“The next order of business, I think, is going to have to be the reorganization of a naval presence. The raids of those non-Ehleen pirates on the far-western thoheekseeahnee are getting beyond bearing, more frequent and in larger and larger force. And I just can’t see begging the High Lord for help until we’ve gotten to where we can at least make a token payment of the reparations for Zastros’ folly. I must remember to bring that up in Council next time, too.
“I do miss blunt, honest Chief Pawl Vawn.” He sighed to himself. “But it’s understandable that he had to get back to his clan and his family; after all, he’d been down here for around five years, and some several months away on campaign in Karaleenos before that. I had so hoped, however, that we could convince him to take a title and lands here, bring down his family and become one of us.
“But at least a few of those Horseclanners stayed here. Rahb Vawn was granted the right by Chief Pawl to found a full sept of Clan Vawn here, and Pawl agreed to tell of the fact to his clan and allow any who wanted to come down and join Rahb to do so.
“Gil Djohnz and most of the other elephant Horseclanners, too, are staying. So, too, are some dozen more of the younger unmarried men of Pawl’s squadron. Tomos Gonsalos has agreed to stay on here, at least until the High Lord sends down or appoints a commander to succeed him, which last is a blessing, for our Grand Strahteegos couldn’t do all that’s necessary with the army all alone.
“There are many, especially in the army, who wish Pahvlos would retire, and maybe he should; after all, he’s pushing seventy-five . . . though he’d die before he’d admit to the fact. Ever since he executed that victory at Kahlkopolis, the old bastard’s been marching the very legs off the army, hieing them north, south, east and west, cleaning up the tag ends of the chaos that preceded this government. Those on Council who criticized him, berate the expenses of his constant campaigning, just don’t or won’t realize how very much the old man and that very campaigning has done and is doing for this government and for our lands and folk.
“That business last year, for example, now. He not only drove the damned mountain barbarians back across the border, retook all the lands and forts they’d overrun during the years of civil war, then moved his columns up into the very mountains themselves, but so decimated and intimidated the savages that no less than nine of the barbarian chiefs have signed and sworn to trade treaties and nonaggression treaties and sent down hostages to be held against their keeping their words. Yes, it all cost some men and supplies and the like, but real peace is ever dear, and I can’t see why certain of my peers can’t get that fact through their thick heads.
“Thoheeks Tipos, in particular, from the moment Council voted to confirm his rank and lands, has proceeded to balk at anything that was for the common weal. Were it up to him alone, we’d have taxes so high that we’d shortly have a full-scale rebellion that would make that first one against King Hyamos look like little boys at play. Nor would there be any army to put it down or at least try, because he would’ve disbanded the army entirely, the taxed funds thus saved to go toward rebuilding ducal cities, roads, fords, bridges and the clearing of canals, none of which would do him or any of the rest of us any good were internal discord and the constant threat of invasion by the barbarians staring us in the face, but the stubborn bastard, his brain well pickled in wine, refuses to see plain facts directly under his big red nose.
“And then there’s Thoheeks Theodoros, too; what a precious pair of obstructionists those two make in Council. At best, Theodoros is but the dregs of a vintage the best of which was of questionable merit.
One would think that he might have learned something from the examples of his sire and his elder brothers, but he is every bit as despotically minded as were any of them. His latest brainstorm was to suggest a law which would forbid, under penalty of enslavement to the state, the ownership of bows or crossbows by any man not in either the army or the employ of some nobleman or himself a nobleman, which is pure poppycock to any rational man.
“But worse than that, he visibly cringes at the mention of monies to be spent on the army and its needs. And he seems to be of theopinion that were we to surrender all of the border marches to the barbarians, they would leave us in peace forever. Had he ever been a warrior, I might think that he’d taken one too many blows to the helm; as it is, I’m of the mind that his wet nurse must have dropped him on his head.
“The one, saving grace is that neither of them is a spring chicken. Theodoros is almost my own age and Tipos is a good ten years my senior, so they won’t—God willing—be around to bedevil Mahvros for too much longer. Mayhap their heirs will be of sound mind, though in the case of Theodoros, I much fear that it’s in the bloodline of his house.
“Tipos, now, lacks an heir of direct line to succeed him. I would imagine he’ll name his young catamite, but Council is in no way bound to confirm that young man. Perhaps he has a nephew or a grandnephew or two of unselfish nature and open mind. We’ll see.
“But back to thinking about those who had soldiered here and have then been persuaded to stay on, I consider it a real accomplishment to have gotten Guhsz Hehluh not only to accept a vahrohnoseeahn in one of my duchies, but to also take to pensioning off wounded men of his regiment in others of my lands and cities and towns to seek wives and establish crafts and trades and businesses, few of them seeming to be inclined toward agriculture or animal husbandry. But with the way the mountain barbarians are flocking in at the offer of free land to farm and the way the Horseclanners who’ve stayed here all seem dead set on a life of breeding cattle or horses or sheep or, in the cases of Gil Djohnz and a couple of others, elephants, we’ll probably have enough folk to till the lands and produce beasts for us, shortly.
“And those pensioned-out Middle Kingdoms men are doing really great things for us all, producing items that have never before been made here, things that we’ve always had to buy at vastly inflated prices from the traveling traders. Not only that, they’re developing, introducing new ways of doing mundane things, easier, more economical ways. Their coming has put new vitality and drive into every trade and craft and business in my lands.
“Naturally, they haven’t made the more old-fashioned native tradesmen and craftsmen any too happy, but it’s just as I told the deputation of them—if they want to stay in their chosen fields, they’ll just have to ape the practices and quality of products of their new competition. And that damned Kooreeos Ahndraios, who came to me blustering and issuing veiled threats because the Middle Kingdoms men who have taken to lending money here and there are offering it at better terms and lower interests than the Holy Church ever has; well, he may have, like the month of Mahrteeos, come in like a lion, but after he’d heard my thoughts on the matter, he left like a cross between a lamb and a well-whipped cur-dog, soaking his oiled beard with his tears. The Church has never had even a scintilla of competition in that field ere this, and if he and the Church intend to stay in the profession of usury, they are just going to have to match or better the terms and rates now being offered by these newcomers, that’s all there is to it.
“Moreover, I promised the sanctimonious old fraud that should he sic any of that pack of ruffians he dignifies with the name ‘Knights of the Ancient Ehleen Faith’ on his new competition, I and the Council will do with them and him and all the other kooreeohsee precisely as High Lord Milos and King Zenos did with their like in the other Ehleen provinces of our Confederation—disband the ‘Knights’ (I’ve always thought the Church bullies called that because nighttime is when they ride to do their worst, being ashamed or afraid to show their faces in sunlight), round up the kooreeohsee, declare them all to be slaves of the state and put them to work on the roads or the rebuilding of city walls.