Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

"It’s a beautiful country, isn’t it?" his father asked, his gaze fixed on the trees, his trees, lining both sides of the muddy highway. The steady, muffled thump-thump of the horse hooves rattled softly against the heavy wooden door of the carriage.

Basil followed his father’s eyes out the window. To him, they were just trees. Common oaks and pines, good for ships, hardly anything worth staring at with such gravity. Still, it was true that Yarzat was a beautiful land, though Basil secretly believed a realm’s true beauty rested in the worth of its people and what they might become, rather than the mere dirt they walked upon.

"It is, Father," Basil murmured, shifting on the hard bench. "Though I can’t say I truly see its grandeur at this exact moment."

"Neither do I, on that account," the King agreed, drawing in a deep breath of the biting winter air.

Basil watched him closely. His father was entirely unaccustomed to riding in carriages. Kings and high lords moved on the backs of great warhorses, as they were expected to do by the commons. And yet, here they were, rattling along inside a wooden box, and a remarkably plain, unadorned carriage at that. It begged a glaring question: why all the secrecy?And why was he here?

"It’s a strange country for most who lay eyes on it," his father continued, resting his chin atop the palm of his hand as he leaned against the window frame. "Still... what is it that you see when you look out there? You are set to inherit all of this one day. Does the thought make you proud? The idea of thousands of men obeying your every command?"

Basil searched inside himself, looking for the spark of royal pride his father likely wanted to see. But the thought of one day sitting the throne brought him more unease than anything else.

"I can’t say it does," Basil admitted softly. "I mean... I know it is a monumental honor, but—"

"Everything before the word ’but’ is always bullshit," the King interrupted smoothly, not even turning his head. "What is actually rattling around in your head, boy?Do I need to crack it open to take a glimpse?"

"I’d say... perhaps I feel overwhelmed?To think of it." Basil confessed, the truth slipping out before he could mask it. "Yes. Thinking of one day ruling over all of this makes my stomach turn sour. Having an entire realm looking up at me, desperately expecting an answer to every crisis. What if I don’t have it?’’

What if I am not as good as you? Basil wished to say.

"Then you choose a path and you stick to it, until you decide on another," his father stated flatly. "Do you truly believe all the people out there already know exactly where they are going?"

Do you then, Father? Basil wondered, but he kept the thought behind his teeth. "I expected kings to know," he replied honestly. "I don’t feel ready. Not for the crown, not for any of it."

"Expectations are a slow poison, Basil. One day you will find yourself thoroughly overwhelmed by them; it is a long, grueling way to grow into a passed-down cloak." The King choked down a small, dry chuckle, as if recalling a jest only he could understand. "Ruling a realm is a lot like sailing a ship. You gather your crew. You roar your orders, and your ship rams heavily through the waves. Sometimes the voyage goes exactly as you hoped toward that long awaited beach. Sometimes a sudden wind sets you on a completely different course. You can try to steer the vessel wherever you wish, but unseen variants will always push you one way or the other."

The King finally turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto his son.

"You will face violent storms, Basil. You will face windy days, maddening days without a breath of wind, and days that feel like absolute heaven. And when the voyage is done, you will look back in horror at what you’ve done. You will gaze back in pride, you will look back in burning shame... or perhaps, if you’re like me, you will just force yourself to keep looking ahead and never gaze back at all."

The King’s gaze drifted away, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. "To never face the true cost of your sailing. Never to count how many of your old friends still love you, how many still follow you... and how many have come to utterly hate your guts. I only hope that when your time comes to look back, you won’t be beset by old ghosts."

The King’s nose wrinkled slightly, and a profound, fleeting shadow of sadness crossed his weathered face. It was arare crack in the warlord’s armor, but it vanished as quickly as it had come, replaced by his usual stoic mask.

Basil looked at his father , quiet and clearly wrestling something bigger than himself.

"I was told you have been passing your time in the gardens with Laedio’s daughter," his father remarked, abruptly changing the wind.

’’I did.’’

The silence rolled between them for a quite a long time as if they had never spoke.

