I’m very confused about this whole situation, very confused. When the High Priest said to raid some island called “Tatuí” nobody knew what he was talking about. The worst part is he acting like we all should know the place!

When he realized that only he knew about the place and nobody else had even heard about it, he got so red from angry that I thought that his head was going to explode. The king secretary acted before he started yelling and asked for a map of the peninsula to be brought.

Unfortunate, all that Cumulus had informed in the oracle was the name of the island and some vague information about the location. There are thousands of islands close to us and every person has a different name for each of them. Searching for a island just by name is impossible.

What is he expecting of us? To go in each one and ask what is the name of the place? Many places have the same name, would we need to destroy and colonize every single one? By the name, the inhabitants are Iberian’s, they are a loose confederation of clans that spend most of their time fighting each other.

Their homeland is a bit far from us and they wouldn’t care if we conquered one or two islands that are inhabitants by a very distant kin. But to destroy a few dozen while murdering every single person for religious reasons? Their priests would be demanding a holy war to destroy us!

Honor and fear of loosing divine grace would demand some form of retaliation. They are too far to attack us by land, but they are very good pirates, our coast would be in dangerous of constants raids, in addition to the losses of lives and property, the commercial and diplomatic consequences would be dire.

Even the most loyal of our allies would demand some form of compensation and our enemies would have the perfect time to make a alliance with them and attack us by land while we are busy protecting our coast. We would be surrounded by enemies while having discouraged or downright hostile allies. The war would be over in a matter of months.

When everyone in the room was yelling, the weirdest thing in my life happened. The High Priest put his arms close to the map and light start coming out from his eyes when he put his finger on a island on the map while saying with a voice that could be heard throughout the palace.

- “HERE”.

He fell immediately after doing that. But in my mind, there is no more doubt that we are going to got to that island and murder ever person there. Before any more useless yelling starts, I decided to intervene.

-“ Cumulus has spoken, now is up to us to act in his name, since the High Priest is in no position to speak I recommend that we adjourn the meeting till tomorrow. Meanwhile I believe we should talk to some sea captains to see if they know the island and if they have strong defenses and how many armed men exist there to have a better understand of the situation for tomorrow meting”.

For the first time in my life a royal meeting ends with every single member agreeing on something. But then again, old men tend do despite anything that can change the status quo. They would never let the opportunity to postpone a decision that may change the status quo, even by a few minutes much less a day.

It still took a few hours of useless talking to actually get the vote done, but every man need to speak his mind about the subject and most important of all, to show that they have the right to speak. As more powerful a man gets, more he sees the need to use that power in every opportunity, no matter how petty.

Most of the comments are complete unnecessary, but Samorix did make a important point that may be of our interest to invited the members of the Etruscan Alliance to the mission. Not sure if there are going to be interested on participation, but it’s important to show that we are not planning to start a war without their consent.

They will probably not believe that we are doing this out of piety. Unfortunately, unless Camulus decide to give a lot more oracles there is nothing that we can do to prove the true reason for this Holy War.

The meeting ended with a very long speech made by the King; I finally leave the royal palace after picking my lictors in front of the palace. It’s close to sun down but the streets are still full of people, I would like to go home immediately and considerer my options.

But I need to spend a lot of time greeting people and making sure that everybody is seeing me very relaxed, like it’s just another day. Can’t let the mass see weakness or they could be manipulating by my enemies.

I arrived at home when the moon is started to show in the sky. When I’m going to say to my secretary to serve dinner in my office, since I need to think in solitude and I’m starving. I see my wife and mother siting on the atrium and drinking wine in silence while looking at a map in the table.

- “You finally arrived, I started to think you would be dinning in one of your clients. No that I blame you, the quality of the wine and food here is just abysmal. In your position I would be always looking for an excuse to dinner elsewhere.”

As usual mother dosen’t lost a opportunity to insult Catta hospitably. Wealthy women take very seriously any attack to the quality of their houses, servants, food and family.

