Fallen Eagle-Chapter 35: Four of a Kind

Fallen Eagle-Chapter 35: Four of a Kind

“And that’s the round,” Apostolos announced into the smoky air, his voice cutting through smoke and laughter.
Michail let out a satisfied chuckle as he raked coins into his swelling hoard. The candlelight flickered across his grin, carving it into sinister contours, as his shadow danced across the damp stone of the hidden cellar. “It seems I’m on a lucky streak.” He smirked at the rest of the sergeants.
These informal evenings had a habitual way of sliding into vice and drink. And Apostolos, refusing to take part in the game and blemish his reputation, was left to deal cards and officiate the games. He set to the cards with a practiced flourish - the one part of these nights he could half enjoy. It was in his nature - if a thing was worth doing, it was worth doing well.
He split, bridged, and sent the deck whispering around the table with crisp, quick motions. Michail peeked at his hand and blew a low whistled melody, a grin plastered on his face. “I’m sorry, boys,” he drawled. “I can’t seem to stop winning.”
“That’s because I haven’t joined you lot yet.” The cellar door groaned open, framing a tall, rangy figure in the threshold. “And I wouldn’t call a pair of sevens a winning hand.” Kyriakos’s laughter slid into the smothered room like fresh air through a crack. Apostolos sometimes thought these meetings looked like a cult convening by candlelight and rumor.
“Then don’t join,” Michail muttered, his good humor curdling as he flung his cards down. “I thought we’d told you you’re not welcome here anymore.” He turned to Kyriakos, thunderous at having been ratted out.
“
You
said that,” Kyriakos replied, crossing the floor with an easy confidence toward the low, round wooden table where coin, cups, and painted pasteboard cards jostled for space. “There was no ‘we.’” He plucked a dry fig from a small bowl - Michail’s preferred snack - and popped it into his mouth with deliberate insolence.
“Besides,” Kyriakos gestured behind him. “I’ve brought a fresh victim. To swell your ranks.” With mock affection, he placed a fatherly hand on Michail’s shoulder, whose hands were clenched so hard his knuckles had turned white.
Apostolos caught a slight figure filling the doorway and instantly recognized it. “He managed to drag you into this mess, Theodorus?” Apostolos said, caught between exasperation that another pure soul was being corrupted and relief that a measured voice would join the gathering. Perhaps it might blunt the room’s usual turbulence.
“Greetings, Apostolos. Gentlemen.” Theodorus fell into a quick bow. “I confess I am not overly familiar with gambling, but I wished to join the company - if only to socialize.” Youth and earnestness lit his expression, and it tugged at Apostolos. The boy had no idea he was stepping into a pit of snakes.
“You don’t have to join the game for that,” Apostolos patted the stool next to him, a post where he could more easily shield the young captain from the deviousness of the devils present at the table.
“Nonsense.” Kyriakos was quick to take umbrage at the mere suggestion. “He’s come all this way. He must play a few rounds at the very least.” His smile couldn’t hide the predatory intentions he had in mind.
Apostolos turned on Kyriakos. “I’ve half a mind not to let you play at all after your little stunt last round.” He jerked his chin at Michail, where a vein throbbed visibly in the man’s forehead.
“Really? I’ve a full mind of it myself.” Michail said as he clamped down on Kyriakos's supportive hand with all his grip strength, prompting a retreating yelp as Kyriakos extricated his hand quickly.
“I was merely saving my dear cousin from losing his hard-earned coin,” Kyriakos said, nursing his knuckles. “Othon was practically licking his chops at the thought.” Every gaze slid to the inconspicuous, well-manicured sergeant, who lifted his brows like a startled deer. “Well, that’s no fun,” He pouted, and fanned his hand - three nines, neat as a sermon.
Now it was Michail’s turn to blanch, his eyebrows leaping as he measured the silver he might have lost.
Kyriakos dropped onto the last empty stool across the table. “Can we play, then?” He set down a purse swollen with silver - winnings skimmed from nearly every man present. He liked to boast he only wagered other people’s money. Any loss he suffered, therefore, was never his. “I’m itching to make a quick coin.” The mental warfare had already begun.
