Ilias II: The World Under Stagspring
The Twelfth Day of the Tenth Moon, 873 AD.
Stagspring, Central Owkrestos, Klironomea.
"Evening meal, your Grace."
Lykourgos smiled down at him as he gently placed the plate down on a table to the side of the prince's work desk. It was a good plate of food for someone like him, but by the standards of royalty he'd learned that Lykourgos lived a relatively Kallitrian lifestyle. That was another term he'd learned recently; 'Kallitrian', not in the sense that something was from Kallitrios or was like something from Kallitrios, but in the sense that it was austere and without unnecessary frills.
To him the food looked fucking great, and when he was younger he'd have never dreamed he'd be eating anything even remotely close to something like this. Still, lords and kings lived different lives to the people, and that was the way of the world.
"Come, sit with me. I'll not manage to eat all of this and I could use some company at the moment."
Ilias smiled to himself. At times it was almost like the prince could hear his thoughts.
"Thank you, your Grace. I am a little hungry."
"You're still growing; you're always going to be hungry at the moment. I was when I was your age."
Ilias snorted at the thought of the usually prim and proper Lykourgos gorging himself like a child who'd found his way into a honeycomb, the casual tone of the conversation help settle his nerves a little. He wasn't nervous about serving the prince his food, for he'd been doing that for more than a year at this point, but he was nervous about the job he'd be doing later. Talking with the prince helped alleviate those nerves a little.
Today the prince had been sent a piece of fillet steak which had been seared on the outside and left red in the middle. It was a little bloody for Ilias' preference, but he wasn't going to turn down such a good cut of meat. There was a small pot of thick gravy to the side which the prince poured over the meat and vegetables, separating them out into two roughly equal portions before allowing Ilias to start eating.
Ten years ago he'd been living in poverty and hardship on the streets of northern Anaria, the cold never far from his mind or his skin. Now he was sharing an evening meal in a palace with a prince. Angels, he was glad at how things had changed in his life these last few years. He didn't want to turn out like some of the people he knew from the streets.
"I've received some... odd correspondence from Triarios recently."
Ilias looked up at the prince, who's words had broken the short spell of silence.
"Anything hostile?"
"No, no," the prince chuckled, "nothing like that. Strange, but not hostile. The ex-King of Triarios writes to me as if... well, as if we were old friends. I suppose it makes sense given the circumstances, for I think he wants to make sure our new partnership goes both ways, but it is still a little amusing nonetheless. How about you? How have your days been recently? How have you been faring in Stagspring?"
"The days have been fair enough, but... well," he started as he hastily swallowed a mouthful of steak, "I'll certainly be happy to get back to Anaria. I like it better there. There's no sea here, it's... it's weird. There's no ocean. Just land."
Lykourgos raised an eyebrow at him.
"I wasn't aware you missed the sea that much. Has the ocean been a big part of your life?"
Ilias shrugged.
"I didn't realise it until we left it behind. I don't think I noticed too much during the civil war or this campaign because we've all been very busy, but now that there's a bit of a lull in the activity I feel... I don't know how to describe it, it's just like I'm missing something."
The prince smiled kindly at him and set down the cutlery he was holding, ruffling his hair. Ilias noted that the prince's side of the plate was still mostly full, but he wasn't worried about the man starving himself; from what Ilias had seen whilst working for him the prince ate a hearty portion of food in the evening, but slowly. Sometimes that was reversed, particularly on days where the prince had seemed hungrier than usual or else had forgotten to eat through his work that day, but most days he was content to eat slower than those around him.
"Well we'll be heading back to Anaria soon enough, probably in a day or two, so that might bolster your spirits a little. You'll be in attendance at my coronation in a position alongside Dreamwulf and Nasos, though I must apologise for the role you'll find yourself in on the banquet."
Ilias giggled a little, the prince's apology seeming genuinely funny to him.
"Your Grace, in that banquet I'm to be your personal cupbearer. That is literally what I'm paid to do. You don't need to apologise for that, your Grace."
"I know, but still," the prince continued, "you'll be one of only a few people who won't be able to enjoy the festivities."
"I'll sneak plenty of food from the kitchens whilst I'm serving you, your Grace. I probably shouldn't admit that, but there's no risk of me going hungry. Trust me."
