by Robert Adams
“Both the Duke and I are convinced that Harzburk is behind these declarations.”
Mara tilted her head. “But why doesn’t King Kahl just attack Kuhmbuhluhn himself if his people are so fond of fighting?”
“Well, for one thing,” said Milo, “because he’s not so honest and uncomplicated as you, love. For another, because if he were openly to attack a smaller state, his rival — Pitzburk — would attack him.”
“Oh, so Pitzburk is our ally?” she asked, then answered, “Yes, that’s right, they were the first to send us troops.”
“No,” Milo explained patiently. “Pitzburk sent us troops because we’re good customers; the Pitzburkers are no more allies than are the Harzburkers.”
Frowning with concentration, she finally shook her head sadly. “I’m sorry, Milo, I simply don’t understand it all. If Pitzburk isn’t our ally, then why would they attack Harzburk if Harzburk were to attack Kuhnbuhluhn?”
Milo drew himself up. “All right, children, tonight’s lesson will concern the Middle Kingdoms. These lands are bounded on the south by the river that we call Vohreheeos, on the west by the Sea of Eeree, on the north by the Black Kingdoms and . . .”
“Oh, stop it, Milo!” she burst out. “Stop teasing me and tell me the answer to my question.”
He grinned. “I’m trying to, woman, just stop interrupting. Up until the disruptions of the Great Earthquake, three-hundred fifty-odd years ago, the Middle Kingdoms were just that — three big kingdoms: Harzburk in the east; Pitzburk in the west; and Eeree in the north. Subsequent to the disasters of the quake and the subsidence of large chunks of Harzburk and Eeree, these kingdoms fragmented into the beginning of the jumbled patchwork of domains we see today.
“Not having suffered damages equal to those of the other kingdoms, Pitzburk reorganized faster and not only reconquered its breakaway areas, but marched on to subjugate a good half of Harzburk, as well. Frightened by the growing size and strength of Pitzburk, Eeree joined with the unconquered Harzburkers, after about ten years, and the combined armies drove the Pitzburk forces all the way back to their own capital and besieged it there.
“That siege lasted nearly two years and might have finally succeeded, had not several things happened almost simultaneously. Having stripped the surrounding countryside bare, the besiegers ran out of food and began to fight each other, but the Pitzburkers were in such bad shape that they were unable to take advantage of the situation and break the siege. Then an army from north of the Sea of Eeree laid siege to Eereeburk at the same time that large-scale rebellions erupted in Harzburk; so both armies hurried home.
“The King of Pitzburk had died during the siege and only the common enemy had held the nobles together; with the enemy gone, all hell broke loose in the western kingdom.
“So, what do we have today? There are only two actual kingdoms, Eeree having become a republic; but, though much shrunken in area, Harzburk, Eeree, and Pitzburk are still the major powers in the Middle Kingdoms. Then there are the great duchies. There were sixteen of them before Kuhmbuhluhn joined our Confederation, but all of the remaining ones are in some ways connected to one or the other of the Big Three. Next come the small fries, and some of them are really small, Mara, tiny; but all are more or less independent states and most are ruled by a hereditary nobility — peacock-proud and boasting a veritable catalogue of grandiose titles.”
Mara breathed a long, long sigh, saying tiredly, resignedly, “Husband, when are you going to tell me why Pitzburk will attack Harzburk if Harzburk attacks Kuhmbuhluhn?”
Pointedly ignoring this, Milo simply continued. “You and most of the Ehleenoee were horrified that the civil war that racked and wrecked the Southern Kingdom lasted for five years, yet almost the same thing has been going on in the Middle Kingdoms for over three hundred years.”
“But that’s different, Milo,” Mara interjected. “After all, the Southern Kingdom is an Ehleen kingdom, a civilized realm, while the Middle Kingdoms are only an aggregation of brawling barbarians, little higher culturally than the mountain tribes.”
“Wrong!” Milo asserted. “Wrong on several counts, Mara. First of all, although the peoples of the Middle Kingdoms and the peoples of the mountain tribes are of the same race, there is a vast cultural gap between them; in fact, it is you Ehleenoee whose culture bears the closest similarity to the mountaineers.”
