Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

Alpheo leaned back into the plush silk of his seat, his eyes drifting shut while his ears perked up to the shifting rhythm of the hall. He had never been a man for the ruckus; his soul craved the soothing, structured melodies of a well-played harp over the chaotic din of a victory celebration. The previous backdrop of pounding drums and wailing flutes had served as a well enough canvas for the tavern songs.

They sang of Dirty Alice, the Village Soldier, and an endless cycle of Three Princes,so many, in fact, that one might think there were hundreds of sovereigns crowded into the room. Yet, the greatest surprise of the evening was Jarza. The Legate of the Primogenia had finally allowed his sobriety and his usual aloofness to slip out the door, joined by a chorus of voices and a belly full of wine.

”I became old enough to want something more,

It was finally time to get me a vice!

’Go to Alice, go to Alice,’ his friends kept on saying,

Mugs and froth, all the way to the broth!

For three bronzii, a lay gladly she will give,

And if she likes you enough, a little more she’ll mince.

Free of charge, so much to her you must though mean,

So go to Alice! Go to Alice! Go to Alice for what she’ll give!”

Jarza’s voice was surprisingly sweet, though it was thickened by a heavy glaze of drink. It was a rare sight, seeing the giant of a man swaying with a cup in hand, his somber mask replaced by a lopsided grin.

But the time for bawdy singing was drawing to a close. The center of the hall was being cleared, the heavy trestle tables pushed back against the marble to make space for the dance. For much of the evening, the room had been a map of lingering hostilities: Oizenians huddled on one side like soldiers awaiting a charge, while Herculeians and Yarzats claimed the other. Only the officers of the White Army acted as the bridge, trailing from one camp to the other to exchange jokes, war stories, and more rounds of deep drinking.

Now, the tension finally began to snap with the dancing. The Oizenian lords, who had entered looking as weary as men marching to their own executions, were being coaxed out of their shells. Ladies, sisters, and daughters were led onto the floor by the knights and officers of the conqueror. Alpheo watched the spectacle with a detached fascination, noticing Basil making elegant passes with his feet alongside the eldest daughter of Lord Flynt.

He is a good dancer, the prince noticed at once.

Lord Cregan had been kind enough to inform Alpheo of Flynt’s nickname: The Chuckler. Apparently, the man’s only true skill was chuckling at the witticisms of his social superiors. Legend had it he had chuckled himself right out of favor at court once by laughing at a joke that hadn’t been intended as one. Alpheo had exchanged a few words with the man and confirmed the diagnosis; Flynt seemed to find even the most mundane comments worthy of a rhythmic, wheezing giggle.

Though the ”Chuckler” was no longer laughing, instead a wide and expectant smile stretched across his face as he watched his eldest daughter hold the heir of Yarzat by the arms. Lord Flynt was clearly a man who looked at a dance and saw a dowry. He might hope for a marriage, but Alpheo knew the man would be disappointed; he had specific plans for Basil’s match, alliances that required more than a pretty Oizenian smile. As graceful as the girl was, she would receive a dance and nothing more from his son.

”You’d think your son was your daughter, by how much you’re gazing at him,” a voice rasped from Alpheo’s right. Merelao leaned in, smelling of sweat and expensive olives he was eating. ”I’ve seen hawks watch rabbits with less intensity. Worried he’ll vanish into a dark corner and pop out a bastard?”

Alpheo turned to the Lord of Epietoli, his expression unreadable. ”Basil? No. Never. He is far too dutiful a boy for such a thing.”

”I wouldn’t be so sure,” Merelao countered, leaning back and watching the dancers swirl. ”He’s at that age where a lad discovers he has two sets of brains and only enough blood to run one at a time. The girl is interested, you can see it in the way she leans into his personal space. And why not? The boy has the face, and while he may lack the ancient blood, he has the prospect of a crown. Besides, he’s as green as spring grass. The girl is older, and there’s a certain fascination for a boy to be led by someone with more... experience.” He popped an olive into his mouth, chewing with a leering, wolfish grin.

”Is that how you lost yours?” Alpheo asked drily.

”Aye,” Merelao chuckled, the sound thick in his throat. ”Bless Bertha and her big heart, and her even bigger bosom. I felt like a lamb discovering a cow’s udder with all the sweet milk inside. How about you?Oh War Prince? Who was the lucky girl? Some village maid from your youth? Or a camp follower before a battle?”

”It was after a battle, if you must know,” Alpheo replied, his gaze momentarily distant. He remembered the heat of the day, the iron tang of blood still under his fingernails. He had just bathed himself in the woman’s father blood, than that of his uncle and cousins, before he took her. He had assumed the grief would be a barrier. He was proven wrong.Though they had been clumsy at first, their sinergies became better as they explored each other’s bodies and mind.

”And the woman I lost it to is the same one I am currently married to.”

Merelao let out a low whistle of mock disapproval. ”Talk about a lack of variety. You’ve never had a single escapade? I doubt a man in your position lacks for invitations.Heavy is the bed of the man that set the bar...”

