Lykourgos XII: Mightier Than the Sword
The Second Day of the Tenth Moon, 873 AD.
Stagspring, Central Owkrestos, Klironomea.
Hells, but this was a lot of paperwork. Some interesting, some boring, some major, some minor, but all needed to be read most diligently, lest an important detail be missed.
"Well, lets see," he said aloud to the empty room, "Teleytaios has two and a half thousand Men-at-Arms and the same again for Longbowmen-at-Arms, as well as one-thousand Armsmen manning field artillery. From Triarios I have under my direct command another thousand Longbowmen-at-Arms and a thousand manning field artillery. As for Owkrestos there are another two-thousand there, almost all Men-at-Arms. That places me at a standing army strength of four and a half thousand Men-at-Arms with billhooks, three and a half thousand Longbowmen, and two-thousand men manning siege equipment and field artillery. According to what can be reasonably afforded and trained in the time period before we go back to war I can finance another two and a half thousand men with billhooks and five-hundred more with longbows. That should be a grand army by itself."
His mutterings were barely audible even to himself, for he was doing little more than whispering and mumbling whilst he flicked through documents and scribbled down notes on the foolscap next to him. As of right now he was trying to get everything in order when it came to the preparations for next year's campaigns, but most of what he'd been doing so far these last few weeks was nothing more than the first steps towards the consolidation of his new territories for the winter months since more than a little food and clothing would need to be distributed amongst the poor both in his core territories and his new holdings; winter didn't care who you were or which side of a war you'd fought on after all, and winter brought with it cold and hunger and death. The sooner his preparations were made the better, but he'd made sufficient headway on those issues and desperately needed a break from it all.
Now most people, Rhema and Elikoidi came to mind, wouldn't have counted 'moving to the next stack of paperwork' as a break, but Lykourgos couldn't afford to do anything else at the moment. If he wished to be coronated as the king of not only Teleytaios but also of Triarios and Owkrestos then he needed to prove himself as being diligent. Nasos was worrying about him becoming too stressed, but in all honesty this wasn't stressful. These were just numbers, and numbers were easy enough for him to understand. What was stressful was dealing with the endless number of petty matters that ruling in peacetime brought with it, and he had little care for that sort of thing. This paperwork was rather dull, yes, but not stressful. Numbers were simple, but people were stressful; better a hundred stacks of paperwork than a dozen delegate meetings. He didn't need to worry about running out of time with the numbers, since there wasn't exactly a hard limit on the time he had at the moment. Now that would have made it stressful.
Turning his thoughts back to the sheets of paper detailing the military strength of his new lands he mentally added those men that his new vassal was maintaining control over, speaking aloud once more to try and keep his mind on track and focused on the matter at hand.
"Of course Lord Sigiros has maintained control over his two-thousand Triarian Legionaries, who perform much the same function as the Men-at-Arms being heavy infantry, but of an even higher quality. He wants to expand his Armsmen as well, since half of the ones he once had were sworn to his vassals and as such now belong to me. He will likely fund an expansion of either a thousand Longbowmen-at-Arms or a thousand men trained in the use of siege weaponry, since both of those can be called upon to give support at range. Knowing the tactical advantages Longbowmen have over artillery pieces I'd be surprised if he didn't go for them."
He nodded to himself when he finished speaking, quickly jotting down some numbers on another piece of foolscap whilst they were fresh in his mind. Nine-thousand heavy infantrymen, both Men-at-Arms and Triarian Legionaries counted together, four-thousand Longbowmen-at-Arms, and two-thousand artillerists. Now that was a professional army if ever he'd thought of one. Perhaps a little heavy on the frontline infantry and lacking the preferred west-Klironomean one-to-one ratio of melee and ranged combatants, but still a formidable force. Knights would need to be relied upon to provide both light and heavy cavalry wings, but the vast bulk of the army that marched east with him would be made of Armsmen. Hell, an army of Armsmen and Knights would mean that, as had happened in this campaign against Owkrestos, the lowborns could be left to till the fields and see to their trades, meaning that the war would hardly hamper the economy at all. Even beyond that, it would keep unrest low in the newly conquered Owkrestos and the somewhat-begrudgingly kneeling people of Triarios. A successful war without a raised levy would be... well, it would be most excellent indeed.
