‘You wished to see me, sire?’
‘Yes, Konrad. We are almost done lending back the gold we owe to the guild. I think, with the peace kept these last few years and the confidence returning to the markets, a festival should be held. It would lighten the load on the mind of the city. Bring back some semblance of normalcy.’
My King stands with his shoulder to me, one foot on the dais, observing his colours hung on the great windows above the hall. His voice is temperate. His posture still.
‘My lord,’ I say, ‘That is a task best left to Remus, no?’
‘Indeed,’ my King turns his head a little. ‘But I’ve always felt better when you have your eye on something Konrad. You know that. Won’t you help him?’
I feel my posture shift a little. The pace of my breath changes. I sense him brace as if there is an attack coming.
‘My lord, my household departs this week.’
The King returns his gaze to the colours. ‘Oh yes. I’d forgotten. Where are you bound?’
‘Home, my lord. Back to al-Kazur. We have been gone too long.’
The King nods as if to position the memory into the projection of his eyes. ‘I remember, you were only supposed to reside here for one season. That was, what, twenty years ago?’
‘Twenty-six.’
‘Ah.’ There is almost a smile on his face. A crease in his cheek, folded away when he next speaks. ‘I shall send a portion of my retinue with you, for the journey.’
‘You are generous, my lord, but I have already arranged escorts. I would not deprive you of your men.’
‘I see. Very well.’
There is a silence that extends itself across the room, making the space between us longer. Perhaps my King wishes to speak of the life we have endured together but is unable to find a way to summarise it in so few words. Or he might see the futility in it, knowing that I have shared in all he has seen. Perhaps he wishes to speak of how he will miss my company and my advice but can find no way to say it without asking me to stay. Or sees the futility in that also. Perhaps he has nothing else to say now.
‘Will that be all, my lord?’
‘Yes, Konrad.’
I bow, turn, and walk. Close to the entrance of the hall, his voice echoes across to me. ‘Will you visit, before you go?’
I turn, not knowing if his aged eyes can make out my smile at this distance. ‘Aye, my lord. I’ll bring the family and my men.’
My King says no more. He turns his head to gaze back up at the window that looms over the throne, casting a grand beam of sunset onto the dais and its ruler. The silver of his crown catches the glitter of the light. The black of his robes absorbs its glow. One leg up on the steps, the other planted on the stone floor, he rests his hands behind his back. For a moment, my mind is lost in time.
I was stood where I am now, fifty years ago, just as my King stands where he is now. The same posture, a different era. I was a junior bookkeeper, attending the coronation with my master. He, not much more than the slave he was born as. He’d made it into the castle kitchens and worked his way up to one of the hall attendants. He was waiting to carry away the cups after the toast was given for the new king, now long dead.
How could we have known then? What would we become? What would we do? Certainly, a slave from the river district could not be a king. Yet there he stands.
We have survived three wars. A plague. Countless droughts. We have put down two rebellions. One of them led by my King’s own son, who was slain by his father’s hand. His Queen, sent to distant Moros, to live out her last days of madness. The generals are all dead or exiled. The old church has long been disbanded. The spymaster’s lot is empty. No merchants grace the halls of the keep these days.
Who are we?
I leave my King there, along with my vision. All we have accomplished and all we have lost. That hall was so packed to the brim on the day of my King’s first victory, that the crowd flooded out of the outer gates and into the streets of the city. Now only my King occupies that monstrous space. We have each lost children. Wives. We have lost our cousins and parents and friends. The old regime is dust. So, I fear, are we.
And yet, in the domain of the King who was once a slave, I could make my way down to the river markets and buy myself enough serfs to till all the fields in al-Kazur in an hour. So I wonder if in this strange, but short, tide of violence and excess, was anything ever changed, except for us?
As the doors close, I see my King lower his head.
Paddy Dobson
18th August 2020