In two days, K'rar had already relocated to a new location, a relatively large, relatively stately house in the eastern section of Chaldea. The house's previous occupant had been the cousin of a noble, and had owned it until he put it up for sale to relocate to the countryside somewhere in the north to his ranch. K'rar had found it still for sale, and had purchased the house immediately as it was large enough to accommodate 40 people, which played perfectly into his plans. Furthermore, it was not only two-storied, but also had a cavernous subterranean realm. K'rar was just watching his men complete redesigning that cellar so that it was completely hidden from the visitor on the ground floor. They had finished smashing in the door leading underground to replace it with concrete. They had then smashed a hatch under a carpet, and cut out an inconspicuous square in the carpet on top of the trapdoor. All that was needed was to remove this square, open the hatch and drop down. Nonetheless, K'rar was not concealing the place from his knights, but rather from everyone else. K'rar had transported the fund, amounting to an indeterminable, obscene amount of kori, in a convoy of carts whose drivers had no idea what was in the large chests they were driving. That money was over and above all the money he needed to pay King Sargios his payments, and to pay all his knights many times over, and perhaps to even construct another armada. And, he still had lots of gold and silver worth much more money.
'You're richer than perhaps your whole country,' Shaniz was saying to him. They were alone in the small room with the hatch in it, after the knights reconstructing the place had completed the task, 'how did your father amass all that in secret?'
'Rulers always have the darkest of secrets,' he replied, 'you better prepare to make yours.'
'Are there secrets you are keeping from me, then?'
K'rar did have one dark secret. He chuckled, taking her hands,
'All the secrets I have are good for us.'
A knock came at the door as they embraced, and they didn't answer it until they kissed three times and released themselves. K'rar said,
'Come in.'
It was Jaax. He had a scroll in his hand,
'From the camp, Commandant,' he said, 'your native men got there early.' He walked to K'rar and gave him the scrolled paper, which he read quickly and gave to Shaniz,
'Good. The second squad is on their way,' he said.
'Also, sir,' Jaax said, 'we found your other man. Kanga.'
'Excellent. That's excellent. Where is he?'
'He's waiting in the parlor, sir,' said Jaax, bobbing his head. Kanga had proved a difficult man to catch, although K'rar hoped to find him on the first day he found out about him. Jaax added, 'also, our friends from the city have a report.'
The parlor had been refurbished, albeit decently, not extravagantly. There were seven seven-posted lampstands around the room, illuminating a spacious room of two parts. The first space was like a small diner with a round table and chairs, and the second one, with the entrance door in it, was just over three times larger. Along its left and right walls K'rar had installed tall lockers in which equipment was, and would be, kept. The weapons not for immediate use, and regiment uniforms, were enclosed behind the wardrobe doors. Only a small unit would occupy the house, but it was like a miniature military base, a fortress. K'rar's visitors, and Kanga, were standing in this space waiting for him. Kanga was in the room with two Korazite merchants K'rar had hired as his eyes and ears, though they knew nothing about who he was. Kanga, too, had not been told outright, and had snapped at Jaax when that knight had given him the kerchief with the wings of freedom emblazoned on it. But Suchy, who came to the room before K'rar did, was now trying to throw him some clues.
'You look like you've served your kingdom's military before,' he was saying.
Kanga was a reticent man without so many words in his mouth, but he gave Suchy an answer nonetheless,
'I did. How can you tell?'
Suchy didn't answer that directly. He deflected,
'Then how did you drop from that into the wine business?'
'I decided to retire,' Kanga said quickly, 'I like my current job, and I have no dependents to take care of.'
'If the king recalled you into his service…'
'I was in the service of the true king of Korazin, no offence. There is no way I can serve the usurper. If that's what…'
'I meant the true king of Korazin too.'
'The king you work for, you mean?'
'Yes. The king I work for. Tell me, Kanga, did you by any chance hear of the prison break a couple of days ago?'
Kanga was not sure what made the young man shift from discussing Kanga's employment to that. He said,
'Yes, I did. Some late wannabes think they can bring my king back by causing the city problems. Why?'
A door opened in the smaller parlor, and Kanga heard the voice of Jaax, whom he had already met, and the voice of a woman. But when he saw the face of the other man other than Jaax, his jaw dropped, and Suchy said,
'There was a resurrection, Kanga. Your king lives.'
'It cannot be. Your…Your Majesty?'
'You look much better than the others, Kanga. They kept them like wild animals in that prison.' K'rar signaled something to Suchy, who left the hall and went up the nearby staircase to the upper floors.
'It's been eleven years, Your Majesty.'
