Empire of Avarice (16 page)

Theros sighed and thought for a moment. It was not easy
giving an answer when so many variables and unknowns played a part. “Your majesty,
no member of a ruling family from the empire has ventured outside the borders
for a very long time, and the princess is virtually unknown. It will be a
diplomatic mission of note, and Mazag will certainly gain political advantages
as a result. They may be sufficiently honoured to be receptive towards us. I
trust that they are. Amne is a beautiful young woman, and any male negotiator
will be charmed, and that may well work in our favour too. I am hopeful, ma’am,
but not over-confident.”

Isbel nodded. “Thank you, Theros. Just keep my daughter
safe. That is all I ask.”

“Has a guard been appointed yet?”

“I believe my husband is working on that; there are some
– political manoeuvrings going on in the background.”

Theros bowed, then stood as Isbel rose to her feet. “I
shall perform my duties to the best of my abilities, ma’am.”

Isbel smiled again. “The empire will be grateful – as
will I.”

The empress then made her way along the plush corridors,
past guards and attendants, accompanied only by her handmaiden, back to the day
room. It was from here that the Koros family ran the empire; it was their
office and planning centre. Four people were always on duty here waiting to
take orders or commands to the various offices in the palace, runners or
messengers all. Palace guards stood in strategic places, always ready for a
command, and to ensure the imperial family lived and worked in safety.

Isbel was rapidly making this room hers. Flowers were in
evidence in many places, adding colour and scent to the room. Pepil was often
here, especially now that the emperor was turning more of his attention to the
forthcoming military campaign, and most of the everyday mundane items that were
needed to be addressed in order for the palace and empire to run smoothly were
being offloaded onto Isbel’s shoulders.

“Pepil,” she began briskly, “make a note for Theros’s
man to be interviewed here in two days’ time. Now, to business. Frendicus and
his tax collectors have come up with figures needed for the coming winter’s
building programme. The road repair scheme will take up much of our funding but
having decent roads is essential. Have you got any news on the workforces being
recruited in Frasia, Bathenia and Pelponia?”

Pepil shook his head. “As of this morning, there has
been no further news, your majesty.”

“Then send messages to Niake and Kornith, asking the
governor or acting governors there to advise us of the costs and progress. Inform
them it is essential the work is completed there before the winter arrives.”

“And here in Frasia, your majesty?”

“Here it is different. The improvements will take
longer; we are paving the roads, not merely digging up weeds, undergrowth and
repairing landslides. But I will want the Kastan city guilds to supply the
workforce and materials. Haggle with them over costs; I don’t want them taking
advantage of us.”

Pepil bowed. It had been some time since anyone with
such enthusiasm and industry had occupied the palace; it may be that if things
continued in this manner, he might have to ask for some of those scribes
recently released from palace employment to be returned. There was going to be
a great deal more work under the Koros, that was for sure!

The sea crossing from the shores of Frasia to the shores
of Bathenia was fraught with danger. The main reason was that two seas
converged here, the Aester Sea to the north and the Sea of Balq to the south. Both
seas were large and where they met, in a relatively narrow stretch of water,
the tides raced ferociously except at high and low tides, when they were
turning. At that time a crossing was possible, but only for about as long as it
took to cross. Therefore ships’ captains had grown up knowing when to cast off
and when not to. This also meant that if a ship wished to sail from one sea to
the other, they had to time it when the tide was favourable, or else they would
have to anchor or find an inlet in which to shelter.

Gaurel and Demtro watched as the shoreline of Frasia
receded behind them, with the city of Kastan in the background. Kastan itself
did not have a proper harbour due to the ferocious tides, but rather was served
by the port of Galan a few leagues to the east where the waters were much more
gentle. Similarly Niake was served by Aconia. Gaurel and Demtro would alight
close to Niake rather than take the longer journey via Aconia, but it had to be
timed to perfection. Neither were seamen so they were putting their faith in
the sailors’ abilities. Or to be precise, Demtro was; Gaurel was putting his
faith in the gods.

Demtro pushed away from the stern rail and cast a glance
at his travelling companion. Gaurel was gloomy and morose. Clearly he saw this
as a banishment, which indeed it was. “Don’t take it too badly, High Priest,”
Demtros said cheerily. “Plenty of work to be done in my home town.”

“You are from Niake?”

“Yes. I saw the riots when the temples were burned
down.”

Gaurel turned to the merchant with interest. “Indeed? And
what did you see?”

“I saw people angry at the gods deliberately attacking
the temples and razing them to the ground.”

Gaurel stared in disbelief at the man. “But the emperor
of the time said they had been accidentally burned in the general riots! You do
not tell the truth.”

