Chapter 164: Tales of a King (4)

Misha saw the other side of Russel’s reign too.

He could be stubborn enough to turn a disagreement into a feud, enjoyed praise more than he admitted, forgave betrayal slowly, and possessed a frightening capacity for punishment when someone deliberately harmed the people he considered under his protection.

He understood politics well enough to become dangerous with it. Russel bribed one noble faction with trade privileges to keep it from joining another, arranged marriages where alliances needed strengthening, and awarded military honors to houses vain enough to value prestige more than actual power while quietly taking away privileges that mattered far more.

Uiylin once accused him of manipulating half the aristocracy.

Many nobles disliked their king since his policies cost them power, and men accustomed to inheriting influence rarely enjoyed discovering that a king intended to make them justify it.

The Law of the Turned Sole restricted noble officers from entering homes simply because their family names made them impatient, his famine decrees forced wealthy estates to release grain at controlled prices, and his military reforms promoted common-born officers over aristocrats who believed command ought to travel through blood.

Some called him dangerous, so several organized opposition, and one coalition eventually confronted him openly.

Duke Vernhal placed a petition on the council table bearing the seals of several old houses. He straightened afterward with the confidence of a man who had spent several weeks imagining this moment.

"The oldest families of the realm stand together, Your Majesty."

Russel read the document carefully.

The queen sat at his right, saying nothing. Her fingers rested loosely over another report while her gaze moved once across the gathered nobles, memorizing faces without openly challenging any of them.

When Russel finished, he set the petition down. "Do they?"

Vernhal’s confidence faltered.

Russel began naming houses. One had refused to sign, another had sent a younger son instead of its lord, two had signed but quietly warned the Crown beforehand, and a fourth depended upon royal soldiers to keep raiders from its western border, while another had recently requested money from the treasury to repair three bridges on its estates.

By the time Russel finished, Vernhal no longer looked quite as pleased with his coalition.

"You possess opposition," Russel said, his gaze settling on the duke. "Do not mistake it for a kingdom."

Vernhal’s jaw tightened. "And if the houses withdraw their support?"

"I will lose several banquets." He leaned back, and considered the problem more seriously. "Perhaps some horses. A distressing amount of wine, certainly, and more embroidered cushions that I have ever understood the purpose of."

The queen closed her eyes briefly.

Vernhal’s face darkened. "You mock the families that placed your ancestors upon the throne."

"No, I remind those families that placing a man upon a throne does not mean they own everything he does afterward."

The room went still.

Russel rested one hand on the petition. "The roads will remain if you withdraw your friendship. The army will remain. The towns will remain, and so will the farmers whose grain fills noble tables and the families who bury their sons whenever men with titles decide that pride is worth a war."

Then he rose slowly. "A crown is useful. A palace is pleasant. Noble cooperation makes ruling easier, and I would prefer to keep all three." His gaze moved across the gathered houses. "But if you wish to know where my authority truly rests, walk outside these gates and ask who still obeys when the crown is absent."

Silence settled over the room once more as the temperature seemed to drop. Several ministers lowered their heads to hide their expressions.

"If a man follows me because I wear gold, then the gold rules him. If he follows because he trusts I will not waste his life, perhaps I have earned something worth keeping."

The petition failed, and the nobility walked away having learned a far more inconvenient truth: their king no longer depended entirely upon them.

===

The army trusted him, and that was the first problem anyone attempting to remove him had to solve. Soldiers knew he read casualty tolls before attending victory celebrations, officers knew he promoted men who could actually command, and widows knew that unpaid pensions tended to appear very quickly whenever word reached the king.

The towns trusted him for different reasons. Merchants liked the roads that could be travelled without paying bandits, guilds preferred laws that did not change every time a noble became angry, and farmers remembered the king who opened granaries before hunger became graves.

His queen understood that part of him perhaps better than anyone.

She rarely interrupted when he argued policy, but Misha saw her watching him during councils, particularly whenever nobles accused him of weakening the Crown by giving too much consideration to ordinary people. She had long since learned that Russel did not believe authority became stronger merely because fewer people were permitted to question it.

Russel never forgot what obedience without choice looked like, that was why loyalty mattered so much to him.

He did not want people who obeyed because they were incapable of refusing. He wanted people who could refuse him and chose to follow anyway.

That belief became clearest during one of the worst winters of his reign.

Snow buried the lower districts until families began burning chairs. When reports reached the palace that people had begun freezing overnight, Russel ordered the royal furniture carried into the street.

Misha watched servants haul gilded tables, cedar wardrobes, ornamental screens, benches, and carved chairs through the courtyard while one horrified minister followed them as though he were attending a funeral.

"Majesty, this is madness! Those furnishings belong to the Crown!"

Russel stood near the courtyard steps wearing a heavy cloak while workers hacked the legs from an elaborate banquet table.

"The Crown is presently wearing wool." Then he nodded toward the city beyond the walls. "Copper Street is not."

"That table was commissioned by your grandfather."

"So was the eastern granary."

