Fallen Eagle

1st Week of July, 1460

1 month earlier

Beaten sand and grimy sweat flew with every thud of blunted steel on dented shields, spraying out as men dodged, stumbled, and parried their way across the courtyard.

The Crown Guard recruits were harried not only by their opponents, but by the red-faced sergeants stalking the edges of the fighting, barking them through the necessary movements with an intensity that sounded almost like anger.

Apostolos watched from the sidelines as usual, standing in the thin strip of shade cast by the wall and flanked by the ever-animated arguments his two bodyguards tended to have.

“Two weeks of training, and this is the best they can do?” Yannis commented, stone-faced as ever. “The new blood is getting complacent. They need to be pushed harder.”

He rubbed at the nascent stubble on his perfectly shaven chin as if the mere suggestion of it offended him. For as little as Yannis spoke, he always seemed to find one remark or another about the recruits whenever they passed the training yard.

“Or maybe your precious little Douxy isn’t as great a taskmaster as you think,” Cosmas said lightly, sauntering over the pale cobblestones with his hands crossed behind his head. He always enjoyed prodding Yannis, who, in fairness, was not a difficult man to prod.

“Watch your mouth, wayside bandit,” Yannis cautioned, his heavy brows drawing together.

“I’ve tried. It’s covered by my nose, I’m afraid.” Cosmas made an exaggerated attempt to look down, pursing his lips as though the matter troubled him greatly.

Apostolos suspected the man was both perpetually bored by and entirely overqualified for the task of guarding him, and that Cosmas survived the duty only by making everyone around him a little more irritated than they had been before.

Yannis did not dignify him with an answer, only a scowl. Lacking further entertainment there, Cosmas turned to the next available target.

“It seems your little friend wasn’t there to meet you again, little princeling.”

Ever since that strange meeting at the top of the Drop, he had not spoken to Mustafa again. At times he spotted the Crimean Tatar moving through the castle at a distance, but those were only furtive glimpses in the narrow stretches when they were both allowed outside the rooms that doubled as their cells.

It left Apostolos with too much time alone and too grand a view to stare into.

He found himself returning, again and again, to the man’s advice.

If that is your purpose, it is because you choose it. So only you can do something about it.

Apostolos remained quiet, his gaze resting on the struggling recruits in the beaten sand. Then, as if drawn by some inevitability, it shifted to the man leading them.

Apostolos had spent days turning those words over in his mind, looking for paths that led out of this grand canyon, for answers that did not feel like impossibilities. Every thought had eventually led him to a single narrow road.

A gambit so insane it had to succeed.

Cosmas, faced with no answer and a severe lack of entertainment, shoved Apostolos’s shoulder roughly enough to jolt him out of his thoughts.

“Well, your little stroll’s over, princeling,” he said, his mood already soured. “Time to get you back where you belong.”

Apostolos took one slow breath. Then he angled his walk toward the courtyard, not away from it.

“Where do you think you are going?” Yannis asked, and there was nothing polite in the question.

“I need to speak to someone,” Apostolos answered, not stopping.

Yannis noticed where his path was leading, directly across the beaten sand toward the Megas Doux. His response was immediate, and without the slightest patience for explanation.

“To the Doux?” He caught Apostolos by the shoulder. And not gently. “He does not entertain audiences from disgraced prisoners.”

His bald face, scrunched tight with anger, looked for a moment like a harsher, lesser mirror of the Megas Doux himself. All the same severity was there, only without the weight behind it.

A slimmer hand closed around Yannis’s shoulder and held him in place. The grip looked almost casual, but it stopped him completely, giving Apostolos the opening he needed.

“And what are you doing?” Yannis demanded of his assailant.

“Relieving my boredom,” Cosmas answered without shame, his face splitting into a grin that bared his teeth.

“Are you outside of your mind?” Yannis looked equal parts enraged and horrified. His hand dropped toward his sword, but Cosmas’s left hand shot out and locked around his wrist with the unthinking speed of a striking snake.

“Just sit back and watch, you imbecile,” Cosmas said, his wild grey mane giving him a wolfish look. “This should be an exquisite piece of entertainment.”

Apostolos heard the exchange and Cosmas’s low chuckle, but he did not look back.

