“Really?” said Pahvlos, raising his eyebrows. “They haven’t said as much to me, their commander, their Grand Strahteegos, the man to whom they would logically speak. A wise man would’ve put no trust in the babblings of a few troublemakers. But are you wise, Grahvos?”
“Wiser than you think!” snapped Grahvos. “Wise enough to know that you don’t hold command of a good army by the harsh, brutal, savage and barbaric ways you have taken to using within the last two years, old man.
“Wise enough am I to realize that you cannot keep an army almost constantly on campaign, year-round, and then not allow them to unwind with wine and brandy and carousing in garrison. You don’t have men lashed to death or cripplement for being found drunk in their barracks after a three-month campaign in the mountains, yet you did just that. You don’t have a good sergeant’s ears cropped and burn his scalp bone-deep with boiling pitch simply because he was a day late in returning to camp from a carouse, either, yet you did, my lord. You don’t have the hands of an artificer mangled simply because he somehow smuggled a town strumpet into his barracks, but that is just what you did, Thoheeks Pahvlos, whereupon the entire unit of artificiers—officers and men alike—deserted the army, and now Tomos Gonsalos is scratching about trying to organize another artificer corps for the field army.”
“The only thing that settles the insubordination of malcontents is the force of example,” said Pahvlos coldly.
“Is that so?” Grahvos said. “So what happened when you sent a full battalion of pikemen out to chase down the artificiers and bring them back to star in another of your gory spectacles? They didn’t come back either, only a few of their officers, whom you promptly had hung for malfeasance. Man, one would think that you are deliberately set to utterly destroy our army.”
“I’ve heard enough and more than enough!” Pahvlos snarled and came to his feet.
“Sit down!” ordered Grahvos.
“Make me ... if you can,” sneered Pahvlos, striding toward the rack of weapons near the door.
Grahvos nodded at Mahvros, who pulled the bell-rope, and abruptly the doorway was filled with guardsmen in half-armor, one of them bearing a coil of thick rope and a handful of leather straps.
Mahvros waved at Pahvlos, saying, “Captain, please escort the Grand Strahteegos back to his place; there seat him and bind him securely into his chair.”
Some others of the Councillors muttered, but most seemed too stunned to do even that. The old officer struggled briefly, but there were just too many hands ready to restrain him, so he gave over, allowed himself to be pushed into the chair, with his arms, legs and torso bound and strapped to its frame. He glared rage at Grahvos and Mahvros, but spoke not a word.
“My lords,” said Grahvos, “it has been a painful torment to me to watch the dissolution of our army, the strong right arm of Council, but those of you stubbornly set upon allowing the monster that Pahvlos is become with age to continue his misdeeds because he once was a great and good and entirely different man have tied my hands on the deadly serious matter.
“Today, this once-great senior officer had Tomos Gonsalos brought to his headquarters by a fully armed member of his personal guards and there proceeded to curse him, slander him, insult him on many lines, call his wife a whore and his mother a sow, then order him to leave the camp and our lands and go back to Karaleenos, threatening to sword him otherwise.”
“Rubbish!” Pahvlos burst out. “Sewer sweepings, all of it! Yes, I ordered him out of the camp of my army; I did so because he had shown clear disloyalty to me and my authority, he and Grahvos’ clique having arranged the legal desertion of a unit of my army. If he says any other, he lies . . . but then he is after all half a barbarian, and to barbarians, as we all know, lying is a native attribute.”
Grahvos shook his head. “No, my lord Grand Strahteegos, it is you who lie, in this instance. Members of your headquarters staff easily overheard your shouted insults and slanders and threats against Sub-strahteegos Thoheeks Tomos and they quickly offered witness and full support to him, strongly suggesting that he call you out, meet you at swords’ points and kill you, as he easily could. If anything else is disturbing to you, that should be, my lord, for these are the very men who daily and nightly guard your back, watch over you when you sleep, yet they clearly want you dead, if that is the only way that the army can be finally shut of you.”
The eyes of the old soldier filled, then spilled over to send salt tears coursing down his lined, scarred, weathered cheeks and into his snow-white beard. He sobbed twice, then shook his head and said in a whining voice, “I am an old man. I’ve devoted almost all of my life to my armies and my kings and their kingdom. So why am I used so cruelly by you I have tried so hard to serve well? You choose to believe a whoreson barbarian Karaleen rather than me.” He snuffled loudly. “It’s not fair, it’s just not fair, none of it is fair.” He then began to sob rackingly, and to moan, his head sunk onto his chest and his hands visibly straining against his bonds.
With looks of pity, the two thoheeksee flanking him, Portos and Vahsilios, set to work on the restraints, freeing first the arms, then the rest of the straps and knotted ropes. With the freed hands, Pahvlos covered his face. But immediately he was completely free and his two benefactors had reseated themselves, he leaped up and ran to the weapons rack. Armed with his sword and a stout dirk, he turned and crowed in triumph.
“Now I’ve got the edge on you bastards, and a sharp-honed edge it is, too. Those of you who are mine or favor my cause, come down here and arm yourselves, that we may get to the butchering of the swine who sold our kingdom out to the northern aliens. Let’s have done with this silly governing of ourselves for some foreign lord and crown a real king to rule over us, say I.”
Grahvos could only stand and stare when tall, saturnine Thoheeks Portos arose, smiling and nodding agreement to the ravings of the old strahteegos. Striding down the room, he plucked his saber from where it hung and fitted its case to his belt-hook before drawing the cursive blade with a sibilant hiss from its sheath. He plucked a dagger at random from the smaller weapons on the table and shook off its scabbard, one-handed, then took his place to the left of Pahvlos and slightly behind him.
Others, following Portos’ lead, had begun to push back their chairs now, and things were looking rather tight and sticky for the unarmed Grahvos, Mahvros and Tomos Gonsalos. Mahvros thought it high time to pull the bell-rope, but his hand hardly had touched it when Pahvlos’ hard-flung dirk sank deeply into his shoulder.
It was while the old strahteegos was fumbling on the table behind him for another weapon that he suddenly stiffened, rising onto his toes, his eyes wide and bulging, his mouth wide as well, but no sound other than an odd gurgle emerging. Then, abruptly, he collapsed all in a heap, with the hilt of a dagger jutting up from just under his left shoulderblade.
Thoheeks Portos picked up the saber he had quietly laid aside and sheathed it, saying to the room at large, “It had to be done—you all know that for fact if you’ll just think on it. He was no longer the man we all once loved and respected. I know that he would have chosen this sort of quick death by steel. It’s the only way for any warrior to die. We must give him a really fine funeral; the Pahvlos of old earned at least that much many times over.”