Basil kept wishing for his father to break it, to pivot back or ask for that clever piece of wisdom he was hoarding, but the King remained perfectly content with the quiet.

Finally, Basil couldn’t take the pressure of his own thoughts anymore. "What is it that you see instead, Father?"

"Where?" the King asked without moving.

"Eh?"

"What do I see where, Basil?"

"Around us," Basil said, gesturing vaguely out the window. "The realm?" he blurted out in a panic.

His father thought for a brittle, before his index finger rose, pointing directly north where the midday sun hung high and bright. It was well past the hour of the noon meal; they were clearly skipping lunch today.If he had known he would have kept some oranges from the tree....

"North, I see a giant that is on its last legs," the King said, his voice flat and clinical. "A lumbering beast holding onto our knees, partly to beg us for mercy, and partly to keep us dragged down in the dirt with it. To the South, I see a land that is utterly ravaged, up in arms, and on fire.No matter how many we hang on branches, they sprout out like flowers in spring."

His father’s eyes snapped back toward him, dark and unblinking. "We have been underestimating the Vulture Lord for entirely too long. The bastard has a good mind for warfare, and he does not follow a single one of our rules.He won’t make a mistake unless we force him to make one. People are laughing behind our backs , and we have been forced to send themajority of our forces down there just to keep the passes open." His jaw set hard, a bitter muscle twitching in his cheek as if praising his enemy’s competence made him want to puke.

"And then we get to the East," the King continued, shifting his weight. "Where our dear ally, our only real ally, truth be told, continues to write us frantic missives for an assistance that we do not yet have the ability to tend to.Begging for swords we need elshewhere. All the while, the fucking Habadians are already throwing chests of silver at the fat prince sitting on the silver chair. But well... better the fighting to be on their turf than on our own, I say, though for that we actually need to put the resource for that fighting."

He let out a sharp, cynical snort through his nose. "And what about our prestigious friends in Herculia? In every single stable, Lucius swears he sees two traitors hiding in the hay. You go snooping around on his orders, and you find nothing but worthless hearsay and grand conjectures. I can hardly execute high lords on mere conjectures. He had my skin-collectors wasting months surrounding a lord’s estate, intercepting every missive he received and sent. Turns out, the poor fool was just sending passionate letters to his mistress."

The slightest ghost of a smile touched the King’s lips. "It was quite entertaining to read what the old man was up to in the dark, I suppose. But erotic dreams are hardly worth a sovereign’s time and gold.

We have just won the war of the century, carving our bloody path for our rising state. This should be the tale of our glory! Instead we are wasting it squabbling in guile and blood, our foot sinking on shifting-sands, snarling and biting at the worms wriggling in the rotting apple on our plate.’’

The prince thought that would be the end of the lecture. But it was not. Once the King had opened the floodgates, he went on and on, detailing the fractures of the realm for another hour at the very least. He spoke of grain shortages in the western valleys, the rising price of bread, untrustworthy tax collectors along the coast, and the petty squabbles of lords that required a crown’s mediation to decide whatever an hamlet ought to pay taxes to one banner or the other.

Not that Basil minded the length of it. It was rare, and secretly he thought it nice, to hear his father talk to him like a man rather than a child. Perhaps most sons would prefer to pass their time, for example, hunting with their old man , but well, he always understood there was something wrong with him. With himself, his wishes, his dreams and nightmares.

None spoke of it aloud, but he knew it , perhaps the only thing he could be sure of, admist wars, rebellions and matters of trade,the only thing he could boast knowledge of was indeed the rule over himself.

Still , as the carriage rattled on through the trees, the grand ledger of problems didn’t help to ease his roiling anxiety one bit.

For all he could think about as he watched his father’s mouth moving up and down, was a terrifying, absolute truth: he truly had no earthly idea how to rule.

All that power, all that responsibility... it soured something in him.

He hoped it would be still long before those would be his wares. As of now, he could just satisfy himself in listening in his father babbling about them, happy at his state and at the circumstances of his life.

It was the All-knower after all that said it.

Blessed was he, who was content of himself.

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