”Never,” Alpheo said firmly. ”It would be demeaning to my family. And more importantly, my son would be profoundly disappointed if he ever learned of such a thing.”

”Always that one, eh?” Merelao mused, his eyes narrowing as he watched the floor. ”Most men fear their wives or the gods. You fear the judgment of your own boy. Now that is queer.”

Both men fell silent as their gazes settled on Basil. The boy was whispering something into the Flynt girl’s ear, a small, polite smile on his lips. Whatever he said, however, caused the girl’s expression to sour instantly. The dance ended seconds later, and as the music shifted, they exchanged partners. Basil moved with practiced ease to the lady wife of Durese, an aged woman who beamed with mirth as the young heir led her through the steps.

Alpheo allowed himself a small, private nod of satisfaction. He had given Basil strict directives before the feast began, instructions on how to behavior, whom to flatter, and how to maintain the distance required of a future sovereign. The boy was not deaf to his position. He possessed his own quiet sense of duty, a steel beneath the silk that Alpheo hoped would one day be strong enough to hold the mountain he was building for him.

”He’s a cold fish when he wants to be,eh?” Merelao noted, his gaze tracking Basil as the boy spun the elder Lady Durese with the mechanical, bloodless perfection of a clockwork doll. ”The Flynt girl was ready to offer him her dowry and her virtue on a silver platter, and he brushed her off as if she were a persistent gnat. Where is that fire that burned hot whenever he spoke with me? After the fascination of seeing a well-trained lion sit and raise its paws, a pity for the demeaned beast always follows fast. Must you really cut every single pleasure from the boy’s life?” He wagged a grease-stained finger at the Prince. Somewhere the bells on someone’s festive hat jingled in mocking accompaniment.

”After me, he will be Prince of Yarzat. He will not marry for a ’fascination.’ Basil knows his duty,” Alpheo replied, his voice as immovable as the black-wood chair beneath him.

Merelao snorted, reaching for a flagon of wine and pouring himself a precarious measure that threatened to top the rim. ”Borders and politics. Gods, you make life sound like a ledger in a dusty cellar. Where’s the fire, friend? The passion that leads a man to burn a city for a woman’s favor?” He leaned in, his eyes locking onto the Prince’s with a predatory sharpness. ”Or perhaps burn a crown instead?”

”He will come to understand,” the Prince replied.

”You know, there was always something that made me curious,” Merelao mused, his mirth beginning to ebb. ”Your boy is smart enough to hold a conversation without seeming a dull fool, which is a rare feat considering the bar set for the young pups of the South. Yet, you always have that prideful look about you whenever your eyes settle on him. Is your filial love finally getting a hold of you, giving you an inflated view of your own seed? What do you see in him so soon? Untested, unbloodied as he is...”

”His possibility,I suppose” Alpheo said, turning his gaze back to the floor. ”Do you know the difference between a tradition and a passing law, my lord?”

Merelao brought the cup to his lips and drank deep, his eyes no longer reflecting the light of the torches. ”Whenever the sword holding it is firm enough?”

”One’s son,” the Prince answered. ”After a prince falls, it is his son who decides if his predecessor’s works are what is or what was. That is the most fundamental base of change,whether a new order becomes ingrained as the state of things, or whether the memory of the old world pushes men to tear it all down. And the gods know how much change I have brought. I need someone who can set those changes in stone instead of letting them be a shout in the wind.We are destined to dust , that is the fate of men, it is only what we leave behind us that matters.”

He took an olive, plopping it between his lips as he watched Basil bow to his aged partner and take another. ”After two generations, these laws will become tradition. Children will grow up knowing only this way of life. They will read of the old times in books and find them as alien and impossible to revert to as a dream. Basil has the dutiful mindset a father prays for. He is smart, he is kind, and he is able to read others and provide them ease of mind. My work with him shall be brief, for the foundations are already laid. I only need to teach him how to rule, how to lead, and how to kill.”

Merelao said nothing for a long, heavy moment. He stared into the swirling red depths of his cup with a strange light in his eyes, a look that bordered on.... disillusionment?

”You know,” the Prince continued, taking advantage of the silence, ”sometimes I look at him with a bit of envy at my heart. Perhaps that shames me as a father, but it is there nonetheless.”

”Envy?” Merelao repeated, his voice barely a whisper over the flutes and the harps. His eyes seemed to wonder what may a conqueror envy in a boy wet behind his ears.

The Prince nodded slowly. ”He has the skills I will never possess.I can only fake them.

Do you know how easy it is to become a monster in a world of dragons? How easy it is to shutter one’s heart when faced with the cruelty of the world that made us? You and I are the results of that world, my lord. We are just killers doing exactly that, killing time until death comes down for her last kiss. It takes more strength to be kind than to be cruel in this world of ours. He will be the perfect lime to strengthen this jumble of a castle I leave behind. I shall be the maker of the state, but he... he shall be its nurturing father.I will be the sword and he shall be the flower.”