Kingshold

by D P Woolliscroft

  Alana sat quietly, unsure of what to say.

  Jyuth was quiet, too, apparently thinking about something. “And has news of the king and queen made its way down to the Narrows? I killed them, you know. Not the first king I’ve killed, but I intend it to be the last. I’m quite weary of it.”

  “Yes, m’lord. Everyone heard the news very fast about the king. There were some who were saying it would happen as soon as you walked back into the city. They probably had a few coppers on that happening and have done quite well for themselves.” She answered his question, and she was beginning to feel more comfortable. It made her daring enough to ask a question herself. “If it makes you so weary, m’lord, why did you do it?”

  “The details are of no concern of yours, girl,” he said, not unkindly. “Suffice it to say, they were doing something that displeased me greatly. And so, I stopped it at the source.”

  Jyuth put the last of the ham into his mouth, wiped his lips with his forearm, and pushed the tray away from him. “I’m done. And now, I’ll need quiet contemplation time, good for the mind and the digestion. I thank you, Alana, for your refreshments and company. You’ll hear more news back in the Narrows later today. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, though. Keep your eyes and ears open, and then tell me tomorrow all the juicy gossip. I do love gossip.”

  Jyuth smiled, stood, and walked to his meditation room. Alana was still melded with her chair, processing the conversation she had just had with one of the most powerful men in history.

  “Go, girl! Be off with you! Go and read a book or something. I have no further need of you today.”

  Alana snapped out of her thoughts. She rushed to the tray, tidied the things on it, and turned on her heels to leave the room. Closing the door quietly behind her, she stole a glance through the crack at Jyuth going through his stretches.

  The wizard had spoken to her! She wondered if Petra would believe it when she told her. But then it occurred to her: would the wizard approve, or would he strike her dead, too, for tattle telling? It seemed like he wanted to talk to her tomorrow, and she wanted to do so, too. She resolved to be safe and keep this to herself. Now, what was the last order he had given her? Oh yes, read a book. Where should she go and get a book to read?

  Alana traveled home that evening with the sun still shining brightly in the sky. She loved the long days as summer approached. Alana had received no further duties from the wizard all day, and so, waiting an hour after their conversation just to be certain she had truly been dismissed, Alana had gone in search of a book.

  She knew of the palace library, and she was quite sure the books in there weren’t for servants like her. But Jyuth had ordered her to read a book. And he must be the most important person left in the kingdom, so if she didn’t get a book to read, then she would be ignoring his command, which would mean big trouble. At least, that was how she had justified it to herself so she could trick her sparrow instincts to enter the library with confidence. She knew it would not do to be seen sneaking around.

  The library was as deserted as it had been on the other occasions she had walked past it, but the walls were full from floor to vaulted ceiling with leather-bound tomes. So many books!

  She had only ever read two books in her whole life. The Formation of Edland, the history book on the creation of the kingdom that all students at Ms. Grange’s schoolhouse used to practice their words once they had moved beyond the slate.

  And secondly, The Merry Man of Mincester, a book her father had given her when he had returned from one of his stints onboard ship. That book differed considerably from the history book, mainly revolving around a young man who loved drink and loved women and was probably not the book a father would give a daughter, but her dad could barely read. It was her most treasured possession, and she had read it cover to cover hundreds of times. Now, though, she could choose whatever book she wanted.

  Her fingertips gently touched the spines of the books as she strolled past the shelves, scanning the titles. Here was A History of Ducal Cavalry Engagements, next to The Flora and Fauna of Underground Caverns, and below it Collected Poems of the Purple Night-Women. She stopped and pulled out one book called A Treatise on the City-States of the Green Desert.

  The cover had a simple drawing of a building, which looked like a palace in grandeur, but instead of the hard, solid lines that made up the Palace of Kingshold, this structure was all circles and sweeping curves.

