The King's Council

The autumn chill and the scratching of quills stirred around Emery as he worked in the library of the Abbey. In his hand was a quill of his own, fashioned of goose feather and darkened by iron-gall ink. Before him lay a parchment, blank save for a faint sketch of the Sun that he now traced. His was not a naturally steady hand, but he was patient, for he had illustrated many manuscripts before.

A faint sienna had seeped into the afternoon sky by the time Emery took leave of his work. He walked the cloister grounds, soaking in the Sun’s light at every angle, for it was his monastic duty and a pleasant respite to boot. A few other monks and nuns walked the grounds that afternoon as well, but they left Emery alone. Their characteristic quiet made the arrival of a rider all the more apparent.

The steps of the rider’s boots resounded over the softer shoes of the Abbey residents, and the faint glinting of her chainmail contrasted with the simple garb of the monastics. She gazed searchingly through the cloister, then made her way purposefully to stand before Emery.

“Milord,” the rider said, kneeling down.

“What is it?” answered Emery haltingly. It had been years since anyone had addressed him like this.

“I bring grave tidings,” the rider explained in a grave tone, “Your brother, King Ingram, has died.”

Emery couldn’t muster a reply. Just two seasons past, he had hosted his brother at the Abbey, showing off his new illustrations and the year’s latest recipes of mulled wine. Then, as the world warmed with the Sun’s grace, Ingram had marched off to war. In the past, the late king had returned in triumph after many a campaign. But he would not again.

“You are needed in the crown city,” added the rider.

A hush settled on the Abbey as all but the wind held their breath. 

Emery could only nod and murmur, “Rise, good woman.”

But he knew what quieted his brothers and sisters in the faith. Ingram had left no heir, and so by the laws of succession, Emery was to become king.

So Emery rode from the Abbey, accompanied by the rider and a small entourage of guards. Homesickness distracted him, but he paid mind to the countryside nonetheless. As they rode, the vineyards and gardens around the Abbey slowly gave way to untamed forests and hilly pasture land. The sheep in those pastures chewed on without a care, but Emery noticed signs that all was not well in the kingdom.

At one bridge, Emery saw splintered wooden shards, nicks on the stones, and old, dark stains like spilt paint. He was no warrior, but he trusted his eyes.

“What happened here?” Emery asked, pulling his horse to a stop.

“Bandits, most like, milord,” answered the rider who found him at the Abbey. She was captain of these guards.

The other guards peered about, circling their horses around Emery protectively.

“This is a main road to the crown city. How has it become so lawless?” Emery shook his head sadly.

The guard captain merely shrugged helplessly. It was not her job to comment on matters of state. But by her reckoning, the kingdom had scant few people to protect the roads because King Ingram had taken them away on campaign so many times. She did not want to anger the heir apparent, however, by blaming his late brother.

They rode into the crown city days later, to modest fanfare. King Ingram had been mightily popular in the crown city after returning home with glorious spoils of war and holding triumphant parades so many times, so the people still mourned him. Modest fanfare suited Emery well enough, for he was in no mood for anything bombastic. As soon as he was officially crowned, King Emery summoned his councilors and set about addressing matters of state.

“The most urgent matter is that of King Ingram’s army,” his steward explained. The man was thin and bespectacled, with a history of serving Emery’s house for virtually his entire life.

“What of it?” Emery asked.

“Maintaining and feeding an army is a monumental expense,” his steward elaborated. “The crown cannot afford to pay an army to lay about.”

“So we should disband the army?”

“That is the custom, yes.”

“We needn’t disband it all,” added the marshal, the man in charge of the crown’s military. “The Barons will go home with their levies, of course, but some men can be sent to our border forts and the castles of the crown.”

“Let the men decide for themselves what to do,” suggested the exchequer, a well-dressed, well-connected woman with expertise on financial matters. “Our merchants have a great need for caravan guards of late, so veterans with aught else can still surely find work.”

“The kingdom’s road patrols are in sore need of men, too,” added the chaplain, a wizened, soft-spoken man who was the crown’s authority on the Church. “Our lands see fewer pilgrims of late, for it is said that our roads are unsafe.”

The new King deliberated carefully and earnestly. In his mind, he owed it to his house, his country, and his god to rule as well as possible. In the end, he decided to disband the army while directing extra fighting men to the road patrols. His decision brought more pilgrims as well as foreign merchants to the kingdom, but it did not come without criticism. Of course, it was rare for a councilor to gainsay the King directly. But the scrutiny still stung, however indirectly worded.

“With our border forts in a poor state, the raider clans to our west have started attacking our lands again. They make off with our grain, our cows, even our people! It cannot be allowed,” the marshal declared hotly at another council session.

“Foreign traders now ply their wares here well enough, but what of our own merchants?” asked the exchequer, raising her own concerns, “Too many men seek safe work guarding this road or that road; not enough seek to help our merchants make money abroad.”

“What can be done?” asked King Emery.

“The raider clans can be addressed directly,” the steward explained. “We can muster a new army and strike back in battle. We can hire more people to man our forts on the border. We can even pay the clan leaders to leave us alone.”

“The scarcity of merchant guards is more complicated,” he continued. “To address it, we would need to create certain conditions. Namely, there would need to be too many fighting men and not enough jobs for them.”

