Harold gently nudged the prone body lying on the marble floor with the tip of his bejeweled slippers. “When are you going to stop pretending, Frederick?”

Frederick jumped up to his feet, smiling. “How did you guess?”

Harold scoffed. “Frederick, fainting men do not grasp their hearts dramatically and swoon slowly to the ground.”

Frederick looked enlightened. “Ah, so it is.” Then his face turned grave. “I see the intent of your plan, Harold, but it’s a dangerous gamble. The usurper fears us, Harold. If your plan fails- “

“It will work.” Harold interrupted. “Raising a punitive force is a good enough excuse and the Black Forest is far enough away that he need not fear us.” I hate having to lie to Frederick, but he’s too good of a brother. At least this way, he can’t try and talk me out of my actual plan. Genuine surprise should also spare him from the fallout.

Swords talked. If Harold could convince Priam IV to give his kingly dispensation, he surely would gain immediate clout and power. But it would also tip his hand far too early, kicking up waves of alarm and make him appear a far bigger threat than he was. Worse, a 200-300 men army wouldn’t count for much when the civil war began in earnest and armies thousands strong ravaged the land.

No, Harold knew his greatest strength was that he had knowledge that no one else did. The power players all schemed and moved logically, but good logic from faulty predicates meant faulty conclusions. Grand-uncle Priam’s attitude towards them was a prime example.

Yes, Priam IV feared them. But only Harold knew the guilt that roiled his insides. The Mercian nobility chalked up the five brothers’ continued survival to the old man not wishing to be branded a kinslayer. But men could be killed far more subtly. An accident here, a poisoning there, a duel or three gone wrong. If Priam IV had wanted them dead, they would have been dead.

Guilt and the sense of right and wrong was the chink in the king’s armor, the old man’s one psychological weakness. And Harold was going to hit it for all he was worth. The road that would save Mercia lay through unconventional means and exploiting possibilities that others were blind to; not on the well-trodden conventional path to power. He would get his lands and troops, but he needed to do so in a manner that would surprise and upset the political calculations of his rivals.

Harold walked past Frederick to the door, and pushed it open. A cavernous room opened out before them. At its far end was a seat wider than it was tall, made of wondrously worked silver filigree and amethyst-colored velvet cushions. Upon them sat an old man, and to his right side a crippled adult who bore a strong resemblance to him.

There aren’t really a lot of people here. The vast hall was almost empty save for a handful of people seated in divans scattered in a U-shape about the throne, the Sublime Porte. Closest to the throne was a woman, whose brown hair belied her advanced years. She had a weak chin and a mean little face, disfigured by warts and wrinkles even mercury couldn’t hide. That would be Duchess Hilda, Harold surmised.

Next to her sat her husband, the foreigner. Ferath mac Ailpin was a score years younger than his wife, and a merchant besides. That had been a nasty scandal. Harold’s eyes flicked once more to the man on the throne. If it hadn’t been for the support of her brother Priam, she would have been stripped of her title. Perhaps even exiled. The Duchess wasn’t a true peer of the realm; she owned no lands nor commanded the fealty of any. The appellation had been just a courtesy title, but Harold knew how dependent she was on the stipend it provided. How else would she throw lavish parties or spend extravagantly to show off at court? Mercia had little enough wealth as it was.

Ferath met Harold’s eyes and smiled, waving his trademark ostrich-feather fan. Out of the corner of his eyes, Harold could see Frederick waving back. The two got along as thick as thieves: amicably, but without any mutual trust. How could there be? Ferath and the Duchess were Priam loyalists through and through.

The other three men were not. He spotted Uncle Guntus first, the jolly fat man slurping up soup from a giant stone bowl large enough to fit a small child. Sitting next to him was a slender young adult in garish silks, who tipped his feathered hat rakishly at the new arrivals.

But it was the man sitting behind both who sent Harold’s heart a fright. The dark-haired, flat-eyed man sat rigidly in his divan, fork and spoon methodically dismantling the struggling frog on his plate even as its heart beat frantically and mutilated limbs spasmed, trying to escape. The Tyrant lives up to his reputation.

The room was quiet as Harold walked towards the king, avoiding the empty divans about him as he beelined for the empty space before his grand-uncle. Frederick trailed behind, but Harold was not of a mind to notice. There was a strange sense of space with every step, and he felt rather like he had been returned to the football field right before a major game, acid lines of nervous fire running up and down his arms. I could die, Harold realized. If I’ve miscalculated, if I’ve misjudged his reaction, if I’m wrong…Images of the Mercian torture chambers floated before his eyes.

Harold had meant every word he had said to Frederick. He just hadn’t thought that the price of courage could be so high.

He hesitated. Why do I want to save the Mercian people anyways? He was no hero. It wasn’t his style to risk anything for strangers. Sure, he’d felt bad. But he’d felt bad for starving children in Africa, but he’d done jack to help them. And while he did like Frederick and the rest, but couldn’t he just run away with them to a peaceful kingdom far far away?

Run away? His fists clenched and Frederick shot him a warning look, probably misinterpreting his anger. Harold had run away from working hard, coasting on his natural athletic talent until he couldn’t. He had basked in his glory days until their shine had worn off, leaving him stranded in an unfulfilling minimum-wage job.

No, Harold wasn’t doing this for the people of Mercia. But for the sort of man he wanted to become.

And so, when the king asked curtly why they hadn’t seated themselves yet, Harold replied, “I'll sit once you get off my throne, you witless, balding thief.”