The King's Count

Upon the death of his wife, the king went mad with sorrow. For days on end he sat silent on his throne, eyes down, his whole court frozen around him, no one daring to speak lest the ominous crackling potential in the air turn them into a lightning rod. Nothing could break the king’s trance, it seemed, not his favorite stories from the court jester, nor his favorite dishes from the court cook. Even his chief adviser’s soothing and cajoling could not rouse him, as the adviser deployed upon his king the same sing-song tones he used to manage his young daughter, which in the past had always hooked his sire back to reality. But not this time, as the king crumpled further into his throne, unresponsive, until one morning without explanation he flew up to his feet and began to stalk about the court, cornering his retainers, pressing them with dire questions. 

How should I remember my queen? 

What memorial could be worthy of her? 

How will I be remembered when I am gone? 

What will my legacy be? 

Tell me, the king demanded, as panic seized each trapped courtier, and the adviser watched with pity as the cheap assurances and devotions they sputtered out only made the king feel more hollow. One remark stuck with him though. His court librarian, sweating and skittering, stuttered out a recommendation that his highness might consult the oldest, greatest volume in the palace archives, the Register of Elder Kings Past, to see how the kings who came before him dealt with such questions. Indeed that night the king appeared at the librarian’s door unannounced and made the librarian haul down the massive leather codex, to guide him by candlelight through the lives of his forebears, and in the morning the king strode into court smiling with red eyes and boisterous greetings for all. 

As he hung himself across his throne, he held up his goblet to make an early toast. 

Last night, dear friends, I was able to look back in time, and see my ancestors for who they truly were thanks to our Court Librarian. I discovered a great king, my forebear, who grappled with the same questions of death, memory, and reputation. He undertook a count of all his subjects, to show the world how populous and orderly his realm was, and freeze his legacy forever in that number, capturing his greatness for all time in nothing more than a few slashes of the tally pen. So as a memorial to my queen and as a measure of my own glory, let a count be undertaken again across this land, of every subject of mine, in every house in every village. They are my people and I am their king, I am them and they are me, and now, forevermore, their number will be my number, like my forebear before me. Let the King’s Count record for all time the grandeur of our nation, so that when I am gone my heirs may look back as I did this very night, and understand the pride of their lineage in this kingdom. In my name, let it be done. 

A cheer went up from his court, of relief as much as anything else at seeing the king’s brooding come to an end. But as the fanfare died out the king’s adviser stepped forward and, in a low voice so only the king could hear, he praised the king’s idea as always, then asked how exactly the king wished such a count to be taken. Because the adviser knew how to be crafty with his tyrant, and placate his whims while muddying the waters enough to defer any true action until the king got bored and moved on. It was the only way to manage him, as no one had ever sated the king’s mad visions, and when he was not sated he blamed whoever was in front of him and they were seized, and sometimes, like the adviser’s predecessor, never seen again. 

I do not care how the count is taken, the king spat back. 

But if your highness asks the lords to count their people, the adviser whispered, leering at the other courtiers, the people will be their people, not your highness’s, and you will cede to the lords the greatest power of all, your connection with the common man. As with the clerics, as with your highness’s spies, and with your highness’s soldiers. In theory, yes, a count of the people seems like a glorious way to set in stone your highness’s legacy forever. But in practice, who is fit to take this count? Who, after all, can a king truly trust? 

Silence. 

Only a fool, the court jester jumped in from behind cackling, having eavesdropped on their whole conversation. And the people of course! You must ask them how they should count themselves. A contest! Yes, make a contest for the people, they love nothing better than contests, other than fools of course. But only a fool would listen to a fool, though in a wise land the fool is king and the king is a fool, and is our land not wise? So why should this king, so wise, not listen to this fool? 

A grin cracked the king’s face, and the adviser sighed as the king raised his goblet again, and the chamber fell silent. 

And! As part of the King’s Count, announce a contest. A fistful of silver to whoever, in one month’s time, can figure out the best way for me to count my subjects, to know and forever make known their true number. In my name, let it be done. 

And so, on the next market day, the contest of the King’s Count was proclaimed in every town square in every village in the kingdom. 

As the weeks went by, the adviser assured the king the best minds in his realm must be working on the contest right now, arguing over approaches, hammering out details. Meanwhile he sent out every town crier in every village to read the same messages again and again on market days. But as the one month deadline approached, the adviser had heard nothing from anyone about the contest. At first when the king listened to the jester he had been annoyed, as he worried his life would be overtaken by hucksters and charlatans seeking that silver. But what had actually played out was far worse. The king, at his most vulnerable, had opened a contest for his subjects. But no one entered. 

The king had cried out, and no one had listened. 

The evening before the deadline the adviser fed figs to his young daughter as he stared off into the cold stars. When he was her age he was already on the street, learning to beg, and when, one day, a lord called him over and took him in, he thought those same stars had given him a gift like no other. He thought a life in the palace would be reliable, stable, the opposite of his topsy-turvy life on the street, so he worked as hard as he could, he studied, he dreamed. And because of that he thought things would be different for his daughter, that she would be able to count on him, count on laughing with him, eating with him, knowing him. But maybe the palace was more like the street than he knew. 

That night he lay awake trying not to picture his predecessor’s fate, but failing. That was before the king married, before he smiled. For a time he had seemed happy with his queen and the adviser thought everything had changed. But now she was gone, and there was no telling what the king might do. And he tried not to, but every time the adviser laid his head down on the pillow now, he imagined laying it down on the block, and feeling the axehead’s gentle rangefinding kiss at the back of his neck, before it reared up in anticipation, then swooped down in a flash. 

