3430 of the Fifth Age
Mordurel, Easterland Region
Silverhall Castle
Raenys Silverstag
The most boring part of the day had to be sitting beside Aldrich and listen to supplicants. Freeholders, called commoners by some, and peasants mostly from the local area and the nearby capital that came before them in their great hall. She had a good reason to give this task to the chancellor when Aldrich was away on his progression. Her post-pregnancy had allowed her a great reason to stay away to regain her strength. sweet little Alys had been difficult to bring into the world. now she could smile about the struggle and it had been absolutely worth it to gaze upon her small healthy baby daughter. As she sat bored on her throne beside his she made sure to look interested and as if she didn’t want to be elsewhere. Right now a shepherd from a local village accused a young man of raping his daughter.
“I let him onto my grounds to help me with the sheep and instead I caught him raping one of my daughters!” The ugly peasant snapped.
His daughter stood at his left and the lad being accused on the other, a meter and a half from him. Two household guards stood behind them. The hall had close to a hundred nobles in attendance, as was often the case when the king sat in judgement on important matters. Though in the great hall in Culhaven far more nobles were usually present. One of those present was her younger sister Alyssana and elder brother Rhaemon. He scowled at his kingly cousin Aldrich and she felt sorry for him since he had once expected to be king instead. He certainly hadn’t forgotten it.
Aldrich sat in silence for a moment and leaned forward slightly.
“Did this boy rape you?” He asked the girl. She appeared around fifteen or sixteen.
“Of course he did!” The father barked angrily.
“His majesty didn’t speak to you,” Sir Tiber of the Kingsguard warned the old man.
The Kingsguard was a small order of elite knights that protected and king and swore an oath to obey his every command. There were nine Kingsguards in service.
“You may speak. Did he violate you? If he did he shall be severely punished. You understand the punishment for rape in my realm?”
The girl glanced at her father, then to the boy, then she looked at the floor in front of Raenys and Aldrich’s thrones.
“Y-your Grace. He…he did not.”
It took Raenys by surprised when the father slapped her across the face so hard that she fell to the floor. A mixture of gasps and amused chuckled came from the nobles. The case was dismissed and two household guards had to force the father out as he cursed the boy and called his daughter a number of vile things. She wondered if soon enough some tribune or village ealdorman would sit in judgement over him for two murders.
The next case was a baronet. He represented over thirty people that lost properties in a dragon attack eight kilometers northeast of Silverhall. She’d heard of it and had even ordered some her the knights in the castle to ride there. A combination of ballista bolts from a watchtower and a dragonslayer at the right place at the right time brought it down. She had the dragonslayer, an elf from faraway lands in the south, brought to Silverhall and rewarded him. A dragon usually inflicts more damage than this one had done when they decided to burn villages. Only some thirty people lost property in some regard and six men-at-arms were dead. Now they beseeched Aldrich for aid for lost sheep, cows and farmhouses. He decided to give five cows or sheep to those that had lost animals and two copper coin and twenty halfcoppers to the rest. Then came peasant after peasant with different issues that bored Raenys to the point that she could barely be bothered to act like she cared. After two dozen peasants came a sorcerer to kneel before Aldrich. He claimed that some ignorant villagers had burned his cottage to the ground with everything in it. He requested coin to rebuild. Raenys frowned when he said that four silver coins would do. That was a lot of money for a sorcerer that lived in a village too little to have a name.
“What is your expertise sorcerer?” Aldrich asked.
“Mhm, pyromancy, my king.”
