Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

All eyes turned upon the couple as they rose from their seats, the previous clatter of silverware dying instantly into a heavy, expectant hush. Alpheo had always known Ratto to be a man of courage; by every testimony of the lad had held fast against a wall of lances at the Ford and had proven his mettle in every bloody skirmish he ever set foot in. Even Egil, who praised men about as often as it rained in the deep sands, always had exceptionally kind words for the young man’s steel.

And yet, of the two standing there, the one visibly sweating and fidgeting like a trapped rabbit was the newly minted legate.

Perhaps it ought to have been Lysandra donning the ringmail and Ratto wearing the silk skirt tonight, Alpheo thought, a small, highly amused smile playing at the corner of his lips. Though, of course, he knew he was doing a great disservice to the boy.

”We would like to have a brief moment of your collective time,” Lysandra declared, her voice ringing clear and steady across the quiet hall.

The sight of the two of them rising in unison brought a sudden, sharp lifting of eyebrows across most of the faces at the table. Except, notably, for Maraya, whom Alpheo strongly suspected already knew every single detail of the plot...she was especially close to the princess and the queen.

Speak of making connections.....

He cut his eyes over to his wife, and immediately convinced himself that the Queen was not entirely in the dark either.

He sipped a bit of water in his cup.

The new had spread fast.Who knew....perhaps he was among the last to know as well?

Still, the prize for the most profoundly confused expressions at the moment, however, undoubtedly went to Shahab and the Queen Mother, Rosalind. Both of them stared at the young couple with an alarmed, pale-faced scrutiny, perhaps already catching a distinct hint of exactly how far out of bounds the pieces had moved on the board.

Lysandra left absolutely no room for doubt or polite courtly speculation. With a smooth, defiant grace, she reached out, took the trembling, calloused hand of the fidgeting legate at her side, and hoisted their intertwined fingers high into the candlelight for the entire family to see.

See could not have said it better.

Alpheo fought with everything he had to crush down a massive, booming laugh as he watched the expression on his mother-in-law’s face transition in a matter of heartbeats from absolute horror, to blinding aristocratic anger, and finally to a sort of strangled, reluctant acceptance at her daughter’s very next words.

”I am with child,” Lysandra announced to the room, giving Ratto’s locked hand a firm, grounding shake. ”His child.”

...Now, that he did not know either.

”Gods above...” Shahab muttered, his elder strength entirely failing him as he brought both hands up to cover his face in sheer exhaustion. For a moment Alpheo even thought he would get an heart-attack. But luckily the Weaver still chose to weave instead of snapping.

”Both of my granddaughters..with... gods..”

While the grandfather and the older generation took the shocking news with a fragile, stunned silence for now, the rest of the high table erupted into a chorus of rowdy, unbridled celebration. The military elite of Yarzat was after all lowborn, so one for all and all for one, as they saying went.

”Ah! The fucking rascal actually went and pulled it off!” Jarza cheered at the top of his lungs, bringing his massive, boulder-like fist crashing down onto the oak table with a deafening thud that made every silver plate and wine chalice rattle as if a violent earthquake had just rattled the palace foundations.

”Ha! The soldier’s way is always the right one!” Asag announced with a wicked, booming laugh, raising his goblet high, leaving only those who actually understood what the soldier’s way was, meant to grasp the meaning.

”So this is the mysterious knight without a face I’ve been hearing whispers about?” Maraya muttered with a knowing, satisfied smirk, as if she did not already know. ”And here I had mistakenly thought the thief in our gardens was LongSpear.”

But the grand announcement was apparently just as much of a cataclysmic shock for the rest of the room as it was for the father of the child himself. Ratto stood frozen, staring blankly down at Lysandra as if the girl had suddenly sprouted a second, fire-breathing head right before his eyes.

”A... a child?” the legate muttered, his voice dropping into a dazed, uncharacteristic squeak. His wide, terrified blue eyes slowly lowered to stare at her still-flat stomach, the crushing, monumental weight of impending fatherhood rolling down upon his shoulders all at once.

Alpheo recalled that exact, terrifying feeling remarkably well. He leaned back in his seat, his chest swelling with warmth as he looked down at his eldest son, Basil, who was already clapping furiously in wild, genuine congratulations.

Still,they were taking the news remarkably well,for now.

But as Alpheo watched the sharp, sudden way his goodsister took a heavy, bracing breath, he knew the easy part of the evening had officially drawn to a close. The time had arrived for the cat to be let out of the bag.

And it was none other than the Queen who unlaced the final tie.

