Day 430 9:30 PM
“Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”
― Theodore Roosevelt
The peace conference finally ends with polite smiles, bows, and handshakes. God, there are so many fiddly details to agree on when taking over a country; land and businesses to distribute, loyalists to reward, sympathizers to pardon, traitors to behead, grudges to settle…
The list seemed endless, but we managed. Somehow.
“How are you feeling? Are you hurt?” Manny whispers into my ear as we are heading to our sleeping quarters for the night, finding the first private moment to ask about my wellbeing since she entered the city.
“I feel,” I make a dramatic pause as I draw close to her and whisper as she stares at me. “Like I’m going to bang a queen tonight and keep banging her for years to come.”
Her arm twitches. I can tell she wanted to smack me on the shoulder, but stopped herself on time.
“I know, decent thoughts,” I whisper. “But that wasn’t my curse speaking. Tonight, I want to be very indecent and do very, very indecent things with you. We have been on the road for way too long.”
***
As expected, the meetings start shortly after dawn. I don’t care about the coronation, sitting arrangements at the banquet, and similar nonsense, Manny and Vatten can handle those. What I am focused on are enemy troops, scorched earth tactics, and depriving our foes of food and resources they need to keep advancing. Better starve them than face them head on.
Another important topic I keep my ear open to is who will support me and Manny, who will rebel, and who will declare independence or join another kingdom for greater benefits. Politics is exhausting, makes you lose faith in humanity, but at least it’s fairly simple. There are two chief motivators, greed and fear. All I need to do is represent the obviously better option, or instill enough fear into my enemies that no amount of wealth would swing their blades my way.
The fear part is my expertise. People already think me immortal, which I am in a sense, they know I am brutal and that I have the means to infiltrate the king’s and his knights’ bedrooms. To most noble lords, I’m a nightmare incarnate. What we need to do now is show benevolence to the rest, and make the choice obvious for everyone who has more than a handful of brain cells.
“The most important factor in securing your rule is driving away the enemies who breached our border,” the baritone, better known as Count Jilles, says. “Repelling Dolacia’s invasion should be enough, but the additional wealth and renown will solidify your prestige with the people, should you capture and ransom their leadership. It would be best if we could rout their troops, enslave prisoners of war, and conquer a portion of their kingdom for ourselves, but those are mere wishes, given the size of their army.”
I don’t think destroying them is all that unreasonable, not with my plan. The biggest problem is that Elisia is certain to invade with the intent of reclaiming their old territories while our back is turned. Vatten would suffer more than us, if not all the heat, but the old villain has grown on me and, despite my increasing familiarity with politics, rewarding his loyalty with a dagger to the kidney disgusts me.
“Dolacia is certain to have spies amongst our ranks,” I say as an introduction to my plan.
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“They will soon find out about the change in royal lineage,” I have trouble stopping myself from rolling my eyes at the euphemism. “And they will expect us to sit tight to consolidate our rule by preparing for an extended siege. One of the key factors mentioned in Warfare is to surprise your enemy and use their preconceptions against them. So we will ride out with five thousand strong, with the royal army’s elites as a vanguard.”
To be honest, I would rather leave the royal army elites to defend the royal capital and my royal family, but after Basson’s plan, I will take my family with me wherever I go. When they are close, Redo can save them, but when they are far away, I have no way of helping them if they face trouble.
“But, Sire, the enemy will outnumber the army you plan to lead by four to one. There are no fortifications strong enough to make up for that difference, and the enemy has siege machines.”
“Exactly. They will never see it coming.”
Vatten is giving me a flat stare, and I see a hint of a smile at the corners of Manny’s lips. The former royalists, however, thoroughly doubt me.
“Sire—” Count Jilles starts, but I don’t care about his opinion.
“Look,” I say with a smile that is not a smile, “are we having this discussion in Eaglegord after I sued for peace, or are we in Garagord, talking after you guys surrendered to me?”
Vatten smirks, and Manny’s lips twitch, her control over her facial expression seems to have weakened now that she’s pregnant. I can’t recall whether that was the case when she carried Victory; I don’t think so, but back-to-back pregnancies should be a mess for her body’s chemistry.
My remark, which came out sounding more like a mockery than I intended, seems to have worked. Harsh words subdued the nobility, and I can see a hint of indignation and rebellion in two sets of eyes.
I should keep an eye on those two.
“We will set off in two days, after we organize our supplies and select which troops will participate in this campaign.”
I don’t expose the rest of my plan, while I do have measures in place to intercept spy communication, there’s no telling whether the enemy has means of communication I’m unaware of.
The meeting keeps on going as we list troops, and decide who stays and who joins the march. Once the nobles leave the room, Vatten closes the door and returns to the table.
“I was wondering why you sent Ralek away yesterday. You plan to intercept messengers?”
I shrug. “Seemed like a good way to weed out some informants and traitors.”
“And do you plan to take those you are suspicious of with you this time as well?”
“Well, old man,” I smile at the old villain. “I plan to bring you along, if that’s what you’re asking, and I plan on leaving young Hassel here to manage Garagord.”
Bastian’s eyes go wide as he realizes the meaning of my words, but I keep talking.
“My idea is to achieve as bloodless a victory as possible, and to use the captured soldiers as vassals instead of slave laborers. To be honest, this country’s economy is doing just fine. There’s little need for extra labor, but we are short on soldiers because of all the petty little infighting. So my grand plan is to conscript Dolcaian soldiers and send them to fight against Elisians as mercenaries.”
Based on Vatten’s accounts and spy reports, Elisia is close to collapse, and from their king’s desperate perspective, the only way out is by reclaiming the lost territory. There is little value in peaceful merger with the country, since we would inherit a portion of the crippling debt. So we can either leave them alone if they leave us alone, or conquer them if they provoke at us. Unfortunately, the former seems unlikely.
The old villain gawks at me. “Do you know how much money it will take to fund such a large army,”
“I didn’t think about it until yesterday. But now that we have a kingdom on our hands, the amount of work has grown proportionally, and we have to consider a bigger picture than we did a week ago.”
“You came up with that plan yesterday evening?”
I grin. “I was too busy yesterday evening. I came up with it while you were discussing the color of drapes for the coronation.”
Who cares about the color of drapes hanging next to the windows? Who even has a selection of drapes so that the color scheme can become a problem?
Some people have too much money and not enough problems in their lives if they can waste time and resources on such nonsense.
“And how will you convince them to join us as mercenaries rather than conquer us? They have superior numbers and siege equipment. Why would they peacefully cross the country, passing by the capital they want to capture, to fight our enemy, when they can simply besiege us with significantly less effort?”
“It’s elementary, my dear Vatten,” I pause, saddened that nobody gets the reference before I continue making another inside joke only I understand. “I will make them an offer they can’t refuse.”