Chapter 1342: Development(2)

A man could not afford to grow lazy under the long shadow of his own successes.

If he stopped too long to gaze at the magnificence of one particular flower, he would inevitably ignore the rest of the garden withering around. A ruler had to learn from his errors, else he was destined to be cursed by his own shortcomings until the dirt took him.

"Did Edric express to you any immediate need?" the King asked, stepping away from the crackling hearth. "We ought to push now that the Vulture Lord is at the end of his rope. I want to press the advantage until I see him with one wrapped around his neck."

Even as he spoke the words, Alpheo knew a simple hanging was highly unlikely to be the bandit lord’s manner of death. Edric had a bloody list of debts to settle with that particular bird. If the bastard was taken alive, a slow, agonizing death was the absolute best he could expect. Still, the execution itself was of the highest importance; Alpheo worried that if given a moment to breathe, the rogue would simply slip through their fingers and flee across the border.

He didn’t give half a shit about the Vulture Lord’s surviving minions, it was the head that mattered. If the man remained alive, he could still intercede with whoever was backing him from the shadows to beg for more aid. Of course, once the harvest season arrived, the strategic circumstances would change; the crown would finally have the resources to raise the number of men patrolling the roads. But that would still require supply, coin, and time, all of which would be better spent elsewhere. Why waste more when they could finish it now?

Lucius shook his head, offering a grim look. "Ebran did not write anything of the sort in his latest report, Your Majesty. I am entirely certain that if the Legate requires more steel or men, he will write to you directly. It isn’t as if he has shown any reservation about doing so until recently." The Spymaster twirled a shorn lock of hair, a touch of reproach slipping into his tone. "He has been remarkably quiet since he received the four cohorts as reinforcements. And besides, he now has my Ravens scouring the thickets for the Vulture’s tracks. It will only be a matter of time."

The King felt his jaw clench, a flash of irritation warming his chest. "Edric did the absolute best he could out of the worst possible circumstances, Lucius. If he met difficulties on the road, it is no fault of his skill. I can hardly think that even I could have managed a better campaign than him under the same mud."

Lucius gave a somber nod, though Alpheo recognized it as a purely pacificatory gesture meant to smooth over the King’s temper.

"As Your Majesty says, so it must be," the Spymaster muttered.

Just then, a sharp crackle rose from the fireplace, sending a stray ember flying out into the room. Both men watched silently as the little orange star jumped free from the hearth, landing with a faint hiss.

"Your Majesty," Lucius called out softly.

"Yes?"

"You should really inform the servants not to lay carpets so close to the fireplace..."

"Aye..." Alpheo grunted.

"It would be a real pity if a simple house fire was what brought the Fox down," Lucius commented dryly, shrugging his shoulders as if to say he had done his civic duty. He stepped forward, leaving a tightly rolled piece of paper atop the King’s heavy desk. "Speaking of fire and burning past bridges, it seems there has been a great deal of both as of late. Valakii, Mashki, Chorsi, Aranuai... we brought them out of their wastes, showed them our grand wars, and let them look upon our burnt fields. I reckon they took a distinct liking to both, because it seems a great many of them now wish to make a permanent nest here."

The King did not miss the ugly snort that accompanied his Spymaster’s words. "Is there something the matter, Lucius?"

"They are a y rowdy people, Your Majesty,once can’t help but worry what will happen once they have leave to settle here." the Spymaster said, his brow furrowing.

"How rowdy?"

Lucius took a deep breath, raising his highbrows to emphasize the headache. "Just last month, a Valakii warrior gutted a Chorsi tribesman over a stolen sausage. Then he went on to kill two more who came to collect the blood debt. Now, the entire Chorsi clan is clamoring for three distinct blood debts to be collected in return. Meanwhile, the Aranuai are insisting that one of their own men, found dead during a drunken night out, having been gutted, shat upon, and otherwise pissed to the heavens, was murdered by the Chorsi, with no proof of course but that one of their shaman or witches saw something in his dreams after eating some mushrooms, and they are demanding satisfaction.Of course the Chorsi refuse to aknowledge that."