”So,” Jasmine said with a long, heavy sigh, her shoulders dropping as she looked at her sister. With a babe already growing in the womb the deal was effectively done. ”When are the wedding celebrations to begin? We shall have to coordinate with the high priests to find an auspicious date before the coronation....we wouldn’t want for the nobles to have rumors already’’

It was at that exact moment that a sharp, icy flicker of uncertainty fleeted across the young lovers’ faces. Alpheo had fully expected Lysandra to handle the heavy lifting of the announcement, but Ratto surprised him, stepping forward and taking the lead. As a legate of the realm and the man who had bedded a princess, he did exactly as he ought to have.

He took his part of the responsibility.

”We...” Ratto swallowed hard, his throat clicking in the quiet room. ’’Gods save us’’, he muttered in a small tone, before he squared his broad shoulders, looking the Queen directly in the eyes. ”We are not going to marry, Your Majesty.”

The entire high hall went deathly silent, the boisterous laughter of a moment ago evaporating as if it had never existed. Not a single lord, legate, or servant dared to make a sound or even breathe too loudly. The only living soul who defied the suffocating tension was little Jarza Junior, who, with his tiny fist shoved entirely into his mouth, let out a loud, innocent bubble of a giggle.

The only one clearly having fun with the whole ordeal.

In the crushing stillness that followed, more than one set of sharp eyes slowly twisted toward a certain man at the head of the table. After all when an attack hound is set free and bites someone’s leg, the ultimate blame never lies with the beast, it lies squarely with the master who holds the leash.

And as such, the collective attention of the table locked onto the King.

Some met him with fiercely accusatory, burning gazes,namely Shahab, the Queen Mother Rosalind, and, most notably of all, his own wife. The rest of the table, consisting of his battle-hardened legates, merely stared back with simple, profoundly confused expressions.Probably not understanding what was going on.

And as doubt began to grip the hearts of the two young lovers under the weight of that silence, and as the Queen and her kin glared at the King with an open, roiling distaste, Alpheo let out a slow, subtle sigh.

The first to let loose her mounting frustration was, of course, the Queen Mother. Rosalind rose slightly from her seat, her face pale as she trembled. ”You will... you will willingly give birth to a bastard? You would bring a nameless child into this royal house?”

Strictly speaking under the ancient decrees of the south, the children would indeed be bastards. But Alpheo knew with certainty that if he dared to voice that blunt reality aloud right now, he would find himself sleeping with a dagger buried deep between his thigh before the night was through. Jasmine was a mother first and a queen second, but still a queen she was, and she would not suffer her sister’s blood to be openly degraded.

So, he stepped into the fray, delivering his judgment with as much tact, firmness, and kingly authority as he could muster.

”Their children will never have a single thing missing from their lives,” Alpheo declared, his deep voice slicing through the quiet hall like a broadsword. He rose from his seat, anchoring his hands on the table. ”I shall personally grant each of their boys a wealthy lordship in their own right, complete with lands, keeps, and the legal founding of their own noble house. Their father’s house. Their daughters likewise will have everything a princess of the realm could ever demand; if they wish for a grand marriage alliance when they come of age, the crown shall provide it. If they wish to remain unwed, they shall have the coin and independence to do so.”

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the tense faces of his in-laws. ”They shall be princes and princesses in everything but the legal name. They will take their father’s name, and proudly deliver it down their lines to their children’s children.”

Alpheo knew exactly what he was asking of his family, and in the grand, traditional tapestry of high-born nobility, he knew it was not entirely right.

But this had to be the way. Yarzat was a new kingdom, and the pillars were still raw.

”They may technically be illegitimate in the eyes of the scribes,” the King concluded, his voice unyielding, ”but they will grow with the full protection of the crown and will possess far more real opportunities than any of their legitimate counterparts . Each and every one of them will have everything they could ever wish for.”

He had fully expected some of them to rage. He had prepared himself for Shahab to throw a silver goblet, or for the Queen Mother to faint, or who knew for his dear wife to bite him in the neck.

But for the most part, there was only a terrible, vibrating silence.

It was a silence that was quickly, violently filled by the sharp, ringing sound of flesh connecting with flesh.

Twack

Alpheo did not flinch, though his head jerked slightly to the side as his wife’s palm struck his cheek with the full force of her anger. The stinging heat bloomed instantly across his skin. He slowly turned his head back, his eyes locking onto Jasmine’s. The Queen held his gaze for a single, breathless second, her breathing ragged, before she tore her eyes away to look down at the rest of the taciturn, stunned table.

”We will continue this conversation tomorrow,with everyone....” Jasmine announced, her voice dangerously quiet, though her queenly mask was firmly back in place. Her eyes flickered back to Alpheo, burning with a cold fire. ”Right now, I wish to speak with my husband. Alone.”