His cousin, as ever, charged in first. “You should have the physician look at that rash,” he said ominously, pushing his coins into the eight pots. The others followed suit, metal chinking into wood. “You never know when it might worsen.”
Theodorus slipped quietly into the seat beside Apostolos. “I will sit out on this round, I’m afraid I do not know the game.”
“You’ve never played Pochen?” Apostolos sounded genuinely surprised. For all his rank and promise, the young captain was still half a boy. “Allow me to explain then. Everyone is dealt five cards, that is your hand.” He sent the pasteboards around with brisk precision. “At the start of every round, players dress the board, placing a coin in each of the eight outer pots: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Ten, Marriage, Sequence, and Flush.” He drew out the top card from the remaining deck and planted it face up on the table: the seven of spades
“Each round has a trump suit,” he tapped the seven. “And any player may declare for any pot, provided they have the relevant card.” The Pochen board was a round slab of polished wood, ringed with painted kings, queens, and jacks; eight small circular wells dotted the rim, feeding a larger central basin like tributaries to a pool.
“Jack.” Othon stated, flashing a jack of spades.
“If so, they take the coin from that pot.” Apostolos continued. “We call that sweeping the stakes.”
“Must be of the trump suit, of course. You can’t declare for a spades trump with clubs.” Kyriakos added, his tone ripe with innuendo.
“I was still learning the rules at the time.” Michail snapped, already growing annoyed. “Marriage.” He declared, slapping down the spaded Queen and King together, and earning a round of whistles from the gathered players.
“Sometimes a round ends with pots unclaimed. Anything left sits for the next hand,” Apostolos said, while Michail scooped a generous haul from the Marriage well - enough for three ordinary rounds.
“After sweeping, we enter the third and final phase of the round: the Pochen.” Apostolos spoke the name like an old liturgy. “A player declares a bet when he feels he has a good hand. Or when he fancies a bluff.”
“I’ll boast,” Kyriakos announced, mouth skewed in a self-satisfied smile as he placed his coins in the larger, central pot.
“Other players can match the bet, or raise it.” Apostolos said.
“I’ll hold it.” Paris, the lipscarred veteran Theodorus had interviewed two days prior, flicked in a few stavrata towards the Poche pot without ceremony.
The rest folded in turn, cards whispering down like leaves.
“When betting closes, each player shows their card, and the strength of their hand determines the victor.” Paris showed his card to reveal a two pair of Jacks and Tens, a lower draw than Kyriakos’s queen and nines.
“Does suit not matter?” Theodorus inquired.
“For the final hand strength no. Only for the initial sweeping portion.” Apostolos replied, shuffling for the next round. His hands moved with fluid, ambidextrous ease that perfectly divided and separated the cards exactly ten times, something the young Captain watched with rapt attention.
Theodorus watched two, then three rounds unspool while he catalogued habits and tics: who bluffed with chatter, who counted coins when nervous, who hid tells behind a cup. He made light conversation all the while, easing into the room’s cadence.
Eventually, the time had come. “I’ll join the next round.” He declared, prompting a chuckle from Kyriakos that walked the edge of wicked.
“Finally, the prey steps into the trap,” he flicked over some of his silver over to Theodorus's side of the table, the coins traveling almost mockingly across the grain of the wood. “Do you need a loan to get you started? Just to get a feel for the game.”
Theodorus fizzed the silver back across with a crisp motion. “No need, my friend. I think I’ve gotten the basics down.” The modest smile he wore fooled no one.
“Oh no, color me scared.” Kyriakos mimed an exaggerated expression as he snuck his coin back into his embroidered purse.
“Enough chit-chat.” Michail said snappily. “Let’s play.”
Apostolos dealt out the first hand. “Hearts.” He stated as he turned the trump.
Theodorus looked at his hand. It was good - very good in fact - two kings and queens, a double marriage. None in hearts though, which could not be said for Kyriakos.
“Marriage,” Kyriakos declared, lifting a tidy sum from the swelling pot left untouched since Michail’s last haul.
“Quite the lucky hand,” Othon commented offhandedly as he declared for the Aces, sweeping the coins in the pot.
“To offset the recent dark tidings.”
“More romantic misadventures?” Othon teased Kyriakos; the players’ banter was a well-worn path that Theodorus was still learning to traverse.
