The Visit of the Duke of Alagon to Tharda

[Matt]

Nuzyael, 730

The surrounding towns and villages were virtually depopulated this day, and the roads leading into Coranan were choked with traffic, but such was the cheerful ebullience of the people that no one much minded. Outside the city walls, tents had been erected, and pavilions of every sort, with attractions, vendors of food and exotic merchandise. The clowns, acrobats, animal trainers, and sideshow entertainers all had an audience that day. Children ran and played, laughing, so filled with excitement that they could scarcely contain themselves gawking at one thing for want of seeing the next. The innkeepers could not keep up with their guests, and every tavern was filled. Many of the city’s merchants were in danger of running out of wares, something most had hitherto dreamed about but never thought to see. Only the river, the great brown god, was free of bustle, as the Duke of Alagon would be arriving on a royal barge, and river traffic had been warned to clear his way.

A few claimed to have seen the duke’s barge the day before, which had moored overnight on the river, but this was not widely credited. And there were some who had other things on their mind, and were using the festivities as a cover for other purposes. The thieves and cutpurses were out in force, but so too were soldiers of the crown.

In the courtyard of the Palace of the Red Domes, the soldiers of the I Legion formed, and behind them were representatives of three other legions. In all, over a thousand troops would march to greet the duke, more than the standing armies of all the other kingdoms of Hârn combined, but only a quarter of the regular army of the King of Tharda. Before them were the magnates of the realm: the king’s younger brothers, the belted earls and most of the barons. The officers of the crown, including Marlyse Tansel, the Laranian Bishop of Perinore, readied themselves at the very head of the procession, awaiting their sovereign. The bearers of the great sword of state and the flags which would herald the king in the procession were present and ready, along with a guard of honor, handpicked from the legions. The distinction of patrolling the parade route had gone to a cohort of the VI Legion, which had arrived from Moleryn a few days earlier. They had lined the streets early that morning, and stood, in as festive a mood as the people, but with less to do. There had been little trouble so far beyond a few boisterous brawls, and some of them were paying more attention to the young ladies in the crowd.

A rustle of approval rippled through the ranks when Arren II, King of Tharda, resplendent in polished steel armor, wearing a surcoat bearing his arms trimmed in silver, a gleaming crown of gold upon his head, mounted his snorting black stallion. He had adorned himself with a nimbus of light in the custom of his people. He had his father’s handsome face and piercing gray eyes, but unlike his sire wore no beard, and had close-cropped blonde hair. Yet this monarch had in his five years on the throne proved he was his father’s son on the battlefield, and many felt his better in the council of state. Spurring the horse to a canter, he raised his golden scepter in salute to his assembled soldiers and nobles, and a throaty, roaring chant of “Arren! Arren!” arose as he rode by. The great nobles bowed their heads in homage, and the dismounted Earl of Daenshire, the Lord Chancellor, greeted his sovereign with a low bow. The nimbus about the king flared and the light changed briefly from blue to green, in honor of the earl’s colors. Daenshire mounted, and took his place immediately behind the king, next to Bishop Tansel, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The gates opened, and the procession moved out into the street, the crowds straining to catch a glimpse of the young monarch. The people cheered as the king, mounted on his snorting charger, emerged from the gate waving. Ahead of him were the honor guard of twenty legionnaires and the Lord Marshal, the Earl of Westmarch, who bore the great sword of state. The soldiers of the VI Legion grinned as Arren II rode by.

At the river, signals from the palace to the citadel had been relayed to the barges which now began to row to the wharves. They bore not the royal arms this day, but the three rampant argent dragons on a blue field of the Duke of Alagon. The Duke, arrayed as the king, save for the ducal coronet, had manifested his own nimbus alternately in red, blue, and deep dark for black in honor of the royal arms of Tharda. He stood near the stern, tall, resting his hands on the pommel of his sword, the point down. Bearded and blonde like his Ivinian forebears, the duke’s face wore his 57 years lightly, but flinty eyes betrayed the hardened warrior and veteran politician his enemies feared. This very public display had many purposes, mostly political. Hitherto Hârnic diplomacy had been limited: only Melderyn exchanged embassies with continental powers. Today, the King of Tharda altered that, reaping a crop sown 20 years before when his father married the daughter of the Duke of Alagon, ten years before he won a crown on the battlefield.

People crowded the riverbanks to get a glimpse of the barge. The bridge over the river was crammed full of faces, and it was a wonder but one person fell in the water. The people had been there for hours, as the gates on Coranan side of the bridge had been closed all day. Most had never seen a continental nobleman, and they were curious to see if they were different from their own. A few were disappointed, as but for the arms, he could have been any great magnate, but they were impressed by the regal bearing of the duke, and his retainers, who manned the other half dozen barges slowly oaring to the wharf. From the direction of the palace, cheers could be heard, and those who had been fortunate enough to grab a spot near the river knew they would see the actual meeting of the king and the duke. The crowd’s anticipation was palpable. One bull-voiced man near the gates was heard to shout, “Here comes the King!” Indeed, he had been preceded by the cheers, which were deafening, and had now blended into one steady roar arising from the people. Trumpeters manning the battlements of the citadel blew, and the duke’s barge slowly came to a stop along the wharf. Only then did the duke move to the side, and before the plank could be placed, he stepped on the gunwale with an armored foot, and jumped the short gap with the agility of a younger man. A hush fell over the crowd. At the gate, the king’s honor guard was just moving through, and as they did so, they began to fan out, making two wings for the king to ride through.

The Lord Marshal stood his horse to one side, and Arren II stopped beside him. Pages ran forward to take the horses as they dismounted, and the Marshal, bowing to the king, fell in behind him as he walked, tall and regal, to his grandfather, now moving towards him. They met, and although Arren II was not the overlord of the duke, the latter nevertheless bowed to his greater rank. Then the grandson bowed back, doing homage to his grandsire. Smiling broadly, the two men embraced, the trumpets sounded again, and the crowd roared lustily. The nearest could just hear the king welcome his grandfather to his kingdom, and the pages brought the king’s mount along with a horse for the duke. They mounted, and the two then rode side by side towards the bridge, through the gates, and into the citadel. Even though the entirety of the legions had yet to parade by to enter the citadel as well, people began to depart, now that the main event had concluded, seeking the other diversions the day had to offer.

For days thereafter, the city resonated with the afterglow of the great event. A story made the rounds that a murder had taken place within sight of the King as he rode by, and many claimed to have witnessed it. The story of the murder of Hollo the Ratcatcher was told and retold, and Hollo appeared to have been murdered in so many places that he might have had the nine lives of a cat. He was variously bludgeoned, stabbed, strangled, and in one lurid account favored in the seamier parts of town, murdered by arcane means even at the behest of the King himself. The heroic death struggle of Hollo the Ratcatcher became part of the urban folklore of Coranan, and many there were who were also convinced that he had – despite his humble circumstances – squirreled away a fortune somewhere in the city, and for which he had been killed.

The Duke of Alagon departed Coranan some days later, though with less fanfare. Members of the strange Shorkyni entourage had been seen in various taverns and establishments in the city in those days, and were plied with drinks in return for tales of their faraway land and the fabled Lythian continent.