The minister frowned deeply.

"One feeds people," Russel said, pointing toward the table. "The other has spent forty years supporting plates."

"Your Majesty, the palace itself is royal property."

The king finally looked at him. "Is a building more important than the lives of those who built it?"

The minister fell quiet.

Russel gestured toward the palace behind them. "Masons raised these walls, carpenters laid the roof, smiths forged the hinges, and craftsmen carved every chair you are mourning." His voice remained calm, which somehow made the rebuke sharper. "Would you preserve their work and let the hands that made it freeze?"

The minister looked away.

The king turned toward the servants. "Take the east gallery next."

The man’s head snapped back around. "Your Majesty!"

"If the weather worsens, take the throne room."

"Please, Your Majesty!"

Russel sighed, "Very well. Spare the throne if it brings you peace."

Relief visibly crossed the minister’s face.

"Burn my bed first."

Several servants laughed before abruptly remembering who had spoken.

The queen stepped into the courtyard just in time to hear him. "Your bed?"

Russel looked toward her. "You never liked it anyway."

Her gaze shifted to the servants carrying furniture toward the courtyard. "Then add the eastern guest chambers. There are four beds there no one has used in five years."

Russel considered that for all of a second. "Then I suppose I’ll have no choice but to spend my nights in my queen’s chamber from now on."

She continued walking without slowing. "You own an entire palace, Your Grace. I am certain you can find somewhere else to sleep."

He easily fell into step beside her. "I could." Then he smiled. "But yours is warmer, my queen."

The queen kept walking. "Then ask someone to light a fire in yours."

"I was not referring to the fireplace."

The servants failed spectacularly at hiding their laughter, so did Misha.

The palace did not make him a king. He was a king because people chose to follow him.

===

The famine came years later.

Three ministers surrounded Russel with grain reports and warned that opening the western reserves would leave the army short by spring.

"We should reduce the palace’s ration."

One minister stiffened. "Your Majesty, palace rations have already been reduced. If the drought continues, even the Crown will go hungry."

Russel rested both hands on the table. "Then the Crown will be hungry with everyone else."

Another minister pushed a ledger toward him. "There must be a distinction between preserving the monarchy and feeding every district until nothing remains."

"There is." The king tapped the report. "The monarch can miss supper."

Then his finger moved toward the child mortality figures on the next sheet. "They cannot."

The first minister tried once more. "And when the granaries are completely empty?"

Russel considered him. "Then you may finally have the pleasure of telling me I was wrong."

Even the queen lowered her papers at that. "That is hardly sound economic policy..."

He turned toward his wife. "You don’t agree?"

The queen considered the ledgers. "Yes, I don’t."

He raised a brow.

Before he could say anything, the queen continued, "But a kingdom without its people is merely territory waiting for someone else to claim it. And the kingdom you chose to rule are your people, not your land."

The queen pulled one of the grain reports toward herself.

"But the ministers are correct about one thing. Emptying the reserves without changing anything else merely delays the disaster." Her finger traced one of the columns. "If we continue distributing grain at the present rate, the western stores will last four months. The army cannot function without food, but neither can it defend a kingdom whose villages have emptied."

Sighing, the king said, "Then we reduce military rations where units are not actively deployed. Officers will eat the same portions as enlisted men."

The queen turned another page. "Cancel the winter banquets, suspend imported wine, sugar, and fruit purchases, and let’s reduce palace kitchens to two meals daily for every adult capable of enduring it."

A minister glanced toward Russel.

The king noticed. "Why are you looking at me?"

"Your Majesty–"

"I am an adult capable of enduring it."

The queen kept reading. "Additional to that, we should sell the ceremonial horses from the royal stable."

This time, two ministers reacted.

"Your Grace, those horses were gifts! The southern princes may take offense!"

"Then send them a letter explaining that their horses fed twelve thousand citizens. Our king is blessed by the True Name. Surely the One Above would not allow His chosen servant to suffer needlessly through this famine."

Russel leaned one hip against the table and folded his arms. "What else?"

The queen glanced toward him. "You are agreeing very easily, Your Majesty."

"You sound as though you have already planned all of this."

"I have."

"Then why would I waste time pretending I have a better plan, my queen?"

Misha stared at him. That, more than half the romantic scenes she had watched, somehow explained their marriage perfectly.

===

Years after Nareth, Russel ordered the damaged weapons of the men who had died there gathered from their families.

The queen stood father back with several families of the dead, saying nothing. She had been the one who ordered compensation delivered to every household that surrendered a weapon for the project, even after Russel argued that most families would have offered them without payment.

The weapons were melted and added to the bronze of an enormous bell.

Months later, the Bell of Homecoming rose beside the road leading into the capital.

Every military company returning from war passed beneath it. The living rang it, and the dead were carried toward it.

Over the years, the tradition expanded beyond soldiers until travelers who died abroad, messengers lost on distant roads, explorers, and children who died far from home were all brought beneath the bell before burial.

It became less about war, and more about return.

Russel never called it his greatest achievement, but the people did.