Chapter 10: Man Without a Home

Joseph sat wearily in a chair and rubbed his eyes. The previous week had been a vain search to find someone who could assume the stewardship of the Wellington lands until permanent arrangements could be made.

He had spoken to dozens of people during the week and none fit the bill. Some of the people had the respect of the citizens but lacked the know-how to run anything larger than a farm or a shop. The few who might be able to handle the fiduciary responsibilities weren’t trusted by those they would oversee.

The time was rapidly approaching for Joseph to leave if he wished to see Tyrell before the heavy winter snows began. He dreaded the long walk as it was. The thought of trying to cover the last two weeks in snow to his waist made him frustrated.

The majority of the army had been broken up. There was little use in having hundreds of additional mouths to feed and many of the soldiers could be home in time to plant the late fall crops if they didn’t dawdle. The soldiers had been issued five gold coins for their service – a sum that some of the parents hadn’t seen in the totality of the lives.

Choran had insisted that the Azkoval treasury could bear the expense but Joseph had paid from his own funds. He had made quite a tidy sum as a mercenary and, as king, it seemed he had little on which to spend his own coin. He had sent a messenger back to Elena but he knew even a single man would take four months to reach Tyrell.

He instructed her to secure 1,000 gold coins from his personal funds and advance them by the swiftest route she could manage to Osid in Creight. He knew the man suffered from the same problem that many career warriors did: The inability to accrue funds.

Many of the former Caliph’s personal guards had attached themselves to Osid but he would have to raise and equip a sizeable force if he were to secure his country’s leadership. The former Caliph’s children were all too young to make a real threat but there would be a host of distant cousins willing to make a claim in their names – and who likely would ensure the child’s death as quickly as possible after winning the crown.

Joseph believed that the suddenness of Umar Dar Hassar’s passing would give Osid about a year to get his troops together. Osid wished he could turn down the funds but he understood reality as well as anyone. The race would be won by the swift and the wealthiest often had a shorter distance to run. Joseph’s coin would allow him to start even farther ahead of the pack than his lineage already did.

He had taken his remaining soldiers and departed for home just a week after killing his leader. With the mountain pass closed, it would take him several weeks longer to reach his capital but that couldn’t be helped. Only those with him knew of the Caliph’s passing so nothing would be lost – he hoped.

Alexander and Jonathan had sat in on Joseph’s interviews and had witnessed his rising frustration. All of his plans hinged upon having someone in Wellington he could rely upon and that idea seemed ludicrous at the moment.

Alexander motioned for Jonathan to depart and the younger man nodded and left.

“I believe I have the solution to this situation,” Alexander told Joseph as he sat across from him.

“Then you obviously have seen something in these people I didn’t,” Joseph snapped.

“Not in these people,” Alexander said evenly. “I have come to a conclusion different from the one you have decided is best.”

The king looked up and motioned for him to continue.

“Rina plans to return Westmont to the crown once you return,” Alexander said. “She has grown to love our little portion of the country and many of her friends are in Burbridge. She and Jonathan will return to our estate to plan for their wedding.”

Joseph nodded. He had suspected that Westmont held too many memories for Elena to be happy there.

“They have proven they can handle the running of a territory,” Alexander continued. He looked past Joseph and out through the window to the forests that surrounded the manor. “The truth is, well, I don’t mean to brag, but the fact is that Burbridge and now Westmont can run themselves. Westmont went so smoothly because we had people we could send over there to assist.”

“It would take a year to get them down here,” Joseph interrupted. “That really doesn’t help.”

“I wasn’t suggesting we bring anyone here,” Alexander countered. “I was suggesting that I remain behind to oversee the estate.”

Joseph blinked and shook his head.

“That’s absurd,” he said.

“It’s not absurd,” Alexander told him. “I was already planning to step aside when Jonathan weds. I am superfluous at Burbridge. Additionally, well, my I be candid, Your Highness?”

“Always, Alexander,” Joseph replied.