“Nearly as bad, my good Sergeant.” Othon’s dig seemed to have found its mark, as Kyriakos looked pained by the mere mention of romance. “The Lord has reduced the size of our companies. Each aide commands fifty recruits and five veterans now.”
“Truly? What is the reason?” Othon asked.
“You’re looking at it,” Michail said, jerking his chin toward Theodorus and sliding two silvers forward. “I’ll boast.”
At Othon’s questioning look, Theodorus explained. “I’m to take command of a portion of the recruits this season.” He nudged his stake in. “I’ll hold it.”
“Yes, he finally has his seat at the table,” Kyriakos intoned, melodramatic as a town crier, while he pitched two silvers into the central Poche pot as well. “We’ll see if he can keep up.”
The sergeants bowed out in sequence, leaving the pot to be claimed by one of the three aides.
“It’s a tough world out there, Theodorus. Not simple, even for a war hero,” Michail showed his two pair, a decently strong hand.
“I appreciate the thoughtful concern, senior. But I think I’m not entirely out of my depth.” Theodorus showed his hand, a marriage two pair, the strongest available.
“And yet,” Kyriakos said, unveiling his hand with priestly ceremony, “you still have much to learn.” A sequence, king through nine, unfurled like a banner. He raked the six silvers with relish.
“Damn lucky bastard.” Michail couldn’t help but mumble darkly.
“Ahh, the money does smell all the more sweeter when it comes from your pocket, dear cousin.” Kyriakos sighed, lifting the winnings to his nose as if they were a fragrant bloom.
“Perhaps you should sit this one out, Theodorus.” Apostolos cautioned, voice low. “Leave the vice and greed up to this sorry bunch.”
“I can manage a few more rounds, thank you.” Theodorus inclined his head from the chair, polite even in defeat. “I might still get lucky and win a coin or two.” He still hadn’t accomplished his main objectives for the night: building a psychological profile of the players and earning some coin.
“Unlikely,” Othon said, amiable as ever. “Kyriakos doesn’t usually let new blood off the hook.”
Kyriakos punctuated the remark with a villain’s chuckle. “This is revenge for stealing my fresh meat.”
“I wasn’t aware command of a few extra recruits mattered so much,” Theodorus replied, matching the levity.
“It does,” Michail said. “More recruits, more chances at a few good apples. Less luck deciding who wins the end-of-season competition.”
“Competition?” Theodorus’s brow rose. “What’s this?”
“It’s a bit of fun we have between the different companies,” Othon explained as he claimed the poche for the next round. “We set up informal contests, track numbers, and compare performance. Nothing too serious.”
“It is direly serious.” Kyriakos countered. “As is its reward. And it’s punishment.” He let the statement hang in the dark silence.
Theodorus waited for the rest, eyes circling the table. Apostolos supplied it with a long-suffering roll of his eyes.
“You are trying to scare our good captain with no good reason for it.” He turned to Theodorus. “The reward is just the small discretionary purse we use to collect the money from fines and forage savings.”
“Money. Power. Fame!” Kyriakos echoed, throwing his arms wide.
“And the loser is tasked with being the note taker for the lord’s small councils for a month. A tedious task we usually rotate, as no one wants to do it.”
“Ignonimity. Slavery. Boredom!” Kyriakos finished dramatically, his expression dour.
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Theodorus's gaze sharpened instantly, honed in on the rewards mentioned for this ‘competition’. Informal or not, his participation in it became a sudden imperative.
“Interested, Captain?” Kyriakos instantly caught onto his sudden interest. “It is quite a hefty coin pouch as you can imagine, the poor sods in the castle town are always up to various mischiefs - evading taxes or hiding assets - and being duly fined for it.”
“Yes, the rewards are…” Theodorus said, careful with the word. “Tempting.”
“And Kyriakos always makes us chip in a little extra,” Michail added, wearing the grumpiness of a man who seldom triumphs in that contest.
“Just to spice things up a bit,” Kyriakos said with a grin of someone who did.
“Then color me interested,” Theodorus said lightly. “May I join the fun?” He folded the calculations scudding behind his eyes into a mild smile.
