CROWNS I: Of Desolate Hope | ✔

19. Jace Beyond

Jace took another spoonful of the mush. Yuck. It was yellow, sloppy and had a lot of lumps in it. However, if you weren't a higher rank, that was the only option for breakfast. He looked out at the rest of the camp from his tree trunk. The men were sat on makeshift benches and in groups. Despite the seemingly calm atmosphere, Jace knew that he couldn't be the only one who felt a cloud of eerieness hanging over them. After another spoonful, Jace put the bowl down. It gets worse every time.  He looked up at the pyramids that shone as the dawn's gentle light kissed them. For a crusade, it's awfully boring.

"Well, well, well," came a deep voice, "if it isn't Jace Fran himself."

Jace turned around expecting to be the butt of someone's joke yet again. A welcome surprise stared him in the face. "Alen?"

"That's my name, don't wear it out," said Sir Alen, chuckling as Jace hugged him.

The men froze and glared at Jace, making him feel very uncomfortable.

"As you were!" barked Sir Alen. 

Jace let go and prompted Alen to sit on his seat. "I didn't think I'd see you again!" exclaimed Jace, a glad but distant smile on his face.

"I didn't think I'd still be alive," he replied, coughing harshly as he laughed. "I must be turning sixty soon!"

"Seventy-one, actually," said Jace, concern appearing on his face. And you've still got some hair left, as grey as it may be.

"Don't look at me like that, Jace Fran," replied Alen, pointing at him, "my memory's the same as it always was - terrible."

The pair giggled like gossiping women as they reminisced about all their journeys together. Strange creatures howled and squeaked as the sun travelled sluggishly across the sky. As they talked, Jace had to keep feverishly rubbing his hands for bitter morning took no prisoners. After much debating, they finally reached the decision that the best was the long trip from Greenthorn to Valen. Jace remembered almost every detail of it, from the hours spent on the Queensway to their impromptu visit to the town of Nordley. The one thing that was, unfortunately, truly etched in his mind was the riot in Embarford.

"What a ghastly day," said Alen, frowning upon the memory.

"It was horrible," said Jace. "The burning buildings, the -"

"Say no more, Jace Fran," replied Alen. "Here I thought the one good thing about having terrible memory is forgetting the bad things yet you're always on hand to remind me."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to stir up..."

"No need to apologise, my boy," said the old man, picking up Jace's scarcely eaten breakfast. "You're not going to finish that, are you?"

"Of course not!" said Jace, reeling away from it. "I mean, I'm very grateful and blessed to have it but I'm not hungry."

"It's hideous!" commented Alen, as he swallowed it with a loud gulp. "Very, very bad."

"Then how do -"

"It's what I've been eating for nearly three years," he replied. "You get used to that... mouldy sort of taste."

"Well, that is not what I'd like to get used to," replied Jace, grinning.

"You'd better," said Alen, finishing the last of the mush. "You should see what the higher-ups get to eat. One could easily mistake it for the King's Holiday Feast. Lamb, pork, chicken...the whole lot!"

Jace's jaw nearly fell off. "How do you know?" he asked, scepticism in his eyes.

Alen threw the bowl on the floor. "I am one of them," he said, trying desperately to conceal his pride in his voice. "Don't look so surprised," he added, "there was a reason why I was called upon so abruptly."