well for so long and under such trying conditions will each own at least the value of a good troop-horse and their weapons and armor. Another thing is this: many of my men are—rather were—farmers, herders and suchlike. My barony—hell, the entire duchy, for that matter—is underpopulated, now. Whenever things wind down and the army need not be so large, I want to take all of my squadron who wish to go with me back to my lands, to till and sow and herd upon them. For those men not so inclined, both my overlord and I will need small armed bands of retainers.”
Portos stared hard into Bralos’ eyes, then dropped his gaze. “A bit earlier, I was speaking to Ehrrikos on the responsibilities of rank. Bralos, you shame me, you shame all of us officers, in your concern for the present welfare and even the future welfare of your troopers. How I wish all of my cavalry officers were alike to you.
“Your request will, naturally, have to go to the highest authority, to the Grand Strahteegos himself. But I will personally bear it to him and pray that he approve it; if he does not, then I’ll put it to Council. That’s the best I can do.”
“My lord is more than generous, may God bless him,” Bralos said with sincere feeling.
“Yes, I recall that ruckus in Council,” said Thoheeks Sitheeros, while using his powerful hands to crack nuts. “A duel resulted from some of the name-calling engendered in that day’s civilized debate. Grahvos finally summoned Tomos up to the palace and closeted with him for a while, then rammed the measure through by way of a half-Council vote. That can be done, you know; most business can be decided by the votes of seventeen councillors only, not the full thirty-three.
“So, then, that was how you got on the bad side of our late Grand Strahteegos, hey?”
“I’m now certain that that was the beginning of the Grand Strahteegos’ antipathy toward me, my lord. He insisted after that that my squadron be listed as mercenary cavalry; I suppose that he thought that such a designation would limit my ability to recruit replacements and sell officer ranks, but of course it did not,” replied Bralos.
The spring thaw saw the beginning of nearly two years of almost constant campaigning for the army of Council, beginning with a long march into the far-northwestern corner of the Consolidated Thoheekseeahnee and a protracted war against an alliance of a number of tribes of mountain barbarians. The army stayed in those mountain for more than six months, almost until snowtime, seldom engaging in large open battles, but one hit-and-miss ambuscade or running fight or assault upon walled or stockaded hold and village after another. The cavalry, particularly the light cavalry, took heavy losses in this campaign.
Once arrived back at the camp under Mehseepolis’ walls, Bralos set about buying horses and equipment to replace losses, carted out wainloads of damaged items for repair and had broadcast a call for men to fill out his ranks … and they came, despite the measures taken by his peers in military rank to prevent them so doing. They came because—despite the brutally hard service to which Wolf Squadron had been subjected— very few troopers had been lost due to malnourishment or frostbite, most casualties being the result of enemy action or common accident or mischance.
Although the snows came, this unpleasant fact did not prevent the army being marched forth on another campaign for the year, this one to the south and lasting the most of the winter.
Barely had the next spring been ushered in when Wolf Squadron and half of the Horseclan Squadron were dispatched again to another stretch of border to deal with yet another pack of bandit-raiders whose ongoing depredations were become the bane of two more thoheeksee. So once more Bralos rode north with Captain Chief Pawl Vawn of Vawn.
This action did not take as much time, for Chief Pawl was senior officer from the start, and immediately it was seen by him and Bralos that the border was being used just as the other bandits had used it, he rode into the mountains with local hunters and chewed the fat with his fellow barbarian chiefs, and shortly he and Bralos were headed back to Mehseepolis with a long coffle of slaves-to-be and but few losses from among their own ranks.
It had been during the campaign of the previous winter—that one conducted along the ill-defined border of the sinister Witch Kingdom, which lay somewhere deep within the dank, dark, overgrown wilderness of ghoul-haunted fens and monster-teeming swamps, where huge and often deadly serpents slithered, where carpets of lush vegetation concealed beds of quicksand and bottomless pools of brackish water—that Grand Strahteegos Pahvlos had acquired a lover. This boy of about fourteen or fifteen, Ilios by name and the recognized bastard of a thoheeks, reared in his father’s household and extended most of the same education and advantages as had his legitimate half brothers, was as pretty as a young girl, and Pahvlos’ possession was envied by those officers and soldiers of similar tastes; the rest referred to him in private as “Ilios Pooeesos.” It had been determined much later by general consensus that the coming of this Ilios had marked the very beginnings of old Pahvlos’ abrupt change of character, when he first began to drive the army unmercifully in the field and exact upon the flesh of his soldiers such exaggerated outrages of discipline that, had he not died when he had, he might have sundered the army apart. As it was, he came quite close to tearing apart the Council of Thoheeksee.