The three aides nodded their assent, with mixed degrees of enthusiasm. Apostolos in particular was worried. “I fear you’re luring yet another unfortunate into your dark schemes and sins, Kyriakos.” His mouth thinned into a line.
“Nonsense, my good man. Deal me my cards.” Kyriakos tapped the table. “It’s time to finish this.”
Apostolos set the cards to flight, their folds and crevices accentuated in the guttering candlelight as they slid across the table. Theodorus lifted his hand and let his eyes scan over the cards. An ace high sequence, a royal straight. The round was his, if he played it right. The others just didn’t know it yet.
Hearts showed as trump. He placed his claim on the King pot with practiced calm. Since Theodorus’s first stumble of the night, the game had become a quiet recovery of his initial loss. Small, deliberate edges gathered like crumbs by applying simple probability and game theory, concepts unheard of in medieval times.
Over the course of the game, he’d learned the room as he learned a map. Paris and Othon played regularly very conservatively, the sums being bet likely too large for their pockets, and they only joined when they had good hands to boast. Michail, on the other hand, bluffed every other hand, grew chatty when he lied, and glanced at his cards as if they might change under his stare. Kyriakos smiled through everything, a calm mask that reflected the gaze back at you. No tics. No tells. Only pressure.
That this would be the final hand felt fitting, as if the night itself had arranged the pieces. Apostolos set to shuffling in his tidy, from-the-top fashion in a neat, ceremonial, and predictable enough ritual scarcely changed the pool of cards being dealt. A fact he’d noticed at once and that heavily facilitated Theodorus’s rudimentary card-counting strategy. The chance that anyone else had a better hand than him was close to nil, he was sure of it.
Coins slid from the eight small pots with the usual scrape and clink, with no great knowledge derived from it. The battered cards, however, gave much away in their scars. Theodorus had long since noted the shallow crescent cut in a seven that drifted toward Kyriakos, and the faint scratch across the lacquer of a queen that had settled under Michail’s thumb. At least a pair each: sevens for Kyriakos, queens for Michail.
It was the diminutive Nomikos, as usual, who opened the betting round, throwing his customary two silver into the central Poche pot. Theodorus had so far played a cautious game, making an effort to look like a fish out of water, hoping to paint a picture of winning through luck, not skill, to his peers. It was time to go on the offensive.
“I’ll knock it higher.” He declared, putting down four silver and waiting for the bloodbath.
"Hah! I’ll knock it higher still,” Michail barked, pushing six across the wood so hard they clicked against the rim. Paris and Othon dipped out immediately, the sum too high. Theodorus feigned thought and called. “I’ll hold.”
All eyes tipped to Kyriakos. The usual grin had slipped from his face, leaving it clear and calm as a still winter lake. “I’ll knock it higher,” he said softly, and counted out a staggering ten silver stavrata into the pot - well over a hyperpyra’s worth.
A heavy silence fell over the players. This was by far the highest pot reached that night, and the cellar seemed to grow closer around the table. Michail’s gaze darted to his queens, then to Kyriakos, then back to the pot, a trace of hesitation entering his features.
He had seldom beaten his cousin at games of chance. His hand was good, but his irksome cousin was better. With a muttered curse and a scrape of pasteboard, Michail folded and turned in for the night, a little poorer than at its start - a massive downturn from his early earnings. He rose from the table and stomped out of the cellar, fuming to himself.
Only Theodorus remained, and the room’s attention narrowed on him.
“You don’t want it, friend. Trust me.” Kyriakos said, a kind, brotherly smile on his face. Theodorus saw through it like a book.
“I’ll hold,” he said, and the tension ratcheted another notch. “I fancy my chances. I think I’m likely to take something away from this.” He placed his coins down with a steady hand.
“Are you sure?” Apostolos asked, the worry plain in his tone.
Theodorus nodded and showed his hand. A straight. Any doubts that had lingered from the players evaporated, and even Kyriakos’s eyes widened the smallest fraction.
“Do you trust me a little more now?” Theodorus couldn’t help the small smile that came over him as Kyriakos turned his hand in. The money would make a tidy windfall to his dwindling finances-
“A four of kind.” Apostolos breathed.
What?
