Lady Mairillia had stopped Myrl and his entourage in the hall as they had been leaving the last of the late day meetings and headed to another. Her simple plan, laughable in the face of it, had been to block the corridor as Myrl and his guards had attempted to traverse the shortest path between the King’s Study and the Great Hall, where the bulk of the people waiting to hear what the king may have been doing to curb panic in the face of the recent, and very upsetting, events.

He remembered the young woman from a dance he had held neary a month past. Her green eyes had stood out for Myrl more than anything about her personality, and due entirely to Ashe's tutelage, Myrl knew more about her family's holdings down the coast from Ghlow than he did about the young woman herself after two dances and several tens of minutes of probing conversation on his part.

So, as Myrl, his scribes, the Court Herald, and his guards had descended the stairs to the palace’s main floor from the room where he had met with specialized advisors and counselors, Lady Mairillia in her finest gowns and bejeweled like the night skies in high Summer, had stood waiting on his arrival with enough of her personal maids and several Peers and THEIR maids, to bar all passage along this path. As they approached, Myrl could count at least 5 minor Countessas huddled in their finery.

Gesturing for his own party to slow, he had been about to address the well clothed little mob when one member of their group, a petite man in vibrant blue he had not noticed before, stepped forward and began formally heralding the presence of Lady Mairillia into the presence of the King.

Myrl cocked an eyebrow at this bit of excessive formality that bordered on sarcastic frippery.

The little herald, in a high, clear soprano voice, sang out to all who might hear, “Well Come! Well Come! All take note and Head the Meeting of the Estimable and Lauded Houses of Rhiad and NicAounghais! Wail and gnash thy teeth, you poor souls who see the Rising of the Sun yet know not the Light which shines down from the Throne of the Houses of Rhiadian Splendor this Day!”

Myrl looked to his left at the older guardswoman who carried his formal coronet and scepter, she did not look impressed by the little blue-bird's singing. She even flinched slightly as he cried the next words as if he were beginning the morning prayers across from the palace in the Temple to Rhoona, Goddess of the Sun.

…I may need to let Arne know about this little herald… see if he needs a new acolyte… I hear he runs through them like beer through a broken keg…

“OH! AND MAY THIS DAY BE REMEMBERED FOR THE AGES AS THE DAY OUR GRACIOUS KING CAME TO FINALLY SEE THE GLORIOUS FLOWERS OF RHIADA!”

That phrase caught his attention, and not just because the petite herald sang them loudly enough to make the arched stonework above their heads ring slightly in resonance.

“Wait.” Myrl said, holding up a hand, and silence closed in upon the gathered cluster of people.

Lady Mairillia did a complicated and dancer-like curtsy and bowed before her young king, who would have been more impressed if he knew what this was and why it was interfering with his plans to address the Royals and the notable Consortia of Rhiada. “Now that I have your attention, my Lady of Barnachy, if you would please, I have an address to give, and I am being waited upon by many important personages. If this is about yesterday's unfortunate events, then by all means please follow me to my next appointment, and when I address everyone, maybe your own concerns might be covered as well.”

Myrl tilted his head to the young lady who stood before him, making herself the spokesperson for this gaggle of pageantry. Lady Mairillia looked back at her king from beneath a piled tower of the curliest mass of dark brown hair he had ever seen. It may have been expertly styled. It may have just been a mass piled up upon a mass, sitting upon another mass in haphazard and happy-go-lucky “I just woke up” fashion.

Myrl knew he should be more interested in that thing that others called “style,” but he honestly found it tedious. He thought the young noble, whose family held some very fertile lands further along the Rhiadan coast, was possibly using her natural, and admittedly beautiful, curly hair along with a dash of fashion from somewhere near the southern Jheddo coast. Something that spoke of the Old Kaelean Republic, and sailing on crystalline blue waters.

Myrl sighed, and then focused himself on the world around himself, rather than the worlds in his head.

Looking into the very light green eyes of the woman who stood before him attempting to look regal, he asked, “If you please. What is this concerning? I have a very busy schedule, my Lady.”

Everyone looked to Myrl until Mairillia spoke up.

“My king,” she began. “It has been brought to the attention of the Counsel of Lords that Your Majesty has not chosen Suitable Candidate to take up the role as Queen of Rhiada, and secure Your Reign by providing Heirs to the Throne.”

Myrl blinked.

“We have come to you today, My King, to petition you for a suitable audience to discuss this situation with You.” She went on, not noticing the look of disbelief on Myrl’s face. “This cannot be allowed to continue, as it puts the status of the Kingdom in considerable jeopardy.” She was running her words together now, as though she had memorized and rehearsed what she wanted to say, and was now reciting it from a scroll as if delivering a report to a tutor.

