Page 22 of Valdemar

Feeling increasingly that his presence was stealing precious moments from the lifebound couple, Kordas saw himself out, relieved that yet another potential problem with these two had been headed off. As his son had hinted, the temptation to take advantage of a beautiful girl who was and would remain insensible while you had your way with her, and thus could never accuse you, had the potential to be too great for some people to resist. And he couldn’t spare a guard to watch her—never mind that would be broadcasting that he didn’t trust the people within the wall.

Ruling is such a dance.

At least now the two were both productive. That would be good for both of them. And one less headache for me.

• • •

One less headache was a good thing for Kordas, because he had one waiting for him when he took his place at the Council after a hasty breakfast.

The Council Chamber was a far cry from the one he’d had back at the old manor in the Duchy. The old Chamber had beautiful colored-glass windows that could be opened on clement days and closed on cold, made in abstract patterns of golds and warm browns that did a lot to brighten up the room on a gray day. They had woven wire screens to keep out insects on days when the windows were open to catch a breeze. Its “stone” walls—since it had been raised by magic, the walls were no more stone than these walls grown by the Mother were—had long ago been paneled in wood, then covered in tapestries to deaden sound and create warmth in the winter. It had fireplaces at each end, and had been furnished with a curved and polished horseshoe-shaped wooden table and supremely comfortable high-backed chairs, two sideboards for holding whatever was needed during the course of a meeting, including drinks and food if it ran long, and additional chairs for guests and those giving testimony or advice to the Council. The floor and ceiling had also been covered in wood, with wooden beams from which hung mage-lights. Over one fireplace hung a banner with the Valdemar crest, over the other a map of the Duchy, renewed every year to allow for changes, beautifully made and colored on an enormous piece of framed, thin board.

But here, in Haven, the only thing this room had in common with that one were the fireplaces and the map and banner. Over one fireplace hung the Duchy of Valdemar banner, brought with them from the Empire. Over the other was a map of this Barony, unframed and uncolored, but inked like the old one onto an enormous, extremely thin board made up of many end-cut flooring flats nailed and glued together, then finished with a smooth, hard clay surface. It showed scores of spots where outdated symbols and lines had been sanded down and corrections had been made. The windows held fitted frames with gauze in them to let in light and keep out insects, with lockable shutters to guard from storms and winter cold, like the rest of the windows in the manor. The way this manor had been grown, none of its edges were perfectly straight or level, and its “trim” invariably had organic shapes of varying depth in its surface. The floor was “stone,” the ceiling was “stone,” the walls were “stone,” with no softening by tapestries or rugs. Such things had been too bulky to bring many with them, and of exceedingly low priority to make right now. Maybe we should have wall hangings like the Vale had. Thick, woven panels of leaves, vines, and cloth with gravel inside. Without any kind of spellwork, they made all kinds of noise turn calm. The harsh acoustics were sometimes distracting. The Council table consisted of three trestle tables with not-so-comfortable stools, although those were slowly being replaced with actual chairs with backs, with priority going to the oldest Council members first. There were similar trestle tables to serve as sideboards.

It was not a “comfortable” chamber, but to Kordas’s mind that was all to the good. It meant that people were not inclined to linger and obfuscate. Not when their behinds were slowly going numb on hard, basic wooden stools that might or might not have uneven legs. At least the floor was even. It wasn’t a shabby place of governance, but it was austere, which mirrored how he liked work done in the place. Functional first.

And Kordas was thinking of just that when he strode into the Council Chamber, hoping that this was going to be a nice, short meeting once he reported on the progress with their two newest problems. I need a day on horseback. One in which nothing happens. I don’t think I ever quite appreciated boredom as much as I do now.

“So, Kordas,” began his Lord Chancellor, but stopped short when Kordas raised a palm.

“Rothas Sunsinger has had shields placed on him by the Old Men, and is no longer a hazard, although I caution anyone with Empathy to stay clear,” Kordas interrupted, and was backed up by a nod from Sai, who was the mages’ representative today. “He has Bardic Gifts and is currently undergoing training, and I am sure will be happy to perform when he is asked. Lythe Shadowdancer has been assigned to walk the wall in place of a senior officer to see to the guards’ needs and ensure they are alert. She has Animal Mindspeech and apparently sees as well in the darkness as an owl or a cat, making her quite useful there. Since she does not have Bardic Gifts, and inconveniences nobody, I judge that this is sufficient to earn her keep. Sunsinger’s Gifts are also sufficient to earn him a place.” He did not mention the mastiff. Not that he didn’t trust members of his Council, but he saw no reason to stir up a debate about whether or not the girl needed to be protected while insensible. Too often, Council members raised debates not because they cared about the outcome, but rather, because they wanted to be noticed.

