Herald of Steel

The pagan traditions of marriage and inheritance were a major source of conflict between Matrak and Bahu. One side could not stand it, while the other side did nothing to stop it, but nurtured and grew it.

Matrak did not follow the laws of inheritance as written in their faith, but let the people divide their children and lands as they liked.

For example, right now, in those villages that followed the practise of their forefathers; instead of women belonging to a certain man, they belonged to all the men in the family, with the responsibility of taking care of them falling on every male.

This change was done to decrease the cost of childbearing for each individual man so that sudden pregnancies did not suddenly cripple one.

As for determining the matter of who was the father, well like before they were not that concerned.

Now, the men claimed children depending on their rank in the family. So the eldest brother would always claim the first son born by one of the women as his own regardless of whose child it actually was. Then the second brother would take the next son, the third the next and so on, until everyone had a son and the count restarted.

While the daughters would belong to their mother, the one who birth to them, but all the men would be her father. If the girl clearly looked like one of the men, it would be said his spirit was in her and thus she would call him in Azhak a word that could be roughly translated to ‘Main father’… although this was a rough translation.

Otherwise, over time, one of the men would usually take the girl under his wing and represent himself as the official father figure.

These kinds of things happening in Matrak were by now also open knowledge, with even many of the Ramuh priests, the ones responsible for rooting out this practice also partaking in them. After all, many of them were locals and thus brought up in such an environment. These people were only required to not show it too openly as that would reflect too poorly on the entire clergy.

As for the ruling nobles, of course they were also involved! How could they not also take advantage of such a thing… especially when they were the ones responsible for truly nurturing this?

Many hosted large parties with friends and family that were quite eye opening for any outsider, causing them to see novel sights they did not think even existed under this blue sky.

The only silver lining here was that they were at least more reserved than the common peasantry in their airing their dirty laundry. For example, when they visited their brother’s house, they did not freely have all the women there but restricted themselves to only the concubines. And even then, it was polite to ask for permission first.

They also did not touch unmarried ladies of the house as well as their father’s and uncle’s women, seeing them as off limits.

However for some reason, some noble houses did not see any problem with nephews and aunts getting intimate, even viewing it as a celebratory ritual.

Their belief was that a boy should be guided through the challenges of puberty by an experienced, motherly figure to avoid any ill happenings. And who was better than an aunt for that?

Thus it was common for many Matrak noblemen to have a special love for one of their mature, beautiful aunts.

But such practices caused great problems for Bahu as those that were being persecuted for this practice in their territory would migrate and take refuse in Matrak, growing in number and strength, before coming back to try and subvert the current state of their homeland.

In this, all calls for Matrak from Pasha of Bahu to do something about it also fell on deaf ears.

Both because Pasha Farzah disliked Bahu’s approach and also because it was such a core principle of their society that there was no way to stop it without outright rebellion.

Heck, many nobles were known to salivate after their father’s women, knowing their family laws allowed them to inherit their father’s women after he died. So were they going to stop this immoral act without fearing great force?

Hence both sides existed in limbo, with Pasha Farzah accusing Bahu of being too cruel and unreasonable, and even betraying his prior ancestors, while the Pasha of Bahu’s retaliatory remarks went even further, as far as to openly claim in the Royal court that Matrakians were not really believers of the ‘Father’ and should all be burnt at the stake as heretics.

As for the crown’s response to this, well even during the reign of Ptolomy’s father, this had caused quite a headache for the all powerful god king.

First of all, such acts were hardly that brow raising in the man’s eyes. The noblemen of Adhan too did similar things and thus in that aspect, everyone did think the Pasha of Bahu was indeed a bit too pure in his following.

Secondly, these acts involving marriage was only one of many pagan rituals still followed by Matrak. There were many many more such examples.

Thus forcing them to change their way down to the last detail was basically impossible. It would require a full fledged crusade involving multiple provinces and the occupation and subjugation of the place for decades.

Eschewing the feasibility of taking on the most powerful province, there was not even the slightest appetite for such an extreme endeavor thing in the whole court.

After all, Matrak was openly very loyal.

They bent the knee to the crown, followed the temple’s order as best as they could, and paid their tithes on time, the most out of all the provinces if one may add.

Not to mention, the territory had the valuable task of defending the country’s most dangerous border. Something the ruling elite had been able to accomplish for centuries.

So to remove such a huge group of millions just for someone a bit more ideologically aligned… the mad king might have been mad but he was no idiot.

Thus it was the Pasha of Bahu who was blamed for causing trouble by the former king, and ordered to fully cooperate with Matrak in repelling the northern barbarians, which conversely made the Lord of Bahu very aggrieved.

Relations became quite poor with Matrak following this.

And then, after a while, words started to reach Pasha Farzah that the burning of Lady Laila was influenced by Pasha of Bahu calling her a heretic thus instigating the drunk, mad king.

This virtually shattered any semblance of goodwill between the two powers.

Lastly, after Pasha Farzah deposed the god king and took control of the court, there was nothing left but hatred.

It was said the zealous Pasha of Bahu had nearly lost his mind when he received the news and the only reason he did not declare war on Matrak right there and then was because he was not confident he could win.

Hence it could be imagined just how thin a string with which peace was currently being held.

The eldest son, Mirzah had to stay in Matrak to guard against that very real threat.

And that was the reason Lady Inayah had sent the Queen Mother that peculiar look, covertly asking for her permission to reveal this to Alexander.

But Seelima found the man was already irritated with the state he found the capital and royal to be in. Piling on even more bad news risked upsetting even more. Besides, it was not like Alexander could do anything about it anyway.

Hence the royal queen would reserve this entire piece for a later time, and instead let Lady Inayah continue to introduce Pasha Farzah’s lineage,

“After Mirzah, the next two boys are from Pasha Farzah’s mistresses. Unfortunately, they are generally quite mediocre by all standards, having little intellect or martial prowess. One of them loves to write poetry and spends his entire day in the library with his friends, ignoring everything else.

While the other is a waste of a playboy, drinking and sleeping around all his day.”

The disdain in Lady Inayah’s voice became particularly pronounced as she introduced the third son, dismissing both of them with a brush of her palms,

“Both are not worth discussing for the matter at hand. They have little influence in their family and even their wives are only daughters of some small local noblemen.”

“There was a fourth son from one of Pasha Farzah’s wives but he died falling from a horse riding accident. And lastly there is Kayvan, whom you have already met. He is from Pasha Farzah’s youngest wife, and the boy is quite clever. He shows some promise and his maternal family is also quite similar to Pasha Farzah’s official wife.”

“Perhaps that is why Pasha Farzah has pinned his hopes on him… but the trouble is… Mirzah is far more clever and already far too accomplished. I do not see any possible way how the young cub can compete.” Lady Inayah at last sighed with a rueful shake of her head.

“Oh… by the way, Mikaya’s mother is actually a concubine, not a wife.” Then she, feeling as if she had forgotten something, the lady suddenly chirped up to add this last bit, her face finally glowing up with glee a bit as he introduced her.

“She was brought to him as a slave, but Pasha Farzah chose to favor her. It is seven aid currently she is his favorite.”