Book I of III: The Swords of the Sultan (60 page)

With a very confident smile upon his face,
Jamar replied evenly, “I will not let you down, your highness. Let
me assure you that I have every last specification you said already
pictured in my mind’s eye—you and the Sultan will not be
disappointed.”

Brishava smiled in genuine appreciation, and
replied, “Thanks, Jamar.”

Jamar bowed, and then left to turn his
picture into reality.

Not even ten seconds later, she spotted
Humonus, who had just entered the throne room; without hesitation,
she declared, “Ruling-General—what perfect timing for you to
arrive! I can assure you that I will only need a minute of your
time, as I know that you are a very busy man.”

Humonus first bowed, and then asked, “Yes, my
Sultaness?”

Brishava answered, “Please ensure that only
those nobles’ names written upon the list, which will shortly be
delivered to you by our Chief Foreman Jamar, be allowed to enter
the palace itself at 7:00 p.m. In addition, at 9:00 p.m., I want
all of the city’s inner gates, including the gates of the palace
grounds, opened. From what I understand, this will be the first
time the palace gates have been open to the public since her
construction five and a half centuries ago!”

“Finally yet importantly,” she concluded, “as
I know you are brand new to your job, please doubly ensure that the
safety of both myself and my husband are properly placed in and
around the palace grounds. Understand?”

“Yes, my Sultaness,” Humonus replied with a
low bow, “your wish is my command.” He then left to carry out her
orders.

Her forth decree of the day was that a
messenger be dispatched to politely invite the Duke of Vispano to
the throne room.

About an hour later, Jamar was the next to
arrive with a report that the total cost would approximate around
nine million parsecs. Finally, he mentioned that the treasury held
over sixty-nine million parsecs, which did not include her family’s
personal treasures.

Without hesitation, Brishava nodded and with
a pleased smile. Jamar bowed again, and left to get things
rolling.

Not even two minutes after Jamar had left,
Duke Marlborough of Vispano arrived.

After waving his hand flamboyantly outwards,
the duke began with a very pleased smile upon his face, “Princess
Brishava—how nice it is of you to return.”

“Thank you. It is good to be back, Duke
Marlborough.”

After looking around the throne room just to
be sure, Marlborough’s face straightened out as he asked, “So,
where is your father?”

Without emotion or explanation, Brishava
replied, “He died last night.”

He asked with a bit of shock to his voice,
“Really?” Now with sympathy to his voice, he quickly added, “I’m so
sorry to hear that.”

“Me too.”

The duke’s bushy eyebrows rose sharply, just
before his thin-lipped mouth asked, “So… I totally understand that
you must be in a state of mourning with your father gone…but are we
to still be married tonight, as was the word dispatched to me by
his messenger last night?”

“Well…actually. Here’s the situation: My
father never knew until just moments before he died last night,
that I have been married these last few years to a man named Prince
Baltor Elysian.”

With a look of agitation now upon his face,
he replied slowly, “Prince…Baltor…Elysian… I have never heard of
this man.”

“Even though you’ve never heard of my
husband, this does not change the fact that he is a ruler of a
kingdom far to the east….”

After curiously looking all around the throne
room for this prince, but seeing no men wearing the crown of a
prince, the duke finally asked, “Where is this prince now, and what
kingdom does he rule, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Of course I don’t mind, Duke. My husband is
sleeping now, as he is quite weary from our long, long, long
journey back home. He is the prince of a kingdom that is about a
thousand miles to the east, called Chao-chu-sha-maen.”

After a minute’s pause, yet now bearing a
clear look of anger upon his face, the duke growled, “I see…. Well,
it would have been nice to know this information before I
transported seventy thousand of my best knights nearly six hundred
miles around the continent to get here nearly a year ago,
pointlessly!”

“Even worse,” the duke whined, “I waited for
many years to marry the girl of my dreams, you, only to painfully
find out just now that my betrothed is already married!”