Lykourgos snorted, and his spirits seemed to lift a little, so Ilias took that to mean he had the prince's support in his pilfering of the kitchens. That was why he liked Lykourgos, the man was different to the lords he'd met before. Nicer. Stronger. Not necessarily physically imposing, though the man could certainly hold his own in a fight from what he'd heard from Dreamwulf and Eros not to mention his own experience seeing the prince use improvised weaponry to defend himself from the Cult of the Choir before they were smoked out, but stronger of the mind and of the heart. He was stronger in his wit, in his ability to do what he needed to in order to win, and stronger in a hundred small ways that combined to make him the strongest man who had ever lived.
Angels, was he stronger. Twenty-one years old and the king of three kingdoms. Ilias had come into the knowledge that, when spring rolled around, the wars would start anew. Nordicos was next he'd heard, then a swift march eastwards. Lykourgos had an ambition and drive that could be matched by very few indeed, and Ilias was happy to be able to say that he was on the prince's side and would never stand against him.
If Ilias had his way, no one would stand against Lykourgos at all. He could not fathom anyone wanting to.
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"Hurry up, boy! We've got a couple of upjumped thugs to meet with, and I don't want us being late because you're nervously looking over your shoulder every half a minute. The only person you need to be afraid of is me, so keep your eyes on where we're going."
Ilias scowled at the man's rebuke. Of all the people that the Master could have assigned him to work with on this matter, why did it have to be Stefanos? Scratch that, Stefanos dealing with this matter made sense. Why was Ilias here? He was supposed to keep an eye on the king, not assist the Master with pacifying the underground.
"I'm just not used to this place. Anaria I know like the back of my hand, but Stagspring is new to me. I don't like not knowing my way around."
"Well," the eternally smug man replied, "luckily for you I've been here many times before. I know my way around, and I know the men we're supposed to be dealing with. They know me well enough and they're expecting our presence, so we won't get any trouble from then. Just ignore the eyes watching us and pretend they're not there. I know you can feel them, just like I can."
Stefanos was right; this entire time Ilias had felt that uncomfortable crawling sensation on his back that signalled hawkish eyes tracking his movements. He felt it every now and again when he was in the palace in Anaria, and in those cases he knew that there would be rats in the walls waiting to report on him to the master. Ilias wasn't stupid, though. He kept any misgivings about the fact he was now reporting on the prince to himself. The reports were filled with nothing of any import, since the prince either kept his plans to himself or blurted them out for all to hear, so there wasn't really much for Ilias to do. Most of the time, back in the capital that was, he just filed mundane conversations into the reports. The only real thing Ilias had been able to report back with was the planned investment and reorganisation of the prince's new Owkrestan lands into vast estates so that they could turn a much greater profit. He didn't think such a matter would be harmful to report.
Of course that meant a whole lot of paperwork. The prince had joked previously about making Ilias do a large amount of it, but that was all in jest. Once all the figures were in place and Lykourgos had a more organised idea of what he was working with Ilias was willing to bet he'd be overseeing the project himself. Nasos would have his work cut out for him, what with trying to convince his Grace not to work himself back into a coma. Ilias did not envy the sheer amount of work that seemed to encompass the prince's entire life; the young man was ambitious, yes, but he also was willing to put in the work to see those ambitions through. Those ambitions ranged from smaller scale steps, such as the city charters that had apparently been sent out to a few of the larger townships amongst the new lands, to the prince's eventual goal of uniting the Heptarchy of the Klironomoi into one kingdom again.
After that, who could say?
His mind was drawn back to the presence by a series of scribbles on the wall of a side-street that he roughly recognised as thiefspeak, if distorted. That was another reason he preferred home: he could understand Anarian thiefspeak, but not this dialect. In this environment he felt useless.
He couldn't waste time with self-pity however, for as much as he hated to admit it this wasn't Anaria, and that meant he just had to work a little harder if he wanted to get around in the criminal world. Not that he'd been doing much of that sort of work lately, what with his assignment to watch the prince and everything. He could parse a good guess on what the symbols surreptitiously scrawled on alley walls and abandoned buildings meant, but he couldn't know for certain. He was completely fine when it came to the Anarian thiefspeak, after all he'd grown up scribbling the stuff, but the underground of Stagspring seemed to have its own variant of the chickenscratch scrawlings.
"Come on, stop staring at random fucking bits of code. We've got a meeting to get to, or don't you remember?"
