Crusader

Chapter 76

The coronation was a short-lived and short-noticed affair, attended by few enough of the nobility and fewer still of the castle staff. Ranson did the honors, administering an oath in the long, hollow-spaced throne room as the first light of the next morning streamed down through the high windows.

“Do you swear to give all your life, all your judgment, all your honor, and all your strength to the prosperity of this Kingdom?” Ranson asked, finishing the last in a long series of questions.

“I do,” Samwen Longwell said, and an attendant placed the simple crown of golden leaves strung together by a circlet upon his head.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the King of Galbadien, the Garden Kingdom-Samwen Longwell the Eighth.” Ranson stepped back, letting the King stand upon the platform by himself. It would have been better in effect, Cyrus supposed, if there had been anyone there besides Ranson, Genner, two attendants, and the Sanctuary party to see it happen.

“Not much pomp for such auspicious circumstances,” J’anda said once the ceremony was concluded-which was announced by Odau Genner muttering to himself as he left the throne room, still red-faced and looking to be much out of sorts. “I would have expected more.”

“He killed the last King,” Cyrus said, looking at Longwell, who sat upon the throne with his fingers templed in front of him in a way that evoked a memory of Alaric at the table in the Council Chambers, “and they’re about to send every man they have into a war that’s likely to claim a high number, if not all of them. If they fail, their homeland will fall.” Cyrus cast J’anda a glance. “I’m surprised he got as much pomp as he did; I would have thought it would have been dispensed with in favor of riding out as quickly as possible.”

They rode out two days later, down the great man-made hill that Vernadam rested on. It was pleasant enough, Cyrus thought, a fall day back home by the weather, and yet near winter for the calendar. Reikonos must have had their first snow by now. The autumn will have brought storms along the plains near Sanctuary. Yet here I am, in this cool place. He rode quietly down the first switchback, relaxed upon the back of Windrider.

Part of the way down the next curve, Samwen Longwell came alongside him, his crown shining. “Here we go,” he said, no mirth in him, and nearly enough to no life as to be indistinguishable.

“Here we go,” Cyrus agreed. “You’re about to look on your lands as a King for the first time; I would try to put some sort of happy face on for your subjects, considering that with what we are up against, yours will likely be the one that they look to. Whether they take hope or sorrow from your countenance is entirely up to you, my friend, but a King seems more … disposed … to one rather than the other.”

Longwell did not answer him for a moment, as if pondering. “You are right, of course. But how do I … how do I shed this misery that falls on me?” His face contorted as Cyrus watched. “I think of what I did, and I weep for my soul; I am unworthy to stand before my ancestors after death, now. What I have done is the horror of all horrors.”

“Listen to me,” Cyrus said, and pulled Windrider’s reins so he stopped. “What you did is save your Kingdom. What you did was make the hardest choice of anyone I’ve ever met. He wouldn’t step aside, and you knew it. You made a sacrifice that few would have made-”

“You would have made it,” Longwell said, turning to look straight ahead. “In my place, I believe you would have done the same.” He flicked his gaze back to Cyrus, as though he were looking for approval. “You have had the courage to do things I would not have thought possible before.”

“There’s a far distance,” Cyrus said, “between standing on a bridge and knowing you’ll die and having to sacrifice the person you care for most in the world.” A flash ran through Cyrus’s mind-of the Fields of Paxis in the Realm of Death, of the rotting grass, and steps in the distance, of a god as tall as a building, of his threat and the movement of his hand, stirring toward Vara, her head bowed. “I couldn’t do what you did. I didn’t … do what you did. Thank the gods that you were the man in the place now, Samwen, because you made the choice I couldn’t, and hopefully your choice will redeem mine.”

They were quiet, then, on the way down the rest of the hill, Longwell seeming to try and reconcile the thoughts he’d been given. When they reached the bottom, the townsfolk were already turned out, and they saw a monarch who waved at them with pride, with confidence, and not a single hint-to Cyrus’s practiced eye, anyhow-of any threads of doubt.