The Lord Chancellor blinked. “Ah, that’s all very good, Kordas, but that’s not what I was about to say. I was about to say that . . . well, I, we, have more or less all agreed. I know you have been resistant to this, but it’s gotten to the point where it has to be done.”

Kordas stared at him blankly, and stayed standing. What is he going on about? There was no small number of things Kordas was resistant to. Aside from the senior mages, he had the clearest view of the big-picture matters of his people’s future, and while many of the Council’s proposals were reasonable, many more were short-sighted. He frowned and scratched the back of his head. “Go on, then.”

“A King, Kordas. We need a King. Not a Baron. Not a Duke. We are out in the middle of gods-forsaken nowhere, a land of tiny villages far apart, who know nothing about Barons, Counts, Dukes, and all the rest. But they know what a King is.” Despite receiving a scowl from Kordas, he continued. “To be plain, we feel this is the time. A King gives us legitimacy and respect. The natives here place outsiders in few categories—warlord, bandit, mad, murderous, monster, or suspicious. We’ve stayed something like “huge horde of suspicious people with a passive warlord,” to them, and that isn’t enough. With the Pelagirs so near, the locals are jumpy all the time, expecting the worst of anything new, and our people aren’t happy about it. We already have that breakaway group on our northern border, the east is twitchy, and our claim on the south isn’t getting any stronger. Even with the people we brought.”

Kordas folded his arms where he stood, but stayed silent, letting his Court discipline override his more unpleasant thoughts. The Lord Chancellor continued what seemed to be a practiced argument.

“Not the most palatable example, but the Empire itself grew out of a mere Barony. The first of the Imperial line simply declared himself a King so he could outrank all the other landholders competing around him, quell their feuds and squabbles, and close-knit their forces. You can do the same, and you should, and we in this chamber are all, to a man and woman, in favor of it.”

“I don’t—” Kordas began with some heat, then stopped flat. “Wait, wait. Are you electing me King? That isn’t how Kings work.” Kordas then paused for a moment, recalling no small number of lessons about rich, powerful, and crafty people who supported and sustained royalty, and how they tended to get their way. “No, that is how Kings work, but I don’t mean it that way. We’re still getting established here. Manpower and resources aren’t that plentiful. If I was made King, that would entail registering official bloodlines and searching out any relatives, drawing up charters and naming offices, and a hundred other things, like couriers, celebrations, designing livery, and heralds to go far and wide. Nobody has time for that. It’s a lot of fuss for no good reason.”

“It’s the fuss the people want,” Jonaton added, cradling the venerable Sydney-You-Asshole as he stood. “Kordas, there are children past ten years old here who have never had a King. Scads of the traditions we brought with us center upon service and duty to a monarch. It means something vital to us, and the people are in need of reassurance that they’re going to last. Maybe you or your descendants make something different from a monarchy, but for now at least, all of us from plowman to priest know the structure of a monarchy, and will feel reassured by it. Your people need that confidence in their lives. A King, a valiant, brave, and smart King, is someone to believe in, and nobody is better for that than their savior.”

“That just makes me feel like a religious figure. I don’t like it.” Of course Kordas had thought about this over the years. What he did now was more or less the same as what he’d do from a throne. But. It feels too big, too soon. There is so much more work to be done. The outermost palisades aren’t even done, because we used up half the forest stock making buildings to live in. Everybody’s fed, but not sumptuously, and while music, plays, and stories keep morale up, we don’t even have theaters yet. We barely have enough perimeter scouts and guard towers for Haven. And—

“It also has to be said,” Sai began, in a tone that foretold a solemn lesson to come as he stood. “We have all thought it, but I will say it out loud.” All attention went to the elder mage, and he counted off fingers as he spoke. “Someone saves a Duchy’s-worth of lives, makes treaties with The-Strange-Giant-Bird-People, fights monsters, establishes a thriving colony, and then he just calls himself a Baron? He could have been King, and he uses Baron? To some, that might sound like somebody who maybe doesn’t think very much of himself,” Sai finished. “What happens if some monster, deity, or warlord barges in and demands to see our King? What can we say? We have a Baron, will that do?”