“No.” It was a small word, unadorned. But it was unadorned like a dagger, plain steel, honed to a fine edge. A good word, like a good dagger did not need embellishments. It was what it was.

And this word brought the babbling, bubbling brook of words tumbling from Lady Mairillia’s mouth from a torrent to a trickle.

“But…” She looked crestfallen, and slightly horrified. “Duchess Yggrel told me, she specifically told me, that you needed to be confronted! She said you would never listen to our petitions unless we publicly made you do so!”

Myrl’s head tilted to the side just slightly as he considered this new piece of information, and he looked at the group confronting him again with fresh eyes. “So, this is somehow about the Crown’s marital prospects?” He found it easier to refer to himself as “the Crown,” and keep a level of calm detachment. “And you somehow have been prompted by the Duchess of Fastel in this to confront me? Here and now?”

As one, almost as if they had practiced this together, every member of the semicircle of young noblewomen and their attendants all nodded in unison.

“And rather than court me, catch my attention to possibly woo me, or have your parents and mentors present yourselves to me at Court and at social gatherings, possibly pointing out to me the benefits of alliances or of trade contracts that might be settled, you all thought to pressgang me into this kind of decision here and now?” Myrl felt his anger gathering. These twittering little birds might have heard about the mass killings that happened just last night, but couldn’t be bothered to care about those lives lost than about the errant dust motes their servants might sweep away from a shelf of unread and long untouched books.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

As he stared at them, they all, en masse, widened their own eyes in terror as they noticed their tactics were not finding royal approval.

“And Duchess Yggrel told you to accost me when I am in the middle of trying to quell panic after the deaths of scores, LITERALLY two score and then some, of men who are my citizens? She bade you come to me and keep me from meeting with my Counsel of Peers, and the people of my Kingdom who need answers?”

Lady Mairillia looked as though she had just realized that the king was angry, though she might not have figured out the reasons for his anger yet. She began to stutter and splutter what could have been an apology, and very quickly spun gracefully down to her knees in front of Myrl with a physical surety she lacked in her verbal flailing. Finally the green eyed Lady mustered a coherent answer.

“No, sire.” Lady Mairillia looked at the stones of the floor directly before her knees. “She told me that you have been planning to marry a member of the …”

“Yes?” Myrl prompted. This had gone from tedious to personally insulting, and he had a presentation to make. As the King, they would wait for him to arrive, but also as King, he had a responsibility to make his arrival as timely as possible. It wasn’t just that THEY owed him fealty, in accepting their fealty, they had expectations, and he had Duties.

“That you were planning to marry a princess of the Cloven Rocks Clan.” He could hear the revulsion in her words, and see her cringe as she said them. Several members of her entourage shuffled and murmured uncomfortably as she said this. Mairillia, herself, shook slightly, her huge mop of curly dark hair quivering and shaking with each unsteady breath she took.

Myrl stared at the young noblewoman where she knelt before him on the polished stones of the wide corridor. He was not sure he heard her correctly, but what she had said was so far afield from “correctly” Myrl wasn’t quite sure where to even start. Her emotions were running riot, and though his ring told him it was mostly fear, the revulsion she felt at the moment was almost enough to make her physically ill.

…that would ruin her dress… and probably my shoes, too… he thought.

“First, it’s the ‘Cloven Peaks Clan.’” Myrl said. “The Cloven Peaks are a region of the Kingdom in the north western mountain ranges. Do you know them? Have you ever visited? Any of you?” He asked, gesturing to the crowd. No one answered.

“I’ll take that booming silence as a distinct ‘No.’ Secondly, the Cloven Peaks Clan does not have a Princess. That isn’t how the orc tribes are arranged. Currently they have a Queen Matriarch. She is a lovely woman, as orc women of a certain age go… but I would not marry her, nor she I. They don’t marry for politics, and even if they did, I can honestly say that I am not…” He searched his mind for an appropriate term. Time ticked along before he was saved by a muted clearing of a throat as Baison huffed from where he stood behind Myrl “Not her type, sire.”

“Ah, yes. Indeed, type... I am not the Queen Matriarch’s type.” He emphasized that last word for the crowd.

As someone hidden in the back of the group which was now arrayed around and in front of him and his party began to speak out of turn, Myrl heard “...troll” and “...that cook, Donshamalamalama…” And with that, Myrl was now completely exhausted with this entire diversion.

