Chapter 1248: What’s next(1)
Chapter 1248: What’s next(1)
"A tournament?"
The King of Yarzat asked, turning toward his companion as if he were looking at the man for the very first time.
"Indeed," the Lord of Bracum muttered, his long, scarred fingers carving lazy streaks through his matted white beard.
To a stranger, the old man might have passed for a kindly grandfather with a purse full of sweets and a few harmless bedtime stories to share. That illusion, however, was violently shattered by the bloodthirsty smile carved into his lips.
Alpheo stared at him, silently confirming everything he had ever believed about the old wolf. Xanthios was a man of ravenous appetite for slaughter and, paradoxically, one of the few warlords universally respected by every single legate in the newly fledged kingdom.
"Your Grace. No... your Majesty now," the old lord corrected himself, a whimsical smile hanging on his lips.
The title felt heavy, like wet cloak. It came dawning on them that they were no longer a mere principality; they were a kingdom. It would bring its own flock of crows, its own distinct set of trials that all pioneers must face.
One day, those problems would come knocking on the gates with torches. But for now? The air in the council chamber was thick with the suffocating, intoxicating perfume of their own pride.
They had done the impossible.
"Important events are always celebrated with a tournament, Majesty," Xanthios continued, his eyes gleaming. "I’d say the first coronation for what will hopefully be a long, unbroken line of kings is a milestone worthy of being toasted with splintered lances. Besides, since the Princess took the throne, there hasn’t been a single tourney in the realm. That, if I may be so bold, is a disgrace that brings us nothing but scorn in the eyes of our neighbors."
"Our enemies seek to give us death, not scorn. They may keep their disdain for all the good it will do them," Alpheo replied dry and devoid of any humor. He waved a dismissive hand toward the arched windows overlooking the city. "Do you not see us preparing to fend off a famine in Oizen? You would have me divert cartloads of grain that could keep our new subjects alive and maintain food production in our newly conquered lands, just to feed well-bred horses and knights who wish to skewer each other with blunt wooden sticks?"
"There would also be trials for the bowmen, Majesty. And mock battles for the infantry" Bracum countered, leaning forward over the map-table.
’’The prince could even partecipate in the bowmen competition. He is apt enough with a bow’’ Added Jarza.
"Mock battles and mock archery" Alpheo repeated, the words tasting like ash. "Tournaments were devised to ensure knights could hone their skills for real war, a well-honored drill to keep the blade sharp." He paused, leveling a grounding, iron stare across his war-dominated council. "Problem is, we are currently fighting a real war."
"The difference did not exactly escape us, friend. My bones can still feel the ache of the real thing," Rykio muttered from the corner. He rotated his shoulder, the joints letting out a series of sickening, metallic cracks beneath his leather pauldron.
That was the trap of the field. It was easy to be bold when the trumpets were blowing. In the heat of the moment, when a man is surrounded by a thousand screaming voices and a forest of pikes, the brain pumps so much adrenaline into the veins that even a coward can feel like a god. One look around the table was proof enough of that; every man here had been brave when death reached down to tap them on the shoulder.
But the true poison of war came afterward. During the clash, a man’s soul expands to hold the terror; afterward, he decompresses. The adrenaline drains away, leaving nothing but a cold, hollow cavern where the horrors come back to nest. The faces of the men you lost, the boys you ordered into the breach to buy ten minutes of time, the friends who screamed in the dark before their wounds went black and rot-sweet, they all come back.
Alpheo had lost many good men on that terrible field. Some he had known personally, men whose sole purpose had been to act as a shield between his family and the grave. But that was the vicious cycle of their trade.
War culminated in an absolute crescendo of horror, followed by months of numbing routine, administrative boredom, and ration-counting. And just as a man finally settled into the quiet, boom, the next drumbeat sounded, bringing a fresh harvest of nightmares.
They are all men who live for that bloody rush, Alpheo realized, his gaze drifting from one scarred face to the next.
Perhaps except for Asag, who sat with a slight, shadow-eyed weariness clinging to his brow, none of them truly understood the sheer, bone-deep exhaustion consuming their new King. They could not comprehend how close he had come to the precipice, or how much he had almost lost in the mud. They were men of war, born and bred for the meat-grinder. They could accept the butcher’s bill far better than Alpheo ever could. For them, a single victory was never enough to wash away the craving for the next clash.
