Herald of Steel

The third type of marriage was particularly preferred by the lower classes because if the couples were not married there would be no exchange of wealth even as gifts and in case the marriage fell out for some reason, there would be no hassle regarding the redistribution of the given money from either side.

And going by the descriptions of the three marriages, Cambyses and Alexander would have to be put in the third type of marriage.

But Alexander had one big objectionable point with this type of marriage.

And that was the use of the word 'continuous,' in the clause.

A couple had to continuously stay together for more than a year to be considered married.

And this 'loophole' was not unknown to the people of Thesos.

On the contrary, its use was so prevalent that it was in fact actual couples that were extremely rare among the lower strata of Thesos.

How they exploited this legal loophole was by making the girl stay at her parents' house three days every year, to avoid getting formally married.

This might seem antithetical to the whole endeavor, but such was done because it favored the woman's father.

This was because before a daughter was married, all her wealth belonged to her father, while after marriage it belonged to her husband.

And thus, by not marrying off his daughter, a father could hold onto all his daughter's wealth.

Hearing Alexander wanted to hold a party for her, Cambyses was naturally overjoyed and did not stand in ceremony.

So she very eagerly asked, "Ohhh! When do you have in mind? Soon?"

"Mmmm, how about the new year's day," Alexander felt the first of January was an auspicious date.

"Sure, no problem," Cambyses beamed a huge grin, looking very forward to her special day.

"Congratulations, mistress, master," Ophenia quickly wished the couple her best wishes, though saying she too did not wish for such an event would be a lie.

And her wishes were instantly answered as Cambyses strongly hugged her and turned to Alexander, "But Alex, what about Tayin? And Mean?"

Cambyses did not want to leave these two out.

"Haha, of course, I will marry Tayin as well. She is my sacred priestess and must be married to me," Alexander promised, causing Ophenia's eyes to shine like the stars.

Which girl never dreamed of being dressed in a beautiful bridal gown?

"Slave is unworthy," She humbly bowed, causing Alexander to chuckle and say,

"Haha, do need to be such. You and I are bound by fate and I will marry you in spring."
Then he added, "The reason why I do not plan to marry you all on the same day is because I want each of your marriage days to be special."

"Master's grace is truly gracious," Though Ophenia had kept managed to keep a straight face, inside her heart had squealed in joy at Alexander's consideration.

As a girl, she naturally had a selfish desire to monopolize her man.

But since realities would never allow her to do that, she at least wanted to do it at least once a year.

"I will marry Mean also later," Alexander then reassured Cambyses, though the matter of Gelene was left tactfully unsaid.

He then raised another issue, this time related to health.

"I noticed we have been eating very rich food lately. So, have you girls been exercising properly?" Alexander asked.

"That...." The awkward pause gave the answer.

So Alexander instructed, "You must regularly exercise. It not only keeps your body beautiful but fit and healthy as well."

Having suffered from rickets in her childhood, Cambyses did not need more encouragement and so obediently replied, "We will make time from tomorrow."

"Mmm, good," Alexander then discussed few minor details with the two girls and after noticing the time, felt that he should meet up with Camius by now.

And thus he excused himself.

Alexander made his way to the barracks holding cells and soon found what he was looking for.

Because just outside the barracks, there were close to twenty stumps dug into the ground, all containing a man tied to them.

These men were bound and upright, standing up with both hands and feet securely fastened to the wooden stakes and shivering.

This was because they were totally bare and soaking wet, courtesy of a few uniformed men who would occasionally and very liberally throw buckets of water at them, causing the former to scream in agony.

"My lord," Camius came up to greet Alexander and he soon invited him inside.

"Any talked?" Alexander casually inquired as he made himself comfortable inside the room.

"They are squirming...but not yet," Camius reported.

"Mmmm, keep it up then," Alexander was confident that these men would talk.