That was all just war, however. A point that was far more dull, and yet perhaps even greater in importance, was that of the economy.
Just as he had thanks to his invasion of Owkrestos, the pacification of Triarios had left him with a great deal of new crownlands in his pocket. Most of the fertile lands in Triarios were located in the Arthaxan Plateau, which now belonged to his vassal, but the highlands and hills Lykourgos now owned seemed fine enough for sheep, goats, and highland cattle. He'd have to see about investing in those lands alongside his Owkrestan holdings in the coming years, especially those lands perfect for the keeping of sheep; thanks to his financing of clothiers in Haestinghen and Aenirhen there would be an increased demand for wool in the years that were to come, and internal trade links were just as important as external ones.
According to the notes he'd taken from a few of the documents that were in a pile somewhere behind him and to his right, there were somewhere around three million hectares of land being used for agricultural needs in Triarios, two-million of which was pastoral. It seems that in the span of a year I've accrued six-million hectares of pastoral farmland and three-million more of different assorted agricultural practices, mostly cereal and grain crops. The greatest kings and lords of eastern Klironomea might have held greater tracts of land than him, but he was still one of the largest landholders in the known world. The envy of the clergy and remaining lords would grow in time as a result of this, of that he had no doubt, but such matters were unlikely to become issues until decades from now.
Of course, there were other types of lands he'd come into ownership of as well. Apiaries, fruit orchards, vegetable cropland, horse breeders, donkey breeders, hound breeders, fisheries, there were all sorts now under his control. He actually had read in one of the documents that there was a large orchard of plum trees, which he admittedly was rather excited about. They grew a hell of a lot there, everything from his favourite damsons to sweet dessert plums such as greengages, from mirabelles that were used to make brandy to sugar plums for jams and conserves. It might not have been the greatest of his new holdings commercially, but he couldn't see anyone minding if he invested and modernised the facilities there. It couldn't hurt to do something small for himself, could it?
Lord Brathaxe had once jested that he'd turn into a plum when he was a young boy, since he ate so many items of the delicious fruit, and if the man could see him now he'd no doubt be howling with laughter from the heavens. His little jest about how much his ward liked to eat plums not only proven correct, but in the acquisition of some nine million hectares of farmland the few hectares he was most excited for were those dedicated to a vast orchard of plums.
He did miss Lord Brathaxe a bit. The man was not his birth father, but he'd done more to raise Lykourgos than his true father ever had. The man had seemed stern and scary at first, but as soon as he'd realised that the young Lykourgos was being picked on by a group of older squires who really should have known better it was like a switch had been flipped in the man's head. Almost immediately he not only set about clattering the offenders to the ground in the next day's sparring match but he'd also started teaching a young Lykourgos to wield a blade that was far too big for his size in self defence. Brathaxe had always, as Lykourgos had come to learn, expressed his love through actions rather than words. Teaching him to wield a too-big sword was his idea of showing the young prince that he cared.
Well, he'd thought that the sword was far too big at the time, anyway. Nowadays he knew that the blade was just the right size for him. Funny how those things went, wasn't it?
Anyway, to get back on track and finish his small look into the new lands he'd taken he simply made a note about the plum tree orchard with an annotation that read 'Look into quality and quantity. Potential for expansion and improvement, find specifics.' It wasn't the most easy to follow note he'd made, but it was as concise and neat as it needed to be.
Sighing softly to himself he stretched out his arms and felt the little pops around the joints. Knowing that he had to keep himself in good posture if he was doing this all day he made sure to stand and perform the same stretches he'd been doing since he was a child learning how first to fight. They were still easy enough to perform; he had struggled a little after waking from the coma he'd been in, though since then he'd made sure to get back into the practice with Nasos' express enthusiasm. They were good for keeping him limber and agile, and seeing as he wished for little more than to get back to leading from the front he was always looking to be limber and agile.
