Rattick slipped into the back of the crowd that was gathered in the courtyard of the old keep. At the center of them all, Boltac stood on a low table, waving his hands for quiet. “C’mon. C’mon, shut up already,” he cried.

“Why do you get to be King?” someone demanded. A fine question, thought Rattick: Boltac, King?! How ridiculous would that be! Still, he had apparently defeated the Wizard somehow. Rattick had lived so long for two reasons. One, he had no compunctions about killing; two, he was cautious, cautious, cautious. If he didn’t understand it, he avoided it. And as he stood there watching a greedy fat man make his appeal, he realized that there was something here he just didn’t understand.

It was not a feeling he was comfortable with, by any stretch of his dark and twisted imagination.

Boltac smiled at the man who had questioned his divine right to Kinghood, “I’m glad you asked that question. And there are three reasons. One, ‘cause the treasury is bare. That sneaky bastard Weeveston either spent it all or took it with him when he left like a thief in the night.” Of course, Boltac meant this as an insult, but Rattick found himself hoping that the former Duke really had been shrewd enough to heist his own Kingdom. That would have been well-played and Rattick would have to remember that trick, if ever he found himself in a similar position.

“But why do you get to be King just because he took the money?” asked another in the crowd.

Rattick didn’t like to see what should be a typically surly crowd treating Boltac with anything resembling deference. It disturbed the order of things. Still, that tingle of fear said, you never know who could wind up being a King in these strange days. Always best to err on the side of caution.

“Why? ‘Cause I’m going to refill the treasury with my own money. Anybody else want to do that?” The silence was deafening. “Okay, reason #2 why I should be your King is that, effective immediately, I’m cutting taxes,” Boltac shook his head. It hurt him to say the next words, but desperate times called for desperate measures, “in half.”

A cheer went up, but the naturally skeptical Robrecht crowd still wasn’t totally with him. They had heard too many lies about taxes in their days. Boltac didn’t hesitate.

“And reason number three. At this very moment, the forces of the Mercian Empire–of which we were so recently a protectorate–are on their way to reclaim us. By force, even if that’s not even a little bit necessary. Because that’s the way people think when they are part of an Empire.”

“That’s not a reason to make you King. That’s a reason to surrender!” said a fat man in the front.

“En-henh. I’m not too sure they’re gonna take ‘uncle’ for an answer, if you know what I’m saying. No, they’re gonna be plenty pissed and looking for someone to blame. And if I know my Mercian tactics, they are going to come stomping in here looking for someone to make an example of.”

“Well, then the Horks, surely. They’ll take it out on the Horks.”

“Yeah, but I told you: no more Horks. Orcs. Whatever. I took care of them.”

Relan jumped up on the table next to Boltac. Rattick could see, before the lad even opened his mouth, that the crowd was ready to believe him. The thief shook his head. You just couldn’t fake that kind of innocence and naiveté. If Rattick could fake that, he’d be a much wealthier man by now. “I can vouch for his story,” said Relan, “I was there. And what’s more, this man saved my life.”

Boltac didn’t waste the opportunity. “Anyone woulda done the same,” said Boltac, playing to the crowd. “But the thing is, not finding any Orcs, the Mercians are gonna say it was a hoax. A revolt of some kind. And they will want to take out their frustration by cracking some heads open. And since the only heads here are ours, well, friends, something should be done.”

Affirmative cries rose from the crowd. Yeah! Something should be done!

“Anybody got a plan?” Boltac asked, dead earnest.

“But you’re supposed to have a plan. You’re the King!”

“Oh, am I?”

There was a grumbling in the crowd. Rattick thought Boltac was going to falter. But he saw Boltac look to a balcony high on the keep behind him. There, in the sunlight and clean air, was Asarah, as radiant as spring. She smiled and waved her palms in a motion that said ‘keep calm.’

Boltac turned back and smiled at the crowd, armed with new confidence. “So, here’s the deal. I have a plan, and if I’m your King, I’ll use it. If any of you have a plan, well then, you can put your own money in the treasury, face not only the wrath of the most powerful Empire in the Four Kingdoms but also the ire of your fellow citizens… you know, come to think of it, I don’t want this after all.” In a display of master showmanship, Boltac jumped off the table. “Nah, I’m taking my plan and going home.”

“No, no, no!” rose the cries around him. The negotiation successfully concluded; Boltac climbed back onto the table and smiled.

“Okay, here’s what we are going to do…” And Boltac told them the plan.

And through all of it, Asarah beamed down on him like an angel.

“Wait just a minute,” said an old man, missing a few teeth said slowly. “If you’re to be King, don’t you need a coronation first?”

“Ahh. Maybe it’d be best to wait until after I’ve saved my new Kingdom, hunh?”

Nobody argued.

And with that, Rattick decided that the jig was up. He spent the night in a house of questionable virtue and reasonable rates. And when he cinched up his pants the next morning, he was certain it was the last time he would ever see Robrecht.

Later, as he drifted down the river Swift in a stolen boat, he was also certain Robrecht would never see Boltac’s coronation either. Doubted the dismal, foggy burg would last much longer. And he couldn’t say that he was going to miss it.