Chapter 59: Eyeing the Throne (Patreon)

A young priestess sat by Hans’ bedside, giving him his diagnosis. “A prosthetic is going to be difficult, sir. The aura… impedes it directly. Using even the sturdiest of materials, you’d need to change it out every so often. You couldn’t really have a high-function prosthetic at all, because the finer components would be eroded by the lingering aura. The only way would be for the aura user to…”

“Die,” Hans finished.

“Yes, sir.” The priestess nodded, and then rose to her feet. “But the wound shouldn’t bleed any more. If it troubles you, come to us again. We’ll take care of it.”

The priestess left, leaving him alone with Willem and Viviene.

“I’d advise against planning an assassination on the king,” Willem said. “In case that was on your mind.”

Hans glanced at him. “Keep gloating.”

“Gloating?” Willem narrowed his eyes. “You haven’t heard my gloating. It’s much more hurtful than my banter.”

Hans shook his head. “Whatever. A turnip farm and a pension. That’s what the king expects from me.”

“…everyone will look after you, Hans,” Viviene said.

“You will?” Hans looked to her, then raised his hand. “This is your fault, you know. Do you know what I said? He said that I have Dubois blood. Now I’ll never pick up a sword again. I can’t write, I can’t…” Hans trailed off, choking up. “I’m done. What’s left for me?”

Viviene looked to the side, accepting his words gracefully.

Willem respected her quiet acceptance. He’d seen a lot of soldiers with their limbs blown off. They were quite angry, and they had a great deal to be angry about. But you just had to be patient, tend to them. He’d spent weeks doing everything for this one wounded soldier—brushing his teeth, washing him, changing his bandages, his bedpan… at least Hans was ambulatory. There was no point in getting angry at someone who lashed out in grief.

“There’s a simple solution to all of this,” Willem said. “You’re young. Outlive the king. Until then, you work on getting rich enough that you can afford to have daily prosthetics.”

Hans laughed bitterly, looking down. “I’m nothing. I’m no one. All I’ve got is my family name, and everyone else seems to think I’m a problem with the name.”

“Do you want to be no one?” Willem asked.

“What?” Hans looked over.

“Is that what you want?” Willem continued. “To be nothing.”

“Are you drunk?” Hans shook his head. “Of course I didn’t want that to happen.”

“Then I’ll make something out of you,” Willem said. “I’ll figure it out. Trust me. There’s something that you can do, Hans. There’s always something that someone can do.”

“No. You’ll move on, and I’ll be picking turnips with one hand in a few months,” Hans said, choking back tears.

“Can’t let you do that,” Willem said. “See, I made a bet with the king. If I can’t make something out of you… he’ll take my hand.”

“What?!” Viviene stepped forward toward him.

“You’re not serious,” Hans said. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am,” Willem said.

Hans looked at Willem straight up. “Why?”

“Because I’m just a lovely guy,” Willem said. “And if I fail… well, at least you can have someone to relate to. Hell, I’m ambidextrous anyhow. Doesn’t matter much to me.”

Hans didn’t seem to know how to respond to Willem. Before he could find words, the door to their guesthouse opened.

“The king is ready to receive all contestants for the—”

“For the livestock exhibit,” Willem interrupted, rising to his feet. “Well, Hans, keep on keeping on. I’ll think of something the next time we talk. For now, just relax. One hand sucks, sure, but I know plenty of guys that still live large with disabilities. Hell, ask our mother.” He gestured. “And if I’m wrong? Well, I’ll ask to have my right hand removed. Then, you can be my left hand.”

“Don’t be insensitive, Willem,” Viviene rebuked as he left.

“What? I was being serious,” Willem said defensively.

The royal crier cleared his throat. “Sir.”

“Ah.” He pointed. “Lead on.”

