Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king
Chapter 1227: One’s own choice(4)
A hedgehog would have had a grand bed here, Sorza thought, feeling the spines of Alpheo’s stare prickling through his fine armor. He couldn’t even summon the dignity of anger for the insult. The All-Knower was his only witness to the humiliation, but the god surely knew which of the two princes had more to lose in this parlay.
They were at an impasse, quite an ugly thing that sat between the two hosts like a wall of ice. Alpheo knew it, Sorza knew it, and even the raven circling overhead seemed to caw in recognition of the stalemate. All that was missing was the rain. Sorza looked up at the leaden sky, half-expecting the heavens to drop a final turd upon his gilded helmet.
The Prince of Yarzat meanwhile shifted in his saddle, his blackened plate creaking, and for a terrifying second, Sorza thought he had lost him. He saw the shift in Alpheo’s weight, the subtle turn of his mount; he saw the end of his city, his reign, and his life galloping away.
But the gods, in their fickle mercy, had provided Menna.
"May a poor woman add her own voice to this chorus of hammers?"
All eyes snapped to the princess-mother. Once, she had been Menna Costayne. The Costaynes were not a house of high song or ancient lineage; they held modest lands near the Kakunian border, just ahead of the Zauern.
A fish were their banner, so they weren’t much even in martial renown.
What she lacked in pedigree, however, she had forged in sheer audacity.They ought to have given her the shark instead of a fish.
Through maneuvers that still made the old lords whisper, she had navigated her way into Prince Shameleik’s bed during a feast and made the whole of the princedom know of it the morning after when her brother found him in bed with the prince.
Her honor and his was in stall, and the priest were quick to admonish the sin of marriageless sex. One thing led to another and Shameliek had wife and Genna had groom.
At the time, he was a second son so all it raised were some grumbling from the then prince Malion , but when his elder brother died childless of the pox, Menna found herself wearing the circlet of a princess.
Now however Shamleik was dead, and all that remained was her two children and a state on the edge of destruction.
Sorza watched as she guided her horse closer to the Fox.
"I wouldn’t presume to deny a lady such a liberty," Alpheo said, his smile now blooming as much as it was mocking . "If the son must hide beneath his mother’s skirts to avoid the wind, be my guest. We expected little else. Disappointment seems to be your son’s primary contribution to the arts."
"It would seem to me," Menna replied, her voice smooth as polished stone despite the biting cold, "that we have stood here for ten minutes and done nothing but trade insults like tavern brawlers. Were I to let my dear son continue his part in this play, we would be sitting here until the leaves turn. I suppose it would be best for all, your weary men included, if we spoke of terms."
"Terms," Alpheo muttered, tasting the word as if it were a bit of spoiled meat. "I believe we had terms once, etched onto parchment and sealed with wax.’’ The princess mother’s smile winced a bit. ’’Your son was so eager for an end to the fighting then that he bothered half the South and begged the other. I, in my turn, brought an Emperor to witness it.I could have fought and took more, I had the army and your son had defeat. But instead I sat down and made peace, even after your son threw accusation, false one at my face. I stomached them and sighed that damn paper.Because I thought peace was better than war.
We nicknamed it the ’Prince’s Peace’ and patted our backs in contentedness. We might as well have called it the ’Mummer’s Farce,’ for you made it last less than five years."
He leaned forward, the white of his bandage leaking out from the black locks of hair "So now I am here. I am here after my people have been raided, hacked to pieces, burnt, and raped. I am here after you spent three months trying to starve my legate and my lords at the Bastion. I am here after a battle that left me scarred and my armor ruined. I am here to bring the war you clamored and seeked for so long.
And yet, you speak of terms? I ought to have my sword red with your son’s guts and see if the blood turns blue from the cowardice in his veins. Should that be a term, Lady?"
He expected her to flinch. Instead, Menna tilted her head, her expression one of mild, scholarly interest.