He could run away. But what kind of life would his daughter have on the run? He would be back on the street, but now she would be there with him, and grow up just like he had, always searching, always hungry. No, better to stay here, assure her the life and opportunities on offer for her in the palace, since if the worst happened to him she would still be taken care of, he had seen to that. 

What he needed was not to leave, but to find someone to enter the contest, to calm his nervous king. A plan emerged in his mind in those secret hours before dawn, and when the sun rose the adviser tracked down the captain of the king’s guard. He reminded the captain of the time he made sure no one heard that the king’s favorite horse died at the guard’s stables, and the king never did hear about it. 

The captain sighed and asked what the adviser needed. 

That night a peasant boy walked up to the guards at the palace gate to beg for food. The guards just laughed though, and beat him for being so bold, until the captain intervened and told them to bring the boy inside and clean him up. Straight away the advisor rushed in to deliver the good news to the king, that they had an entrant in the contest, whom he would present before the king in the morning after he was washed, only a boy from the countryside, yes, but surely if there was a first entry it meant more were on their way, perhaps a day late but who knew, a floodtide of interest might crash over them before the morrow was out. 

The king snorted a low wordless sound and went back to his drinking. 

The next morning when the adviser went to speak with the boy though, he found the captain of the guard wearing a grim expression. Overnight, he said, the boy had a fit, and when the guards tried to restrain him he fought back, and fell, and hit his head, and the guards tried to help him, the captain swore, but the boy hadn’t moved since. 

The advisor looked at him, cold.

In two hours the king will be presented with a boy. I do not care what boy, but unless you want me to tell him your guards killed the only entrant into his contest, you need to go find another boy. Now. 

The captain of the guard was a brute of a man, and did not like being addressed like that by some palace adviser. So he went to his guards and asked who restrained the boy, and when two men put their hands up, he asked if either had a son. Both did, and they knew it, so one rushed to tell on his fellow before he could be told on, and the captain told the other guard to go find his son and bring him here within the hour, or the captain would tell the king that he was the guard who killed the king’s boy. 

The guard scurried out and returned soon with his own son, about the same age as the peasant boy. With only a few minutes before they had to present him to the king, the adviser explained everything to the child and made him memorize exactly what to say if he ever wanted to see his father alive again. 

The court’s doors flew open, and in strode the adviser, shuffling the boy forward through a forest of staring courtiers until they arrived before the king, and the adviser had to kick at the boy’s knees to make him bow. 

The king laughed though, and told the adviser it was fine, he loved the boy’s spirit. So you know how to count my subjects, the king said. You who had the courage to come here and appear before someone of my position, courage of which no one else in all the realm was possessed. Impressive, boy. Well the wait is over, out with it!

The boy looked back at the adviser, who nodded to him. 

My lord, sir, your highness, there is no way to truly count how many subjects you have. How could there be? Is your greatness not boundless? How could you ever be contained by a number? Perhaps this other king could be, but not you. It is an insult to your legacy to even try to count your people and set you on the same scale as him. You are truly great, truly unique in history, untameable, irreducible. Infinite. And your forebears, while perhaps great kings in their own right, are mere ants picking at your bounty. 

Silence. 

The king held the boy in his gaze, pondering. 

As the court waited in suspense. 

Until a laugh cracked the air, not from the king but from the jester, who pointed his finger at the adviser giggling. His laugh caught with the king, as the king let out a deep guffaw, then another, fuller and more voiced, and another as the laugh spread to everyone now, and before long the whole court was rumbling in raucous fits, as the king cackled, then coughed, wheezing red-faced, tears streaming as the flurry of madness built one last time, then waned, and the king was left snorting, rubbing his eyes. 

Oh you are right, boy, who could ever capture how great I am? It would be sacrilege to try. What fool put me up to this count in the first place? 

The king’s eyes roved as the air charged with threat, and voltage, making his courtiers shrink. 

It was him, the jester proclaimed, still pointing at the adviser and chuckling. All along, from the start!

The boy laughed, and nodded vigorously to the king in assent. 

Yes! Yes it was you, adviser, you conned me into this, to make a fool of me with the people, the king raged, as the rest of court sputtered along finding their support, grateful it was not them on the other end of the jester’s finger. The adviser protested it was not him, of course, it was never him, it was the jester, or the librarian, someone else, but certainly not him! That only made the king berate him more though for trying to blame others. 

Guards! Seize him, the king ordered, losing himself in a spiral of righteousness and snarling for the guards to find his stump, to bring it here, do this now in front of his whole court so everyone could see what happened when they tried to make a fool of their king. 

Please, you are making a mistake, the adviser pushed but the guards stuffed their thick gloves over his pleading mouth, and soon a solemn-looking guard entered with a battered old tree stump which he set down in front of the throne, while another guard brought down the great axe that hung from the wall. 

From this day forward, the king boomed to everyone, let this boy, who has proven himself more courageous than any other in the realm by appearing here before me, and proven himself wiser than any other by delivering the only logical answer to my riddle, yes, my riddle of the King’s Count, that from the start I intended as a means to show who truly understood the nature of my greatness, and who did not, from this day forward let him be my chief adviser, to guide me in governing the kingdom, and let this traitor who sought to humiliate me, this malcontent who has steered me wrong for too long, have his head taken so all may see the consequences of putting their own ambition above service to their lord and master. 

In my name, let it be done, the king cried, every word parroted by the jester as the boy laughed, and the whole court braced, heaving. On his knees now, the adviser flashed back to that night in bed, as the actual brush of the axe-blade marking its spot reminded him of the first time he held his daughter close to his chest and felt her warm breath on his neck, and it was almost like a kiss to know she would be safe, she would be cared for, as the touch of the axe lifted and reared back in silence, followed by a pause, then a whoosh of air rushing down.