Brishava replied with sympathy, “I understand
that you’re upset, so let me ask you this question. What will it
cost so that we can continue our trade and peace between our two
noble nations?”

“Hmmm. That’s a tough one. How about ten
million parsecs?”

“Ten million?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes. Would you like me to go over every last
item of what I’m going to be missing out on, especially you?”

“Fine. You can have your ten million.”

“Excellent—I’m now confident that the Sharia
Empire and Vispano Province will continue with our trade and
peace,” the duke said with a pleased smile.

“See my treasurer on the way out, and have a
good day, Duke,” Brishava replied, bearing a forced political smile
upon her face.

The duke nodded and then made his way out of
the throne room. Once he had collected his money, he immediately
left Pavelus via horseback, and made his way up to his seventy
thousand troops camped to the north of the city. By that afternoon,
they were all making their way back north to the borders of
Vispano.

For just about the entire day, Brishava kept
busy by managing the transformation of the throne room into the
coronation room.

Just after sunset and without having
experienced any dreams,

Baltor returned to consciousness. Yet before
he had opened his eyes, he not only felt a soft bed under his back,
yet an even softer woman’s face lying on his stomach, coupled with
her equally silky hair that splashed almost everywhere like a
waterfall—based off experience, he presumed this head belonged to
his wife.

After opening his eyes a second later, his
suspicions were indeed confirmed—Brishava had been deeply studying
his face while he slept, as she so very often liked to do.

Right away she gave him a quick peck on his
stomach, before looking back up and cooing, “Good evening to you,
my husband.”

After releasing a deep sigh, he replied,
“Good evening, my wife!”

She said, “I have some wonderful news to
share with you.”

“Yes, my love, what is it?”

After sitting up in bed, she answered with
excitement growing in her voice, “Tonight, we are to be officially
crowned the new Sultan and Sultaness of the Sharia Empire!
Following that there will be two back-to-back ceremonies—the first
to be formally introduced to our subjects, and the second for the
nobles—the whole city of Pavelus will be celebrating here at the
palace tonight!”

He asked, “Just like that?”

“Just like that,” she cooed. “I will teach
you how to make things work for you on much broader scales, my
love.”

He said emphatically, “That’s great!” As a
curious expression quickly grew on his face, he asked, “So did you
talk to Humonus at all today?”

She nodded her head a single time before
answering, “Yes I did. Ruling-General Humonus reported to me about
a half an hour ago that he had just received ‘an urgent report’
from the advanced naval scouts, which report stated that my uncle
now has six divisions of troops under his command, more than one
hundred and twenty thousand men! Per the report, they left Mauritia
three weeks ago—on foot, on horse, or on ship—and in three to four
weeks, they are expected to arrive here at Pavelus.

“This gives us very little time to prepare,
and certainly not enough time to hire any mercenary divisions
ourselves. I have already hired out the services of dozens of
merchant ships to dispatch to other cities and request for
mercenaries and volunteers.”

“I see,” he said.

She nodded her head one time, before
continuing her briefing, “Basically, as our troop count stands now
versus theirs, we are outnumbered three to one—we have a little
over forty thousand soldiers—both army and navy. Even though the
strong fortifications to our outer walls will stop them for quite
awhile—perhaps a month—it will not stop them forever because they
have hundreds of powerful siege and catapulting machines.”

After taking in a deep breath through just
her nose, she added, “While half of our naval fleet is continuing
to protect the harbor, the other half has been dispatched to
retrieve ten thousand soldiers from Lasparus—half of the troops
originally stationed in our other city. Unfortunately they won’t be
arriving here until but a few days before Uncle Vaspan and his
army.”

“So therefore,” she concluded, “it is in my
hopes and prayers that we shall be able to recruit citizens with
promise of payment and training. After I have formally introduced
you to the citizens of Pavelus at nine-thirty tonight, I want you
to be straight with them and tell them of the upcoming attack, and
to call upon their assistance in defending the city. Speak from the
heart—got it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She lightly kissed her husband’s chest,
before she smiled and sighed, “Good. Before we get ready for our
coronations, let’s have fun first!”

