Chapter 1257: A welcoming fit for kings(1)
The rough kiss of winter brushed against the King’s face as he gazed out at the wind lapping the green sea ahead of him, the emerald frays of weed dancing along the dark, restless currents. Moss clung to the rocks and ancient trees lining the road, and the cold air turned to white mist each time the King’s mouth breathed.
In and out.Like he had always done.Like it always was.
He had walked these roads a dozen times in his life, and yet only now did it feel as if his spirit had truly returned home. He could see that same quiet revelation reflected in the eyes of his soldiers, who pushed through the maws of war with a lighter step now that the winds of home were whistling past their ears, lovingly tracing cold path upon their faces.
Alpheo smiled faintly as a lone falcon skimmed low over the frosted grass, a heavy winter rabbit trapped in its talons, before disappearing into the treeline just above the horizon.
"Ever tasted falcon?" a rough voice asked beside him.
"No," Alpheo replied, his eyes skimming over the man’s head. "For obvious reasons."
Long blonde hair fell in wave past his sides.
"It is nice to see you growing them out once more. You always had such a handsome braid."
Rykio wasn’t oblivious to the meaning behind the comment. His calloused, scarred hand instinctively drifted up to the fresh braids that now reached the base of his neck, touching them as if regarding them for the first time in months. A pained, fleeting shadow crossed his face.
"Dishonors have to be worn,Egil always said that’’ Rykio said softly, his voice dropping below the howl of the wind. "Kin had been killed, and hadn’t yet been avenged with our steel. The hair stays short while the blood is still wet on the ground." He paused, looking out over the emerald water. "You know, sometimes... ’’ he sniffed ’’...sometimes I look back at those old days. Why is it the past always seems so much sweeter?It was much funnier and joyful when I was just a second in command."
"Because we find the present entirely unsatisfactory, and the future remains dangerously unknown," Alpheo replied, gifting a rare, soft smile to his legate. "Egil would have been proud to see you lead the host, Rykio.You are doing him honor."
"You think so?" He asked, his brow furrowing as a bitter edge crept into his tone. "Somehow, I do not."
"Some men are far harder on themselves than there is any real need to be."
"He was always a creature of the horse," Rykio murmured, his gaze drifting. "I only hope that wherever he is now... that he’s riding."
I do too, Alpheo thought silently, the weight of secrets he would never share pressing heavily behind his eyes. He was still not completely at peace with what he had seen in the mud of the campaign.
There would inevitably come a time when he would have to face it all. To face what he had watched, what he had dreamed, and what it all truly meant.
But not now.
The winter wind howled past them again, whistling sharply through the empty air between the two raw bridges of gristle where Alpheo’s earlobe had once been.
"Do you think he’s watching us?" The king asked after a brief, heavy pause.
Rykio regarded his King with a long, measuring gaze. "I do not think so. The dead have their own fields to plow.What hope do they have to make peace with themselves if they get obsessed over the livings?" He shook his head, deliberately shattering the somber mood as he looked up into the sky, sniffing the air as if trying to catch a scent. "But enough of that. Enough of old dishonors and slain friends.Tis an happy time. We should not sour this.
I don’t know why, but I truly crave to taste falcon today."
"I could get you eagle’s meat well enough," Alpheo chuckled, his cynical humor returning. "Perhaps even some rare eggs if you give me time , if that is what you truly desire."
Rykio blinked, genuinely confused. "What? Is it truly easier for a King to hunt down a royal eagle than a common falcon?"
"Perhaps you’d prefer to walk directly into the palace kitchens and precisely ask the head chef for that request," Alpheo said, an amused glint in his eyes as he wondered whetever the man truly would. "I would dearly love to see who in the castle is daring enough to handle that order. By the next morning, I fear the poor bastard would be found in the courtyard without his hands."
"You are the King," Rykio countered, a broad smile breaking through his rugged beard. "Can you truly not say anything to change her mind? The priests are always preaching from their pulpits that a wife should be subservient to her husband.The gods made them to be so."
Alpheo let out a sharp scoff, shaking his head. "The priests say enough horseshit to fill a farmer’s cart to overflowing. A son should obey his father. A wife her husband. Knights should protect the weak and the innocent. Men should be faithful to the five gods." He chuckled darkly. "Ah, and of course, women ought to pray every night to get pregnant without ever consummating the act, for they claim the pleasure is a sin. And what is the grand conclusion to all their holy preaching? Give all your hard-earned coins to the temple while you pray, no matter if it comes from a knight that sacked and raped a village worth of women, or the most pure of maidens. Gold and Silver have a glint of their own no matter the hands that hold them."
The King took a deep breath of the freezing air, his smile turning philosophical. "You are not married, legate, so you may not know the reality of a shared bed. But respect goes both ways.
You’d be profoundly surprised how easy life becomes when you follow that one small rule.Gods know there are people that always speak of the Prince of Yarzat, you think a woman is without insecurities of her own just because for once it is her husband that took her name?Turn the matter whatever way you wish, but it is I that stole her throne, not the opposite.This peace we have reached between us is too rare thing to be burnt at anyone’s whims, be it mine or yours."