Theodorus looked down and couldn’t believe what he saw. There, spread out on the other side of the table, stood four sevens, squat and implacable on the boards.
“I’m sorry, friend,” Kyriakos said, and he sounded as though he meant it. “I did try to warn you.” Theodorus watched Kyriakos sweep up the pile of silver into his bag with a sinking feeling in his gut. “You can’t always win after all.”
“You did what?!” Demetrios’s voice cracked like thunder in the confines of Theodorus’s small room turned temporary emergency base of operations. “Sixteen Silver Stavratra?!” Emergency because Theodorus’s already modest remaining sum of coinage had now been nearly halved in one night.
“Do I need to start sewing your pouch shut, my Lord? Because I fear it might be the only way to keep you from throwing away money like this!” Demetrios paced around the cramped confines like a storm with nowhere to spend itself. Stefanos had folded himself into a corner, trying to be smaller than the shadow he cast. Theodorus sat on the bed drinking calmly from a homemade herbal infusion Demetrios had brewed for him - before he found out Theodorus had gambled away half of their remaining three hyperpyra at cards, of course.
“All is not lost, Demetrios.” That was all he said in his defense.
“I admire your calmness, my Lord.” Demetrios stopped his pacing directly in front of Theodorus, staring him down. “But I confess I do not quite understand where it comes from.”
“It comes from the understanding that, contrary to what many believe, there is plenty to be earned from defeat.” Theodorus finished the calming drink, a soothing aid that had helped immensely in putting his thoughts into order. “If you know where to look, that is.”
“Oh, and what pearl of wisdom have you gathered from this particular defeat?” Demetrios asked, entirely sarcastically. “Besides the fact that you should not gamble away your livelihood.”
“That our friend Kyriakos is not as simple as he seems.”
“Because he outsmarted you?” Demetrios couldn’t hold back a lopsided smile.
“No, although that is true.” Theodorus’s eyes sharpened into focus. “But because he cheated.”
Demetrios’s hands stilled. He studied Theodorus with new care, pausing his biting retort. “Are you certain?” It was an accusation not lightly made in medieval society, where its mere mention was enough cause to draw blood.
“Yes.”
“How?” Came the obvious question.
“I knew roughly the cards the players had during the last round.” Theodorus began, then realized he’d made a mistake when Demetrios’s eyebrow raised. He launched into a small impromptu lesson on card counting and how it absolutely was not cheating.
“It was nearly impossible for him to have four tens.” He concluded.
“But not impossible.” Demetrios pressed. “What else did you see?”
“His eyes,” Theodorus said. “I watched them as I revealed my hand. When he saw my straight, he flinched; his surprise plain to the naked eye.”
“Then how did he cheat? You were already in the final phase.” Demetrios’s ingenuity was a sight to behold. If he knew the sleight of hand that 21st-century magicians were capable of, he might have had a stroke.
“The simplest I could think of would be to have a variety of cards on his person to switch with at the correct opportunity,” Theodorus explained
Demetrios began to pace again, a tempest gaining wind once more. “Now the question is why.”
“Now you are getting to the core of the issue, friend. We can still wring much out of this defeat.” Theodorus masterfully deflected the price of the ‘victory’. “We’ve lost coin, but we learned that Kyriakos is not above underhanded tricks. Either he must win at all costs to polish his pride,” He steepled his hands, “or he desperately needs the money.”
Demetrios nodded once, conceding the point even as he pierced through the pretense in an instant. “You won’t be able to justify losing most of our money with just that piece of information.”
“What if I told you I also learned of an exquisite opportunity,” Theodorus told him about the informal competition, and, most importantly, its rewards. Which definitely tugged at Demetrios’s heartstrings.
“So you plan to earn back all the lost money and then some? Finally, I hear some sense coming through you, my Lord.” Demetrios had seen Theodorus whip peasant levies into shape in record time before. He trusted his Lord to make a good showing in the competition.
“What? Don’t be ridiculous, Demetrios. Of course not. I don’t want to win the competition-”
“Of course you don’t.” Demetrios heaved a grand sigh.