Mara sat up quickly, bristling, her black eyes flashing. “I’ll take just so much, Milo, even from you!”
He raised his hand in the gesture of peace. “Hold on, dear, let me explain. What I just said is not completely true, not now, anyway, but it was true as little as thirty-odd years ago. Why do you think I directed the tribe here, rather than to the Middle Kingdoms or the Black Kingdoms or Kehnooryos Mahkehdohnya? Because in warfare, as in too many other aspects, the culture of all the southern Ehleenoee was a static culture, as the culture of the mountain peoples is a static culture.”
He, too, sat up. “Mara, many of our people feel that I am unjustly persecuting the Ehleen Church in the Confederation. This is an exaggeration. I’m not persecuting it at all; I’m only trying to weaken the stranglehold it has had on the Ehleenoee and their culture for far too long. An organized religion of any description is, by its very nature, best served by conservatism. This is why, when I gave the ancestors of the Horseclans their laws and religion, I did it in such a manner that it would be very difficult for a priestly caste to develop.
“Your cultural apogee was reached two hundred years ago and you were still squatting there, until the coming of the Horseclans. Your average Ehleen is born a conservative — ‘What was good enough for great great grandpa is good enough for me!’ Between that basic attitude and the tendency of the Eeyehrefsee to brand as Satan-spawned any person or thing they don’t understand, the creativity has been all but ground out of your people, Mara.”
She slapped her thigh angrily. “Now, that is a lie, and you know it! If our people . . . my people . . . lack creativity, then from whence comes our art, our music, our literature, our architecture? Why, the very palace in which you sit slandering us is new. Demetrios had most of it built just before you barbarians invaded. Don’t misunderstand me, I bear little love for Church or Eeyehrefsee — the black-robed vultures! Do you know how they ‘test’ a suspected Undying? They lop off a hand or a foot and plunge the stump into boiling pitch. Then they throw the unfortunate wretch into a dungeon for a couple of months to see if it grows back. No, I wouldn’t care if you had every Eeyehrefs in the Confederation roasted alive, but I won’t have my people defamed!”
“Mara,” he went on doggedly, “your anger is unworthy of the fine woman I know you are. Stop thinking like an Ehleen and open your mind. Think, Mara, think! Your artistics are all nobles, which class is infamously irreligious. No, it is the poor and the oppressed who are your most religious; your peasants, the khoreekoee, they are the actual strength of the Church. When did one of them ever come up with something new and different — a labor-saving device, for instance, something great grandpa didn’t have?”
He paused, awaiting her answer, but she only sat in sullen silence.
“What would happen if a khoreekos devised and fabricated a simple, mule-drawn appartus that could reap a field of rye in less time than twenty scythe-men? Well, Mara,” he prodded, “what would be the fate of that agrarian genius? Would he be lauded for his innovative ability? Would his peers beat a path to his door, that he might show them how to build and use his invention? Answer me, wife!”
“Oh, you know damned well what would happen to the poor dumb bastard, Milo!” snapped Mara. “The Eeyehrefsee would see him tortured until he admitted to transactions with Satan . . . or died; then they’d see him and his invention burned together.”
“Precisely.” He nodded. “Which certainly rather discourages any original thought on the part of the land slaves, doesn’t it? But the priests don’t intimidate me. I have devised and am going to introduce just such a machine at the next harv
est time.”
“Oh, Milo, Milo!” Mara pled. “Please don’t stir up any more trouble with the Church. You know what they did to that water-powered mill you had built while yon were gone last summer. And they’d have seen the millers all slain, too, had my guards not gotten there in time.”
“So they sought my millers out in their homes and butchered them before their families,” stated Milo grimly. “You didn’t know of it because the widows were too terrified to speak until I returned, since the damned Ehpohteesee had borne their husbands’ mutilated bodies away and promised to come back and do the same to them and their children if they said aught of the murders.”
Mara had paled. “The Knights of the Saints!” she breathed.
He nodded, tight-lipped. “Yes, the Church’s secret terror squads. But the bastards aren’t secret any longer; they’re all either dead or incarcerated in the old fortress at Goohm.”
“But . . .” she stammered, “but how did you find out who they are?”