'And now I am resurrecting each one of you, Kanga. And this time, we will restore order, we will usurp the usurper.'
'And your services are still needed as they were a decade ago,' Shaniz said. She removed the head covering she was intentionally donning, while Jaax also took off his hat, drawing confused faces from Kanga and from the two native agents standing by the door.
'Who…who are you?' Kanga was asking Shaniz.
'I'm Brigadier Shaniz Santillan. And your king is also my king and my fiancée. That makes me your future queen. I am asking you to return to your king's service.'
The two natives by the door were more shell-shocked than Kanga, although he's the one who looked like an owl. He dropped to his knee,
'It is a certainty. I will serve your interests to the best of my ability,' Kanga said. The two men by the door came closer, both of them staring at K'rar like a god. The older one in maroon robes said,
'It is indeed him. It is His Majesty!' he too, dropped to his knee, pulling down his colleague with him, 'But, pray, my lord, why did you not give us a clue that it was you?'
'How can you confirm that it is I? Kanga here is expected to recognize me, but do you?' K'rar asked them.
'The Black Hands plastered the walls of the city with an oil painting of yourself, my lord. One only has to look closely to recognize that you are the face in those paintings, only ten years younger! Forgive us for not doing so.'
'This is to be the beginning of our deliverance from our oppressors. Please, sir, allow us to announce this good news to the city.'
'How do I know if they did not paint me as an incapable king when my enemies triumphed over me?'
'My lord,' said the older man, 'if I may speak freely.'
'Go ahead.'
'I believe no one has branded you as such. You were but a boy, and under no circumstances would you have done what the usurper has done thus far. The people even yearned you when you were dead, and yet here you are, alive and well.'
'He speaks truth, Your Majesty,' Kanga said, 'as they say, my lord, fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Garrera has, since your death, shown us he is such a fool. He has sold our land to your enemies, and turned the nation into a cave for Goldorans to drop their filth and their rot. If the people ever thought you weak, they certainly do not do so now. I would like to be present when you behead him for his many sins, Your Majesty.'
'Rise,' K'rar said to the three men, 'you have all spoken well. You are welcome to return to my service, Kanga. Go back and finalize what you are currently engaged in, and return to me immediately after. I already have an assignment for you.'
Before he replied anything, Suchy returned from upstairs with the rest of the knights in the vicinity. They were dressed in their black uniforms, but without much of their armor or weapons. Kanga watched in amazement as they all lined up along one side of the wall, opened their lockers each, threw on their full basic body armor with their weapons, and stood attention, facing the opposite wall. K'rar was smiling at the way his visitors were watching. Shaniz took two steps and stood next to Kanga, and said,
'When the king's ship sailed into the meridian all those years ago, he did not die as was expected. Even the spirit that lives behind those violent waters would not kill a king. And so K'rar came to us, the people of Xaxanika, far north across the sea. Over the last eleven years, he has made a name and an army for himself, including myself. You are looking at 20 of 36,000 Kaffrarian Knights, and if you know your king, you know that they belong to the best army in the whole world, which, as we have also discovered since, is made up of more than just this continent and Xaxanika where we come from.'
'36,000?'
'That's right. They already sojourn here in Korazin with us, secretly. Your colleagues from the prison have already traveled there with instructions, and will meet them. With these knights, the usurper will not call us weak, nor will he call us guerillas. We will instead render him weak, and as you like, you will be present when he is beheaded. Now go, and return to your king when you are ready.'
'Of course, of course, my lady.'
'Keep in mind that this is an overt operation until the king shows himself. So you must say only that which will not compromise us. Is that clear?'
'Yes, of course, my lady.' He bowed, 'my lord.' And he rushed out with a renewed swagger. K'rar thought he saw him punch the air with his fist.
'The same goes for you,' said K'rar to the merchants, 'that man's oath that he made to protect me still stands, but you men have made no oath. You will now swear in blood that you will serve only the interests of your king.'
Suchy pulled out a knife from his waist, and snatched it out of its sheath. He approached them, holding out his free hand so they could each give them their right hands. This was an informal, but binding, way of making an oath. The younger man put his palm up, and Suchy sliced it with his blade slightly. The man muffled the brief pain. The same went for the other man, and then they said,
'I, Jephthah son of Ar, swear it.'
'And I, Devchel son of Taemael, swear it.'
'Then you are from this point on in my commission. Now you wanted to tell the city of my return? You'll do no such thing. But you will leave clues.' K'rar gave them a piece of paper with some words on it, 'I know you are here to tell me that the authorities are intensifying their hunt for the people's criminal. They will even up the ante, what you have seen is nothing.'