Demtro shrugged. “See for yourself when you get there,
High Priest. No other buildings around them were burned. There was no
accidental damage. The people were genuinely furious at the gods for abandoning
them. You have some hard work to do in Niake, I can tell you.”

Gaurel looked shocked. “Why would the people be angry at
the gods?”

“Why not? These past few years our lands have been lost
to nations or people that believe in different gods or have a different set of
beliefs. People who formerly worshipped our gods are now being forced to
convert or die. Our gods are not doing anything to stop it, so its no wonder
the people lost patience and faith. You continually exhort us to keep our
faith, but it is hard when the gods seem to have abandoned us.”

“You speak heretically, merchant!”

“I speak the truth,” Demtro countered, “and you know it,
High Priest. What you clerics need is for our empire to roll back our enemies
and return the people of those regions to our gods. But that won’t happen as
long as you have weak and easily manipulated emperors on the throne, as we have
had in the recent past. Oh, yes, it may be to your advantage to have one like
that for personal gain and enhancement of your riches, but you lose your
followers by the legion!”

“How dare you!” Gaurel enunciated slowly and angrily.

“I dare, god-botherer. I ask you; do you really believe
in the gods you represent, or do you believe in personal wealth beyond
everything else? If you think you can carry on collecting vast riches you’d
better think again. I’m a merchant; collecting riches is my business and Niake
isn’t big enough for the both of us. Try to outdo me and you’ll come to grief.”

“You godless unbeliever! I’ll have you lynched by the
people for such heresy!”

“Ah go drown yourself,” Demtro scoffed. “Exactly who
will listen to you, the priest who covers himself in wealth while the followers
of your gods scratch in abject poverty and see their jobs wither and die; their
crops fail; their friends massacred? If you enter Niake today with your
blinkered views it will be you lynched and spread to all four corners of the
city.”

Gaurel faced Demtro at the distance of a hand’s span,
trembling in fury. “Truly you are a servant of evil,” he breathed.

“Quite possibly, bead basher, but if you want more
followers and those who believe in our gods to grow, then you’ll have to endure
an emperor who is likely to savage our enemies rather than run from them. Astiras
Koros is the man to do just that. So stop plotting to undermine him, you fool. Your
personal wealth is of less importance than the survival of this empire. Start
getting your priorities right. You may realise in time that Astiras Koros is
the best ally you’ve got. Unless of course,” Demtro said, turning away, “you
care not for our gods and wish to see the symbol of our rival faiths erected on
the ruins of our temples.”

He walked away from Gaurel, leaving the High Priest
incandescent in fury, outrage, frustration, and, although he didn’t want to
admit it, the knowledge that the merchant was right.

Working in the palace usually went on until nightfall or
the first watch change after dark, depending on the time of year. Sereth left
as night fell, as did most of those employed in the palace, and made his way by
carriage to his home. Carriages were reserved for only the richer members of
the palace staff. The humble office workers had to walk through the
refuse-strewn streets and avoid the piles of animal droppings that could easily
be unseen in the dark, particularly now the street lighting was haphazard, to
say the least. Not that dung was their only hazard; loose paving stones were
also waiting to trip the unwary. It had been some time since money had been
spent on the upkeep of civic buildings and walkways, or to clear the rubbish
and refuse that was piling up in alleyways and roadsides, swept there by
disinterested citizens or disheartened employees of bankrupt civic offices.

Sereth had been pleased that his house had been
untouched during the time of his stay in the prison beneath the garrison
barracks, unless one counts the obscene scrawl put there by someone carrying a
grudge against him or the regime that had been in place at the time. Sereth had
paid a workman he knew to paint over it and to carry out a check of the house
to see if anything needed repairing. Apart from a roof tile or two, it was in
reasonable shape. After all, it was in one of the more affluent areas and
street crime was kept at bay it as the residents paid private mercenary gangs
to ensure no one messed around. Anyone who did ended up as part of the refuse
in the alleyways and no one bothered to ask any questions.

The Counsel reached his house and entered it gratefully.
The furniture within had been taken after his arrest, shared out between the
then emperor and his favourites, but Sereth hadn’t been that bothered. After
all, most of it had been given to him by previous emperors as a sign of favour
to him from others who had been arrested. What goes around comes around, he
mused ironically. It was after all, part and parcel of the job. Anyway, he had
sufficient funds hidden away to afford to be able to replace the furnishings
ten times over if he wished to. But instead he’d pleaded with the empress and
had been promised some replacements. What the palace failed to replace he’d get
elsewhere, whether it be legal or not didn’t really matter.

