Crown of Earth

by Hilari Bell

  Weasel’s overly innocent expression gave the game away, and Sandeman stopped, the scowl fading. “All right, you got me going. Perhaps some of it was our fault, though mostly it was the drought, taxes, and Regalis’ own preference for… for regarding the country as something that existed only to produce food for the important people. The important people, in his mind, being nobles and the craftsmen who produced their luxuries. So it all fell apart. And there was no heir of Deor’s blood to put it back together… until now.”

  Edoran, feeling that heavy burden descending on his shoulders, grimaced. “So my father wasn’t descended from Deor?” His father had suspected that himself, writing about it in his journals, but Edoran had always hoped…

  “No. He was a good man,” Sandeman said. “He might have been a good king. Several of Regalis’ descendants were both those things. But Deor’s blood came to you through your mother’s family.”

  “You told me that your father was doing genealogical research when he met her, didn’t you?” Weasel asked.

  Edoran nodded. He barely remembered his mother, but his father…

  “He was a good man,” the Hidden priest repeated. “He did his best. Let the rest of it go.”

  “So when did you realize you had a true heir again?” Weasel asked.

  “When he claimed the sword and shield,” Sandeman replied. “Right in the middle of what was about to turn into a pitched battle, between a mob of pirates and a group of guardsmen they outnumbered three to one! I’m not sure,” he added thoughtfully, “but I think that was the worst moment for a claiming in the entire history of the realm.”

  “Had I been warned,” said Edoran with dignity, “I might have done it sooner. Under better circumstances. And Arisa’s mother might still be alive.”

  Or executed for treason. Or in prison. Or still in a position of power, plotting to murder her way to the throne.

  “Don’t you understand yet?” Sandeman’s voice was oddly gentle. “You couldn’t have chosen them earlier. They hadn’t yet become what they needed to be, in order to be the sword and shield you needed. When you first met him, Weasel was a small-souled pickpocket—”

  “Ex-pickpocket,” Weasel inserted.

  “—whose primary goal in life was to become a forger. And Arisa,” the priest went on, “was in a fair way to becoming the kind of fanatic that no sane person wants in charge of their military. As for you, ah…”

  “As for me, I was the last person anyone would want on a throne,” said Edoran. “And I wouldn’t have recognized the true sword and shield if they’d bitten me on the ankle.”

  He realized why that particular phrase had occurred to him, and scratched his ankle vigorously before banishing the sensation once more.

  “None of this was guaranteed in the beginning,” Sandeman finished. “All we could do was keep an eye on the three of you and pray you’d grow into what you had to be… without getting yourselves killed in the process. You made a pretty fair attempt at that,” he added.

  “I was trying to keep everyone alive!” Weasel said indignantly.

  Edoran regarded the Hidden priest thoughtfully. “I made a mess of things, didn’t I?”

  “It was messy,” Sandeman admitted. “But you didn’t do too badly. All in all, I think you managed pretty well.”

  Edoran snorted. “All I did was get rescued. Three times. I never rescued myself, not even once!”

  “Maybe not,” Sandeman said. “But you did save Caerfalas’ boats. And whoever the pirates would have preyed on in the future. And you saved the whole realm from the Falcon’s schemes. That, my boy, is what kings are supposed to do. They have minions to rescue them, should they ever be so foolish as to need it. Again. Which would be really foolish.”

  Because he wouldn’t be around to do it. “I won’t,” Edoran said. “Well, I’ll try not to. Before you go… would you lay the cards for me? For my future?”

  If anything was about to go wrong, it would be nice to have warning.

  Sandeman shook his head. “You can do that for yourself, should you need to,” he said. “Or Arisa can do it for you. But you already know what you’d see.”

  He left then, closing the door behind him.

  “That was cryptic,” Weasel grumbled.

  But Edoran did know what he’d see if he laid the cards: the fool, with the storm to his left and the hanged man to his right.

  He didn’t know everything. He didn’t know how people would react to the worship of the old gods being legal once more. He didn’t know what Weasel would do or say in the next minute.

  But he knew that he needed to reroute the city sewers so they no longer emptied into the river; the bay was almost a desert already, empty not only of fish but of any kind of sea life. That odd fellow at the university, whom everyone ridiculed because he was obsessed with finding a way to turn sewage into clean fertilizer, wouldn’t be laughed at so much when he received full crown funding.

  Yes, Edoran would need the scientists. He’d need the cooperation of the city workers, who’d embraced the church of the One God, as well… though something needed to be done about their working conditions.

  The thought of facing down some angry manufactory owner made Edoran cringe, but that was the king’s job. And both Weasel and Arisa would be with him when he did it. With Weasel and Arisa at his side, anything was possible. Anything.