'Yes, sir. That is one of the things,' said Jephthah, the younger one, 'the other, my lord, is different but not unrelated. There's someone circulating counterfeit money. Many of our friends are being arrested, and others now cannot buy even the cheap grain from the market. There is word that it could be a league of unscrupulous merchants. Or a southern conspiracy since the usurper removed tax cuts for them.'
'We'll deal with that. Now I need you to make copies of those words on large banners, and leave them on your roof before tonight's curfew.'
'Much obliged, my lord.'
Once they had left, K'rar said,
'Garrera is employing an old trick. They want us to try and break out the innocent civilians they're arresting, to draw us out. But we'll instead pay them a visit in their home base. Right now.'
This plan was already known to them. Suchy quickly walked to his own locker and armored himself. Five predetermined knights would stay behind and keep the base, while the rest, including K'rar, would join the attack. It was broad daylight, and K'rar and his cell hadn't gone out to hunt for two days. He knew, though, that Lankh, Garrera's lapdog, was the one carrying out the investigation involving the attack on the Whippers two nights ago, and was roaming around the city making random arrests of random suspects. However, they had left their victim alone, and K'rar had restrained himself because of this.
The gatekeepers at the house at Abishec rivulet had never seen such beauties in their whole lives when Bekka, Shaniz and Hazael cat-walked to the round gate in disguise, wearing colorful long dresses over their black knights' outfit. They were not wearing shawls, so the gatekeepers, apart from admiring their forms, also took some time looking at their dark brown, blonde and auburn hair. Hazael was in the center, carrying a fruit basket with one hand under it.
'Where in the world did you ladies come from?'
'We came from a far-off island. We are friends with Chief Maldab's sons, and it is our turn to visit them.'
Over the last two days after Jaax confirmed that the leader of the Iron Whippers was indeed based here, having tailed him more than once, he had also found that the estate was shared between the Whipper and another man called Mensha'ad. Mensha'ad was the younger sibling to Sha'ad, and their father was the head of the Korah, Maldab.
'And here I thought the master only picks out the old, dry whores,' said one of the guards, 'you ladies are too good for him. How much for you, beauty?' the guard stepped down from the raised concrete landing of the entrance, 'I'm longer than the master, please don't tell him.' He began to feel Hazael's breasts, and she let him. While Shaniz went to please the other man, Hazael drove a knife with the hidden hand into his heart, dropping him. The other guard was startled, even frightened, by this, but before he even thought of fetching his weapon from his sheath, Shaniz had already slit his throat and dropped him on the earth too. As soon as this was finished, they threw off their disguises and placed them in the basket, while the rest of the team came out of hiding from a corner some meters ahead of the gate. They already knew where each of the other fourteen armed guards in this house were standing. Four of them were in the compound, and two were always in the balcony of the upstairs room overlooking the compound. The rest were either situated inside or in the back. Two archers shot down the ones in the balcony as soon as the gate opened, and while the other archers took out the four men in the compound, four knights including Suchy, Uche, Jaax and Tedros hooked and lifted themselves onto the balcony. The room there had a closed window and a closed door, which Suchy kicked in and treated himself to a shocking sight, a man pleasuring his whore with his head between her legs.
'End of session, man,' Suchy said, and attacked the man, who had his clothes on, while the woman was glaring naked. Jaax said,
'That's him. The leader.'
The couple had both sprung several feet apart, with the woman whimpering into the white bedcovers on the large bed. The man had a weapon close by, a sword, and before Suchy reached him he had drawn it and prepared. Two guards' approaching footsteps could be heard from the other side of the bedroom door, so Uche and Tedros went to meet them, while Jaax moved to snatch the woman in the bed out of it. Suchy said to his opponent,
'Better that way, whippersnapper,' and began his fight with him. They were standing in a narrow space between the wall and the bed. The Whipper was no match for Suchy. The latter let him swing his sword twice at him, before the Whipper struck the wall with it, so Suchy drove his hilt into the man's hand to make him drop it, and then put his own sword away to fight him with his fists. Meanwhile the knights by the door had already slain the men there, and had gone downstairs to meet others, and Jaax was pinning the whore to the wall while she tried to seduce him, something for which Jaax hit her when he had had no intention to do so. Suchy downed his opponent with one kick in the abdomen and a mighty whack of the fist across the cheek. The whore was yelling,
'Please! Please, I can be useful! I have information.'
The man on the ground, with Suchy over him, said with a mouth full of blood,
'Shut up you whore!'
Suchy kicked him in the ear, saying,
'You shut up!'
