SUENIK THE BELEAGUERED
CHAPTER 56 - ABOULGHARIB - MEDICAL GENIUS!
(1158-1159)
Author's note: the new court artist is currently under the weather and not feeling too well. Therefore for this update you will have to put up with boring screen captures.
CHAPTER 56 - ABOULGHARIB - MEDICAL GENIUS!
(1158-1159)
Author's note: the new court artist is currently under the weather and not feeling too well. Therefore for this update you will have to put up with boring screen captures.
The nurseries (or "hell's spawning pools" as I've come to refer to them) continue to adequetly provide future generations with blood thirtsy sociopaths and scheming deviants.
Can you spot the odd one out?
Actually, in retrospect, Smbat is probably the scariest of them all. Take a closer look - he's "merciful". That means that he's put a load of those little monsters in positions where they've had to beg him for mercy and he has become famed for it! Therefore he probably is owed favours and debts of gratitude by most of tomorrow's tyrants. He's the best connected kid in Greater Suenik and a future criminal overlord!
Or am I just being paranoid?
Meanwhile, the malaria continues to spread...
...and spread...
In fact, it affects the former King of Nubia's daughter so badly that she's struck blind!
None the less, she continues to be an effective diplomat. I'll keep her as a back up to my current chancellor. Last time we saw her she was a wee bit stressed. Regular readers will know that as a rule this is Gardman-Aghbania short-hand for "about to mentally implode and devolve into a gibbering maniac who will proceed to slaughter all of those around her".
Of course, rules are made to be broken. I am so pleased by this turn of events that I send her out to woo a variety of counts and princes that live nearby who are currently without a liege.
Retha and I have a chat. She now knows what "must...try...harder" means.
Toros III comes of age and I have to decide how to have him educated.
Let's see... Toros I went to the army and ended up behaving like Jack the Ripper, Toros II went to the army and ended up becoming Toros the Traitor, so I decide "third time's the charm" and send this little chap off to the court. Let's hope he learns to behave himself, huh?
Does anyone remember Grigor the prodigy? Well prodigious as he was he doesn't seem to have been able to keep his darling wife happy. She accuses him of being a "monster" (which is fair comment to be honest) and then throws herself from the parapets of the castle, declaring that she'd rather die than bear him a child as monstrous as he is.
Woah. Fairly dramatic stuff. I take Grigor aside for a little chat. After all, I recently lost my darling wife so I know what he's feeling (which reminds me - I'd best check on the German in the tower and see how she's doing. Maybe the bats have got her?). He starts to weep and falls to his knees. I'm slightly taken aback by this display of emotion and ask him what's wrong. Looking up with red, puffy eyes, the tears leaving wet trails down his cheeks he wails to me that he's eternally sorry for the mess Burudukan made when she hit the castle courtyard, that he would never do anything so disloyal himself and that he's willing to pay to replace any stained cobbles.
I smile nervously, assure him that everything is fine and leave.
I then arrange a marriage to someone similiarly unhinged in the hope that their competing psychoses will cancel each other out.
Later on I get more news from the spawning pools - apparently two new children have learned to adapt to their surroundings.
...and to prove it's not just deranged maniacs amongst the young of Suenik today, one bright little chicken goes digging in her daddy's library and finds this:
No more malaria for you Arina!
Naturally I claim this discovery for myself and declare myself the saviour of Suenik!
Lo and behold...
Thank you! Thank you! Not only am I a consumate statesman and a cunning general, I am wise beyond the reckoning of most mortal men. The good people of Tabriz recognize this and declare that they all want to be just like me.
So - what now? I've humbled the Emperor of Byzantium, I've brought peace and prosperity to the Empire and I've banished a plague with the powerhouse that is my mind. What else is there to do.
Hang on - what's this in my pocket? A little piece of paper? Something that I've been too busy to look at recently?
That's right...
THE LIST.
Bet you all thought I'd forgotten about it...
There will be a reckoning.
And there will be blood.
Next up - some hot list action! Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of Suenik - Land of the Beleaguered!
Looking forward to it, the previous time the List was taken care of was special enough 
