The thoheeks shook his head in wonderment. “Now I truly believe, Gil, there is no way I now could disbelieve your talents. True, someone of my retinue just might have given you a description of Master Laskos, who trains the Iron Mountain elephants. But there is no one down here at Mehseepolis with me who could possibly know of the foul murder of Vat feelahks, months agone. It was quite by accident that the business came to light, and that very soon before I left Iron Mountain .
“The widow had been given a menial job at the palace, you see, after her husband’s demise, that she and the children might eat and be sheltered and clothed. She took a fall down the full length of a steep staircase and ended it, injured unto death, almost at my very feet.
To me she admitted her guilt in the death of her husband and swore that it was his ghost had pushed her from off the top step above. She lived only moments after that fall, and I alone heard that confession, you see. One of her children is quite bright and promising, so ere this I have told no one of the fact that his late mother was a confessed murderess.
“So, all right, I’ll send for Master Laskos. He can be easily spared at Iron Mountain just now, though he must return in the spring, with me. He was captain of elephants for the late King Hyamos, was in large part responsible for the famous defeat of Zastros’ first rebellion at the Battle of Ahrbahkootchee; King Fahrkos, who succeeded King Hyamos, declared Master Laskos outlaw and put a price on his head, and he fled to the northern mountains and, eventually, came to work for me. Fahrkos lacked either the will or the force of loyal, dependable troops to go to Iron Mountain and take him from me, and Zastros had no interest in him. Mayhap you can teach him how to mesh his mind with those of elephants, eh? That’s a knack I’d like to know myself, for that matter, Gil. Not only would it be a useful talent to have, just think of what the having of it would mean for a ruler such as me: people will often say things in front of what they call ‘dumb beasts’ that they never would mention around other people, so I could have an internal intelligence-gathering apparatus that would put those of my peers to shame . . . and all for the price of elephant feed, which I’d have had to provide anyway.”
However, long before the elephant expert could arrive from Iron Mountain, a trumpet of war was sounded. Summoned to the command center with the other captains, Gil and the rest were briefed by Sub-strahteegos Tomos Gonsalos and certain members of his staff.
“The Ahndros family was almost wiped out in the last two decades, gentlemen; only two of that blood remain extant now. One is a grandniece of the last thoheeks, the other is a son of his half brother. This man, one Hahkmukos, was recently confirmed Thoheeks of the Duchy of Ahndros by the Council, yet when he journeyed down there to take his place, they threw him out of the palace and city and chased him and his party clear out of the duchy; a number of his retainers were slain, and Hahkmukos himself was sliced up a bit here and there.”
“Hmmph,” growled Captain Ahzprinos, commander of a regiment of light pikemen. “I know that Hahkmukos of old. Too bad the bastards didn’t slice him a bit deeper . . . say, just under his pocky chin.”
Captain Bizahros, who commanded the other regiment of light pikes, nodded. “Yes, the Ahndros wine was always the best, but Hahkmukos is—to be most charitable—the stinking dregs of it, and I can’t say that I fault the folk of Ahndropolis; I wouldn’t want him for my overlord, either.” He turned to the tall, spare, saturnine man seated nearby and asked, “You had some trouble with the bugger, as I recall, didn’t you, Portos?”
Captain Thoheeks Portos’ dark face turned even darker, his strong, hard hands clenched at the memory, and he nodded. “Yes, that I did, and I voted against his confirmation, too. But such are matters within that duchy that my civil peers felt the pig to be the lesser of two bad lots, and he was more than willing to trade oaths to the Council and the Confederation for the titles and lands . . . though just how much sworn oaths mean to a creature like him is a matter that only time will tell.”
“If you three gentlemen are quite finished your gossiping and name-calling and death-wishing of 77zo/iee/cs-designate Hahkmukos,” said Tomos sarcastically, “I will say this: Your likes, dislikes and opinions do not, in this case, own the value of a bucket of horse piss. A brand-new government simply cannot afford to allow an instance of this sort to pass, nor do they want Hahkmukos to do it the old way—raise a private warband and try to take the duchy and city by raw, brute force—that is precisely the sort of personal warmaking that must quickly pass out of fashion is the rule of the Council to prevail.
“Therefore, Thoheeks Grahvos, speaking for the Council, has ordered this day that a powerful force be sent back into his new duchy with Thoheeks Hahkmukos, nor is the force to return to Mehseepolis until the new thoheeks sits installed in his new buildings and has gathered a modest number of armed retainers to insure his safety.
“Any of you who feel that you could not do a soldier’s job, could not follow orders and give support to this man who owns the support of Council, may say so to me, either now or in private, later, and I’ll brevet one of his subordinates to command his unit until it is once more back here. But, for now, please leave off the insulting comments and hear us out, for I have promised that the force will be on the march before the end of the week.”
Captain Komees Theodoros’ now-deceased overlord had held a duchy which had shared a long stretch of border with the duchy in question, and so he was familiar with the land and the people against whom they would soon march. He was a staff officer in Tomos Gonsalos’ headquarters.
Peering nearsightedly at a sheaf of notes he had brought to the briefing, the gangly, snubnosed man finally brushed his thinning hair back from off his forehead and said, “Gentlemen, the lands of the House of Ahndros provided well for centuries. The principal exports were maize, some wheat, tree fruits, cider and cider vinegar, swine, cheese, freshwater pearls and some cotton and cottonseed oil. As is to be expected, of course, the exports during the . . . ahh, disturbances of the last fifteen or twenty years have been negligible to nil, but the potential and the lands still remain.
“There is but one real city in the duchy, although there are, or rather used to be, quite a number of towns—some walled, some not—and villages, most of the latter abutting the holds of noblemen. The lands were marched over, overrun and sacked repeatedly during the bad times, there as everywhere else, naturally; I would assume that all the villages and unwalled towns fell and were burned, or were abandoned and later burned—that’s what happened elsewhere.
“At least one of the walled towns, which happened to be fortunately situated—defensively speaking—held out through it all, never falling to any assault. Ahndropolis, however, was not so lucky. Bare months before Zastros marched through, headed westward, showing his strength and garnering more, a ragtag collection of broken noblemen, sometime soldiers, gutter-scrapings, rural bandits and the like besieged the city, finally undermined part of a wall, then stormed and almost took it. They finally were driven out, but it was, I understand, a close and a very chancy thing, and the survivors were still skulking about the duchy when Zastros came marching through. He killed some and dragooned the others into his force, then marched on.
“It was during that affray that the then thoheeks and most of his near relations died, either of wounds or starvation or disease. After Zastros was gone, the city folk asked the husband of their late thoheeks’ grand-niece to come and be their city-lord, and he left his hold and walled town and did so. He has held it ever since, it and the duchy, too, though he has never come here to be confirmed in either his actual civil rank or that he has assumed.