Elf-Boy's Friends 9
The Far West, Part V of V
by George Gauthier
[The further adventures of characters from the novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends']
Chapter 19. The Despotate of Dzungaria
Colonel Ifans provided Drew and the twins with mounts taken from dead mercenaries for the trip across the border and into the Despotate. The twins noticed that riders in these lands still used old-fashioned pronged saddles. The modern saddle used in the Commonwealth had stirrups which afforded a rider a secure seat. A mounted soldier with his feet braced in stirrups was more effective whether with brandished sword or couched lance.
Their party of nine rode in a column of twos with the twins in front of Drew and Finn behind. Finn lead their pony with their packs and gear.
"Lost in thought?" Drew asked Finn who hadn't had much to say since they set out.
"Mmm. I was just thinking that today was the first time I killed a man. Oh that baron was an evil sort and he needed killing. He brought it upon himself, didn't he, attacking us like that? Still, when all is said and done, he was a man. Killing centaurs was different."
"You are right about that Finn. I don't have any regrets about the centaurs I killed either. I never considered them to be people -- not just because of their alien shape but because they were one of the sentients races that has no magic, centaurs, trolls, and orcs."
"Still I am glad that I did not have to take a man's life today. And I don't feel that I was any less a part of the fight either."
"You are correct, Young Altair" the colonel remarked. "Each of you took on the foes he was best suited to deal with. In your case Drew Altair it was those hunting dogs. And yes, killing animals and creatures like centaurs is one thing. Killing men or elves or dwarfs or giants is something else entirely."
"When you kill someone you take from him all that he is or ever will be. You take all he has or ever will have. He loses not only his life, family, friends, and possessions, he loses his future. And whatever the provocation, a man is not just the worst thing he has ever done. Even a bad man may change for the better, given the chance."
"You are quite the philosopher, Colonel." Drew said.
"Hardly. My family were paupers, and I had little schooling beyond my letters and figuring. I educated myself through books in which men wiser than I am had set down their thoughts for the instruction of the generations to come after them. You should know the value of books. You yourself are an accomplished author, twice winner of the annual Writer's Prize in the Commonwealth. I've read your books; they were good reads."
"Yes, the first won the award for journalism and the second for history."
"I hate to interrupt this mutual admiration society," Jemsen interjected, "but I have to ask how are we supposed to cross the river that lies just ahead?"
"By ferry. The landing is upriver a ways," the colonel said pointing to where the road turned to the right to follow the river upstream.
"The River Conwy marks our southern border. For security reasons, we haven't allowed a bridge to be built here. A foe might use it to invade our lands."
"Do you really expect attack? The Alliance formed against you is defensive in nature. Besides, the member states are so divided and have so many problems at home that they are unlikely to embark on such a chancy venture."
"You make a good point, Jemsen. Yet we know that some members of the Alliance originally hoped the Commonwealth would destroy the Despotate in a straight-forward military campaign."
"But the Commonwealth would never agree to something like that." Jemsen objected.
"No they wouldn't. We of the Despotate realize that now. But perhaps I have said too much. Hold your questions till you meet the First Despot. He is the first among the nine leaders who direct our affairs."
On the way to the ferry crossing they passed a spot where half-a-dozen thin naked boys were jumping and diving into the river. A tree on the far side leaned out over the river and provided a fine jumping-off point.
After the boys splashed into the water they allowed the current to carry them down to the meander in the river where they fetched up in the shallows. From there they clambered out of the water only to run along the riverbank back to the tree and jump off again. The boys shouted back and forth and joked and laughed and carried on as boys will, clearly having a grand time. And why not? What boy does not like to jump and run and climb and swim in the company of his friends?
"Those lads seem happy and healthy enough though still skinny from their growth spurt." Jemsen observed.
"They are. Now." the colonel smiled, showing genuine warmth for the first time. "They would not have been like that in the old days only a few years ago." the colonel added.
The ferry was large enough to carry their whole party across at once. Two mules pulled ropes wound around a capstan that reeled in the line attached to the bow of the barge drawing it to the landing on the far bank. A thick guide cable strung through steel rings along the gunwale on the upstream side kept the barge from being pushed downstream by the current pressing against its starboard side. The cable could be let out and sunk to the bottom to let boats pass up or downstream.
Meandering generally east to west in that stretch, thirty yards wide, with brush-choked ground rising on the far side, and with a muddy bottom ten feet below the surface, the River Conwy all by itself formed a substantial military barrier to northward movement.
The guardhouse and a squad of troops stationed on the other side showed how seriously the Despotate took its security. With the colonel to vouch for them, the travelers skipped the formalities and continued along the road which soon rejoined the river as its course bent northward. A while later they found themselves passing through a valley wide enough for only a narrow belt of farms in the bottomland besides the road and the river itself. Watchtowers and a fort at the northern end guarded this entry to the lands the revolutionaries had taken as their own.