'What information?'
'I know about the counterfeit money. Spare me, and I'll tell. I'm no hero.'
Jaax and Suchy looked at each other, and Jaax said,
'Well who would have thought, eh? Two birds with one stone. Let's go.' He grabbed her by the elbow, shook one sheet off the bed and placed it on her naked body, and dragged her outside the bedroom door.
'So you are also behind the counterfeit coins,' Suchy said to his victim, picking him up and putting him on sword point, 'move. You're going to hang for this.'
'I don't know what she's talking about.'
'Be quiet and move.' He shoved the back of his head, 'I must keep you alive, but don't let that encourage you, because you don't need that dirty tongue of yours to live.'
He led him out too, and continued barraging his back, until they came to the parlor downstairs, where the other knights had rounded up everyone else that wasn't a guard, amounting to twelve people, including three other whores, and put them on their knees before K'rar. Suchy said,
'Is this a brothel or a home?'
'Can't seem to see the difference,' said Hazael. They were surrounding the center, where Suchy and Jaax dropped their victims and joined the circle, after Suchy pointed out that his prey was the leader, and Jaax that his had information about the counterfeit. But K'rar's eyes did not for one second move from the leader, and neither did the leader's gaze shift from K'rar's face, even as he dropped to his knees.
'This man is the leader? Him?'
'He's the one I stalked. It's him, sir.' Jaax said.
'Unbelievable,' said K'rar, even bending to take a closer look. The man was also as shocked as K'rar himself, 'unbelievable.'
'What is it K'rar?' Shaniz, Bekka and a few others could call him by name even on duty.
'I know this man,' K'rar said, 'I remember him vividly. You're an Ursan, are you not? The only one left in your tribe.'
'I am.'
'And your name is Yorgi, isn't it?'
'It is,' Yorgi said.
'Do you not recognize me?'
'You look familiar, but I do not. But we have obviously met.'
'More than a decade ago, they sent you to my camp after they slaughtered your village, to warn me that if I do not surrender, my mother would then be executed.'
Yorgi remembered those nights in Ursa all too well.
'That's not possible,' Yorgi's mind had now registered the face of the young man looking at him, 'they killed you. You've been dead eleven years now!'
'What are you talking about?' one of his fellow prisoners cried, 'who is he?'
One of the knights slapped him in the back of the head and told him to keep his mouth shut. K'rar said to Yorgi,
'So you do remember me. Who am I?'
'You cannot be him. Everyone saw…'
'Who am I Yorgi?'
'You…you are…K-K'rar von Caspar?'
'That's right Yorgi,' K'rar grew suddenly indignant, and even drew his sword and put it on his neck, 'that's right. Do you remember what you said to me that night, Yorgi, apart from the threats? Do you remember?'
Yorgi could never forget anything from that bleak past. He said,
'I said you were a coward.'
'That's right, you have good memory. Those were pretty powerful, and hurtful words. And I took them to heart, all the years that I've been gone. I wanted to do something to avenge your loss on your behalf. And one of the things that have inspired what I have been doing these years, Yorgi. Yet you now work for them?' K'rar's tone was rising into a shout, 'the very people that murdered your village right in front of your eyes! I have return not only for my throne, but also to avenge them. Even one of my ships was named after you and your people, Yorgi. And yet all this time, you have been under their care!' he pressed the tip of his sword harder on his neck, and Yorgi began to sweat, 'they are using you to do what they did? Harassing citizens, and forging counterfeit! Give me one reason I shouldn't slit your fucking throat!'
'You will not believe it.'
K'rar took his sword away from his neck after a brief moment of silence. He then had a chair brought to him, and as he sat on it, he said to him,
'Try me.'
'I am working for them under compulsion. It is not something I would do on any day. And my own family rejected me when I was recruited. I had nowhere to go. No one to talk to.'
'You seemed rather passionate when you were taunting us to come out,' Jaax said, 'three days ago when you were bullying an innocent man.'
'Because I have been doing it for years. Look, when they slaughtered my village, they made me choose out of the crowd six people to spare. My family, and some friends is what I chose. So I sentenced to death all the other villagers, and even those I spared were torn away from me, and Lankh then recruited me as his lapdog. If I slip up just once, the gods know what he will do to my mother, and three sisters. He settled them somewhere, and provides for them, but I do not know where. As long as I stay in line. That is why I am in his employ. If I show any signs of wavering, he threatens to complete the job and exterminate the rest of Ursa. I once tried to find them, and that did not have good consequences.'
K'rar once more remained silent for some time. He then scoffed at the story and said,
'Classic Garrera.'
