"Gods, this damned old tradition," muttered the King as he lifted the blade from the idiot boy.
"What was that, Your Eminence?" the eunuch asked. His livery this evening was enough to give a blind man nausea. Too bright colors and polished jewelry.
The King sighed. "Nothing, Balznov. Nothing at all." Gods, but this had all grown so old. Immortality had not exactly been the bargain he'd once thought.
"Shall I begin?" asked Balznov.
"Do what you will," he replied with a weak wave of his hand as he settled back onto his throne and proceeded to devour his leg of turkey in front of the raucous, sycophantic crowd beyond him.
"Oh, it's starting then, is it?" squealed the highborn woman beside him. His "mistress of honor" for the evening festivities, as was tradition, though nothing about the woman whispered any hint of honor to the King. Especially not her nose; the beak would have fit better on his hunting falcon.
"It's starting, yes," he sighed. He scanned the crowd, curious as to why the witch had not yet arrived. Was she visiting with that fool jester again? Her interest in him was beyond his comprehension. Mayhaps the Jester would need to be put down to save the dark woman from distraction. The King knew intimately how deadly distraction could be. For others, at least. A grin split his bristled face.
Balznov swiftly swung into a booming speech that began with the tale of the King Immortal's perilous journey past death and led into his valiant—but humble—exaltation to sovereignty. The crowd clapped and shouted along as if they had been right beside him at each event, though none of them had even been born.
"—a hero, destined to unite this land! Destined...to bring peace!"
"Absolutely awe-inspiring," Hawk Nose proclaimed, waving her glass and spilling a spatter of red wine on her rather open blouse. "An undoubtable hero of ages...and here. You. Are." She nuzzled closer to the King, wrapping one arm around his, and snapped her fingers to have a servant refill his mug.
"What an absolute load of shite," he replied with a bitter laugh. "The story the eunuch weaves is nice enough, lass, but it's about as close to the truth as a shiny tird is to a pile of gold. I doubt very much whether those I slaughtered considered me a hero at the time, nor even the men who fought beside me. But peace can only ever be bought by blood, and that's the truth of it." Thinking of all those that had paid brought a thirsty smile to his lips.
"Mmmm...mm. Yes." Hawk Nose replied with glass pressed tight to her lips. "Yes, mm. Exactly, my King! Gold and peace. Blood and truth!" She swayed as she spoke, her words mere distractions from her drink. The King did not mind. It was not as if the woman had anything of interest to say sober. Best that she maintained her cup instead of his attention.
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"—and so, tonight, for any godless souls that may be among you," Balznov slowly waved a bejeweled finger towards the crowd, "any insidious idiots who would dare question the sovereignty of the King, a sign—nay, a warning shall be given as it has been given the same for centuries!" His voice crescendoed, punctuating his speech with a sackless octave. The audience below exploded in anticipatory cheers; hatchling chicks with their mouths wide open, waiting for mother to vomit up their meal.
The King sneered. "Spoiled, sniveling cowards, every one. They cheer for stories of war and death, but not one has felt the rush of bloodlust on the battlefield. Not a one has sated the thirst of their blades with the cries of their enemies." He pulled his arm from the grasp of his "maiden" and began to finger the hilt of the dagger. "If Margery were here, she would run down there, piss on their plates, and challenge a table of them at a time, you know. Gods, when did people become so boring?"
The King lifted the blade and stabbed it into the table, wedging it deep within the rough wood. Foam sloshed from his mug and quickly ran down the grain onto Hawk Nose's skirt. The vapid woman's face scrunched in drunken confusion as she looked down at the small puddle in her lap, then back up to her glass, and down again once more. Mystery unsolved, she settled for finishing off the remains of her cup and setting it clumsily beside the stuck blade.
His son's blade. His bastard. Weak, like all the others he had fostered over the centuries.
They obviously took after their mothers.
Balznov, finished with his gilded lies, nodded to the King and approached Hawk Nose. "My lady, it is time for the ceremony to begin." He extended a bony hand to her.
"Must I?" she whimpered, aquiline nose pinched tight at the nostrils.
Balznov grinned but his eyes did not. "You must."
She swiveled her head towards the King and whispered with words heavily laquered in liquor, "I'll be back. Don't miss me too much." Then, with a steady grip on her glass, and an unsteady gait down the stairs, the eunuch led her away.
It had all grown so old. Year after year. Decade after decade. Century after century. It was all his now. From sea to snow and mountain to meadow. And they were all his. All of them.
But none like Margery. None like her.
Balznov returned alone, though the King could see Hawk Nose sitting at the table just below the dais, eyes eager and half-lidded with wine.
"Your Eminence?"
The King sat a moment longer, staring out at a kingdom he cared quite little for. "Get off the stage Balznov," he said finally, rising from his chair. The hall went immediately silent.
He took several deep breaths. In and out. In and out. In and... "No silent bow from any foe can fell the King Immortal!" he shouted, a slow hatred pulsing in his chest with each word.
A sharp thwick rang out from a window slit inside the walls of the hall. The head of the arrow dug its burrs deep into the flesh beneath the King's throat.