The questions that many of the more ambivalent nobles asked their fellow men belonging to Ptolomy's faction covered a whole range of topics, from whether the palace guards really did kill many of the nobles, to the details regarding the country opening up, to even the extent of how solid was Alexander's promises of safety if they stayed neutral.
And all these questions were very broad and penetrating too.
To which the people being asked such inquiries each reacted differently.
The truth was none of them also knew that Alexander was going to make these offers, and so they themselves were almost as flummoxed as the people asking them.
Thus some responded truthfully and said they did not know, some winged it with their own interpretations and addendums, and some simply exaggerated everything, parroting what Alexander said but dialed a few notches higher.
While the small group that Alexander himself joined, consisting of the top leaders such as Ptolomy himself, Pasha Farzah, the Queen Mother, and Lady Inayah's father, and lastly the new grand priest of Adhan whom Alexander had only officially met today, an old man named Ollosh.
And as soon as he joined, the old man jumped up to say, "My lord, that offer! You could have at least confided us in a bit!"
Here he was of course referring to Alexander offering to give Amenheraft the control of the grand temple in exchange for peace.
And the reason for him reacting so strongly was naturally because that was currently his position.
"That's right! Making so many absurd demands! Are you drunk?" And seeing his lackey bite, the master so joined the fray, as Ptolomy glared at Alexander with a hiss.
While Alexander put on a placid face, swearing to himself inside, '*Sigh*, it is so hard to live with idiots.'
It seemed the reason for him doing as he did went above these two's heads.
But fortunately for him, there were at least some intelligent people in Ptolomy's council too, such as the Queen Mother, who stepped forward to gently chide Ptolomy, saying, "Now, now, Your Majesty, Lord Alexander surely had his reasons for doing what he did. Let us not be too harsh on him," before her voice turned all flirtatious and charming, as she whispered into the man's ears, "I will tell you all about in bed."
As the mature woman did this, Alexander could see Ptolomy's face visibly turn soft, his anger dissolving like butter into nothingness, as a red hue flushed across his face.
As soon as Ptolomy heard this promise, the man could care less about what Alexander said or did, for his head was only filled with the thought of what fun times lay ahead of him.
In fact, as the Queen Mother made the open remake, Ptolomy even wished to close the party then and there so as to start the happy times as soon as possible.
It appeared Seelima had truly Ptolomy wrapped in her fingers.
And seeing this, Alexander was perfectly okay with it for the time being, because according to him, having a puppet king under the spell of a sorceress was sometimes far better than having an uncontrollable manchild lead you.
Especially if that sorceress was on your side for the time being.
And so sending a grateful nod to Queen Mother, feeling relieved that he would not need to explain his play at a party where there were prying ears everywhere, he decided to move on to mingle a bit more with the crowd.
While at the same time, Amenheraft's advisors were busy discussing that very speech.
Because though the move might have gone unnoticed by the childish Ptolomy, it certainly did not escape the far shrewder Amenheraft.
"Is he really a slave!" The regal man clenched his teeth as he swore.
This was the first time in his life that the man was thrashed so badly in a verbal exchange and in front of so many nobles for that matter.
He felt humiliated like no other.
And it particularly stung him because in his previous years as the crown prince, and then the king, no one had ever dared to speak to him as such.
So he was in a very bad mood indeed and even chose to exit the party shortly after without much notice.
Amenheraft felt that just today's event was enough to make him fight to the death.
And as Amenheraft left, sensing their leader's foul temper, his retainers did not urge him to stay and simply left him to his own devices that night.
But they did meet up over the following days, their main topic being how to counter Alexander's last speech.
Because that had not only damaged Amenheraft's reputation by openly revealing some of Amenheraft's strategic mistakes, but also gave may nobles an incentive to stay out of the fight.
So the opposing side went into crisis control mode, calling their members and explaining many of the criticism Alexander had laid bare, and giving their own spin to the story.
While also promising various monetary and political benefits, such as land and booty of other nobles to urge their nobles to fight.
This aggressive stance was taken because the conclusion Amenheraft and Co. reached was that Ptolomy's side was weak and desperately wanted some peace.
This was indeed true, particularly in the case of Alexander, who wanted some time time to grow and more preferably goggle-up parts, if not the whole of Tibias without being distracted.
So naturally the tactic that Amenheraft's group came up with was to deny the opponent just that.
Hence the offers.
As to how effective either side's strategies would be, be it Alexander's urging for nobles to stay neutral and prosper or Amenheraft's urging to fight and grow, that remained to be seen based on how both sides implemented their plans.
While Amenheraft's people focused their effort on that, Alexander was busy with his own stuff.
Among which first and foremost was receiving a call to a meeting the very next morning of the party by the Queen Mother.
Because if Alexander thought he could get away scot-free without any chastisement, he was grossly mistaken.
Although Ptolomy did not care to hold Alexander afterward as the man simply forgot about the whole thing, the other did not, as Alexander entered the room to find Queen Mother and Pasha Farzah sitting.
There the mature woman angrily hissed, "If you are gonna make such out-of-the-blue announcements, tell us about it before, would you! What do you take us for?"
"And who do you think you are? Making promises left and right!"
Although the Queen Mother had not shown it at the party, she was indeed peeved at Alexander going all solo.
To which Alexander simply chuckled and apologized, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I never thought I would get the chance to say those things."
"So when I did, I went a bit too far, haha."
But Alexander did not at all sound sorry, and seeing the man slouching opposite to her, Seelima could only glare.
The fact was that Alexander's initial results were quite fortuitous as she, Pasha Farzah, and also Lord Iyazid were approached by many hopeful nobles to know the details of Alexander's promise.
Hence, with the good results on hand, the woman found it hard to back up her lambasting.
Thus, the Queen Mother simply let off Alexander with a slight warning to not do such things in the future.
Something that Alexander dutifully nodded to and even threw into the junk pile of his memory the next moment.
Because the real reason he had done so without consulting others was to show that even though he was not a part of Ptolomy'c court, he still had enough power to dictate many of its policies sometimes even arbitrarily.
But that did not mean the Queen Mother was out of tricks to punish Alexander.
Particularly, she plotted to have Alexander remain in the capital with the excuse of heading the creation of the list of benefits Alexander himself had alluded to.
And since it was his idea, Seelima was confident that Alexander would not be able to say no.
So the Queen Mother got to work working on that.
While for Alexander, over the next few days, he was busy mutually exchanging gifts with the other nobles, in order to build up trust and friendship among each other as per Adhania's custom.
Here Alexander showcased a lot of his own new products and got quite a few favorable responses.
And then, under Pasha Farzah and Lord Iyazid's guidance, he began to have trade talks with some of them, particularly the ones that the two nobles recommended based on the individual's allegiance and previous record of trustworthiness.
And since most of them had already been convinced by Pasha Farzah and even Lady Inayah beforehand, the talks were quite smooth.
There was no Alexander hitting an unexpected brick wall where a noble pretended to be outwardly courteous to Alexander but then did not seem to want to associate with him due to a variety of reasons, such as race and or status.
With these talks underway, Alxx also sat down with Ptolomy regarding the topic of various technology transfers in exchange for some privileges such as mining the ropals, as well as his idea of arming the northern barbarians.
And just as when the talks were going somewhere, just as Alexander was getting to the meat of trying to convince Ptolomy, all those talks suddenly came to a screeching halt with the arrival of two birds.
Cambyses's message had finally arrived.
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