Herald of Steel

Philips's signing of the treaty with Alexander would be in later years immortalized by a famous painting titled- 'The Pact of two Lands.'

It would be a very significant work, shaping both the artistic world as well as the political world around the two lands for years to come.

Although the famous artist drawing it would take certain creative liberties with the accuracy of the occurring events.

Perhaps even a bit too much creative freedom by some accounts.

For the painting would show Alexander garbed in a regal white and purple tunic, sitting on an imposing throne surrounded by his retainers under a clear blue sky, as Philips approached him on a black horse dressed in pure white.

The colors depicted here would be very symbolic, with Alexander's purple denoting his imperial and victorious status.

The black horse that Philips came riding to meet Alexander symbolized the former's crushing defeat and the subsequent dismay.

While the color of his garb, white and pure expressed his hopes and dreams for a better future.

Alexander would admit such a picture was much better than the actual signing process, which was far less dramatic.

In reality, the signing of the treaty was conducted in a relatively modest manner with the scheduled event occurring one inconspicuous afternoon in the back courtyard of the royal palace to which Philips would come to attend dressed in a regal red and golden robe with a purple cumberbund, accompanied by only his younger brother.

There he would find a large ornate banquet table waiting for him in the middle of the field of greeny, golden sunlight of the summer afternoon dancing lightly onto it.

The huge mahogany table span was draped in a blue and green cloth, matching the color of Alexander's standard, while atop the table lay two beautifully leather bound red books, with an ink pot and quill on either side.

These 'books' were no doubt the treaty, with a copy for each side, ready to be signed.

"Good afternoon, Lord Pasha," Approaching the table, Philips quickly bowed to the man already present, finding himself to be already in his place, sitting across the table, dressed in a flamboyant, red and gold ceremonial armor with beautiful and intricate patterns etched into them.

And accompanying him would around 20 or so nobles, all too dressed immaculately, as well another 20 to 30 accompanying guards, all huddled around his side of the table, eagerly waiting for the signing.

And when compared to Alexander's boisterous entourage, Philips's sum total of merely 2, he and his brother, really stood like a sore thumb, making their 'lack of volume' for a sorry sight, with Alexander even muttering the words, 'shaved' and 'naked' to metaphorically describe the man.

In these times, typically men of even modest renown would have an entourage of at least 10 people buzzing around him at any one time.

For instance, there was a proverb in Tibias that went somewhat like this- If your lawyer enters the courtroom with less than six slaves, then your case is already lost.

The origin of this proverb would be for another time, but the core idea was that in Tibian customs, there was a certain reverence over the number of 'people present'.

So it had been very well expected that Philips would come with his uncles and cousins as well as a lot of guards dressed in ceremonial armor.

But Philips himself did not see any point in doing any of this.

Regarding the soldiers, he had felt, what was the point?

If Alexander wanted to kill him, he would be dead before the sun could set.

As a matter of fact, in a type of UNO reversal, Philips felt that if he were to die, perhaps the one of have the greatest headache would be Alexander himself, as he would suddenly find himself out of a good, convenient pawn who would be able to keep the rest of the nobility in check.

As for his uncles and other males of the family, although it was tradition to bring such kin along, given Philips knew the kind of fate he was going to sign off on, the former Crown Prince simply felt he did not have the face to do such a thing, to invite them here and then make them watch how he personally dealt with them.

That would have been too cruel.

Although in quite anthesis to his intentions, Philips's very actions had already alerted the men to such an inevitability/

Because the contents of Alexander's offer had been already leaked to some of Philips's uncles and cousins, courtesy of some still loyal Tibian nobles who were allowed to attend some of his Alexander's meetings.

And hearing their to be assigned fate sought to instantly gain confirmation with Philips.

To which for a time Philips decided the best of course was simply to avoid them, making up various excuses to not see them.

Busy. Illness. Meeting someone else.

Philips tried all the old tricks in the book.

But how were his uncles, veteran politicians themselves, going to let him go so easily?

Thus one day, with the help of the Queen who too wanted to know the truth, they at last managed to corner him.

They in a hushed terrifying voice had asked,

"Philips! Are they telling the truth! That we are going to be turned to commoners? Surely you cannot have agreed to this could you?"

Philips had not seen his youngest uncle, look so terrified in his life.

Not even they were going to war.

It was very apparent that the man felt very longingly about his status.

"No! Of course not!" While the former Crown Prince suddenly found that when he was pushed against the corner to be expertly lying just like he had done with mother, quickly calming the members of the branch family down with a fierce retort,

"Where did you hear all these garbage? This is all just rumor! Nothing has been agreed upon. The Zanzan pasha just wanted us to pay a large amount of war indemnity, something which would force us to sell a lot of our properties."

And then ended with the promise and confident smile,

"But I vehemently protested. So we are currently in the process of discussing new terms. Do not worry, I will never let anything happen to any of us."

It had torn Philips's heart to say these blatant lies, and shattered it when he saw the relieved face of the other side, who then reassuringly tapped across his shoulders and chuckled,

"Hahaha, I knew nephew would not let us down."

But what choice did Philips have?

Now, there were some of his more willy uncles who did not buy Philips's explanation so easily.

With one of them even suggesting to Philips directly, "Nephew! Why don't you let us accompany you to your next meeting with Lord Alexander? Help add some more voices to yours! Perhaps we can be of also some other assistance."

While his real intention was to of course eavesdrop.

But this sort of weak trap could naturally never stump Philips who simply produced the excuse,

"I'm sorry, that is not up to me to decide uncle. The Pasha only invites me personally to meet with him. Not even Perikles is allowed to come. So if you want to come, you will have to obtain his permission."

Thus blocked on that front, they then instead tried to seek the veracity of it their own way.

But quickly found that it was too difficult to accomplish.

The current royal palace was no longer their once oyster, and so trying to use their previous contacts to get something proved very hard, especially given that many of them were dead!

Then there was the simple fact that there was nobody who actually knew the true agreed upon terms for Alexander had kept the deal with Philips largely to his own, not even letting the members of his own inner circle in on it.

It was because he did not think this no longer concerned them.

They already had their say.

And facing this hurdle and maddened with seemingly no way out, some of Philips's more daring uncles had even tried to approach Alexander, wishing to offer their services to him.

But Alexander was not interested and so Hemicus made sure these annoying flies would not get within a hundred feet of Alexander.

Hence, they were really kept in mostly the dark until Philips was invited to sit beside Alexander and the duo opened the treaty together, following which the terms of the treaty were read aloud by a herald there.

"Does anyone have any objections?" And this messenger ended his piece with this query.

This you would guess would open the floodgates for petitions from those branch family members, pleading for Alexander to reconsider.

But other than some sighs and regretful shakes of the head, there was nothing but a tacit nod of approval from the crowd around.

For those members had not even been invited to this event.

It would be a whole few hours until they would be made aware of their fate, at the same time of which Alexander and Philips would be attending the subsequent celebration party, eating and drinking happily, and even toasting,

"Haha! To a better future!"

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