  She opened the book to look inside at the contents when she heard a scratching noise around the corner. There must be someone in the desk nook, and she hadn’t thought to check!

  Her heart in her mouth, she crept forward to peer half an eye around the bookshelves and see who was there.

  Alana felt a crushing pressure on her shoulders as she realized who was in the library with her. It was Lord Chancellor Hoskin.

  If anyone might hold more power than Jyuth, it would be him. Bertha had told her earlier he was in charge now. If she got caught, she knew she would be fired or even thrown into the cells, and then anything could happen to her. And what would happen to Petra without her to look after her? Alana exhaled a steady stream, stopping her mind from racing away from her.

  It didn’t look like he had noticed her yet. His writing into a large blue book consumed his attention, and she, thankfully, was used to being as quiet as a pallbearer. Alana stepped backward, trying to remain on tiptoe at the same time, until she reached the doorway and made her escape, taking the quiet passages known to servants. Then, as she stopped to catch her breath, she realized she still had the book in her hands.

  And now she gripped the book under her old grey cloak as she walked through the Floral Gate from the Upper Circle, out into the Middle.

  The Middle was the space between the Inner and Outer Walls, which stretched from the guard barracks built into the walls of Mount Tiston that protected Kingshold on two sides, all the way down to the busy docks and the harbor with its deep-water entrance to the sound and the seas beyond. The Middle had many districts, most of which Alana had no business with. Merchants were all over but concentrated closer to the warehouses and main market square; and the Justicery included the City Gaol, Court, and Lawyers’ offices, as well as many places of residence for people of different means. All of whom were a class or two, or three, above Alana.

  For her, the Middle was just something in between where she worked and where she lived in the Narrows, and it was the Lance which was the most direct route home for her.

  The stores and shopfronts were either closed or packing up for the night as Alana hurried down the street, dodging other pedestrians and carts and wagons that came perilously close to the pavement. As she walked, she kept careful eyes on her surroundings, nervous about the package she carried.

  She noticed a few spotters from the Twilight Exiles, Charlie, Tam, and Gammy Pete. The Exiles were the largest crime organization in Kingshold, not an official guild, more a pyramid hustle for the older members on the youngsters, but still better able to police illegal activity than the city guard. They, in turn, paid her more notice than they normally would, but no more than a few seconds each as they went back to scanning the crowds. There must be some job underway, she thought, but Alana knew better than to have any interest.

  Eventually, Alana came to the Red Gate in the Outer Wall, passing through it, and out into the Hub, the area that had grown over the past few hundred years beyond the Outer Wall.

  The Lance became the Pike here (a commoner might have a pike, but only a knight would have a lance), wider and busier than within the Middle, all the way out to the final wall that now surrounded Kingshold. Carndall’s Curtain, named after the king who began construction of the wall that should have been three times longer than the inner and outer wall combined. But that would be expensive. That was why some of it had yet to be completed, particularly in the back of the Narrows, where the wall was thin enough that light was sometimes visible through the cracks.

  Alana crossed the street
and ducked through a crowd at the entrance to the top alley of the Narrows, where roads navigable by beast and cart stopped and the buildings leaned on top of each other for support. In many places, the alleyways became tunnels as the wood and stone houses reached across to touch each other. The evidence of the mass of humanity that was the Narrows assaulted the senses for those not used to it; laundry hung from windows, smells of cooking from simple kitchens, sounds of arguments and the successive agreements filling the air as Alana dodged the porters with their hand carts of produce.

  Many people called out to Alana as she walked; she took care to wave with her free hand, as she headed back to the small home she shared with her sister on a small stone courtyard. A crowd of fifteen or so people gathered by the Dumb Crier (the wooden notice-board, which had replaced the Town Criers who used to come into the Narrows to spread official news), and Alana realized there had been three or four similar groups on her walk home. Elbowing her way to the front, she saw the freshly written notice, and now she knew what Jyuth had been referring to earlier that day.

