Someone Else's Kingdom, BOOK I - Chapter 35

It had been decided that an informal king's counsel was to be held, to discuss the various problems that were now spiralling out of control in the west. Prior however, the King of Tunid and Drua Maleeva were having a private conversation of their own. Word had just reached the king of the coastal attack that had befell his own precious island. A very unexpected development. For a moment it instilled a sense of anxiety in the king. A feeling he rarely experienced. Quickly composing himself though he pondered a course of action. Deciding he would stay on the mainland, and prosecute the war efforts as planned, rather than return home flummoxed under the circumstances. The damage had already been done, and though it was clear more attacks were now possible, it nevertheless remained unlikely that the island would be taken. The problems in the Western Isles needed tackling at root he thought.

The king and Drua Maleeva also agreed that for the time being it was probably wise not to pass this information on to the other mainland kings. Aside from fears it would undermine authority, there was also the simple fact that it would be a distraction. Potentially causing even more disorderliness.

As the other kings and their advisers began to fill the room, the King of Tunid and Drua Maleeva hushed their words and took their seats at the central table. The others proceeding to follow. King Mizmeam first, looking content and imperial, then King Kaspria, looking visibly uncomfortable - expressing his polite courtesies with a degree of nervous agitation. Finally, the ageing and heavily bearded northern king, King Brijsk. He entered the room, then eased himself into his large wooden chair with a slow plodding effort. Like an elephant, or rather a woolly mammoth, sitting down to take a needed rest.

With an unconsidered disregard for protocol he instantly began the conversation.

"I trust we've yet to develop this black powder then?"

Brijsk was almost opposite in manner to his sometime rival King Kaspria, and he dealt with the problems he faced with a blunt, but good-spirited nature. He likewise felt rather less threatened by their southern counterpart, King Mizmeam. Though his kingdom, like that of the Eastern Kingdom, was equally a junior partner to the southern behemoth. As he watched the way King Mizmeam modified his behaviour, hiding his natural predisposition to anger in the presence of the King of Tunid, it only made him less inclined to feel inferior. Seeing in the dissembling body language weakness, rather than calculation.

His question about the black powder got an immediate response.

"No," came the lament from the King of Tunid, "And it sounds like it's unlikely that we will any time soon. We're going to completely lose control of the western seas if things continue at this laboured pace." He then turned to King Kaspria, "Will we be receiving any help from our friends in the Maiden Lands in the coming the weeks and months?"

The Eastern King grimaced a little as he gave his reply, "It's unlikely, they've made more promises, but I can't imagine anything will be forthcoming."

"I think it's probably time we pressed them a little harder."

The King of Tunid looked over at Drua Maleeva, as if to signal a beginning of some kind. Then, turning back to Kaspria, he added more instruction, "Capture one of her ships and blame it on pirates. Say you can't police the waters, due to how overstretched you are in the west. She'll start to get the message."

Kaspria nodded in accordance, at which point King Mizmeam raised his own query.

"And what about your daughter, the princess, Kaspria? Has she returned yet, or is she still missing?"

This question pained Kaspria only more so, but he forced a reply out of himself. "She's still gone, but we'll find her, and when we do she'll be brought straight here. You can then take her as you please. Hopefully, her time in absconsion will have pressed some sense into her, but I fear her mind might now be beyond that."

"You may as well just leave her be, she'll always be trouble," interjected King Brijsk, with laughter, carelessly. "Women like this ruin kingdoms. If you think she's a problem now, she will be a bigger problem when she's the mother of an heir to the throne. Best find someone else, and let her go her own way. That's my advice."

"She's a great beauty though," noted King Mizmeam, not wanting to take the advice, "..and a royal beauty at that. She would be the perfect match for my son ..her headstrong personality denotes a royal constitution. It just needs to be tempered a touch."

"That's the problem," continued King Brijsk, again with a good loud laugh, "Beauty is dangerous to kingdoms. It causes problems, as it's doing now. You need a homely queen with large hips, who's happy to raise her children. Not a royal bauble or amulet to wear at regal galas. Not that I'm saying she's a bauble." He looked at King Kaspria, then laughed again, indifferent as to whether anyone else was laughing with him.

Inwardly, the King of Tunid was sympathetic to the laughter, but kept this feeling disguised. Still, with his mind half-consumed with the thoughts of his own kingdom, he was beginning to grow a little impatient with the chitter-chatter.

"I think all this can probably be sorted out after Prince Aralak returns from the Three Deserts," he asserted, "Hopefully, by then, the princess will be found safe, and we'll have a relative peace in which to hold a marriage ceremony. Ideally we'd have settled the issue now, of course, but it's not to be. So we must adapt and move on with things."

With this insistent point made the talk then turned towards the more mundane, but pressing aspects of the war. Such as the number of dead, and the enormous number of ships now lost. A number ever increasing at a steady rate. To give themselves time to re-arm, King Brijsk argued for a temporary truce with the Western Isles, but this was dismissed out of hand by the other rulers. As it was by Maleeva, who struggled to hide her disdain for the stupid and reckless proposal. Instinctually, the King of Tunid was less opposed to the notion, and privately absorbed the possibility into his thinking. Just as he privately enjoyed the bombastic jokes of the rotund, but uncouth northern king. He knew with certainty the idea could not be openly countenanced though.

As this discussion rattled on Maleeva's son, Seaspell, entered the room with another message for the King of Tunid. He dismissed the other kings and then took the message in private. It was a further epistle from Tunida. This time relaying the story of how Sails' End, in the far south of the island, had been ransacked by the piratical Western Islanders. It also relayed how the young boy, who'd set sail from Om Bay with Coulema Galina, had been captured and taken away by the very same ships. The king looked shaken. He dismissed even his closest advisers, including Drua Maleeva, and headed to his chamber. Clutching the epistle tightly in his hand.