Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 826

Chapter 826: The crown’s trade(2)

The plan was simple in its bones but immense in its scope.

Alpheo dreamed of a Yarzat where the mercantile class was not merely a passing thing but woven into the very fabric of the state and its economy.

In his brief reign, he had already planted the roots. Yarzat had become a magnet for commerce: its roads patrolled and safe from outlaws, its immediate seas cleared of pirates, its ports brimming with the sails of foreign merchants.

All toward making Yarzat appear as an attractive prospect in the recently shifted merchant routes of the two continents.

And it worked…as apart from the usual merchants coming from Romelia and the other princedoms, Yarzat had become a target of route even across the sea.

Azanian spice-sellers strolled the capital’s avenues in flocks, because they knew that the moment their ships touched Yarzat’s docks, customers flocked like gulls to bread, emptying them of the spices they brought from far away.

One of the advantage of allowing a greater flow of money inside the capital, meant that the customers for a shop were more.

And then with the funds acquired from the spices, before leaving, they filled their holds with Yarzat soap, Yarzat cider, Yarzat paper . They carried them home to sell at a steep profit, and with each voyage, more would come back and follow the example of their fellow merchants.

This was the future. Alpheo envisioned not just a military power, but one of the great levers of commerce in the world, a bit like Constantinople was in the Middle Ages, where Latins, Egyptians, Syrians, Norse merchants all came to the City of Wonders.

But to lift, levers must be unshackled. And Yarzat was still bound.

The trade guild. That bloated, stifling thing, clogging a good portion of the arteries of the city.

To Alpheo, its destruction was not a question of “if,” but “when.” And once it was gone, its powers, its coffers, its control, would not scatter like bones among wolves. They would be gathered. They would be claimed by the crown.

By him.

At his core, Alpheo was not a republican dreamer nor a parliamentary monarch, was he a commoner he would have strived for a republic, but now he was a monarch.

He was an autocrat. And an autocrat did not share. His will was to bring every artery of the state , coin, arms, land, and law , into one heart, one hand. His hand.

The wider princedom was still a long dream away, but the capital could be the beginning.

His companions, however, misunderstood the shape of his ambition at the means through which it should be achieved.

“Should we send word to Laedio?” Asag asked, leaning back with the casualness of a man who thought the solution obvious. His scar stretched tight across his face as he smirked. “Have the garrison and the city watch round them up? We could cleanse the capital of the guild’s masters in a matter of hours. You give the order in the morning, by evening they’ll all be in irons and their assets confiscated.”

It was spoken as though it were no more difficult than scouring a street of beggars.

Alpheo was not surprised. In a world where law bent to the will of the strong, where no man could appeal against the state, Asag’s instinct was the natural one: crush opposition. Be rid of it. Move on.

And indeed, Alpheo did mean to reform that one day , the Alpheius Corpus was only the beginning of reforming the law . But such dreams belonged to another time.

Alpheo strived for a crown with absolute power, but that did not mean it wanted it to be a tyranny as after all even civil rights had their use.

For now, he could not afford to look like a tyrant in a land he wanted merchants to flock to.

So he set down his cup, and spoke with the tone of a schoolmaster correcting a stubborn pupil.

“Arresting merchants without accusation or cause,” Alpheo said, his voice level but edged, “would stain the crown more deeply than any ink can blot parchment. We have cultivated an image of justice. Of a crown that respects law and property. Tell me, Asag, would a merchant sail into a harbor ruled by a prince who seizes what he wants the moment his purse runs thin?”

Asag frowned, unbothered. “Where is the problem then? Fabricate a charge. Bribery. Treason. Something suitably foul and difficult to shout against. Who will doubt it, if it comes from the crown’s lips?”

Alpheo almost laughed. It was the old soldier’s answer, simple, brutal, and blind.

“The problem,” he said, letting his hand fall hard against the table, “is that these men are not shadows in alleys. They are faces known in every market. They are patrons to dozens.

You strike at them all at once, and their followers will scatter from Yarzat like startled birds. And when foreign merchants see them flee? They will begin to wonder if they should as well.”

