“Let the Session begin,” said his Gracious Majesty Alain Khad every other afternoon, and so the Sessions began.

He was finding the overhead dome more and more fascinating with each passing day. At least it was pretty to look at. At least it didn’t shout. He couldn’t say that about the people who flooded the throne room every week on Jinzl with their countless complaints and demands, pleas and requests. Plaintiffs squabbling. Farmers grumbling about lack of rain, as though he were buddies with Joe Esper. Make-belief priests hosting immolations to help win the war at hand. Actual priests and even placated Seers moaning about the coming of the Great Disaster, of the Third Quenching nigh at hand.

Pirates from the Reef Harbor and away – pirates! Whichever King had ever had to deal with pirates himself? – having grown bold, demanding ships in that the protestants had burnt them to ashes. 

The protestants. The bloody revolutionaries.

That pots-darn Parush!

Alain couldn’t make it to the end of the day without hearing the man's name from half a dozen worried mouths. He had the general public, at least the majority of Charmat, convinced that Alain was an insipid, unqualified ruler. What was worse, was he was nudging them to radical action now. It seemed in scarcely a month the revolutionaries had gone from picketing noble landholdings to sticking garden rakes into the nobles’ necks.

Revolts against the crown were constant, no matter the ruler and no matter his subjects. Where there are those in power there will always be those who oppose them. But this Parush, he had to have been planning this for quite a while now. Years, perhaps. Orchestrating meetings under false names, pulling strings over the nobility’s thick fat self-obsessed heads.

More and more citizens were being arrested, at a rate where Alain could see the day when the cells would hold more of Rivate’s population than its houses. Prisoners had even had to be transported to Pahujan, so many were there. In return placated mages from Pajuhan's Houses of Ations were delivered to Rivate; they would be needed to take care of the increasing disorder here.

Some good word came from Aleth Sanghon in that he had the Dassan fortress secured, having destroyed the Ptirrens’ siege over the princedom entirely. But bad word was attached to it: the Rys Ami were real. They had had to fight literal Shadows to accomplish taking over the Dassan fortress.

And when Aleth Sanghon, Canton of Ras Demin, Slaver of Death, says that Shadows have learnt to fight – you had best believe Shadows had learnt to fight.

Commander Maurya had not lied.

What sorcery this was no one knew. Not to mention nobody had the faintest idea as to what the Ptirrens might do next. In this mire they did not need this Parush character to hinder them further.

Lawmaster Roshuk Cromius suggested they have the man assassinated. The votes were split four to three amongst the council, in favor of the assassination. But Alain thought it best to consult the General; Alrej Whasu was, after all, the one who spent most time on the field, working day and night to thwart these rebels. And Whasu advised against it. If we have him killed, he reasoned, the people will see it as an act of cowardice on your part, your Grace. Who knows what they’ll do then? Only tyrants have their enemies silenced; true rulers defeat theirs.

Whasu’s vote had to count double, for it sounded wise to Alain, so the assassination plan was introduced to the mud.

Highsecretary Anauj Orlocke put in his recommendation. “A public execution,” he said, tapping his brass stump of a leg, “will do nicely the trick of trashing morale.”

“No, fool!” snarled the Namesake Fanzel Elroy. Or, as he was better known, Lord Fanzel the Fiddler. (This epithet was coined by the late King Aryan Khad II.) He had no distinctive feature, except for a small handlebar moustache which twisted unceremoniously at the ends. “An execution will entirely spoil the order I have achieved by diplomacy!”

“And what a huge loss that’ll be,” said Anauj.

Fanzel glared hotly at him, whiskers curling. “What do you know about politics?” he spat. “You, who lost his leg in a sport for children!”

“You want to play with me?” Anauj challenged. “I shall gladly participate and make sure you never have children of your own to sport.”

“That’s enough,” said Alain.

Silence fell, giving him the chance to stare up at the dome and think. Think, you ass, think. What would your father have done? What would your brother have done, dammit? Not for the first time, he wished Vaarin were here. The selfish bugger had gotten the easy route out by banishment while Alain got the job he had never wanted, never been prepared for.

Focus, little brother.

Public hangings, huh. Alain remembered when he had first been to one. Vaarin had taken him there in disguise, snuck past the palace guards, found a slab on which to stand to witness the affair. Alain had cried, after, thinking about how the convict had thrashed. Legs kicking, arms floundering, slowly being drained of life. Thinking how much it must have hurt.

You are fickle-minded. You have the strength, the courage, the nerves.

But Vaarin had told him the man had betrayed their father, so he deserved to die. Of course, later in life he had ended up killing their father, but that was an altogether different story.

All you lack is the will to do what you ought, little brother.

“I agree with Anauj,” Alain said in the end. “We must be cruel if we must. Public execution it is.”

He adjourned the Session for now, told Roste to tell Traster to cook up his special flour-dusted chicken. And perhaps some elderberry wine.

I better get used to wine, thought Alain as he headed up the stairs of the Tall Tower. I’ll need a lot of it way things are going.

