"Some of them can pay," Geblon said.
"Good, the gold will go into the Iron Band paychests. The rest will hew and toil. Any who try to escape, bind them up and we'll ship them off to Roxthar as Hostigi sympathizers. Those that do pay, tell them to leave Greater Beshta as fast they can and never return. Tell them we'll keep a warrant for their arrest, if they do!"
"A good lesson to the others," one of the captains said.
"Now, as to the rest. Offer the honest sutlers and merchants and tinkers shops or stores. Most importantly, Geblon, I want you to round up all the gang leaders and their minions."
"What if they resist?"
"Shoot them like mad dogs. Go with pistols primed and cocked. When you've gathered them all up, hang the lot of them."
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Now that's settled. Now, for the women. Our men will need wives if they're to take up farming. Since there are few women in Sashta, we'll have to recruit some volunteers. Tell the whores that they're closing shop in Sashta-for good."
"Do you think they'll go for that?"
"I don't care whether they do or don't. Here's the deaclass="underline" Tell the slatterns they have a moon quarter to find a soldier among those who are mustering out who will marry them."
"By the Wargod's Mace! We'll have so many men mustering out we won't have an army left!" Kyblannos cried.
"Then draw lots! I don't want more than five thousand planting their feet in Sashta. We're going to need soldiers in Beshta, as well."
"But there are more women in the train than there are in the entire army!"
"Exactly, the rest can form unions with the baggage train leavings…"
"Most will want to be with soldiers."
"That's the idea. The soldiers get first pick. Those that are left will go with anyone who wants them. Let them be the wives of serfs. If they don't like that, send them to Roxthar!"
"But what happens later?" Redyr asked. "Won't most of them just slip away the moment the Army's gone?"
Phidestros nodded. "Good point. However, I've got a solution. Kyblannos, have your armorers and blacksmiths work up a branding iron. Make it in the sign of a lightning bolt-my device. Brand the cheeks of all the trollops. And, while you're at it, brand my device on the foreheads of all the 'new' serfs-that'll keep them from running away. We'll offer a big purse throughout the Five Kingdoms for any man or women caught outside Sashta with the lightning bolt brand. That'll keep the women on the farms and the serfs in the fields."
Kyblannos shook his head. "Aye, you've thought this one out, Captain. I see what you mean about beating off the volunteers from the Army with a mace. But what about the pimps, madams, flesh peddlers and whoremasters? They might have some strong objections to your plan."
"I suspect they will. Round them all up before the announcement-and hang them all."
Geblon gasped. "We don't have enough trees!"
"We've got lots of tree stumps. Chop off their heads, then."
"We only have a handful of executioners, My Lord," offered one of the captains.
"Do we have many halberdiers?"
Geblon nodded.
"Then offer them five silver pieces for every head they remove."
"At that price, every other man jack in the Army will volunteer and find himself a halberd," Kyblannos said dryly.
"I expect so. I'm tired of these parasites bleeding our men. It's time to make them useful. They can fertilize the fields of Shasta with their bones."
"What about Roxthar's informers?" one of the captains asked.
"I'm getting to that. Captain Lythrax, I want you to take as many men as you need and find all the Styphoni sympathizers in the baggage train."
"Sir, how will I know?"
"Most of the Styphoni agents will be circumcised. Any you find, give them an orchidectomy right then and there. Anyone found working with them will be treated likewise."
"But some of them maybe uncircumcised and escape!" Lythrax was almost too good at his work. Phidestros would have had him mustered out years ago, except for times like these when he needed a man hard enough to follow any order. "Exactly, Captain. I want a few to escape so that word reaches Roxthar that we will brook none of his Investigation nonsense. Let him be prepared to lose any of his minions that he sends into Greater Beshta. Believe me, once word of this policy reaches Hostigos Town and Balph, there won't be any Investigators willing to cross our border. This will also keep any traitors within Beshta quaking in their boots."
SIXTEEN
Rylla sat on her horse, staring in awe at the great walls of Rathon City that rose before her like a stone plateau. Kalvan had once described the City to her in detail, but it wasn't the same as seeing it in person. The stone walls were four lances thick at the base, three in the middle and two on top-wide enough to fit four men on horseback side by side. Rathon City dominated the surrounding countryside like a small mountain.
During her foray into Hos-Harphax to hunt down Prince Araxes of Phaxos, she'd encountered some remarkable fortifications, but nothing like this. On the other hand, Hos-Harphax was corrugated with mountains and most castles were hilltop tarrs. The area around Rathon City didn't have much in the way of commanding heights, so the Rathoni went for city walls, great bulwarks that had held back scores of barbarian hordes and rebellious armies.
As the last of the great bombards was levered off its oversized wagon bed, Rylla looked up at the sun to gauge the time, then turned to Captain-General Alkides, asking, "How long before we can fire the first volley?"
"My gunners should have the Fat Duchess in position and loaded in half a candle, Your Majesty."
"Good, because we only have about four candles of daylight left." She looked over the motley collection of guns, ranging from mobile eight-pounders to two-hundred pound bombards. Other than the two flying batteries Kalvan had held back for the Army of the Saltless Seas and the four- and six-pounders for the gunboats, these eighty odd guns and mortars were all the artillery remaining to the Army of Hos-Hostigos. Regardless, altogether they made an impressive demonstration, especially backed by more than fifteen thousand infantry and cavalry.
Right now, she thought, I wouldn't want to be in King Nestros' boots for all the gold in the Balph Treasury.
While Alkides was orchestrating his first volley, she motioned Captain-General Chartiphon and General Klestreus to her side. At her urging, Kalvan had relented and permitted Chartiphon to strap on his sword again; it had knocked years off his carriage and appearance. He appeared enthused for the first time since they had left Hostigos.
"Your Majesty?" Klestreus said, breathing harder than his horse, which was laboring under his hundred odd ingots of weight.
"What do your spies have to say about Rathon's defenses?" Since entering the Trygath, the Army had turned the area into a wasteland, burning those crops they could not harvest and blowing up farmhouses and towns with fireseed grenades, as Kalvan called them. As they'd moved through the Kingdom of Cyros, they had pushed Nestros' subjects before them, tens of thousands of refugees all fleeing for the safety of Rathon City's walls, leaving a smoldering deadland behind. It hadn't been difficult for Klestreus to plant several score of intelligencers amongst their midst.
Rylla could just imagine the fear and anxiety of the City's inhabitants, magnified by the stories of death and destruction told by the refugees and Klestreus' agents. She might have even felt sympathetic had they themselves not had the Grand Host of Styphon snapping at their heels, making its way through Nyklos at this very moment. Whatever had stopped the Host's advance was behind them now. Her only satisfaction was in knowing that the Styphoni were traveling through a Nyklosi wasteland where there was neither relief nor succor.