Nero
After waiting about two weeks, Wagner received a response from Councilman Daniels. He would agree to peace terms, but they would do it in Kato Kanali. It was a shame that they would have to go on their turf, but they won the war, so the president reluctantly went along with it.
It seemed that Nero’s time in the Griffin Republic was coming to an end. He no longer had a purpose there and contemplated finally going back to Writer’s End. Raya sent him letters every once in a while. Some of which sparked Nero’s interest. After talking to Raya about his interest in architecture, she did the nice thing of finding a couple of jobs around the city for building design. The architecture firms expressed interest in not only hiring a foreigner but also a foreigner who was constantly surrounded by beautiful royal architecture. However, that wouldn’t happen as the president called Nero into his office for a couple of words. Vice-President McGrath was also there.
“You are going to the Lake Republic,” Wagner said. “I have sent a letter requesting that you become a mediator for our two sides. You don’t hail from any side, but it is obvious to any observer that you supported us during the conflict, even if the kingdom provided no tangible support. We can only hope the councilman accepts our deal, but if he doesn’t, you can sail straight back to Writer’s End.”
Nero paused and glanced at the vice-president for confirmation. “Please tell me what makes you think I am qualified as a mediator. Also, why is Keon going? Don’t you guys have an ambassador?”
Wagner gave out a soft chuckle before returning to a serious tone. “The ambassador killed himself a couple of days ago due to our failure in the war, and while we find a new one, Keon is taking his place. The ship leaves in two hours.”
#
The sound of trumpets flew through the air like the wind as Nero’s ship left. The trip would take about a month and fly the Griffin Republic flag. They needed to fly that flag as the ship they were sailing in was a warship, and even though an armistice was called, some of the Lake Republic sailors might not have received the news, so it was important to not fly the blue and red battle flag, but the blue and yellow one. As they were leaving, Nero stared at the flag, wondering how someone made a flag. Of course, they got the fibers and stitched, but he wondered how someone figured out how to do it in the first place. Stitching together two colors was easy enough, but to have the boundary as a wavy line and not a straight one would have been difficult. What was even more strange to Nero was that on top of the blue on the left and yellow on the right was that they were able to stitch a griffin on top of it. Maybe he would figure out how they did it, but was more likely that Nero’s life would flash by before he thought about such a thing again. His days of wasting away in the library were gone, and the days of sailing in ships mediating the end of the first transcontinental war in hundreds of years now haunted him.
The farther north they went, the colder it got. The summer of the south became the winter of the north, and by the time they were halfway to Kato Kanali, they stopped at Greyman to fill up their supplies. It was the beginning of March, but from the reaction of the people seeing the Griffin Republic flag, one could reasonably think that Iyo the Ice Sire had arrived and dammed them with an eternal January.
As they docked, the boos from the people seemed to add weight to the ship as the louder they got, the more people noticed that a foreign ship was in their port. Nero looked at them from the ship and couldn’t believe that they were real people. The majority of people in the world lived on Roran, but Nero rarely thought about the lives of the people on the continent, but as he looked at the clay and brick houses, he couldn’t believe how normal they seemed. People who spoke a different language believed in a different sect of their religion and seemed more tolerant of the supernatural as Nero stared at something he had never seen before. A centaur.
A man with horse legs casually walked around the port, looking at the foreign ship that arrived at their shores. Nero had read about centaurs, but a vast majority of them lived in Middleland, so it was strange for the people who didn't bat an eye at it.
Keon walked behind Nero and touched his shoulder. “Do you want to be the first royal to cross the Starved Sea or not?” he asked. He was right, in all its history, no member of the royal family stepped foot on Roran—or at least according to the history books.
Nero adjusted his collar, but before he could take on step off of the ship, a loud screech came from behind him. Nero ducked in fear and snapped his head to see what it was. It sounded exactly like Lucius’s screech, but it was only a piece of metal scraping another piece of metal as a sailor dropped it. “You alright?” asked Keon. Nero nodded, and they made their way down the plank.