  Attention, good citizens of Kingshold. We thank King Roland and Queen Tulip for their years of service acting as stewards of the realm. Their unfortunate demise in a court-related accident, having passed on without heirs or a clear line of succession, has now created an opportunity for you, the people, to decide on a new lord protector of Edland via an election or counting of votes. The rules of this election shall be as follows:

  I. Any person of good standing can nominate themselves as a candidate for lord protector

  II. The candidate who receives the most votes will be named lord protector

  III. The election will take place twenty-eight days from this announcement, on the day of the summer solstice

  IV. Each head of household in good standing will be able to cast a vote in the election. Once cast, their vote cannot be changed

  V. To meet the requirement of being a person in good standing, any individual must own property within three leagues of the palace of Kingshold, present themselves in front of the lord wizard, who will ensure impartiality of the vote, and place one thousand gold crowns on deposit until after the election.

  I am sure you look forward to this exciting progression in the development of the realm.

  Lord Hoskin

  Chancellor of Edland

  Chapter 5

  Merchant Gossip

  “Mareth!”

  Mareth’s eyes opened slightly, and though he meant to say, “Who is that,” it came out more like, “Mmmmo ffss vvhrrt?” His face stuck to something solid and stopped his mouth from moving.

  With a wrench, he jerked upright, pain exploding behind his eyes. “Where am I?” Mareth focused on his surroundings; the large common room full of customers, at long tables, in private booths, and seated in front of a great stone fireplace came into focus. And so did the memories of last night. This was the Royal Oak.

  “Mareth, you need to get up from that bloody table and let me clean up. It’s dinnertime. It’s busy. And I need the table for punters who actually pay me in coin, not song.” The woman who spoke was of middle years, wearing a simple well-cut dress of cotton, lavender in color (which as an uncommon pigment showed her wealth), with a leather apron worn over the top tied at her trim waist. She had a handsome face and dark brown hair pulled back into a bun on the top of her head, a few lines of grey showing. But that didn’t matter to Mareth, he found the landlady of the Royal Oak to be quite alluring.

  “Why, hello, beautiful Jules,” he said, trying to make himself somewhat presentable, acutely aware the beard on one side of his face had become rather matted and stuck out at an angle. “How are you this morning? It seems like I dozed off.”

  He smiled at her and considered her appearance further. Yes, she was a few years older than him, but those years had been kind to her. Some would say that was the product of hard work, and owning this place was surely hard work. It made her lean and strong. He had seen her extract many a drunken trouble-causer herself over the years, even though a bouncer was usually on duty. She was not a woman to be trifled with, though he often tried. “Wait. Did you say it was dinnertime? How long have I been sitting here?”

  “How much of last night do you remember? Come to think of it, how much of the night before can you remember?” she asked.

  Mareth held up two fingers in a pinch, indicating not much.

  “Well, last night you were still telling tales and singing songs when I went to bed and left Garth in charge. That was two or three o’clock. And then you were still in the same place when I woke up to make sure breakfast was being made.” She shook her head. “I was at least glad to see you’d managed to keep more than a dozen punters here all night with you. Folks who actually paid their tabs…” She let the point hang there for a moment, the meaning all too clear, before continuing. “Anyway, when I came down, you were all telling me how you created these hilarious new songs about various lords and ladies, I think. I suggested you write them down while you could still remember them. So, I brought you parchment and pen from my own collection.”

  “You did, Jules? You are truly an amazing woman.” Hope rose in Mareth. Maybe this would be it, his start of something more important in life. It almost made him ignore the queasiness climbing up from his stomach. “Do you have the notes?”

  “Hah! I don’t have anything, you sweet fool.” Jules patted him on the cheek, as one might a boy on his way to his first day at school. “There is the paper on the table in front of you. And the only thing you managed to put down is six hours of drool.”

  Mareth clapped his hands to his head and stared down.

  “You can’t remember anything about those songs now?”

