Herald of Steel

There were several good reasons why Alexander decided to take a three day break before marching towards Caira.

One of them was indeed due to what he said- resting the troops.

Menes had literally docked the very morning Metztil arrived and after being at sea for almost two weeks, those legionaries needed some time to recover their tired bodies.

Many of them had even gotten seasick or suffered from illnesses like fever or dysentery.

And since there was no overwhelming pressure on Alexander to act right away, he did not see any reason to rush his men and let them get used to the new place.

Secondly, some time would inevitably be needed to unload the huge quantities of supplies these reinforcements had brought. Find your next read on m_v l|e-NovelBin.net

This was also why Metztil got to see the camp in such disarray, with people moving various goods hurriedly.

They were moving them to their storage sites and in general setting up the whole camp.

Thirdly Alexander wanted to use one of these men to inspect the quality of the troops Metztil had brought and thus work out how to best deploy them.

And lastly, there were many things to discuss with Metztil before they could start fighting together.

This went from working out the details of the military command structure of the two very different forces and how to coordinate between them, to the much more important task of discussing the exact details of the land to be given to Metztil for his service.

Because if you recall, that deal was yet to be finalized.

Since back then Metztil was yet to agree, Alexander had finished the talks ambiguously by saying things like, 'We can discuss the details later.'

Well now that Metztil had made up his mind, that 'later' had arrived.

Alexander also did not want Metztil to start greedily extending hands after defeating the Heeats, asking for unreasonable ruminations for the rendered services.

And the concerns went both ways, as Metztil was also cautious about Alexander swindling him like his ancestors were by these devil outsiders.

The nobles had let their chief know in a very flat, clear cut manner that they would only participate in the war after knowing the exact extent of their reward.

Hence before Alexander and Metztil merrily rode off into the sunset, both felt it was imperative that they hashed this very important thing out.

The first half of that meeting went relatively smoothly, as Alexander was able to present the tribal chief with quite a comprehensive list of laws that had been scrapped, all aimed at allowing the natives to live freely in their lands.

Alexander had started compiling the list the moment Lady Miranda got an urgent message from the northern walls reporting that 'a huge barbarian army was headed her way'.

Hearing this, he immediately gathered Lord Janus as well as some of the other local lords and their stewards since they were the ones largely responsible for running the day to day operations and thus knew the laws well.

And then began to work out the various details.

Luckily by the time Metztil got here, Alexander had managed to compile a comprehensive list.

And as Metztil read through it, he found that under the current proposed amendment, his people were allowed a wide range of new benefits.

For instance, the natives would be now allowed to enter all friendly towns and cities (those in Lady Miranda's sphere of influence) without any risk of persecution or harassment.

They would also be in general allowed to buy and sell property and be subjected to the same tax bracket as the rest of the free folk- i.e. people who were not slaves or servants, but also not citizens.

Marriage between the two types of people was previously a grave social taboo and in some of the lands ruled by local lords punishable by death was lifted and better yet, the resulting children were promised Sybarian citizenship by birth.

In the category of mercantile, a theoretical maximum limit was placed on tariffs, quotas, and various other taxes that could be placed on any native products.

And lastly, a whole load of other societal laws were reviewed and changed.

For instance- it was decreed by law that if a native were to offer market prices for a good to any shop or guild, the owner had to sell the item no matter what.

Alexander added this clause because he was afraid the common xenophobic Sybarians might simply boycott the 'invading' natives when they first saw them and refuse to offer them any services.

The man had learned this from history as there were many such examples in his past life, with perhaps the most famous ones being during the segregation phase in America.

You would be surprised to know that even as late as the 60s and 70s, many restaurants in the States refused to entertain colored people. Or even if they did, they would relegate them to a 'special zone', which was just a euphemism for a dusty, abandoned, dark corner hidden away from any prying eyes.

Along the same lines, many white parents insisted to school authorities that their children not be mixed with 'others'. And of course perhaps the most famous example of all, there were special reserved seats in buses just based on how you looked.

Now, America was not the only one suffering from this illness.

Many other countries did too, with South Africa and its apartheid perhaps being even more famous and brutal. There, the two kinds of people were by law not allowed to live together.

Even if they were husband and wife, they had to live in different houses or risk jail.

Just imagine being a child of such a union and having to grow up in that. Surely it would be scarring for life.

And unlike in the States where much of this once terrible divide has been erased, South Africa has struggled with the deeply ingrained issue till now.

This was why when Alexander was forming his manifesto, he tried as much as possible to cover all his bases, hoping to root out this cursed evil at its sprout.

Thus the natives were now also given the right to rent households in the city, the right to be treated the same way as any Sybarian would be during criminal proceedings, the right to sell their products in local markets, the right to open up businesses and many more miscellaneous privileges too numerous to count.

Metztil was honestly blown away by the amount of detail included in the piece. The chief with decades of experience in statecraft had of course done negotiations before, but this was on a whole different level.

It almost made him feel like a child who was just learning to walk.

But this was only natural.

Alexander was nothing like those brutish natives who could only use a limited form of legalese during their talks.

In fact, he was confident enough to claim that his experience was rich enough to rival anyone in the whole world, having held talks with the likes of Ptolomy, Amenheraft, and Perseus's son Philips, all kings of their lands.

Thus it was with somewhat amusement that Alexander watched the tribal leader and his entourage spend about a whole hour leafing through the stack of papers all while listening to their translator explain its content.

Because of course the natives spoke and used a different language than either the Margraves or Alexander.

In fact, almost all of the exchange between the two parties till now had happened via translators.

Alexander had originally wanted to write the paper in Azhak, Siberian, and the native's nahutl, but found there was no expert among Lord Janus's retinue.

There was one translator who could speak the tongue relatively well and read it in some half broken manner, but writing it was beyond his capabilities.

This resulted in the current situation where Metztil and the other elites had to repeatedly turn to the translators they brought to understand the long deal.

And it seemed even these learned men, who were mostly shamans by day, had a hard time figuring out exactly what was written.

The reason for further confusion was the fact that a lot of the exact sentences for the treaty had been written jointly by Lady Parthia and Lady Nanazin, and these long lived queens had used the typical, very decorative royal way of addressing the treaty.

This was done under Alexander's order, as the man lacked the required 'artistic flair' in his writing that writing of this time demanded.

As anyone who has read any original works of the likes of Shakespeare would know, ancient writing styles were a lot more flowery and long winded than their modern counterpart.

Perhaps it was because people back then were a lot more laid back and had a lot more time to think and decorate their words. Or perhaps it was because back then people revered culture and poetry rather than science and rationalism.

Whatever the case, in this time period, it was this way of writing that was in style and any formal document basically demanded this format be followed.

But it was just too bad that Alexander sucked at writing in that format.

Hence he outsourced the work to the two learned ladies.

He just did not expect them to be so enthusiastic about their work.

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