He was surprised when a knock came on the door. He was
even more surprised to see it was one of his old associates, Amsel Fokis, one
of the powerful Fokis clan. He was the second eldest son of the current
patriarch. Quickly ushering him inside, lest anyone see him there, Amsel was
led by candlelight to a back room. Once inside Sereth lit a few more so that
they could see each other properly, and then the curtains were drawn to prevent
any passers by outside from looking in. There was only a single table and two
chairs in the room which was being used for dining. Sereth would revise each
room’s function when the rest of the furniture started turning up.

“What brings you to my home, Amsel?” Sereth asked,
inviting his guest to sit down.

Amsel, a slim, smooth-skinned man with clear blue eyes
and fair hair, did so. “We wished to extend our congratulations to you on your
upturn of good fortune, Sereth. I hear you’re once more in favour in the
palace.”

“The Koros have use of my knowledge and talents, yes. I
have regained my former position and am advisor to the emperor and empress.”

Amsel smiled thinly. “And no doubt will be well rewarded
as a result. You must be a relieved man to be out of the stinking pit of the
prison. It would be a shame to return there so soon.”

Sereth stared at his guest with narrowed eyes. “What are
you saying?”

“Only that it wouldn’t take much for some accusation to
be believed in these times of uncertainty, and evidence provided in support of
such accusations would seal the fate of the unlucky. I believe that is what
happened to you last time?”

“I was unjustly accused and you know it, Fokis. Your
family has been victims of this yourselves so you know exactly what I’m saying.
I don’t understand your train of thought.”

“You do not appear to have changed for the better,
Sereth,” Amsel said smoothly. “You still hold the entire tax collected in
Turslenka for the period of four years ago illegally, and you have other
illegally acquired funds held elsewhere. We Fokis know of this.”

“You Fokis were supposed to be my friends,” Sereth said
accusingly, “but you did nothing on my arrest and furthermore did nothing to
seek my release.”

“We were busy trying to avoid arrest ourselves,” Amsel
said by way of explanation. “The fate of one corrupt advisor was of little
importance to the family. I’m sure you understand. But we can bring you down
again tomorrow if we choose; we know of your dirty little stealing and where
the money is. We have banking friends in Venn, just as you do. So unless you
provide us with information as to what is going on in the palace on a daily
basis, then I’m afraid you’ll lose your position and probably this time end up
as a beggar on the streets.”

“You mean you want me as your spy?” Sereth said with
disgust.

“If you like. That raid today by the palace on our
warehouse in the suburbs, for example. Took us completely by surprise and has
done some damage to our dealings in the area. We don’t want a repeat of that
again. Therefore in return for our silence about your financial dealings, we’ll
expect a daily report from you on what is being planned in the palace, no
matter if its connected to our family or not.”

“What – even matters of foreign policy?”

“Of course. We have contacts in Venn who will pay
handsomely for such. Leave the reports in the post box of the Black Canine
tavern at dusk. It will be watched.” Amsel stood up and straightened his
clothing. “Well, that appears to conclude our little homely talk. Enjoy your
career with the Koros. May it be fruitful for both of us,” he smiled and left.

Sereth followed him to the front door and shut it
smartly after him. He remained standing there for some time, his mind whirling.

____

The rains had come, turning the ground outside Slenna
into a quagmire. The animals of the farm churned the ground up and the frequent
passage of soldiers only added to it. The ground itself was a flat coastal
plain and didn’t drain that well; puddles collected and grew into pools. Men
splashed miserably through them and guard patrols became water-sodden trudges,
the soldier’s footwear rotting with mud and water caked on them permanently.

Jorqel made sure he kept on visiting each and every unit
and their guard posts. The town was surrounded on three sides by the army and
on the fourth by the sea. Admiral Drakan had assured the prince before he’d
sailed away that nobody was going to bring supplies to the beleaguered town,
especially now that the port of Efsia was in imperial hands. The only
possibility was that at night a ship might sail close to the rocky shore and
drop provisions off, but Drakan had said that the rocks would deter all but the
most experienced sailor. In any event food couldn’t be supplied as the shoreline
was a fairly long way beyond the rocks and anything dropped off from ship would
have to be waterproof.

Jorqel’s army had dug an earthen ditch around the three
landward sides of Slenna and piled the displaced earth into a rampart five feet
high which the guards used as a walkway. The ditch collected the rainwater and
helped drain the surrounding land as well as to provide a barrier against the
garrison should they try to sneak out at night. It wasn’t possible to block the
entire length with only the five hundred or so men they had, but the ditch and
earthworks did make it harder for anyone to get past.

Even so, messages sometimes got through. The farmers in
the town had begged permission to return to tend their farms, and Jorqel had given
his consent on condition that the farmers did not leave their farms, and that
they did not enter into correspondence with the besieged town. Of course, it
was obvious the farmers had friends and family inside Slenna, and messages were
clearly sent because a fair few were intercepted. The defenders shot messages
out on arrows or with catapults, and although many were found, some must have
got past the guards.