“-I want to
lose
it.” Theodorus rasped his knuckles on the table for good luck, or in this case, luck of the ill kind. “What are a few gold coins compared to thirty days within the council, ink in hand, listening and noting down all the streams of events and intrigues that happen behind closed doors?” It was a foolproof plan. Trying to win meant making himself a whole host of rivals. When you tried to lose, you were only competing with yourself.
You can’t always win.
Kyriakos was wrong. Losing could be more beneficial than winning. And sometimes you had to lose the hand to win the game.
The blade rasped across Othon’s barely-there stubble, a measured scrape he performed every dawn. The sound and the ritual steadied his hands, set the day into its grooves, and grounded him for the day to come.
Days started early in Suyren for those on the lower end of the rung, to compensate for those coasting up above. Doubly early for Nomikos’s bastards - an arithmetic Othon had understood since his first breath.
He buckled his brigandine over his tunic, the solitary labor a burdensome task he dreamed of sharing someday. He held a respectable post and commanded influence over several men, but the price had been stark: no family, no acknowledgment, only duty. He sometimes wondered how it might have gone had he settled as a well-off serf, or taken his chances with a Greek mercenary company. God knew he’d had plenty of opportunities for either fate.
Not anymore.
Footfalls pattered softly in the corridor as the castle woke to itself. Othon moved for the kitchens by habit, each turn familiar. He had lived in these halls since boyhood; he knew their drafts and their faces by heart.
“Mornin’,” he hailed Suyren’s sour-faced cook. “The usual.” The man slid over toasted bread, a wedge of cheese, and a smattering of fresh olives without a second glance. “Thanks,” Othon added, taking his plate. Only in these tiny interactions among those who had watched him grow did he shed the stiff accent and formal carriage he forced on himself each day.
It seemed he’d have to dress up early today, though, as he spotted an unusual visitor in the common hall’s quiet corner Othon usually took his bread in.
“Good morning, Sergeant.” Theodorus Sideris, the strange, fastidious, and dangerously competent teenage captain. A combination of words Othon would have never thought he’d use.
“Good Morning, Sir.” Othon smoothed his drowsiness into a small bow. “To what do I owe the honour?” He’d gotten to know the boy enough to discover he valued a touch of banter. And Othon, across years of service, had learned the worth of reading the moods and dispositions of his superiors. And to tune himself to their melody precisely.
“I just came to visit my favourite Sergeant,” Theodorus offered a half-smile. Othon sometimes thought the boy was possessed of an old man’s sense of humour - a sort of disregard for conventional norms that left Othon without a ready response, something he was unused to and unsure how to feel about.
“Have the squad switches been manageable so far? I remember Paris’s squad wanted to switch their night watch on the 2nd.” The boy considered things that would not pass through the mind of any noble-bred men Othon had met so far. Concern for the common folk was a tragically uncommon trait.
“Kostis’s squad will cover it.” Othon nodded, then waited for the real reason for the meeting to reveal itself, savouring his simple fare with care. He had come to realize that life was best appreciated in these small moments, and that when everything was taken from you, these were the ones you missed the most. And everything could be taken at a moment’s notice, especially for a bastard. That was something he’d learned the hard way.
“The upcoming company distribution among the aides has me thinking,” Theodorus said at last. He stepped toward the subject with a practiced sidestep, an elegance Othon appreciated, especially in one so young. “I’m curious how the soldiers end up being selected to each company.”
Othon wiped a crumb from his thumb and allowed himself the hint of a smile. If the boy wished to dance around it, he would match his steps.
“It’s mostly random, I believe the steward oversees it.” Othon lied without blinking. The process was anything but random - ripe with maneuvering, favors, and quiet competition to secure the best men for each aide. The steward nominally presided, yes, but the sergeants who sifted the recruits held the real weight. It just so happened that Othon was one of them.
But Othon had no intention of laying the board bare. If the captain couldn’t even puzzle that out, there would be no point to this conversation.
Predictably, he could. “Surely for a price, things could be nudged in the right direction.” Theodorus’s eyes were the perfect picture of innocent youth, while his words were anything but.
“Perhaps, Captain,” Othon said, already setting stones for the negotiation to come. Aides often came to him for favorable placements, and he rarely failed to extract something extra in return. “Although the price can be quite high.” Othon glanced at Theodorus’s sad-looking purse, his look heavy with meaning.
