A Prince of Kashmar
— Zaid, in Kashmar —
Zaid's infantry corps was two thousand strong, all veterans of his campaigns against bandits, brigands, and pirates. His elite Chargers numbered five hundred. To those numbers, he was commanded to add two thousand from his domain.
In the town of Bodrum, the center of his territory, Zaid had no trouble recruiting men: they were lined up and eager to serve. For the last few years, he'd allowed more village folk to move to Bodrum, looking for excitement and variety in town life. They came to learn skilled trades or eke out some greater measure of the Principality's goods for themselves. But, these were not people accustomed to plotting their own courses in life. They found the going too hard, too uncertain, and they often longed for the surety of village life. The town's population grew until crowding made life difficult enough that, when the Tyrant started mustering men for an invasion of South Kravikas, the men of Bodrum were eager to take up arms.
Despite the bumper crop in Bodrum, the villages had to give their share. The Tyrant's guidance and protection must be paid for, and collecting the tax of living men brought Zaid to Vanush village, as it did to all villages in his domain. The neat squares of tilled lands, each with its designated harvest, the terraced hillsides of grapes, the nearby coppiced woods where animals grazed tough grasses, the tributary river that added fish and transportation access, all of it working together under Zaid's hand, pleased him. Vanush was where his education truly started. Lordlings were often given small territories to run, and this one was his first.
The village gathered in neat rows, organized by family groups, washed and dressed in their eighth-day assembly clothes: Shapeless gray trousers tied at the waist and a colored tunic hung to mid-thigh, cinched in with a wide belt of rough fiber. Farmers wore green tunics, craftsmen wore blue, and the few scholars were in yellow. White was reserved for the alderman and his immediate helpers. Zaid was dressed in lordly black, the pants and gambeson well-fitted to his frame with seams piped bright in red. A shirt of black iron mail was draped over him, a rare and costly armor that had saved him more than once. His cloak was black monster hide with the lining dyed red.
There was no doubt who the Lord was of Vanush. A large painting of Zaid decorated the shrine next to that of his father, Tyrant Ormaz, their matching ruffs of coarse red hair and prominent canines marking them as descendants of Founder Hadith. When the villagers prayed to Olyon during mandatory weekly services, their Lord's and Tyrant's faces looked down on them. Authority flowed directly from their God to their Tyrant to their Lord. Without the oversized image of him hanging in the sacred space, these people would know him from his frequent visits, especially those who moved in when he'd first taken over the village.
Zaid's size and strength led him naturally to the Chargers, Kashmar's elite cavalry. Once he passed the hellish training phase, he was quick to win military honors and gain promotions. When restless Dacian lords probed the border in the north or brigands came ashore to pillage, Kashmari Chargers were deployed to handle them. They showed no mercy to the enemy unless one counted a quick death as merciful.
Zaid's Tyrant father made free use of him in those years, yet he ranked twenty-fifth among the princes of Kashmar. His banner, a black manticore against a yellow field, hung in the citadel's Great Hall, in the back, far away from Tyrant Ormaz's throne. And there he would have stayed for the remainder of his years, if not for the revolt.
One of Zaid's cousins, the eighteenth-ranked Kamran, had so mismanaged Vanush that the town rebelled. Men and women armed themselves with farming tools and killed the alderman, drove away the other administrators, and refused to pay their taxes. The job of pacifying the farmers was given to Zaid and his Chargers, and he set to the job as he would any other. He exterminated the enemy and any family who might seek revenge, down to the smallest babes.
When Zaid stood before Tyrant Ormaz, with the eyes of assembled princes at his back, his father injured him with faint praise. "That was very effective. At the least, no one will carry a grudge against the divine mandate of
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Then, he addressed the Great Hall. "Listen all to
That year, Zaid's rank fell from twenty-fifth to eightieth, last place. He was Lord of Vanush, a town without people or taxes. So began a decade very different from what Zaid had imagined for himself. Instead of tracking lawless smugglers, he had to find other territories willing to transfer people to him, often at significant cost. He recruited an alderman, found or raised skilled people, deployed capital, and called upon agricultural scholars. His rank didn't budge for the first three years, but starting from his fourth year as a Lord his rank rose quickly.
