To Be a King

TO BE A KING

I fell out of the window, and banged against the pavement. It hurt, and made a clatter as the sword was longer than my old blade, and had more length to display the impact. Unfortunately, this was the traditional weapon for what I was doing, and the length made it catch in my legs every so often. I’m pretty small, and the length was difficult for me.

I picked myself up off the pavement carefully. Dirt and small pieces of gravel were caught against my skin. I allowed myself a wince, and kept going. The window had been higher than I remembered it. I hoped that I didn’t miss the door in the wall the same way I had forgotten about the length of the window.

My fears were unfounded as I reached the correct area of the wall. It was a secret entrance into the castle.

I smiled to myself. Children find out so much about a place by growing up in it.

I slipped inside the passage, and made my way to the queen’s chambers. Mother used to live there. But some other woman had taken over it long ago. She probably still occupied it.

But I was ready for that.

I peaked in, and it suddenly occurred to me that I was lucky the king wasn’t a woman. A man in the queen’s rooms might have been a problem—- but there was a woman there, with the crown of her stature on her head. She was looking at herself in the mirror. I waited a while, then realized that she wasn’t going to leave. So I waited until an opportune moment. The door opened into the rooms as the woman bent to pick up some jewel from off the floor.

I had the door closed again before she noticed me. And my blade.

She took in a large breath, no doubt to warn someone, but I caught her with the ritual words first. She stopped, then her face turned red, and her eyes narrowed. She knew what I was about, and didn’t like it. Who would, in her position?

I gave her a charming smile, just to irritate her more, and made my way stealthily though the corridors, to the King’s chamber.

Usually, it was considered unfair to use magic, but my birth gave me a few exceptions to the general rules.

I spoke a few quick words at the guards, and they fell senseless. Who could have asked them to choose, anyway?

The king’s room was all gauzy, the silk’s and fine fabrics touched every surface.
It made a mental itch in my mind, as I imagined living without ever being able to touch something other than soft. I rubbed my hand on my pant leg, and felt mildly better.

I looked around, searching for a sign of the King. I second later, I heard the soft splash of water, and moved to the bathing chamber. I stood, still and silent for a moment, using my ears to try and discover what he was doing, and where he was in the other room. My guess was he was in the tub.

I wouldn’t know what the room looked like, now, until I went in. I also could only guess that he was in the pool. And finally, I reminded myself that everything could be used as a weapon. I was the one with the constrictions on killing him; he had none on killing me.

I did it quickly, using surprise as the weapon it is. He looked up startled, and I quickly found no ordinary weapon at hand. The foolish man hadn’t brought a weapon in with him. Not a mistake I planned to make, if I lived beyond this, as was my expectation.

I moved quickly, and in fear of his life the man reached for the closest thing at hand—a vase. I managed to avoid it, and was close enough to put my blade under his rapidly moving throat. I smiled. I didn’t care if it was a nice smile, or a nasty one.

“You are dead,” my voice spilled out, and the blade moved.

He was dead.

And I was king.

I smiled, and the magical weight of the Kingdom fell upon my shoulders. This was it; what I had come to do, what this man had done to my father, and what other men would try to do to me. And women as well, all those who wanted to rule my kingdom.

Kill the king; gain the crown, as the saying went.

But there was more too it than that. And I suddenly wondered, if I might one day have a bath without a weapon, and court death.

Because the weight of a kingdom is much harder to hold than I thought, and there was more to it than I ever realized. To hold the kingdom, you became king. And a king rules people. But more than that, a good king is ruled by his people in important ways.

Our crown was governed by magic—I was under a spell!—and now I knew what my people wanted. It was a flood of things.

And in a way it was horrible.

But I learned a strong lesson. A King is put in power by his or her actions. A King governs a Kingdom, and a people make up a kingdom, and they govern the King.

All it would take was one unhappy person and other unhappy people, and there would be a new king…

For me it was hard and strange. I looked at the silks, and at the dead man.

He was already dead. A part of me whispered. Because he didn’t want the best for his people, and the magic was telling him the people wanted a different king.

I was silent, and I accepted all this in the silence for a while. Then I moved out of the room, and started my duties as king.