The Doux noticed his approach well before Apostolos came close, and so did the nearby sergeants and instructors, who paused in their shouted corrections only long enough to turn toward him. A pair of them moved to block his path, hard-faced men with sun-reddened necks and the easy authority of those accustomed to being obeyed.

A single raised hand - a small, almost indifferent gesture - from the Megas Doux stopped them, and the men halted as if pulled by a leash.

Soon enough Apostolos was within striking reach of the man who held Suyren in his fist.

Closer up, Apostolos was struck again by the sheer gravity of him. The Megas Doux seemed carved rather than born, his face drawn hard as a block of solid stone. He wore his laminated armour despite the oppressive glare of the summer sun, the dark metal carrying a deep crimson tinge where the light touched it. Sweat beaded over his hairless scalp and ran in thin rivulets down his temples, catching briefly along the ridges of his face before disappearing beneath the collar of his armour.

He did not bother to wipe them away. His obsidian eyes remained fixed on Apostolos alone.

“My Doux,” Apostolos greeted, cutting a small bow to hide the sudden fluttering in the pit of his stomach.

The man did not answer, merely stared him down.

Apostolos swallowed. The plan he long-brewed and polished in the quiet of his confinement suddenly felt as thin as frayed parchment.

“I have thought about my role here in Suyren,” he said, forcing himself to keep his voice steady, “and I believe I could do more than remain as a guest in the castle. I can assist with clerical duties, or serve in whatever capacity you require.”

If he had expected surprise, suspicion, or even contempt, Apostolos would be disappointed. The Doux remained entirely unmoved, as though the request had been no stranger than a servant asking where to place a jug of water.

“You, the son of a rebel, want to serve as a military aide?” the Doux’s voice was low enough that Apostolos felt it more than heard it.

It was an outrageous offer. Prisoners accused of treason did not get handed work. They sat quietly in their corner and remained obedient, or they rotted in some darker place until their betters decided their time was up.

But quiet and obedient was what Apostolos had been his whole life, and he was through with that part of himself. Whatever chains of honour held him place were shattered along with his family.

“I have experience from my time spent in Suyren,” Apostolos said. If there was one thing he was confident in, it was that. He had been groomed from birth to understand the roles a castle asked of him.

“Working for the enemy, you mean.” the Doux rumbled.

“Working.” Apostolos stressed the word.

The two stared each other down for a time, Apostolos with his heart beating hard enough to feel it in his throat. Around them, the courtyard seemed to hold its breath. Even the recruits had slowed, swords hanging awkwardly in their hands as they watched the exchange.

One of the nearby instructors had endured the sight as long as he could.

“Get away from the Megas Doux immediately, Nomikos spawn!”

The man strode forward and reached for Apostolos with the brisk certainty of someone removing a dog from the dining table.

“Did I not order you to stand back?” the Doux interrupted.

He did not raise his voice, because he did not need to. The threat in it was unmistakable, and the instructor’s hand stopped in the air as if it had struck a wall.

“Ah, but sir-” The sergeant looked genuinely startled that the Doux would defend Apostolos.

“Back to your post.” The Doux’s tone brooked no disagreement.

The sergeant swallowed whatever protest had risen in him and returned, cowed, to the edge of the training ground. The recruits watched the exchange with open confusion, unsure of what they had just witnessed.

The Megas Doux regarded Apostolos, his gaze searching every inch of him. Apostolos felt weighed, measured, and found wanting in several ways before the man even spoke.

Then, to everyone’s surprise, including Apostolos himself, the Doux said, “Very well. You are to meet me in a week to discuss your duties.”

He turned away after that, dismissing Apostolos so completely it was as though the conversation had already ceased to exist.

Apostolos could only stand there for a solid moment before he forced himself back into motion with effort. Then he bowed deeply, lower than he had before, and marched back across the courtyard toward his guards.

Yannis’s jaw had nearly fallen open. Cosmas, by contrast, was laughing as though he had just heard the grandest joke this side of the Black Sea.

“Well, well, well,” Cosmas said, wiping at the corner of one eye with theatrical delight. “It seems our little princeling is reaching up out of his cage. You have to be careful not to break your wings on the fall.” He said the last part with a sort of menacing glee.

Apostolos ignored him, keeping his back straight and his steps measured as he led his minders back toward his rooms, not the other way around. It was a small thing, perhaps too small for anyone else to notice.

