The House of Oldenrock

To Run a Kingdom Part I

Chapter Ten: To Run A Kingdom

            “You need to learn how to run a kingdom.”   Rodder was beginning to hate those words.  Although they were very true, they just always accompanied a very boring activity to learn about the exceedingly boring details that went into running a kingdom.  He had learned far much more than he wanted to about taxes and bread. Taxes and bread, who knew that they were so important in keeping the balance of the kingdom? He wished that he could just go back to the days of his unmarried life when all he had to do to learn how to run a kingdom was watch his parents hold court, but now because being married seemed to bring him one step closer to becoming King he had to go over all of this boring stuff.  The excuse, “Do you really intend on dying so soon?” did not have much of an effect.

            Rodder stared at the papers in front of him.  They contained more information of the delicate business of taxes and bread, and he looked at Mayenna, who was reading alongside him.  Did she ever get bored of this?  Apparently not, and there was the fact that she was better at this running the kingdom business than Rodder was.  However, King Gregor had answered the unasked question by saying, “No, you cannot leave all of the running the kingdom to your wife.” Like he was one to talk.

            Rodder read the papers.  Taxes, taxes, taxes, if you taxed too little, the peasants would be very happy but then you would not have enough money to function, and if you taxed too much, you would have enough money to function, but then the peasants would take to rioting in the streets and storming castles, which just was not something that The Olgenoct really needed.

            Rodder read some more, and the topic then shifted more into the subject of bread, specifically the Bread Acts. These acts had been passed when his grandfather, King John Oldenrock, had been on the throne after a bad harvest that led to high grain prices, which caused the bakers in the cities to raise the price of bread. When the bread prices rose, the poor city dwellers could no longer afford bread, began to starve, and then took to their usual solution to problems, rioting in the streets demanding that  the King set a maximum price of bread.  King John did that, but then the bakers could no longer afford grain, could not produce bread, nor make a living, so the people kept rioting, but this time accompanied by the bakers and the farmers who no longer had a market to sell their grain to because the bakers were not buying grain.

            Storming castles was easy for peasants because Olgen knights were under orders to never hurt an Olgen citizen unless they were labeled as threats to Olgen peace and safety, which really only happened to serial killers or during a Clanwar.  Thus, Wilder Keep, the castle with highest concentration of farmers around it, ended up getting stormed, but none of the Longrens, the Clan that dwelled in Wilder Keep were injured, only a few guards were.  That did not mean that the Longrens were pleased though, and soon King John found himself with angry city dwellers who demanded that he force the bakers to work, angry bakers who demanded that he repeal the Bread Acts, angry farmers who demanded that he repeal the Bread Actsso the bakers who afford the grain, and then finally, angry Longrens who claimed that the storming of their castle was completely preventable and that King John should step down because he just was unable to run the kingdom.

            At that point, King John was ready to listen to anyone who had any sort of good plan over what to do.  It was not like the situation could get any worse.  Well, maybe Norticans or Rossemesians could have invaded, but the Rossemesians were busy in another war with the Stastcan Empire, and the Norticans were also facing turmoil in their kingdom, which made the chances of being invaded very slim.  Luckily for King John, the High Commander of the Gray Guard had been watching the situation closely in case a Clanwar erupted and came up with the perfect solution to the problem, one that did not involve rioting in the streets, but would hopefully put an end to them.