"You would think that the alluvial soils in bottomlands like these would provide good yields but they don't," the colonel observed. "The marginal productivity of these lands is why the landowners used to squeeze their peasants and serfs so hard. To pay for their luxuries, they extracted too much of the agricultural surplus from those who worked the land. In bad years, that did not leave enough for the peasants to eat. Many starved or succumbed to illness from weakened constitutions."
"In the last century alone, the nobles put down five major peasant rebellions in areas that are now part of the Despotate. Drowned the uprisings in blood, they did. That reduced pressure for a while because so many were killed, and the nobles eased their rapaciousness for a while, but soon the vicious cycle reasserted itself. Our revolution put an end to all that by sweeping away the landholding classes."
"You mean you killed them." Drew said.
"Not all them, no. Our aim was not extermination but to break the power of their class over the peasants. True, we slew those who took up arms against and their hirelings who were mostly human mercenaries. I've never regretted killing any of them."
"Their best forces, the giants, withdrew from the conflict, abandoning the landowners to their fate. I devised a stratagem for neutralizing the Frost Giants who made up their palace guards and their shock troops by offering them safe passage to the south then on to New Varangia. Six thousand giants and their families took us up on the offer. Understand, we did not drive them out. They left of their own accord with their wealth and goods as emigrants not as refugees."
"Still a revolution is a bloody business, no two ways about it. Our goal was to destroy the class structure that created oppression, not necessarily the landowners as individuals. We realized that it was hardly their fault that they were born into an unjust social system. Like everyone they had to accommodate themselves to that situation as best they could. There were many decent people among them and some actually joined our cause, surrendering their lands and privileges, to fight on our side. The best of them were later engaged to manage their old lands in behalf of the new owners, the village collectives."
"Doesn't that system just mean that now it is really the government which owns the land -- through these collectives?
"You don't understand. What the collectives own and manage are the commons: assets that all may use like the pastures, woodlots, grist and saw mills, and the granaries. They also maintain local roads and the smaller bridges and run the primary schools. The farmers, as we now call the peasants, own the fields. Each family has a freehold title to the acres it works and keeps the proceeds from the sale of its crops."
"I must ask you to withhold judgment on our system till you know us better."
"That's only fair." Finn said, bringing the conversation to a close as they passed through the gates of a sizable town named Junction because it was at the confluence of the three tributaries which joined to form the Conwy. It was the former capital of the last state to fall to the revolution five years earlier. Its fall was what had prompted the other states to appeal to the Commonwealth for help.
Chapter 20. Dewi
"Nice digs!" Finn observed to the others as they settled in to the guest quarters at Government House, a former palace since converted into offices for provincial officials. The colonel had said it would be four or five days before the First Despot arrived, ostensibly on an inspection tour to protect the secrecy of their meeting.
"I could get used to this." Drew averred. "It's better than my own room at home."
Drew was still living with his folks, never having moved out to a youth lodge with his contemporaries.
"I suppose it's comfortable enough," Jemsen allowed, not terribly impressed. Back in the capital the twins leased a suite of comfortable rooms in a residential hotel. Chamber boys took care of the housekeeping, and meals were provided at the restaurant on the ground floor.
Their corner suite on the second story featured three sleeping chambers opening onto a bright and airy sitting room which had a balcony that overlooked an herb and vegetable garden. Pipes in the bathing chamber provided not only cold water but also solar heated warm water. The jakes too were modern, sanitary, and odor free. Water flowed constantly under the two seats, carrying away bodily wastes.
"If you guys don't mind me jumping the queue, I'll take a bath before I do anything else" Drew said stripping off his expeditionary outfit.
Just then a strikingly good-looking boy in his mid-teens and dressed only in a linen kilt hung low on his hips entered the suite with an armload of fluffy towels. Slender and comely and with hair the color of straw, he bore more than a passing resemblance to the twins. Catching sight of Drew's naked body he stopped short and stared, instantly smitten.
"Like what you see?" Karel asked impishly.
The boy turned red and stammered:
"I, uh, um, that is... Sorry.
"There is nothing to apologize for," Karel continued blithely:
"You are not the first boy to be entranced at the sight of young Drew Altair in a state of nature. Our auburn-haired friend has a legion of admirers stretching across the continent of Valentia. Quite the social butterfly, he is, isn't that right, Drew?"
"Don't tease the chamber boy." Drew scolded. "What do they call you anyway, Blondie?"
"The name is Dewi, Sir, and I am not really a chamber boy. I am an assistant gardener. I'm just helping get this suite ready for visitors."
"Dewi then, and my name is Drew, not Sir. Just place those towels in the bathing chamber, would you?
"Of course, and would you like me to draw your bath as well?"
"I would, and could I prevail on you to help me bathe, to fetch sponges and soap, scrub my back, shampoo my hair, that sort of thing?"
"I am entirely at your service, Sir, I mean Drew. "
"At his service indeed!" Karel quipped, drawing a sharp look from Drew. Jemsen rolled his eyes.
