Chapter 19

Author’s note: [ and ] delineate mind-to-mind dialog.

Four more tax collection groups were attacked using pretty much the same routine. None of our people were hurt, but the strange thing was that we had not heard anything from Corinth. As far as we could determine, we were being blithely ignored by the king and his minions in Corinth. Conversations with the merchants passing through Corinth revealed nothing to us. What the hell was going on, or not going on?

Meanwhile, we were doing a very efficient job of policing the road between Coronis and Corinth. Three more large bandit gangs had been eliminated and I lost count of the number of minor one or two-man groups that were eliminated. To put it mildly, we were getting fat on our plunder from these two activities. The major mercantile caravans were cheerfully paying their tolls, but we were not charging for small groups of up to five travelers. Groups of six to 10 travelers were being charged a silver coin for our protection.

We were easily making expenses from the two activities, but Hippolyte decided that it was time for Coronis to start paying something for our protection. The little city was getting rich from the increased road traffic that we were protecting, so they should share in the expense of our operations. Hippolyte made up an agreement for the mayor to sign that would pay us for the protection of Coronis, and she made an appointment with him to discuss the situation.

Of course, Mayor Kapaneus made time immediately for Hippolyte. She was not a person that you wanted to become annoyed with you. We showed up at the appointed hour, and the mayor had rolled out the proverbial red carpet for her. The usual small talk was exchanged, then Hippolyte gave the mayor the real reason for our visit.

Mayor Kapaneus blanched when she told him that she wanted money. It was easy to tell that he expected her to stick him with a heavy bill. However, when he read what amounted to a bill for services rendered and expected for the remainder of the year, he relaxed a bit. He actually became genial when he found out that she would accept the money in monthly payments (that was my contribution).

What she asked for was what amounted to about 11% of the increased revenue made because of the city’s new prosperity. Not only that, she would forgive all debts prior to this month. That was a princely sum, and the mayor heaved a sigh of relief. Like every other town and city in Greece, Coronis collected taxes, and we had the force to march in and take it any time the mood struck us. Therefore, the mayor agreed to make the payments without argument.

Another thing the mayor recognized was that, whether he liked it or not, Coronis was seceding from Corinth and would become an independent city state. I could see in his eyes that he liked the idea of being King Kapaneus of the city-state of Coronis. All he needed for that was for Hippolyte to back him up. On the other hand, surely he realized that if Hippolyte decided to walk away, he would be taken by Corinth and crucified on principle. Those were compelling arguments for him to agree to go along with Hippolyte’s demands.

Therefore, Mayor Kapaneus agreed to send the first payment to us at the end of this month. To his relief, that was when Hippolyte left his office. On the way back to the fort, Hippolyte and I discussed improving the defenses of our fort. [What are we going to do if Corinth decided to move on us with siege engines?]

[Corinth does not have any siege engines, nor do they have any engineers who know how to build any.]

[I am sure that you are correct on that, Hippolyte, but what if they should decide to hire an engineer to work on siege engines?]

[Well, I suppose that they could do that, but I think that you are worrying over nothing.]

[Nevertheless, Hippolyte, I feel like we should do something. I am especially concerned with rams and siege towers. I would like to cut a deep trench through the road to our front door to the fort. We could bridge that with a wooden bridge that we could remove or destroy if the Corinthians tried to bring up a ram to break in our door.

[The bridge would also stop a siege engine coming in on the road, but the ground surrounding our fort is hard enough to support a small siege tower on wheels. I would like to cut a shallow dry moat around our fort. It seems to me that it only need to be about two feet deep and about three feet wide to stop any sort of thing with wheels if the trench banks were steep.

[I have figured out a way that we could dig such a trench easily and at low cost. We could use what is called a “dragline” pulled by oxen to dig the trenches. We would need only a few men and probably four oxen. Everything else could be done by our people.]

[Okay, Jane, I have learned not to argue with you on things I have no experience with. Go ahead, but I still think that the effort will be wasted.]

The first thing we needed was a dragline bucket to remove the dirt and form the trench. If I could not find a blacksmith who could do the fabrication of that, then the rest of the project is dead anyway. My father had used a dragline to make shallow trenches for irrigation water on his ranch, so I knew how they were used and what a typical dragline looked like. I went to see a local blacksmith about fabricating the bucket for me. He had done some other jobs for me, so I knew that I could trust his efforts.

I showed my drawing to Hephaestus, named after the god of metal working. He did a good job of living up to his name. Unfortunately, he did not have any steel on hand to do the job, but he thought that he could make a serviceable bucket from bronze if I would give him a little freedom on the design. Hell, I did not have any real choice, so I said for him to go ahead.

It took five weeks for him to have what was the best that he could do. The main bucket was made of bronze of about the thickness of body armor. Across the lip of the bucket was a narrow strip of carbon steel riveted to the bucket to act as a stiffener and as the blade to cut into the ground. Hephaestus was the expert, and he had never let me down, so I paid him for the bucket and had oxen and workers hired to do what I had in mind.

Everything was finally ready, so I started on the trench through the road. Dammit, I should never have doubted Hephaestus! The dragline worked like a charm, except that there was a lot of wear and tear on the ropes pulling the bucket. Oh, well, rope was cheap enough. I had already had a removable bridge constructed, so the trench was dug to fit the bridge. It took only two days to complete the job, so nobody was inconvenienced too much.

The dry moat was put in as an extension of the trench under the bridge. It was 30 feet from the base of the fort’s wall and extended all of the way around the fort to terminate at the other end of the trench under the bridge. It took two weeks to finish the trench all the way around the fort. The dirt from the trench was piled next to the trench on the side opposite the wall of the fort. When that dirt was packed down, it made it even more difficult to get a siege tower up next to the wall of the fort.

When the job was finished, the dragline was put into storage for later use, and everybody marveled at this improvement in the defenses. Hippolyte was happy, so I was happy.

Meanwhile, Corinth had finally deigned to notice our attacks on their tax collectors. The bodyguard force had been increased to 10 men, but that was the only change. This time, Damon had a single volley of bolts launched at the bodyguards. The four that were left were attacked with lances. That was a mistake! Oh, the bodyguards were all killed, but one of the horses was mortally wounded by the sword of a bodyguard, so its rider had to travel to Coronis on one of the wagons. He was murderously teased for this ignominy until Damon put a stop to it.

Well, at least Corinth had finally come to realize that we did form a menace to their complacency. Three more tax collectors were treated to this routine, and we were taking in so much food that we were having trouble storing it. A couple of tents were erected to hold the overflow of food. We were not having any trouble finding a way to store the money.