Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 876

Capítulo 876: Augustine hall(2)

Alpheo had a far more conflicted view of Romelia than most men did. As he rode through the main avenue of the so-called Eternal City, fifty of the Golden Steed rode at his side, their polished cuirasses glinting in the sun, their presence a statement as much as an honor guard for the Prince-Consort.

Of course they were just that pretty faces, when shit hit the fan, he always preferred Vosk with his hard-fuckers, but when it was time of manners, he had to put down the club and take up the pommeled sword. Even though the first may be much more effective in bloodshed.

The locals watched in silence as the white banners of Yarzat fluttered through the heart of the city.They may have not known the banner but they knew that war was coming.

He had expected something grander, perhaps even magnificent. The title Eternal City conjured images of gleaming marble, triumphal arches, and soaring columnsstreets lined with statues of emperors, the pulse of civilization itself.

I mean that was the idea that Rome gave.

But Romelia was a city both proud and broken, half a marvel and half a scar. The monuments still stood, but the bronze had tarnished; the mosaics, cracked; and between the great works of the old empire, whole districts sagged beneath the weight of neglect.

Time and war had gnawed at it like wolves at a long dead carcass. The long civil wars had not merely emptied the Emperor’s coffers, they had bled the very spirit of the city. Once, Romelia had been the second heart of the world, a marketplace where the caravans of the East met the fleets of the West, where scholars, mercenaries, and thieves shared the same taverns and the same stories.

Now, that pulse was faint. Romelia’s time was at its dawn.

As his procession turned into the Grand Square, where merchants traditionally gathered to hawk their goods, Alpheo took in the sight with quiet disappointment. The stalls were fewer in range of products than he had thought.

The civil wars had done their work well.

In Yarzat, by contrast, the markets roared.

He could not help but compare them. Romelia still dwarfed his own capital in size, its population was perhaps six or seven times greater than Yarzat’s forty-five thousand, but that weight was also its burden.

The demand was high, yes, but the spending was thin. They survived rather than thrived.

In constrast his people had a much stronger spending strength. And Alpheo would have been mad with rage if that was not the case, considering just how much time he had spent to make sure that something that could be called an economy was present in the capital.

It made Alpheo quietly proud of what his people had achieved. Yarzat had no marble,nor great statues but it had motion. In the past decade, the city had pulsed with life, public works rising every year, new roads cut into the hills, bridges, aqueducts, workshops, and fountains. Laborers from every corner of the countryside came to work, and when the work was done, they stayed. The cheap bread and rents, and the promise of tomorrow kept them there, which meant they would find a job and pay taxes directly to the Crown.

Still, he knew such growth was a candle burning at both ends. If Yarzat was to reach the projected hundred and twenty thousand souls in another decade, he would have to begin anew, more homes, more sewers, more aqueducts, more streets drawn out into the open plains. The city would need a second wall, something to guard its swelling belly.

The thought unsettled him.At the end it was always about silver.

He glanced at the walls of Romelia, ancient, tall, and yet weary. The inner city was still magnificent, but the suburbs sprawled beyond the defenses like a beggar clinging to a fallen lord. Every siege in Romelian history had burned those outskirts to ash; every rebuilding had cost more than the last.

He had to learn from them, and make sure that the suburbs that would inevitably come up would be protected by a second set of wall.

After all during a siege, the destitute outside the walls always fled inward, flooding the city until food and order broke down. And when the enemy came, the outer ring, homes, farms, and workshops, was offered up to the flames. The same fire that devoured the poor would one day rise again to rebuild the city, until another siege came and they burned it down.

The current state of the city was a warning for the Yarzat party. Even the greatest cities could fade. Even empires could rot beneath their crowns.

“Eternal,” he murmured under his breath, looking up at the faded banners of the imperial palace ahead. “Perhaps once.”

Still, Yarzat was a long way from matching Romelia’s splendor. For all his pride in what he had built, Alpheo knew the truth, the Eternal City had held its crown for nearly three centuries. Its stones were worn, yes, but they were cut from the heart of an empire, and that sort of glory didn’t fade easily.

