Sitting on the smaller throne in the smaller of the meeting halls of the palace had been his own idea, and so Myrl thought he might be to blame for the mild pain he now had in his lower back. It had been his thought that keeping the venue on the smaller scale of the “Lesser Receiving Hall” might limit the time each petitioner might take to present their case. He had also been making this choice under the impression that the “Throne of Mitr the Lonely,” his great grandfather’s favorite seat from which to rule, was a comfortable seat.

Myrl had been wrong about both things.

The second issue had come about because Myrl had sat briefly on the small throne the evening before, and had judged it a firm, comfortable seat. And for the span of an hour, it had been. After that first hour however he may as well have been sitting upon a stone plinth.

That first misconception, however, had been an assumption and an exercise in optimistic naivete by an untested young king.

Lessons being learned every day, it would seem. He let that thought simmer as he listened to this latest set of complaints.

“...and, your majesty, I hate to bother you with this final detail on this topic, but in the last ten years my Barony has not been able to field more than a token force of bannermen in our house tabards due to a lack of funds for such being made available to our exchequer after the quarterly taxes have been paid to the Crown, Sire. I wouldn't bring this up, but this is yet another issue, a slight, a lack of being taken seriously, under which I and my household have been forced to labor during the reign of the previous king…”

“You mean my Father?” Myrl softly interjected, but made sure his voice was heard. Beside him, yet just out of sight, he could feel Elbana stiffen slightly. I may have just been the minute sounds she made as her weight shifted. From the forceful painful pulsing coming off of his Master Armsman that he felt through the Ring of State he now wore, he could tell she was hoping for a reason to beat the man who stood before Myrl for over an hour now outlining every loosely connected slight the man thought he could get away with tattling to his king with.

Squint-eyed, and round-faced, the baron’s rambling, whiny speech stuttered to a stop, and asked simply “Sire?”

‘You mention the King before me. That would have been my father. Is that who you meant? Because you also outlined a span of these last ten years. My father was not on the throne these last ten years. My uncle served as regent these last fourteen years. Did you mean my father, the last King before me, over fourteen years now gone, or did you mean the Royal Regent and his Co-Regent, my Aunt?” Myrl’s voice remained soft, but he let a depth of suspicious anger creep into his words as he spoke.

Myrl could suddenly feel the icy, cold waves of fear resonating from the man. Good. He thought, Let’s make sure everyone knows my uncle was not a king. This mislabeling of his position here at Court surely gained the man a measure of control and influence he had not been due. And we now need to let the entirety of the Kingdom know that nothing the man built on stolen power would last any longer than I allowed it.

“Sire, I’m not…” Baron Krassen flounis kind of work. I’m sure he can help you 8dered in a sea of his own confusion, and now feared his entire petition to his NEW King bobbed like wreckage in these dark waters.

“Krassen, please be aware, and let every other person you meet who is likewise confused, my Aunt and her husband were appointed to be Regents in my place, not King and Queen on their own.” His gaze drilled into the baron, and he could feel the man’s discomfort. “Now, as to all of your money woes, did you bring along either your exchequer or your treasurer with you today?”

Baron Krassen squirmed where he stood before Myrl. Myrl raised his eyebrows in the most helpful manner he could, and then continued speaking, but now just slightly more slowly. “I would like for them to submit these numbers you have mentioned here today to the Royal Office of the Treasury, and they may be able to help you sort out where all of your money keeps disappearing to. Count Alrachi, my treasurer, is amazing at exactly this kind of work in aiding baronial offices with the tracking of income and expenses.”

Krassen stared at his new monarch in both fear and horror. The man was incredulous, Myrl’s ring told him, and his pride was now stinging. If given another hard nudge, Myrl felt the man might start to weep.

An hour later, after some more pleas for help on behalf of Krassen, and several hints to the man that he should be addressing his issues to his local duke (Duke Karka of Gherdene) before finally his being ushered from the room, another petitioner stood before Myrl, who, after a very brief break, was now seated upon a new cushion atop the old, hard, throne.

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Slowly sauntering in as if he hadn’t a care in this world, was Admiral Galler Earstov Ekino Kleinhoff.

The petite well dressed man had entered the room with one of his hulking captains walking behind him carrying a large ornately carved chair as though it weighed nothing.

After both men had bowed to Myrl, Galler bowing low enough to clean the marble floor with the oversized plumes on his giant hat, Galler let out a warm chuckle and his face practically lit up with a smile of such warmth that had Myrl not been wearing his Ring of State, he wouldn’t have trusted it in the least. And then the captain (Captain Gav Levi Myrl learned) carefully placed the chair a few discreet strides in front of where Myrl sat.