'I've wanted to kill Lankh for all these years, so please do not think I am a puppet, like he is. All I want is to locate my family.'
'Well, I cannot just watch you continue doing what you do. We know everything about you now. We know where your men live, we know this place, and as you have seen, we can break into any place, including my palace. So here's what you're going to do, Yorgi of Ursa. You're going to quit raiding people's homes, and you're going to tell me where that counterfeit is being made.'
'That wasn't us,' Yorgi said, 'and like I said, if I stop…'
'From this moment on, you're dead. You died with your whores in this house when we burned it down. Understand?'
Yorgi understood the ruse quickly. K'rar was not going to kill or burn him.
'You are helping me?'
'That's right. But I will need you to help me in return. And you will begin by telling me where you're making that counterfeit.'
'What about my mother and siblings?'
'My men will help you find them. All you have to do is pledge your allegiance here and now, to me. And I impose no wicked sanctions.'
'If you can find my family, I will do everything you want.'
Suchy once more pulled out his knife, and crouched down next to Yorgi for his hand. One of the other prisoners snapped,
'What are you doing? Will you so easily break your loyalty…'
'Shut up Mensha'ad. I was never on your side, you and your reprehensible father and all your friends. This is the true king of this land. And he thought about me even after we met only once. I know where my allegiance lies.' He gave his palm, and Suchy cut across it. K'rar had recruited another man.
'You traitor, you will not…'
Hazael kicked him in the back of the head, and Bekka asked Yorgi,
'Who is this chap?'
'He's Mensha'ad, the son of Chief Administrator Maldab.'
K'rar was suddenly interested in him.
'The son of that traitor?' he said, 'take him away. Take them all to base, and blindfold them. Now, Yorgi, the counterfeit.'
'Like I said my lord, that wasn't us. I do not know where this woman got that information.'
K'rar then said of Yorgi,
'Take him away too. Leave the whore.'
'Shall we blindfold him too?'
'Yes. But once you're there, don't lock him up. He must not leave the premises though.'
They placed a bag over Yorgi too, but they took him more peacefully than the others. Ten knights would complete this task. Meanwhile Bekka had six dead men pulled into the house along with a large number of haystacks, which were thrown about in the house. They were to be burned.
'What's your name?' K'rar was asking the whore.
'Aswin.'
'You're Goldoran,' K'rar said.
'Yes, I am, Your Majesty. Please, do not hurt me. I only came…'
'No one will hurt you. Now, where is the counterfeiting being done? Who is doing it?'
'I only overheard a customer at my brothel. He thought I was asleep. He said something about releasing the grain and the counterfeit at the same time.'
'Do you know who the customer is?'
'I only know he is Goldoran like me. He is a regular.'
K'rar looked up at Shaniz. She was standing there with Suchy and Bekka, who had finished setting up the house for destruction.
'Goldorans. The Goldorans are behind this, obviously.' he said, and then turned back to the whore, 'I only wanted to send you back to your shit city, but perhaps I should just exterminate you all, no?' he was very serious, and the timid woman shook. She whimpered,
'Please. You said if I help you…'
'You haven't. You haven't told me anything about the customer other than he is a customer. That's not enough to start with now, is it? You know something you're not saying,' he pulled out his knife, preying on her timidity.
'Please, they will kill me. I cannot tell you more…'
K'rar grunted,
'In case you're blind or something like that, I'm the one with you here. I have a knife, and, you're naked,' he snatched her sheet off of her body, and placed the knife tip by her heart, 'so ask yourself again who will kill you if you don't say what you're hiding. Now.'
'They call themselves The Children. They get instructions from the Patriarch. Please that's all I know, I only came three months ago!'
K'rar removed the knife from her body, and smiled,
'See, that wasn't so difficult. Was it? Now, Aswin, you're coming with us. I want to buy a whore, and two of my friends here want to work there,' K'rar's knights knew he was really telling them of a plan, while the whore just returned a face white with terror. He added, to Damaris the female, 'dress her up and take her outside, till we come.'
Damaris took her back upstairs after she reinstalled the sheet over her body. Then K'rar, Shaniz, Suchy and Bekka departed to check out the secret tunnel they knew was somewhere in the house. Garrera had blocked off the natural exit behind the waterfall with concrete, but obviously he had replaced it with a new channel that definitely culminated somewhere in the house. They searched all the rooms on the ground, and found nothing. But they were trained enough to know that the exit would be concealed, so they thoroughly checked all details, and their best bet at the end of it all was the bathroom. It was a large, empty room with nothing but a large bath constructed in the center of the room. Hangers around the round bath had towels on them, and the floor was littered with red petals. They were scented, but the smell of the recent sexual activity was still hanging in the room too. The bath water was old, and it, too, was littered with petals on the surface. Everyone guessed that the tunnel hole was here. Suchy quickly kicked the tap somewhere in the bathtub's base to drain the water through a closed trench, and once the tub was empty, they confirmed their conjecture. All they had to do was peel away the waterproof covering on the base and reveal a large sliding door.
