Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

Doria recalled the first time he had laid eyes upon the Prince of Yarzat. The heir to the future had been a mere slip of a boy on the cusp of adulthood, sporting an easy, charming smile that still held the lingering soft contours of baby fat. Looking at him then, one could scarcely believe that such an angelic facade concealed the malice of a demon.

But the world had learned. Herculia, Oizen, Habadia, Romelia, Ezvania, Kakunia, and even the devil’s own wife’s sworn lord had come to understand the true nature of the man, each at their own staggering expense and deep displeasure. The dust of two princedom walked on boots of the legions.

The Prince was not a force to be stopped. He was not a man to be fought. That was the primary rule of survival when dealing with the court of Yarzat.

As an envoy, even one highly favored by the Emperor of the Eternal City, Doria possessed no illusions about his own station; he was a diplomat, not a ruler, and of statecraft he knew little and spoke even less. Yet he could not help but agree that the delicate demeanor His Imperial Majesty had adopted toward the southern crown was the only correct posture. If any nation possessed the leverage to throw a stick into Yarzat’s turning wheel and disrupt its momentum, it was Romelia.

But why sabotage the cart when they were both riding in the same seat? Militarily, economically, and politically, Romelia and Yarzat shared the exact same road.

If the court of Yarzat ever truly wished to force a total collapse of the Romelian throne, all they had to do was abruptly sever their trading agreements. Such a move would undoubtedly break a few of the King’s bones and leave him with a bloody nose, but Romelia would be entirely gutted on the floor.

And so, here Doria was, dutifully delivering the grand gifts of the Emperor to the King of Yarzat and his queen, while whispering vague notions of joint enterprise meant to subtly benefit Romelia’s coffers. The Eternal City had, after all, just successfully pressured the Pontifex into coronating a proper king in the south; a certain measure of profound gratitude was expected from the Yarzat throne.

Yet, when Doria arrived to collect that gratitude, the King had granted him an audience and then he had been shunted off to the ancient grandfather of the queen. How the old relic, Lord Shahab, was still among the living was a mystery best left to the physicians. Still, senility was certainly not an issue for the venerable lord. Shahab might have passed the peak of his physical strength centuries ago, but he still walked without a cane and brokered trade deals like a man possessed.

And a lucrative deal Doria had struck.

It was nothing scandalous, merely a highly favorable ratio of imported goods, specifically high-grade soap, fine apple cider, and quality paper, to be shipped north each month. The terms were sharp enough to comfortably line the pockets of the Emperor and fill the imperial vaults.

That portion of the business was good and well. The Emperor would be pleased, and his Spymaster , who had an hands on the accounts, would undoubtedly offer a rare nod of approval, but there was one final, lingering detail that kept Doria’s interest piqued.

”We would highly desire to extend our cooperation onto one further line of product,” the Chancellor of Yarzat had murmured during their private council, his wrinkly lips twitching into a tight smile. ”A specialty which we will gladly present to your Emperor as soon as the diplomatic opportunity permits. Your people will, of course, stand as the primary beneficiaries.”

Doria still did not know what exactly this mysterious new product was. But if it possessed even half the market value of Yarzat’s famous soap, cider, and paper, he had no doubt Romelia would have to aggressively secure a localized monopoly for it as well. Currently, a full quarter of his nation’s entire annual budget was sustained by distributing Yarzat’s unique exports.

Alongside that mystery, the southern chancellor had presented other, far more baffling avenues of cooperation, proposals Doria honestly believed stood no chance of ever taking root. Chief among them was the absurd request for a unified, silver-standard weight across the realms. In the Eternal City, the Emperor and two immensely powerful noble houses, the Acheans and the Vox, held the exclusive constitutional right to mint coin. Already, those three factions spent every five years bitterly squabbling over the exact ratio of the precious alloy in each piece of silver. With the Acheans being kin to the Emperor on his mother’s side and the court dominated by them, and the Vox family firmly entrenched as his primary in-laws, there was absolutely no political space for a fourth voice at the minting table.

It was a foolish thing for the King in the South to even ask. Doria shook his head at the memory. How a nation without a single active silver mine in its territory expected to dictate the weight of the empire’s coinage was a riddle only a mad prince could devise.

He supposed all men were entitled to their brief glimpses of foolishness, some less than others, and some... well, he only needed to cast a glance at the dear brother of the Prince of... was Sorza still the crownless prince of Oizen?

