Part II
Breakfast was more of a feast than a meal. It was Crono’s habit to have food on the table all day long, both to provide his guests with nourishment as well as to give him something to do while listening to them. He ignored the fact that this habit had had something of an unfortunate influence upon the growth of his paunch. Still, Crono was a hard muscled man at 21, well built, with an impressive mane of fiery red hair that made him an imposing leader. Still, he thought the effect would be greater with a blade in his hand than with a fork.
His day passed, as usual, in a blur of faces and complaints. The only good thing about it was that it forced all irrational emotions from his mind, leaving him with an unrelenting, but familiar, boredom.
The matters of the day were routine. Poore was engaged in trading agreements with Choras and Medina that needed his approval. Nadia looked the agreements over, made a few changes, and he signed his name. Most of the other matters were resolved in a similar fashion.
Then there was the matter of local taxing. Some people in Truce were complaining that they were being taxed unfairly compared to Poore. Crono had to admit that taxes were definitely higher than they’d been during Nadia’s father’s reign, but even Nadia admitted that they were no higher than necessary. The kingdom was growing at an alarming rate. Poore was now the largest city-state in the known world, while between it and the castle numerous smaller cities had sprung up in land that was once deserted except for the odd hermit and Shittake monster. The truth was, the kingdom was growing too fast. To maintain some semblance of infrastructure, roads and farms needed to be built, and such things took resources. Nadia’s father, perhaps sensing that he was approaching the end of his life, had avoided the issue, preferring to die as a loved ruler and leave the mess for his successor to clean up. And yet Crono couldn’t think an ill thought of the man. He had treated Crono as his own son, and had hinted more than once that he felt Crono had acted as the foil to close the age old gap between his daughter and himself. The old man had died without any regrets, and Crono didn’t begrudge him the act.
Even so, the matter was now his problem, and he would be expected to find a solution. The truth of the matter was that even though Poore did have the largest landmass on the continent, much of that landmass was taken up with Fiona’s Forest, acres upon acres of green wilderness considered holy ground, and which couldn’t be disturbed for farming, timber, or the building of homes. Crono himself made sure that the place was untouched. He had a rather personal connection to it. Thus, while Poore had the largest population, it was confined to a small area and the city state produced little beyond the arts, which it was famed for. A sculpture or painting from Poore would gain much in trade from a wealthy family in Medina or Choras, and Crono himself was proud of the city’s artistic achievements. The literature, too, was brilliant, as Poore was home to the foremost scholars of the day. There one could find experts not only on philosophy and religion, but also on technology, commerce, and city planning. Poore’s expertise allowed for the creation of sewers, public buildings such as libraries and schools, the wide use of electricity, and safer forms of sea transportation. These leaps forward in evolution were all the more impressive for having taken place over the course of half a decade.
These advances were helped by the fact that the Zenan continent held one of the most brilliant minds in the world, that of Lucca Ashtear. Lucca had been instrumental in the establishment of Poore as a scholarly city, and her works featured prominently in the Poorian libraries. Her presence on the Zenan continent had ensured the growth of Gaurdia’s culture, single-handedly in some ways. For instance, though electricity was in wide use across the world, it was Lucca who had developed a way to capture the very power of the elements to produce it. Thus, while places such as Medina and Choras were still relying on fossil fuels and steam to provide them electricity, Gaurdia had wind turbines and solar panels that fed large electrical plants.
An active inventor, Lucca was hands on with everything she did and had helped build most of the plants herself, although of late, the scientist had become reclusive, mostly keeping to her home on an island off the shore of Zenan. There she had recently begun an orphanage, and Crono assumed she was busy much of the time with the children.
