Herald of Steel

Perseus's prolonged catatonic state did intrigue Alexander as even though all his external wounds had already healed, including that small cut on his chest, the man still showed no signs of waking up.

This appeared most unusual for the doctors present who could not find anything wrong with him.

At least that was the diagnosis they made with the limited tools and knowledge available to them.

So this left Alexander to wonder if the man had hit some critical part of his brain while falling down.

But while Alexander's thoughts turned to logical inferences, for the rest of the populace, given the superstitious nature of the current society, and that all available logical explanations had been exhausted with the doctors unable to doctors solve the dilemma, various strange rumors then began to quickly make rounds.

With the most prominent one being that all this was all the doing of the ancestor spirits.

In this rumor, it was said that these spirits were angry with Perseus's failure to defend the homeland and thus they had taken his breath into their court of judgment, where he was being punished and tormented, and that Perseus would only wake up if he was strong enough to withstand his verdict or else die.

It was quite a nice rumor and Alexander would admit he was quite amused when he first heard it.

He had no part in its creation but he also did not try to suppress its dissemination since the tale of Perseus's failure to defend Tibias only worked to strengthen his rule over the lands.

However given that he was currently facing Philips, looking at his forlorn face, Alexander quickly tried to appear not too smug at Perseus's misfortune, and instead put on a pious face and said in a sincere voice,

"I will pray to the goddess for your father's recovery. Tibias and its people will be better served with him by our side."

It was unknown how much of this fake promise Philips bought, however outwardly he nodded with much alacrity and appeared very grateful.

And it was with this that Alexander was done with the pleasantries.

"Okay! Then's get down to it." Hence producing a clap with his hand as a gesture to move forward, Alexander then deftly summoned a leaf of paper from his table drawer, one that had sectioned blocks of writing inked into it, which he then passed over to Philips with a smile.

"I'm sure I do not need to say why I have called you here. These are the terms of surrender I'm willing to offer you. Please have a look and tell me what you think," Alexander then graciously invited the man.

Given the long time he had to prepare, Alexander was of course able to come up with a comprehensive list of things that he wanted from Philips.

It was a list that he had prepared with the help of his nobles, both Tibian and Zanzan, to make sure the terms catered to all their wants as well.

And then combined them all up into standardized bullet like points which he presented like so.

He did so in the hopes that he would be able to skip the old and tired process of haggling back and forth on each and every issue there was to discuss, but instead quickly figure out the more objectionable ones and then slowly agree on them.

Alexander's note was received with a bout of silent trepidation on Philips's part who felt as if the weight of that single leaf of paper, which should have been minuscule, now appeared heavier than lead to him.

Philips knew that It would be this that was written on this paper that would decide the fate of him and his family.

Because currently, other than wielding the mystical, 'love and loyalty of many of the noble houses', Philips's royal family really had precious little abiltiy to actually resist Alexander.

Thus when Philips first got the paper, his eyes subconsciously tried to actually avoid reading it, thinking if he did not read it, his worst imaginations could not come true, kind of like a weird instance of 'Schrodinger's paper.'

But Philips knew there was ultimately no way around it.

So eventually he turned his gaze to it.

And on it was written with numbered points the following demands,

1. a) First and foremost, given the current king Perseus's ill health and as such his inability to properly govern the lands, the Pasha of Zanzan demands Perseus's eldest son and successor, the former Crown Prince of Tibias, Philips be made the official representative of the royal family.

Henceforth, all shall agree that all deeds and actions taken by the aforementioned party, (Philips) will be seen as being taken on behalf of the former king Perseus, with there being no difference between the two's actions whatsoever.

Thus, effective immediately from the day this treaty is signed, it will be Philips who will be recognized as the official representative of the Tibian royal family, not Perseus.

b) In the instance that Perseus does wake up in the future, the restoration of his former status as the king and head of the Tibian Royal family can only be approved by the Pasha of Zanzan Alexander upon a formal appeal.

c) Before the Pasha grants his verdict, Perseus will be treated as simply an ordinary member of the Tibian royal family.

(Given how important this point was, since the rest of the treaty literally hung on this first point being true, Alexander had tried to put as many double and even triple agreement clauses in there as possible, many times repeating the same point. All so that no one could find any loophole and try and worm their way out.)

2. All royal family members will sign a complete and unequivocal deed recognizing the relinquishment of any and all claims over the governance of Tibias or any holdings elsewhere from this point on till time in perpetuity, both for them and all their progeny.

3. The royal family will surrender all their state owned property as well as a portion of personally owned and developed property. This will include not only land, but gold, personal valuables such as jewelry, and expensive clothing, as well as other businesses and enterprises.

(For readers asking the difference between state owned and private property, well here, the meaning of state owned land preferred to the land that the royal family owned by default, i.e.- all the land in the country that was not owned by nobles or some very rich private individuals.)

"While privately owned land was referred to the small amount of land that the royal actually used and developed, such as farming food, to mine metals, and even catch fish. Because yes, rivers and ponds also counted as land.)

(The state owned lands that the royal family or its members did not personally oversee were usually left to local small level administrations to oversee or even to themselves if the place was remote and small enough.)

(And would only really come into the eyes of the big nobles when the king granted the land to any noble for meritorious deeds or when adding a new addition to their circle of nobility).

4. The royal family must hand over all royal seals and other mechanisms for issuing orders to the Pasha of Zanzan, as well as promising never to raise an army without the latter's (Pasha of Zanzan) express permission.

5. a) In return for the royal family of Tibias relinquishing all such rights over the dominion of Tibian, the leader of their family, Philips will be made the title of governor of northern Tibias- (For details explaining the exact boundary look to the additional notes). This will be a hereditary title to be passed along to his children for time pertunity, unless the council of Zanzan votes in a two thirds majority deeming the family unfit to continue their administration.

b) The other surviving male member of the main royal family branch, Perikles, will be made part of the nobility Zanzan with an appropriate status, his task to be Tibias's representative in the Zanzan senate, presenting Tibias's interest to the Pasha of Zanzan.

c) The realm of Zanzan will bear all medical costs for the treatment of the former king Perseus until he wakes up, and any further cost that his medical condition might entitle later.

d) The two unmarried Princess, the elder Amelia and the younger Cornelia are to enter the Pasha of Zanzan Alexander's house as his concubines, swearing to serve him loyally and heartfully till either part.

e) The eldest sons of all the married princess of Tibias must all be sent to Zanzan upon reaching adulthood, (16 years), where they will serve in the Zanzan army for at least 15 years before being allowed to retire.

f) The Queen Dowager must convert to the faith of Goddess Gaia, and join the Temple of Gaia as one of Her priestesses for life.

g) All other members of the royal family (the branch families) will be made into regular free citizens of the country.

6. ...

7. ....

Those first five points were really the main ones, as the later ones were all that you heard, access to free trade, equal extradition, no minting new money, swearing not to rebel, a tax of 4%, etc.

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