'I'll be damned,' said Bekka, 'bathtub escape.'
'Bring a torch.'
They discovered that Garrera had actually not only changed the escape route. He had also reconstructed the tunnel completely, and actually transformed it into something beautiful. The entire way was paved, and the walls refined, straightened. There was no need to jump over rocks and outcrops or to crouch to go through small holes. In fact, if Garrera wanted to visit this home, or if someone in this home wanted to visit the palace, they could use this tunnel at any time rather than the open roads.
'They'll be scared we found their hideout,' K'rar said. 'We need them to remain complacent. Once we've burned the house, they'll come to the remains. But they'll only check the tunnel from here, so we'll block it from somewhere in between. There's a wood somewhere along the tunnel. We'll dig there.'
Before they left they restored everything in the bathroom the way they had found it, and then set the whole place ablaze.
K'rar sent Suchy and Bekka on the brothel business, while he himself went up with Shaniz, who covered her hair, to the city's main market to investigate more. He found exactly what he expected. The whole place was buzzing in indignation because of the counterfeit money. K'rar and Shaniz sat in a seamstress' shop somewhere in the market center, from where they could see, and hear, much of the buzz. K'rar was particularly interested in grain and meat mongers in a row of stalls who were charging exorbitant prices for the smallest amounts of food. They seemed to have more foodstuffs than most of the others. Almost all of them had with them assistants, clearly from experts in coinage or from the money changing businesses, apparently to examine the payments in case they were counterfeits. K'rar and Shaniz watched closely for several minutes, until the seamstress behind them came to ask if they were to buy something, for the third time. Ignoring that, K'rar asked her instead,
'What's your name, seamstress?'
'My name, sir? Will you then buy…?'
'My name is K'rar von Caspar. What is your name?'
The woman had many different questions and replies, but what came out of her mouth was,
'Your name is what, sir?'
'What? Does it sound familiar?'
'Look, sir. It's not my duty to warn you, but if you say something like that in the wrong place, you could hang.'
'Why can't my name be K'rar von Caspar?'
Once more she couldn't believe he was saying this, so she sternly said,
'If you keep yapping that, the best thing that will happen is that the crowd will lynch you, and the worst is that the authorities will then take you away and lynch your dead body. I just hope you are not in my shop when that happens.'
K'rar was smiling up at the woman like an idiot. He stood up and faced her, saying,
'You should have really told me your name, lady,' he said, 'but perhaps you'll tell me by yourself. Now, by any chance do you know a place I can find a drawing of the boy king? The one who was killed.'
'Fuck's sake! Will you not stop desecrating the king's image?'
K'rar pulled out 100 kori in five coins from his leather bag, and gave her three of them.
'Someone should have an oil painting in this city. You find me one, I'll give you twice the amount.'
'Are you a landlord, sir?' now she was very kind and polite, more than she had been three attempts ago at asking K'rar and his girl if they wanted to buy something.
'Yes, as a matter of fact. I own lots of land, ma'am. Now, I am also a historian, and I would really like a painting of the boy king. I heard it is not difficult to find one in this city given its recent history, so will you do it? Find me one.'
'Two hundred kori for a painting? Why not?' she called one of her apprentices from the back, and as she came, K'rar said,
'How long can this take? What I ask of you?'
'No time at all. I know some people who can get me a painting quickly. Even though it is seditious, money is a powerful motivator.'
'We'll be by the stalls. And if you can get more than one, please do.'
As they went out of her shop, Shaniz asked him,
'What are you planning?'
'We have enough coins on us right now to buy all the grain and meat in this section. We'll then sell it for the counterfeit. These thieves clearly picked out this section first, so a lot of the fakes will be here.'
'Why not just sell it free?'
'The counterfeits will remain in circulation,' said K'rar, 'after we sell it, we'll say that we'll be back tomorrow to exchange counterfeit for genuine. That's when we'll catch that son of a bitch. He will try and get all his counterfeit out here to exchange it, and if they cut deals in the brothels, then we'll catch them in their own backyard.'
'And the painting?'