Oh, he'd had a little time at the front at Sodden Field, but since then it had been others who had done the fighting. He didn't want to miss out on that anymore.
He groaned a little, realising he'd gotten off track yet again. He finished the document he was reading, set it neatly off to the side, then picked up the next.
On the matter of foreign trade within the lands and holdings of Grand Duke Thrytas Sigiros. What an 'interesting' read this promises to be. Lykourgos couldn't stop himself from rolling his eyes at the document. He knew exactly what this would entail even without reading it. A quick skim over and yep, that was what he'd expected. Lord Sigiros basically wanted the freedom to continue selling his weapons abroad.
"Then given the export of crossbows from these foundries to Dathan Lord Sigiros would be sitting on an even greater pile of coins, especially now that the foundries owned by his vassals have been rendered inoperable."
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He continued his mumblings as he leafed through a few more documents, these ones from Triarios that had been sent to him detailing trade links between the former kingdom and the outside world. Triarios had never been much of a major trading hub through its past, but the recent history of the past century had seen their wealth skyrocket thanks to their arms dealings. Lykourgos would now trust Lord Sigiros far more than he initially had when it came to the fighting of wars, for if nothing else Lord Sigiros must surely have realised that when Klironomea was reunited he'd have a complete monopoly on the arms trade. It wasn't exactly a pleasant thought, being reliant on a vassal lord for weaponry and armour, but if Lykourgos wanted to expand the ranks of his Armsmen and professional soldiers in a short period of time then that was what he'd have to do.
Maybe in the future he would be able to turn his attention to breaking the stranglehold they'd have on the making of weapons and armour, but that would be a long way off. Besides, house Sigiros would have had plenty of time to entrench itself by then. When that moment came around he'd need to find a compromise solution, perhaps some small measure of oversight to ensure men were not being worked unfairly as well as a ban on sales abroad without royal permission on a per-nation basis. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would at least prevent most of their products from reaching the hands of rich enemies. Lykourgos had no intention of allowing his foes to be armed with his own weapons, after all.
For now he'd accept trade with Dathan and Tildan, the Al-Alema and Anatolikoi as well, but he couldn't let all these weapons flow unimpeded into the rest of Klironomea. He had no wish to make his enemies stronger, thank you very much.
Still, he recognised the need to get some trade links out. Lord Sigiros, being closer to the east, had mentioned something about an outbreak of war in Dathan. If that were the case then it couldn't hurt to start sending over pikes and crossbows, could it? That was what most Dathanian armies relied upon, and if a few of the groups there could become amenable or even friendly to him then that was certainly a potential way to make some new friends on the international stage. Even besides that, establishing a few trade links over there and selling a few weapons to those nations and peoples to whom slavery was abhorred would enable them to triumph over the evils of slavery in one more theatre of conflict, and that was always worthwhile. There might even be some amongst the Dathanians who would be willing to bend the knee to me, when the time comes that is.
Dathan was still a long way away from where he was now, but it was something to keep in mind for the future. He hadn't any clue what local spats were flaring up there in particular, but he was sure Elikoidi would be able to find out soon enough. It couldn't be that bad or wide-reaching over there, could it? Dathan was the backwater of the continent after all, so surely any war there would be little more than some local rivalry that had gotten a little hotter than usual. Nothing for him to worry about, that much he felt certain of.
Still, all this thinking about distant theatres of war and the spectre of conflict was not helping him read through this document on the trading of weapons any faster, and so he dragged his eyes back to the top of the page and made to read once more, this time looking over the full minutiae of the text and not just skim-reading it.
