Chapter 1430: Crowning feast(1)

The hall was packed to the vaulted rafters of the Great Hall. So dense was the crush of silk, velvet, and glistening grease that one might have mistaken the chamber for the Small Hall, were it not for the conspicuous lack of a certain throne and long line of petitioners awaiting for the queen’s pleasure.

Every lord of the realm had received a royal summon, and most had possessed the wit to attend. The sole notable absence was the Lord of Aragustaven, the new one, naturally, considering the old lord was currently indisposed on account of him being a dear and entertaining the worms. Lord Damio was a squealing babe of three, leaving the regency in the hands of his mother, Lady Barb.

During the war, the widow had been only too eager to swallow a non-aggression pact when it was offered. With the Prince of Oizen scurrying off like a kicked cur after the bloodbath at the Ford, and with her late husband’s list of crimes against Yarzat as long as a spear-shaft, the offer of royal mercy must have felt like direct deliverance from the Weaver herself.

She had neither allies nor hope; had Alpheo invested the keep, the walls would have tumbled in a fortnight. But the King had no time to waste besieging a provincial mouse-hole when fatter trout were waiting for the net.

So, on account of them not being worth that much, mercy was extended.

For the feast, Lady Barb had dispatched an obsequious letter full of apologies, explaining that the roads were far too perilous for a lady traveling with a tender infant. A craven excuse, certainly, but Alpheo held no grudge. He had, after all, arranged her husband’s demise, or rather, Merelao had cleaved the fool in twain, though the widow likely drew little distinction.

In the end,so long as she remained safely tucked away behind her modest curtain walls, she would find no quarrel with the Crown. Timid, cautious lords made excellent subjects; they were entirely too mindful of their fragile necks to dream of testing their master’s reach and were more than able to heed at their master’s command.

The feast raged on.

Rivers of spiced hippocras, pale ale, and crisp pear cider washed through the trenchers, alongside mountains of roasted meats, stuffed capons, sweet almond pastries and delightable product that blessed every table in every event hosted by the king.

Most coveted by far was the rich, aromatic Yarzat cuisine that the King had imported alongside his legions. The southern palate had taken to the various concotions of tomatoes, cheese and egg-mixed with flour with unseemly greed. Alpheo harbored little doubt that by sunrise, a hundred and one lords would petition him for the loan of a royal cook to bring the wondrous recipes to their drafty keeps.

He would grant the requests gladly. If the whole arrays of pasta, the new pizzas, and various others plates the king brought to court, could buy peace in Oizen cheaper than cohorts of infantry,well then call him Master and give him the white hat.

He never expected love from the lords he had ground beneath his heel. Vanquished men do not adore the hand that broke them. But so long as they swallowed their bile, paid their tithes without whining, and mustered their spears when the royal raven flew, that was perfection enough.

When statecraft refused to offer both, fear was infinitely more dependable than love.

Though certain loyal fools in the hall would happily boast of the former

"A bloody toast to the King!" bellowed the Lord of Bracum, hoisting a silver flagon so violently half its contents sloshed over his velvet sleeve.

Bracum and his thick-skulled heir were so deliriously exalted that an outsider might have thought the crown had landed on their own heads. The old wolf had spent the last two hours stumbling from table to table, bellowing war stories and praising the King’s genius to anyone with ears, caring not a whit whether his listener was a smiling Kakunian enjoying the spectacle or a sour-faced Oizenian who had served as the butchered butt of that very same campaign.

The hall thundered in response, hundreds of flagons and trenchers hammering the long oak trestles in deafening approval.

Alpheo lifted his own chalice to mirror the hall, taking a modest sip of watered wine. It was a hazardous thing for a sovereign to sit sober while his court went blind drunk, but he ate his roasted beef heartily and kept his wits sharp as a razor, he well preferred to keep away the best he could from wine.It had not been easy to cut it away from his routine, but now that he had managed he was in no hurry to test his willpower to keep it that way.

Soft music from harps and bone flutes tried valiantly to sweeten the air, though the delicate notes were entirely drowned out by the roar of a hundred lords packed together like pickled herring in a barrel.