They might be tough men who were no strangers to violence, but having to be naked outside soaking wet for hours was a whole different kind of torture.

But why was Camius interrogating them though it was the police who had captured these men?

Because under Alexander's directive, Cambyses had sent the men visually selected by Camius to this outpost of the barracks, where they were being made to sing.

As Camius and he talked, suddenly, a thought made its way to him.

He thus instructed, "Take three of those men out and place them inside. And then instruct your men to loudly say this, 'We already got what we needed from those three, so why do we need the others?' That should loosen some tongues,"

"That's a great idea, my lord," Camius happily praised the proposal.

And then cleverly added his own idea, "Oh! What if we also switched some of the men with ours, so they will shout and promise to give up everything? This will no doubt cause some of the real ones to defect as well!"

Camius had learned this from a similar trick Alexander would use, where the latter would hire people to his gathering to act as cheerleaders and stir the crowd.

"Oh? Will that work?" Alexander found the plan quite good, save for minor details.

"Yes, I'm confident." Camius nodded heavily, explaining, "It's dark now so nobody will really notice, and besides, it's not like the gangs know each other to the point they can identify the members just by their voice."

This sounded very good and so Alexander gave the go-ahead.

He then stayed for a while seeing the operations unfold and casually talking to Camius, and even sitting down for two interrogations, though he just quietly sat and let the interrogation officer do his thing.

And the gist of the information was just like he had expected, it was the temple that egged them on and when Alexander did not seem interested in hiring these gangs, they naturally chose that side.

In one particular interrogation, Alexander oversaw the intelligence extraction of one very fat and oily prisoner.

"Tell that Jakqum slave that his days are numbered," He fiercely barked at Alexander, not knowing who he was.

This was also by coincidence the very same man Cambyses had captured, and the word Jakqum in Azhak means a nobody or a vagabond, kind of like a John Doe, but with a much worse connotation.

He was clearly referring to Alexander as a stray and thus got rewarded with being sent back to 'chill'.

After some time of that, the night began to deepen and sleep was beginning to attack Alexander.

So he decided to excuse himself. "Okay, I think I will be heading back. Keep up the good work."

"Yes, pasha, please take care." Camius gave a heavy bow.

In such formal settings, Camius was always very deferential towards Alexander, much different from his private manners.

"Umm, I will give everyone tomorrow off. So give the confession report by dawn," Alexander casually hummed a spartan deadline as he saw himself out, causing Camius to subtly grimace.

'F you, slave driver,' Camius cursed inside his heart but did not fight it openly, instead only nodding in agreement and saying, "Yes, my lord. It will at your desk before dawn."

Camius knew that he could complete it if he pulled an all-nighter and thus, since it was possible, if Camius were to grumble to Alexander, the latter would only raise his palms and say the hackneyed words, "If you have the time to argue, you have the time to get the job done."

And so it was more prudent for Camius to start making the men squeal and sing as soon as possible.

While Camius was doing just that, Alexander and his bodyguards were quickly riding back to his estate, a thick blanket of fog, almost impenetrable to the eyes beyond a few meters shrouding them all the way, as the biting cold winds cut through even their warm, heavy woolen coat, causing many men to subconsciously tighten their thick jackets.

'I wonder if I could have done any better than those poor sods,' Alexander shuddered at the thought as he off-handedly wondered if he could have withstood the torture Camius was administering.

He had always been weak to the cold.

In his previous life, he would love to slip under his blanket with a hot mug of cocoa the moment the temperature dropped below freezing, curling up like a cat and refusing to get out unless absolutely needed.

'Probably not,' Alexander thus concluded, feeling withstanding the cold might have been too much.

In fact, the design of this interrogation was also based on Alexander's perceived notion of the discomfort that extreme cold caused, feeling that since he could not withstand it, maybe many others could not too.

And with these accompanying thoughts, the entourage soon reached the manor and Alexander quickly made his way to the room, where a surprise was waiting for him.