Sleeping with her husband is no reason to break a friendship, but insulting the decor of her house? She will be her sworn enemy.

- “For someone who dosen’t like my wines, you try very hard to drinking my whole cellar.”

- “Well my dear, the wine may be of terrible quality but is good enough for me to get drunk enough to deal with you”.

By the Gods, every time they are in the same room is the same thing. Can’t they be act civilized for just once? It’s to much for ask? I don’t bother entering the conversation and go see what kind of map they are looking.

I sit at the table and see the map of the peninsula with Tatuí Island in a red circle. As expected, the Holy War must be the talk of the city. But I’m still amazed of how fast these two can work when they try.

- “We need to send for a navigator to see if he knows where this place is.”

- “You know my son, you and the rest of council expend the whole day talking and didn’t even bother to send for a specialist. I wonder what you people did duration the meeting.”

- “Probably talking about their mistress, wine and horses and completely forgetting about the real reason for the meeting.”

Great, to criticize me they are best friends in the whole world.

- “So I imagined that you two already called for one? Not that matters much, there is not a single large island in the place. Most of them only have small hamlets that people live like animals. A dozen of armed man is more then enough to conquer any of the island’s. The most important thing is to prepare the politic ground and protect us from our allies and enemies.”

- “That’s where you are wrong my dear, we asked for the navigator of the Dancing Fool, very stupid name for a war ship by the way. And you know the place, it’s your rest stop when raiding, we need to consider the implications for that. Never a good idea to let our enemies to think that we have any deals with heretics.”

- “That shit hole!?”

- “Language honey, we had this talk before, since we have children now we must be careful with our language, can’t let our son end up like you with a foul mouth.”

-He had the best education that money can buy and a very good environment when growing up. He only started to swear when he married and start to drink and eat like a very poor sailor while living in a mud hut.”

- “Good environment? Seeing his father sleeping with anything that had a hole? Seeing his mother dressing like a very cheap whore? It’s a miracle that he didn’t end up worst then he is now!”

-“Well my dear, some people have beautiful bodies and like to show off. Not that you would understand.”

-Enough! You two can have this fight later, we need to prepare for any kind of argument that people could use against me for going regularly there. Not that I can understand what they did to deserve an oracle to be destroyed. The place is pretty common, I don’t remember nothing out of the ordinary there.”

- “It’s not like they would do human sacrifices or other nefarious acts in front of you. And I’ve already talk to your mother about it, there are already people gossiping in the street about how you didn’t know the existence let alone visited the place. There will be rumors, but there are always rumors, but people tend to believe in the first thing they heard. Bring food and drinks to the Dominos”

Some food and wine are put in front of me and I remember how hungry I’m and start to devour. The food as usual is delicious, and I would be angry if wasn’t, the price I bought the chef was the same as a set of armor a very expensive set of armor. I thought it was a waste of the money back then, but Catta wanted and for peace at home I decides to just buy.

The only reason that my mother complain is because she loves to complain. Deep down I think she likes Catta. Not that I would tell them, but in many ways, there are very similar, maybe that’s the reason they fight so much.

Now that I stop to think, father was the one responsible for my weeding. There is the possibility that the bastard decided to make me suffer just like him, I wouldn’t put such petty act behind him or maybe all woman from senatorial family are like that. They just change their names.

After finishing eating, I go back to start looking at the map. If the island that I used to visit is the one that I need to attack, the operation will be smooth. There is only one hamlet in the place and is very small. A morning raid will be enough to deal with them.

- “I’m trying very hard to destroy his habits of eating like a dog. But is very hard to teach an old dog new trick.”

- “Don’t even think about blaming me. When I delivery him for you he was a well educated gentleman. It was your bad influence that make him be like this. Like most man he acts like a very rude animal without a strong hand around his neck.”

- “Like you have the moral ground to say that. Have you ever seeing your husband? He is not exactly a paragon of virtue.”