***

“All kneel for His Majesty, King Arnoud van Ravenveld!” shouted the royal crier. Before he’d said that, he’d given a ridiculously long list of titles that Arnoud held, but Willem had already blocked most of them out of his memory. They were in the grand hall of the royal palace. The ceilings were tall and gothic, and the hall was near as long and wide as a football stadium. At the back there was a long set of stairs, and further back still was the throne.

He, and all of the other royal candidates, were packing into a room like sardines in a can. Well… for a can of sardines, the room could be considered quite spacious, but it was packed at the very least. There were many, many faces that Willem couldn’t quite recognize, most of them handsome, tall, fit, and with a gleam of intelligence in their eyes. All of these kids looked like med school students.

But med school wasn’t how you became a billionaire.

Ah, hell… Willem realized. You put me in a competition, I get competitive. I start acting like a lemming, fighting for a prize that I don’t give a damn about. It’s sick and twisted.  

“Rise,” Arnoud’s authoritative voice filled the room, and the people all stood up to welcome their king. Willem looked up at Arnoud, standing high in this grand hall. He sat in the throne at the top of the very long flight of stairs, looking down upon them all.

“I have been thinking for a very long time about how I would test all of you,” Arnoud began.

“Oh, great… the preamble,” Willem muttered.

People looked at him somewhat scornfully.

“It would be simple enough to throw a civil service test in your face,” Arnoud said. “To make sure that you know how to administrate the kingdom as well as the people that serve it do. That would be simple, quick, easy, effective… and would weed out quite a few of you, I imagine.”

He looked between them all with a long pregnant pause.

“But civil service is something that can be learned given time. Any sort of test of knowledge is insufficient to test what is truly needed in a monarch of a nation. Knowledge comes and goes… but talent? The ability to process information, adapt to it, and develop an effective course of action? That, my people, is something that cannot be taught. It must simply be had.

“This great kingdom, and all of those that reside within it, are in a constant competition. Each and all of us are competing for supremacy, primacy… and it is only through that competition that limits are met. Thus, the simple fact of the matter is this. If I wish to select the man best suited to rule the kingdom, I must have them compete among each other. Not indirectly, through the imposition of tests… but directly. Clashing heads. Pitting your brains against all those standing next to you.”

“He yaps worse than six barbers…” Willem complained.

The looks of scorn were tempered with those of disbelief, now.

“It would be a simple enough affair to lock all of you in the arena, and wait until only one remains,” Arnoud continued. “But a king is not the kingdom. No one man can do everything alone. Even a genius among geniuses must be able to pick out those best suited for a task. Proper delegation is the key to prosperity. While the king is important, just as important is those that he surrounds himself with. Like it or not, the most pivotal attribute for a king is judgment of character.

“For all of these reasons, instead of competing amongst each other, you must form a council of men and women to fight on your behalf,” the king declared grandly. “But if I were to simply set you loose in the city to pick out those best suited to help you… some of you would be a disadvantage. You lack the connections to those carrion eaters circling above. House Dubois, House Sturmbann… they would interfere in favor of certain candidates, skewing the results. That is unacceptable.”

Willem leaned over to the man standing next to him and whispered, “Still goin’, this asshole.”

“Get away from me,” the man said in panic, stepping away quickly.

“Still, it would be equally unfair of me to deprive all of you of the advice of the people that you’ve formed over the years,” Arnoud continued. “Like it or not, the people that you keep near you have been a fundamental part of establishing precisely who and what you are. For this reason, I will give each of you one week to consult with you and yours as the topic of management of talent. Then…”

The king raised a hand and snapped. Off to the side, a somewhat large procession entered, hauling with them a tremendously large red orb that vaguely resembled an eye.

“Then, you will use an artifact that my ancestor, Lazzaro the Twin-Soul, had crafted to help his successors become better rulers—the Eye of Sovereigns. Its use has only ever been permitted to be used by prospective monarchs of Ravenveld… but technically, I’m breaking no rules. After all, each of you are in contention.”

