Herald of Steel

Chapter 795 Lady Inayah Comes With Gifts (Part-1)

Alexander's meeting with the nobles was mired with delay after delay.

This was due to a whole host of things- confusion among the noblemen's family members regarding how to respond to Alexander, the gathering of enough funds, the arrival of the busy fall season, getting their summons to the city late, and in general, the chaos caused by Alexander's invasion.

So although Alexander had set the deadline for their meeting arrival to be before September, most were unable to honor that.

And Alexander found being unable to do anything about it either.

He was after all not going to kill all those nobles just because they were late, especially when it was due to good reason.

So he could do little more than patiently wait.

And as he did so, in the meantime Lady Inayah and Pasha Farzah's son Kayvan docked at Zanzan, only to find much to their bemusement that Alexander and his entire family were absent.

Worse, since Alexander had taken Thesalie, most of the nobles, even the civilian ones had gone to Thesalie to meet with and explore the city.

Meaning there were no one high ranking nobles to receive these important delegates who had come from so far.

This was a major diplomatic foible, and while Lady Inayah simply laughed it off, finding Alexander's honest mistake cute, Kayvan was a bit more peeved, grumbling that as someone who had been pasha for three years already, the man should know better.

It was ultimately Batholomew, the acting man in charge of the city guards as well as the general defense of the city who came to greet the two esteemed nobles, and quickly arranged a guest bungalow for them, while also informing Alexander.

Then after two days, their transport for Thesalie was ready and after making an additional 90 km journey west, they finally got to meet the conqueror.

There, Lady Inayah and Lord Kayvan were of course received with a grand reception with Alexander also profusely apologizing to them for the imbroglio.

While the guests nodded understandingly.

Both of them knew Alexander well enough to know that this was simply a genuine oversight and there was nothing more to it- no hidden meaning behind the act.

And so following this, they delivered their congratulations for Alexander's success in taking this mighty city, with both of them speaking in very formal terms as they read the long letters the king and Pasha Farzah had sent Alexander.

Then they showed him their gifts.

Among them were all the usual paraphernalia- bolts of various fabrics, fine wines, bundles of legummum, beautiful jewelry, etc.

But the thing that most stood out to Alexander were the slaves they had brought, both the utility ones

as well as the beautiful ones meant to be used to seek pleasure.

Among the utility ones, Alexander spotted several middle aged wet nurses, clearly meant to feed his children.

They were bought by Lady Inayah, for although she did not know of Alexander's latest two children, she did hear about the birth of his son, his successor.

And had brought five such women just in case.

Which was actually a very timely addition, for both Cambyses and Mean actually had some trouble producing enough milk by themselves.

So currently they had to rely on the present wet nurses to make up the deficit, which was frankly a bit tough on those ladies.

So the five more wet nurses were more than welcome.

While in the case of Kayvan, he gifted Alexander one single Thesian slave, taken from a famous?city- state.

And Alexander, instead of being offended by the measly number was actually a bit taken back at the preciousness of it.

"This is too much," He had even blurted out, knowing it had to be a very expensive purchase.

This judgment did not come from the way the man was dressed or his status, but because of the fact that he was learned- able to not only read and write, which was already extremely precious but also speak and think like an intellectual.

The man was like a teacher, even a philosopher.

And the reason for this gift was because it was Adhanian custom that the boys of a noble household and especially its successor be taught everything by a slave, preferably of Thesian descent, who would follow the boy everywhere from his childhood to adulthood.

This man would of course be very learned and always carry with him a cane, that he would typically use very liberally to teach and correct any mistake the small boy would make, usually striking him on the fleshy thighs and flanks.

And yes, it was one of those rare cases where a slave was allowed to beat his master, or more precisely- his 'to be master'.

It was hoped that this way, in the span of all the years he would spend with the boy, the man would tirelessly work to impart all his wisdom to the boy on every facet of life that they would come across in their day to day,

Hence by keeping the boy under the constant supervision of a learned man, the Adhanians tried to make sure their sons, or at least their successors would not grow up to be a wastrel.

And frankly, Alexander thought it was a fantastic tradition.

As a nobleman with many things to do and many places to visit, it was of course impossible for any of them to keep a 24/7 eye on one's son like that slave man could.

Never mind the fact they would not have just one child.

So this was a fantastic solution to a big problem.

It was also because of this practice that the nobility of Adhania was typically competent, minus the few black sheep.

And if they did go astray, it happened mostly after they became adults, which was at the age of sixteen.

It was also at that point that many of them tended to set their 'teacher' free, though not before having developed some kind of instinctual fear of him.

Of course, a few wastes also did the opposite and executed them the moment they became adult in revenge for all the beatings, with Ptolomy being the most prominent example, but such a thing was very frowned upon.

In general, these people were very well respected within the family they lived, were treated more like a learned guest and even a close family member rather than a slave and an object, with many times even the house's patron seeking advice from him.

But all these advantages did come with one drawback- he was very pricy to buy.

Some poorer nobles even had a separate fund where they saved their money for years to be able to afford one.

In that way,?it was very similar to how a modern family would save for college.

And as for the reason why these slaves were almost exclusively from the various city states of Thesos, well Alexander did not know exactly.

Perhaps many felt it was better to have a foreign slave who had no connection to these lands and thus would not be able to subtly influence their successor, or not bear a hidden grudge for some calamity the nobility might have inflicted upon him.

Perhaps, it was a ploy to show the young child that all Thesians, no matter who, were inferior to native Adhanians and thus deserved to be enslaved.

All of these sounded plausible, but at the same time, Alexander doubted anybody went that deep into this simple custom.

Maybe it was simply just a tradition.

It is said that during the period Adhania was first established, the best learned men existed in Thesos.

So it only made sense to get them to teach one's children.

And as time went on it simply became the norm.

Alexander did ask the man about his past, his circumstances, and how he ended up caught as a slave.

And the man who called himself Pythos, or as Lady Inayah named him Pit, recounted that he was actually a well known judge in Thyrentum.

But though very capable in his work, the man had one major flaw- he was a gambling addict.

Whatever he would earn, he would take every penny of it of the nearest gambling house to roll it away by the spin of the dice, and though he was not especially unlucky, even managing to earn quite a sum for himself, he never learned the meaning of 'quitting while ahead'.

So in the end he lost everything.

After all- The house always wins.

And thus he went bankrupt, owning large sums of money to many infamous loan sharks.

Here Pythos even very frankly informed Alexander how he sometimes used his authority to let those sharks skirt around the law, in exchange for bribes and low interest loans.

It seemed that at nearing the twilight of his years, the old man saw no point in hiding his misdeeds.

But even those privileges had its limits.

At last the loan sharks got fed of him always fleecing money out of them and they banded together to bring a case against him.

Which surprisingly they won.

And so he was sold as a slave as the sharks tried to recoup their losses, but more importantly, make an example out of.

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