Herald of Steel - Chapter 1574 - 1574: Alexander's Proposal (Part-8)

Pasha Farzah’s frown became visibly depressed as he heard Alexander speak. Because as much as he wanted to, he was unable to refute the points his counterpart made.

They were indeed letting the other side take advantage of them.

However at the same time, his heart was also unwilling to simply accept this enormous loss. The old lord knew once those provinces were lost… it would be almost impossible to get them back.

A part of him hence believed Alexander was being too hasty and overreacting.

His broad chest could be seen visibly heaving up and down in thought, acting like weights between the two options.

And from the opposite side, the keen eyed Alexander clearly noticed all this. But rather than stop to give the old man the time to reach a decision, he strove to drive his point even harder, clenching his fist and declaring,

“There is no point in claiming land we have no real hope of getting anytime soon. So why should we sit by and let Amenheraft use it? Let us give the nobles the freedom to do as they wish. No taxes, no tithes, not even answering to the royal family during disputes. I believe even you want to do, right, Pasha Farzah?”

“…..” Once again, the man in question did not want to reply, but deepened the frown on his forehead.

“Ptolomy will never accept this,” He finally gruffly mused letting the heavy sentence be laden with all kinds of insinuations.

Such a thing would of course result in a huge loss of revenue as well as the priceless prestige and majesty of the royal family.

How would any king accept this?

In fact, as the prime minister who got to officially boss them around, Pasha Farzah was similarly against this. He was just being polite to Alexander by not to outright saying this.

“His Majesty will have objection to anything and everything we say. Where is the surprise in that?” Alexander however was not a man to so easily give up.

He pretended not to notice the elder lord’s misgivings and conveniently brushed aside the words with a flash of his palms, before pressing again with an understanding tone,

“I realize this all sounds extremely sudden to my lord. Adhania has had these borders for millennia… so to suddenly change them…. these talks are indeed sacrilegous. However please pay heed to our current situation.”

“You have tried your best, but things still don’t look at all good for us. Rusti, as powerful as it is, is still only one province. That is simply not enough. And given that we are running low on ideas, what is the harm in simply trying my way? Worst case scenario, it totally fails and we are back where we started from. Then we will have no choice but do it the hard way.”

“However if it works… if it causes a number of Pashas’ support for Amenheraft to falter… what a great boon it will be for us! It will put us straight back in the fight! So why not try it my way?”

Alexander repeatedly urged like this, and for an instant, this open cost to benefits ratio analysis made Pasha Farzah’s eyes lightly flicker with greed.

He was slowly starting to see Alexander’s point… however

“Brat, I get where you are coming from… but you are thinking like this because you do not understand the history of our country,” The old man ultimately stopped himself from rolling down the hill with this rueful sigh,

“You do not know how these lands were before we united. It was carnage, hell on earth. It took us almost half a millennium to unite, finally achieving some semblance of peace. And now you want to rip all this to pieces just this that?”

The Matrak lord dejectedly shook his head at the plan, curling his lips into a light, but firm smile.

Then, before Alexander could respond, he slightly imperiously raised his hand and in a final tone declared, “There is little point is us discussing it anyway. Even if we somehow agree, ultimately this will require Ptolomy’s approval… so go talk to him instead.”

“…..” Alexander lightly pursed his lips at such a vehement rejection. He did not think the old man would be that intractable… even when he had made things so clear.

Pasha Farzah was usually a reasonable man, so he figured he could bring him to his side relatively easily.

But it seemed the thought of all those birds flying away out of his grasp was a bit too much for him.

‘Sigh, this is called greed!’ Alexander could not help but bitterly muse, ‘Even when he knows they are actively against him, he still does not want to let go… hoping one day he will be able to profit off them. How foolish!’

But at the same time, Alexander could half empathize with the old man’s way of thinking- this was the place he grew up and it held strong sentimental values.

Thus to simply let each and every Pasha go their merryway, destroying all the relations and institutes built up over the centuries on the way….well this was going to be a tough thing to sell anyway.

“My lord… then what if I made the suggestion myself… in front of the court, next week?” Ultimately, seeing Pasha Farzah was not interested, Alexander decided to take the highway all by himself.

“What!” And this act of defiance instantly riled the old man up, his eyes firing up like a furnace.

He could not believe the boy was harping on about this.

Yet, Alexander stayed his ground and firmly stated,

“I want to simply bring the idea that should any Pashas want to declare independence, they can do so. Whether they choose to actually do it, well that will be up to them! But we should swear that if they do this, then even if His Majesty disagrees and threatens to go to war with them later, we will not aid him.”

“Disobey a direct order from the king?” Pasha Farzah sounded even more shocked at these openly treasonous words, his eyes widening further.

Instead of placating him, Alexander’s answer seemed only to work to frustrate the man.

“Brat, have to started to go senile?” Hence he cursed, pointing his thick, ringed fingers directly at Alexander’s nose,

“And what if Ptolomy then decides to ban them from ever entering the capital? Never letting them take part in the Jtaama. Or worse, what if he begins to have the priests at the Grand Temple start to curse their lands?”

“Have you thought of about? Have you thought what the lesser nobles would do when their legummum supplies are cut off? Have you thought how the people in those lands would react? Of course not! Because you live in another world! Now, stop this foolish nonsense.”

“…..” Alexander only lightly pursed his lips at the vehement denial, although he showed no signs of caving. His mind was made up and Pasha Farzah’s reasons were not convincing enough to change it.

It was likely sensing this that the old man suddenly changed the pitch of his voice, now lowering it to a more, smoothing, tractable tone,

“Boy! Listen! I know you do not think too highly of our faith… but for better or worse, Ptolomy is part of the divine lineage, chosen by the ‘Father’ himself. He might have his shortcomings but the heavens chose him for a reason… even if we cannot understand the reasoning right now. So at least show him a modicum of respect.”

“….” Alexander was frankly caught a bit off guard by such a religious sermon. He always figured Pasha Farzah was an atheist who only saw this practice as a convenient tool to control the masses.

Thus this change of tune… ‘Has he started to find faith in his twilight years?’ The boy mused to himself, quickly drawing many parallels from his previous life.

As death and the ultimate approach, it was indeed natural for many souls to begin to hope there was some kind of continuation afterwards, that the grave was not the utter obliteration of ‘self’.

“My lord, I am not making any Pasha do anything. If they decide to indeed do this and His Majesty Ptolomy then decides to punish them like so… then so be it. I am sure if we can think of this, they can too. They will certainly make the decision after taking everything into account.” Alexander cleverly skipped past all of Pasha Farzah’s objectionsusing this…squarely dumping all the dangers on the relevant parties.

And then, he reiterated his point in a crystal clear manner,

“What I want to do is simply plant that seed… of rebellion. Let them think they can do this. This will fracture Amenheraft’s alliance. Many of the provinces will figure be it Amenheraft or Ptolomy… this is not their fight! Are you willing to help me at least do that?”

“….” When Alexander put it like, Pasha Farzah suddenly found he had a hard time arguing.

‘To just nudge those wastes….’ He noted inside, his eyes dimming and *tap*, *tap*, *tap*, his large fingers solidly knocking on the hard table wood.

And this tapping went on for what felt like an eternity to Alexander.

Until..

“What do you want me to do?”

The ask got a great, sly grin from Alexander- he understood the stubborn bull had finally caved!

Thus slightly wringling his palm like a snake oil salesman, the young man sweetly chimed,

“Not much. Just make sure none of the palace guards try to kill me as I speak!”

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