The first thing that caught his eye as they approached were the aqueducts, vast and arching like ribs of some ancient titan. They dwarfed the one he had built back home, and for a moment, even he, the reformer of the capital, couldn’t help but stare.

He now understood why Pontus was so dick-hard about the sewers; if he were an engineer, he too would want to project a Romelia into Yarzat.

Romelia might have been sick, but its bones were magnificent.

Eight years of effort had turned mud into marble, yes, but Romelia’s ruins reminded him how far he still had to go.

“I can see the envy in your eye,” a voice called from his right.

Alpheo turned to see Egil, leaning forward on his saddle, a lazy grin cutting through his scarred beard. Calling their relationship strained was an understatement. Even after making peace, there was a stiffness between them, a distance filled with things they didn’t say anymore. Once, they had been brothers in all but blood. Now they were slowing building what they had once, there was a lot of road to cover, but they were getting there….

“Hardly a fair comparison,” Alpheo said, his tone dry. “I took a city that was made of shit and mud, and made it of wood. Ten years ago Yarzat was a fucking sewer-hole, and now people call it the Rising Jewel. Comparing it to a city that emperors have been spoiling for three hundred years, it’s like comparing a newborn colt to a warhorse.

It just ain’t fair.”

Egil barked a laugh, the sound sharp and genuine. “Good enough. But I’ll give you this, give us time, and with how things are going, we might come close to this place’s beauty. I may hate these oil-fuckers, but I can still appreciate a well-built city.”

He gestured toward one of the statues they passed, a colossal figure of Vivrian the Red, one of the early conquerors of the empire, considered the greatest Imperator Romelia ever had. The marble had gone pale and pitted from rain, but the eyes still glared down like a god judging men.

“In life he was probably a dick” Alpheo scoffed a laugh down as Egil continued ”Not that I dislike Yarzat, mind you,” Egil continued. “The place’s grown like a bastard on good milk since you took the reins. Four years ago, you couldn’t walk a street without stepping in shit. Now there are sewers, and finally shit is off the street. I almost cried the first time I smelled clean water.”

Alpheo smirked, his gloved hand passing through the locks of his hair. “I could’ve done it faster if three-quarters of our spending didn’t go to the army.” He patted the neck of his white stallion as if in emphasis.

“Ah, but the sword has its own beauty,” Egil said with a grin, “especially when it’s dripping red with our enemies’ guts.How would you defend your house without it?A nicely made statue at the entrance I believe, won’t hold a candle against thieves.”

That earned a short laugh from Alpheo, brief, but real. For a few moments, silence hung between them, not heavy, just… quiet. Comfortable, almost as it once was.

Then Egil exhaled and broke it. “Hey, Alph… I just wanted to say, I’m glad we got our shit together.”

Alpheo looked over at him, surprised by the sudden sincerity. “Likewise.”

But Egil’s eyes didn’t leave him. There was more, and Alpheo could feel it coming.

“I want you to know I’m fully on board with this campaign,” Egil said after a moment. “You won’t hear a single complaint from me. But… I think it’s better for everyone if I ride far from the boy. You know how it is. Best to cut trouble at the root before it sprouts.I will be on my best behaviour I swear it on my tribe”

Alpheo didn’t answer right away, though he was impressed by the oath. He just looked at him, the same man who had fought beside him through hell and smoke, who had once bled for his crown, and who had nearly torn it all apart again. There was a tired honesty in Egil’s voice that made Alpheo’s chest tighten, though he hid it behind a thin smile.

He reached out and clapped Egil on the shoulder. “I’ll do my best to keep you two apart,” he said. “But today, you’ll have to bear it. We’ve got an emperor to greet, and the gods know he won’t wait on our moods.”

Egil snorted. “Aye, and may the bastard choke on his own crown.”

“Don’t say that too loud,” Alpheo replied, a faint smirk tugging at his lips as the gates of the Imperial Quarter loomed ahead. “I am not in the vein of getting surprises.”

——————

So much for that , Alpheo thought as the small arms of the Imperator of Romelia wrapped around his back, in front of the whole court, under the gapes and shocked murmurs of the lords and ladies of the courts.

He could smell trouble from a mile away, and yet he hadn’t got a sniff of this bullshit.