"So... no falcon then?"
"Go ask he yourself, and hear her nay," Alpheo said dryly. "That bird happens to be her dynasty’s animal."
"Aye, and each morning she wakes early just to ruffle her feathers, no doubt,while she looks under the cover for an egg" Rykio laughed, shaking his head at the absurdities of the high-born houses. "What is it with these nobles and their beasts? They sew lions, eagles, and fishes onto a bolt of fine cloth, and suddenly the royal courts are filled with more wild animals than a deep forest. I am certain Lechlian thought himself a fierce lion of the field, right up until the moment he went meek as a kitten and kissed your boots for his life to be spared.Eh.Eh.Eh.’’ he chuckled ’’And what a life that was. But they never were lions, eagles, fishes, or falcons, were they?"
"Just as I am," Alpheo murmured, his eyes reflecting the green of the sea. "And last I checked, I don’t possess such a pathetic, wheezing laugh as that of a fox."
That made the both of them chuckle, their breath mingling in the cold winter air as they turned away from the sea, riding slower so that the waiting lances of the host could catch up.
"So, did you give your consent to the boy?" Rykio asked suddenly, his sharp tone slicing through the crisp winter air as soon as the white cloaks of the King’s Guard caught up and formed a loose, protective perimeter around them.
"He is hardly a boy," Alpheo replied smoothly, his eyes never leaving the road ahead. He did not need to ask for a name. In the tight circle of those who had survived the trek from the Ford, there was only one youth occupying everyone’s romance of whispers.
"You didn’t answer the question,."
"I gave him a ’kind of.’"
"A ’kind of’?" Rykio grunted, shifting his weight in his saddle. "What in the five gods’ names is a ’kind of’ consent?"
" A kind of Aye,I’d suppose" Alpheo said, a small, knowing smirk playing on his lips. "Why do you ask? Since when did you become a patron of young romance?"
"The lad was brooding the entire way from Oizen to here," Rykio growled, shaking his head. "He brooded through the driving rains. He brooded through the knee-deep mud, and he brooded through the blackened, ash-choked fields that he and I personally made some months ago when the war-horns still echoed across the valleys.
The boy looked miserable enough to swallow his own blade. I frankly thought you’d give him the boot the moment he dared ask for the princess’s hand. We all knew he was going to ask the second he told the captains he had a private audience with you."
The legate reached down, unhooking his heavy a animal-stomach canteen from his belt. He uncorked it with his teeth and took a long, deep swig of water, his parched lips disappearing behind the silver rim as the liquid chased away the dust of the road.
"I did not give him the boot,if you must know" Alpheo said as the horse beneath him wheezed "I gave him my consent, provided a few very strict, very specific conditions are respected. Now, we must simply wait to see if the girl will accept them. If she does... well, it is an exceedingly rare thing in this world for a royal to marry for something as fleeting as love."
"Both sisters married to lowborns..." Rykio mused, wiping his mouth with the back of a calloused hand before hooking the canteen back to his hip. "Gods above, the scribes will make centuries of stories out of that."
"Let the old houses wiggle their tongues as much as they want," Alpheo scoffed, a dangerous, dark frost returning to his hazel eyes. "This court was overflowing with that exact breed of arrogant lord when I first took her sister to wife. Do you recall how many of them loudly spoke out against me then?"
"I do," Rykio said somberly. "More than a few."
"And do you hear a single one of their words whispering through the halls today? No, you do not. For every last man who dared mutter against my blood is either rotting in the dirt or bent so low their noses scrape my boots. The exact same fate awaits anyone who speaks against Ratto. So long as I sit this throne, they will not dare utter a syllable. Hopefully, when I am gone, my son will possess the steel to do the same."
Rykio rode in silence for a long moment, the steady, rhythmic clopping of their horses’ hooves filling the space between them. He stared at the pommel of his saddle, a rare, protective softness settling behind his weathered eyes. He clearly cared deeply for Ratto, the boy had bled under his command, after all. He cared just as much as the King did.
"Do you think she’ll accept his terms?" the legate asked after a long pause.
Alpheo looked up at the grey clouds heavy with winter storm, his expression unreadable, scarred face tightening against the wind. "If what Ratto tells me is true, she will. But love is known to be the twin brother of madness. Both forces make a man do entirely foolish things, and a princess is no different. We shall see if her madness matches his."
’’Is the the queen mad too?’’ He asked after a bit. ’’Suppose she is to be on par with yours’’
’’In bed she kind of does.’’
’’Did not need to know that’’ He punched his king lightly on the shoulder. ’’Hope for your sake it is. You will have a shitload of thing to unravel with her.And a cart worth of apologies to make’’he looked up at the sky feeling the rays sun of his face as if rejoicing in something only he possessed. ’’You know? Even with the crown and all. She seems like an awful lot to deal with.Don’t know how you manage to have her wrapped around your fingers.’’
Alpheo shrugged ’’Pretty face’s privilege, I suppose.’’
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