Herald of Steel

Visiting the slave market did make Alexander a bit emotional, bringing up many lost memories.

Once he too was inside those fences.

And there was once a time he would have given almost anything to be just a freeman.

Not even a citizen, but a freeman.

Bnt by the machinations of fate, somehow he had become someone who these people coming to buy the slaves could only look up in awe and reverence. 

Far from a weak slave, now he was perhaps one of the most powerful men in not just Adhanaia, but in the whole region, and the realization of so made Alexander a bit wistful.

Oh, how the table had turned.

Alexander thought about such as he walked along the narrow lanes flanked by penned enclosures on both sides, where the men were being bought and sold.

These men had mostly listless faces and the reason for it was not only because they were about to be made slaves.

It was perhaps more so because many still had relatives who came to see them every day, but most of the time this meeting only ended up in tears, for they were unable to raise the ransom to free them.

Or sometimes they would only afford one, perhaps one among many brothers or the husband or the son.

Such choices should have been agonizing for anyone.

And even if they were freed, the celebratory hugs and happiness were many times short lived, for the price paid was many times too much.

Using up all their saving, selling off their house and property, or worse borrowing from loan sharks. 

All those were dreadful costs.

Especially the last one, as it was very common for people to be not able to pay back their loans and that would mean switching one slave master for another for the ransomed.

But people still did it, to avoid becoming slaves.

While others tried to find a far more creative method.

Given Alexander's reduced price, the family members would get some wealthy individual to sponsor them, promising to either pay them back or have the ransomed man serve them for a designated time period, the exact details varying case by case, though generally, the conditions would not be too harsh for this kind of deal given Alexander promised them freedom after five years.

And this way the family members could rest assured, knowing where their loved one lived and what kind of master they were under.

After all, these people had no idea what kind of a master Alexander was or what he was going to make these prisoners do.

And it was also something these rich folks would be happy to do given they would be able to get a good slave at a cheap price. 

So this way, the man would be officially ransomed but in reality he would be a slave for that wealthy patron for a few years.

It was a good strategy, with the only hard part being knowing a wealthy family.

And lastly, there was another strategy.

That was a wealthy family or patron approaching these captured men, offering to buy them for a period of indenture.

But this last tactic was easier said than done.

Alexander strictly forbade such profiteering so it was not like you could simply pay the 2,500 roplas and ransom someone.

If that was possible, it would be easy for a rich noble to buy up huge quantities of his 'relatives' in one shot, while turning them into slaves surreptitiously.

That would defeat the point of giving the people a chance to buy their relatives.

Hence all such sale records were meticulously documented, including the name and address of the purchaser, and when paying the ransom the buyer even had to show proof of knowing the slave.

Most of the time it only involved knowing the name of the slave prior, but other times it might require showing a unique item like a ring.

And besides, the slavers around there were no green men, they had been doing this job for decades and the vast amount of human interaction let them develop a sixth sense where they knew when a man genuinely recognized someone or was just faking it.

So at best, these rich families were only able to swindle one or two slaves away, hardly worth the risk for most.

Hence mostly the ones who did this were rich, widowed women or widower men with a particular taste, who wanted good strong men, like one fit to be soldiers.

For what you ask- well aside from doing all the hard work, and keeping watch over the house, what else?

And since as mentioned before a slave market like this was not suitable for a woman to visit, they would send their servants to try and find some suitable toys for themselves. 

Alexander got all such reports from various sources and let them happen as long as the amount of purchase was not too outrageous.

The effort that would take to stop each and every one of these attempts was too much.

So instead he had decreed that the first week the men could not be bought, but only ransomed and freed.

This would not only stymie such practices but also give the captured's relatives enough time to raise the required money and even locate their man among all others.

After all, finding that one man among 15,000 to 20,000 was no easy feat, especially since many did not even know if their loved one was alive or slain in battle.

As for the current timeline when Alexander was touring the market, well as of now the sale of the slaves was going on for two weeks.

And though Alexander promised to buy all unsold slaves, he was forced to backtrack a bit on that.

And the reason for this was the unexpectedly low ransomed numbers.

Alexander had 15,000 to 20,000 in his captivity, the reason for this being a range and not an exact number due to the fact that the prisoners were being held by a lot of individuals, many of whom had incentives to underreport to Alexander, in order to sell the remaining secretly at a much greater profit.

So when Alexander read the official number to be 16,000, he took it to mean that in reality, it was really 20,000.

And based on that, he had expected at least 5,000 would be freed.

But after the week, only around 2,000 were able to raise the money.

This came as a shock to Alexander, as learning of this he even commented, 'Tibians are poorer than expected.' 

Though perhaps he forgot how his army had robbed them blind.

Anyway, this was bad news for him.

For although he would have loved to buy those 13,000 to 18,000 for himself, not only the price tag of around 70 to 90 million ropals be huge, even straining his coffers, but as some of his retainers pointed out, this would leave the lands around Thesalie too vacant.

The city had already lost a lot of men in the battle, and if Alexander were to take so many off top of that, then there might not simply be enough men to even work the fields here.

And without enough food, Alexander would simply be waiting for a disaster to happen.

So he decided to sell around 5,000 men in the open market.

However that solution came with its own set of problems.

It mainly had to do with fulfilling his promise of giving the prisoners their freedom after five years.

If anyone could buy them, there was a great chance some would be taken to distant lands, perhaps to even different countries.

After all, Alexander's slave sale was very big, and knowing of his accomplishments, not only wealthy individuals from the areas surrounding Thesalie, but even many neutral nobles who lived near the border of the two countries came to see him, both to offer their congratulations, as well as to peruse the wares.

If these people were to purchase them, tracking them would be impossible. 

In fact, Alexander knew such clandestine deals that already happened to a limited existed.

And it was not even among nobles and the traders but among Tibians themselves.

Alexander knew that after his victory against Lord Ponticus, many of the people from nearby villages, who had come to him to seek refuge, too aid in the capture of some of the escaping soldiers.

And many times the slave traders would gift one or two of those captured men as reward for their services. 

Really capturing one's fellow countrymen who fought for your freedom as a slave, Alexander did not know if he should be happy for these people's help or sneer at disdain at their behavior.

But anyway, this was another reason Alexander assumed the number captured in a range.

Due to all this, after thinking about it for a while. Alexander decided to only out those men that came with the reinforcements Lord Theony brought up for sale.

That way the people of Thesalie would be least affected, and after five years there would be no widow or orphan coming to him begging him to release their kin.

It might have been a cruel fate for those unlucky few, but such was life.

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