The King

“I’ll never surrender the city” claimed King Favian, more ferocious than convinced. The siege had gone for three months and winter was close. Provisions were already scarce and people were starting to turn to him, or more exactly, against him. The four men around him tried to look everywhere but at him. They had gone over this conversation every single day for a week now and no one had any idea how to survive. Originally, there had been five trusted generals at every war meeting, Prince Favian, the king’s firstborn, died after going out of the walls trying to negotiate a peace treaty with the invasor army. He left by the morning, and just when the sun reached its peak, his horse returned to the door, dead body on his back. A single wound on his back. The cowards.

“How much more can we survive on our own?” he asked, to anyone who would dare to answer. Tassian, a war veteran, gray beard and bald face, somberly looked at some papers on the table. “No more than two weeks, maybe one according to this”. He put the papers on the table and took a step back.

“There’s no way of turning them back with a hungry army”, said Orryn, more to himself.

“We barely have any army left”, replied Tassian.

The king sat back and put his crown on the table. Made of pure gold that could almost shine on its own, it represented the pride of his kingdom, the pride of his father, who died battling the samy army now knocking on his door.

After some silent seconds, King Favian stood up, all other four faces turned at him at the same time. All of them as if wanting to say something but mostly expecting their king to spare them of the responsibility and finding a solution himself. “Leave me, all of you, Owain,” he turned to the youngest among them, “have a maid bring me some wine, and find Geia”. They all stood up and left without a word, a respectful head nod before leaving and then, he was alone.

The proud king leaned on the table in front of him and fought back the tears. Tears not of sadness but anger, he wanted to scream, cuss and tell every single soldier outside of his wall how much of a whore their mothers were. He studied the map, his city, big walls and on top of a hill, nothing came close without a day’s notice. No one had ever been able to even frighten its position. The Raen, a mighty river flowed from the tall mountains to the north and was the preferred route of merchants and travelers. Its position, running through mountains and dense woods protected the travelers, making a siege on the city almost meaningless. But this time, coincidentally a couple of weeks after the army made camp south of the city, the until then infinite stream of water and trade suddenly disappeared, forcing them to go through their winter reserves to survive until now.

Geia entered the room without announcement and placed a goblet, full of wine, on the table. “I happen to have interesting news”, she said while drinking her own wine. The short woman was the general no one knew about. She handled the business nobility could not be linked with. She also knew everything that happened as soon as someone thought about it. Legend said she could read people’s minds and the king was almost sure she could.

Favian raised his face and looked at her, expecting her to keep talking but she just drank and smiled. With a sigh, he took the wine and sat on a chair in front of her.

“Tomorrow”, slowly, she took another sip of wine, “the invaders are sending a small convoy with white flags” she made another pause, mainly to look at the king’s reaction. He tried not to react at all, were they surrendering when at the lead? They may be out of provisions too and they had no idea of how poorly the situation was inside the walls.

“No, not to surrender”, Geia smirked at the hope in the king’s eyes. “They want to feed the starving people”

Favian’s eyes opened like plates, blood rushing to his head. He didn’t even notice standing up and clenching his fists. He wanted to yell at the woman but his mind was without words. What was that supposed to mean? Could they know how dire the situation was inside the city?

The sun was almost completely above the horizon when Favian heard some knocking on his door. Before he could shout to be left alone his face was hit by the light coming in through the opened door. He could only vaguely distinguish the silhouette of a man standing on the door. “Excuse the haste, my king”, he bowed down, “almost all of the city is rushing to the main door”

Angrily, Favian got out of bed and quickly readied himself. The sun was already out, and had been for about an hour, when the king could see the crowd and the chaos. Thousands of people were gathering, everybody pushing and trying to force their way into the front, as close to the main door as possible.

Favian, called Tassian, who was riding by his side, “make sure the door stays closed”, and looking at Owain he added, “gather a hundred soldiers and go out through the west door, find anyone who dares to come close to the walls and bring them in”.

With that, the king returned, leaving the task of handling the crowd to other more unfortunate people.

It was not until some hours later that Geia entered, again unannounced, to his room and again, sat in front of him. “It was all a ruse apparently”, she said with a smirk. The king looked at her puzzled. He suspected something was wrong since there was no news of Owain. He, again, tried to look calm and to steady his breathing. “Owain slayed those who were carrying food towards the city”, she closed her eyes for a second, “all the food was spilled during the skirmish and now, there’s no longer a crows but a mob asking for your head”.

The king was not even trying to hide his emotions any longer. “I’ll have the whole army on them so fast they’ll regret waking up this morning!”

Geia laughed, “as expected” she stood up and in a more serious tone she added, “you'd rather kill the whole city than to lose your position as king”, the king looked at her, deadly stare like a volcano about to erupt.

“The city is no longer yours, the siege is over and not one of your subjects will mourn you”. She pulled out a knife and let it drop to the ground. “At least, I think, you should have the choice of how to die”. Favian, full of rage, jumped at the woman. A scream was heard and when the guards came in they found two bodies. Both slain by the same hand. The body of a woman, traitor to her king, and a king, traitor to his people.