But for him it mattered.

For the first time since Suyren had fallen, he felt as though he had taken a step that actually belonged to him.

2nd Week of August, 1460

The rattle of narrow wheels over rutted paths was like music to Theodorus’s ears.

Inside the carts was the hard-earned plunder of weeks of negotiation and planning, covered beneath tarps pulled tight against the corners of the wagon’s body, protecting against the threat of some sudden Crimean deluge. It was only the second week of August, but late summer in Crimea had its own moods, and Theodorus was not inclined to leave things to chance.

He guided Boudicca closer to the nearest cart, a small mounted entourage trailing behind him. The mare snorted at the sharp mineral scent drifting from beneath the covered load, but stepped alongside it.

By Theodorus’s side rode Antonis, the short, stout sergeant he had appointed as the cement project’s unofficial taskmaster, having spent the last weeks bullying carters, labourers and haughty Lime Masters into something resembling a system, which to Theodorus meant he was now one of the most valuable men involved.

“The unprocessed quicklime usually arrives by cartload through the northern approach from outlying kilns,” Antonis explained to the small gathering of Pronoia riding behind him and Theodorus. “The limestone is quarried at the local sites, sorted into roughly matched blocks, and then burned in the kilns until it is proper. Keeping the stone close in size helps the firing take more evenly. If the pieces are too different, some come out underburned while others are ruined by too much heat. The new tools issued at the kiln sites have helped with that.”

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

Theodorus nodded along, pleased that Antonis had not simply memorized the procedure, but understood it.

“Likewise,” Antonis continued, “the use of standardized baskets and carts gives us a more accurate assessment of what each kiln produces. We know how much stone went in, how much quicklime came out, and which kilnmen are wasting fuel or sending us half-baked rubble.”

Several of the pronoia shifted in their saddles. They understood waste well enough when it threatened their own purses.

“Our procedures have ensured that most of the stone now arrives as usable quicklime instead of a miserable mixture of powder, underburned limestone, and overfired junk,” Antonis finished.

“It had better be of excellent quality,” Nicetas Joakimides said.

He was one of the more prominent pronoia involved in the scheme, a broad-shouldered man gripping onto finely embroidered reins, eyes searching through the cart as though he meant to count every stone himself.

“I have seen what was spent on my kiln. Roofs built over the stone and fuel stores just to keep them dry. Drainage channels cut around the quarry site. As if filthy bandits need acceptable conditions in order to work.” He scoffed, though his eyes remained fixed on the covered load with obvious interest.

One of the quickest uses Theodorus found for the captured bandits was sending them to the local kilns under the protection of the pronoia holders. They were easily convinced to spend their own manpower to police the prisoners once they realized the potential cost saving that the manoeuvre allowed. The seasonal hired labour would gradually be phased out, which might hurt the more desperate peasantry, but with harvest around the corner, there was plenty of seasonal labour available for them to hang on.

For all the pardons Theodorus had granted to farmers who had turned to banditry out of hunger, he had captured many more who could not be so easily returned to their villages. Some had committed graver crimes. Others had homes where the fields lay untended or already claimed by relatives. Sending former bandits back among the same communities they had robbed would also invite feuds and unrest.

So Theodorus had decided to use them where labour mattered, essentially as serfs. Quarrying local stone was filthy, dangerous work, and villages would have little to spare when harvest arrived.

“I notice the quicklime seems to be inscribed with markings,” a smaller, thin nobleman commented. His voice was measured, but his eyes had lingered on every cart since they arrived.

“They are proof of origin,” Theodorus replied. “They mark the kiln they came from and the date of firing. This way we won't suffer subpar production without knowing where it came from. Each kiln site now has a vetted overseer responsible for what comes out of his kiln, and the product is then assigned into grades.”

It had taken effort to find men experienced enough to judge stone, manage labourers, and keep production moving without possessing too much talent for theft. Theodorus had questioned the candidates himself and settled for the best of the worst. That was hardly ideal, but far better than the almost random hiring of the oldest local done previously.

“Grades?” the nobleman asked, intrigued despite himself. “I’ve never heard of anyone bothering to tell common stone apart.”

“But it is useful,” Theodorus answered, wheeling Boudicca away from the incoming mule-drawn cart. “Come. It is easier to show you.”