"While that white kilt of yours is quite flattering, Dewi, contrasting so nicely with your sun-bronzed physique, there's no point in getting it all wet and soapy, is there? Why don't you shuck it and join me in the bathing room?" Drew suggested helpfully.
"Why not? This kilt wasn't my idea in the first place. The majordomo told me to wear it. I always do my gardening in the nude."
"You see, with the climate so hot here in the north, boys and young men rarely bother with clothing. You'll find lots of naked youths out and about on the streets, unlike Down South where casual public nudity in town is less usual. Besides I like the way the sun kisses my back and bare bum and confers a golden patina to my skin."
"And to very good effect indeed, Dewi. Your sun-bronzed body and yellow hair make you a Golden Boy of Concupiscence, whom all desire."
"Does that include you?"
"Definitely."
Needless to say, the sounds that emerged from the bathing chamber indicated that more than hygiene was on the agenda.
When the bathers finally emerged they were arm in arm and chatting away like old friends till Dewi said he really had to get back to work and left Drew with a parting kiss and a promise to return later to "turn down" Drew's bed.
Of course, when Dewi showed up late in the evening he did much more than turn down the bed. He slipped into bed with Drew for an energetic frolic.
Despite the noisy proceedings, the lovers did not keep the others awake thanks to the thick walls. Finn took one bed chamber and the twins the other. For all three this was a night for rest and repose. After so many weeks on the road, they were bone tired, and welcomed the chance to just sleep in soft beds.
When Dewi and Drew woke up the next morning, their bed was a mess, the sheets sweaty, askew, and bearing stains from bodily fluids.
No problem. Dewi gathered up the soiled bed things, added the travelers' dirty clothes to the bundle, and took them away to drop the whole bundle off at the laundry room.
That was not the last they saw of him that day for Dewi was soon at work in the garden below the balcony. In the nude, of course. It wasn't long before Drew joined him. After all, they had nothing to do for the next few days but wait and after being on the road for so long, they liked the idea of staying put for one day at least.
Growing things was not just a job for Dewi, it was his calling. His magical gift was a Green Thumb. Now he couldn't just command plants to grow the way druids could, but his magical aura, his instincts, and his training made everything flourish under his care. He never applied too much or too little water, turned the soil regularly to aerate it, could identify developing blight or insect infestations by sight and smell before any of the other gardeners.
As he told Drew, at one time this plot of land was a garden of ornamental flowers, topiaries, gravel paths, statues and fountains, all for the delight of a pampered aristocrat. The revolutionary government changed all that, stripping away the fripperies and uncovering a sizable patch of some of the most fertile soil in the district.
Now these acres produced herbs and vegetables to promote the health and well-being of the populace at large. Theirs was the very freshest produce available anywhere in town. They sold directly to a green grocer, thereby cutting out the middleman. Everyone gained from the arrangement. The citizens got fresh produce at competitive prices, and the grocer and the garden split the profits.
Here was the Revolution in a nutshell. Dewi considered his work to be his particular contribution to its success, loyal and grateful son of the revolution that he was.
Dewi was especially proud of his celery despite the extra labor involved. You had to pack earth around the stalks as they grew, leaving only the tops and leaves green, to turn the stalks white and crunchy. So what if his hands, knees, arms, legs and even his brow got streaked with dirt and sweat. It was good dirt, topsoil, mother earth. Anyway it was easy enough to wash it off along with the sweat and salt at the end of the day.
Usually he worked alone, a slender nude youth, bent over at his labor, planting, weeding, and hoeing. On that day it was the two of them together, Dewi and Drew, two bare-assed youths kneeling on the ground, brown cheeks resting on their heels, lithe torsos leaning forward, genitals dangling between slender thighs, ribs and spinal bumps prominent as, trowel or short handled hoe in hand, they bent to their mundane tasks, firm muscles playing under their skin. Just two naked youths exuding wholesomeness and vitality, fine specimens of the human animal, bronzed and beautiful.
Dewi told Drew that he was happy with his situation there. He had arrived in Junction four years earlier an orphaned war refugee who had lost his home, his family and friends, and all his neighbors when his village had been put to the torch. The lone survivor, twelve-year old Dewi had fled for his life. He had passed through the city gate hungry, dirty, penniless, empty handed, and stark naked.
The revolutionary committee found him a situation as helper in the garden where he shared a cozy room with another boy and took his meals in the staff dining room, just off the main restaurant. Recognizing his potential, the head gardener, old Justin, a holdover from the old regime, had taken Dewi under his wing and soon promoted him to assistant gardener. Things had worked out for him.
With two pairs of hands, the youths were finished the work by early afternoon. The head gardener gave Dewi the rest of the day off to spend with his new friend. Dewi was his favorite, talented, conscientious, and hard-working. He deserved some free time with the exotic visitor.
