“He marched right through Karaleenos, leaving only Hamos, his youngest adult son and a thousand troops at Kehnooryohs Theevahs to establish a temporary capital and do what they could to re-institute some semblance of order. This was necessary because the Southern province—the largest and, formerly, by far the richest of his principality—was being severely menaced from two sides. Within three months of his arrival, Pavlos cornered and exterminated no less than five barbarian hosts, each as large as or larger than his own! By late winter, the Southern Province was secure in all ways and well along the road to complete recovery. So, he left Petros Eespahnohs, another of his strahteegohee, as trial-Lord and marched back to Karaleenos.
“Once in Karaleenos, he discovered why he had never been sent a messenger by his son and why none of his messengers had ever returned. Hamos Pahpahs, twenty-two and headstrong, cocksure of Ehleenoee arms and his own prowess and abilities, had over-ridden the advice and objections of older and wiser heads and allowed himself and his small command to be tricked into open battle against far superior barbarian forces and annihilated, less than a month after his father had left him. When Pavlos arrived, the few strong points still holding out were under constant and heavy siege by the barbarians and over most of the devastated province, Ehleenoee were being hunted like rabbits by troops of whooping barbarian horseman. Memories of this time is why barbarians, and especially horse-barbarians, are so hated and ill-used by the Ehleenoee today.
“If his campaign hi the south had been a whirlwind one, what he did in Karaleenos could be likened to the speed and destruction of a tornado! Not content with simply driving the barbarians back into their mountains and hills and swamps, he and his avenging army pursued them, slew them and their families, and burned or pulled down their hovels and villages and forts. Such havoc did they wreak that full many a barbarian kingdom or principality required two or three generations to recover and some never did! Only one of the nearer barbarian domains escaped—Ashbro, the principality from which Pavlos’ two thousand mercenaries had been hired—and, seeing what had been done to his neighbors, the Prince of Ashbro was more than happy to sign a long-term treaty with this terrible Ehleen. Pavlos selected a site for a new capital for Karaleenos and left his eldest son, Philos, as regent, along with the survivors of his two thousand mercenaries and another thousand of his Ehleenoee troops, leaving himself a force of just over two thousand veterans.
“He arrived back in the new Kehnooryohs Atheenahs almost six months to the day from the date he had quitted it to find his wife about five months pregnant, conditions in Kehnooryohs Ehlahs even worse than they had been when he left, the army racked by desertions and mutinies, and the treacherous Vikos Pohtahmohs to have decamped with all that was left of the treasury.
“The steadying influences of his and his veterans’ arrival and presence settled the bulk of the army’s problems overnight. It did not take him long to discover the paternity of his wife’s bastard, and but a little more to learn that Vikos Pohtahmohs was in Petropolis, attempting to repair and refurbish a partially wrecked ship in which to flee. With the speed of the swooping falcon, he and two hundred of his veterans were in Petropolis and had taken Vikos and his followers and the stolen treasury.
“Hardly had he and his prisoner returned to Kehnooryohs Atheenahs, however, when he received word that three barbarian kinglets and their armies were in coalition and despoiling the northern themes of his capital’s domain; whereupon, he had Vikos’ eyes burned out and threw him into the new city’s jail, had all his officers and men swear loyalty to the young twin sons his second wife had borne him before she became adulterous, then marched out to his death.
“In the fury of the first charge, a barbarian’s arrow pierced his breast-mail, but few observed and he plucked it out with a jest on the lack of strength of barbarian bows. He led two more charges before he crashed from his chariot, dead. After completing the slaughter, his men marched back to Kehnooryohs Atheenahs, bearing his body.
“When informed of his father’s death, Philos, leaving his new wife in Kehnooryohs Theevahs, rode to claim his patrimony. He was duly installed as High Lord and was on the point of sending for his bride, when he was mysteriously poisoned. At this, a clique of strahteegohee took over. Their first step was to have the blind prisoner, Vikos, strangled, then they imprisoned Pavlos’ unfaithful wife in seclusion—they were loath to kill her openly, but fully intended doing so, should her bastard prove a son.
“Next, they designated themselves regents for Alexandras and Nikos, Pavlos’ twin sons, then aged seven years, and right well they ruled. Philos’ bride bore a son, six months after his death, him the regents confirmed as Lord of Karaleenos, despite his tender years and he was the direct ancestor of Zenos, the present Lord.
“Pavlos’ widow’s bastard was a female and so, rather than slaying her, the regents simply banished her and her spawn, regardless of her plea that the child had been gotten on her in rape. They felt that there was division enough in the empire without adding one more dissident element in the form of a girl, marriage to whom might give some ruthless and ambitious man ideas.
“When Alexandras was eighteen, he was confirmed as High Lord and the regents gracefully stepped back into the position of advisers. He was married to a female of the ruling house of the Southern Province, whose loyalty had become rather shaky after Pavlos’ death. For all else that he was and was not, Alexandras was a first-class stud! By the time it became frighteningly obvious that he was too mentally and emotionally erratic to rule, he had sired three legitimate and the gods alone know how many illegitimate children, most of them sons. He was not quite twenty-three when he fell in a battle against the mountain barbarians.
“Now, Milo, allow me to explain something. Among the Ehleenoee, inheritance is strictly by primogeniture, the oldest son, no matter how unfit he may be, falling heir to everything. Pavlos had had four sons: Philos, Hamos Alexandras, and Nikos. Hamos died before his father Upon Pavlos’ death, Philos was confirmed as High Lord though murdered shortly thereafter; so, by law and custom, his son, not his younger brothers should have fallen successor to him. But the regents had—for a number of very laudable and highly practical reasons—circumvented law and custom some fifteen years prior to Alexandras’ death.
“While Nikos—who wanted confirmation as High Lord, not simply as regent until the majority of Alexandras’ oldest son, Pavlos, then aged three years—was disputing with the aging strahteegohee, who had been regents for Alexandras, a messenger arrived from Kehnooryohs Theevahs bearing a communication which struck with the impact of a thunderbolt.
18
“When the Lady Petrina—she who had been the wife of the High Lord, Pavlos—had been exiled, all had assumed that she had journeyed to Kehnooryohs Makedonia in the north as she was a noblewoman of that land. Such, however, had not been the case. A branch of her house resided in Karaleenos and to them she had flown, to reside there for nearly fifteen years, she and her bastard daughter. Not quite a year before Alexandras’ death, Lady Petrina took seriously ill and, when she realized that she was dying, she had her relatives send for Paiohnia, widow of Pavlos’ son, Philo, and mother to Zenos—he who had at birth been confirmed Lord of Karaleenos by the strahteegohee-regents. In return for a promise that the Lady Paiohnia would take in and provide for her bastard daughter, Lady Petrina gave her certain information and swore her death-oath as to its veracity. On the basis of this information, Zenos’ mother dispatched agents to begin lengthy and exacting investigations in various quarters. Of course, as years had passed and men had died and records had been destroyed or lost, and Paiohnia and Zenos—whose mind had been that of a man, even while his body had still been that of a boy—were fully aware that any hope of success lay in the provision of overwhelming proof at the outset, and the received information must needs be sifted and weighed and placed in order. Some thirteen moons were required to effect their purpose. When all was collected and arranged, they entrusted copies of their documents to a noble of their court, a man but newly arrived from Pahlyohs Ehlahs, Lukos Treeah by name. As he was unrelated to any of the principals, they felt that he would tend to- make a better emissary than a member of any of the older families.