Herald of Steel

As Philips and Alexander came to their agreement, Alexander felt the princess suddenly land her curious eyes on him, as if to see the man was destined to spend her life with.

And sensing the fresh set of eyes fall on him, Alexander at first tried to make some small talk with her. "By the way, how did you manage to escape your room yesterday?" He inquired.

"I tricked a passing maid into opening my room's door by saying someone had mistakenly locked me inside. And I got into the party by simply saying I was the princess." Came the straight answer.

At that specific time, her mother, Queen Parthia, had been in utter shock seeing her daughter's state, and her mind in total chaos over the presumed consequences.

Thus she was quickly left to find Philips at the party, consequently forgetting to station guards at the girl's room, and inadvertently letting the very thing she feared most occur- Camelia escaping.

"Smart!" Hearing the girl's resourcefulness Alexander sounded impressed, as he nodded, before clasping his palms together and saying,

"Now princess Camelia, I understand you seem a little dissatisfied with your status as a concubine. So let me offer you something to help soften her heart."

"I will give you a similar status as your sister. A wife! Just like you wanted!"

As Alexander dropped this, he then strategically paused to see the reaction and did notice the girl's eyes widen by a noticeable margin.

It was not exactly squeaking with joy, because Camelia's primary beef with Alexander was over something much more primal.

But one of the myriad reasons why Camelia hated Alexander's guts was indeed due to being offered such a low status.

So while this was still not enough for her to let Alexander go, at least it was a step in the right direction, and Alexander's generous offer did work to mollify some of her grievances.

The largest reactions however undoubtedly came from those around the princess.

Nautally both Philips and Queen Parthia cheered and thanked Alexander with wide smiles, while Alexander's two wives were stunned into silence.

The announcement seemed to particularly affect OP, whose beautiful face had gone seemingly ghostly pale and her lips started to quiver.

She could not believe this was happening.

It seemed like a nightmare to her.

And it took all her teaching from the temple about not interrupting her master to not just shout out in incredulity, 'What! Have you gone insane master!'

However, an instant later, much to her relief she heard Alexander add the following condition

"But since you have disobeyed your family and me, you will join me as my concubine. And I will make you my wife if you can remain faithful and obedient for 5 years."

Camelia was only fourteen and Alexander did not plan to bed her at least for 4 years.

So it was easy for Alexander to wait one more year, as she would be then nineteen, perhaps even approaching twenty.

"Does that sound reasonable to you?" Alexander thus finished by pointedly asking.

"*Nod*, Yes. I thank you for your generosity, Lord Pasha." And the princess finally appeared docile.

By this point, she had decided that there was no use pointlessly struggling here other than making a fool of herself.

So she decided to bury her hatred for Alexander over ruining her family's life and try and get her revenge some other way.

Who knows, if she earned his favor enough, she might be able to get close enough to poison him or even drive a dagger through his heart.

Camelia would be willing to do anything to avenge her father.

And although such thoughts might be quite normal to a modern audience, this was actually quite aberrant for the time.

Because people back then did not see life and death as modern people did.

The reason why Philips and Queen Parthia bowed to Alexander instead of fighting on till the death despite the latter having killed so many members of the royal family was because in their eyes this was simply the way things worked here around here.

Of course, they were sad by Alexander's actions, but they did not hate him for it.

Alexander was victorious and as such he had certain rights.

It was princess Camelia who was the odd one out here.

And such examples were a dime a dozen even in Alexander's previous life, with perhaps the most famous one being Genshin Khan, who was even reported to have said, 'A man's greatest pleasure was to take others wives and daughters.

The Great Khan regularly took concubines from his defeated foes into his harem.

And some of these concubines even rose to be quite influential in their own rights, such as the Princess of the Khwarazmian Empire, whose father had been brutally murdered by the Great Khan, and the inhabitants of her kingdom slaughtered down to the last man, with a literal pyramid using skulls built using them.

And even Mehmed II, after he took over Constantipole adopted The Byzantine Emperor's two sons and made them into his navy admirals, with no adverse consequences.

"Great!" And it was as such that Alexander remained completely oblivious to the hidden danger he was injecting himself with, and instead actually cheered the girl's acquiescence to his offer.

To him, princess Camelia simply appeared as an edgy, emo girl who had some bad things happen to her.

Thus driven by kindness, Alexander rejoiced at having finally convinced the men.

"Well then let us go over some basic rules you have to follow while you stay with me. Rules that will dictate whether you are being obedient or not" And then saying so, he quickly started to produce a sheet from one of his drawers, before passing it to the princess,

"Here, read this. These are the terms and conditions I wish you to follow."

Alexander had created this list just a while before meeting Philips as he anticipated a deal.

And fortunately for him, his effort did not appear to have been wasted.

Camelia took the thin leaf of paper with a deferential small tug and then started to scan the letter.

It read-

"Rule 1- You must never harm the Pasha, intend to harm the Pasha, encourage others to harm the Pasha, create an opportunity to harm Pasha, withhold knowledge that could potentially harm the Pasha, or not aid the Pasha while he is in danger.

Rule 2- You must never say anything to any kind of outside personnel (all people excluding the Pasha, and his four original main wives) regarding-

*Your relationship with the Pasha,

*What you do when you are with him,

*Describing the place you live in and how you spend your time

*And the other concubines and wives you meet and interact with.

Rule 3: You are not allowed to talk to the other concubines in any great detail about your intimate relations with the Pasha and what he confides to you. The only time you can do this is if you are given express permission to do so by the Pasha.

Rule 4: You must not have a relationship with any man other than the Pasha. You are not allowed to let any king, noble, citizen, free man, guard, servant, or slave touch you. Neither must you engage in any flirting or passing of messages to any man even if they are based in the harem. All communications with the outside world, except with the Pasha and his official wives must be done through a third party maid that will be assigned to you."

Rule 5: You must not have any kind of intimate relationship with any other concubine, neithermust you ever share a bed with another concubine unless the Pasha is also present or gives you his express permission."

Violations of any of these commandments will bear various degrees of reprisals, from scarcity of everyday necessities like food, warm clothes, and good room, to caning and whipping, to even the administration of the death penalty if the offense is deemed grave enough by the Pasha.!"

As the piece ended, one glaring thing readers might note here was how Alexander did not point to divorce or sending the concubine home to her father's place as a punishment.

And that of course intentional.

Because, one, concubines did not exactly get 'married' as they and their children did not have the same rights as married couples.

So you could not really divorce them.

And two because people of Alexander's high status rarely divorced.

Or more specifically gave divorce.

For it was seen as a very shameful thing for a man, like a loud, trumpet announcing to the whole world that he cannot control his woman.

Especially when that woman was a concubine whose status was usually low.

So a concubine's fate was either to spend the rest of her life with her master or pray that he released you after some years.

And in this case, Alexander wished to follow the customs of the time.

"Is there anything you do not understand? Or something you do not consent to?" After giving the princess some time to read, Alexander then produced this follow up query.

Shake, shake.

Camelia's reply was in gestures.

Nothing here was too overly restrictive, and so seeing this, Alexander finally decided to end the meeting here.

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