  He shook his head. “No, I can’t. Again.” The need to vomit rose in him. Somebody stoked a bonfire in the space behind his eyes. The combined smell of flower water Jules used on her hair with the leather of her apron was not helping matters.

  She bent closer and whispered gently, “You’ve gone white as a sheet, Mareth. Come over here, and you can sit at the bar. I’ll get you something to eat. Something nice and greasy with a beer to wash it down.” She helped him to his feet. “And then I can have a whole party of folks at this table, too.”

  She smiled and winked at him. His stomach flipped; as a result of the smile or the after effects of the night before? He considered it to be too difficult a question to answer at that moment, so he followed her back over to the long oaken bar.

  “…I heard that Eden is going to stand to be protector. Him and Hoxteth. Also, Jimmy said a woman down the wash house told his wife that Lady Chalice is going to sign up at the palace. Oh, yeah, and Chancellor Hoskin, too, but who’d want that miserable toady as lord protector?”

  Mareth had recovered enough to be able to focus on devouring the plate of greasy pig, bread, and gravy in front of him, but his ears were drawn to the conversation of two merchants along the bar. From the looks of them, they were reasonably successful, doing better than a single store owner, but not one of the ones with a handful of warehouses to their name. The first one who spoke was fair-skinned with a beard of blond whiskers kept short to match his trim haircut, apparently the style right now, though Mareth had no truck with that.

  “Where’d you hear that rubbish? Eden and Hoxteth, I’ll buy, but Chalice ain’t going to get in the middle of this. Except for a contract. The Hollow Syndicate will make a mint.” The second who spoke was dark-skinned and clean shaven, and he had a leather satchel on the bar in front of him next to the bottle of wine they were sharing.

  Mareth topped a nice piece of gravy-soaked bread with a lump of fat and popped it into his mouth. He knew a little about Hoxteth. Self-made merchant, some said by running goods through the embargo with Pyrfew, avoiding the customs officers and the navy until, one day, he went legit and married into a family with a title. Became guild leader, and now treasurer of the realm. Gambler, odds-player, and coin-counter. Maybe not the traditional stuff of legends, but h
e was a winner.

  Eden, on the other hand, people thought he was a hero already. Five years ago, he led the Second Company to liberate the city of Redpool, Edland’s only holding on the mainland of the Jeweled Continent. The governor of Redpool thought he could test the new king and switch sides to the emperor of Pyrfew, taking the city with him.

  Mareth had held many a commoner rapt telling the story of how, in parley, Eden was able to rile the governor so much he marched back behind the walls of the city, roused his fighters, and rode out to meet the Second on the field. Eden, though, had hidden his cavalry a good ten miles away from the city walls. The occupying army thought the infantry in front of them was all they faced. But the cavalry came when they saw the signal fires, and half an hour after stepping out of the city, those foot soldiers had two thousand cavalry smashing into their rear. They officially changed the name of the city to Redsmoke in Eden’s (and the signal fires’) honor, even though everyone still called it Redpool.

  Eden was already rich and well-connected—you don’t lead the Second without the connections to begin at captain when others start digging the latrines—but he made a pretty penny out of the liberation. King Roland levied an extra copper on the crown in customs charges that went straight into Eden’s pocket (another example of Roland’s brilliant new taxes). Probably made the liberator the richest man in the whole kingdom.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” said Blond Beard. “Wonder who will make it to the end of the month?”

  “Good question,” replied Dark Skin. “My vote is going to be for Hoxteth, of course. He’s one of us. Got to be good for business. You know, I started working for him as a warehouse hand—”

  “Bullshit,” interrupted Blond Beard. “You ain’t going to be voting. That’ll be all your coin. And you’ve told me a hundred times if you’ve told me once about how you learnt everything at the knee of Hoxteth. And we all know you got the boot for having your fingers in the cash drawer. Got the boot and only just avoided a blade to your fingers, too.”