Oh, Ilias remembered all right. When Stefanos had appeared and handed him a letter with some very clear instructions from the Master he'd felt his heart sink a little. Apparently now that these lands were owned by the prince there were those who felt that Elikoidi should take a more direct hand in controlling the underground here, just as he'd swiftly grown to control information-brokering. Seeing as the man already controlled most of the Teleytaian underground and kept them in check Elikoidi had agreed, and so Ilias and Stefanos were being sent as his representatives to meet with the heads of a few of the more prominent minor gangs in Stagspring. Now that his Grace controlled Triarios as well Ilias suspected that similar moves would be made over there in time, but for now it was his job to just speak with these criminals on behalf of his master.
Elikoidi was a very powerful man. The only person with more power in the kingdom was Lykourgos himself, and so Ilias was very thankful that the spymaster's intentions seemed to be genuine when it came to dealing with the royal. The Master of Silver hadn't revealed exactly why it was that he was so totally loyal to the prince, and Ilias wasn't sure he ever would, but that didn't matter. Ilias owed the prince his loyalties for who he was, for what he represented: change. The prince was change made manifest, a brilliant flame to burn away the corruption of the old world and replace it with something new. Maybe the spymaster's reasoning wasn't much different?
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He got a niggling feeling that there was something more to it than that, but before he could think on it any more the feeling of being watched returned in a far stronger form than it had been in before, burning away his trail of thought. Turning into an alleyway just behind Stefanos he soon realised that they were being followed. Ilias got followed a lot in his line of work, so he'd gotten pretty good at realising when it was happening and stopping himself from getting anxious because of it. Stefanos, judging by the grin creeping across his face, had probably just realised it as well. Ilias just sighed. This was going to get bloody.
"Any coin to spare, mister?"
Two men stalked towards them from the shadows of the alleyway, and where normally Ilias would have been able to give them the slip easily he both didn't know this place and didn't have the time to waste on such matters, since this meeting wasn't something that could just be rearranged on a whim. They were gang leaders, not bureaucrats, and as such if they didn't get what they were promised when they were promised it they wouldn't be pleased.
"Depends what you're selling to me."
Stefanos' voice was cocky. Confident. Such confidence wasn't misplaced, as Ilias knew all too well, but to these men he must have seemed rather out of touch with his situation. One of them drew a seaxe from his pocket and pointed it at Stefanos, and when the other did the same but pointing at Ilias he took a step back on instinct.
That's when Stefanos seemed to change a little. That's when the killer who'd terrorised the streets of Anaria's northern district showed himself again.
"I suggest you to put that down. The boy will die one day, that I promise you, but I'm going to be the one that does it. Just me. I don't want anyone else touching him."
The two men looked at each other, looking very confused and almost a little disturbed. Eventually one shook his head to the other and they turned back to Stefanos, their tone becoming belligerent and dangerous.
"I don't care what fucking gripe you've got with the kid, give me your fucking money!"
Stefanos said nothing, instead holding his arms out wide as though inviting them to try and attack him. The first man lunged forwards, his footwork clumsy and strike far too ungainly to even phase someone like Stefanos. The killer simply sidestepped the man and kicked him so hard in the balls that the first of their assailants dropped to the floor, his seaxe flying through the air. In the same movement Stefanos had plucked the blade from the air and opened the second man's throat, drawing his hand back and dropping the blade only to grab the dying man be the back of the neck with one hand and, with a great deal of force that seemed out of place in his lanky frame, reached into the open wound and tore out the man's tongue through his throat.
With that display concluded he wiped his hands on the dead man's coat, allowing him to drop to the floor next to his groaning friend. For a moment he looked at the other man as though considering killing him as well, but judging by the glint in his eyes he was finding the idea of leaving the other man alive more amusing for some reason. Whatever it was that he was thinking of Ilias didn't know, and for that matter Ilias had no wish to know what went on in that man's mind.
Ilias was disturbed, but not overly so. It was a needless display of brutality, yes, but these men were thieves and criminals. There was no telling what else they'd be up to. He hated the fact that he was forced to stand alongside Stefanos at the moment, but then he supposed that in some ways it was a good thing; his master wasn't foolish enough to trust the killer on a personal level, and so Ilias was told to watch him. Of course there was a chance that Stefanos might take the opportunity to kill him, but Ilias doubted it. The man wanted to, of that he had no doubt, but Stefanos needed to be able to go back to Elikoidi with his job still intact. If Ilias turned up dead then he knew exactly who'd get the blame, and both his Master and his prince would be furious. Lykourgos cared about him after all, and for all of Stefanos' many disturbing and depraved faults, he was not rash. Not normally, anyway. Push the right buttons, say the right words, and he'd fall into a fury like any man, but it would take a concerted effort to get him there.