- “But I never bothered to try to change him. Would take to much of my precious time and I have better things to do. Like for example making sure that the right people accompany my son in such a important expedition. We need to milk this as much as we can.”

Here we go, I’m surprised that took so long to demand that I put her minions in the expedition. A holy war against a very week enemy is a perfect chance to win some glory without running the risk of losing your life.

A lot of senatorial families will want their kids on the boat. The Dancing Fool is a big ship, but not big enough for every single scion of a great family. And a good portion of the crew need to be people that can actually do a job without a legion of slaves and freedmen, meaning that won’t be that many spots.

-“The royal council will want a say on the name of the crew and father will not loose the opportunity of getting some of his loyalist in the mission to pay some debts.”

- “That’s why you need to make sure to remember everyone that the ship is your fief. I was angry when that fool gave you the position so he could keep you away good part of the year. But now there is a opportunity to leave the position for better things, but for that we need every spot in the boat.”

- “Your mother is right; he gave to you the command of navy assets outside of the kingdom. We need to leverage that to put our people, not your mother’s minions, our people, to get as many benefits as possible.”

- “My dear, my people are my son people. Besides, let’s say that a lot of your so called allies are too connect to your family and tend to hedge their bets, they will never put everything on his behalf.”

- “Like you have the right to say something like that!”

Even my clients hedge their bets, nobody is loyal to the death nowadays. But I need to think how many places I can give. Since there will be no navy battle I can put more people than usual on the deck, it will be cramped and the boat will sail like a drunk sailor walking, but it is possible.

-“I need to think a little about the number, but I will try to give some spots to your people, don’t make to many promises. Even if it’s my fiefdom I will need to compromise with some people. I can guarantee 10 people, 5 for each.”

Neither look happy about the number, both will complain later that as my wife/mother they should have more positions. But I need some places for my own people and if a have their way I will sail with a boat full of useless but well connect people and the ship will sicken for being overweight without a single professional sailor.

We continue to discuss for hours about who we need to take and how to leverage the situation to get me a better position later. I would love to use this as a excuse to build more ships. But the place is too easy to conquer to convince the people of the necessity of building more ships.

But since we are building a colony over there, we will need more ships to protect the place. I don’t think I can get a trireme, but some smaller ships are possible and I can use the crew later for bigger ships.

Yes, using the smaller ships to train people sounds like a very good option. When we started to build the big ones we most have a cadre to serve as backbone for as many ships as possible.

When we finally decided about what to do is very late and mother lives escorted by a small army of slaves. I would love to take a bath after such a long day but the public baths are closed and the small tub that we have here would take to long to heat the water.

So I decided to just have a slave give me a oil massage to clean the excess of dirty, so Catta won’t complain about sleeping with a dirty sailor.

When I enter my room Catta is already read for bed. She is wearing some ridiculous white powder mask that she is sure that will give her a better skin in the morning. I just think that some quack is making a fortune selling fake product to wealthy people with to much money and fear of looking old.

-“ I can’t believe that you always take your mother side instead of my! We should hire some good doctor to cut your bilical cord.”

-“You know we need her. By given some concessions she won’t sabotage us. You know that she is petty enough for that.”

-“Then you should give me more positions! I’m your wife and mother of your son! That would show her who the future Queen is!”

I knew it that’s the real reason for her angry. She is creating her own power base and for every thing that my mother gets her base gets smaller. It always about power. I consider to try to explain how things work but she knows better then me, it will only make things worst.

So I decide in the better course of action and try to kiss her, but she stops my head with her hands.

-“Not in the moon right now, too tired.”

-“But you promised this morning!”

-I have a headache because of your mother, good night.”

Then she immediately lies down in the bed and close her eyes, making sure to stay as far away as possible from my side of the bed. Work like a charm every time, when she is angry, all that I need to do is ask for sex and she will deny and pretend to be sleep.

While getting in the bed I start to wonder what those poor bastards did in that island to deserve to be exterminate. I will probably discover in the spring.