In comparison to Poore’s massive achievements, Truce seemed very archaic indeed. It was Crono’s hometown, so he held a certain fondness for it, but while Poore had turned into a city of massive artistic and technological value, Truce had grown in size without growing in culture. Being situated along the mountains and coast, it produced little in the way of crops and remained isolated from the rest of the kingdom. It had already been decided that the next summer’s fair, traditionally held in Truce, would be held instead in Poore, a move that had hurt the pride of many of Truce’s citizens. They were mostly rugged individualists, who had begun to chafe under the mandate of paying homage to a king. As the rest of the kingdom grew without them, they began to secede more and more. Despite all of this, two things made Truce an important piece of the Gaurdia empire. For one, it was the largest and most accessible port town on the continent. By some quirk of the tides, it was far easier to sail a ship from Medina and Choras north to Truce than it was to sail south to Poore. Secondly, Truce was the home of the great swordsmith Melchior, who also happened to be an extremely learned sage and personal friend of Crono. Though the old man didn’t take much pleasure anymore in the crafting of weapons, his presence still ensured that the Gaurdia military, while small for the amount of land the kingdom owned, had the best equipment in the world. He provided enough of a deterrent to ensure that Gaurdia had little to worry about from foreign invasion. Not to mention, of course, Crono’s own prowess in battle. Though none had witnessed it themselves, it was still widely believed that the King and Queen of Gaurdia both possessed powerful magic, and one had only to look at Crono to see that his body was that of a warrior.
Yet it seemed his greatest threats lied within his own borders. Truce’s citizens, usually content with just complaining, grumbling, and eventually paying their taxes, seemed to have reached the end of their short tempers. It was midday when Crono received his nervous tax collector, who said that the month’s taxes would not be coming in from Truce.
Perhaps it was a leftover of his emotions from the morning, but Crono found himself incensed at the news. His usually quiet demeanor shattered along with a glass goblet that he tossed at the wall in frustration. In one quick motion he was out of his chair, stalking around the table towards the poor tax collector.
“Damn those Trucian whores! Pig’s sons and ship rats, the lot of them! This is an act of blatant secession! How would they fare without our farms and military protection?”
In his anger, Crono seemed to grow taller. A strange stuffiness overcame the entire room. Nadia felt the hairs on her head standing up the same way they did before a lightning storm. The tax collector squeaked out an incomprehensible reply and bowed repeatedly, as if this would salve the situation. On the contrary, though stunned by her husband’s uncharacteristic outburst, Nadia managed to maintain her composure.
“And how would we fare without their trade? We have to maintain a symbiotic relationship with each of our cities, or else we’re just a well provisioned castle. Please calm down.”
“But they don’t understand that, do they? No, this is an act of secession. They wouldn’t make a claim like this unless they had something planned. They must be getting support from one of the other cities! Or maybe they’ve got farms hidden up in those mountains? Well, if it’s war they want, then they can have it!”
The excitement in his voice shocked even him. He fell silent again. Nadia stood and dismissed the tax collector, who ran off with a final thankful bow. She felt fortunate that only one of their civil servants had witnessed the episode, though she still suspected that the event would be all over the castle within the day, and spread throughout the kingdom by the end of the month.
She came over to Crono and touched his arm gently, then kissed him on the cheek. It was like kissing one of Lucca’s batteries. She felt a slight jolt through her mouth.
“How about we call it quits for today?”
Crono didn’t answer.
“We could go out of the castle, you know? It’s been nearly a week since we last left, I think. It’s been busy, hasn’t it?”
Crono looked at her and nodded. His skin, which had been hot, cooled suddenly and noticeably. “Maybe you’re right. Ah but hell, it has been rough. A bit of fresh air would be nice. A day off would be nicer.”
“It’s only going to be like this for a short time. It always takes a while for people to get used to a new reign. There’s always grumbling. I remember father used to nearly pull his hair out when I was a child.”
“I’m not sure I’m cut out to be a ruler.”
“How about simply being my husband?”
She kissed him again, this time on the lips. He gave her a weak smile that grew as an idea seemed to come to him.
“We could run away. Run away like the old days.”
She smiled in return, but it was a sad smile, filled with the memories of ringing bells and the slow shock of sudden collision. He laughed.
“We’re well and truly trapped then,” he said. “But at least we’re trapped together.”
He kissed her again and again, and she drew close to him. He held her in his arms, thinking that he really had everything he needed to be happy. He knew, more than anyone, that time would show this, if only he could wait. But deep within himself, he felt his rage still burning softly, making him feel more alive than he had in years.
