The man’s manner was respectful enough, but his speech came out all in a rush that indicated the gnawing hunger for sound news that griped at him and the other city folk of this provincial backwater.
“Lord Gabreeos,” replied Pahvlos, “there is no king, nor will there everbe another in these lands of ours. Rather are we to be ruled by a confederation of thirty-three thoheeksee, ruling from Mehseepolis, in the east. Thoheeks Grahvos claims no crown; he is but the chosen spokesman of all the others of his peers in civil rank.
“Yes, I have the great honor to here lead the larger part of the army of the Consolidated Thoheekseeahnee of Southern Ehleenohee and I am marching west to eject a usurper and his pack of robbers from a distant thoheekseeahn and place the rightful thoheeks in the place of his fathers.
“The wars between the nobles are done, God grant that such turmoil never again beset our lands and people.”
A chorus of “Ahmeen!” came from the riders behind the deputy lord.
“Who appointed you deputy lord of this city, Lord Gabreeos?” asked Pahvlos bluntly.
“My lord Strahteegos,” that worthy replied readily, “I was given the rank in a public ceremony by poor young Lord Pehtros before he rode off to his death with the host of High King Zastros, and I have held it ever since that dark day, doing the best I could with what I had. The city fell once, years back, to a huge bandit army, but even as they stormed in through the breaches their engines had battered in our walls, I was herding most of the still-living people down into the old, secret ways burrowed under parts of the city, so more lived to rebuild the city than might.”
“And your landlord, the Vahrohnos Iahnos, what of him?” asked old Pahvlos blandly.
Lord Gabreeos sighed and shook his head. “After the bandit army had done with our city, my lord, they marched on the villages to the east and the hold of thevahrohnos. We saw the smoke from the directions of the villages, of course, but our circumstances then were simply too straitened to go to aid them or the vahrohnos, alas. Then the bandits all marched north, out of the barony, and after some week or so, a brace of shepherds came walking to the city to say that the hold had fallen, been sacked and partly burned, and that the only soul left in it when they had overcome their terror and gone in had been Vahrohnos Iahnos himself, chained to a wall. They went on to say that he had been tortured terribly and one of his eyes had been torn out. They had released him, done what little they could for him—ignorant, unskilled herders that they admittedly were, knowing sheep and dogs better than folk—then had decided to come here and seek more and better help.
“I was just then abed, having lost an arm to the black rot, but there then was an old soldier still alive in the city and he took our physician and a surgeon along with his party and made haste over to the hold. But they could never find the poor Vahrohnos, search the stinking charnel house the hold was become as they might, from top to bottom and wall to wall. Finally, having seen a distant column of riders from atop one of the towers and understandably fearing a return of the bandits, they quitted the place and came back here as fast as their legs would bear them. In the years since, several parties have gone there, but no living man ever has been found within it. Recently, certain superstitious persons have noised it about that the ruined hold is haunted by the shades of those there slain.”
When Pahvlos had told the sad story to the deputy lord of the city, he asked, “Lord Gabreeos, you clearly are of noble blood. What was your relation to the House of Kahtohahros, now, sadly, extinct in the main branch?”
The deputy lord smiled and shrugged, self-deprecatingly. “Not very close, my lord Strahteegos, a distant cousin. And I only am half a noble, for my mother was the daughter of a merchant of this city.”
“Well, Lord Gabreeos,” growled Pahvlos, “you, distant cousin or no, are about as close to the ancient stock as we’re like to get, this late in the game. I think you’d better start getting used to calling yourself Vahrohn os-designate Gabreeos Kahtohahros. Deliver up to me written oaths to support the Consolidated Thoheekseeahnee of the Southern Ehleenohee, and when I get back to Mehseepolis I will see that the documents confirming you to that title and the lands and city are forwarded to you.”
He turned to the rest of the citizens making up the cavalcade, saying, “What of you all? You know you need and must someday have another lord of this barony. Would you rather have a strange, alien nobleman chosen by the council of Thoheeksee or one of your own, Lord Gabreeos here?”
Their near-hysterical cheers were all that he needed to know that he had chosen aright, in this case. And, after all, Thoheeks Grahvoshad granted him such authority to fill vacant titles.
After receiving the written oaths required and promising that on his return march he would leave a few dozen pikemen and some lancers on loan to the barony, Grand Strahteegos Komees Pahvlos and his army marched on in the direction of Kahlkopolis.
In the week that it took them to finally cross the Lootrah River and so come into the lands of Ahramos’ patrimony at last, Pahvlos’ mind was very troubled, and its boiling thoughts cost him several nights of precious sleep.
It was not the tragedies of Ippohskeera, really, although they had a part in it all. No, old Pahvlos was accustomed—if not really ever inured—to personal loss; his wives, his lovers, his sons and his daughters, all had died in their primes, as had full many a one of his dearest friends, while he lived on to mourn them. Ahramos, his grandson out of his youngest daughter, Pehtra, twin sister of Pehtros, was now the only male of his line left to say the rites over his husk when finally he went to join in death all of those others who had been so dear to him.
His first, young, much-loved wife had died in trying to bear the first child of his loins, and now, after all the years, he still could hear in his mind her voice, though he could barely recall exactly what she had looked like. His second wife had died of a great fever that had swept the capital one summer long ago; she had left him with two sons and a daughter, but the pox had taken off the girl and had left both of the boys badly marked with “the devil’s kiss.” That had been when he had resolved that his next wife would remain in the more salubrious, rural environs of hiskomeeseeahn, and so it had been, though he often had been lonely for them, despite the lovers he had enjoyed in the capital and on campaigns.
Ehlveera, his third wife, had lived and produced a child per year for eleven years, though of course only four of them had lived to adulthood; she had succumbed to a terrible bout of colic while he had been on that long, hellish campaign in the northern mountains, against the indigenous barbarians. That particular campaign had also cost the dear life of his much-loved eldest son, who had suffered a deathwound while serving as an ensign with one of three companies that had held a pass against the foe until the rest of the army could come up and crushingly defeat them. The lad’s body had still been warm when Pahvlos had arrived and been informed, but he had only had enough time to clasp it to his armored breast once and kiss the pock-marked, so-pale cheeks before he needs must dash the tears from his eyes and go on to lead his regiments against the howling barbarians.
His second son had died some years later during a sea fight against pirates; he had been a lieutenant of fleet soldiers and had been thrown into the sea from a catapult platform when his ship was suddenly rammed by a pirate bireme. Both his third and his fourth sons had died in one battle against northern barbarians. The fifth, Pehtros, had died gloriously during the battle that had put paid to one of the earlier rebellions against King Hyamos’ senile despotism.
Pahvlos’ fourth wife, although she had lived long, and been congenial and an excellent stepmother to his children and wards, had proved barren. As she had matured, she had run heavily to fat, as did many an Ehleen woman, but she still never had failed to be loving and jolly with her family and the husband whose press of duties allowed him to visit her and his bucolic domain so infrequently. At last, bedridden after suffering a seizure that had left her partially paralyzed, she had begun to cough up blood and had died a week later.