"Only if you would prefer to parlay with the worms, Your Grace," she said, offering a shallow, graceful bow. "For they are the only ones who will listen to you once you’ve slaughtered the only man with the authority to sign a treaty.There would be only a fatherless baby , and a mother weeping for his eldest"
Alpheo barked a short, genuine laugh. He found he actually liked this one. "It seems the source of his spirit is now a mystery. I found the father brave enough, and I had assumed it came from the other. Now?" He glanced at Sorza, then back to Menna. "Now I see I was mistaken on that account too."
The cold wind rose suddenly, a mournful howl that echoed across the plains like the cry of a hunting pack.
"Speak your terms, then," the Prince of Yarzat commanded, his eyes finally settling on someone he could actually converse. "I thought you were in a hurry to save what’s left of your home."
"On that, I am," Menna replied, her voice cutting through the chill as she adjusted her reins. "Were women to leave men to their own devices all day and all night, the land would know nothing but the rhythm of the drum and the whetting of steel. It is our duty to reel them in when they wander too far into the dark. Gods know how long war has feasted on our lands. We seek peace now, yet you hesitate, fearing we might break it. Perhaps it would be best to provide a weight to hold that peace in place?"
"What type of weight?" Alpheo asked. He found himself far more intrigued by the mother than he had ever been by the son, save, of course, for those frantic hours at the Ford when he had thirsted for Sorza’s blood.
"Hostages," Menna said instantly. Her gown flickered in the wind like a signal fire.
The word sparked something in the Prince’s eyes. "Who?"
"Edmure. My dedar second-born son, and the only brother of His Grace." She spoke the name without a flicker of doubt or a trace of maternal pain, leaving Alpheo wondering if she were extraordinarily dutiful, dangerously callous, or if she simply held no love for the boy she was trading away.
She was after all giving him to the maws of his other son’s enemy.
Asag nudged his mount forward until his horse’s muzzle brushed against Alpheo’s. "I met the man" the Legate muttered, his voice low.
"And? Your opinion?"
"A shivering pup," Asag said, a smirk pulling on his lips. "Even more so than his brother. He couldn’t stop the rattling of his boots when we first crossed paths. You’d think the Sea-God himself was rising from the deep to claim his gold and his cloth. There is little iron in him, and even less worth, if you ask me."
Still, the boy was the Prince’s brother and second in line to a principality. If not him, who else? Sorza’s own son was a babe, which made the prince’s brother’s worth even bigger, history was after all a graveyard of first-borns who died of the pox or the flux, leaving the second option as the only one left to wear the crown.
And it was always good to have second options.
"Very well," Alpheo conceded. "I will accept him as a guest, provided a deal is reached before the sun touches the horizon today."
Menna nodded. "With that foundation laid, we can continue. We shall put to parchment that Oizen relinquishes all claims to the Malshut mines and every town you conquered three years ago."
"Hardly a concession," Alpheo countered, his voice turning to ice. "You summoned four other princes to help you reclaim those lands and yet you failed. At this point, you might as well ’relinquish’ your claim to my morning breakfast for all the weight it carries. I have other desires on me instead.’’ he leaned forward in his saddle’’ my honor was soiled by the curs of Aragustaven in a little excursion of theirs."
"The Lord of Aragustaven is dead, as your lord ally was so keen to remind us," Menna said, her eyes narrowing.
"Indeed. But the hound does not bite unless the master whistles." Alpheo leaned forward. "He would not have marched without the consent of Oizen."
Menna’s gaze didn’t waver, nor did he try to deny, she was in no position to do so. "What is the price then?"
"An apology," Alpheo stated. "A public one, detailing the damage done to my person and my lands. He will swear an oath before the Five that he will never take up arms against me, ever again. And a second oath, one that binds him to the peace we sign this day forevermore."
Alpheo knew well enough that oaths in these broken times weren’t worth the leather on a soldier’s boot. But a public kneeling was a political victory he could wave before his lords to cement his prestige.
And he would gravely need every ounce of that theater for what was yet to come after this.