The Spymaster cleared his throat as the King’s narrowing eyes fixed hard upon him. "They are rowdy, Your Grace. Rowdy, ill-disciplined, and currently armed to the teeth inside your borders."

"Are they so different from the Voghondai?They look similar" Alpheo asked, tapping his fingers against the arm of his chair.

"So do the Oizenian with Yarzats. But they are hardly the same no?

The Voghondai came to us when they were starving, shattered, and entirely out of options," Lucius replied, crossing his arms over his black wool cloak. "We handed them fertile land and fresh food when they were sore, broken, and friendless in the world. Believe it or not, Your Majesty, the Voghondai possess a sense of gratitude. Their cousins from the wastes possess none of that. You may settle these new tribesmen as you wish with one hand, but only so long as you keep a heavy iron blade firmly gripped in the other. If you loosen your fingers for a second, there will be cases of pillaging along the roads, I do not doubt it."

"Have we perhaps grown so weak that we cannot break the knees and snap the necks of a few troublesome men?" the King declared, his tone deceptively careless, though his eyes remained as hard as flint. "In every orchard there are always rotten apples.

They will live in my lands at peace, by my laws, or I will see every last one of them buried in a common ditch."

Lucius offered a small, grim nod of agreement. "For the time being, we have precisely three hundred and twenty-one warriors who have formally accepted our offer of land and settlement. One hundred and eighty of them have families back in the wastes that we are now obligated to ferry over. The children, the women, and the old men will soon be arriving at our ports. Before long, we will have a massive tribal colony on our hands, remarkably similar to what we built at Marthion." The Spymaster leaned over the desk, his short-trimmed blond hair catching the firelight. "Does Your Majesty already know where you intend to dump them?"

"The last thing we are currently lacking in Oizen is raw, uncultivated farmable land,the war saw to that at least" Alpheo said, a smile touching his lips. "I am quite certain we can find a nice, isolated plot of dirt to serve their needs. Truthfully, I would prefer to settle them right along the coastline just as we did with the Voghondai, but if even half of what you say about their rowdy nature holds true, I wouldn’t dare place them anywhere near the Magna Strata leading down to the iron mines."

The King stood up, walking back toward the high arched window to peer out at the gray sky. "The last thing I need right now is whispers reaching the neighboring principalities that the bloodthirsty savages Yarzat harbors are actively preying upon innocent merchants and royal trade caravans. Already I am up till the neck with the church, don’t need to stir the water farther to my mouth and nose.

We will tuck them far away from the high roads."

"Your Majesty is most wise," Lucius murmured, bowing his head with just enough respect to let the King know the headache was, for the moment, safely managed.

A small, heavy silence descended upon the room, hanging between them like the smoke from the hearth making his way to the chimney. Alpheo fully expected Lucius to take his leave after that; the Spymaster was always a man of exceptionally clear boundaries, rarely lingering to waste words once his reports were delivered. When the man remained exactly where he stood, the King slowly narrowed his gaze, scrutinizing his counselor.

"Is there anything else you wish to tell me?" Alpheo asked.

It was a deeply unsettling sensation, but Alpheo could swear he detected a rare, fleeting trace of nervousness creeping across the Carrion Raven’s features.

Nervousness? In Lucius?

The man who routinely bargained dealt with assasinations, blackmail and spying?

"There is... one final matter that I see fit you should be informed about, Your Grace," Lucius murmured, his voice dropping into a register that was uncharacteristically quiet.

"What is it?" Alpheo pressed, a sudden, erratic rhythm starting to rumble uncomfortably against his ribs.

"It seems the Emperor of the Eternal City has finally made true on his grand promises," Lucius said, locking his eyes firmly with the King’s. "The promised ones are barely a week march from the gates of our capital."

Alpheo did not need to ask who they were. He instantly felt his left hand begin to tremble involuntarily. He forced the fingers down, willing the shaking to stop by clenching his hand into a tight, white-knuckled fist against the wood of his desk.

If the gods were good....after all these long years of silence, blood, and waiting, he would finally get his answer.

And he prayed they were good, though he knew they seldom were.

Who, by all the gods, was Enkilae?