CHAPTER 1955: WHITE HEART - PART 4

Obvious – for it was Queen Asabel’s cause. Obvious, for he didn’t want those embers to die. For there to be any meaning at all, they needed those embers to stay hot, to glow as they were. It didn’t matter what was around that. The placating of an angry Lord Blackthorn, who they had still failed to please. Or the yielding to the new whims and ideals of Minister Hod, who, despite having their best interests in mind, seemed far too overbearing far too quickly. Oliver didn’t want to think that far ahead.

The fact of the crown upon his own head. He didn’t want to yield to that yet either. He was half-confident that there would be some way for him to leave it to a better man. He was eternally looking for that. And then the problem that was to follow. If he were to leave it to a better man, where would that better man rule? Would it be the Pendragon lands, for the crown that he wore?

There indeed was another problem that was quick to arise. How angry would that old Pendragon King be, when he found what had happened to his daughter’s crown, and the lowly head that it had ended up upon?

What of the Treeants? They too had no King. He had been slain in combat on foreign soil. Who was to rule those lands? What of their efforts against the High King, now that Tiberius had been slain, and Tavar along with him, and apparently all the armies the High King could bring against them had been defeated? What was his next gambit?

They knew not, but they feared it. There had been talk of marching directly to the Capital, but with a man like Chief Strategist Lord Blake still alive, they couldn’t easily do that with a defeated army. Besides, as Hod had rightly pointed out, they had much strength they could gather, and quickly. They could allow themselves a solidness of ground.

A bold strategy Hod foresaw, in uniting all the Silver Kings against the High King. Not only would that be militarily overwhelming, it would also lend justice to their cause. For he was already seeing that far ahead, their Minister of Logic. To the moment in which a new High King was placed upon the throne. He could see how the politicians, and those men of the court would react. How they would point to the old laws, and how they had no precedents for the slaying of a High King. They needed justice and law on their side, as well as just strength.

As much as Oliver doubted that version of the future, and as much as he doubted even what might happen a day from now, this problem was well enough defined that he could tackle it. They’d fought alongside Hendrick, and Fitzer. There ought to have been enough camaraderie there for them to convince the Emerson King towards their cause.

Even that, however, was uncertain. The Emersons had removed themselves to a degree ever since the battle with Tiberius – all of standing had, aside from those closer to Oliver Patrick. They feared for what they had done, in giving rise to a new King. They moved almost as if they were ashamed of it. Everyone was uncertain, and everything was uncertain, including Oliver Patrick himself. But one would not have thought so, from the way he strode in so purposefully.

One could not have imagined, merely days before, he’d been broken in Nila’s arms. Or merely hours before, that he had attempted to relax in his chair, only for his legs to continually tremble and jolt, as if they thought they might fight an invisible enemy.

Silver crown upon his head. Not the clothes that he wore, or even his general appearance that made it seem so right – but the look in his eye, the way he strode. When the doors were opened wide enough for him to make his way through, Oliver moved with the broadest of strides, and the utmost in certainty. The grace of a swordsmith, along with the ruggedness of that which he was at the heart of him – a peasant.

The retainers at his side, in Blackthorn and in Verdant, both of them fiercely proud. Nobility of the highest sort. Lady Blackthorn had been tended to until her dark black hair shone like an opal mirror. A silver flower had been thrust through it, with thorns on a rose’s stem. A small amount of femininity, to offset the rapier that she wore at her hip, and the practical chest plate she wore on her torso. Noble for her skirt, but there could be no doubt that she was a woman of war from the way she carried herself, hand eternally within finger’s reach of her rapier’s hilt.

Then Verdant, as stern as the Black Mountain’s himself. Confidence as deep as the ocean. Eyes pinned firmly ahead. As purposeful as his master. Somehow he served to make Oliver Patrick loom larger, for how dangerous Verdant himself seemed, with the intelligence shining out of his pale blue eyes, and for the reverence he kept for his King, even in the way that he walked. Rings on his fingers, a silver chain around his neck, long coat of blue, sewn only with the Patrick sigil, as if he had cast away all other parts of himself, to better serve his King.

The Emerson nobility were gathered there, within that throne room. A great crowd of them murmuring. They’d come as soon as they’d heard the news. Forsaking carriages for horse, so that they might arrive with greater speed. None wished to miss it.

Different sorts of looks. Interest and disgust for the crown that Oliver wore. Then there were the more dangerous sorts of men – those that looked entirely reserved, that hid their intentions from sight, and simply waited for opportunity to present itself.

King Emerson sat upon his throne, with a guard to either side of him, dressed from head to toe in plate. And then his son, and General Fitzer, just off to the right.

An aged King he was, for his white hair and white beard. The silver crown could easily have lost itself in their colour, if not for the band of red that sat under it, defining it against the rest.