The King's Gauntlet

Long Live the King

I had always known my brother would be king some day. In my more charitable moments, I even suspected he might be a great one—or at least passably good. He'd always known the crown would be given to him, had always taken to his studies, and his mischief-making wasn't out of the ordinary. Not like mine, anyway.

I just never imagined he'd be king so soon.

"Do you, Jarren of House Aquilus, son of Krastor Aquilus, Hammer of Aland..."

The words drifted in one ear and out the other. The bodies of my parents were still shrouded, brought from their ship and into the crypts, and it pained me that I hadn't yet seen them. It wasn't as though I wanted to view their corpses. The Prime Minister had assured us with grim frankness that their faces were contorted and purplish, a common result of the plague.

Or certain toxins, he had added.

Yet it seemed strange that mere hours after news came of their death my brother was to be crowned king. He, at least, seemed to be taking it well.

"I accept this burden," he said, voice clear in the hushed cathedral. Father Barnochus nodded, then coughed as if in faint embarrassment.

"We do not yet have the crown. It is still affixed to the personage of the late King Aquilus II, is it not, Prime Minister?"

"Ah... yes." Prime Minister Witsel stepped forward, the scuffing of his boots echoing through the cathedral, as teary eyes from a hundred of Aland's most well-connected families gazed at him. "Due to the Edict of Sanabriel Aquilus, another week must pass before the crown is... wrested away."

Plagues were sadly familiar to our lands. My great-grandfather Sanabriel had sought counsel with the most learned physicians of the realm, determining that fresh corpse rot appeared to spread the disease. Even so, keeping distant for at least a week could ensure the foul odors of plague did not spread. Though it was almost certain my parents did not truly die of plague, Witsel and my brother were agreed that they would stick with this story, so as not to tip their hand.

I clenched my own hands. Politics might come naturally to him, but as for myself? I yearned for bloody vengeance.

"Blessings of the holy water from the Shrine to Lady Trezibel of the Lake shall suffice," Father Barnochus declared. I had resisted my family's attempts at forcing me to learn scripture, but even a barbarian like myself could see that he was improvising. Still, it suited my brother just fine. He nodded and kneeled before the castle's head priest, face stiff and proud, and accepted a few drops of water on the brow.

Then he rose, Father Barnochus calling out, "King Jarren Aquilus III! Long Live the King!"

"Long Live the King," the others echoed, my own voice among them, and none more fervent than my own. My father had died much too young, and I certainly didn't want to see the same happen to my brother. At least not until he was aged and decrepit, with plenty of smart, studious heirs to hand his crown to. After all, I certainly didn't want the damn thing. I'd made that more than clear enough. "Long Live the King!" I roared.

The rest of the ceremony was a hazy deluge of well-wishing mourners. Most of these were important burghers—representatives chosen from among wealthy, landowning citizens of Aland and its environs. We were a trading people, after all, made prosperous by eking out an existence on a spit of marshy land that had eventually transformed into a massive trading port. We were on the edge of the Rosvene Empire, and I'd heard that some amongst the Rosvene nobility took special offense to our hard-won successes.

Ambassador Jamson himself approached me, offering his sympathies with a peculiar twist to his lips. It didn't quite look like sadness to me. Yet I kept politics at the forefront of my mind and accepted his comments with all the grace I was none for.