Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

Usually, when a King entered a room, all those within were bound to rise from their seats. But Archon Vesperian was an exceptionally old man, and few in the realm expected the Fox of Yarzat to have a sudden penchant for rigid courtly manners.

It had been a full week since the Pontifex’s emissary had arrived at his court. Alpheo had been monstrously busy during that time, manly orchestrating the massive, secret relocation of the Yarzat manufacturing industry to the rocky cliffs of Corna, so he had comfortably steered away from the holy man for days. It had been much to the Archon’s growing displeasure, as the King had been repeatedly told the old man was practically vibrating to meet him.

That desire was finally being satisfied now. With the most pressing matters of state safely tucked away, Alpheo could find no further excuse to deny some of his day’s time to the very man who had traveled across the map to put a crown over his head.Nor really did he found it wise to do so.

Vesperian did not rise from his heavily cushioned chair, but he possessed at least the grace to greet the sovereign first. ”Your Majesty,” he murmured, giving a small, elegant bow of his silver head.

The King returned the gesture with a curt nod before sinking into his own seat on the opposite side of the low mahogany table, his back plopping softly against the rich velvet cushions.

”I hope you have found your lodgings within my walls to be well-accustomed for your need?” Alpheo asked, settling his hands on the armrests.

”I have no molest to send Your Majesty on that account. You have been most gracious to an old traveler,” Vesperian replied. His voice was as much a quiet whisper as it was coarse, scraping out of his throat as if the man had inhaled the smoke of burning heretics all his life. Alpheo had to visibly sharpen his ears just to catch the cadence of the words.

”On that account?” Alpheo caught the deliberate phrasing instantly. ”Does that imply you have grievances on others?”

Vesperian offered a small, thin smile at that.

The last time the two had occupied the same space, there had been a angry snort in the priest’s face.

A false priest of the Star had been sentenced to burning by the holy laws, but Alpheo had secretly granted the wretch a final mercy, slipping him a sharp blade in the dark. The next morning, all hell had broken loose in the dungeons when the guards discovered the prisoner dead with his wrists slit. In the end, the grand pyre had burned nothing but a cold corpse.

Somehow, Alpheo always had the lingering, distinct feeling that Vesperian knew exactly whose hand had held the knife or better yet had passed it between bars.

”If Your Majesty allows me to say so, you possess a remarkably beautiful city,” the Archon said smoothly, guiding the conversation back to safer waters.

”Though I am deeply thankful for the kindness, I am entirely certain our humble streets pale ahead of the grandeur of the Eternal City,” the King chimed softly, testing the old man’s flattery.

”You do yourself a great disservice, Your Majesty.”

Alpheo let out a soft, genuine chuckle. ”Now that is a novelty. Most people in my presence tend to say the exact opposite. Why’s that, then?”

”Yarzat may not hold a candle against the Eternal City in terms of towering architecture,” Vesperian mused, leaning his frail chin against his knuckles. ”But I have found your common people to be far more content, far happier than they ever are in Romelia. Most surprisingly for a city of so many thousands, I have not seen so many beggars. I would have wagered my holy robes that I could not walk a three-pace stretch on your high roads without being aggressively assailed by desperate souls begging for alms. It is of course a pleasure for a man of the gods to give aid to those in need, but it is even bigger a pleasure to see little need of that.

I was on my fifth’s heaven when I saw your city’s state with my own two eyes.”

”The beggars were the very first plague that I dealt with as soon as the opportunity presented itself,” the King said absentmindedly. ’’I believe poverty is the source of most, if not all, evil. A den of crime and violence that most time pass unchecked.’’

Without looking, Alpheo reached for a ripe pear from the silver bowl between them and took a heavy, dripping bite. Only after he began chewing did he notice the stiff, intensely piercing gaze the Archon was giving him over the table.

A thoroughly horrified one.

The King slowly swallowed the mouthful, entirely unfazed. ”I gathered them up, gave them cleared plots of unclaimed land in the valleys, and made them cultivate it for their own bread.There was a lot of the former and a lot of the latter, so I put them together and solved the problem.

Do you truly think I take a twisted liking to killing my own people, Your Excellency?” Alpheo took another bite of the fruit, this time biting down hard, the snap echoing in the quiet room. ”I know many, mostly my defeated enemies, delight in spreading rumors that I am bloodthirsty and cruel. That I like to dip my bread in blood and revel myself in the wails of widow to wake in the morning. But that iron rod is reserved strictly for those who lift a blade against me , not to those that give me no harm.”

The man had the decency to state the mistake at least. ”I do admit I may have minorly misunderstood the rumors of your methods. My sincerest apologies, Your Majesty.”

”Apology accepted,” Alpheo said brusquely, waving the pear to dismiss the matter.

”Still, it is a truly wonderful thing you have built here; none can deny your triumph,” Vesperian continued, his raspy voice turning velvety. ”Some are already defining this capital as the glittering gem of the South.”

”This is a exceptionally kind thing to say. Most men look only at my bloody wars as the sole telling of my worth. I always, however, prefer to look at what I have meticulously built rather than what I have violently destroyed, despite the first task being a thousand times harder than the latter, but it is also more lasting, though less clamored....”

”If more rulers shared that thinking, we wouldn’t have so much sorrow and ash in these lands of ours, Your Majesty,” Vesperian sighed.

The old man paused, his pale eyes catching the flickering light of the hearth before his expression subtly shifted into something more business-like.

”However,” the Archon continued softly as the king felt the crux of the matter coming in hands, ”as an old servant of the true faith, it did sadden my heart to see so many thousands of prosperous people living in a grand city entirely devoid of a proper cathedral. It would surely do absolute wonders for the spiritual health of the people of Yarzat to gaze upon such a holy monument... both to those who worship the true gods, and perhaps, to guide those stubborn souls who still cling to the false ones.”

Alpheo didn’t need to hear another syllable to understand the meaning behind the old man’s words. Vesperian’s unblinking, steady gaze intended the matter well enough.

”As soon as time and the treasury permit it, I shall build a grand cathedral,” Alpheo replied, his voice a smooth, unreadable canvas. ”I was already planning a significant expansion of the city walls, as you know. There will be more than enough premium space carved out for a proper house of the gods.So that it may dazzled believers and lost soul alike”

That promise seemed to please the Archon well enough, though they both knew that what Alpheo had just handed him was merely the rind, not the meat of the matter.

Vesperian’s eyes hardened into two sharp chips of flint, his brow lifting slightly as if asking the King if he truly intended to force him to speak the real grievance aloud. And as things stood in this room, yes, the King absolutely wanted him to mouth it. Alpheo was not about to make the Archon’s dirty work any easier by guessing.

”Might I then bother Your Majesty regarding another, more pressing matter that the Pontifex explicitly expressed his deepest worries about?” Vesperian asked, the coarse whisper of his voice suddenly carrying a distinctly colder edge.

No, I do not want to hear a single syllable of it. But he forced a polite, empty smile onto his face anyway. ”And what might that be, Your Excellency?”

”The heretics that you are currently harboring within your borders,the pontifex has expressed a worry that I find myself sharing” the Archon delivered softly.

At that, Alpheo took a slow calming breath, keeping his gaze locked on the old man. Well, the King thought bitterly, whatever you fail to bury deep enough in this world is always bound to claw its way back to the surface.