On the steps once again he encountered the Lady Vieira Tremletti. He readied himself for a long, forcefully salacious conversation, but she simply said, “Well, your fool is no fool,” and brushed past him, a brand-new attractive male squire at her tail.

Alain frowned in puzzlement as he climbed the rest of the concrete steps, two Ardaunts behind him. He was not to be left alone for fear that Parush might concede an assassination where they had subsided. Which was why the Tall Tower was one of the few places where he could avoid even more watchful eyes, the other places being his bedchamber (one of his favorite places in the entire world) and the royal temple (one of his least favorite places in the entire world). And the latrine, he supposed.

On the gallery at the top of the Tower stood Otius. Not Narnbutter the fool – you could always tell the difference. The fool had a smile on his face and color in his cheek. Even in his ridiculous feathered cloak he help himself up in a regal manner.

Alain put two and two together. Last time he had descended Tower (to be met by a fierce embrace from his wife; Sterya had clutched him and not let go for many a happy moment), Vieira had been ascending it. So maybe she had struck conversation with the fool and . . . “So, Vieira, eh?”

Otius turned, averted his eyes. That was just as well; Alain had not been comfortable looking into his eyes since that incident.

“Your Grace?”

“You set your dreams high,” said Alain, smiling himself. “I respect that. Nearly all lads your age who meet her fall for her. Good that dreams are inside our heads, isn’t it, Otius, or so many would be levied too heavily?”

He saw Otius’s grin fade, and Narnbutter’s take its place. “Taxes, oh I tell you!” the fool exclaimed. “No offense, oh King o’ mine, but sometimes I swear you’d tax us for kissing our wives!”

After that there they stood, the fool dancing and flapping his plumes, Alain watching and laughing, the Ardaunts not moving a muscle.

“Oh, but I’m starving,” said Alain eventually, immediately regretting it. He didn’t know what it was like to starve where hundreds of victims of war genuinely were. “Roste appears to have neglected his duty. You,” he snapped his finger at an Ardaunt, “go to the kitchens. Let Traster know the King demands a meal.”

“Cannot leave,” said the Ardaunt. “Orders to stay.”

Alain sighed. It would be fruitless to argue these brutes.

“I could go, your Grace,” said Otius, who had replaced Narnbutter again.

“You know what,” said Alain. “I’ll accompany you.”

So off to the kitchens they went. The cooks were positively flummoxed by this completely unexpected visit. Traster was absent.

“Where is he?” Alain asked a lad clad in a giant apron with a cleaver in hand. Before the lad could open his mouth, he spoke again: “Wait, I know you. You’re the whore kid, aren’t you?”

The fool started laughing uncontrollably.

Alain half-expected the apron lad to chuck the cleaver at him, but he only nodded. “Edradhor, your Grace,” he said proudly. “I gave you the tea on your wedding feast, and every day since.”

“Good on you!” Alain clapped him on the back. He remembered the timid boy who had served him tea at his wedding. He had certainly changed a lot. “I trust your hand, lad. Cook me your best bite, will you?”

Ed’s eyes flashed, hands trembling. “It would be an honor, your Grace,” he said, and sped away.

“Edrad-whore,” Narnbutter muttered, and burst into laughter again.

Alain had the meal sitting in the kitchen while Narnbutter juggled oranges. This made everyone in the cookery uncomfortable, and for some reason that was delightful. The dish was rather simple – buckwheat tart with hints of ham – but it was delicious indeed, remarkably delicious. Better than anything Traster had ever cooked, and that was saying something.

Alain wanted to give Ed a reward in gold coins, but he had none on him at the moment. So he promised the lad he’d keep him in mind for when the queen desired good food. She had been wanting spice lately, in both her food and life. Last morrow he had woken up to the sight of her licking pudding off her fingers, a sight which turned him on and hence delayed his schedule for the day.

“Well, this has been fun,” said Alain. He meant it, too.

“It has indeed,” Narnbutter agreed, his mouth brimming with grapes.

Alain checked the sky. It looked like there was still time to evening. As if on cue, the Gdrag bell chimed. “Where shall we visit next, fool?” he said.

They ended up going walking the plaza, stopping by the pond to feed the fish and act like the fish. Alain ended up feeding himself a raw shrimp and spitting it out.

“Where to next, oh great King, my King, oh King?”

Alain smiled at the fool. “Can you hold a sword?”

“Only if it’s wooden,” said the fool.

Narnbutter turned out to be terrible at fencing, and Otius was no better. Still, the Cupola offered something interesting to-day. “What’s all that junk?” he asked the Ardaunts, pointing at the discarded heap of objects at one corner of the hall.

“Garbage,” the Ardaunt replied.
Alain ran an eye over it. Garbage indeed. Reeking of stale wine. Bohlorise vials and stained parchment, confiscated Relics and discarded writs. And . . .

“It can’t be . . .”

What looked to be a very small carriage with only two wooden wheels caught Alain’s dazzling white eye.

“What’s that, your Grace?” Otius asked him, even as he reached forward to inspect the strange vehicle.

“Vaarin made it,” said Alain, remembering, smiling. “He said we shouldn’t be too dependent on horses or orrocks for fast transportation, so he made it. See those pedals? Yes – be careful, now.”