She began to giggle. He began to growl with
desire.

An hour later, after the two had even shared
a nice bubble bath together, they finally went their separate ways.
Baltor now blankly allowed himself to become dressed, tailored, and
groomed by six assistants in the master bedroom, while Brishava was
similarly taken care of in her own dressing room by six
handmaidens.

Once his assistants were done with their
multitude of tasks, which tasks took thirty minutes, they finally
bowed; the supervisor asked, “Are you pleased, Your Majesty, with
the way you look?”

Only then did Baltor begin to gaze closely at
his reflection in the mirror. The first thing to catch his
attention was the
very
princely crown now secured on his
head; the second was his
very
grandfather’s sword, which
weapon was now nicely secured on his back inside a sheath that
possessed all these magnificent qualities: brand-new, made with
black and gold vertical stripes, and polished to a gleam. Baltor
assumed the black material was marble and the gold was real. The
third and fourth things were his two
very
precious
necklaces, especially the gold necklace with a polished gold
arrowhead pendant, despite the multiple complaints of all his
assistants to take them off. Baltor had won the argument in the
end.

As for the rest of his
royal attire
,
they had perfectly tailored his purple, gold, and blue-striped
shirt made of silk, as well his silky black pants that had a
golden-stripe going down the outside hem. At knee-level those pants
were crisply folded and held in place inside his shiny black boots,
bearing its own vertical-stripe made of actual gold.

Next, he gazed at his hair, shockingly noting
that it was no longer long and straight, but short and very wavy,
as it had been cut shoulder length. His gaze finally looked at just
his face, observing that his braided goatee was thankfully still
there, yet one of the assistants had drawn a smooth-and-crisp line
using black eyeliner right around his eyelids, which made his eyes
and face look all that much more “hawkish!”

“Well, Your Majesty?” the supervisor
asked.

“Umm,” Baltor said with a small smile, “Yeah,
I am. Thanks.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” he happily said
with a smile, just before he delivered a final bow and left with
his other assistants.

Only seconds after the assistants had left,
Humonus entered the bedroom. Though he donned the formal uniform of
a ruling-general, he said rather casually, “My friend—you look
good!”

“Thank you…as do you!”

After nodding appreciatively one time,
Humonus got right down to business as he said, “The time has just
about arrived for me to escort you to the ritual room, where you
will be officially crowned the Sultan of the Sharia Empire! But
before we do all of this, I, Humonus, have a gift for you
Baltor—friend to friend—come with me, please?”

Looking surprised, Baltor nodded his head,
delivered a smile, and began to follow Humonus out the doors—though
a dozen guards followed the pair to Humonus’s unguarded bedroom
down the hall and to the right, they stayed outside as the two
entered the room.

Once two of the guards had shut the doors,
Humonus turned around and said, “Now, close your eyes.”

Baltor closed them. Thus he couldn’t see as
Humonus walked over to the bed, slid
something
out from
underneath the mattress, and then walked back with that
something
.

Nearly a minute later, Humonus finally said,
“Open them, and surprise.”

Baltor opened his eyes and his mouth dropped
open in shock—for within Humonus’s extended hands, he held a
duplicate sword!

In shock, Baltor exclaimed, “No way!” His
hand unconsciously strayed to the handle of his own sword on his
back just to make sure it was still there—it was.

Nearly a minute later, Baltor finally
stammered, “How—how on earth did you have that made?”

“I’ll tell you the whole story later—for now,
let me just say that I have a very-well-trained eye! Take it. It’s
yours, my friend.”

Baltor took the sword from Humonus’s extended
hands, and closely examined it—it even felt the same weight! Just
to be sure, he pulled the original sword out, and confirmed not
only the weight, yet every single detail on both swords was
“perfectly identical.” He could only ask, “How in the heavens?”

Humonus smiled, and asked, “Do you like
it?”