'Well, I'm about to appear publicly. The seamstress will be the first to suspect it, and then she will spread the rumor. She'll tell people I said my name was my name, and from there, everything will begin to make sense.'
'And you said you have only a military mind. You are more than that, my husband.'
K'rar smiled very blankly. He had got rid of his own shyness faster than her. She was very happy seeing him in this setting, clearly. And it gave him a crazy idea.
'I have an idea.' He took her arm and led her back to the seamstress' shop, and made her remove the disguise on top of her black war outfit, as well as the shawl covering her head.
'Oh my,' the seamstress was the first to react, 'but who are you people? You look very strange, every part of you.'
'Well, there are even stranger people, my friend,' said K'rar, taking Shaniz's hand, 'people with dark skin like the color of this table, and with hair as hard as a gravel. I will bring them one day, and you'll see them.'
'What are you talking about?'
'Just saying, the world may be bigger than you know, seamstress. The world is bigger than you know. And this lady, well, she is a lady of the world.'
They left her there, talking and frowning at herself.
Shaniz said,
'Feeding her more fuel for the rumors?'
'That's right. Now brace yourself. You're about to become like those statues at San Vilgraek.'
She did become like them, not least because of her hair, yellow like an afternoon sun, but because of also her strange outfit, especially since she was a girl. The man holding her hand was also clad in black, though his coat and hat concealed most of this. But his curved sword and boots were the same as hers. For longer than a brief moment, the market was not haggling and calling and gossiping and complaining about prices and counterfeits. They were certainly talking about the strange couple in their midst. K'rar and Shaniz just walked about as if it was normal. First, they found an idle young man in his teens or early twenties sitting by himself next to a bunch of empty baskets, at the edge of the last concrete, palisaded stalls of the market. The young man was either scared or worried or both, when Shaniz was smiling down at him. He spoke first to her,
'Hey, the whole city is looking at you. Why are you coming to me?'
'Do you sell baskets, young man?'
'Yes, I do,' the young man sat up quickly. He did sell baskets, but had to be especially lucky to get one customer.
'Not anymore. What's your name?' Shaniz was pulling out from her own bag, a large one, some money. 'I'll give you forty kori if you find me fifteen of your friends, male or female, especially the idle ones. Bring them here to this section of stalls. Me and my fiancée have a good job for them.'
'Are you…are you serious?'
'I am. Look, here's twenty. Show it to them as proof.'
'What job should I say they'll do?' now he stood up from the verandah he had turned into a stall.
'We need them to sell meat and grain.'
'For this much?'
'Go collect them, will you?'
The young man left his baskets there and buzzed off excitedly. K'rar and Shaniz then turned into the section. The market was organized in countless pens, large and small, selling majorly food items. This was apart from the shops on permanent buildings and the many other sellers set up in the arena in the open, especially skirting the walls of these buildings, leaving only very narrow grooves for people to pass. The Goldorans had hired some or all of the grain and meat sellers in this section, whom K'rar and Shaniz identified easily as the ones having moneychangers to check the money. To confirm it, K'rar asked more than a few of them who their supplier was, and got the response that they were themselves under someone else's authority and did not own the businesses.
'Well then who is the owner of the stall?' K'rar was asking one of them.
'My lord, I am not at liberty to divulge that information.'
'Okay. But tell me, does your employer own only this stall, or does he own more, like this entire row or section?'
'Sir, it is not impossible for that to be so. In fact it is ideal.'
'Oh,' K'rar said. The basket boy was now just returning with a crowd of eleven friends, so K'rar said, 'I'd like to buy all the rice and grain and meat from your employer.'
This statement was heard not just by the dazed seller but by others within earshot, including the vegetable seller behind the man's stall.
'Pardon, sir? You'd like to do what?'
K'rar said loudly, addressing more than one person,
'Come on, evaluate all this produce. I'd like the whole lot of it.'
'Are you crazy?' said a woman behind the seller, carrying a bouquet of tied vegetables. But K'rar was saying,
'This is exactly 1,300 kori,' he and Shaniz slapped the money on the platform, 'all your produce shouldn't be more than that. Please evaluate quickly.'
'1,300 kori? Are you a noble, sir?'
'I am who I am,' said K'rar. He turned to the basket boy and his friends, 'what is your name, son?'
'Ospas.'
'Ospas, right. Shaniz,' he pointed to the other stalls, and Shaniz began to walk along the section, telling the men,
'Evaluate all your produce quickly. We haven't got all day.'
Although they were stunned, the men obliged, so K'rar dismissed them and installed the vagrants in their stead, telling them,
'If any one of you cheats me, you all don't get any payment, so make sure no one misbehaves. Ospas, this is your responsibility.'