"Section One, Sub-Section One, Paragraph A, Point One: The Provision of Weapons to Internal Suppliers. The newly formed Grand Duchy of Stratiopolis reserves the right to sell weapons to non-international suppliers of its choice. Section One, Sub-Section One, Paragraph A, Point Two: The Issue of Non-Payment. In the event of the failure by the client to pay the full amount agreed upon to the primary supplier, the Grand Duchy of Stratiopolis reserves the right to..."
The rest of the afternoon continued in much the same way, the prince filing through a seemingly endless list of trifling matters to try and find the few major concerns that were bound to be hidden within, until he heard the sound of echoing footsteps coming from the door and into the room.
"Saints, this room is practically a private fucking library. You actually sleep in here? And how the hell do you manage to find anything given just how many sheaves of paper are in front of you?"
Lykourgos smiled at his brother's good-natured needling, though made a point to ignore his only half-joking questions. Yes, it was a little like a library in here given that most of the walls were shelves of books. Yes, he had been sleeping in here for the last few weeks, or months now he supposed, for there was a bed at the back for him to nap in between his work. Yes, he was able to find things easily enough for everything was filed in an orderly manner, even if it didn't look like it. There was no need to tell Rhema any of that though, for Lykourgos knew that he knew it all already. He was just teasing a little as a conversation starter, that was all.
Though admittedly it was rather nice to actually have someone come in and break up the monotony of endless papers and parchments detailing trading disputes and new crownlands.
"Ah, Rhema! I'm glad you're back, and so soon! I take it you didn't face too much trouble in the completion of your task?"
His brother smiled widely back at him, giving him an exaggerated roll of the eyes.
"Come on Lyk, what do you take me for? Of course there wasn't any trouble; you've seen to it that there weren't enough of them left to put up a fight."
He nodded at his brother, conceding the point as a smile just as wide as the one aimed at him spread across his face.
"Still, I thought that one or two of the last rebel houses might give you some trouble. Brookrill or Redseed, one of them particularly. They weren't really touched by the main war, after all. Still, I'll take your word for it if you say they folded. So that would mean that the last of the rebel Owkrestans are..."
He looked at his brother expectantly, silently asking him to confirm that the war in Owkrestos and as a result this entire campaign was over. Rhema did not disappoint.
"Yeah, they're all gone. Dead and buried, or otherwise exiled. We won't be hearing from any of them for a little while. I take it now's the time for moving back to the capital then, eh? There's a coronation that needs to be prepared for, as far as I recall."
"That there most certainly is. Have you seen the young Aleksandar Wyldlarch around? I haven't seen him these last few days, what with me being busy with all of this-"
He gestured at the small mountain of paperwork sat on his desk.
"- but I know he's still in the palace."
"Why not just have someone summon him for you? It isn't like he could refuse to attend."
Lykourgos nodded sheepishly at his brother. Such thoughts had occurred to him, yes, but he felt like he was already on rocky ground with the ex-king thanks to the whole 'seizing the Owkrestan throne' thing, so hadn't tried to push it.
"I didn't want him to think of himself as a lesser to me."
"Lyk," his brother started, exasperated and amused, "he is lesser than you. Everyone is. You're the king of three kingdoms, and I'm still fucking baffled at how you've managed to pull that off but that's not important at the moment, so that puts you above anyone I can think of on the continent. In the world."
He raised an eyebrow at his brother, amusement plainly visible in his smile and his eyes.
"There's currently an Angel who is worshipped as a deity by most of our subjects stalking the halls of Anaria. Are you absolutely certain I'm above everyone?"
Without even stopping to think his brother scoffed, quickly responding to his statement.
"Yep," Rhema said, popping the 'p', "I don't see him doing anything at the moment. He can sit and skulk in the capital all he wants, but he isn't doing much. You are. We are. That puts us above him at the moment."
Despite himself Lykourgos couldn't help but smile at his brother's words. Rhema never had been one to stymie his thoughts.
"Some would call that blasphemy, brother."
"Some people are as sharp as fucking mallets. Now come on, apparently you wanted to talk to me about something when I returned? That's what Ilias said before he scampered off anyway, skittish little colt."
