We smuggle fifty men or so into the city. At night they will attack the palace. We’ll have a couple of hundred of our men dressed as Sander’s Guards. They will ride in to support the defense of the Palace. Actually, they will be there to make sure that the Duke and his sons are dead. Then we control the city.”
Seldin stopped and waited for a reaction. The King smiled. “An excellent plan Master Seldin. Excellent. There is one issue, we won’t control the economy. How do you propose we rectify that?”
“Your majesty, we identify suitable people from our kingdom. They will come in, and we’ll ‘buy’ the businesses from the current owners. Then we’ll ‘relocate’ them to Porfia. Unfortunately, that is an arduous journey, and not many will survive.”
Leonades nodded, and then he turned to his Dukes. “What do you think of this plan?”
Duke Cadmael answered first. “I think it will work. There will be some bloodshed that’s unavoidable in these things. The key is that it won’t be a slaughter out in the open where we will enrage the northern kingdoms. I’ll pledge 500 of my men to the endeavor. Duke Mako?”
“I agree, my friend, we can take over Koronus with this plan. I like it. My able assistant, Baron Skelous, would be the perfect man to lead this and take over from the old Duke. He’s shown his loyalty risking his life for me, and he has the right temperament. I’ll pledge 800 men.”
Leonades was pleased that Kios and Larissa would each pledge 100 men. He’d add five hundred men. That made it a formidable force. “Duke Mako, please have Baron Skelous work with Seldin to come up with the detailed plan. They’ll send it around for our final approval. If we approve, I think we should strike near harvest; that will make it more urgent for Duke Sander to react to large numbers of bandits in the villages.”
Everyone agreed that Skelous and Seldin would meet afterward to finalize the plan.
The next day the two men met in the palace. Skelous said he understood the plan, and he wasn’t sure how they would get men into the city to start the takeover. “Normally, I’d expect that we could infiltrate them with caravans and have them hidden by our merchants within the city. The problem is there aren’t that many of our merchants in the city, two or three at the most. There isn’t much trade between the other cities in Tantulus and Koronus because we discouraged it. How do we get around this?”
Seldin smiled. “There is trade with Sudlund, a good deal actually. We send people to Sudlund to buy goods. They form a couple of caravans and head to Koronus. Everyone in the caravan will be one of our soldiers. It means that we can get about fifty men or so into the city. Add in a handful of travelers, and we have enough men to start storming the palace. They will be dressed in the uniforms of Sander’s own Guard.
We’ll have four hundred or so of our men, also dressed as Sander’s Guard, ride into the city to help. We’ll start the attack well before dawn, and our men will ride in a little after sunrise.
We’ll stage everyone at Gortyn. The ‘bandits’ will take the east-west road and then use the back trails to get north and south of the city. We’ll position the rescue force a day’s ride from the city.
The ‘bandits’ will start causing trouble near the villages. They won’t do anything, but we’ll send people into the city with horrific stories. The Duke will be forced to act. He may know that he’s in trouble, but he will be in a bind.”
Skelous was impressed. “Brilliant, simply brilliant. This will work. I’m sure you’ll be well rewarded.”
It was late summer, and the Guards from the various cities in Porfia gathered outside of Gortyn. At the beginning of summer, a caravan of fifty merchants and guards had left Gortyn heading for Koronus and then on to Sudlund. Their cover story was that they were trying to establish a trading route between many of the southern kingdoms. They’d buy goods in both Gortyn and Koronus and sell them in Sudlund. Then load up on goods in Sudlund and head back. It was a passable story. They were expected back in Koronus shortly.
It had been decided to cut the number of bandits to two hundred in both the north and the south, separated in several bands. This was more realistic than a sizeable single band. It wouldn’t matter; Duke Sander would have to send a large force to deal with them. The gangs of ‘bandits’ left in groups of fifty, heading towards the north and south villages. At the same time, the main strike group of four hundred men moved down the east-west road.
When the ‘bandits’ reached the villages, they burned a couple of houses and thoroughly terrified the villagers. Their orders were not to destroy crops or do too much damage. Just enough to frighten the villagers and cause them to look to the city for assistance.
When the reports came in that bandits were marauding to both the south and north of the city, Duke Sander was suspicious. He called his council together along with his two sons, Minos and Neritos. He explained the situation. “We’ve got reports of large numbers of bandits operating to the north and the south of the city. This is not a coincidence. I fear that Porfia is finally making a move against us. We have no option but to send strong forces to counter both threats. We can’t take the chance that they will burn the crops, which would cause severe hardships. We have a supply of grain in the city, but it would be barely enough to keep all of our people in the city alive. The villagers would starve, and we’d be next.
When our forces leave, we will be especially vulnerable. Dedessus, one of my harem Amora is with child. I want you to take her and the younger sons and daughters of our more prominent families and leave the city. If we weather this storm, you can return. If we don’t, set up a village and pretend to be farmers. I believe that the Porfians will eventually lose control of our realm. Hopefully, in your lifetime.”
Minos asked his father. “I understand, father, that if the city falls, we will not survive. I can assure you that we will sell our lives dearly. But the merchants, what do they have to fear?”
