Chapter 1223: All men must serve(3)
Chapter 1223: All men must serve(3)
The man collapsed to his knees three seconds after he was hauled into the Prince’s presence, his limbs rattling with a tremor so violent it looked as if his bones were trying to escape his skin.
For an heartbeat the wretch had stood paralyzed, his neck craned back to gape at the ceiling of the great tent. To a man who had likely spent his life staring at dirt and gray sky, the sight of gold flowing in heavy, molten waves across the white cloth’s roof must have seemed like the birth of a new universe.
That wonder lasted only until Vrosk’s voice cracked like a whip through the air, barking the order to kneel.
Which the man obeyed.
Alpheo looked down at the creature questioningly. He was old feeble in body and clearly fraying in the mind. Only a few wisps of white hair clung to his scalp, falling in sad, thin strands down a neck that looked like weathered parchment. He inspired absolutely no reassurance, which made his presence nags a question.
Outside, thousands of starved, hollow-eyed shadows were lingering at the mouth of the camp,their a sprawling sea of human misery blocking the road.
Alpheo had demanded their leaders, but as he studied the shaking man before him, he realized the men he had sent with the request had simply grabbed the oldest and shoved him forward to face every whim of the prince’s pleasure.
Or much better prince’s displeasure that is.
He was standing on the precipice of his end-game. After a journey so arduous it had aged him a decade, he could finally see the finish line. He wanted to break camp at dawn and strike the final blow. Instead, he had a human wall of famine standing between him and his destiny.
"Raise your head," Alpheo commanded. He tried to keep his tone even, but the cold irritation seeped through like poison in a well.
The old man obeyed, his eyes bulging like boiled eggs.
Alpheo might have offered a comforting word, but Rykio’s earlier suggestion was still ringing in his ears. The man had proposed cleaving a bloody path straight through the center of the mob. "You wouldn’t need to kill a quarter of them before the rest whimpered off into the countryside," Rykio had pointed out with a shrug. "They’d bother us no more and we’d have clean road."
Alpheo had considered it. A quick, sharp slaughter to clear the road. But a question held his hand: why were they here?
During the peasant revolts in Herculia, he had manipulated bands of beggars, arming them and turning them into a chaotic weapon of bandits to harass his enemies. Every tool had its use.
But there had been no whispers of a mass migration this large until today. These people were a new variable. Which meant something had happened.
"Are you aware of whose camp your presence is hindering?" Alpheo asked, his voice low and dangerous.
"W-we wouldn’t have dared, my lord... i-if we had any other..."
"Just answer the question," Alpheo snapped.
The old man nodded frantically, a tear tracing a path through the grime on his cheek. "We did know... but we are desperate. Gods’ mercy! We are hungry, and the road behind us is closed. We have no way out, and no breath left to run."
"So you thought bothering the foreign army on your soil was the right road?" Alpheo asked. He did not know whether to praise the wretch for his imagination or be awed by such suicidal foolishness, though he supposed hunger had a way of rotting the mind. He knew the bite of starvation well enough.
"To do what? Beg? Bother us with your numbers until we choke on your misery? I could have my soldiers clear the lot of you before the sun sets and make red of the grass beneath you. Did you truly presume to threaten me by standing outside my gates?"
The man paled, his skin turning the color of wet ash. "W-we wouldn’t have dared, Your Grace... we came t-to ask for work. Any work.We don’t have any weapon. The women... they can use themselves, if it earns a crust. We’ll dig, we’ll haul, we’ll serve. We’ll do whatever your heart desires for a mouthful of grain".
Alpheo considered the offer with a practiced detachment. Were this any other host, the soldiers would have already dragged the women into the shadows of the tents. But this was not just any army. Still, while his own legions might obey the iron-clad military rules he had forged, he knew he couldn’t vouch for the restraint of the Kakunian allies or the Yarzat levies.
His resolve to send them away, bloodied, if the situation required, hardened. He decided to squeeze what little information remained in this husk and be done with it.
"Where did you come from?" Alpheo demanded.
"Were Your Grace to ask every soul out there, you’d hear a dozen different tales of woe" the man rasped, his voice barely a whisper. "Some wandered from the west, others crawled from the north and the east. This war... it’s been a scythe for us people. Our camps were burned just as our homes were. Some lost kin... but all of us lost the way to make bread. We traveled to the capital, thinking there was safety behind the walls, thinking there was work".