He led the Pronoia holders toward a section of the yard where quicklime was unloaded, sampled, and sorted beneath a shelter of fresh-cut beams and reed matting. The air there was harsher, sharp with lime dust, making men squint or cover their mouths with cloth. Workers stood around shallow trays while two Genoese kilnmasters supervised them, their foreign words passing through a translator the Republic had provided.

Theodorus disliked needing outside help, but the Genoese were the only ones who had proper kilnmasters who knew the firing habits and tolerances needed for reliable lime at scale. At least their deal with the Republic included training for Theodoran Kilnmasters, who could then be moved offsite to replace the more troublesome of the kilnsite overseers.

One Genoese master, a square man with soot ground into the lines of his face, pointed to a broken lump held in iron tongs. The translator followed a breath behind.

“He is saying that too much stone remains in the heart, it was underburned,” the translator said. “It will not slake properly and will weaken the mix.”

Along the line, a worker split another piece with a hammer, exposing a dead, grey centre that looked more like stubborn limestone than quicklime. It was pushed aside into the worst pile. Others checked batch samples for dampness or glassy and dull skins. It was the initial triage all new stone had to go through.

The nobles watched with greater attention now. Theodorus gestured to three piles along the shelter’s far side.

“The stone is classified into Grades Alpha, Beta, and Gamma,” he explained. “Alpha is our main building material, and the true moneymaker. It can be used for cisterns, damp foundations, towers, and military walls. Grade Beta is suitable for common wall mortar and still valuable enough to sell properly.”

He turned to the rougher pile, where the underburned, damp, or overfired pieces had been gathered.

“All quicklime in Grade Gamma, however, is useful only for road bedding and lesser work. Fortunately, with the Italian construction in Kalamita and its surrounding road network following the Genoese peace deal, the Republic is willing to buy it from us at a steady rate.”

What Theodorus did not say was that it would be at a discounted price in exchange for the help they were already providing.

“We can’t reduce the amount of subpar quicklime produced?” Nicetas Joakimides asked, his frown deepening as he looked from the sorted piles to the covered carts. To him, and to several of the other noblemen, every rejected lump seemed less like a technical flaw and more like a hand dipping into their margins. And there was a substantial amount of those thieving lumps scattered about.

“We can, and we will,” Theodorus said, assuaging their concerns before they had time to spread. “Do not worry. The profit and revenue we discussed in our meeting already took the inevitability of subpar quicklime into account. With the recent investments in covered storage, drainage, better sorting, and trained overseers, we expect the number to drop steadily over the course of the year. Antonis.”

He nodded to the rough sergeant, whose beard curled in wild locks around a face weathered by too many marches.

“After the first quality check, the lime is slaked,” Antonis said, taking his cue. “Quicklime is brought together with water and turned into slaked lime. It can either be dry slaking or wet slaking depending on how much water is used and what work we mean it for.”

He gestured toward the central yard, where water channelled in from the Belbek was measured into tubs. The workers moved more carefully there than they had around the carts.

“Dry slaking gives us a powdery lime, easier to store and transport,” Antonis continued. “Useful for common mortar and work that needs to be moved in quantity, but not our best choice for the finer jobs. Wet slaking gives us lime putty which must be kept damp and covered, so takes more tending to both in terms of storage and transport, but it works better for the high-grade mortar we want. That is why only Grade Alpha is used for it.”

He pointed toward covered containers sealed beneath tarps and reed matting, the edges weighted with stones to keep the contents from drying.

“We’ve talked plenty about lime,” Nicetas declared, his large belly moving in tandem with the force of his speech, “but I want to see proper cement.”

“Then let us show you the magic, my lords,” Antonis said, smiling. The nobles mirrored him.

Antonis was no architect or master builder, not in the formal sense. He had become something close to one through spending years around military earthworks, ditch lines, revetments, and men who knew how to make a wall stand under pressure. He had learned enough from proper professionals to understand the care needed, and he brought to the work military virtues Theodorus valued: order, discipline, and a willingness to shout until a man put the right bucket in the right place.

“Here are the mixing yards,” Antonis said.

Before them lay around a dozen square pits cut into the Belbek’s riverbed, each lined and smoothed as far as local tools allowed. At first glance they looked painfully unimpressive.

“They appear to be little more than holes,” one nobleman commented, disappointment plain in his voice.