He let silence press down on the chamber before he continued, slower, deadlier.

“That would not be cleansing the guild. That would be cutting our own throat. Social unrest in unacceptable.”

He leaned forward, his gaze fixed on Asag, though his words were for all.

“No. A civil institution cannot be smashed with the iron fist and left to rot. It must be dismantled piece by piece. Followers must be seduced away, not driven. Opportunities must be created that draw them from the guild’s grasp , opportunities only the crown can offer. And once the guild is weakened, when it is hollow and crumbling, then we present its masters with terms: the chance to salvage what remains, or be crushed utterly. By then, their resistance will be feeble, their influence withered. And the crown will not look a tyrant.”

He sat back, satisfied, his voice softening almost to a whisper.

“It must be slow. It must be patient. And it must be done in such a way that when the guild dies, none will mourn it.”

“And how are we supposed to do that?”

Jasmine’s question came softly, Alpheo glanced at her and knew she did not oppose him, not truly. But she also did not see, not yet, how much poison the trade guild dripped into the veins of their city.

She folded her hands neatly on the table, her eyes steady on him. “You said we must steal their followers. That means we have to offer them something better than what those purse-counters already give. Something at least equal, or more.”

Direct Bull’s-eye.

Alpheo leaned back, letting the silence stretch for a heartbeat, savoring the fact that she had struck directly at the heart of it.

“The guild’s power rests on its merchants,” he said, his fingers drumming once against the rim of his empty cup. “They have fingers in every pie , production, trade, distribution.Merchants are after all what buys products but also sell them.

You pull away those merchants, their pillars, and everything the guild built will crumble. They will fall not because we smashed them, but because their own foundations rotted away.”

He poured the last of his water and drank it in one slow motion, then set the cup down with a quiet click.

“Up to now, we harmed the guild not by striking at them directly, but by building markets beyond their reach , by creating space where others could prosper outside their chains. It worked for sure, but it is not enough.

For now… we must reach inside. Now we must take their merchants.”

The council listened in taut silence. Jarza’s brows furrowed, Asag’s scarred cheek twitched with impatience. Only Jasmine spoke.

“And how do you imagine we take them?” she pressed.

“The guild offers its merchants more than words ” Alpheo begun ”it offers them security. A guaranteed market for whatever they bring. Fixed prices, stable profits. If they play by the guild’s rules, they survive. And the greatest concession…” he paused, voice almost faltering. “…the guild gives them loans. Low-interest loans, so a man ruined by bad luck can rebuild his shop.”

The response wasn’t late to come ”Are you suggesting”her eyes widened with sudden horror”that we take over the lending trade? Are you mad? Gods, Alpheo, do you know what silver that would drain from the treasury? What coin would you even lend? You’ve seen the ledgers. The new expenditures that we have undertaken has nearly emptied the coffers.”

Alpheo smiled faintly, lifting a hand in calm dismissal, though he did not miss the way Shahab’s head nodded at his granddaughter’s outburst, as he too was not fond of the idea.

“Calm yourself,” he said smoothly. “I do not intend to turn Yarzat into a moneylender’s house.”

It was a lie. Or rather, a delay of truth. For in the quiet chambers of his mind he already nurtured the seed of such an institution: a central bank. But not now. Not yet.They were not ready for that idea.

“What I mean is simpler and far cheaper,” he continued before biting his inner cheek ”As A matter of fact it will earn us coin. We need not replace everything the guild offers. We need only offer something greater, something that makes it unwise to cling to them when another path lies open.”

He leaned forward, hands clasped on the table. “As you all recall, one of the terms of the peace with Oizen was this: all caravans bearing the royal banner of Yarzat pay no toll to enter Oizenian cities.”

Shahab stirred at last, his old eyes narrowing “Are you suggesting…?”

Alpheo met his gaze and gave a single, deliberate nod.

“Indeed. We shall sell those rights. Every merchant who pays us, and renounces any contract with the guild, may take fruit of the spoil of the war. Their caravans will pass untaxed through Oizen.

In short, the Oizenians may hold the cow by the horns, and we shall hold its milk.”