Sir Aldric Ironheart's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Three days on the throne, and no one in the castle would look Aldric in the eye. The kitchen fires stayed cold. The stable boys vanished at dawn. The dead lord's people obeyed with their hands but not their hearts. Aldric heard doors shut when he passed. Kael found him in the empty hall and counted the problem on his fingers. "Empty granary. No taxes paid. Half the servants slipped out the postern last night." He tightened his scaled coat. "A throne with no people under it is just a chair." Then the shouting started outside. Aldric climbed to the wall. In the courtyard below stood a crowd of the lord's people, farmers and smiths with pitchforks and hammers. At their front stood Elara, spear in hand, her white surcoat bright against the mud. She had left his side in the night. Now she stood against him. "They killed your lord for this seat," she called to the crowd. "So did the man who sits in it. I followed him and I was wrong. I won't be wrong twice." The crowd roared. Beside her, planted on the stones, stood a strange figure Aldric knew too well. A great bare backside on two legs, loafers on its feet. The thing his heel had tripped over the day he took the throne. "That one saved this castle for me," Aldric muttered. Now it stood with the mob. Aldric could have loosed arrows. He had six men on the wall. Instead he walked down alone and crossed the drawbridge on foot, hands open. The crowd fell quiet. "I killed no lord," he told them. "Ask your own people. I found him dead and took an empty seat. I mean to feed you, not tax you dry." His eyes went to Elara. "You called me a liar once and you were right. I'm not lying now. Test me." The odd figure spoke first, flat and certain. "He tripped me. He tripped me and I fell. But he did not lie." It turned its whole bulk toward the crowd. "Truth. Truth is truth." Elara's grip on the spear loosened. She had watched Aldric three days and seen no cruelty, only a man overwhelmed by a castle he could not run. She lowered the point. "One month," she said to him, loud enough for all. "Feed them one month. Break your word and I lead them through your gate myself." She turned to the crowd. "Go home. Watch him. So will I." The pitchforks dropped. The farmers drifted back to their fields. The rebellion was over before a blow landed. Aldric had his people, for now, on Elara's leash. But the granary was empty, and he had one month to fill it. Kael watched from the wall and rubbed two coins together, already counting the price of Aldric's promise.