There were so many things changing. One had only to blink, and the entire world was overturned. Still, at the very least, the base nature of man stood utterly unchanged, no matter how much time slipped by.

”That was when I said, if I had a bronzii for every time she claimed that, they’d be saying it was me who shat silver in the privy!”

Another roaring round of laughter rose from the august company, as hollow and artificial a sound as a man could manufacture. Doria joined right in, his chuckle smooth and timed to perfection. Laughing and smiling on command were the very first things a proper diplomat was taught to do, after all.

Lord Edmund, though lord was an act of extreme kindness given the man was scarcely master of his own dinner table, spluttered with glee, spray flying from his lips. How a man could live his life without a discernible chin, Doria did not know, and yet here was the proof in the flesh.

The Prince of Oizen must have truly been desperate to hand the keys of his house so meekly to the court of Yarzat. He was practically laying himself across the mattress, cheeks parted and begging for the thrust.

This fool Edmund was second in line for the Oizenian seat, with the first heir barely being a babe freshly weaned from his mother’s teats. One sudden wave of winter sickness, or one serrated dagger held by a quiet assassin in a dark corridor, and poof. The next heir to that ancient house would be entirely under the southern king’s thumb. A puppet who was clearly a vain, short-sighted man-child desperately craving a crumb of approval. There could be no greater tool for Yarzat to have installed on its eastern flank.

Doria recalled the old whispers that Habadia wanted to style himself high king of the South, to have every proud, princely house sworn to a single banner, paying him homage and bleeding for his personal wars. Well, Doria be damned if it didn’t seem like Yarzat wanted, and currently possessed, the exact tools to achieve the very same thing.

And why shouldn’t he? The ruler of Yarzat was already a king in all but name. Doria let his gaze drift across the sprawling pavilion, picking out the myriad heraldries of the various lordly houses. He could see the golden stag of Megioduroli. Old Lord Damaris sat at the center of that cluster, flanked by his two lumbering sons and a myriad of bored-looking cousins and nephews, all of them trapped in a dreadfully tedious conversation with the Lord of Apulio, who was the only one who seemed to find his joy. That was one was truly a talker it seemed.

There were celebrated heroes of the late war present, like the fierce Lord of Bracum, who was currently breaking out into genuine laughter with the eldest son of the Dog Prince, who did his best not to wobble with his wooden leg whenever the Wolf’s hand went on his shoulder. The youngest of the broods surprisingly was not present.Though if rumors were to be believed , it was the state of his body that prevented him.

Then, of course, there were those whose fathers had drawn their last breaths in the shield-walls, leaving children to wear the heavy chains of lordship.

He peered toward Cleio, the young, newly minted Lord of Hervium. The falling silver star on his doublet caught the torchlight, the sigil of the first Herculean lord who had broken ranks to bend his knee to the south long before the infamous Dog Banquet, giving the crown of Yarzat no hint of dishonor during the 12 years of service. The young man stood somewhat apart from the rest, the sudden weight of lines and lordships still written awkwardly across his youthful face. It had been months since his promotion, yet he still looked like a ghost with his new title.

He saw old lords, young lords, and brand-new lords. Yarzat lords, Herculeian lords, and Oizenian lords, now all tightly sworn to the black falcon. Or better yet, sworn to the black-and-white banners of the iron legions.

With barely a month remaining before the grand coronation, few were the southern principalities that had yet to send their heralds to announce their arrival. Some weeks ago, there had even been a formal envoy from the Mad Bull himself, making it known that his master would graciously attend the festivities, though he publicly fretted that the winter mud might cause him to miss the actual crowning ceremony, and assuring them they would make the travel as in much haste as they could.

Doria remembered how things stood mere years ago, back when Yarzat was isolated, vulnerable, and only Romelia stood faithfully by its side. How quickly the world spun. How easy it was to make friends when you possessed the right mixture of sharp steel and honeyed words. Yarzat would never have to boast of standing alone in the dark again.

Now, the tables had completely turned. It was Romelia that had to desperately sprint just to remain in Yarzat’s good graces.

Yet, Doria’s lips curved into a quiet, secret smile covered up by the raised wine cup to his mouth, there was still the greatest of the Emperor’s gift making its way to the capital of Yarzat yet.