Ilias had no intention of trying to anger him at the moment.
"Come on then littlun, the boss wants us to meet a few new contacts. You aren't afraid of a few Owkrestans, are you?"
Ilias shook his head, doing his best not to appear in any way intimidated by any of this. He needed to be stoic if he was to get through this without anything going ill.
"Of course not. These contacts know the Master, by name if not by meeting. They wouldn't dare touch us, not unless they want half of the organised underground after them. These people didn't get where they are today by acting in choler."
"Choler, eh?" Stefanos smirked at him, a dull lifelessness to his eyes that somehow appeared manic. "You've been picking up some fancy words from your new friends, haven't you? Seems you've almost forgotten you came from the streets like us."
He stayed silent, unwilling to respond to the other's needling comments and give the vile man the rise he'd hoped for.
"Pah, you're too serious nowadays. Then again, you never were one for fun."
"Your idea of 'fun' was the mutilation of people who crossed you, Stefanos. I suppose in that way we both haven't changed much, have we?"
The killer grinned ferally at him, seeming almost happy to be talked back to.
"That's more like it. I was beginning to get bored with your silence and thought you might never find your spine. I'll kill you one day Ilias, but that won't be for a long while yet. Tell the boss if you want, he won't believe you. Besides, I'm his most valuable worker."
Ilias just shrugged, acting as if none of this bothered him. The man could make all the threatening comments he wanted, but at the end of the day Ilias had royal favour. Not in the traditional sense, no, but he highly suspected that Stefanos would end up shorter by a head if the man was found to have done anything to him. Hell, Ilias was pretty sure that Prince Lykourgos would have ordered the man's execution anyway if he knew what he'd done, that the serial killer people once knew as the 'Gin-Run Angel' still lived. To be honest Ilias suspected that the reason his Grace tried not to involve himself in this sort of thing was precisely because he didn't want to learn exactly who it was in the underground that now, technically and nominally, worked for him. Killers, thieves, gangers, extortionists, forgers, all the detritus of society could find work under the Master of Silver.
Well, if they were good enough that was. Those who tried to back out of their obligations or otherwise fell short of being considered worthwhile... well, they'd be given plenty of chances, but as soon as those chances ran out then a new seat at the table would soon appear, so to speak.
"This should be the place. I fucking hate the chickenscratch they pretend is thiefspeak here, but the markings match up. Time to wrangle us up some luckless halfwits."
Angels, but Ilias fucking hated working with this man.
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The meeting had taken place in a dimly lit room behind a brothel, which a still-grinning Stefanos had led him through on their way to the meeting place. At one point someone, probably the house owner, had called out to the older man, asking him if he was "Paying for your boy to have his first time with some of my girls, eh?", to which Stefanos had only laughed in response and shook his head.
"No, as funny as that would be to me. We're here to meet with a few people in a... private room. I trust you can accommodate us?"
The brothel owner's smile vanished as Stefanos' words rang out, and Ilias watched the colour drain from the man's cheeks. It seemed he wasn't overly keen with having so many gang members in his house of pleasure, not that Ilias blamed him. Some of the gang leaders here were likely to be actively feuding with each other, and probably had only stayed their hands from violence thanks to the reputation Elikoidi had amongst the underground of the Heptarchy. The western parts of it, anyway.
Well, that and the fact that none of them probably wanted this haunt to be shuttered. Ilias hadn't seen the insides of many brothels, but this one certainly seemed... classier was probably the wrong word, but they were certainly cleaner and nicer than some of the ones he'd needed to visit before.
The owner led them to a private room in the back, and knocked thrice on the door. Ilias was certain he could hear the moaning and giggling of some of the ladies within, and as such was worried they had the wrong room, but as soon as the owner spoke the noises stopped.
"They're here."
A few moments later a hurried procession of half-dressed women left the room, Ilias averting his eyes to give them some decency as they passed which made more than one of the giggle, and when the last of them had left the owner gestured towards the now opened door and allowed them to enter.
"Well, you all certainly seem to have been busy."
"Your boss can cover the costs of that. If he wants our cooperation, that is."
Ilias bit back a retort as Stefanos chucked down a small bag of gold ravens onto the table. It seemed that the master had suspected this after all.
"That should cover it, and then pay for a dozen whores in every brothel in your shitheap of a city on top of it. I don't want to waste your time, so I'll keep this short. The boss likes information. It's his job to collect information. And there's no-one better to learn from in the cities than the rats. That's why we're here. The boss wants to enter into a deal with the lot of you."