“Son, at the least, they lose their businesses to the Porfians. At worst, they will be killed. If we are freed, we’ll need people to come back and rebuild. I am hopeful that Amora will have a boy. That’s what the women in the harem believe. Why they believe this, don’t ask me.’ At that, he smiled.
He turned to the head of the Guard. Send strong forces both north and south of the city. Make sure that the Guard that remains in the city is alert. Have riders ready to leave and bring our men back.
If we hold out, we can catch these Porfians between ourselves and the returning Guards. That will allow us to crush them. But we must hold out.”
The Duke sent two-thirds of his forces out to secure the villages and the harvest. That left the city with a force of fewer than six hundred men. When the caravan of ‘traders’ reached the city, a messenger was sent out. He was a ‘visitor’ who was leaving. When he met up with the main force under Skelous, he let them know that everything was ready, and the next night they would attack the palace.
Skelous had his men dressed in the uniforms of Duke Sander’s guards, and he led them to a camp two hours from the city. There they waited.
The next day at three hours before dawn, the ‘traders’ dressed as Duke Skelous’ Guards marched towards the palace. They got onto the grounds and then opened fire on the men guarding the palace.
They managed to cut down a number of defenders before they could react. The shooting alerted the whole city. Duke Sander, his two sons, and his remaining guards took up positions within the palace and started to fight back. The Guard tried to organize but were confused by what was happening and the uniforms worn by the attackers.
They did get organized and started to press the attackers hard. Just then, Skelous and his men rode into the city. Everyone thought that they were from one of the Guard details sent out to subdue the bandits. This made it easy for Skelous’ men to cut the defenders down.
When it became clear that the palace would fall, Aethre, who was the leading woman in the harem, gathered all of them as well as their servants together. She handed out poison and made sure tha
t everyone drank it and was dead. Then she drank it herself. She wanted no one left alive who could tell the Porfians that a potential heir had escaped.
Duke Sander and his older son Minos made their stand near the ducal apartments along with several of their guards. Just before the final rush, the guards followed their final orders and shot both the Duke and his son in the head. They would not be taken alive and suffer a trial or horrible execution. The remaining guards fought to the last man.
Skelous declared himself Duke. The remaining Guardsmen, who were out of the city, were told to surrender or their families would face the consequences. They did. The officers were exiled with the minor nobility and the merchants. They were all executed two days west of the city on the orders of Duke Skelous. Many of the lower-ranking of the old guard members were integrated into the Duke’s Guard.
Research
Catrina was pregnant, and he was going to be a father. Those two thoughts kept going through Mike’s mind. At first, he was sort of numb. This had always been the plan, and he had intellectually accepted it. The reality was much different. He was now coming to grips with it. It was a mixture of happiness and fear of the unknown. He’d never been a father before, well, at least in the raising the kid sense. Now that was going to be square on him. He felt the obligation somewhere deep inside himself.
Catrina was in seventh heaven. She was thrilled, and she didn’t seem to have any of the typical issues that his sisters had with being pregnant, like morning sickness. If he thought about it, he hadn’t heard anyone complain about it. Elizabeth seemed to have skipped that as well. His sister Julie would be jealous. He remembered hearing her talking to his mother about her bouts of morning sickness. If anything, the pregnancy seemed to have kicked her libido up a notch. Not that he was complaining.
Nordport had been notified by a bird as soon as the pregnancy was confirmed. There had been letters going back and forth between Catrina, her sister, and her parents. Mike was sure that Christiana had made it clear to Roddrick that he needed to up his game. In his mind, he saw the old Paul Horning commercial where he steps out of the limo with two attractive women and says – ‘Practice, Practice, Practice.” If only Roddrick could see that, they’d have a good laugh.
He had things that he needed to do, mainly staff work. The types of things that would be normal back home but are not even considered on Cornu. He’d never gone to staff college, but he was familiar with a lot of what was done. Familiar enough so that he could do a reasonable enough job. It would be light years ahead of what would have been done before.
While Dedessus and Harlold were in Tantulus leading the fighting, Michael concentrated on a project that he had started but had little time to work on. He wanted to get a history of what happened in Koronus when the old Duke was overthrown. Mike was also interested in both Duke Mako and Duke Skelous. He expected Skelous to fall shortly. The man hadn’t reacted appropriately to the type of warfare that was being waged against him.
While Skelous may fall, that would leave Porfia wounded and weakened. All he had to do was to look at history to realize that a wounded and weakened state can still be dangerous. From everything he could gather, Leonades would fall soon after Tantulus is free from Porfian rule. That would take about two years or less. With Leonades gone and Tantulus free, the embargo would end. That is unless they could tie the heir, Bartrum, to the plot against his in-laws. He wanted to know everything he could about the Porfian Royals. This included a psychological profile of the various key players on the other side.
It clearly wouldn’t be a profile like a government back home would develop. The profile would be much more of a broad brush one. Still, it would give people some idea of what to expect from the ‘opponents.’ Duke Marvon had been doing this in his own way. While he didn’t have much contact with the spies maintained by the various kingdoms, they were more of counselor officials anyway. Looking out for trade and commerce, plus whatever they could learn about what was going on in the various courts. Useful, but not the same
As soon as he realized that Porfia was responsible for the attempt on his wife and her family, Mike had been gathering information on the country’s leadership. Duke Marvon was an excellent source of information. An even more valuable source was Andreas and his two wives. They had an up-close and personal look into the machinations that surrounded Leonades coming to the throne.