Otius had flung himself into the cycle – yes, that was what Vaarin had called it. A cycle. Ridiculous. Alain grinned widely. Otius pushed the pedal with a foot, then with another. He staggered, then pushed again. The thing covered seven feet before it fell, taking the fool down with him.

Alain laughed. “Are you hurt?”

“Ow! Depends on what you mean by hurt. If you mean do I feel like this pain will have no end, then yes, your Grace, I’m hurt.”

“It won’t work. It didn’t work then, it won’t work now. It was something to do with the wheels . . .”

“Your Grace.” Otius pointed.

Alain turned. A nervous-looking woman with hair like twigs stood by the entry to the Cupola. A placated Tester, Alain observed with his own mageic. One of Mistress Leyh’s medical staff, then. Her nervousness was infectious. The Ardaunts neared her.

“What is it?” said Alain, dread of the unknown rising in his chest.

The woman gulped. “It’s her Majesty the queen. Mistress Leyh thinks you should be there.”

Sterya was awakened to a sharp smell of herbs. She knew it was herbs. Only herbs subjected her nose to such constriction.

“Wha . . . wha . . .”

“Back with us, I see,” said a familiar voice. Sterya heaved herself upright to find the Highlady Saphira Orlocke by her side on a stool. “Easy there.”

“What happened?” Sterya asked, feeling lightheaded. She remembered playing Penva with the ladies, rolling the dice for her turn . . . and then nothing. If she was sure of one thing it was that this was the infirmary, and she was in a bed for patients. The room was empty save per the two of them, though.

“You fainted,” Lady Saphira explained. “Beigall was so certain you’d been poisoned I almost believed she was the one that did it. Thorns thicker than horns, that one. And ha! Selicia turned so pale I thought she’d faint herself!”

“Well?”

“Well what, Sterya?”

“Did I? Get poisoned?”

Lady Saphira giggled her carefree giggle, like she were not heavy with a child of her own. “No, your Grace, nobody poisoned you.”

Sterya steepled together her fingers. “You know I hate it when you call me that.”

Someone strode into the room like a torrent. Saphira jumped to feet, bobbed a curtsy, then absented herself.

The someone happened to be her husband the King. His expression betrayed nothing of how he felt, the appropriately kingly expression he bore so often these days. Only this time it scared Sterya. He was holding a glass of what looked to be yellow froth in his one hand.

“Alain, what’s going on? Will anybody care to tell me?”

He placed the glass on the stool and pulled her into a hug. “Everything’s fine,” he whispered. She believed him. Gods, she really did.

“What’s happening, Alain?” she asked him again, resisting his mageic.

He broke the hug and picked the glass up again. “Drink.”

“What is it?”

“Turmeric milk,” he responded. “I wanted to see you in private, so Mistress Leyh handed me this. Truly she does not think of me as a king, but as that youth who cut his knee trying to lift his father’s longsword.”

Sterya grinned. In his presence, she could not help it. “You tried to do that?”

“Scar’s still there,” said Alain, pointing at his knee. “Surprised you didn’t notice. Perhaps we should spend more time naked together.”

“Alain!” She blushed. Then shook her head. He was stalling. A thought occurred to her, a fearful thought. “Is something wrong with me?”

“Drink this first.”

“Do I have troteye? Don’t lie to me, please.”

She remembered how battered, how thin, how unlike himself Admiral Hasheem had looked when he was battling the disease. Panic built inside her.

“No,” Alain sighed, keeping the glass back on the stool.

“Is it something more serious?”

“No, love,” he said reassuringly. “It’s nothing serious. Well, it is. But in a good way.”

“Stop with your word mongering,” Sterya threatened him. “I’m not your council.”

“No indeed. I wish you were.”

“Tell me, budpicker. I can take it.” She wasn’t in fact sure that she could.

“Welllll . . .” Alain licked his lips. “The time which you and I did spend together naked has . . . liquidated.”

“I’m not your Coinmaster, what are you talking ab – oh.”

“Oh,” said Alain, shrugging.

Suddenly she felt merry. A pure kind of merry, the kind children feel after winning a match of Broider’s Bank. Her heart started racing. Her breath started pitching. Her bladder clenched. She didn’t have troteye. She didn’t have Brackwhisp. She didn’t have any illness at all.

And there was a child in her belly.

Alain smiled, and Sterya noted the genesis of a tear in his right eye. “The Hand has proffered us with a mighty little ruler,” he said in a trembling voice. “This is the second Moonsnight of our child, Mistress Leyh tells me – that is to say, he’s already spent six weeks in your belly.”

“How can you know it’s a he?”

“How could I not? He’s my son.”

Sterya pressed her tongue to the side of her mouth, overcome with emotion. “You’re going to a great father,” she managed.

“And you a great mother.” He raised the turmeric glass to her lips. “Now drink this, or Leyh shall have my hide.”

“Ugh.”

Shortest chapter yet, and I really enjoyed writing it!

What did you think of it?

Another Alain/Sterya chapter nect before we go back to Addie.