When he reached the end, the angry mob surrounded him and seemed to demand why Leozan inhabitants were on their land, but they spoke in a Sovan, and Nero didn’t understand a word they said. Their words were not like Dymish but seemed closer to the now-dead language of the Tolmans. Nero could pluck out what sounds were words or syllables and found their language to take longer to express a message. It seemed like the Sovans could go on for a minute before they reached the end of their sentence.
Nero tuned out the sound of angry Sovans and let the sounds of Lutes and Salpinxes replace it. He could not discern where they came from, but they sounded peaceful compared to the sound of the angry mob, and he felt their embrace as he reached the end of the wooden dock and stared at the dirt of Roran. Nero kneeled and looked at it. A normal person would want to touch it to see what the dirt of another continent felt like, but Nero held back. He didn’t want to find out what germs were in such an unknown substance, so he stood back up and took a long-drawn-out step. Keon looked at him like an uncle looking at their nephew take their first steps. He didn’t celebrate as a parent would but smirked before telling Nero that they should go find a tavern.
There was a tavern a block away from the dock and they sat on two stools at the barstool. Of course, they couldn’t order in Dymish, so Keon just pointed to a bottle of ale on a counter behind the bartender and held up two fingers. The bartender understood, placed two glasses in front of them, and poured the ale. The bartender held up ten of his fingers, and Keon understood what he said as he placed ten zinc coins on the counter. The bartender smiled, took the zinc coins, and left the two of them.
Keon took a sip of his ale while Nero just stared at his. “Where did you get zinc coins?” Nero asked.
“The treasury,” Keon answered.
“They just let you take some of their foreign currency reserves?”
Keon turned to Nero. “I am on a trip to a country that only accepts zinc in places not named Kato Kanali. The treasury doesn’t mind losing a couple of hundred coins of a currency that has the highest inflation rate in the world.”
Nero nodded, and the two fell silent for a little bit as Nero continued to stare at the poison that stood in front of him. Keon noticed this strange behavior. “Don’t drink?” Keon asked. “Why not?”
“I don’t know. Why do you drink?” He asked as he looked at Keon.
“Takes my mind off of things. Dulls the senses. It tastes good, and whenever I have it, I seem to have a good time.”
“That’s what I don’t get. Nero said. “Why would anyone want to dull their senses? Isn’t it something that we should appreciate, especially since whenever it seems someone doesn’t think something through, it always goes wrong?”
Keon took another sip of his ale and exhaled. “I know that being here isn’t what you wanted—”
“Please, no, don’t worry. If I can help the republic I won’t mind.”
“No, not that. I meant not being at home. Did you really choose to pursue one of Wagner’s most controversial reforms because you wanted to help the republic? I think it was a little more personal than that. You don’t drink, you don’t go out much, you never had a girlfriend—”
“What’s with the spouse stuff all the time?” Nero asked. “And what are you saying? That I’ve had bad experiences with alcohol? Of course, I have!” Nero said, offended. “Stop beating around the bush.”
Keon nodded and took another sip. “If you would like, I can stop beating around the bush. Why don’t you want not only yourself but others not to drink? Why tax them or ban them as you originally wanted?”
Nero picked up the ale in front of him and stared at it. “Who knew a liquid could be responsible for so many deaths?” Nero paused. “My father used to be drunk a couple of times. I had a friend when I was younger. His name was Atticus, and we hung out a lot. He wasn’t a royal or anything, and one time he stole my watch. His family was poor, and he was caught trying to sell it to a vendor.” Nero put the glass down, and his eyes no longer looked at anything in particular. If one asked him what he saw at that moment, Nero would answer that he saw nothing at all. His fist clenched. “He denies it, but my dad was drunk when he heard the news. He sent that boy to die. A young boy. He sent a young boy to die because he was drunk and couldn’t take it back because then his decisiveness would be questioned.”
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Nero turned to Keon. “That’s why. I’ll be on the ship.”
#
They arrived in Kato Kanali on the 17th. Though Nero had seen drawings and heard descriptions, seeing structures standing over a canal was as magnificent as hearing someone speak for the first time. As they pulled into the titanic dock of Kato Kanali, the city seemed to be bustling with action. The war was over, and yet, the dock was twice as busy as the one in Gatherstorm could ever be.