“Could the merchants just simply pay more to hire more guards? Free men in our kingdom could surely be convinced to pick up a sword and travel to an exotic land with the promise of enough coin.” King Emery pondered.

The steward shrugged, “Perhaps. But that is for the merchants to decide.”

“For some,” added the chaplain, “the idea of protecting one’s own home holds greater sway than any coin.”

Emery took in the criticism and contemplated the advice. He began to second-guess himself. What was the right choice? Was his previous choice correct? Was he a good King? No answers came. In fact, even if he was ruling well, most people in the kingdom did not have the means to travel to the crown city just to tell him that.

This time, Emery decided to follow in his brother’s footsteps and campaign against the raiders. By this time, he was already known as the Priest-King, pious and just. But any kingdom that marched to war needed its King to lead them, and so Emery rode west. He had no delusions of imitating his brother’s prowess in battle, but he hoped to grow closer to his Barons and knights nonetheless.

King Emery’s army included many veterans from his brother’s later campaigns, who quickly brought greener levies up to speed. The King also busied himself wrangling his Barons, reining them in from glory-seeking misadventures by leveraging his own pious reputation and their competition for status amongst each other.

The campaign was a great success, bringing home stolen people and goods and securing a promise to respect the kingdom’s borders. As the army disbanded, Emery even fortified the border and recommended young fighters to guard posts with the merchant caravans. Of course, back at the crown city, the King again faced criticism nonetheless.

“Your Highness,” the exchequer explained gravely at the next council, “I am afraid the crown’s finances are growing more strained after this military adventure. We had to take loans to muster the army, and now we pay for patrols, garrisons, and greater debt on top of other expenses.”

“Your Highness has always been an ally of the faith,” the chaplain offered, “so I am confident the Church of the Sun would be willing to donate generously to the crown.”

“That might help temporarily,” the marshal pointed out, “but the Barons would not enjoy seeing the crown fall under the influence of the Church.”

“Another possible measure is to have the Mint produce more coinage for the treasury,” the steward offered.

“Issuing coinage beyond our current means would involve reducing the silver content, with possibly far-reaching consequences. Special taxes are a safer option,” the exchequer recommended.

“Every person loathes being taxed,” the steward shook his head, “even for a cause like protecting their very lives.”

Once again, King Emery weighed the trials facing the crown, choosing what he could only hope was the best course. This time he chose to issue more coinage, just enough so that the crown’s debts could be serviced without going further into debt. As he came to expect, though, this was met with criticism in the council.

“Word in the east is that our kingdom has begun debasing its currency,” the exchequer explained. “For now it is only a rumor in the richest cities, where the merchants have the most precise scales, but it could hurt the reputation of our merchants, or even our whole kingdom, if left unchecked.”

“How can we check rumors?” King Emery asked, vexed.

“All we can do is instruct the Mint to resume minting with our original standards of silver,” the steward proposed.

The exchequer nodded, “Coins can speak for themselves. But what is done cannot be undone.”

The King sighed, then asked, “Have we the silver?”

“Enough for a lower rate of minting, at least, with proper silver content,” the steward guessed.

A brief moment of quiet settled on the council as the King pondered.

“Thank you, councilors,” the King said finally, then dismissed them. “I will consider this matter.”

Later that afternoon, King Emery strolled the river harbor to clear his mind, accompanied by the royal guard. By now, the people of the crown city had grown to appreciate their new king, but the smiles, waves, bowing, and kneeling blended into the background for Emery. His reverie was only stirred when a minor commotion arose in front of him. One of his guards appeared to be blocking a damp-haired urchin.

Emery tilted his head to see the situation and commanded, “Let her through.”

“Your Highness!” the urchin greeted him, raising something in both hands. “A gift!”

It was a conch shell, a natural novelty that Emery had only seen in books. When he took it from her hands, the urchin scampered off, eventually leaping from a pier onto a large, flat boat with what looked like a house on it.

“What kind of boat is that?” Emery asked his guards curiously.

“A boat of the River People, methinks,” one guard explained, “Your Highness.”

“The River People?”

“Aye. They live on boats on the river, traveling from country to country. They hawk fish, pearls, salt, silk, all sorts of things.”

“After you started the bandit hunt, Your Highness, the River People started visiting more,” another guard added.

“I see,” Emery murmured.

That evening, Emery stood on a high castle balcony, taking in the setting Sun. Like a white drop of lava, it settled into the shadowy horizon and lit the sky above ablaze. Even as it retired, the Sun limned all the clouds in indigo. The Church taught that the Sun has no words, only light, but people could offer it their words all the same.

“Do people ever gripe,” Emery asked the Sun, “that your course is too constant, so that it always brings night? Do they gripe that your heat is too mighty, so that it dries the air and kills the fields? Do they gripe that your light is too brilliant, so that if they look the wrong way, they are blinded?”

Emery then sighed and muttered, “I sound like I’m comparing myself to the Sun. Who do I think I am?”

An hour passed. The Sun continued its way to the other side of the world, leaving Emery’s land in the cool embrace of night. It did so silently, inexorably, heedless of the words of Emery or anyone else.

Running his hand along the weathered stone of the balcony rail, Emery contemplated the Sun’s silence. Finally, as he returned to the castle, he smiled.