ZEPHYR RAVENSWOOD

Four had already come and gone, all cases resolved by someone who was not him. It was his royal advisor, Flynn, that did the settling, he just watched. A king that can’t settle a court case, I’m pathetic, he told himself when the fourth had ended. He should not blame himself, he knew. In reality, he had not been born royalty, he was not nurtured to be a king, but now that he had found himself as one, he was slowly becoming filled with a sense of obligation to act his title. He would try his hand at the fifth one, and deliver the king’s justice as he deemed fit, he made up his mind.

He had watched and listened from the throne, as they all came bearing their cases to him inside the grand bannered walls of the royal hall, which was striped with rays of sunlight gold falling in from its high windows. Dressed in a white tunic and black pants tucked into brown high-leather boots, which were beneath a grey leather buckled coat, patterned with stripes of gold, and fastened at the collar with a golden raven clasp and at waist with a leather brown belt, he gazed down at the table of his council members before the foot of the dais, where he sat upon the throne of bronze as benevolent and kingly as the golden gemmed crown atop his blue hair made him.

The members of the king’s council had not all been present, but the few that were, sat beneath him. Lord Varyn Bolton was seated at the far end of the table’s left, wearing an oxblood leather doublet and a lost-minded face that was occasionally being found and lost again. At the other end from where Lord Varyn sat was his councillor compeer, the keeper of coins, Lord Theon Silverfist, his face the same as it was the first time Zephyr had seen him, hard and unkind, and grey just like his hair of salt-and-pepper. Zephyr convinced himself when he had watched him stride into court before, that he was such way because of the amount of money he would have seen dissipate before his eyes; if it was anything like what he thought it was, then it was enough to make anyone a Theon.

The last of the council members present was his own advisor and supposed friend, who was dressed in a flame brocade coat with a raven pin on his chest, just like when he had first seen him. The young lord of Claymore had his auburn hair tied into a lustrous bun, and had watched and settled the proceedings with a face as calm as a sea without waves.

The first the black cloaks brought through the large doors of oak were a man and a woman, both haggard looking and dressed in the clothes of common folk. The man was balding and in a shaggy tunic and mud stained soleless boots, while the scatter-haired woman in a brown gown covered with grey and blue and black patches everywhere.

The woman had come bearing accusations towards the man, one of assault. She told the king of how it happened. She claimed he had forced himself into her when she came to buy a suckling pig from his pen, and just managed to escape by her hair after she fought him off with a blow to his lower twins, but the deed had been done already, he had gone in three to four or five times already, she wasn’t sure how much thrusts, but she was sure he was in, and when Zephyr remained silent, Flynn asked in his stead what she would like to have them do. And she no doubt answered, with haste in fact. She asked that he lost the use of his lower man, and requested for his pig pen as well.

When he was finally given the chance to lay his words before the king, the balding man answered with a wail he had kept pent up inside while his accuser spoke, denying her accusations. I never touched her, Sire. She lies! He had cried, then explained his own, saying that she truthfully came for a suckling pig, but then requested to finalise the deal inside, and when she got into his cabin she pushed him, tore her lower gown and ran out screaming, then after a while she returned with guards to take him in. It was all a plan, he told the king and his councillors.

The back and forth had all given Zephyr a headache; what was the best way to settle things, he did not know. No one had told him court proceedings were so stressful, there was no one to tell him. Flynn looked towards the dais, and up at the throne and the man sitting upon it, when the man gazed back at him he saw his tensed eyes, one that told him that he lacked the knowledge of what best to do.

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The auburn haired man returned his face to the two haggard people standing before the council table, and took lead of the settles for his king. He asked them both questions Zephyr could not have thought of, and from their answers, he declared the man free from the accusations, and the woman to pay him a compensation fee of a hundred silver coins, which was the equivalent of two gold coins, and told her that if she ever pulled such a trick again, the next place her head would be found was on a spike in the blood square.

After the first; the second, third and fourth came, and Flynn did not need to look at his king anymore to know that he was still unable to settle the cases brought forth. He took charge himself.

The other two at the table were as silent as Zephyr and even more useless. At least the king’s presence brought fear and reverence to whoever came through the door, but what did the silent lords have to offer aside their… silence. They were better off not attending the court.

The large doors of the royal hall opened for the fifth now, and in they came. An echoing gasp from high ladies and lords above in the gallery, and watchful gazes from beneath the armet of black cloaked guards standing below the Ravenswood banners, at both the eastern and western wings of the hall, welcomed them in all their splendor. Zephyr understood the reactions as he himself shifted forward in his throne. There were two of them, both resplendent in the dazzling glamour of their gilded full-plate armours. From their hind fell a great cloak sewn from rich silver damasks and decorated with crossed longswords all over it, if they were to be counted, there might have been at least twenty of such patterned about the cloak.

Cloaks made from rich damasks no doubt wore a heavy weight, and they would have fallen from their shoulders if not for the pair of longswords that clasped them firmly. Halfway through their breastplate flew a silver raven in a field of gold, its sharp black eyes piercing through anyone that dared to gaze at it. Their greaves, gauntlets, rondels and tassels stood out from the rest of the armour by separating themselves with silver enamels. At their waist were longswords hidden within thick leather scabbards, and beside the swords, their hands held a ritzy greathelm coated beautifully in gold. At the moment, as they arrived at the foot of the dais before the council table, they stood even grander than the king himself.

Who are these? I’m going to deliver my judgement to them…? The lump Zephyr swallowed struggled to fall down his throat as he thought to himself.

To one knee they went, both of them. The first had wrinkles that showed he was far from being called young. With grey-black hair that fell down to his shoulders, and arctic-blue eyes fraught with the cold stare of a white wolf, his squared-face was as imposing as his armour.

The second lacked wrinkles and looked younger, much younger, but shared a striking resemblance to the first, a far too great one that Zephyr was sure he was his son, or at least they were related. His hair was of jet-black, devoid of any strand of grey, and fell further to his biceps. He had the eyes of the first man as well, an arctic-blue one, but his had not the cold stare of a white wolf, his had the stare of a young lion well within hunting age.

“Hail His Grace, Zephyr,” the first man sang with a voice thicker than steel. “Word of King Sargon’s passing reached us, but we could not leave Free pass unprotected to be by our new king’s side at the moment of his enthronement. We are here now because we have successfully driven back the raid of the mountain folks, and I ask of you to pardon our tardiness, Your Grace.”

The man’s worldliness echoed from the way he spoke, and in less time Zephyr came up with an idea of who they were. No, he was sure of who they were now. He sat back on his throne and raised his head high, while he let his chin rest on the curled fist of his right hand. I almost forgot about them… My Kingsknights the council members spoke to me about… He told himself as he watched the gilded men before him, the surge of power he felt the first time he took the throne resurfacing and reminding his body of what he was, of what he had become in this world, and that men as grand as these, if any other even existed, were under his command. If he was not sure before, he was no doubt sure now. As the king, he sat on the throne of bronze the greatest man in this realm.