The next morning, Drew asked Justin if they could borrow Dewi for the next few days to guide them around their town. Colonel Ifans had told them that they had the freedom of the city.
"Why not? You are the guests of the Despotate, aren't you? Just don't be surprised at the attention you draw. On the streets men and boys and more than a few women swivel their heads at the sight of Dewi, walking wet-dream that he is. Five of you at once, three blonds who look enough alike to be brothers and a Frost Giant side by side with a diminutive red-head. You'll cause quite a stir, I am thinking.
Drew caught the mischief in Karel's face as the head gardener mentioned him and narrowed his eyes in warning. Though he kept silent, Karel did mouth the word "diminutive."
"Yes, a real stir," the gardener continued, "with all of you but the giant in the nude."
"Wouldn't we be selfish not to share the beauty the gods have graced us with?" Karel asked rhetorically.
"Besides, the male anatomy is no more a mystery to city dwellers than it is to country folk. Cities all over are dotted with statues of male nudes, some of heroic proportions commemorating great soldiers and rulers, while others are more realistic and depict gods and demigods, famous athletes, or allegorical subjects as comely youths and young men."
The inhabitants of the planet of Haven had never conceived of artistic fig leaves. The very notion would have astounded them.
With that, their party of five set out to explore Junction.
Dewi pointed out that the old palace was used not only for offices and guest lodgings but provided other services as well. The kitchens operated as a restaurant serving meals to the officials and to locals in the grand dining chamber. The former count's library was now open to the public. Most books could be borrowed for a term though certain rare books could not leave the premises. Next to it was an public art gallery, though many of the choicest pieces had been sold abroad with the proceeds deposited in a provident fund reserved for fiscal contingencies. A health clinic offered both magical healing and natural medicine for a modest charge, enough to cover expenses, to fund a rural outreach program, and to provide a decent living for its staff.
The city was crowded and noisy but not smelly. Even the side streets were paved and provided with storm drains and containers for refuse which Dewi said were carted to the garbage dump after close of business. Public latrines took care of the bodily wastes of humans. Draft animals were not allowed on the streets except for two hours a day, and drivers had to remove their droppings to designated drop off points and composting sites. The house fronts and shops were not as trim and tidy as comparable quarters in cities in the Commonwealth, again an indication of the general impoverishment of the region. At least the shops on commercial streets were fitted with awnings or sunshades to provide shade.
It seemed that a freak funnel of wind had carried away a number of awnings just recently. Two young men, siblings by the look of them, were at work replacing torn out frames. Their job involved drilling out what remained of the old fittings and putting up new ones in their place with fast setting cement. Like many young males in the city they worked in the nude except for ankle-high work boots and leather aprons which left their bums uncovered except where the ties dangled over their shapely buns. Both boys ignored the stone dust that mixed with their hair and the sweat on their tanned bodies. A bit of mess came with the job. Both stopped work when they caught sight of the group of five.
"Hi there, big boy!" the taller one greeted Finn.
"Hello lads, how's it going?"
The youth shrugged:
"Pretty good for my brother and me, thanks to all the work the vortex brought us. It's like that old saying: 'It is an ill wind that blows no one good'. Bad for the shopkeepers, good for us."
Nodding toward the others, he continued:
"Fine company you keep. Beautiful boy flesh and none of them shy about displaying himself. Are they your harem?" he asked with a wink.
"In a manner of speaking, yes. All but one of the blonds."
"You lucky dog!"
Dewi was recognized in the red light district. As they passed a pleasure house Finn overheard a pretty courtesan tell her friend that if the strangers were in the company of "that blond tease" they wouldn't be interested in their services.
"What a waste!" was their judgment.
"I see that you are known around here." Finn remarked.
Dewi shrugged:
"On my days off I work as a rent boy in a pleasure house on the next street over. It's just as a sideline though several clients have asked me to move in with them full-time as their kept boy. I wasn't interested."
"Why not? Surely it would be more lucrative than grubbing in the dirt?" Finn asked, testing the boy.
"But Finn I like grubbing in the dirt. It is the work I was born for, what with my Green Thumb. Sure I could become some rich man's pampered catamite for a few years, ten at the most since I'm sixteen now. Then what would happen? I'd be tossed out and find myself on my own without a job, or a trade, or any prospects."
"I am sure you would still be very attractive in ten years' time."
"Yes, but as a good-looking young man, not a cute boy-toy."
"Almost everything I earn as a rent boy goes into savings. One day I will be able to buy a plot of land for a truck farm. That's the plan, anyway. I hope you don't think less of me because I let men plow my ass for coin."
"Not at all, Finn replied, "Some of my closest friends have worked as rent boys."
"Really?"
"He means us." Jemsen interjected. "Karel and I financed our first journey across the continent that way."
"That was before we were rich and famous." Karel explained.
"You don't say!"
The next day the boys spent a several hours leafing through the collection in the public library. There was something for every taste and cultural level. The library offered serious titles from the original collection as well as popular fiction for a newly literate citizenry.