“On the face of it, they are,” Theodorus said. “But each one was dug to a set depth and measured width.” The precision on display was thanks to Loukas, their master craftsman.

“Each ingredient is added with buckets made for the purpose,” Antonis picked up the thread. Ahead of them, labourers tipped measured portions into one of the pits: crushed pottery, slaked lime, sand, and small rubble. “The mixture changes depending on the grade and the intended work. Cistern mortar is not road bedding. A wall joint is not a foundation. The proportions matter.”

By then, the finesse of the operation had begun to show itself to the noblemen. Each dull pit was different building mortars were manufactured by rule rather than guesswork.

“However,” Theodorus interrupted, “there is a large bottleneck in our operation.” That instantly captured all the noblemen’s attention.

“And what exactly would that be?” Nicetas asked, already frowning.

“The recent bandit infestation has provided a windfall in manpower we can allocate to cement production,” Theodorus said, his eyes fixed on the men moving through the yard. The whole operation had a scale to it now that would have been difficult to imagine only a few months earlier. “The original plan was to suspend most quicklime production through the harvest. We could not spare enough hands from the fields. But with the prisoners, it is possible to continue production even through the heavy harvest season.”

“That seems like a good thing,” the smaller nobleman said, clearly sensing that Theodorus was leading them along, and curious of where it led.

“It is,” Theodorus said. “Except that we cannot grind enough ceramics to match the amount of quicklime our kilns can produce.”

He gestured toward a group of labourers working under a nearby shelter. One man broke old bricks and potsherds with a hammer while another fed the fragments into a heavy mortar, grinding them down with a large pestle. The work was slow, dusty, and miserable. Red powder clung to their sleeves and faces, gathering in the creases around their eyes.

“Currently, we crush the bricks we receive with hammers and grind them fine with mortar and pestle,” Theodorus continued. “For the amount of quicklime we first expected to produce, that would have sufficed. We could grind through the harvest while the kilns were inoperable with labour from Suyren. Now, however, the kilns can keep burning, which means the bottleneck moves here. We will have lime sitting idle because we cannot prepare enough brick dust to use with it.”

“Could we not move the former bandits here to grind the pottery they need?” the smaller nobleman asked, placing one hand to his chin and stroking the thin, sharp line of his beard.

“We could,” Theodorus allowed. “But there is value in keeping them at the kilns long enough to become proficient at one job rather than dragging them back and forth so they can do two jobs poorly. Quarrying, firing, sorting, and storing lime all require care. The moment the men start learning the rhythm of the work, I do not want to break it. In short, if we do nothing, we are wasting an opportunity.”

Nicetas Joakimides narrowed his eyes. “And what do you propose?” He smelled a scheme of some kind. And he was not wrong.

Theodorus could only smile, because this particular plot was not one these men would be capable of evading.

“We build a proper hand-powered grinder here in Suyren. A two-man rotary grinder to be precise.”

The reactions were about as displeased as he had expected. Several noblemen exchanged glances, and Nicetas’s expression hardened.

“That was discussed clearly in our first meeting,” Nicetas said. “We decided against it because of the upfront cost, Lord Theodorus.”

“And you may decide against that decision once you learn the latest news from Mangup.”

Theodorus drew a folded missive from inside his cloak. The purple royal seal had been broken cleanly down the middle, but enough of it remained to make every man present look closer.

“You know where our pottery comes from,” Theodorus said, tucking the letter between two fingers. “Much as the quicklime arrives by cart, so does the crushed pottery.”

He pointed toward the southern road, where another cart had just come into view, its wheels dragging through the ruts under a load of broken brick and old ceramic.

“It comes courtesy of the ruins in Eski Kermen,” he continued. “A fortification Prince John has declared that he means to rebuild in full.”

The Pronoia holders’ eyes snapped open in utter shock.

“A fortress to rival Mangup itself.” Theodorus said, letting the words settle properly,

He could imagine Father Thaddeus’s reaction when he learned the Church would be bankrolling the endeavour. The announcement was primed to send ripples through the whole Principality. More so because of the sheer scale of the project. Theodorus had known of the plan to rebuild Eski Kermen, and even of the construction of dozens of new refuges spread across the wilderness, but not that the Prince intended to revamp all four major fortifications as well.

“His Highness has expressed keen interest in buying our cement at an agreeable price.” Theodorus finished.