Like the crops they grew, serfs needed the right conditions to thrive in the way Zaid wanted: organized, populous, and obedient. Every serf required enough housing, enough land to keep their hands busy, and the prospect of finding a mate. They required festivals — enough days off to feel themselves fortunate. They needed all that and more, but not too much of anything.
Killing all of Vanush was an expensive mistake, but it yielded many valuable lessons.
When Prince Gobert was raised to third rank to become Prime Minister, Zaid took his place as Lord of Bodrum and was raised to sixth. He had long been in Gobert's tutelage and knew the town and the environs better than anyone.
Zaid could become the next Tyrant. He had the pedigree and was at the right age, nearing forty just as his father passed sixty. He had as much military experience as any high-ranking prince and still rode the borderlands when there was trouble. He had proven he could rule well enough to leave his domain in the hands of others. The campaign against Calique rebels in the south was his last best chance to prove himself to Tyrant Ormaz.
One of the ten recruits, not a volunteer but chosen by the alderman, had tried to run. Zaid sent a sergeant and his men after the fleeing recruit, and they chased him down on foot. They were supposed to bring him back in one piece, but …
"He's no use to me like this." What should have been an able recruit was returned to Zaid with a broken foot.
"Do you want me to dispatch him, Your Lordship?" The soldier drew his weapon, a simple bronze sword.
"And compound the losses? No. This injury should heal." The man hadn't fallen: his foot had been stomped on by a heavy boot, across the instep. "Alderman, have a healer look over him, and give him the coward's mark. Someone else will take his place." His eyes were scanning the formation of villagers. "If it needs to be re-set, report the sum to me. I'll take it out of this man's pay."
"Your Lordship! He ran from his duties! I brought him to you as ordered!" The sergeant was on one knee, now that he realized he was in trouble.
"It was your job to catch him so I could put him in the army. It's pointless to train him in this condition. Now I'll need a replacement."
Zaid scanned the formation of villagers. He wanted young, but not cry-for-mother young. He wanted someone fit and tall enough to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the other men. He walked along the center aisle, scanning as he went. They were grouped by families. All of them looked straight ahead. The young ones stole glances at him as he passed, then looked away, afraid. They heard what had happened to this village, why it was empty when their parents came here, and that he was responsible.
"I volunteer!" A young man broke the neat lines by stepping forward. He was a little on the heavy side, but tall and broad in the shoulder. Training would put more muscle in the right places.
"That's Tishk," said the nervous alderman, "I doubt Your Lordship will want him."
"What's wrong with him?"
Tishk didn't wait for the alderman but answered for him. "I like to fight, Your Lordship."
"He's a nuisance who picks fights with anyone and everyone. Your Lordship, I'd be happy to be rid of this one but I can't in good conscience recommend him. He doesn't take direction well. He thinks anyone who can't stand against him isn't worth listening to."
To Zaid, he sounded like perfect young warrior material. He walked around the farmer, noted the thickened skull and hide-like skin. "Show me your teeth." The youth opened his mouth wide and drew back his lips to show off rows of sharp, pointed teeth. Some commanders looked down on biters, but not Zaid. Teeth were an excellent weapon in a grapple. Zaid had bitten his fair share of enemies.
"You don't like it here, in my village?"
Tishk looked around him as if considering the notion for the first time. "It's all right for most of them. But I'm not cut out to be a farmer. Your Lordship."
"In the army, you'll be taught how to fight in groups. You will fight who and when you're told to fight, and none other. If that's a problem for you, I'll make you wish you had stayed a farmer."
"As long as there's fighting, Your Lordship, I'm yours."
The Lord looked over his nearest serfs. There was no father or brother, but there was a mother who wept silent tears for her departing son. "Be proud, Woman. You have a son fit for service."
He sent the new men off with the sergeant, who formed them up and set them to marching. As he left the village of Vanush, mounted on his black appalon, there were tears at his back. Let the women cry: it was proof he had been there.