The little seaman meandered slowly around the chair, running his broad, calloused hand over the whale and serpent motif beautifully depicted in the light, golden colored wooden panels of the chair. And then patted the thick cushion of what looked like dark-green dyed sailcloth. With little to no ceremony, and a small hop, he sat, heaving a huge sigh as he settled into the luxuriously plump looking cushions.

The soles of Galler’s boots bobbed a handspan above the marble floor.

“King Myrl, first of your name, I have come to discuss the possible trading and naval support alliance you had proposed to me some months back, and to cement my fleet’s working relationship with the Kingdom of Rhiada.” He spoke confidently in the strong accents of a Chlander, his long ago abandoned homeland, all hard consonants and abruptly cut off vowels. Aside from the strident manner of his speech, not dissimilar from that of a town cryer, he had a pleasantly deep voice.

Myrl hoped his own voice would age half as well, though sometimes he feared his voice now was too high, too soft, too… boyish, to be taken seriously by the nobles of Rhiada.

“Admiral Kleinhoff! I was so happy to see you were able to attend the coronation and feast. Are you and your staff staying in the city, here in the palace, or are you all staying aboard your various vessels?”

“Oh, king, your invitation was generous, but I and my Fleet Officers have taken over a fine establishment by the docks. It keeps us near our beloved ships, accessible to our various crews, and lets us be as rowdy as we can afford. No need for my people to alienate ourselves from you or your staff with our sour behavior! HA!” Behind where Galler sat, Captain Levi poorly hid a broad smile by looking down at the immaculately tailored chest of his uniform.

Ring pulsing gently, Myrl could feel the larger man’s merriment, as well as that he was hiding… something. “Well, You’re all welcome to rooms here in the East Quarter of the palace, if you wear out your welcome or your purses.”

Smiling as widely as he could, trying to reassure the little Admiral, Myrl could feel the tension of his cheek muscles. He had never been much for outward expressions of emotions. It always led to, in the opinion he had formed in his early teens, too many miscommunications. But now, Myrl knew he had to facially express at people.

It was politics. Both interpersonal, and reign related. When it had just been Ashe and he, Myrl had only shown emotion when the two were out of sight of any others. Then when Elbana joined his staff, she was let into his ring of trusted advisers. And then Donk…

And now there was an entire kingdom around him that Ashe had convinced him he now needed to express himself to… under the correct circumstances of course.

And beyond his own kingdom, there were neighboring kingdoms…

And kingdoms and lands beyond his neighbors…

“Your majesty?” Galler was politely asking, without asking, where Myrl’s head and thoughts had floated off to.

“Galler,” snapping back into the moment, “I will be needing your fleet, and you, and your captains all. I have plans for a great merchant endeavor. I have already made contacts with several possible partners.”

“Hrrrrrm…” the merrow captain looked skeptical. “My fleet is not known for being merchants, King. We are more…” and here he foundered slightly, looking back to the Giant Wall of Sailor that was Captain Gav Levi, who answered for his Admiral.

“Your Majesty, if you don’t mind, we are organized in terms more akin to a Nomadic Maritime Military Unit. My Admiral means no offense when he says this to you,” Myrl noted Galler was not actually saying anything, but let the large man continue in his precise tone and clipped Chlandian accent. “Our merchant abilities run aground in anything beyond provisioning of our fleet.”

Myrl looked at the wide, slate-like, earnest face of Captain Levi, and then to the much smaller, seated Galler. “Oh, I’m aware. This will be much more like the contract we had originally intended. But, as I no longer need a fleet to help me take back my own kingdom, We,” he was slowly getting used to the “Royal We,” “will be trading with far flung places, and while much of Our Kingdom Navy will continue to guard Our vast shoreline and territorial waters, what We will need is an sharp-knuckled Steel Fist to extend out Silk Glove to less friendly kingdoms, and guard these waterways from piracy while my people work to trade on these new lanes We will be creating.”

Admiral Kleinhoff stared at Myrl, unmoving.

The ring made his finger itch with barely concealed skepticism.

Going for the heart now, Myrl offered what he knew Galler would want. What Galler most thought would matter. “I hear the Holy Empire of Chland mines prodigious amounts of iron, makes wonderful steel, needs copper, and hates foreigners… and those they consider ‘pirates.’”

There was a moment of long silence in the room as the itching from his ring ceased, and quickly became a soothing wave of mirth.