The nobles understood it then. Eski Kermen alone would demand a staggering quantity of mortar, and that said nothing of the repairs needed for the outlying forts, including Suyren itself. Walls, cisterns, towers, roads, barracks, drains, all of it would require cement in astronomical quantities.

For a moment, they looked almost stunned by the possible profit involved. Not just in coin, but in political clout. Control of a key industry meant actionable power. Something unheard of for these fringe, frontier noblemen, far from the true center of political clout.

“But the price is low,” one of the noblemen said, recovering enough to frown in displeasure at the cited figure.

“That is because Suyren will only take a fourth of the cut it usually would,” Theodorus revealed.

It was the price for their food relief arrangement with the Crown, though these men did not need to know that. A concession made out of necessity could be dressed as generosity if presented with enough confidence, and Theodorus had every intention of making use of it.

“We are willing to shoulder this burden to ensure cement production can be upscaled during this initial phase,” he continued, letting his gaze pass over the assembled men. “That is how committed we are to seeing this product succeed.”

The noblemen looked at him with something close to awe. Or perhaps relief dressed up as admiration. Men with coin always liked sacrifice best when someone else made it first.

“Now,” Theodorus said, letting the moment settle before he tightened the cord, “it is your turn to make a sacrifice. To grind the necessary pottery and satisfy the Crown’s needs, we require at least a pair of two-man rotary grinders. One hundred hyperpera, and we need them now.”

The figure landed heavily among them. Many shifted in their saddles at the sudden pressure.

During their first meeting, Theodorus had shared the possibility of an arrangement with the Crown, but he had not revealed the full breadth of Prince John’s ambitions. Now the promise had been made flesh in the form of a royal missive. A buyer with an appetite large enough to swallow every cart they could send and more.

The way the pronoia holders looked at him changed. They had needed to see the first promise fulfilled before trusting the next one.

However, Theodorus could tell one final push was needed. One hundred hyperpera was no small sum, even divided among men who liked to speak as though their purses were bottomless.

“I will pledge fifty hyperpera from my own pocket,” Iohannes suddenly declared, speaking for the first time during the entire affair.

“Not only for the grinders,” he continued, “but for whatever investment is necessary to scale production to meet the Crown’s demands.”

It was a shocking amount that stirred the gathered Pronoia. They understood what such a pledge meant. The more a man invested, the greater his share of the final revenue. Iohannes was not merely showing confidence in the scheme. He was reaching for a larger stake before the rest of them had decided how much courage they could afford.

What they did not know was that Iohannes did not truly have that coin on hand, being nearly penniless due to all the schemes and ventures Theodorus had roped him into. He had borrowed the amount through the Genoese bank, under favourable terms Theodorus had arranged beforehand.

It was slightly amusing to Theodorus that he had managed to reel in his frugal brother so thoroughly that he now found himself in a sizeable debt of his own volition.

All for this expensive illusion, but it showed immediate dividends.

“I will pledge fifty hyperpera of my own as well,” Nicetas Joakimides said.

Joakimides was the only man present who could rival Iohannes in local clout. Iohannes held more actionable assets, land, tenants, and resource rights. Nicetas, however, had more hoarded wealth, coin and valuables. Enough that he could match the pledge out of his own pocket. Something Theodorus was eagre to draw out of him. Hoarded assets were useless to a thriving economy.

In truth, Theodorus and Iohannes had counted on this when drafting the plan. That Nicetas would not allow himself to be outdone by Iohannes before a crowd of lesser noblemen.

With one hundred hyperpera already pledged, the remaining noblemen saw themselves both incredibly reassured and caught between a rock and a hard place. Any man who hesitated too long would watch his future share diminish before the business had even begun. So they began to offer more and Theodorus guided them carefully through it.

By the end, they had gathered another sixty hyperpera, bringing the second round of funding to one hundred and sixty in total.

Theodorus could tell, even behind Iohannes’s stern countenance, that the man was fighting down a smile. The more capital the project received, the greater its chance of making good on its dues.

Theodorus glanced out into the sprawling operation. Into the newly cleaned Suyren, into the outlying farm complexes, and all the progress he had made already two months into his reign.

They had successfully weaponized human greed to further accelerate the North’s industrial revolution.

All that was left now was to bring it about.