Here was a chance to catch up on the reading the had forgone during their long trip. All four read books regularly for both pleasure and instruction and Drew was a bona fide bookworm, not to mention a prize winning author. With more practical ends in mind, Dewi studied a volume on topiaries. Old Justin was planning to restore a couple of those living sculptures as a public amenity.
There weren't enough chairs so the five of them found a vacant corner and parked themselves on the carpet, one arm to the floor for a prop, legs extended and ankles crossed, with their chosen volumes resting atop their thighs. At one point, Karel stretched out on his front, upper torso raised on his elbows with the book he was reading propped against his brother's thigh.
Library patrons stared at the young beauties in their midst, eyes dwelling on the curves of the lovely blond boy on his stomach, from his rounded shoulders to the swale of the lower back and the twin globes of his bum, with the spheres of his manly parts just visible in the spread of his slender but muscular legs.
Regardless of their leanings, all were struck by the contrast between intellectual endeavor and the sensual display of bare bodies. All five of them: Finn, Dewi, Drew, and the twins were visions of youthful male pulchritude. Finn excepted, they were utterly unselfconscious about total public nudity. The twins had lived skin clad from the age of fifteen. As a youth of the Commonwealth Drew ran around town much of the time in the nude, disdaining as entirely unnecessary the genital pouch or the loincloth he might have worn. Dewi had arrived in Junction in the nude and pretty much stayed that way the whole time.
The four young nudes were not trying to tease or titillate. They were simply reading books. If someone had remarked on their unclothed state, the boys would have been astonished at any suggestion that reading a book required anything more than hands and eyes. What did clothing have to do with it?
The markets were busy and offered all manner of merchandise. Commerce had flourished once the political power of the landowners was broken. The commercial classes had supported the revolution wholeheartedly. They were gratified when the new regime swept away the aristocrats' former immunity from taxation. Now everyone was liable to taxation. With the tax base so much larger, the rate of taxation fell considerably.
The biggest change was that taxpayers actually got something for the taxes they paid. The government spent its increased revenues on internal improvements. It paved the streets in the towns and installed sewers and storm drains. Out in the country it built all-weather roads and culverts and bridges to aid land transport. To benefit waterborne commerce they dredged channels, cleared streams of snags, and blasted underwater boulders that created impassible rapids. They raised water levels with weirs, and built inclines next to the streams to by-pass them. Major engineering works like canals and locks were as yet beyond their means. All these measures extended the range from which the towns could draw supplies and gave many more farmers access to markets.
Perhaps most important of all the new regime replaced the debased coinage with sound money and instituted a standard system of weights and measures, copying those used in the Commonwealth.
Folks seemed content and healthy though not really prosperous. No amount of land reform and sweeping away of wasteful and outmoded institutions could remedy the underlying problems of poor agricultural productivity and remote location. The territories of the Despotate had only one major line of communications down the River Conwy. A vast range of mountains cut their territory off from the western coastlands of the continent. To the north lay impassable channeled scablands, scoured down to bedrock thousands of years earlier in an flood of gigantic proportions.
"What's with the big hammer?" Dewi asked Finn pointing to his side.
Finn shrugged.
"I carry a hammer because I am, or rather I was, a blacksmith. These days I own a timber business and sawmill with my brother. We left our weapons in our quarters as a sign of good faith, but a hammer counts as a tool. It does make a good weapon though, if you know how to use it, and I do."
Proportioned for a Frost Giant, the hammer's hardwood haft was nearly as long as Drew's whole arm and thicker than he could get his small hand around. It was made of resilient ash which was wrapped with straps for greater strength. The head was as heavy as that of a sledge but with cheeks that tapered to small faces front and back to concentrate the force of the blow.
"You always hang a hammer by its head, which is how I carry it on my belt. The loop at the end of the straps lets you swing it as weapon, giving you the extra reach you need to hold off foes armed with swords. Usually you hold the haft near the heel and smash left and right, up and down."
"A hammer is strictly a close-in weapon though I once heard of a smith who threw his hammer at a fleeing felon and took him down. You wouldn't want to try that except in desperation. Throw your hammer away, and you've disarmed yourself."
"Unless you can Fetch it back to you," Drew commented smugly.
"With your strength to wield it, Finn, it'd be a fearsome weapon all right," Dewi enthused. "Hit a man on the head and he's finished.".
"It wouldn't be pretty," Finn confirmed. "with brains, blood, and bone chips splashed all around."
"You should see what I can do with a couple of steel spheres the size of apples." Drew said confidently.
"Hey guys, we just ate lunch!" Karel protested.
Chapter 21. The First Despot
After five days Colonel Ifans showed up at their rooms.
"I trust you have been enjoying yourselves these last few days."
"More than you know, sir." Drew assured him. "Personally I've been having a lot of fun with Dewi, the young gardener who works here. We enlisted him as our guide to show us the city. I can tell you that we liked what we saw."