'Certainly, sir,' the chap shot his colleagues a sharp look to ensure they all understood the last bit. Then Shaniz began to herald something that was more shocking than what they had just done, that is, buying the produce without taking it away. Meanwhile K'rar was asking some of the women under the roof in the middle row of the section, including the vegetable seller,
'Will you help me, please? I do not know the quantities and the scales well. I need your help, and I'll pay.'
The vegetable seller, flanked by more than three other men and women and a couple of their children, said,
'But why? What are you doing?'
He let them listen to Shaniz, who was just finishing a sentence involving the circulating counterfeit, and drawing an incredible reaction. She repeated,
'Yes, I said it. If you have been fed counterfeit money, we'll take it, and we will also discount the price.'
'Why? Why would you do such a thing?'
'Because,' said K'rar, stepping out outside into the open space, 'I still have the soul of this nation on my heart, and I will not let any bad elements undermine the great nation of Korazin on my watch. Not if I can help it.'
'Why? Are you the king?'
'Leave him alone!' yelled someone, 'shall we chide people for their good deeds too?'
'Thank you,' said K'rar, 'now, shall we begin?'
K'rar and Shaniz took scales for themselves, and intentionally gave more than the right amount. Inevitably, commotion, yelling and pushing and shoving reigned as a result. But it also attracted some who were less impressed by K'rar's actions. Four men from the local constabulary, one of whom was evidently a man of rank, dressed in a cape and different colors. K'rar knew his name already to be Vossard. He was already talking loudly before he managed to scythe through the gathered crowd and paused the session,
'What is this madness?' he was spitting at K'rar, 'who are you?'
'Simply a man doing good deeds. There is a lot of counterfeit, and I am helping take it out of the system lest the market crumbles.'
'And where will you take the counterfeit, huh? Who gave you the authority to collect it?'
'Officer Vossard,' said K'rar, 'is there a problem?'
The officer scoffed,
'If you want to be a hero, young man, you should try something else. Go to the fighting pits, seeing as you might be good at using that weapon. Things like this always get you in trouble.'
'How so?'
'Doesn't matter. Now you can collect the all the counterfeit you like, but I will be taking it into custody. After all, it is not your place.'
'It seems you're worried about my intentions, officer. If it makes you happy, we will melt the counterfeit before your very eyes. Surely that is a desirable thing for all parties, isn't it? Everyone wins.'
K'rar and Shaniz did not miss Vossard's less than happy reaction to this that everyone else did. Shaniz stepped away from the crowd, going to say something to four other knights including Bekka, Suchy and Hazael, who had since returned to K'rar and stationed themselves, still in disguise, among the crowd. The knights knew the importance of being in close proximity of the Commandant when he made a public appearance as this. When she returned to K'rar, the officer was saying,
'Do you think you can get all the counterfeit out by what you're doing? Whoever is doing this will like that, you know. You are in effect giving him your money free. Not a very wise decision if you ask me. I would advise…'
'Listen up, everyone! Tomorrow, same time, I will not just be selling goods for counterfeit!' K'rar surprised even Shaniz, 'I will exchange the counterfeit for legitimate money directly! So go and tell your friends and neighbors! Anyone has counterfeit, you bring it to me!'
There was a new infectious buzz in the crowd after this, and K'rar set down the marker for Vossard,
'If you have charges against me for some wrongdoing, come to me then. But until then, stay out of my way, Vossard.'
Vossard did leave him, but after a rough stare down with him. As soon as he left, Shaniz said,
'Our first suspect?'
'Certainly. He's off to report to his seniors now. They will tell him to let me be, an opportunity to get real money for fake. Their agents will flood this place with lots of it, and then we'll catch them.'
By the end of their crazy show more than two hours in, K'rar had not received his painting from the seamstress yet. But he only looked back at the shop without going there, and he saw what he expected. The shop was laden with more than the usual customers, at least seven people, who were all constantly looking in his direction, and then at what K'rar knew would be a painting, or paintings of him.
That was a good harbinger for the night's mission, in which K'rar and fifteen knights took the large banners Jephthah and Devchel made, and planted them in more than ten particularly public spots in the city. The banners communicated two messages. Some had "THE SEA GAVE UP ITS DEAD" and the others a much longer and weightier message,
"Give ear, O Korazin, and I will speak. Of deliverance from your foe, and of hope. Vengeance is mine, and retribution. At the appointed time when their foot slips, for the day of their disaster looms near, and by no means shall they escape."
But K'rar did not return to the shop. He instead slipped away from the crowd and disappeared.