Prelude
“Behold, the saviors of our kingdom!”
A thunder of applause ripped through the cerulean sky, banging against the gates of heaven as the men and women and children of Aryaedn crowded below the wooden platform, cheering and throwing flowers even as the kings’ guards prodded them back.
A small child, hair matted and dirty with shoeless feet that fared no better, slipped through the cantering legs and arms. She went unnoticed for a while, bobbing beneath the chaos while the words of the bard somehow floated above all the others. She tried to peak every once in a while, but all she could see was the sky above, the excessive folds of older maidens’ flounces, men’s petticoats, stiff gentry and starched beauty. I can get closer, she thought, having lost her sister’s voice calling after her some time ago.
She would see him today, perhaps for the only time in her life, had been blessed by the gods to do so. An unintentional shove to her back pushed her forward, and as though struck by a divine command the crowd opened and a path to the stairs revealed itself.
Truly, she as well as all of those men and women present had never seen the faces of the seven heroes, poised like marble statues of their own likeness, their battle attire shining in the sun as though made from the lambent brass of eternity. She had only a hand drawn portrait for reference, from a merchant who swore to have seen them with his own two eyes on the way to Rwondall.
It was hardly credible, but she drunk in their faces as much as she could before the merchant, having satisfied himself with his storytelling, came to notice her filth and shooed her away. But it was enough.
Maybe they can save us, too, she thought, studying in her mind’s eye the gaunt faces of her siblings, unforgiving winters in the slums, the unkind shop keepers, their misfortune. He would. I know that he would, because while she had never known any of those depicted in that rather abysmal drawing, she knew from the legends of countless victories and the benevolent deeds. She knew from the somber look in his eyes, the tilt of his gaze in that grey scale shadow, that he was kind.
I just know he would!
There was a small commotion to their left, upon the stairs. The bard did his best, adjusting his hold on the long scroll of leathery parchment, sweat melting across his temple in the relatively cold summer morning.
“The Great King, Guardian of the Sovereign Realms, acknowledges with ten thousand words the magnanimous efforts of…”
Lawrence let his eyes wander over, observing as a guard plucked a small, peasant girl who’d flounced in her attempt to find perch on the stage, and shoved her back into the crowd. He noticed her staring at him. Lawrence did what he thought was appropriate; he smiled. The girl seemed to raise her arms, as though in reverence, and he caught the shape of one truncated prayer before she fell back into the mire and was seen no more.
“Plebians, this lot,” muttered Faye beside him, adjusting her armor with disdain.
Lawrence’s eyes slowly surfed the citizens of the city. “Be nice,” he said, the soft breeze pushing a few platinum strands into his lashes.
“Can’t we return to the capitol already? The war ended months ago.”
“Our duty is here, for the time being,” Lawrence said, pausing to wave at a family before they were beaten back into uniformity. “I presume we’ll have returned by the year’s end.”
With a scoff, Faye flipped her long, heavy braid over her shoulder. Lawrence was willingly distracted by it, how it came to rest along the curve of her back. “These people won’t last to the years end,” she said. “I’ve heard the publicans loathe to come here, even to levy the taxes our kingdom is owed for protecting them. There’s hardly any reason for us to be this far out in the Nether lands.”
A bird cawed as it circled the skies. Lawrence chuckled, turning perhaps for the first time a real smile to the masses before them, but something gave him pause.
There was a particular individual, hooded, face hidden from the sunlight. From the form of her figure, he assumed it was a woman. She did not move, did not cheer, rather stood rigid on the outskirts of the crowd, clutching at her cloak. Lawrence assumed she perhaps didn’t want to get caught in the fray.
He inclined his head, but the woman didn’t move. Slowly, she brought her hands together as though to compose a sign. In childhood, the nobles’ children learned many arts and historical rites that their ancestors used to perform, before weddings, before a harvest, before war. A faint brush of recognition slid across his memory as he watched, he thought he knew that order of movement: death. When finished, she extended a finger towards him. You, first, the gesture seemed to say.
A shiver ran down his spine as he was reminded of something —an impossibility, of which they’d made sure—, before Lawrence chuckled again at himself, turning away. Only nobles knew of such. The woman must have been mad.
“Let them hold onto their hope,” he said pensively, humorously. “It appears that may be all they have.”
this is the forward for North of Crows, another series I hope to continue posting, in the form of short drabbles.
eight warriors go to war for the Realms, seven come back; they are praised for the battle, endowed with wealth and titles beyond measure, but none of them ever speak of what happened there.
The-Bleu-Bivouac 