Herald of Steel



Alexander had already noticed it before during the afternoon even through her corset, but now that they were bare, he once again could reassure himself that the twin peaks possessed by Lady Felicia were indeed magnificent.

Milky white and voluminous, almost as big as Gelene's, they were firm yet perky.

 And Alexander found it mesmerizing to watch them jiggle ever so slightly as the bashful lady found her breathing suddenly becoming accelerated, while her quite large and protruding cherries woke up from their slumber as the cold air made them turgid.

Lady Felicia's areola and buds seemed quite large proportionally, covering a decent portion of her glands, but that did make seem to make her beautiful breasts any less attractive.

In fact, Alexander thought it reinforced her motherly qualities. 

And if Lady Felicia had indeed presented these melons along with those swollen, ripe brown cherries to him, Alexander was not certain he would have been able to stop himself from latching onto them and rewarding himself with a nibble.

They looked too delectable.

'Man! That Lapitus deserves to be called the world's greatest assassin for this. Who could thought he would send his wife equipped with these deadly things? They are too fantastic!' 

Alexander had a hard time moving his eyes from the twin globes as he said so to himself, thinking what a brilliant way this was to be delivering poison. 

It had to be known that poisoning Alexander was naturally not easy.

Just because someone managed to get some poison into Alexander's tent did not automatically mean the job was done.

That was just the first hurdle as there still remained arguably the bigger problem of getting the target to ingest it.

Something that would have been frankly quite challenging with the security checks in place even in normal times.

Never mind the fact that since they were at war these oversights were even tighter.

Most of the time, Alexander would be given the same food as everyone else in the army,

And though individual squads made their own food, nobles like Alexander and other high-ranking officials had a large kitchen dedicated to them to do the cooking for them.

Alexander had actually wanted everyone to be like the regular soldiers, but many nobles objected, as they did not like to do the laborious work of grinding one's own grain, chopping the vegetables, and everything else.

And Alexander even half doubted they could do it.

So he came up with this compromise 

But still, the menu was the same as the common infantry, but it was just that all the bread, stew, and other items were cooked in that same large kitchen.

And given the importance of the people who were going to eat that food, everything was overseen with the utmost oversight and handled by only the most trustworthy people.

So slipping anything was hard to say the least.

Never mind, given the huge portions of ingredients used, to poison the whole pot, one would have to pour buckets of it, or the poison would become too diluted and end up at best giving everyone bad diarrhea.

Something that was certainly unpleasant, but infinitely better than dying. 

And lastly, even if one did slip something in, there was no way of knowing where this food was going and who was going to eat it.

In this kitchen, batches of food would be produced, and placed in buffet-style rows, from where the officers could take what they liked, or have their subordinates bring their portions to their tents.

So if the officer dined in the mess hall, it was quite impossible to kill him and only him. 

Hence unless the goal was mass poisoning, the only realistic way to deliver any poison would be if the officer asked it to be delivered to his tent, and somehow that got intercepted along the way and then meddled with.

But of course the men carrying these foods were handed this job due to their loyalty.

So to slip anything in without the other side noticing was very challenging.

And this was how Alexander made sure his food was safe.

In that same vein, Alexander's water was also taken from a few nearby springs, which was the entire camp's water supply, and was collected by trusted men.

So good luck trying to poison the entire hill.

And lastly, the wine he drank was usually cheap diluted wine that was drunk by every common soldier, and there were literally hundreds of such barrels in stock.

Even if one forgot the sentries, it would be quite impossible to predict who would drink from which barrel, and that was assuming one could find enough poison to contaminate the entire darn thing.

In this way, by sharing all the facilities with a significant number of others, Alexander had surprisingly managed to decrease the chances of his poisoning exponentially.

It made targetting just him next to impossible as if an attempt was made, the balance of probability of him being the unlucky one in a thousand was minuscule.

And if his luck was indeed that bad that he it was somehow him that got that piece of the pie, well, then Alexander could actually go to the grave peacefully, knowing he would have probably died anyway, if not from this poison, then from perhaps something as mundane as slipping down a case of stairs and skewing one's throat on the pointy butt of an umbrella.

But if he was not that unlucky, well then someone suddenly falling ill sick could very easily give rise to the suspicion of the usage of poison, which could then alert the entire camp.

This was also why Alexander did not build any dedicated facilities for him. 

Not only would maintaining such a facility during campaigns put a strain on the logistics, but also. no matter how good a system Alexander devised, it had to be known that they would be always supervised by humans.

And humans were fallible.

They would either be coerced into betraying Alexander, by things such as greed or even kidnapping family members.

Or they would be unwittingly tricked into making a mistake.

So instead of relying on a handful of humans, Alexander found this open method much better.

Now, there was one other thing that Alexander had that was not part of the common items- expensive wines.

He would sometimes drink this, either to calm his nerves or to entertain guests such as when other nobles would come to him regarding various war-related matters.

These were treated with extreme care, as each of them had their tops sealed with paper. 

So if anyone were to open them and pour something in, they would have to break the seal.

Something that would be very easy to spot.

And as the piece de resistance, to make it that bit harder for any would-be assassin, Alexander had eight men stationed outside his tent, guarding all four sides of it, while inside, the premises would never be left empty, 

If Alexander was not there, then Hemicus or his adjutant Quinnolin, or someone else would be, guarding all the open wine bottles, leftover food, and the other miscellaneous things, as well as the many secret documents and plans in Alexander's possession.

So due to all this, there was no way someone would just sneak in and slip anything in.

And with all these checks and obstacles in place, Alexander was internally very confident that he had managed to close any avenue of assassination for him.

Until Lady Felicia revealed her method. 

And hearing that it was Lapitus's idea, in a weird way, Alexander even praised the man who supposedly tried to murder him, somewhat admiring his dedication to the defense of his city in that he was even willing to sell his wife's body, as well as put her and her daughter's life at risk to simply target him.

If it had succeeded, though it would not mean the instant destruction of Zanzan as he had a clear successor, but it certainly meant the potential of the lands would be almost cut at the roots.

Without him, Cambyses alone would find it hard to gain legitimacy, as she neither had the strong support of the military nor did she have any staunch allies.

And all alone in this foreign land with two infant children, even Alexander's once allies might pressure the girl into concessions.

That could mean either giving up more of their secrets or even forcing her to marry a local noble.

All of which would likely mean Zanzan would become too weak to pose any threat to Tibias.

From that point of view, Alexander thought that Lapitus's intention to kill him certainly made sense.

A thought Lady Felicia was more than happy to nurture and grow in Alexander as she further added with clenched, gnashing teeth, 

"Not only did he ask me to do such a shameful thing, he even told me that if I was unable to, I should powder Fabiyana's face with the poison."

"That way if my lord kissed her on the cheek, you would unknowingly be poisoned."

"And he said even though he knew how harmful that was."

"If it touched the soft skin of a child like Fabiyana's for too long, her face would surely become scarred."

"The bastard actually wanted to sacrifice his own wife and daughter just for this!"

"What a monster!" 

Lady Felicia by this point appeared to be choking, like she was a defenseless lamb under the cruel woldish claws of her husband. 

And seeing this, Alexander actually found empathizing with her.

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