"And?"
"We were stopped at the gates like dogs. Only those whose brothers, husbands, or sons volunteered to march against you were allowed inside. The families of soldiers were the only ones given grace".
"So, all of you are the kin of those who presumed to march upon my land?" Alpheo asked lazily, leaning back.
The man had the sense to look apologetic. "We had no choice, Your Grace. I beg you. It was the spear or the starve. Families with no men fit to carry a weapon were sent away to die in the ditches. Many of us did just that as we travelled to the capital".
"Just as it seems you are about to do," Alpheo noted, watching the man tremble. "But you said you were allowed inside . What changed? Why are you shivering at my gates instead of huddled in their streets?"
"For a long time, we didn’t know the reason," the old man said, looking down at the gold-flecked dirt of the tent wall "But one day, the guards came. They made us answer that same bitter question again: ’Do you have a brother, a father, or a son able to fight?’" He choked on a dry sob.
Who knew perhaps he had one. If that were the case six chances over ten chances the boy was dead, other three he had deserted. In both case he would never see him or them again.
"As Your Grace can see, we did not. Those of us you see outside... we are the ones with no one left to bleed for them. They threw us out that very evening at spear’s end. We traveled for days, seeing nothing but crows and ash, until we sighted your fires. In the name of the five gods, the Weaver preaches to be kind for those in need, I beg you to be kind. We are just starving people. The gods would reward and bless you for some kindness"
The old man’s prayers were a wasted currency that had a better chance of moving Alpheo’s horse than the Prince himself. Alpheo had already mentally discarded the tragic window-dressing of the tale, harvesting only the marrow he required.
The Prince in Oizen had clearly caught the scent of their approach. It was no great feat of espionage, Alpheo’s host was but two days from the capital. An army of nearly 2,700 men could hardly hope to tread in silence through the heart of a princedom. He allowed a thin, razor-sharp smile to touch his lips as he imagined the frantic state of the Crownless Prince.
The man undoubtedly felt the walls closing in, wondering how a foreign blade had reached so deep into his borders while he thought himself secure behind his lines.And he had just send the useless mouth away to spare that small food he knew for a fact he had.
A ragged, wet cough from the wretch on the floor snapped Alpheo back to the present. The question remained: what was to be done with this sea of human refuse?
His first instinct was the pragmatic one: order them outside the perimeter, toss them a few crates of stale hardtack as thanks for the informations, and send them scurrying into the night.They would probably butcher each other like pigs to get through those crates, and they would disperse as quick as they came.
If they lingered, Rykio’s steel would provide the necessary encouragement to move. Whatever happened to them afterward, whether they were run down by garrisons forces or succumbed to the winter, was a matter for the local lords, not for a Prince with a city to take.
He was a heartbeat away from dismissing the man when a thought took root in his mind,a thought so wicked and yet sound that it demanded his attention and pause. He looked down at the old man, his eyes narrowing, as he thought of something else instead.
Could it work?
The silence in the tent stretched, broken only by the whistling breath of the beggar. After a moment’s consideration, the answer came back clear: It could.
"You said you were willing to do any work?" Alpheo asked, his voice losing its bored edge.
The old man’s head bobbed up like a wilted flower finding a drop of rain. "W-we are, Your Grace! I swear on the Five, we’ll do everything. May the the Gods bless you and keep you!"
The gods have already done their part when they sent me your way, Alpheo thought, a flicker of cold anxiety from an old dream in his chest.
Build our paradise Alph.
"Listen well," Alpheo said, leaning forward from his seat"Have your people stand well away from the camp. You will not set a single foot inside my lines, but you will be fed for the duration of your stay here.As for the women keep them well hidden from the men, if I hear words of rapes I won’t raise a hand to punish them. We may yet have work for you, work that will require every desperate soul you have.You’ll be fed if you’ll abide.’’
The old man began to weep with gratitude and delivering blessing from the gods to him , his sons and daughter and whatever wretch would come after , but Alpheo was already looking past him and back to the plan he had just formed.
Indeed it bloody-well could work.