Milo showed his teeth in a wolf-like grin. “As you said earlier, it’s been a busy six weeks for me. I had old Hreesos, the Metropolitan, arrested on a trumped-up charge and immured in the deepest tier of the City Prison, naked, to contemplate upon his sins. After a week, he was brought up, washed, shorn, shaved, and garbed in a death-robe. Then he was left alone for a few minutes, long enough for him to look out the window and see the Chief Executioner sitting on the block and thumbing the edge of his great sword. Mara, you have never heard such moaning and praying,” Milo chuckled.
“The old scoundrel went to his knees, wet his red robe down the front, and started going over his life and his more questionable activities in his mind. Of course, he has no mindshield, and I was behind a false wall with two of the prairie cats; Mara, some of the things that swine has done or had done in the name of religion would curl your hair. I’d originally intended fining him and freeing him after I’d picked his mind, but after I found out just what a merciless monster he is, I had him heaved back in his cell. He’s far too dangerous to be out of a cage!”
“And I hadn’t been back in the palace for an hour when a delegation presented a petition for me to intercede with you on Hressos’ behalf,” said Mara. “The delegates also apprised me of the fact that barbarian kahtahfraktoee were riding through the streets and sabering every priest they saw — on your order.”
“You’ve never spoken of any of this before tonight, Mara. Why not?” asked Milo.
She matched his predatory grin, tooth for tooth. “I told you, you could roast them all without upsetting me. Besides, I knew you’d tell me all about it in your own time.” Her brow wrinkled. “But why that elaborate charade, darling, why didn’t you just have him tortured?”
“Torturing a man like that would have accomplished nothing, Mara. The man, for all his misdeeds, is a religious fanatic. He is dead certain that every evil he has wrought has been holy, in that his acts helped perpetuate and strengthen his Church. He would have bitten off his own tongue, ere he imparted to me the information I wanted!”
“So,” Mara inquired, “he unknowingly gave you the names of all the Ehpohteesee!“
He barked a short laugh. “Hardly! There were over three hundred of the ruffians. But he did think of the Grand Master, his illegitimate son, Marios. Him, I had the pleasure of introducing to the artful Master Fyuhstohn, only a couple of hours later. Marios became a real fountain of information. It was all the scribes could do to keep up with him. Then I gave him a cell next door to his father.”
“It’s all up to you,” put in Mara. “But wouldn’t it be safer to kill them?”
“That precious pair,” snarled her husband, “is undeserving of a quick death. The only man who’s allowed to slop those swine is a deaf mute; the guards on the level above have orders to immediately slay anyone, even the prison-governor who tries to go below — I issued their orders, in person!”
“What,” she asked, “are you going to do with the rest of the Ehpohteesee?”
“When the Church has been weakened and discredited to the point that witnesses are no longer afraid to come forward, I’m going to try them for their crimes. Until then, I’ve a number of schemes to keep them busy. Shortly, they’ll start repairs on the east trade road. Next spring and summer will come the cleaning and repair of Goohm — at the end of the campaign, I mean Goohm to become Freefighter headquarters. Next winter, they can go back on the roads.”
“How in God’s name do you propose to finance road work and fortress repairs, Milo?” Mara demanded. “You had to take Lek . . . Lord Alexandros’ kind offer of a loan to finish paying off your Freefighters.”
“Since your so-called delegation told you so much, they couldn’t have failed to mention my ‘desecration’ of the cathederal.” At her nod, he went on. “Inside and under the main altar, we found more than two hundred thousand ounces of gold, mostly in coins, as well as over a million ounces of silver! When we tore apart the Metropolitan’s quarters, we found even more gold and enough cut gemstones to cover the top of that table — mostly fine diamonds, with a few rubies and opals and one pouch of very nice emeralds.”
Stunned, she could only say, “But . . . but where? How . . . ?”
“Many ways, Mara. Perhaps a twentieth was out of free-will offerings and contributions. As for the rest . . . well, The Holy and Apostolic Church of Kehnooryos Ehlahs owns farms, Socks, herds, ships, warehouses, orchards, vineyards, extensive properties in the various cities, at least two quarries . . . and more than half the brothels in the realm! They don’t own the brothels openly, of course, but through dummies — willing confederates amongst the laity.