The sounds of lutes dominated the air compared to in Akripoli where one could only hear it if they paid attention. It pierced through the white noise of people pushing people around, talking over one another, and making back-alley deals in the middle of the day.
Kato Kanali didn’t have a centralized capitol building but one for each specific purpose. There was a stock exchange, a courtroom, and conference building, and rooms for employees of the government. Nero and Keon would be staying at that last building, and as they made their way to it, Nero couldn’t help but be in awe at the buildings along the way. Some had intricated designs made of bricks depicting a pegasus, others were so plain and clean that one could only wonder how the owners prevented people from vandalizing them, and a select few were open and had no walls, doors, or windows but only a couple of pillars holding up the structure. Nero enjoyed every step as the streets were paved and there was no sign of mud or dirt.
When they reached the residence building, Nero noticed that all of the text and writing around the building was in Sovan or Kadon, and the memory of the cultural tensions of the city came flooding back to Nero. He looked around his room and found a tag on his feather mattress. The small tag made of silk had Sovan and Kadon written on it, but the Sovan was crossed out and replaced with something written in Kadon. The only thing that Nero could read was the word Libo which Nero assumed was talking about the Libo’s Sultanate.
Nero woke up the next day and looked out the window as the sun rose. The meeting was in two hours, and Nero didn’t want to risk being late in meeting the councilman. He was about to meet the man directly responsible for the death of thousands of men and a griffin, and for what? Money? Power? Though it would be “fair” for Nero to be an impartial mediator, it would also be fair to limit the concession the alliance gave for the sake of those lost souls. Nero stared out into the city skyline and looked at a clock tower.
Nero and Keon arrived early to the meeting, but when they got there, they found the councilman staring at his pocket watch before looking up and smiling. “Good,” he said in a Sovan accent. “It’s nice to see people who value time just as much as me.”
He stood up, and they walked toward each other and shook hands. “You know Dymish?” Keon asked. “That’s a relief.”
“One does not become a leader with learning.”
The councilman took a seat at the end of the table. There were eight chairs. One for the councilman, Keon, Nero, Foreign Minister Floyd, the ambassador from the Kingdom of Qar, the ambassador for the Dicon Diarchy, the ambassador for the Honorable Teoland Stratocracy, and the last one would remain empty.
Nero took his seat at one of the chairs in the middle, with Keon taking the seat between Nero and Councilman Daniels. It occurred to Nero that he never met the kingdom of Qar’s ambassador to the Lake Republic. He decided to have a little word with him after the meeting.
Slowly they all trickled in. First, Foreign Minister Floyd, the two ambassadors from Leozan, and lastly, the Teoland ambassador who didn’t say a word as he walked in and took the other seat next to the councilman. Everyone else introduced themselves and shook hands with the group.
Councilman Daniels closed his pocket watch and called the meeting to order. He pulled out a piece of paper from his breast pocket and placed it on the table. It was folded, and everyone waited for him to read it, but to Nero’s surprise, the councilman asked him to read it. “You’re the mediator,” He said. “It would only be right.”
Nero reached across the table and unfolded the paper. “These are my requests for the end of the war. The alliance between the Expert’s Commonwealth and the Griffin Republic shall dissolve, they shall destroy every warship, and all trade ships must be transferred to the Lake Republic, if they want to trade by sea, they must pay a tax to use the Lake Republic ships; no construction of new warships, a one-time payment of an equivalent to ten percent of each country’s last year of tax collection, and reparations for the Lake Republic equivalent to five percent of the future tax collected by each country for the next ten years. If they fail to comply, the Lake Republic reserves the right to seize control of each country’s treasury.”
Nero slowly put the paper and placed it on the table. Everyone fell silent at the demands before suddenly erupting into an argument. Keon warned that the people wouldn’t tolerate such action, foreign minister Floyd said that this was a pipe dream, and the Kingdom of Qar ambassador and Dicon ambassador threatened military action if the Lake Republic went through with seizing the alliance’s treasury.
The only people who remained silent were the councilman, the ambassador from Teoland, and Nero. Though, unlike the two men across from him, Nero felt his arm stiffen up and his teeth bite down on each other. It was as if his father was in the councilman’s place, but unlike back home, Nero felt like he was in a position to stop this.