Myrl had had enough of these pretentious members of the Peerage, and it was time to make some things clear to them.

Closing his eyes, Myrl began by taking a moment to just breathe. As he had been drilled by Ashe time and again, a moment’s reflection would save Myrl from untangling hours, if not weeks, of mistakes. The moment took barely a heartbeat, and now properly centered, Myrl pushed his Will through his Talent and gestured with his left hand as he envisioned his palm quelling waves on a pool of water, forcing the waves into flattened, submissive stillness.

Silence dropped around them all, complete and oppressive. Several mouths opened in shock, but no voices emerged. He looked over his own shoulder at his remaining two guards, and at the scribes and the herald who attended him this late afternoon and evening. The guards all nodded to Myrl, approving of his taking charge in this definitive manner.

“I will have silence when I address you. I am not your tutor. I am you KING.” Myrl emphasized that last. They needed to know. He let his eyes play across those assembled. Startled faces looked red and flustered. A few with embarrassment, though some others looked to lean toward the offended. He let the moment of forced silence drag on to emphasize his point.

A few people tried to talk. And not a single chirp could be heard from their mouths. Not a sound. The little herald looked horrified and whipped his head left and right, looking for help. Soon they all came to the conclusion that they also could not move any part of their bodies from the neckline of their clothing down to their well and fashionably shod toes.

And with that, a panic set in. Several minor nobles now looked like they were pantomiming screams, their jaws thrown wide, and their brows twisted in effort. He let their facial mummery play itself out as he continued to hold his palm down, at the height of his shoulder. Soon enough all eyes were once again upon their king. Where she knelt on the floor, held securely by his Will, Mairillia looked like she was holding back tears behind her wide green eyes.

“I have a duty, as your king, to see to it that my people are able to live their lives without threat of being torn to pieces by monsters in the streets of the capital. Or anywhere in my realm for all that. I have spent most of last night and today dealing with these deaths. These men had families. These men who died last night, they did work here in Ghlow that made your lives possible. Do any of you know their names?”

Not a single face showed they could honestly admit to knowing any of the names of the victims.

“I will acknowledge to you all here that, yes, I know I also have a responsibility to the Kingdom of Rhiada and to my People, to find a queen, and secure an heir. I would like to KNOW who I am to marry first, however. But,…” He paused here for a moment. And looked at the rabbit-frightened group held in place by power that none of them probably understood in the slightest, and sighed.

Myrl knew he had to proceed with this just as much as he needed to move forward with anything else.

“But, it does need to be done. And I will have my Hall of Heralds make announcements concerning those who would press suit. Lady Mairillia.” He spoke her name more gently than he had said anything else these last few minutes.

When he was sure she was able to hear him through the anxiety and terror he was feeling from her through his ring and she was able to focus her grass-green eyes upon her king, he continued. “Please take a message and tell Duchess Yggrel, whom I will assume is still here in Ghlow, that I will be expecting her presence tomorrow afternoon for a late lunch in my study.”

Mairillia nodded up at Myrl from where she knelt. “You may also attend.” Her lovely, if now red rimmed, eyes shot wide in the light of the wall sconces that lighted the wide corridor. The ring registered confusion and trepidation sheeting off of the young woman in bold waves.

Looking over his shoulder, he asked “Baison?”

The older man spoke without pause for thought, knowing exactly what his king wanted. “We will be on time if we depart now, Sire.”

Still holding his hand level with his shoulder, Myrl added more effort to the spell form he was holding, and spread the ring finger apart from the middle finger of that hand, and the group of paralyzed people in front of the king parted like curtains, some sliding to the left to settle against the left wall, while others slid across the polished shone of the floor to come to a rest against the right wall as Myrl and his own entourage swept past them.

The king’s footsteps faded from the hearing of Lady Mairillia and her courtiers and they all, those who faced one another where they all huddled in their shared immobility.

And like flatulence held too long, all of them finally cried out with relief as they fell to the ground with groans when the spell was released.

Lady Mairillia noticed most of those who had been held now laughed, or demurely giggled into hands and kerchiefs, as they all marveled at the singular experience they had all shared. And many noted it had been thanks to their King. “How amazing!” Several were saying. Myrl, who was both trained and quite an adept Talent!

How many other nobles, some asked, have had the chance to witness such precision and skill? “And isn’t our king so dashing?” They asked one another, “As well as a young, handsome, and oddly reasonable, for a King! “Not at all like his uncle…” one voice, possibly that of the herald, Visby, they had brought, whispered. “He didn’t kill any of us. Didn’t even have one of those huge guards rough us up. Amazing!”