Thinking he might be scenting some trace of a trap of some obscure nature, Tomos said in a equally low voice, “Man, you’re an officer in his personal bodyguard! Will he not consider such an action to be a betrayal?”
“Was what my lord did in advising the captain of Elephants truly a betrayal of the Grand Strahteegos and the army, as he so stated?” asked the officer.
“Of course not!” snapped Tomos. “I’m only attached to his army; my loyalty is to my men, my king, his overlord and to your Council, in that order; I try to cooperate with the Grand Strahteegos, but I never have considered myself to really be his subordinate officer in the command structure of this army.”
The officer nodded once, then said, “My lord, my own loyalty is to my men and my comrade officers, the rulers of my land—the Council of Thoheeksee—and their army. This senile old man is ill serving Council and is weakening the army through mistreating and abusing and alienating the officers and men under his command.
It is my understanding that he refuses to step down and retire to his thoheekseeahn, so it would seem that the only way to remove him is to kill him, nor am I the only man who so feels in this army. So, should my lord decide to issue challenge, please remember Captain Vahrohnos Djaimos of Pleenopolis.”
Deeply troubled by all the captain had said, Tomos did not return to his own headquarters, but rode directly up into Mehseepolis and to the onetime ducal palace. He was afforded the opportunity to release some measure of his pent-up anger on two bureaucratic types who would have—completely aware of just who and what he was—prevented him from seeing Thoheeks Mahvros without an appointment. When he thought them sufficiently terrified, he stalked past a quartet of grinning guards and sought out the chairman of Council without a guide.
He found Thoheeks Mahvros conferring with a couple of men he did not know, but clearly both civilians. “My lord,” he said curtly, in a no-nonsense tone, “I’d advise you to get these two out of here and hear what I have to say privately. You’ll probably regret it if you don’t.”
At a look from the thoheeks, the two civilians rolled up and gathered up a number of what could have been drawings or maps and bustled from the room, giving hard, hostile stares from beneath their eyebrows.
With the doors firmly shut and latched, Tomos led his friend to the corner farthest from those doors and quietly related all that had happened at the army headquarters and after.
After a few moments of digestion of the hard words, Mahvros asked quietly, “Are you going to call him out, Tomos?”
“Would you?” was the response.
Mahvros sighed and shook his head slowly. “I’m not at all certain just what I’d do under the same circumstances, my old friend. He’s completely in the wrong, of course, any fool could tell that, and I wonder if the word used by that guard officer doesn’t tell us much about the entire kettle of vipers—‘senile,’ Senility could well be the reason for much of Pahvlos’ recent, hardly explainable behavior.
“The captain is right, you know—no, maybe you wouldn’t, you don’t have all that much contact with the field army anymore. Pahvlos has recently been far more demanding than he has needed to be, stayed almost constantly on the march and insisted on rates of march that were completely unnecessary, considering the circumstances. The best officers, many of them, have resigned and gone home; among the common soldiers, the rates of desertion and rank insubordination have climbed to fantastic figures, and Pahvlos’ punishments have been no less than savage—men who deserved no more than perhaps a dozen stripes have been whipped to death on his orders, that or crippled for life; he has had tongues pegged or torn out, fingers and hands and toes and feet lopped off, leg tendons severed, joints sprung loose—he is become a monster to the men of this army he chooses to call his.”
Tomos shook his head slowly. “No, I’ve only known that the army has been going through with remounts almost as fast as we can train them, pack animals, draught mules, supplies by the mountainload, and is always crying for men from the training units, but I was unaware just how bad it was. Why in hell hasn’t Council relieved the man?”
Mahvros snorted. “He’s too powerful, that’s why, with far too many supporters on Council, men who remember the Strahteegos Komees Pahvlos-of-old and will not believe the enormities he now commits and orders, or who swallow his bland excuses hook, line and sinker. His relief of command is a matter of sufficient importance as to require a two-thirds favorable vote of the entire Council, and the last time that the matter was broached to them, there was a real brawl in the Council Chamber, guards had to be called to finally break it up, two duels grew out of it all, and shortly thereafter there was an attempt to assassinate Grahvos.
“Did I think that it would do anyone any good, I’d say go ahead and call the old bastard out, for that captain is right: he’ll never step down and retire, and with matters as they are on Council, there’s no way he can be forced out, so the only alternative is going to be his sudden demise, however done or by whom.
“And, were it up to Pahvlos alone, I believe he’d meet you, he was never known to harbor one cowardly bone in his body, and of course then that would be that, you’d cut him down. But naturally, so simple and straightforward a solution to the problem he presents will never be allowed to come to pass. His seconds are certain to cite his great age and insist that you meet and fight a surrogate, no doubt the biggest, fastest, strongest, meanest heavy horse or guards officer they can find. So, no, don’t bother challenging him. Have you thought of an assassin? Satisfaction privately enjoyed would be preferable to none at all, perhaps.”
“No,” said Tomos, “no assassins.”
“If it’s simply a matter of money, Tomos . . .” began Mahvros.
“Thank you, but no,” was the quick response. “If I can’t do it myself, I’ll not hire another to do it for me; it’s simply not my way, Mahvros.”
“So then what will you do, Tomos? Just do as he ordered you, take your wife and household and go back to Karaleenos?”
Tomos sighed. “No, I was ordered here by far higher authority than a doddering, sadistic old man. No, I now will do something that I had hoped I never would have to do.
“You will immediately send someone to fetch Grahvos; that someone will tell him to bring with him the sealed red leather tube sent to him by High Lord Milo, years back. Call an immediate meeting of as many of Council as you can lay hands upon, including Thoheeks Pahvlos, by all means.”
Thoheeks Grahvos worked a thumbnail under the thick seals and thus loosened them enough to snap off the leather tube, its bright-red dye having faded somewhat in its years of dusty storage. “High Lord Milos’ letter, that accompanied this, mentioned that one other here would know of its existence and contents, but that person was not named. It was you, eh, Tomos?”
When he had removed the lid, he used a finger to fish out the roll of vellum and opened it. After reading it, he hissed softly between his teeth, passed it to Grahvos, then lifted the tube and upended it over his opened palm; then he extended his hand that both of the others might clearly see the half of an old, worn silver coin, cut in an odd zigzag along its middle.
Wordlessly, Tomos took from about his neck a silver chain from which depended another halved coin and fitted it to that piece on the thoheeks’ palm to show a whole ten-thrahkmeh piece of some archaic High Lord of Kehnooryos Ehlahs, its worn-down date showing him to have reigned nearly a century before the great earthquakes of three hundred years now past.