When it became apparent that Koronus was the key to prying Tantulus from the grip of the Porfians, Mike had been learning as much as he could about Duke Skelous and his patron Duke Mako. With regards to Duke Mako, Andreas and his wives proved to be a good source of knowledge. Mike had been sending them questions and getting back detailed replies. As to what happened in Koronus and the overthrow of the old Duke, he had a lot of people with firsthand knowledge of the events. King Menounos’ three wives were excellent sources of information. They also knew a lot about how the Porfian’s subverted the rulers in Tantulus. Tintin, whose father died protecting the old Duke, could add a lot of information. Amora, Arturos, and Dedessus had firsthand knowledge of what went on in Koronus just before the Porfians seized it. With all the sources he had, Mike was able to draw a reasonably accurate timeline of how things played out, and it also gave him a good understanding of the different players.
He started writing out his findings. From what he’d found out, Leonades father and his spymaster were the brains behind all this. They’d make Niccolo Machiavelli jealous with how they’d maneuvered everything and everybody. His wife and family were lucky that those two weren’t behind the attack. They were lucky, if that’s the right word, to escape. Leonades wasn’t nearly the long-range planner that his father had been.
Baby Announcement
King Fredricke and his entire family were eating dinner together. Young Lauden was sitting on one of his grandmothers’ laps. The boy had five women circling around him: two mothers, two grandmothers, and an older sister. The discussion was relaxed. A messenger came in and handed a note that had come in by bird to Randall.
His wives looked at him as he read it, and a big smile lit his face. “Tell us what’s going on, Randall.” Said Juliana.
“This is from Catrina, and it seems that Lauden will be an uncle in a few months.”
It took everyone a couple of seconds for it to sink in. Then there were smiles all around and excited talking. Fredricke summed it up. “Great-grandchildren, excellent. Just one more for my wives to spoil.”
That got him a couple of playful slaps from his wives and eye rolls from everyone else. Roddrick caught the look that Christiana gave him. He recognized it for what it was and thought, ‘Time to get my wife pregnant. No rest for the weary.’
Retreat
Petronas led what was left of his expedition south towards Koronus. He’d lost more than half of the men he had started with. The remainder were in shock. Dedessus’ men had mauled them, and they knew it. There weren’t that many wounded. If it could even be called that, the retreat left the more seriously wounded on the battlefield. Dedessus’ men would have finished them off. They wouldn’t be taking prisoners.
As Petronas looked over the column of men riding behind him, he could see that they were beaten. There would be no way these men would be willing to go out and face the rebels again. Duke Skelous had inspired no loyalty in them, and they would see no reason to go out and get killed for him. The rest of the Guard was made up of men who were born in Tantulus. They would be even less willing to face the rebels. No, the rebels had broken the Guard, at least the Porfian portion of it. The locals in the Guard would be very reluctant to fight their countrymen. Especially given how they’d mauled the Porfians. The question was what to do about it. He wondered if the rebels knew that the Guard was effectively beaten.
The long-term answer was to head back to Porfia and bring along as many Porfians as possible. The problem was the Duke. Skelous would not give up. Nor would Duke Mako pressure him to flee. Nor could Petronas just up and take what remained of the Porf
ians in the Guard and anyone who wanted to join them back to Porfia. He would need a much better excuse. He spent the remainder of the day thinking about it.
That evening they set camp, and Petronas went among the men and talked with them. They didn’t say much, and he could see that they were shocked by the defeat. They noticed that many of their comrades were missing and lay dead back on the battlefield. There was a lot of undirected anger. Petronas knew that he’d need to do something before they reached Koronus, or the whole thing could spiral out of control.
Also, he needed to be aware of the reactions of the Duke. Skelous had grown more and more arrogant as the years had gone by. He was always cruel and ruthless. Couple that with an undeservedly high opinion of himself, and he could be both dangerous and self-destructive. Sending the murderous and sadistic Tactin out to terrorize the peasants had backfired spectacularly. Now there was a well-organized rebellion underway. One that was on the brink of succeeding. The northern kingdoms were blocking Porfia from sending any help. Even if they did, Petronas wondered how much help they really would be. They’d have to send at least a thousand or more men. He didn’t think that would happen, and if it did, they would be too late.
Feeding them in piecemeal would just allow the rebels to defeat them in detail. It was an impossible situation.
Petronas had to consider his own fate and the fate of his family as well. It was entirely possible that Duke Skelous would order his execution and also take revenge on his family. He didn’t doubt that if that were the case, his death would be slow and painful. Petronas wasn’t going to sacrifice himself and his family for that vain ass, Skelous. He needed to come up with something.
That evening when they camped, he instructed the men to set up a more permanent camp. They would stay in the camp for at least a week. He needed the time to plan.
The Porfian Princess: The Chronicles of Cornu Book 4 Page 4