“This is as much for me as it is for you,” the older man told him. “I dread returning to the estate and seeing Elizabeth. I will question if she is my child and I do not wish to strain our relationship any further than it already is. She was very close to Gabrielle and I am positive she will blame me for her mother’s demise. I would like to allow her to gain a little maturity. She already views Lady Elena as an older sister and I think her influence will help us both come to terms with what has happened.”

“But you will be so far away!” Joseph replied. “From a selfish perspective, it makes sense to me. If I may also speak candidly, well, I believed many of the other landholders would do as you’ve done. I hoped that those with ties to my father would send their children with me if they didn’t come themselves. Certainly, they were generous in permitting their citizens to accompany me if they wished but you are the only sitting lord that I did not appoint who is with me on this campaign. Jonathan is the only heir to a lordship with us down here. I heard all their reasons for staying behind and keeping their children behind but I know them for what they are: excuses.

“Until I grew to know you, Alexander, I suspected you were involved in the plot to kill my parents. I am a man who admits when he has made a mistake and I made one with your family. I trust you implicitly. If you have grown tired of life in Burbridge, come to the capital with me. I would be happy to have you nearby.”

“It’s more than that,” Alexander said, smiling at the young man across from him. “You are less than half my age but you have already seen things that I have imagined since I was a boy. I came with you because of my love for Azkoval and my trust in you. That is part of the reason. The other was because I longed for adventure – and I wanted Jonathan to get the wanderlust I believed I had imparted to him out of his system before he weds. Yes, my life has grown stale. It grew stale perhaps a decade before you were born, if I’m truthful.

“I took over a well-run holding and followed my father’s teachings to the letter. For the first five years I held the title, no one would be able to guess that my father had died. Even the changes I made in the next 25 years were subtle. If you can find someone in Burbridge who remembers what things were like when my father held it, they would tell you that nothing has changed.

“I see before me the opportunity to make something from nothing. I see the opportunity to travel to distant lands – lands I have only heard or read about – and see things with my own eyes. I began to think about this because I dreaded to return to Burbridge. The more I considered it, the more it made sense to me from your standpoint, too. I had almost convinced myself to speak to you when this process first started but I was frightened of the unknown.

“This holding will be an awesome responsibility. It will not only require reshaping a land that has been abused for 15 years, it will require someone who has Azkoval’s best interests at heart. I understood that. But it wasn’t until I considered all the possibilities that it presented that I made up my mind. In a few months, I can have someone trained to handle things in my stead. Before Jonathan and Rina are wed, I can begin a journey to Creight to work with Osid on securing a treaty between our countries. I know you want relations formalized with Deseret and Pleisus in the near future, as well.

“I want to be able to see these places while I am young enough to enjoy them. I will inquire if Elizabeth wishes to join me on my journey after I learn of her reaction to her mother’s death. The simple truth is, King Joseph, this would be a good thing for everyone. Jonathan will not have to look over his shoulder and find me peering down on his decisions; I will be able to take time to put recent revelations behind me; you will have someone down here that you can be certain will never attempt to rise against you while you gain a surer foothold on the crown.

“In time, I will return to Tyrell or to Burbridge and assume any role you wish for me to have. For now, however, I would prefer to stay here and sleep in a warm bed while you and Jonathan are walking back to Tyrell through snow and mud.”

“All your points make sense but none more than the last,” Joseph agreed with a laugh. He had watched Alexander’s tired face glow with anticipation of the future for the first time since the man learned of his wife’s deceit. “If this is what you desire, I will agree. Have you spoken with Jonathan?”

Alexander nodded.

“He is in agreement with all my thoughts – particularly the last,” he replied. “He considered offering to stay until you could find a replacement closer to the castle but I think this is better. I know it certainly gives me something to look forward to for the first time in many years.”

The long walk home began five days after the former Lord Burbridge set up residence in a vacant dwelling away from the former Wellington Manor. As with Westmont, the manor would be torn to the ground and the stones used for aquifers and roadways.

The armies were down to 207 men and 22 women by the time the trek started.

“Do you remember the animals they used for transport in Ullellis?” Genrico asked from Joseph’s side.

“Horses,” Joseph answered.