“But there’s more. You wouldn’t believe the quantities of wine and brandies and cordials we found in Hreesos’ cellars, and never a single tax brand on any of them; so, he’s obviously been smuggling. But it’s his other little side line that really infuriates me.”
She had seen that look in his eyes before, but only in battle, and seeing it as they lazed before a fire in their own palace frightened her.
“For most of the twenty years of his primacy, Hreesos and his priests have been offering to take one or two children from large peasant families into the monastic orders; usually, the peasants jumped at the chance, since it promised the children a secure and comparatively easy life, and gave the parents one or two less mouths to feed. From all over the realm, the children so collected would be brought here, the boys to St. Paulos’ and the girls to St Sohfeeah’s.
“When they totaled twenty to thirty head, they’d be marched down to the docks and loaded onto one of the Church’s ships, which would promptly set sail for Yeespahneeah or Ghahleeah or Yeetahleeah or even Pahl’yos Ehlahs. The prettier ones would be sold to brothels, the others to disreputable types who would either conceal the children’s origin or else swear that they were war captives.
“You see, my dear, the Holy Hreesos was also a slaver. Several of his ship captains have made the acquaintance of Master Fyuhstohn, subsequent to which they told me a good deal about their activities. One of them had been at it for over twelve years, averaging a hundred children each year, for whom he got high prices, since the priests were careful to choose only attractive, strong, and healthy children. Those captains and their crews will also be improving the trade road and helping the Ehpohteesee at Goohm.”
“But what about those damned Eeyehrefsee?” exploded Mara. “They chose the poor children. Surely they knew?”
“Oh, I’m certain that they did know, Mara, but the time is not yet ripe for me to strike directly at the Church,” he replied, adding, “with a war declared for the spring, I don’t need a peasant uprising this winter. No, I’m playing this business a different way, Mara.
“When I sent Lord Alexandros the principal and interest of his loan, I sent, as well, a request. Since then, I’ve dispatched seven ships to some of the ports mentioned by Hreesos’ captains. My captains know those ports well; they are shrewd, hard men and in possession of adequate funds t
o buy back as many children as they can locate.”
“Oh, yes,” she said coldly, “I’m beginning to understand, I think. You mean to return them home and let them tell their parents and neighbors all about their ‘religious training’? Sun and Wind, my lord, that’s fiendish. Why, those peasants will tear the Eeyehrefsee into gobbets, with no Ehpohteesee on hand to protect them!”
Milo nodded, grinning broadly. “Precisely, my dear. And don’t you think their fierce faith in the Holy and Apostolic Church and her clergy might be just a wee bit undermined, eh?”
“Husband-mine, please constantly remind your wife to never incur the enmity of High Lord Milo of the Confederation.” She answered his grin with one of her own. “Sweetheart, it’s a master stroke; the Church won’t recover for decades . . . if ever. But tell me, what was the total value of Hreesos’ hoard?”
“After” he emphasized the word, “I repaid the loan and financed the captains, and discounting the smuggled potables that are now in the palace cellars, the Confederation Treasury shows a balance of some forty million thrahkmehs.”
“But, Milo!” Mara cried. “He couldn’t, simply could not, have amassed so much in only twenty years! Forty million thrahkmehs, eight million tahluhz!“
“Oh, the current Metropolitan didn’t collect it all, Mara,” Milo assured her. “Sun knows how long his predecessors had been squirreling it away in that altar. Remind me to show you some of those coins that came from bags so old they fell to dust when we touched them. There was one bag of mint-sharp thrahkmehs of Lukos The First.”
“They must have been saving a long time!” she exclaimed wonderingly. “Why, Lukos has been dead over three hundred years!”
He laughed harshly. “Yes, hut Hreesos’ successors will never have the opportunity to lay away lucre on that scale. From now on, the Church is going to be taxed, heavily taxed, on all the sundry holdings. We are slowly unraveling the Black Robes’ financial empire, and we’re nibbling bits and pieces of it away. I’ve already confiscated the Church’s fleet on the basis of evidence of smuggling, and all the harbor warehouses, too. I didn’t include the value of those in the treasure balance, but it will up the balance a tad.
