3 #2
Iahir knew there was discontent. There wouldn’t be a revolution brewing else.
It was a kettle boiling with all different sorts, however.
Those who hated what Findas had done to trade, for instance.
Those who disliked the state of the country’s economy, where everything was growing more expensive by the day.
The Larhilists, who wanted to make the world entirely fair for everyone.
Those who thought the orcs ought to have better treatment than they currently did.
Those who thought that wealth should not be inherited, but distributed to everyone equally.
Those who wanted a democratic government instead of a monarchy.
They ran the gamut, but they all had one thing in common: they hated Findas.
Iahir blew out smoke. “Beautiful, Your Majesty,” he echoed noncommittally. He personally found Findas sort of pitiable. The man was delusional and sad. He didn’t hate the High King, however.
“So, is your father amongst those who would see us go back to the dark, sad world of before?” said Findas. “Does your father only pretend to support me?”
“I haven’t any notion,” said Iahir. “I have not spoken to him in years. I only hear from him through the responses he sends back to the frequent missives you send him of my behavior.”
“Ah, of course,” said Findas. “Well, he seems loyal, anyway.”
Findas was brutal to orcs, to dwarves, to anyone who wasn’t an elf, but he had not turned his anger on the elf noblemen who grumbled about him. If he had, perhaps they would be too frightened to grumble.
However, Iahir thought that it might make them very angry, and it might make them act, and the noblemen had access to their own standing armies. So, Findas’s lack of acting against them, of even making real threats, may have been exactly the right strategy to preserve his position on the throne.
Iahir did not think it was really strategy, however. He thought it was borne of Findas’s desire to be liked by the other elvish noblemen. Findas did not wish to anger them, hoping this would mean they would eventually appreciate what he saw as his accomplishments.
Findas had been third in line for the throne, and there was a time when it looked as if he would never be the king.
During that time, he had been sort of laughable, a failed businessman who was able to get more loans and start more ventures because he was a prince, after all.
He had a number of mistresses, most of them courtesans, and he was the kind of man who was all gaudiness and no substance.
He liked flashy things—jewels, gold, women with very large breasts, purple clothing, furs…
Then, the second-in-line prince had died in a swimming accident.
So, for a time, Findas was second in line himself. But then his elder brother, the heir apparent, got a boy child on his wife, and Findas was back to the spot of third in line for the throne.
Findas’s father died. His brother took the throne.
Findas continued buying up ships and funding doomed expeditions for spices into the lands of the dragons in the east. He hated the dragons, considered them abundantly stupid, thought they would be easy to double-cross.
In this, he had learned that the dragons were slow to anger, quite honorable, willing to hold tight to the tradition, but that they were rather ruthless when they thought someone else was not playing by the rules.
Findas had lost so much money in that whole debacle that he was the laughingstock of Lothnehil, unable to find anyone who would partner with him in business anymore.
His brother died from an infected wound he got after taking a bullet in a hunting accident. His nephew took the throne at ten years of age. He lasted two years before succumbing to a fever.
Suddenly, Findas was High King, something he had clearly never thought possible.
He was stunned and surprised and rather pleased at the turn of events.
He thought it meant something, that he had come to the throne against so many odds, having been third in line for so long.
He thought that he was meant to do something important for the country.
Why he’d decided on purifying the country, throwing out all the non-elves, Iahir could not say.
Iahir knew that there had been some business transaction gone wrong with orcs when Findas was quite young.
He had been a landlord to some orc farmers in the country.
There had been a flood and it had destroyed their homes, and Findas had done nothing about this.
He’d been taken to task by his father, the old High King, chided for his negligence as a landlord.
Since then, Findas had hated orcs.
Or perhaps, Findas had always hated orcs, and this was why he did not care if they all died of exposure after flooding.
Whatever the case, Findas was small-minded sort of man, one who had a picture of himself in his mind that did not match the reality of what he was, one who had more power than he likely should have had, and one who had failed so often in life that he felt the need to prove himself worthy of his position as High King.
Why was Iahir going to kill him?
Not because he hated him.