Jorqel was brought every message and found most of them to
be about mundane family issues, and after a careful read, passed them to the
intended recipient, often one of the farmers or farm-hands. Eventually there
was a sort of unwritten agreement that messages shot out from Slenna during the
middle watch of the day would be taken to their intended recipients but those
sent out at night would be destroyed. Jorqel was trying to cut down on illegal
messages, and to some degree it worked.

One morning one such night time message was brought to
Jorqel by Gavan. He placed it on the breakfast table and stood back, his arms
folded. Jorqel lifted an inquiring eyebrow and Gavan nodded at the rolled up
sheet of paper. “It’s addressed to you, sire.”

Jorqel put down his bread and butter and unrolled the
message, intrigued. The message was short and scrawled, as if in a hurry. “Well,
well,” the prince said softly. “It seems we have a friend in Slenna, a spy sent
there by my father.”

Gavan stepped forward again, surprise on his face. “Really?”

“That man the admiral dropped off in the sea the day we
got here, I wonder if that is this man?”

“What does the message say, sire?”

“Details of the garrison and a breakdown by unit. Signed
by someone called Kiros, and he uses the imperial insignia underneath his
name.” Jorqel passed the paper to Gavan and resumed eating.

Gavan scanned the figures. “They have five companies. Comparable
to our force.”

“Given that they’re behind walls, it’s advantage Slenna.
What’s their leader’s proper rank? That man Alfan Fokis?”

“A noble’s son, sire, by all accounts, according to
gossip from the farmers here.”

“We know that! I mean has he held any rank previously? Ah
well,” Jorqel shrugged, then took a sip of his hot klee, a reviving drink made
from the plant of that name that grew in abundance on the slopes of the hills
in the empire. “The farmers ought to have told us how many were in the garrison
but they didn’t, did they? So we’re reliant on the word of this Kiros. I think
I’ll write to Kastan and ask if this man is genuine.”

Gavan put the paper back on the table. “And what of this
supposed plan to murder you, sire? So far we’ve found nothing to support this
warning from Kastan.”

“That is true, but don’t drop your vigilance. It may be
that the killer is close by, waiting.”

“It may be one of the farmers, sire.”

Jorqel laughed. “I doubt that, Gavan. There are, what,
seven farms here? All seven have families in them, including this one, and all
look like they have lived here forever. Maybe the farm hands could be suspect,
but again they look the part rather than looking like professional killers.”

Gavan kept silent. He was wondering what a professional
killer would look like, if there was a specific look to one. He would maintain
a close guard on the prince, since it was his responsibility to make sure the
prince remained safe. He’d checked on the farm occupants, a family of five and
four hired farm hands. None seemed any different to famers and land workers the
empire over, but he couldn’t take that for granted. The prince was always
attended by two of his guard, even when he slept. There would be no relaxation
until Slenna fell and the danger to Jorqel identified, if indeed there was one.

The farmer had a wife and three children, two of them
adults and the third approaching adulthood. The offspring were two boys and a
girl. The girl presented the most awkward problem for Gavan; she was young and
unmarried and more than one of the guard had expressed a desire to couple with
her. Gavan didn’t want an incident since the farmer had, on more than one
occasion, voiced his opposition to his daughter being laid by any of the filthy
undomesticated soldiers. The mother made sure the girl was always chaperoned
and so far there had been no problems.

The milkmaid was another issue altogether. It seemed she
was quite happy to get familiar with the soldiers and there had been more than
one occasion Gavan had happened upon one of his men lying on the spread-eagled
milkmaid giving her his full attention. Moreover the milkmaid seemed to
encourage the men.

Gavan tried to keep her away from them but it was an
impossible task. She was buxom, strong and rustic. Gavan was of the opinion she
could handle a melee with the infantry – both in battle and in her usual
off-work activities – without any trouble. The other three farm hands were a
shepherd and two general hands who mucked in with herding the bovines and
repairing fences and the like. They seemed typical Lodrian country folk.

The other activity the army had undertaken over the past
few sevendays was shooting the occasional message into the town encouraging the
populace to surrender and informing them of the hopelessness of their
situation. On more than one occasion Jorqel had his men sitting in full view of
the town gatehouse eating their dinner. It was known that Slenna had already
rationed food to its garrison and citizens. Since the rains had come, however,
the soldiers had stopped teasing with that sort of behaviour.

It was all psychology, designed to wear down the resolve
of the defenders. But Alfan Fokis himself wasn’t averse to using his own
tricks. Some of the messages shot out from the town were adverts for the local
brothels and the delights they held if the imperial force put down their
weapons and came into the town as friends. Jorqel threatened to hurl bovine
manure over the walls if they continued.