I stand before the gates, waiting patiently as the portcullis rises. A pair of armsmen shy away in either corner with their halberds, neither of them daring to challenge me as I walk into the archway. I look up at the tunnel through the wall, a solid ten feet of stone. We speak of our walls like legend here in Rhoda: no army has ever broken through these walls by force, we say. Today, the King will ensure that this tradition lives on.
A knight steps forward to meet me as I step out of the portal onto the main road, earning bristling glares from the legionnaires at my sides. He lifts his arms away from his sword hilt, showing he means no threat to me.
“My Lady,” the knight says, “I have come to escort you to your audience with the King.”
“I am no Lady,” I reply, “And I have not forgotten the way.”
How could I? The last time I walked this path I had worn shackles, and nothing else. I had been denied even the traditional shame of the gallows cart, forced to walk behind a mule for all to watch. And oh, how they had flocked to see me. The gathered crowd had been larger than any I’d ever seen as a girl of sixteen – thousands of jeering faces, and voices shouting my name as they pelted me with rotting vegetables and debris. The guards would stop them from throwing any rocks that were big enough to cause injury, but smaller pebbles and stones had been fair game.
I look to the crowd gathered now, lining the sides of the street and crowding in from every side alleyway for a glimpse of their fate’s harbinger. There are thousands more than there had been when first I walked the King’s Road, but now, after what I have witnessed in the years since then, their numbers seem small and tame. A low murmur follows me through the crowd as I pass. They used to shout my name; now they whisper it. They are a sad and pitiful lot, but I hold back my anger, for it is not truly meant for them. They screamed for my head before, but they had known no better. Content with their pitiful lot in life, they would follow whoever claims to hold the power, be it a king, a regent, or a conqueror. They can’t begin to imagine a world in which they have rights, or influence in their leader’s decisions. Whether they like it or not, this is about to change.
The palace looms before me, soaring above the city with its doubled flying buttresses, a sight that once inspired awe and fear in my heart but now leaves me feeling nothing. The gargoyles patrolling its minarets and ramparts eye my approach with trepidation, recognizing a power they are unequipped to defend against. I eye the doors to the great hall, two massive examples of woodworking mastery. Each door takes two men to open or close, standing at least twenty feet tall and ten wide. They are banded with four wide straps of etched bronze, the panels between each strap carved with exquisite detail, portraying scenes that tell the story of the founding of the city over four hundred years ago. All this I can see once again, because the doors are still closed. I suppose the king is expecting me to knock.
Speaking a cantrip as I climb the ten steps to the palace’s plaza, I extend my hand in a symbol of force. The doors swing inwards with a reverberating boom, and I stride into the great hall with my legionnaires in my wake.
A long hall of marble pillars extends a hundred feet before me under the arched cathedral ceiling soaring overhead. The path between the pillars is wide enough for ten men abreast, and unoccupied. I am vaguely aware of hundreds of noblemen and women standing to either side of the pillars, all of their eyes trained on me: the king’s entire court had assembled for my audience. But my eyes are locked on the raised dais at the end of the hall, where King Maric sits upon his throne with practiced ease. Beside him, the queen’s throne stands empty still, save for the crown resting upon its cushions.
I stride through the court and stop before the dais in the spot where I had once been thrown to the ground naked. The blood from my cut knees and scraped palms had long since been scrubbed away, but you don’t forget a spot like that. I eye the king, looking for any hint of the thoughts racing behind the surface of his eyes, but if nothing else he is good at hiding such things. So instead, I climb up the steps of the dais and look down at him in his throne. He looks up, and finally I see the fury and malice in his eyes. I smile slightly.
“Novena,” he whispers.
“In the flesh,” I reply. “Get up.”
“Now, there’s no need for—“ Maric begins, but I cut him off with a wave of my hand. He rises slowly to his feet, striking a regal figure in his finest robes. He lifts his voice for the whole court to hear. “As King and Protector of this realm, I am prepared to negotiate—“
“There is nothing to negotiate,” I cut him off again, my voice booming out over his. “I have come to accept your surrender, unconditionally. For this, your subjects will be granted amnesty from the crimes they have committed under your royal command, and the people of Rhoda will keep their lives. This offer will not be given a second time.”
The hatred in Maric’s eyes is palpable, and even with the legionnaires standing nearby, I half expect him to attempt to throttle me then and there. Instead he narrows his eyes further and speaks in a voice audible only to the two of us.
“I should have made sure you were dead when I had the chance,” he says.
“I’ll be sure to weigh that in mind when I decide what to do with you,” I reply just as low, and then lift my voice again for the rest of the room to hear. “I was mistaken, there is in fact one vital condition to your surrender.”
“And what is that?” Acid drips from his words.
I point to the ground where once I had bled.
“Kneel.”
The Literary Diversions of K.T. Lazarus 
Leave a comment