Snorts ands giggles rippled out from around the chamber, and one of the guards involuntarily blurted out, “I told you not to!” with indignity and an intense, wary glance at Kordas. Fortunately for the guard’s career, Kordas got the joke, and it broke a lot of the room’s tension. The laughter startled Sydney-You-Asshole away from Jonaton’s arms, and the cat cruised slowly across the tables toward Kordas.

Kordas himself laughed near to breathless, stammering, “And some—” before laughing hard again, wiping his face with his hands. Clearly, he was trying to wrestle this back to Very Serious Business, but with the absurdity of the moment, he wasn’t winning. As he steadied himself, he reached down to give his old friend a pet, and Sydney rubbed against him and flopped onto his feet.

“And some Kings become Emperors, don’t forget,” Kordas retorted, ineffectively. He was not succeeding at looking dour with his face reddened from laughing, and Sai wouldn’t have been fazed by it anyway. Being a powerful mage was good, and being old meant you didn’t worry as much, so being a powerful old mage suited Sai just fine.

“We know you don’t want to be like the Emperor,” Sai put forth. “Any Emperor. You’ve made that abundantly clear. On my name, I declare that it won’t happen. Your friends won’t let you turn into that. Baron has run its course, and it would be cheap to call yourself an Emperor of one city, anyway, so go with King.”

The Lord Chancellor took up with, “Kordas, we’ve studied this. Our people have been struggling and adapting for so long that they need to feel at home now. Established. We agree that they want to be a Kingdom, and they want a King, and that King has to be you because you got them here safely, and kept them safe for the last ten years. You as their King says that Valdemar lives.”

Kordas glared at him. That damned old traitor. How dare he use a line that good on me!

But Sai, Jonaton, and the Lord Chancellor were by no means alone in this. Within moments, every single member of his Council was saying exactly the same thing. Loudly. Insistently. Repeatedly. And the more he objected, the more insistent they became. Sydney sat near Kordas on the tabletop. He laid his ears back, perturbed, and flicked his tail quickly while he surveyed the Council. The cat judged all.

Kordas weighed every argument he could think of as he sat down in the center seat, and began listing them. That it really would make no difference (and the Lord Martial cited chapter and verse concerning their past interactions to prove that it would—and so did the Seneschal). That titles were meaningless out here (and Ceri helpfully supplied all the local names for “King”). That his people didn’t care what he was called (and Beltran cited all the times when people had called him “Highness” or “Majesty” instead of Baron in the past several months). It was clear as springwater that they were not taking “no” for an answer, and that he had no choice and might just as well relax and go along with this.

“Isla will hate it!” he cried, his last line of defense.

“Mother told us to run you over if we had to,” said Restil, who had been sitting off to the side, in a shadow and unnoticed, all this time. “I won’t repeat exactly what she said, because in a man’s mouth it’s—well, it’s not something a good or polite man would say. But the simple fact is, she totally agrees, and says she’ll take care of planning the coronation so you won’t have to worry about taking time off from your other tasks.”

Venerable Sydney walked directly in front of Kordas, atop all of the table’s papers, scrolls, and folios, and sat down directly facing him. His eyes were cloudy and his muzzle grayed, and his motives were as unknowable as ever. The cat reached up a paw—the Death to a Thousand Mice—and touched Kordas’s beard. Slowly and deliberately.

Kordas returned the cat’s gaze with a swell of emotion, wordlessly finding solace with the death-defying old fellow. Gray in my beard, too, old friend. We’ve earned every one.

Kordas looked away to find the room was nearly silent in anticipation. At that, he put his head on the table, his hands over his head, and sighed before raising it back up to declare, “I give up,” with resignation. “You want me to be a King, I’ll be a King. Do with me as you will.”

Ignoring every other soul, the ancient cat flopped atop Kordas’s left hand and nudged at the right hand for pettings. Which Kordas obliged. Sydney-You-Asshole purred, audible only to the future King amidst the room’s tumult.

“Oh,” said Sai, barely audible through the noise, but with a smile in his voice. “Don’t worry. We intend to.”