As Alpheo had well known from the start, the master of the feast was the least free man in the room. Even after the endless line of formal greetings, oaths, and lavish gifts had concluded, a steady trickle of lords continued to hover near the high dais, eager for a royal nod or a murmured promise of future appointment.

Some, at least, brought genuine amusement. Lord Xanthios strutted before the throne looking as though the brutal winter campaign had served as an invigorating bath in the fountain of youth.

He was pushing sixty-three, yet he loudly proclaimed to every maiden and knight in earshot that the smell of blood and burning camps had stripped twenty years off his bones, boasting that he could fight all morning and fuck like a four-year-old stallion all night before turning around and asking who would put his words to the test.

He had the decency, at least, to offer a sheepish bow and a muttered apology to young Rosalind for the foulness of his tongue.

Unfortunately the queen was not as entertained as her husband , and she made her displeasure all but said with a gaze that could have curdled milk.

Through the endless parade of flatterers, drunkards, and posturing knights that accompanied the lords, Alpheo kept scanning the high hall. Yet no matter how much he craned his neck or searched the crowded trestles, the King could not catch even a passing glimpse of his eldest son. The young prince had vanished into the revelry like smoke through a chimney flue.

Reassuring himself that the cub had enough of his father’s iron to look after himself, he turned his eye toward the foreign dignitaries circling the high dais like well-fed vultures.

First came the Romelians, led by the well known Doria. The delegation bowed low, spouting florid congratulations with smooth, melodic cadences. Whether their praise was genuine reverence or forced bile held behind clenched teeth mattered not a whit, for the congratulations weighted the same regardless of what curdled in a man’s heart.

At first glance, their train carried no chests of gold or jeweled relics. Yet Doria loudly and repeatedly proclaimed that the Eternal City had dispatched its true tribute a moon prior along with their formal recognition of the crown.

Alpheo was only too delighted to see Egil’s lifelong obsession fulfilled at last, loudly showering the Romelians with honeyed gratitude for their exquisite generosity loud enough of course for the whole court to hear, as he would not want to humiliate the Romelians by accusing them of stinginess.

Beneath the pleasantries, however, the real knives were drawn. Alpheo took care to murmur in Doria’s ear that they must share a quiet flagon before the week was out. The King had grander schemes brewing, ventures he intended to lay before the Emperor himself. When he finally unrolled the trade charters for Yarzat’s new luxury exports, the Romelians would gobble up the concessions and beg like starving dogs for second helpings.

Yet trade was merely the start.In the future Alpheo hoped to bring his hand on that mess that coinage, his grander designs demanded that some limit be put onto that.

Of course to do that, first he had to have his own forge ,which meant Yarzat needed direct control of rich silver veins, and while there was none in the close South at close, luckily, the rugged mountains across the sea held just the prize he coveted.

It certainly would not be easy, taking those crags was a logistical nightmare. The sea and the passes made shipping vast supply trains an agonizing prospect; he could hardly ferry thousands across the straits without bleeding the treasury white. After all, what use was to field thousands of men for a great expedition across the sea, only to watch them die of starvation?

No, he could not conquer those heights alone.It was impossible, or at any point not worth the price he would have to pay.

For the thousandth time, Alpheo silently blessed his own foresight in binding the mountain clans to his banner. The wild tribesmen were born to the high scree and pine forests; they would gladly provide the fierce vanguard and bleed upon the slopes for silver and plunder, while elite cohorts of the line served as the unbreakable iron core to anchor the campaign.

Of course , two legions were the most he could dare spare. Any more, and the newly bent provinces would sniff weakness and rise in his rear. And that was a box, that not even the Fox of Yarzat dare open. A two princedom rebellion was the last thing he wished, especially with Vulture circling the air for the first sign of weakness.

So as the flutes rang out and the fiddlers sang, Alpheo leaned back in his chair with his cup untouched beside him, and let the music carry on without him.

Around him men laughed and drank and praised the peace they thought they had won.

He was already somewhere else entirely, standing on a cold slope a thousand miles away, counting the days of a war that had not yet been declared, in a country none of these men could name, for a silver that all of them would one day spend.