Herald of Steel

The biting reply that Pasha Farzah gave in his absolutely confident tone was in part enabled by the knowledge of the secret deal struck between Ptolomy and Amenheraft, where the former asked the latter to look away as Alexander annexed these houses in exchange for the continuation of the financial aid.

So from Pasha Farzah’s and Alexander’s perspective, there would be no compromise on the actual annexation, only the manner in which it would be done.

As Pf ended his reply, the Queen Mother decided to pick it up, similarly sneering and saying, “Haha, Amenheraft is living on alms given by ‘Us’. Where will he get the army to come and save you? You are all delusional.”

While Lady Inayah added, “And even if he did, Zanzan will only then need to add a few more flower beds to its outskirts. Just like it did with Djosr’s men, hehe.”

And lastly, it was Nanazin’s turn, who smirked and said, “Your so-called king has lost to Pasha Alexander every single time he has fought him. A total of three times,” She emphasized by showing three of her fingers.

And then recounted them, .𝘤𝘰𝑚

“First he lost his city to the lord,”

“Then he lost his army to the lord,”

“And just two months ago, he lost his most ferocious attack dog’s army to the lord.”

“What makes you think he can help you now? He can’t even help himself. Hah! Joke!”

The curly-haired beauty was particularly biting in her reply as she very animatedly brushed her arms, exalting Alexander perhaps a bit too much than the others.

But the theme of the message given by the group was clear.

There would be no compromise on the annexation.

And to bolster that stanch they had shed any pretense of civility the moment they sat down for the discussion, and simply taunted the nobles to ask for Amenheraft’s help when they bought up the matter of armistice.

Of course, the group had rehearsed much of the talking points earlier, coming up with prior answers to points that the group guessed the nobles might raise.

It was originally suggested by Alexander and the other four were finding it very effective, for they were able to buttress one another with ease.

This was very much different from the negotiations the other four, or more accurately three had participated in before, where they would have to basically ad-lip to the situation as they did not go into it with such a comprehensive plan.

And this planned approach immediately had a marked impact, as the nobles instantly understood that the opposing side would not heed the excuses regarding the treaty.

Which also made the nobles understand there was little way to stop getting eaten here.

“Haha, well regarding the treaty, I was there too when it was signed. And I also wrote a large portion of it.” From the side, Alexander firstly lightly chuckled this, reminding the nobles he also deserved the credit for that besides Pasha Farzah, and then asked,

“May I ask why you choose to side with Amenheraft rather than the true king Ptolomy?”

And the answers were as generic as one would expect, only having three major versions.

The first one being:

“Because he is the one true king. Chosen as the Crown prince by the previous late king, His Majesty Alozmer, he is the rightful successor of the throne of Adhania.”

“And it is a fact no amount of whitewashing by you people will be able to change” Jamider (Earl) Tikba was showing himself to be quite the orator.

The second one was:

“He is the road that leads to Paradise. Following him is following the will of Ramuh, and thus the will of the gods. We will not follow you to Hell. You cannot make us.”

And the last one was the most simple one:

“Bah! I swore an oath to follow him, and I will follow it to my death.”

This particular sentence was uttered by Jamider (Earl) Yuuseq, who Alexander could see as a military man judging from all the visible scars on him, and figured him to be a man who wore his heart on a sleeve.

‘A man of his word who would not back down no matter the circumstances, that was the vibe the man gave.

There were of course the main outer reasons.

While naturally there were other hidden reasons as well, such as some of the nobles had treatries with Amenheraft and Pasha Muazz that got them preferential treatment during trade or access to a specific resource and which Alexander of course would not and many times could not grant them as he himself did not have access to that.

Or defensive guarantees that they felt Alexander could not grant them, or worse still, those defensive guarantees might have been against Alexander himself.

There might also be shared interests in various kinds of entertainment the nobles took part in that Alexander detested.

And then lastly there was the always simple case of racism as Alexander was a Thesian, and not from Adhania, hecen was not one of them.

And this was a particularly sore sticking point for some of the more hawkish nobles, who were determined to never serve Alexander no matter what just because of his birth of origin.

So if you thought in modern times the people who did not vote for a leader just based on their color or sex were bad, they really should come to visit Zanzan.

Alexander was of course aware of these prejudices about him, but there were only two things he could do about it.

Either kill all of them and destroy racism at its source.

Or slowly try to convince them to change their minds.

And the side effect of doing something similar to the first one was something Alexander had already tasted, with Djose’s war.

And so Alexander really had to focus on the second one.

And to induce that effect, after hearing the reasons, he first put his right hand under the table and from there brought out a large leather-bound rectangular bag, an ancient version of the modern briefcase.

And as he opened the leather straps binding the bulging bag and then brought out the stacks of paper from inside it, and then started to neatly organize them, he first very politely smiled and said, “Thank you for your honest answers. It goes to show that all of you are men of conviction. I can respect that.”

But then gave them the cold, hard truth,

“But let us be real and not waste our time bickering over the treaty, the deal, the armistice. the legitimacy of who is king and who is not or whatever else for that matter. It does not really matter.”

“Because if it did matter and any one of you wanted to resist us to the bitter end, then you would have never come here in the first place.”

“So!” Alexander forcefully uttered the word as he then looked straight ahead gazing his eye into his counterpart’s eyes, “In the interest of saving both your and my time, I have written down our list of demands. And then a list of the benefits we are willing to provide if you join us. Please have a look.”

After he said this started passing copies of the paper to each of the other 25 people there until all 26 people had in their hands 3 leaves of A4-sized paper.

These papers were attached to themselves using metal paper clips which Alexander asked his chainmail workshop to manufacture, and as the group focused their eyes on the first pages, they found the white sheet to have the demands written on them neatly in bullet points.

Just from the handwriting itself, it looked like it was almost a work of art.

Which was not inaccurate considering it was done by Mikaya.

No matter what others might say about Mikaya, she was a genius artist, Alexander would give her that.

And it was also one of the reasons he had asked her to write these.

With the other reason being because Alexander was just learning how to write Azhak, and currently his writing looked like that of a child’s.

So he did not want to embarrass himself in front of the nobles and make them underestimate him even more.

So here came Mikaya.

And since the original script was quite long, and Mikaya would have to write it 26 times in flawless handwriting, the price was certainly not cheap.

But it was certainly weird.

Well, perhaps not that weird given it was Mikaya, who, in much keeping with her character had not demanded any ropal for they were worthless in her eyes.

But had instead demanded that Alexander spend a few nights with the three girls right after Pasha Farzah left.

The reason for the ‘after Pasha Farzah left’ condition was obvious, while the reason for Mikaya making that particular request was likely sort of a revenge.

For Alexander had barred her from going to her usual weekly entertainment as long as her father was here.

For though Alexander might be daring, he was not suicidal, and would never take the chance of Pasha Farzah accidentally discovering her daughter was not home, or worse…she was there.

No matter how small that chance was.

All these miscellaneous thoughts crossed Alexander’s mind as he looked at the papers in front of him, and then looked across the table to see if everyone got them.

And once he would see a small, white parchment in everyone’s hands he began.