Herald of Steel

Adhania had businesses specialized in renting out horses for trips to specific cities, kind of like a rent a car.

And the procedure was also similarly quite simple- to get such a service, one just had to give his name and address and pay a part of the fee here and the rest to a branch in that other city upon reaching it.

That's it.

As for the risks of the business, such as the person simply running away with the horse, well that was the address was for.

If something happened, the owner could always come looking for the wife and children. The customer naturally had to swear an oath to do no intentional harm to the beast.

In addition, many of these horses were trained from birth for that specific route. So any attempt to divert it would be met with fierce resistance.

Sometimes they could even make their way back to their owner on their own.

So the business was not as risky as it might sound.

But, to reiterate, such services were only available between large, famous cities and still too expensive for most of the populace.

As Alexander recalled all this, he chimed, 'I should also start a horse drawn bus service. Maybe once or twice a day between the large cities. And also a postal service. Like the Romans or Mongols had.'

...

These would be his main takeaways as Alexander moved from the western district to the northern part- the place that used to be the slums and poor corner of the city.

Being closest to the northern gates, it was designed such that the city's lowest should be the farthest from the others, and perhaps in an extremely cynical move, even act as a kind of meat shield should an army ever breach its walls.

Alexander had tried his best to remove much of the squalor, such as by removing the slums and replacing them with proper wooden houses and makeshift toilets, but still, the signs left by centuries of being in such a dismal state were hardly so easy to erase.

The streets were noticeably narrow despite being renovated as many homeless vagrants made a part of it their abode, and alongside them, many new precariously built shanty towns were slowly beginning to prop up, constructed of wood and brick.

The main issue was still the overpopulation and housing crisis, with many poorer folk finding it difficult to get anything better.

Now, there was no doubt that their lives had definitely improved when compared to times they were under Pasha Muazz, but they were still a lot lacking, thus forced to huddle in cramped, poorly ventilated, and highly unsanitary conditions.

The various filth littering the newly constructed roads amply proved that last point.

Alexander did not even want to guess that some of those black lumps of strange smelling sludge were- just the mere sight was enough to make him retch.

Usually, there was a fine for such illegal dumping but clearly, the magistrates were not doing their jobs properly.

Or perhaps, looking at the malnourished folks, Alexander guessed the much more probable answer was that these poor folks simply had no money to pay these fines.

So what were the magistrates to do, throw them in jail? How many?

Given the extent of 'littering', he would have to put not insignificant part of the district behind bars.

Clearly, such a thing was impractical.

So given it was the people living around here causing the mess and they themselves reaping the consequence, the magistrates simply gave up on them and let them be.

...

Alexander was honestly surprised by the poverty on display here because given the enormous amount of jobs he had created and the various policies implemented to increase the standard of living, he thought such abject misery was a thing of the past- at least in his capital city.

Clearly, he had been mistaken as even while just walking by the streets, he could hear the distant cries of hungry children begging their starving parents for food, the clanging of pots as if someone was angrily banging on the walls, and the occasional shouting match over a business deal or domestic quarrel.

All while greedy yet wary eyes repeatedly scanned him, looking for the slightest opportunity.

If Alexander did not have a contingent of twenty armed to the teeth men guarding him, he highly doubted he would have been able to get out of that street even with just his underwear intact, forget everything else.

Even coming back alive might have been tough.

Now if Alexander had taken the time to ask these residents about why they were so desperate, they would have given him a myriad of reasons.

The first one was the most predictable- disease or some kind of disability.

They were unable to work due to sickness or some kind of deficiency- like missing a limb, blindness, deafness, dwarfism, etc.

Thus bedridden and with bills to pay, the family could only move here, the cheapest part of the city.

Another type of people living here were debtors, owning debts either by themselves or even their parents.

Yes, in Adhania, debts were generational.

And the reasons behind these debts could be as wild as they could be varied, ranging from typical business loans to emergency loans such as needing money for sickness, and personal loans such as building a house, marrying a daughter, sending a son to an artisan as an apprentice, and even having to meet one's tax obligation.

Whatever the case, the consequence of failure to repay debts ranged from severe beatings to confiscating land and property, to outright being sold into slavery along with the entire family.

All people were more than willing to put up with such inconveniences, having to live in such poor conditions to avoid such a gruesome fate.

As for the last group in the category, well they stayed in this part of the city because they liked it!

Mostly drunkards, wastrels, and criminals, none of them had a single honest bone in their body and not a single iota of willingness to earn an honest day's living.

Alexander could give them a job of a thousand ropals a month, and they still would not take it.

They would rather spend their time whirling the days away in wasteful excesses and swindling people for the next high.

It was also largely because of this third element that this part of the city gave Cambyeses and the city guards the most headache- they were the seeds of most of the city's crimes.

And even though Alexander repeatedly tried to nip them, at the end of the day, they were like weeds- you could never truly kill them, only suppress and trim them from time to time.

…..

Now all these negative descriptions of the northern district are not to say that it had no redeeming qualities.

In reality, the slums were only a small of the whole district and the place held a lot of potential.

Many lower class but respectable people also lived there, workshop workers, foremen, miners day laborers, and dock workers, residing in relatively well built wooden and stone houses, with the higher one's status, the more they tended to live away from the gates, towards the central district.

Thus as one moved north to south of the district, one would find the chaotic and grimy streets getting less and less menacing, the skyline becoming more and more visible, more and more vendors hawking food from stalls on the side, and a greater number of children playing in the streets.

They would also notice nicer and nicer laundry strung between buildings, fluttering in the breeze, whereas in the slum parts, no one would dare dry their clothes like so in fear of getting stolen.

Alexander even spotted a street performer juggling and whistling on one of the better streets and tipped the thin, lanky man five ropals.

…

As Alexander's tour of the northern district came to an end, he understood that although the part was recovering there was lots of work to be done.

Diseases were common, and due to none of the aqueducts meant for the district still not being finished, there was a lack of clean water, creating unsanitary conditions.

Garbage disposal was also a problem as was malnutrition and overwork.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Lastly, there was the ever-present risk of fire and building collapse.

There have been many fires in history that nearly burnt entire cities- the most famous one being perhaps the Great Fire of London.

But with all the negatives, there were some positives.

Alexander had spotted the outlines of a huge circular amphitheater being built right at the center of the district, and after the visit, decided to build the main bathhouse here.

The northern district was supposed to be the entertainment hub, and Alexander was determined to see it.

Thus once the apartments on the western side were finished and some of the poor could be relocated there, Alexander planned to heavily modify the plot there.

…..

Crossing from the northern district, Alexander skipped the tour of the central district because he had already seen it.

He lived here, the main Gaia temple where he prayed was there, and the senate building he worked in was also here.

So he moved onto the southern part.

Let us say no to piracy! Don't take part in a crime! Don't patronize thieves!

Please come Here!

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