The mindless arguing went on until the councilman interjected. “What will you do if you reject this offer? Go back to war? Good luck fighting back.”
“This is insane,” said Keon trying to keep his composure. “Our country would fall apart if we accepted this.”
“Then you should do a better job at leading it,” responded the councilman.
“Councilman Daniels,” Nero interrupted. Everyone’s eyes shifted toward the young prince. “This…insult,” he said as he held up the demands. The Nero of the past would have never used strong language toward a foreign leader, but the murders of griffins deserved no empathy. “This shall burn. Now, as the mediator, I have a responsibility to make a deal that both sides would appreciate. If you aren’t here for that, I would advise you to mobilize your forces.”
“And why is that?” The councilman asked with a hidden grin.
“Because the Libo Sultanate has an army and navy a week’s worth of travel away from here.”
The Teoland ambassador’s eyes lit up. It seemed that he didn’t expect to be doing much in this meeting except appear strong, but now the mediator was threatening to contact the country that Teoland has fought many wars against. “Teoland would respond appropriately to such actions,” the ambassador responded. His voice was clean and sharp, like nearly all the generals back in the kingdom.
Nero turned his attention toward the ambassador. “By the time your troops would arrive, Kato Kanali would cease to exist.” Though the city burning to the ground resisted the thought of uttering such a sentence, it was a price Nero was willing to pay to get better terms for the alliance.
“Why would the Libo’s Sultanate go through with your suggestion?” asked Councilman Daniels.
“It’s about as likely as us accepting this deal as is, so if you don’t want those coffers of yours to run dry paying your sailors their wages for the next ten years, I think we should discuss doing what we came here for negotiation.”
The room was silent for a minute as Nero stared into what seemed like the soulless eyes of Hektor Daniels. His grin slowly faded from his eyes as he checked his stopwatch. “What are your terms?” he finally asked the alliance ambassadors.
The negotiations went on for five more hours, but by the time they had reached an agreement. Nero often interjected to take the side of the alliance which visibly made the councilman frustrated. Nero got the impression that the councilman expected Nero to shut his mouth and go along with what was happening, but the councilman expected Nero to be like what his reputation made him out to be, by the end of the meeting, Nero felt a high that he never felt before. He talked down the most insane leader in the world to a more manageable agreement. Speaking of the madman, Nero got the impression that the councilman was not mad, but rather the people he tricked were too proud to admit it, so they labeled him as a madman. There was certainly a plan behind those eyes of his, but what was something no one without as much power as him could understand?
The terms of the agreement are as follows: the alliance’s warships were not allowed five kilometers away from their coast, the alliance pays reparations for ten years, but if they fail to pay, their next year’s payment goes up, but if they fail two years in a row, Teoland shall cover the difference, and if they fail three years in a row, the war is back on; every trade ship from the alliance members sailing for Roran must stop in the Lake Republic and pay a tax before moving on; and lastly, the alliance is not allowed to possess more than 100 warships each.
After the meeting, Nero talked to the ambassador from the Kingdom of Qar, and he asked him if he could bring a couple of letters to Romulus and Gala saying that he would no longer be in Godmouth from now on but would be back in Writer’s End. The ambassador asked why he had just sent a pigeon, but Nero said that he wanted to make sure the letters were safe, but in reality, he didn’t want to spend the time finding a post office in the city and attempt talking to them in a different language He just wanted to be by himself for the moment.
The meeting took a lot of Nero, and as he made his way back to his room, he saw an exhibit on a platform. Nero stood in a crowd of people in a city square and he saw a bloody net with a glass bucket next to it. There was a small plaque in front of it saying what it was, but Nero didn’t need any plaque to understand. Nero looked around for the crowd's reactions and only saw smiles. Eventually, people cheered as people on the platform let the crowd touch the net and glass bucket. He wanted to run up onto the platform and burn it down, but he told himself that they were getting what was coming and was about to go back to the room, but before he did he approached the read the plaque more closely. There was a list of names on it. Presumably, the men aboard the ship that killed Lucius. He read it: “Florentios Anastou, Sotiris Anthallis, Bener Aybar, Cyril Bakas,” Forget it, Nero told himself. Just go back to your room.