He racked his brains for a moment and ignored Rhema's well-meaning and clearly kind-hearted jape on the cupbearer's nature, having gotten so off track he couldn't really remember what he was thinking of speaking about, before remembering and bringing up his points.
"Ah, yes. Now that the last of the rebels are dead we can actually disband our forces. For a time, anyway. The last harvest before winter needs to be brought in and, though Teleytaios and Triarios are relatively unaffected in terms of farming since no levies were raised, Owkrestos certainly is. A good number of Owkrestan lowborns from the countryside were taken from their farms and died at the Sodden Field and Suthdaal, meaning that they're bound to have more difficulty bringing the harvest in. We'll have to make sure that they don't starve over the course of the winter months."
Rhema nodded at him, and Lykourgos sensed that he'd managed to get off topic again. His ears reddened a little as he continued, coughing once to clear his throat.
"Ahem, excuse me. I called you in here to tell you of what we're to be doing next year. As mentioned already our forces are being demobilised at the moment, and on the Day of Ascent I'm to be coronated, then we'll have another few months of peace before winter ends and springtime rolls around. When it does and the worst of the spring rains subside, we'll march on Nordicos. Nordicos has an alliance with Licotemos, for the queen of Licotemos is a part of the Nordican royal family, so we'll need to strike fast to prevent them from receiving Licoteman support before we can take their capital and pacify the worst of their hinterlands."
His brother nodded at him, still smiling but eyes giving nothing away.
"Sounds like it might be quite fun, brother. At the very least we'll both be quite busy in the coming years."
He raised an eyebrow at his brother, gesturing to the ever-growing stack of papers on his desk.
"Okay," Rhema laughed, "maybe you're busy already. Still, you get what I mean. By the way, are you fine if me and Seventh go on a small trip for a day or two? There's a ruin in the woods somewhere they're adamant about going to see, something important to them."
"And if it's important to them then it's important to you, yes?"
Rhema nodded, smiling at him.
"See, now you get it. I think it was near Derrytown, somewhere in the woods around there anyway."
Lykourgos was silent for a moment, trying to think about where exactly Rhema could be talking about.
"You don't mean Crowhall, do you?"
"I think that was it, yeah. Why, is something bad there?"
Lykourgos shrugged.
"Not to my knowledge, I just wasn't expecting you or Seventh to want to travel there. It's more like the sort of places I went to on my expeditions, to be honest. Just an old overgrown castle with a still intact banner marking its front. The forest is so dense overhead that it hasn't been bleached by the sun despite the fact it's been there for... well, for a very long time. Nine, ten centuries, if I had to hazard a guess. For almost that entire time it's sat as a ruin, so it's a miracle it still stands at all."
"Seventh said something about there being 'wild energies' in that place, so I think that's why they wanted to go."
He nodded at his brother, beginning to understand. Well, he didn't understand magic at all, but he did at least understand where the younger Angel was coming from whilst talking about the 'wild' part of things.
"Well, Crowhall was apparently the seat of the ancient 'Wild-Kings' of the Owkrestan wilderness and, after they were conquered, the 'Wild-Lords'. When Lord Cyning Cromdaw rebelled and his line was ended..."
"No one's lived in the castle since. I think I get you now. Well, I'll leave you be. Try not to let the papers and scrolls crush your desk when they pile too high."
Lykourgos sighed a very, very deep sigh.
"Thank you, Rhema. You always know what to say. You may take your leave now."
Despite the sarcasm lacing his tone his brother grinned at him nonetheless, moving to walk out of the room.
Right, the eldest prince thought to himself, let's get back to work.
Oh bugger, I forgot to ask someone to send for Wyldlarch. Oh well, I'll make sure to do it later. We need to talk at some point, after all, or else I can't see to treating Owkrestos just the same as Teleytaios.
Well, there would be plenty of time to talk to the lad later. Actually, he thought, looking at the stacks of paper on his desk, I'm not sure that there will be.