Not because he really thought it would be better for the country. He had to own that Findas was bad for the country, but he could not say that a coup or a revolt or some other violent insurrection was going to be better. It might even be worse.
Not because of his father.
Definitely not because of his father.
Iahir smoked his pipe and regarded the High King sitting there, so ineffective even in this, his attempt to scold Iahir, and he did not know why he was going to kill the man.
He had said he would, though, and the plan was in motion.
In two weeks, he would kill this man in his sleep.
A cowardly way to kill a man, to be sure.
Iahir did not care about any of that.
“I don’t suppose you’d simply get rid of her, would you?” said the High King. “You can’t imagine how it looks for me, an orc woman at the formal dinner with the entire court.”
“She doesn’t have to come to dinner,” said Iahir.
“Well, at the very least, could she wear a dress?”
“She doesn’t like dresses.”
“I could have her rounded up right now.” Findas pointed a finger into the arm of the chair where he was sitting. “I could have her taken away.”
“Well, you didn’t have my dwarf woman taken away.”
“A dwarf and an orc are not nearly the same thing,” said Findas, shaking his head. “An orc, Iahir. It is simply appalling.”
“Well, she doesn’t attend dinner, then, how is that?” said Iahir, smiling. “You can tell everyone she’s left if you like.”
“And have you parading her around the hallways all the time, contradicting me? I think not. And she must come to dinner, of course, because otherwise, everyone will wonder where she is, and they will think I have punished you, and if word gets back to your father that I have done so, I don’t know if he will like that. ”
Iahir supposed his father might care. Not because of Iahir himself, but because of the question of honor and respect given to the family.
“I don’t know why you have her here, anyway,” said Findas, sulking. “It’s obvious you’re not actually fucking her.”
Iahir furrowed his brow. “Well, no,” he said carefully, “she’s my sparring partner. I said that she was my sparring partner from the moment I brought her here.”
“No, you went around telling everyone that she was your whore,” said Findas.
That had been the subtext, Iahir had to admit. The plan was to deny that he was sleeping with her so hard that everyone assumed he was sleeping with her. He decided to stick with it. “I never said that, not exactly.”
“Well, if she really isn’t in your bed, I think you could send her away,” said Findas. “Find another sparring partner. There is no way that an orc woman could possibly be good at teaching you swordplay.”
Iahir was quiet for a moment. “Out of curiosity, why do you think I’m not sleeping with her?”
“Anyone could tell. The way she looks at you. The way she reacts when you touch her. She’s very obviously not used to your touch.”
“Right,” said Iahir softly. “Right.”
GATHREN WAS LYING on the floor counting the cracks in the ceiling when Iahir came in. He didn’t bother knocking.
“You have to try harder,” said Iahir by way of greeting.
She did not get up. “You said something about a library. I am frightfully bored, I find.”
Iahir came over and peered down at her. “Are you a virgin?”
She blinked up at him. “I told you this was none of your business.”
“Findas said it was obvious we weren’t sharing a bed,” said Iahir.
“He said that you shied away from my touch and you looked at me in such a way that made it all very clear. If you are not a virgin, then I want you to remember one of your lovers and pretend I am him when we are at dinner from now on.”
She laughed. “Oh, I don’t think that will help matters. I don’t have fond memories of any of my lovers, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, come now,” he said. “You’ve been in love—”
“Maybe,” she cut him off. “But I, you see, am not the sort of woman that men fall in love with. They want to bed me, but they aren’t the least bit concerned with my pleasure, and they treat me just as some sort of hole to rut into, some substitute for their own hand, I suppose.
Men think of a woman like me as a diversion, but not as an object of affection. ”
Iahir sat down next to her on the floor. “I see.”
She got to her feet, embarrassed to have said that all aloud. She smoothed at her hair, which was tied into a tight braid at the back of her neck. Many orcs—male and female—wore their hair long, but she always kept hers tidily out of the way. “Apologies. I don’t know why I went into all of that.”
“We should practice, then,” said Iahir.
She peered down at him, horrified. “What are you talking about?”