Willem’s interest was piqued somewhat at the mention of Lazzaro the Twin-Soul, because Suzanne claimed that it was identical to the condition that he and Junior were experiencing. Everyone in the room seemed to have some vague awareness as to what that artifact was. Everyone except Willem, of course.

“So… depart. Consult. And prepare,” Arnoud said decisively. “This artifact is to be the first hurdle that all of you must pass for any chance of winning my daughter’s hand. Once the lesser are eliminated, we can begin the true competition.”

***

After the initiation, Willem went right back to the Verdant Spring Guesthouse.

“He’s clever. Far too clever,” Viviene said. “I imagine none of the great houses anticipated that the king would find a way to prevent their interference entirely.”

Willem crossed his arms as he leaned back in his chair. “What mystical nonsense does this eye do? Assess your moral character? If so, I might be out in round one… but then, Arnoud would’ve never passed.”

“I’m not sure, Viviene said. “The only information about has been disclosed in passing by monarchs of the Ravenveld family. It was made by Lazzaro the Twin-Soul, and named thusly because it was meant to give his ancestors an eye into his own experiences ruling a realm. It’s something of a formal test that every sovereign of Ravenveld goes through.”

“He gave this long speech about managing personnel,” Willem said, somewhat annoyed. “If it’s just that, there’s really no way that I can fail.”

“How many people have you fired since arriving here?” Viviene raised a brow.

“Not enough,” Willem said simply. “Lean and mean, Viviene. I thought you were with the program.”          

“I’m merely reminding you that your unconventional demeanor is… an acquired taste,” she said politely.

“Well…” Willem slapped his knees, and then stood up. “Far as I’m concerned, I got another week on the clock to do important things.”

“I can almost guarantee Eleanor or Baptiste are going to come looking for you in a panic,” Viviene reminded him.

“If they’re good at what they do, they can find me,” Willem said. “I’ve got soap to sell, an Arend to buy, and a Hans to fix up. My schedule’s packed.”

***

Willem went down to check out things in the warehouse. The place was getting more and more filled with soap, prepared for the gold rush. The time to strike the earth was soon—less than a day, maybe.

“Orders are starting to flow in, sir,” the soaper said eagerly. “It’s just like you said. I’ve isolated some of the highest bidders, and we’re using them to set a standard. We can have them come to the warehouse tomorrow, if that’s what you want.”

“Good, good.” Willem patted the man’s shoulder. “Here’s what you’re going to do. Hire some local workers. Have them hand-deliver the soaps—under no circumstances are you to let buyers come into the warehouse. We’ve got a case of supply and demand, and if these grasping bastards know just how much supply we have, then we won’t be able to get maximum profit margin.”

“Won’t our margin decrease, hiring workers to deliver?” the soaper asked.

“A little,” Willem acknowledged. “But it’ll stay steady for longer. If it’s hand delivered, it furthers the image of it being a premium product. So… hand-deliver these boxes. Trust me on this.”

“I will, sir.” The man looked at the many boxes. “Oh! And, I got some letters for you. I left them in that office.”

Willem nodded, then walked off to see them. One from Dirk… he was humbly bragging about his relationship with Suzanne, who was still staying in Gent. Dirk also assured that the Society of Assured Prosperity was running smoothly. One from Catharina, who gave him updates on her health and requests for baby items, alongside a personal request to purchase the latest edition in the novel series The Flower of the Cold Northern Grand Duke. Another was from Gustav—a fat stack of financial documents, and a letter laden with puns. It was Willem’s favorite letter.

But the final letter—Suzanne’s—brought Willem pause. Apparently Galahad was returning to the capital, having found a link to an espionage network here. They had reason to suspect Petronella had resurfaced.

“Who writes about state secrets in a private letter?” Willem muttered, shaking his head. “Girl’s got no sense… first Dirk, now this?”

Still… Willem’s thoughts lingered on Petronella. He wouldn’t mind seeing her again, even if this was hardly the place. It was hard to relate to all these youngsters, so full of mirth. He wanted to talk to someone who was more fed up with the world, like himself.

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