“Horses,” Genrico confirmed. “Osid tells me that one of the tribes in Gamboa has trained them to carry people. He said they just climb on the backs and ride them.”

Joseph gave him an incredulous look. The animals were huge. He couldn’t imagine straddling such a large beast.

“They eat them in one of the places we’ve seen,” Joseph pointed out.

“They were pretty tasty, too,” Genrico laughed. “Still, I would not be disappointed if you were to make a treaty with a country that has something like that to trade.”

Indeed, the entire party dreaded the return to Tyrell. Azkoval’s coastal capital was five hard months away. Joseph didn’t anticipate the festivities that greeted his downward march to Wellington but the first real town his group passed through proved him incorrect.

Citizens from miles around had left their farms and shops to see the king and his army. Joseph groaned inwardly when he saw the people along the roads. The need to stop and visit in every population center had added weeks, if not months, to his trip to Wellington.

“Smile,” Genrico urged from his left shoulder.

“They expect a gracious king,” Jonathan added from his right. He heard laughter from behind him from his two closest advisers.

Joseph’s teeth gleamed in the late-summer sunlight – a rarity because few in Azkoval had many teeth.

He walked from side to side of the small lane and shook men’s dirty hands and kissed women’s dirty cheeks. Several newborn babies were thrust into his arms for a blessing. He would kiss each small life on the forehead and handed it back to the often-beaming mother.

“His name is Joseph!” an excited young woman told him as she pressed her child to him. Her husband, a decade older, nodded his agreement. Joseph grinned down at the child, who immediately burst into loud squalls. The king had little experience with children. He had no brothers or sisters and the priest who had rescued him had despised most people but small people most of all.

Joseph completed his routine in spite of the child’s noise. When he passed him back he saw the parents were mortified.

“I hope I do justice to his name,” Joseph offered. The parents nodded numbly and Joseph moved on.

“He pissed on you,” Genrico whispered. Joseph looked down and saw a large wet spot on his tunic.

“The boy has spirit!” he said as he laughed. His reaction eased the tension that had enveloped those who had watched the spectacle unfold. The boy’s father let out a long breath. For a moment he was certain his son – and perhaps his entire family – was to be executed.

Joseph veered back toward the pair and the man’s fear returned. He wondered if the king would wait until he had moved on and send part of his army back to kill them all.

“Fear not,” Joseph said. “I know well enough that a person goes when he has to. I’m just thankful he did it before I lifted him upward.”

Joseph leaned forward and kissed the newborn on the forehead again.

“Raise him to be a good man,” he urged the parents.

“We will, Your Highness,” the man promised, his voice still quavering.

The procession took most of the day to pass through the village because the people lined the road well before and well after the town was in view.

“This can’t continue,” Joseph said when the army finally broke into the clear. “It will be next summer if we have to spend a day in each place.”

“Is it possible for us to take a ship from the great river?” Jonathan wondered. He had seen ships passing by as they crossed the small bridge.

“I wondered that,” Genrico chimed in. “We came down the western coastline and I saw many docks with ships that could accommodate most of us.”

“I didn’t realize there were shipping centers on the western shore,” Joseph admitted. “There weren’t when my father was deposed. It was mostly rocky shoals that wouldn’t support deep-hulled boats. No record of them appears in the records from the past few years.”

“That was Wilhelm’s doing,” Jonathan spat.

The discussion that followed was an economics lesson for the king and Lord Larchman.

During Welton’s reign, the onus of supporting the country fell on the richest: the landholders and the coastal merchants. The king forbade the lords from charging the tenant farmers and shopkeepers more than a nominal sum in taxation each year and encouraged the farmers and artisans to sell their surplus to the government for hard coin. The king would use the surplus food in trade with other countries to bring in items not readily produced in Azkoval. The economy moved because the items brought in would be sold back to those who had provided the surplus.

This hit the merchants and traders in the pocketbook two ways: first, they lost money because the government undercut their prices with other countries; second, they were forced to lower their prices in Azkoval to compete with the king’s merchants because the king didn’t pay an import tariff.