Oh, so the old mage probably burned his own house down, she assumed. But who’s dumb enough to admit that? So did Aldrich and sent him away. The supplicants continued to enter one by one and time went on at snail’s pace. A good amount of peasants, some freeholders, a priest that accused a bishop of having sinned and Lord Blacktyde. The lord complained that the Goodcastles had hunted in his barony. He claimed that a party of sixty men and Lord Goodcastle himself had entered his lands and hunted on his meadows and his forests. As Baroness Goodcastle was present, she was asked to step forward, Aldrich approved, and she fiercely claimed that the lord was a liar and a coward. Aldrich stopped the name calling before it really started. There was no surprise that the Goodcastles and Blacktydes hated each other. He warned the Goodbrothers from hunting of Blacktyde lands but refused Lord Blacktyde’s request for recompense from the Goodbrothers. That would be an unnecessary slight, Raenys supposed. In the end though, there was no way to prove who was right here and Blacktyde lorded over the town of Oldcastle and the island Aerbo, an important point in preventing Sverdmen and Iceborn longships from sailing south down the East King’s River. All of that made them a more important vassal then the Goodcastles, a fact she knew her lord husband kept in mind.
Eventually all eighty supplicants had come before them and left and court dispersed for a few hours. Then everyone came back to the hall and stood before the throne. Seventeen men, mostly young, came before Raenys and her beloved and kneeled. They wore clothes of fine velvet and carried swords in scabbards. She thought a few of them was terribly handsome. Apparently they had performed some great duty, according to Aldrich when he asked the herald to speak of their deeds to court.
“Your Grace, these men rode along the shores of Normand just northwest of here when longships were spotted,” the herald explained. He had long blond locks and small mouth with thin lips. “These raiders were Sverdmen from the Sverd Isles. They knew their duty as knights and bravely charged ahead. many Sverdmen fell on the first charge and even more on the second. Despite being outnumbered they charge again and again until the Sverdmen fled, until corpses littered the sand shore. Many peasants speak of these deeds.”
When the herald had finished the crowd of nobles was divided on the story, some were in awe from what Raenys saw, while some seemed disproving, perhaps they didn’t believe the numbers the knights claimed to have faced. Aldrich congratulated them and promised to reward them. When he asked what they wished from him some asked for new equipment and horses, some asked for steel forged in the castle since the smiths in the nobilities castles was famous for being the best, two asked for coin and three asked to serve house Silverstag. Her beloved approved of all their wishes, despite grumblings of disapproval from some nobles in the hall.
Aldrich declared the summoning at an end and rose from his throne. Raenys released a groan that he no doubt heard as he turned his head to her while they walked towards the door to the side of the dais.
“Don’t expect me here every time you deal with minor matters,” she told him honestly.
“I don’t, not to worry. But it was good having you with me. I always enjoy my time you you.”
She gave a mischievous smirk, “You should have stopped at ’having you’.”
A chuckle escaped him and his hand found its way to hers and he stopped for a moment to plant a kiss on her lips. Raenys kissed him back and paid the Kingsguards after them no mind. Sir Tiber, Sir Eddyre Tinian who had informed her that Aldrich had returned and Sir Hectarion Rhodayne.
“You’ll have dinner with me later, yes?”
“I…very well,” he answered.
She got a suspicious look about her and titled her head left.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. We’ll have dinner but, well, I shall depart this afternoon on a hunting trip.” Seeing her displeased expression he added, “In the local forest with a few friend and allies. Won’t take more than a day or two perhaps.”
There was a lot of things she thought to tell him before settling on a harsh tone, “You came home yesterday from riding across the provinces on your damn progression. Do you even remember how long you were gone? Two months!” She could barely prevent herself from exploding with anger. Not to mention that he had an realm’s worth of provinces to rule but she didn’t think outside her own perspective in her fury.
His face hardened, “Listen.”
With a dismissive wave of her hand she stormed off. It took a few hallways and junctions before she saw that Sir Eddyre followed her. She assumed the other two remained to guard Aldrich. When she came to her solar she snapped at a maid to get her some strong wine. The tall woman hurried away to carry out her command and it was not long before a bottle of strong wine from the vineyards of the Greenwynes arrived with a goblet of silver and gold with an emerald and a page to refill at her command. She sat down in front of the window and caught the sunlight on her skin and glared at a bird outside. She stopped counting her refills after the eighth time.
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