"I was very much surprised by the total absence of propaganda, public meetings, and political agitation. I thought that sort of thing was second nature to you revolutionaries."
"It is second nature to us, but we have already won our revolution in these parts. We recognized that after so much upheaval, people just wanted peace and quiet and to be left alone to get on with their lives. Even I find continual political harangues tiresome. Changing gears was hard for many of us. Before we won, we defined ourselves by what we were against, afterwards by what we were for. And not just talk about it. We were in charge now and had to deliver good governance."
"There is so much else to relate," Drew continued, "I hardly know where to begin."
"No need. I've read the reports from the men I had shadowing you so I know exactly where you went, what you saw, and to whom you talked."
"You had us followed?"
The Colonel nodded. "Everywhere you went. It was for your protection too, you understand."
"And none of us ever suspected." Drew grumbled.
"Actually I did suspect," Finn said. "It was the logical thing for him to do."
"Karel and I did more than suspect. We knew for sure. Your men are good, colonel, but no one can shadow my brother and me and remain unnoticed. We have the instincts and awareness of the hunters and army scouts we once were."
"Nobody ever tells me anything!" Drew complained, flashing a not wholly mock glare at Finn and the twins.
"It looks like the joke is on us, young Altair." the colonel conceded.
"Just tell me that Dewi wasn't one of your informants." Drew pleaded.
"Don't worry. Your friend Dewi is exactly what he seems to be: a fine lad, an honest hardworking assistant gardener though with a sideline as a rent boy. He is a loyal son of the revolution, but we did not ask him to spy on you. His liking for you, young Altair, is genuine."
"Thanks. You know he showed us around the city. From Dewi we learned what the revolution has meant to humble folks like him and are favorably inclined to what you are trying to accomplish."
"Which is why I will task the local revolutionary committee to look in on him from time to time and, if necessary, assist him in achieving his ambitions."
"Thank you."
"Drew speaks for all of us in this." Finn affirmed.
"Now, as you must realize, I am here to take you to your meeting with the First Despot. His name is Twm Glyn Dwr."
"Could you spell that sir?" Karel asked.
The colonel did so. For once Karel did not complain that the local spelling was not phonetic. He transcribed the pronunciation as Tom Glen Dower.
"You won't write anything down about the meeting until you are safely back in Caerdydd?" the colonel cautioned.
"Of course not."
"Since this is a formal meeting with the highest authority in the land you will want to look your best."
Finn nodded and they all put on their most formal garments. For Drew that meant one of his trademark white silk tunics, those he wore in his professional capacity as a journalist plus hobnailed sandals. Finn wore green silk trews and shirt and sandals. The twins contented themselves with sarongs, green for Jemsen and blue for Karel, but went barefoot.
Twm Glyn Dwr was a man of middle years soberly dressed with plain features and a touch of gray at the temples. Glyn Dwr thanked them for traveling to Junction to hear him out.
"Gentlemen, your reputations precede you. I haven't read your second book yet, young Altair, but your first was a real page-turner. The Long March of the Frost Giants and their two wars against the centaurs was an epic and you were its incisive chronicler. Yet you could also narrow your focus to portray individual figures who displayed extraordinary courage in episodes like the stand of Old Arn and Young Finn in the Breach. You yourself stood there with them, and the twins too. I admire courage, even in a foe, but I have called you here in the hope that we might become friends."
"I know that you four have the ear of Lord Zaldor and General Urqaart and through them the Council of the Commonwealth. And it is fortuitous, for our purpose, that you Finn Ragnarson are an experienced envoy. No disrespect to the rest of you, it is just that your strengths lie elsewhere."
"I have a proposal which I would like you to convey to them, a proposal that could prevent armed conflict and foster peaceful change in the region. Understand I am speaking not just for myself but with the backing of all nine despots."
"Make no mistake, radical change is coming. It must come, whether by war and revolution or by peaceful means with all the parties concerting their efforts toward mutually acceptable goals. What I am proposing is a tacit alliance between the Despotate and the Commonwealth to promote fundamental social and political change in the Allied States of the Alliance. With both of us exerting pressure we can drag the old regimes into the modern world."
"The ruling elites in the south know that the old ways cannot last very much longer. The Despotate destabilizes them by its very existence and the hope we give to the oppressed. From within we undermine the old regimes by subversion and political agitation. From without we threaten with our Army. That was how the five states that make up the Despotate were liberated one by one."
"But it was a long, bloody, and destructive process. And now they have called in the Commonwealth to save them, as they see it, but that won't work, not in the long run. The rot runs too deep. Their elites cannot fight us and their own people at the same time. Their military Alliance with the Commonwealth can only delay what must happen. But the last thing we want is decades of uprisings and warfare with all the death and destruction they bring."
