The Whistling Kettle

Christian

"Where is he?"

His voice echoed off the solid walls of the large throne room, coming back to him in a hauntingly reverberation. He did stand at the entrance of his visitor, even after the guards closed the door behind the other man. His knuckles where white from the grip he held on the arms of the grand chair, and he could feel that dread sink in his heart as his question went unanswered again. What once was curiosity had morphed itself into this cruel, this grotesque anxiety that ate away at his solemn heart.

"My king," The priest began, a voice Alfred had long since associated with his father, but now he could hear no such person in his tone, "Since you were a babe I've taken you into my arms, I've brought you into God's light and lead you on the path of His doing. For years I stayed at your bedside into the late hours of the night, reading to you His words, even after you had long since fallen asleep. You were raised in the church, you know the Holy Book as though it were your own self."

He didn't want to hear this, he didn't want to hear any of this. Alfred looked into those tired blue eyes still, his face frozen in a mask of stone rage. Still though, despite the whitening knuckles, the man went on.

"You were given this crown because your father trusted you to rule this nation as he had: as a nation of God. You are trusted by your ancestors and by the people of this land to lead them in a way that God would find pleasing, you are the symbol for Christian hope in this hemisphere! People look to you when their spirits grow weak, they look to you when they loose sight of their Lord!"

"And who told them to?" Alfred bit back, "My father crowed me a Christian prince, told my people that I would follow the path of God when no such words came from my own lips! You are why they look to me and see a Saint, you have made promises to these people that I will do as my father had and his father before him!"

"And will you not do that?!" The priest  exclaimed in return, "Are you truly going to abandon the very principals your family is prized for so that you can run around with that...that glorified bastard!"

"Don't you dare speak of him in that way!" Alfred roared, his cry echoing off the walls and sending an obvious fright through his father figure, "I will not ask again- where is he?!"

The priest, who's eyes once burned with the rage like the Lord's himself now grew quiet, standing still before the heaving King.

"I will not let this kingdom fall to ashes because of one grave sin. This nation needs a strong, Christian leader who cares for nothing but to do things in the eyes of our God. And I refuse, with every fiber of my eternal soul, that I will do whatever I must to ensure the spiritual prosperity of my home." The priest spoke, his eyes cold now, colder than Alfred had ever seen them before, "As for your lover...he is with our God now."

With those life-changing words, Alfred fell to his knees, and the elder took his leave of the King.