Herald of Steel

As Perseus’s army drew near, Cambyses put all her energy into preparing for defense.

While also hoping to get a reply from Alexander.

And what was Alexander’s reaction when he learned of the defeat?

Well, before he got the news, the man was actually living quite the high life in the capital.

Fantastic food, sweet wine, comfy bed, warm room, and the best women were all given to him without restraint, and all these luxuries seemed to feel a few times better given the current season- winter, which made Alexander be totally snug up in his room and be attended to hand and foot.

And thus, this was how a typical day for Alexander went for the two weeks he could live without a care in the world.

In the morning, Alexander would often stay in his comfy bed quite late, given the biting cold outside, choosing to be wrapped up in his thick, fluffy blanket to fight the chill that would inevitably permeate his room all throughout the night, with him most of the time being accompanied by the nubile Maya beside him, acting as his bed warmer.

Sometimes Alexander would even have one or more of her sisters sleeping with him, all spooning against him from either side, their bare voluptuous bodies both massaging him and making the bed smell a sensual, sweet scent.

If Alexander was feeling particularly frisky, he would even keep his little brother warm inside one of them all throughout the night.

Then, after waking up, he would be served a warm breakfast, most of the time in bed by the maids, which usually consisted of a thick porridge with meat or fish, white bread, some other side dish such as buttered or jammed bread, eggs, tart, etc, alongside various seasonal fruits, all of course accompanied by wine.

Ah! Drinking first thing in the morning.

After finishing this, if Alexander did not have any appointments, he would have some free time on his hand.

So he would use this time to either laze around, such as taking in the sight of the Life Sea from his balcony on the second floor while humming to himself, or drinking.

Or he would take a walk around the palace premises to see all the various maids, servants, and slaves working about.

And sometimes he would even peek into the throne room to see how the court proceedings were going.

And with Alexander engaging himself as such, soon midday would arrive, and lunch would be promptly served.

This meal Alexander usually ate with the king and his close lords, such as Pasha Farzah and Iyazid and sometimes even the Queen Mother, while listening to them discuss some tidbits about the happenings in the court that day and sometimes even about the nation as a whole.

After lunch, it would be the lords’ time to relax.

So some would take their horses out for a ride, go on short walks, or even have a small picnic with their family in the outdoors, taking a sit around the many gardens dotted around and being served by their many servants.

While some of the more comfort-loving nobles would simply take a small nap and wake up around dusk.

And as Alexander stayed in the palace and saw the nobles enjoy as such, he finally began to understand why palaces like the Buckingham Palace or Palace of Versailles covered so much area and were so big.

Because those places were not just houses for its inhabitants to live in.

But they were their entire world!

They were designed as such so that the nobles could get all the comforts, luxuries, and entertainment inside the premises, and never have to leave.

And to make that happen, Ptolomy appeared to have gone all out, as the real party would begin once the dusk fell.

A grand feast would be held almost every day, where the nobles partied with the best food, wine, and music money could buy.

The menus would be lavish and extravagant, with meat being the only real choice, as fish and vegetables were seen as the food of peasants.

So for almost two weeks, Alexander ate every kind of meat there was- pork, beef, venison, lamb, bear, peasants, chicken, fowl, ox, fox, badger, etc, the list could go on, cooked every kind of way- boiled, braised, shredded, barbequed, and skewered to name a few.

In fact, the amount of meat was so much that after a week he even had trouble cleaning his stomach, forcing him to visit the palace apothecary and ask for some medicine to relieve his indigestion.

Though perhaps he might have preferred staying that way given the state of the bathroom.

Because there was the slight issue of all the toilets being communal, meaning Alexander would be many times accompanied by many other half-naked men doing their own business at the same time as him.

For a modern man, it was disgusting.

Alexander was able to avoid this issue the previous time because there were far fewer people and he was able to monopolize an entire section of the toilet for his personal use.

But now that was not certainly possible now given the number of nobles residing here temporarily.

And so for a modern man to be exposed to such ‘horrific’ sights and …oh the smell, Alexander felt extremely uncomfortable and even ashamed when doing his business.

Due to this the man then even started to go to the toilets in the middle of the night, regardless of him having to fight the bitter cold of the unheated palace in the process, just to avoid the embarrassment.

And sometimes as Alexander would drag his sleepy, shivering body, he would sardonically lampoon, ‘Too bad it’s not mixed. At least then I would have some eye candy.’

While Alexander could only shake his head in dismay at the barbaric sanitation arrangements, he would have to give credit to the various hired performers who sang, danced, and even did tricks for the court every night.

They were quite nice, at least a lot better than what Zanzan had at the moment.

The singers and dancers were the usual kinds, both men and women playing various instruments, and singing melodious tunes, being also even accompanied by classical, and exotic dances.

The songs’ lyrics and music were quite catchy, and even Alexander, who did not understand enough Azhak to keep pace with all the words found himself tapping his foot to the tune, enjoying some of it.

While accompanying the dances were naturally designed to be provocative and sensual, as many of these performers wore revealing clothes and showed off their curves through their movements, for many saw these performances as opportunities to move up in life by catching the fancy of a noble and becoming his concubine for the females, and lover in the case of a male.

And even if that did not always happen, they did expect to be heavily tipped for their night services.

And to that effect, though Alexander had no interest in choosing any of the singers or dancers, he nevertheless got sent a pair of cute minstrels by Pasha Farzah as a gift after one of the performances.

The brunettes appeared in their early twenties, and Alexander was happy to indulge them, both because he found the sisters attractive with their cute dimples and long hair, and also because he felt refusing them would likely slight Pasha Farzah.

And after tasting them, Alexander had to say the pasha’s gift was well worth it, as the two experienced women gave Alexander quite the night, with one sister sensually singing mellifluous moans, while the other displayed quite the flexibility, even doing a pose where she bought her legs to touch her hands in a kind of handstand, and letting Alexander experience a position he yet had to.

‘I should buy some gymnastics for my haram,’ Alexander even thought for a moment after the pleasurable memory.

But for all the music, singing, and dancing, if Alexander had to choose, the highlights of the shows would have to be the tricks the performers did.

In fact, they might be even the highlight of his visit.

Not because they were any good or anything, but because of how surprising and bizarre some of them were.

Sure there were the usual jugglers and various other acrobatic performers, but there were also some of the other more exotic ones, such as a group who competed at one another to see who would spit the farthest, a duo who tried to up one another at who could fart the loudest, and a man who showcased the various funny faces he could make to name a few.

And though Alexander found some of these a bit funny, particularly the last one as it seemed to remind him of Mr. Bean, the rest of the court seemed to laugh their heads off at every one of the tricks, their collective peals of laughter revibrating across the large hall room, and even diffusing out into the city.

Alexander even noticed the usual regal Queen Mother let off a few guffaws as at other times her lips trembled as she attempted to hold back laughing out loud like Pasha Farzah was doing sitting near her.

It seemed this was what passed as peak entertainment for this period of time.

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