Finn nodded thoughtfully and said:
"The Commonwealth shares much of your thinking about your ends but not your means. We want the needed political and social changes achieved through peaceful means. We would not support a violent takeover by the Despotate of all those lands. The Commonwealth simply will not tolerate the rise of a military peer on this continent. That is our chief strategic goal. We see reforms as the way to achieve that goal by preparing the Far West for eventual annexation to the Commonwealth."
"The Commonwealth is already using the threat of the Despotate to force the pace of reform. The allied army is not just a fighting force. It is a political influence as well. During their training in Caerdydd the personnel in an allied contingent learn the the Commonwealth's ways of doing things and absorb our ways of thinking on political and social issues as well. They learn that the purpose of the Army of the Commonwealth is to protect the people from external threats. It is not an instrument of oppression to keep an unworthy elite in power. Indeed our militia system with its millions of reservists makes that impossible for a professional army of only a few hundred thousand."
"The allied contingents bring all that home when that unit rotates back to its native land. In a sense, we and the Despotate already have a tacit alliance. What we are doing here today is acknowledging it, making it explicit. Consciously concerting our efforts will make it that much more effective."
"I am glad to hear you say that Finn. It gives me hope that this alliance will work."
Finn nodded then added:
"Naturally we will have to operate in secret with a secure line of communication."
"No problem. Our spy network reaches all the way to Caerdydd." Glyn Dwr assured him. "Colonel Ifans can put you in touch with our agents there."
"And here he told us he wasn't a spy."
Glyn Dwr shook his head:
"Ifans is not a spy. The colonel is in charge of counter-espionage. It is his job to check on things like nosy travelers from the Commonwealth."
"Ouch!"
Glyn Dwr and Ifans shared a predatory smile.
Soon though Glyn Dwr's mien darkened.
"Why the frown, sir?" Finn asked.
"The fundamental problem in the region has always been the low fertility of soils. Low productivity and low yields makes the competition for resources more intense. Our situation has class warfare built into it."
"You must ask the Commonwealth to enlist the druids in finding some solution to our problem, by drawing gold from the ground as they and earth wizards did during the rise of the Commonwealth or finding ways to improve agricultural productivity, perhaps with new plant varieties or new crops entirely."
Gly Dwr broke off and asked:
"Why are you twins shaking your heads?"
"You cannot eat gold or silver. Monetary wealth merely changes the ownership of resources, not increase them. A bonanza in precious metals would just raise prices generally but leave the real wealth of the region unchanged in any meaningful way."
"It is true that during its rise, the Commonwealth mined more gold. That was to allow people to replace barter with monetary exchange, to switch from subsistence agriculture to market farms. Great manufactories replaced cottage industry. Commerce in luxuries gave way to commerce in raw materials and manufactures. Innovations in the mechanical arts and new crops added to our wealth. It helped that soils in the Commonwealth were unusually fertile, producing plenty of food for the inhabitants of the growing cities."
"None of that applies here. In short, forget gold as a solution to your problems."
"As for the fertility of your soils... "
Jemsen explained that while doing research for a biography of Balandur the twins had come upon a copy of a report by the druids, a report commissioned by the government of Cymru more than a century ago. Balandur had been their go-between, which was how a copy of the report wound up in the library of the Honorable Guild of Cartographers. (The twins were members.) The report was never made public. The results were so discouraging it was thought best to keep it secret.
Jemsen went on to explain that the druids had found a solution to the problem of low yields, but one that was totally impractical. The soils of the region were too sour [acidic]. The application of certain minerals [phosphates and lime] could sweeten sour soils and virtually triple yields. But huge quantities of minerals would be needed for a territory as vast as the Far West. There was simply no way to get these minerals from the mines to the farms. Which was ironic given the large deposits of those minerals in the dry northwest of the Despotate, which lay in the rain shadow of the Great Western Dividing Range.
"So there is no hope for us."
"Actually there is, now." Jemsen countered. "The druids were right back then but no longer. Technical progress has made it possible to transport huge loads great distances by land, in this case from the mines to distant river ports for eventual distribution by barge wherever needed."
"Technical progress?"
"Iron roads. Drew, you are our expert on the subject. Why don't you describe just what they are and how they work?"
"Gladly."
Drew had written about a colorful figure he had dubbed the King of the Iron Roads, a certain Angus McFarden from Grayling, a town at the head of navigation on the Long River.
McFarden had kicked off an industrial revolution by harnessing the magical resources of the Commonwealth to provide motive power on a scale beyond anything possible with draft animals. His iron roads also offered rewarding careers for those like Drew with a strong gift for Fetching.
McFadern's got his inspiration from the trackways miners had always built inside their tunnels to transport ore in single barrows or short trains running atop narrow gauge wooden rails which were in turn supported on timber ties spaced a foot or so apart.
McFarden scaled the system up. The barrows in the mines were only breast high and rolled on four small wheels. The bodies of McFarden's six-wheeled ore wagons were the height of a tall man and twice that in length. They ran on iron rails set a fathom apart and fixed to ties resting on a bed of gravel.