One of the gang leaders, a man with a dark goatee and a pair of intense brown eyes, interjected.
"What sort of a deal? We don't need no boss over our heads, even if he is bloody powerful."
Stefanos made a conciliatory gesture, though it seemed more mocking than sincere.
"Well, he doesn't want to lord over you per se. He really just has one or two demands to make of you, and in return he'll make sure the worst of the attention is taken off of you. After all, a man with so vast an informant network could crumble any small-time city-dwelling gang in a matter of weeks. He doesn't want to do that, though. All he wants is for you to leave his rats, and his rats nests, alone. If he needs to know something from one of you, he'll send someone to ask, and he expects you to tell him. Apart from that he's content to leave you all be, and maybe even enter into a few partnerships in the future. It pays to have powerful friends in our lives, doesn't it?"
Another of the gang leaders, an older man with white sideburns that joined to his beard, spoke in a gruff and scratchy voice. If Ilias had to guess he'd say that the man had once been a miner of some sort, probably working at digging the silver out from under this city. Well, before he'd become a criminal anyway.
"And if I refuse? If I walk out?"
"Then the boss will find another candidate to reign over the underground of Stagspring. And their first order of business will be to tie up our loose ends. I trust you understand how dangerous this line of business can be?"
The man narrowed his eyes at Stefanos, saying nothing. Then with a slow, almost deliberate breaking of eye contact, he turned to look at Ilias.
"And why's he here? What is it the runt wants with all of this? He looks better fed than the rest of us; can't be a man of the night. Why's he here?"
Stefanos, grin still in place, moved to place his hands on Ilias' shoulders. The feeling of the man's hands on him made Ilias feel genuinely ill, and it took a lot out of him to pretend that he was fine with the man's disquieting presence.
"At the moment? He's here to watch me, I think. The boss is smart, doesn't trust anyone."
Ilias bit back a remark about how the boss did trust people, but only two of them. Outside of Lykourgos and Romanos the man was, admittedly, rather suspicious of everyone and everything. It made sense, considering the line of work he was in. Stefanos continued to speak, his hands and words making Ilias feel disgusted and wish that he would be able to wash off the patches of his shoulders that Stefanos had touched, as though the man's psychopathic traits might be spread through contact.
"This one keeps an eye on his Grace himself. He's his cupbearer, you see. That means he hears a lot of things he probably shouldn't of. Important things that involve important people, not scum like us. That makes him a valuable piece on the Deicide board."
One of the gang leaders, a man nearly as wiry as Stefanos but with a motley beard and sunken eyes, passed a hand over his mouth as he looked at Ilias.
"I see. So, if your boss were to be paid enough, he could kill him."
Ilias kept his emotions under wraps, answering as cleanly and as calmly as if the ganger had asked him to fetch a mug of ale, but in truth the comment struck him a little. The answer was that yes, he could kill his Grace, but no, he wasn't going to. Not for all the gold and gems in the world. Lykourgos was important. Lykourgos couldn't just be killed by some menial from the streets of Anaria. The prince of violets was destined for far greater things than a death at the behest of a few petty gang leaders.
"I fear that would do no good." He said, opening his mouth for the first time since the meeting had begun. "His Grace has a talent for surviving blades in the night."
Another of the criminals made to open their mouth, but thankfully Stefanos spoke up first. Angels, I never thought I'd be thankful for his presence of all people.
"Now now gents. Whilst I understand your animosity to the good prince, for who here can say they aren't anxious whenever young and energetic leaders take the reigns, I can personally attest to the fact that, so long as you don't try to hurt the prince and you aren't too obvious with what you're doing, he's more inclined to let his guards and spymaster deal with us directly. the first might not be great, but the spymaster... well, lets just say that he's quite content to let us be. So long as we give him the right information from time to time, that is."
There was a small deal of muttering at Stefanos' words, but the assembled gang leaders all eventually agreed to the terms that the spymaster had given them. The two of them made to leave as the men whistled to signal that they'd really like the girls to come back in, and Ilias averted his eyes once more.
"Prude. Come on, I'll pay for whichever one you want."
Ilias bit back the urge to kick Stefanos as hard as he could as the man cackled at his discomfort. At the moment he just wanted to get back to his friends and stay away from the criminal underworld for as long as he could.
More than that, he desperately wanted to be away from Stefanos once more.