Empire of Avarice

by Tony Roberts

  “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 th
e 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.

  But despite Gavan’s vigilance and the close protection he gave the prince, eyes were watching from close by, waiting and watching, preparing to carry out the contract that had been offered – and accepted.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The governor of Niake, Evas Extonos, welcomed the two visitors into his office overlooking the Aester Sea. He was pleased with his lot; the son of a local guard commander, he’d followed his father into the military at the age of 16, the generally accepted age that boys became men and were old enough to join the army. That had been 18 years ago, when he’d served as an up-and-coming bright young captain of the Niake local militia. But when he had been in his mid-twenties, things had changed. The disaster against the Tybar had wiped away much of the military hierarchy and in the confusion that had followed, Evas had been elevated to general in charge of Bathenia, the entire province, and told to expect an invasion at any time.

  The invasion had never come but then the empire had been plunged into civil war. Evas, as commander of the Niake provincial army, had been on hand to depose the rebellious governor and then put down an uprising. For his actions the grateful emperor at the time had promoted him to governor and so Evas had been there for the past nine years, surviving each revolt and change of regime, simply by expressing his support for the new emperor and then doing nothing, hoping to sit out the disruption each change had caused. His organisational ability helped to keep Niake more or less settled until, three years ago, when the previous emperor had seized power with help from Lodria, Romos and Tobralus, three regions with a history of resisting certain regimes.

  Evas had not supported the revolt, but neither had he opposed it, and since Niake still had a reasonably strong militia and city guard, the new regime had left Niake alone in return for Evas professing his loyalty which he had done without hesitation. But the citizens of Niake had objected and took to the streets. Evas had had to put the uprising down with a show of force, something unusual in Niake, and it was during that time the temples had been targeted and burned.

  Now there was yet another change of emperor. Evas had done the usual and sent a letter professing his loyalty to the Koros regime and hoped that this would be enough for them to leave him alone and carry on with the task of administering Niake, no matter that the new emperor was an old friend. He may not be emperor by the year’s end, the way things were.

  Since the loss of the western provinces and territory in the east, there had been a rivalry between Niake and Turslenka as to which of them was the empire’s second city. There was little to choose between them, both had similar populations, both were of similar size and held similar garrisons. What was to Niake’s advantage though was its proximity to the capital, Kastan. Only a narrow stretch of water separated them, a journey of about one watch’s time in length, and on a clear day they could see each other from their respective walls.

  Evas was a stocky man with dark hair cut to shoulder length, a thin dark moustache and a strong looking lower jaw. His brown eyes sparkled with good humour, but it was an affected mannerism designed to put others at ease. Evas had learned to be friendly to everyone, no matter what he thought of them.

  “Welcome to Niake, gentlemen,” he greeted the High Priest and the merchant as they were shown into his office. “Sit down, sit down,” he motioned to two chairs that had been specially placed there that morning. “Drinks?”

  “A hot klee for me, Governor,” Demtro said, settling comfortably into the hard chair. He smiled to himself; it was a tactic he often used to make the visitor a little uncomfortable and therefore at a disadvantage. Many a negotiation could work to one’s advantage that way.

  “High Priest?” Evas asked solicitously, standing by the window, his hands clutched together.

  “Spring water, Governor,” Gaurel said briefly. He wanted to be on his way as soon as possible. The brief view they’d had of the streets of Niake had provided him with the awful truth of the state of the temples in the city.

  Evas called the order out to a servant and seated himself, a smile on his face. “Well, this is a pleasure, I can assure you. It’s not often such honoured guests arrive in my city.”

  Demtro looked at Evas in surprise. He was merely a merchant. The paper he’d carried and which had been handed over on his arrival at the governor’s office had merely stated he had been granted a trading licence by the emperor and was to be allowed to set up a textile business in Niake. “A pleasure shared, Governor. I have returned to my home city after a short period in Kastan.”

  “One of our sons? Welcome back, merchant Demtro. I’m sure you will be successful in your venture. I believe you are looking for premises to start your trading from? I have the perfect place for you, close to the Western Gate.”

  Demtro bowed once. “My thanks. I shall inspect it shortly.”

  “And you, High Priest, this is a great day indeed for Niake that you should choose to come here in person and rebuild the temples!”

  Gaurel gave Evas an unfriendly stare. He hadn’t chosen at all; it had been forced on him. “Governor. I am appalled at the state of the temples in your city, and more than that, appalled that you should have done nothing to repair them and to provide the people here with a place for worship in the past three years! The shame of it reflects badly on you.”

  Evas spread his hands helplessly. “Alas, High Priest, my duties and responsibilities, and of course a lack of funding, meant I was unable to do much. It is something I regret and has played deeply on my mind on more than one occasion.”

  Sure it did, Demtro thought sardonically. Evas didn’t look tha
t bothered.

  “I must insist, Governor, that you set aside some funding this year to enable me to begin the long and arduous task of rebuilding our temples. I will not have our people being abandoned by the state in such a callous manner again.”

  “High Priest,” Evas said patiently, “funding is tight and taxation high; many public buildings are in need of repair and I have been tasked by the emperor to concentrate on a road repair programme before the winter comes. Time is tight and I won’t have any spare capacity to give you workmen or the funding until the spring comes at the earliest. I am sorry, but my hands are tied.”

  “Do you serve the gods?” Gaurel asked, pointing a long finger at the governor.

  “Of course, High Priest!”

  Gaurel stood up, indignant. “You do not show it, Governor! It seems on every side the gods are being betrayed by those who say they serve them, yet do not. A man is not judged by what he says, but by what he does! And you may speak of being faithful and of servitude, yet your lack of action says otherwise. I know people like you; often they profess loyalty and friendship but they are the first to desert you when events turn. You are a weathervane, Governor. Faithless, feckless and directionless. You believe you have seen bad riots in the recent past. Well, I assure you, if you do not divert some of the funding from your pet political projects to the restoration of the temples in Niake, then you’ll have a riot to end all riots! I shall have you burned to the ground as a heretic. Mark my words!” With that he strode out of the room and the door crashed back behind him.