His iron road transported ore to barges on riverbanks miles away. The barges carried the ore to smelters also sited on waterways to facilitate barge transport of coal from mines as well as the use of copious quantities of water to cool the red hot metal.
The rights of way of these iron roads followed carefully surveyed routes to ensure gentle downslopes to the rivers and an easy climb of empty wagon-trains back to the mines. Pairs of Fetchers used their magical gift in tandem to propel the loads along the tracks with an assist from gravity going downhill.
The Fetchers pushed the heavy wagons along the rails almost always on a downslope. Getting the load moving was the hard part since they had to overcome its inertia. Once it started rolling, they had an easier task, merely countering rolling resistance from friction. The effort it took to return the empty wagons uphill to the mines was lessened by the track bed itself which conferred the mechanical advantage of an inclined plane.
A pair of Fetchers might move as much ore as a team of eight and not require prodigious amounts of fodder and grain or frequents changes to replace played out teams. And they left no mess. McFarden had devised training techniques to strengthen his prime movers, proving that a Fetcher's power level was not fixed but could be raised through mental exercises and visualization techniques.
"And you believe these iron roads would work here as well?" Glyn Dwr asked.
"No reason why they shouldn't. The obstacles are political and financial, not technical. It won't happen without a general peace in the region. No one is going to make massive long term investments in iron roads without peace. Companies set up to build or operate the iron roads could raise capital by sales of bonds or shares to local governments, your own commercial classes, and also the elites in the old regimes, which would give them a real stake in the new economy and a peaceful political settlement. The farmers and merchants would benefit too. Iron roads and a trade in fertilizing minerals is the key to universal prosperity."
"Everyone wins." Drew finished.
Glyn Dwr and Ifans were stunned by the enormity of the opportunity which Finn, the twins, and Drew had place in their hands.
"For the first time, I feel in my bones that progress is possible without violence and destruction. I thank all four of you from the bottom of my heart." the First Despot said fervently.
Chapter 22. Caerdydd Again
"I don't know what you guys did up north, but from what I heard on the grapevine it was a hell of lot more than just the assignment you were sent out on." Ian Dentzer said, lying in bed next to Drew.
The pretty elf and the cute human had been making up for lost time in the four days since the expedition got back to headquarters. Just then they were sprawled across the bed, resting between bouts of energetic love making. Ian's head rested on Drew's bare thigh as the cute red-head toyed with his earlobe.
"I don't suppose you could clue me in on what happened, Drew, since I am not just one of your casual conquests but a real keeper. You said so yourself."
"Well, Ian, I could tell you, but then, serious boyfriend or not, I'd have to kill you." Drew quipped.
"Is it really that much of a secret?"
"I am afraid so. It's not just a military secret; its a state secret."
"Will I ever know?"
"Yes you will when everything comes out in a few years' time. I'll even write a book about it and autograph your copy."
"Thanks a lot."
"It's the best I can do. I know you understand, Captain." Drew said underlining his military rank.
Captain Ian Dentzer of the Army of the Commonwealth nodded ruefully. The military took secrets seriously.
Only a few key persons had been let in on the secret. A certain junior captain in the cartographic department was not one of them.
Zaldor and Urqaart had jumped at the offer of a covert alliance with the Despotate. The two generals were astounded by what their four agents had done. Sent to prepare for a possible war, they had brought back the prospect of peace with social and political progress and a path to general prosperity for the whole region. It was a shame that public recognition would have to wait several years at least, possibly a decade.
It had been providential that those were the four sent north. Finn had shown himself to be an able leader and diplomat. The twins and Drew had put together their keen minds and found the solution to the fundamental environmental problem that had made class warfare endemic for centuries in the region. The twins understood the science while the young journalist provided the technological solution hitherto lacking.
To Zaldor's thinking that made them the Young Peacemakers Four, whatever they cared to call themselves.
Author's Note
This story is entirely fictional, with no resemblance intended to any person living or dead.
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This story is one of an occasional series about the further adventures of the characters introduced in the fantasy novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends' and published by Nifty Archive. The chief protagonist of the novel, Dahlderon, elf-boy and druid, will appear in these stories in a supporting rather than starring role. Each story in the sequence stands on its own, with the focus on one or just a few of the original characters.
There will be further stories after this five story arc. Finn Ragnarson comes into his powers as his magical gift manifests itself. Also the cute coach boy Liam becomes a war wizard and sails with the Commonwealth navy against raiders.
Stay tuned.
Readers who like these stories might want to try my two series 'Daphne Boy' and 'Naked Prey' in the Gay/Historical section of the Archive. My 'Jungle Boy' series of Hollywood tales is posted in the Gay/Authoritarian section. The recent series 'Andrew Jackson High' relates the trials and tribulations of five of its gay students. For links to these and other stories, look on the list of Prolific Authors on the Archive.
Comments and feedback welcome.