"The fact we have been fighting a war has not escaped us, Alph," Edric muttered, casually scratching his crotch as he leaned back in his heavy oak chair. "My spine is still screaming at me, you know. It’s hard to sleep on rough wool rugs when your arse has spent the last five years being fed nothing but goose-feather beds. But the war is over, we won, and we have a new king. So, hurrah for us!’’ He waved his hand up’’ I’d say a tournament is exactly what we need. Especially our lords, they love nothing more than to flaunt their shiny armor and get clamored over by the peasants. They’re beasts that feed entirely on pride. You know, just like the flamingo."
"You mean a peacock," Jarza corrected, his deep voice deadpan as he adjusted his iron vambraces.
"Yes, that. The one with the eye-feathers," Edric said, flicking his fingers dismissively as if the distinction were trivial. "Which one was the flamingo, by the way?"
"The pink one."
"Oh, right... tasty meat.." Edric’s jaw slackened slightly, a faraway look of hunger entering his eyes. Around the map table, a collective, silent yearning passed through the legates. Every single one of them suddenly missed the rich, fat feasts of Yarzat, far removed from the salted lard and stringy beef of the campaign trail. Edric shook his head to clear the vision. "So... what about the tournament?"
"Denied," Alpheo said. The word fell like a stone into a still pond.
"Oh, come on! We can’t have our very first king refuse to host a great tourney!" Edric groaned, throwing his hands in the air. "It would go a long way to cementing your favor in the eyes of the high-born. Besides it would give me the excuse to put some wood in highborns’ asses.You can’t deny me that Alph...."
"As I said, we cannot spare a single wagon of grain for such an endeavor, for all of it is desperately needed to keep the locals from stringing us up," Alpheo replied. He leaned over the table, his knuckles turning white against the oak. "Nor do we have the coin for prizes and grand stands. Every spare copper we have is currently being funneled to the Romelians for the fucking food we’re importing. You do understand this land is about to slide into a catastrophic famine, right? I am certain you can grasp that basic fact. The countryside is in an even worse state than this miserable city. We are still breaking our backs trying to set up logistics for fishing and hunting expeditions just to keep people alive."
"Well, no one is suggesting we host the tilts tomorrow," a smooth voice interjected. To the surprise of nearly everyone in the room, the speaker was Asag. "It is well known that a grand tournament can take up to a year to properly prepare. We could easily announce the event now to satisfy the lords’ pride, and hold the actual games next winter. By then, we will be operating on a new year’s budget, and the next harvest will be safely in our granaries."
He saw the way Alpheo’s eyes went on him, and he turned his head to look away.
His daughters had been reading novels about knights on tourney , hence the sudden desire.
"Asag speaks the truth!" Xanthios muttered, turning an uncharacteristically amiable smile toward the legate of the Third. The old wolf of Bracum was more than willing to play politics if it meant he eventually got to see horses collide and men bleed for sport.
"I have never seen a tournament," spoke Torghan a bear cloak that had been gifted to him by one of his warrior after the battle adorning his back. "It sounds like a grand jest, however. My people may be at odds with dealing with horses, but we can use the recurve bow just as good as any man here, and we know how to handle battle. My warriors would welcome the chance to perform ahead of their new king."
Except I don’t want it! I don’t want to waste a single scrap of Yarzat’s gold on vanity!
Alpheo wanted nothing more than to roar those words into their stubborn faces, but looking around the table, he saw the trap closing. With his entire war council aligned against him on the matter, there was little he could.
It was better to employ the oldest trick used by politicians since the dawn of the first kingdom.
Deflect.
"We will return to the subject at a later date," Alpheo said smoothly, straightening his posture and smoothing down the front of his cloth. "I’d say we have far more pressing fires to extinguish this morning than choosing the weight of tournament lances."
Every man at the table knew exactly what the maneuver was. It was a diplomatic burial. Yet, seeing the iron set of their King’s jaw, they all nodded in silent agreement, content to let the matter rest for now, knowing they would corner him on it again before the winter snows melted.
’’And what’s that Alph ?’’ Edric asked a bit peeved at the manuever.
’’What else but our most dearest of brides?’’
War.