SUENIK THE BELEAGUERED
CHAPTER 46 - PEACE AND TRANQUILITY
(1149-1152)
CHAPTER 46 - PEACE AND TRANQUILITY
(1149-1152)
When we last left Suenik I had begun my slow climb (bribe?) to ecclesiastical approval, mainly through doing things like this...
Clearly such activites, whilst not quite as pious as abandoning all worldly wealth and walking through the streets in a monk's habit, flagellating yourself with a chain and crying out your repentance for all the evils that you've ever committed, are never the less screamingly popular with the high ups in the Church.
See what I mean? Clearly I'm back in the fold!
Speaking of "the fold" shall we see what the latest product of the Suenikian pre-school education system is?
So, we've moved from psychopaths and religious extremists to bullys. It just gets better and better. Money on all my hard work will be undone within a generation...
As well as my religious standing soaring into the stratosphere, I'm obviously becoming a tour-de-force in the secular realm, as I've got a veritable line of people queuing up asking for protection from the big, bad, Turks; foremost amongst them being this guy:
Naturally I decline. If he wants to call himself "emperor" he can damn well defend his own subjects!
Not everyone likes me though. I appear to have managed to hack off some Russian with a cool name.
Despite my jovial mood he gets added to The List. Just because I'm happy with all the respect people are affording me is no reason to let standards slip, is it? Especially when the offender in question happens to be a hunchbacked monster who shuffles about drooling and talking about the "Maaaaaasssth-terrrrrrrr." There will be a reckoning for Mr Igor Viacheslavich.
Interestingly Ghazi seems somewhat hacked off with the fact that I've not instantly put the Empire on a war footing and crushed this Russian like a dog.
As he prattles on about the need for strong leadership, order and respect I push several bags of gold in his direction and advise him "all in good time". To back this point up I make sure I have his ninja-wife (and my uber spymaster - she of the Toros purging) in the room at the time.
He gets the point.
As the Church building continues at a frenzied place another young whippersnapper bounds out of the nursery, demanding his fellow pupils' lunch money as he does.
I can hear my step-mother's screams from here...
Speaking of screaming, the "good" people of Constantinople decide to try their luck yet again...
This time the brachiating idiots finally get the point (ha!) when I send in the troops and they come round to my point of view.
They also realise that they've been stupid, destructive little children and scurry around with dust pans and brushes clearing up their own mess.
My mood is further improved when I meet yet another Suenikian pre-schooler...
Now THIS is a trend I could live with!
As is THIS:
I have to say, and I know pride is a sin (although I've got piety to burn now so whatever!), but I'm doing a damn, good job...
Are Suenik's fortunes on the up? Has Aboulgharib built a kingdom to last? Or will some random descendant drive it all into the ground? Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of Suenik - Land of the Beleaguered!