“Oh, I should hope so, Sergeant. I want the highest price available.”
The statement struck him so oddly he actually blinked. “Pardon, Captain?”
“You heard me, Sergeant.” The boy leaned forward, utterly serious.
“Why?” The question escaped him involuntarily.
“Because I’m not looking to buy a favourable company of men for the competition.” His eyes were terrifyingly sharp. “I’m looking to sell my spots to the highest bidder.”
What?
Othon couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He didn’t realize he had voiced his thought aloud until Theodorus answered.
“Negotiating for the best men and veterans is, as you’ve deduced, beyond my current purse,” Theodorus said evenly. “I want you to arrange the usual ‘favorable division’ for whoever pays the most, and I want you to use my allotments to make it happen. Grant me the weakest, roudiest, most worthless of the new recruits and veterans.”
Othon instantly understood the benefit. Previously, the jockeying for top recruits had always been a restrained affair because the math kept it so: to load one company with quality meant another ate dregs, and no one paying Othon thanked him for being handed garbage. There was a hard limit on how far he could tilt the table without making enemies.
Now there would be no problem of the sort.
With Theodorus volunteering to swallow the refuse, Othon could sell a decisive edge, the kind aides would bleed coin to hold. Each would believe he’d gained an unfair advantage, not realizing the others were similarly advantaged at the cost of Theodorus, who forwent on the risky competition altogether and went for the safe, assured defeat. As a side benefit, Othon was spared the politics of bruised toes he usually had to contend with.
All these calculations raced through Othon’s mind as he reassessed the boy before him, with a greater caution and respect than before. Even so, a snag caught.
“It is true that while the price I can extract from our friends will increase,” His eyes sharpened on Theodorus. “The cut I get in the end will be lower.”
“Keep the money, Othon. I have no need for it.”
Othon felt himself shift, off-balance again. This wasn’t a scheme to patch the boy’s drained purse?
“What do you have need of, then, Captain?” He asked, the question coming out rougher than he’d like. Othon felt permanently on the back foot in this conversation. It was a feeling he was ill-used to and was finding he did not particularly enjoy.
“Capable men, Sergeant.”
Othon couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me, Captain.”
“I prize quality over quantity,” Theodorus stated with a mysterious tone. “I want you on my side Sergeant.”
“Me? I’m one of the senior sergeants. I cannot join the companies, Captain.”
"I don’t need you on a roster. I want an arrangement.” His gaze held steady. “You know this castle, its people. Who has which skills, who owes whom, who talks to whom.”
The beauty of the arrangement clicked into place with elegant clarity. The most valuable currency for the newly arrived Captain wasn’t coin - he’d shown how unworried he was about the situation by burning through it at a prodigious rate - it was power. Influence. Information. A man after Othon’s own heart.
“I require someone knowledgeable in these things.” Theodorus finished, his face revealing nothing.
Othon held to a thoughtful quiet for a long instant, weighing the offer. Ironically, the grandest reward Othon could get from this whole arrangement might not be gold after all, but the proximity it afforded him to such a dangerous player. “Very well, Captain.” he held out a hand. “You have a deal.”
Theodorus took it. The pact settled between them in a quiet, deliberate clasp.
The victor of the arrangement would be decided by who used whom best. And for all that Othon tried not to let it show, he had a nasty competitive streak. “A pleasure doing business, Captain.” Othon flashed his immaculate white teeth, hiding his true thoughts beneath them.
Theodorus rose to go. At the doorway, he paused, half-turned over his shoulder. “Ah, Sergeant. I did say I’d take the dregs of the recruits, but there is one exception..."
The road bent like an old knuckle that gradually leveled out. Beyond the last scrub of gorse and thistle, Suyren Castle rose from the ridge. It was made of old stone, the color of bruised storm clouds, its banners flat in the high wind.
Christos set his palm to his thigh and caught his breath, breathing in the misty mountain air. Agape came to stand beside him, fingers interlacing themselves in his hand with feisty strength. A streak of sunlight pushed through the low clouds and found the keep’s highest tower.
It was time to learn to bear the true weight of a sword.

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Chapter 35: Four of a Kind