Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

The King watched with quiet amusement as the old man’s expression soured, line by deep line, like milk left too long in the sun. Alpheo acted as though he hadn’t noticed, shifting casually on the hard wooden pew to sit right beside him.

The chapel was small, but the business to be conducted within its stone walls was vast. Outside, heavy-booted guards stood at the iron doors with strict orders to keep any inquisitive ears far from the King’s affairs, though even their presence felt like an unnecessary precaution against the walls of slate.

”I see my answer displeases you, your Excellency?” Alpheo asked, his dark eyes drifting upward toward the veiled statue of the Weaver.

”Pride is the oldest and hungriest of the sins,” the Archon replied, undeterred, his bony hands tucking his wide velvet sleeves neatly into his lap. ”No matter the mountain of glory you climb, or the mountains of silver you hoard, your Majesty, there is always someone above to whom you must eventually answer to. This loose talk of godhood does you no favors, neither with the heavens, nor with those who already eye Yarzat with bitter, hungry faces.”

The Archon leaned in slightly, his voice dropping to a gravelly rasp. ”The lords you have humbled and forced to their knees are not the only ones looking sourly upon your rise. You would do well to remember that taking the cloth is a respectable path for third and fourth-born sons. Some of the very men who will soon cast their votes for the next Pontifex are blood-kin to the lords you have slain or stripped of their lands.”

The King studied the old man’s face, then gave a faint, indifferent shrug. ”They will never lack for arrows to aim at my chest, Archon. Talk of godhood or not, that is the plain, unvarnished truth.I am simply too lowborn to have anything but their respect.”

”Your blood-soaked path makes it remarkably difficult to endorse you, your Grace,” the Archon noted dryly. ”Nor does it make speaking well of you any easier, if that is indeed what you wish of me.”

No, I would wish for nothing more than to be left well alone with my realm and my rule, Alpheo thought silently. To govern without the squawking of crows and priests.

But that was the thought of Alpheo the man, not the King of Yarzat.

He opened his hands in a gesture of magnanimous innocence. ”I would wish for nothing more than to live in quiet peace with my neighbors, yet it is they who have brought iron and fire to my threshold time after time. Is it truly my fault that I am simply so very good at ending the wars they start? What need have I for more drafty castles and fawning spittle-lickers when I already rule the greatest realm in all the south? I would gladly sit within my borders and be content, but it is the others who harbor bones to pick with me. So, when they march, I am forced to crush them and exact a dire price for their folly. Only when the cost of conflict becomes unbearable can true peace finally take root. I do not care if they love, but they will fear me.”

The Archon did not miss a single beat. ”And were you forced to crown yourself as well? And with that grotesque, gnarly iron hoop, no less?Truly has a crown ever been so ill-looking?”

Alpheo chuckled softly ”Nay. That, I wanted for myself. I have the land, the iron, and the spears to back it. I have just emerged victorious from a war no other living man could have won, so if I did not take the crown now, it was never to be. I have always been a man of grand ambitions, that is my gift and my greatest curse”

”Ambition is to greed what the boy is to the man,” the Archon warned, his cloudy eyes narrowing. ”And for many great men, men every bit as formidable as you, it has proven their ultimate undoing. You would do well to guard your heart against it.”

”You are overly kind to worry so fiercely for my soul, your Excellency,” Alpheo murmured smoothly, though he knew down to his bones that it was the Holy See’s purse the Archon truly worried for.

Alpheo wondered when the old man would finally bring up the matter of coin. Just when the King of Yarzat thought himself a patient man, the world was always quick to remind him there was a bigger, hungrier fish waiting in the deep water.

They spoke at length of other matters, the cathedral Yarzat was to build, and the lingering unrest in Oizen, until, inevitably, the conversation circled back to the shadow hanging over the palace: the upcoming coronation.

”In a month’s time, it shall be done,” the King stated flatly. Down in the grand hall at the base of the dais, he would be crowned, and on the following morning, Jasmine would be draped in crimson and silk to be anointed as his queen.

”I am hardly the first to say it, sire, but you have birthed a hundred new enemies with this grand display,” the Archon said, shifting uncomfortably on the oak bench. ”And you have soured the few friends you had left.”

”Then they were never true friends to Yarzat,” Alpheo replied without a second’s hesitation. ”A true friend rejoices when another flourishes.”

The Romelian archon fixed him with a long, unblinking gaze, before speaking reluctantly. ”Not when your light eclipses their own star. Tell me... how many true friends do you genuinely have left?”

”I have enough. More than one, in truth,” Alpheo countered, a cold, sharp smile touching his lips. ”And some of them are quite recent. Merelao Marcio, for instance, nephew to Lavus prince of Kakunia, lord of Epietoli, and the rightful heir to the throne of Kakunia, soon to sit upon it if the winds remain fair and the gods prove fairer. You have heard of him, no doubt?”

”I have,” the Archon replied, his tone heavy and his sour expression telling the King all he needed to know. The Romelian Curia did not look kindly upon his line.

”He is surprisingly graceful and pleasant company, once you get past the Kakunian flair, they are people with certain passions” Alpheo continued, leaning in slightly, his voice dropping into a smooth, persuasive murmur. ”He will grace our halls with his presence very soon, accompanied by a fine line of noble retainers. I would be immensely pleased if your Excellency were seen exchanging a few warm words with the man, and perhaps bestowing a public blessing upon his head.”

The King watched the realization hit the old man. The Pontifex had repeatedly rejected every desperate attempt by Kakunia to legitimize their succession lines, but that was because Yarzat filled their pocket to do so. For the Archon, the very man sent to crown the King of Yarzat, to be seen openly blessing Merelao and his entourage would deal a devastating blow in the moral war.

And perhaps gain some more support among the Kakunian lords who had yet to choose a side in the upcoming war. 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

Come summer, blood would be spilled , but for now, the campaign was waged with parchment and ink.

”There is a deliberate reason why the Pontifex has remained silent on the matter of Kakunia,” the Archon replied, choosing his words with surgical care. ”I am here by the Holy See’s direct mandate to crown you as King and Protector of Yarzat, alongside your good queen, nothing more, and nothing less. I am most certainly not here to meddle in Kakunian succession.”

”I am certain the Pontifex will send his most fervent prayers to whichever side emerges victorious,” Alpheo countered smoothly, ”all while stuffing his holy pockets with Yarzat’s silver in the meantime. But the Pontifex sits so far away on his high chair in Romelia, Archon, while you stand right here in my chapel.”

The King took a step closer, his shadow stretching long across the slate floor. ”I do not ask you to crown the man. I ask only that you offer him a few graceful, well-timed words in full view of the court. Say that he is a godly man. Bestow a simple blessing upon his head. I assure you, once Merelao sits as Prince of Kakunia, and I speak to him of the brave Archon who anointed me, he will remember your kindness. And when the time comes for your own bid to wear the White Barb, he may well throw Kakunia’s weight behind Yarzat’s support.”

Alpheo allowed a sharp, knowing smile to touch his lips. ”A kingdom and a principality backing your pontificial ambitions is a far grander prospect than a kingdom alone, especially one that has already reached the very limit of what it is willing to offer.”

The Archon went entirely still, his cloudy eyes widening just a fraction as the weight of the offer hung heavy in the quiet air.

Good, Alpheo thought, watching the ancient ambition stir beneath the old man’s pious veneer. That will give the old crow something to chew on for quite the time.