Here it was – all of it – stretched in front of him like some giant monster, quelled and overcome and surrendering. All of it – from the twin peaks in the east, where he had watched the sun rise so many eons ago, to the echoing range in the west, touched by the dawning darkness. There was hardly the tremble left – in the red limbs of this tired beast; the night was coming.
He could trace it in his head now, the undulating anatomy of the rugged hills – the contours that he’d drawn and redrawn and dreamt about every waking day. He’d memorized every rock on the abused parchment of the map, and traced every stone with the sharp edge of his sword. And now here it all was – the valley and the hills and the far horizon – from the cradle stone, the heart and crown of all that it could see.
He turned his back on it now, and strode towards the old throne, the tip of his sword dragging a thin winding line amidst the cold hard stone – a long quiet scratch on the grey. They’d told him that it was alive – the land – a breathing monster that would awaken from sleep and swallow him whole if he ever tried – but he had, and here the monster was, docile and dead – like the trees that refused to grow on its dry slopes, and the water that refused to breathe in its empty valleys. And the gold that breathed in the heart of the stone – the only breath that could be felt through the clammy soil – a dead breath, glistening and cold and odourless – lifeless.
His people were shouting conversations in the valley – as they covered up the dead in the deep pit they had dug that evening. They were mindless conversations – anything and everything to pass the time – to draw away from the dead weight of the bodies in their arms, the cold stares of the vacant faces. Loud and drawn, to drown the silence of the valley, the screaming silence that clawed at their armour and stifled their breath.
Easing himself out of his ruddy armour, and letting it fall unceremoniously to the dust, he stood before the rough-hewn throne. They’d carried her away not two hours ago – her limp fingers circled around the hilt pressed against her stomach – the lines on her face drawn into circles of rude disbelief. As her feet had dragged across the earth, the crown had fallen off her head – and rolled to his feet. A crown of bright gold – heavy, ugly and precious – a crown that sat on his head now. As he would sit – on her throne.
Would? The empty stone seat stared up at him, it’s crude workmanship wheezing dust and bloodstains in the descending twilight. He had never been afraid of stories – but there was something unnerving about the throne. He would rather it was the fatigue than the stories – and rather the stories than the guilt – that made him hesitate from using it. There could be no guilt – that was not the way he lived.
And there should be none – it was the way of the people who he had just driven out of the valley – driven out and driven under. For all their wealth, they had been imprisoned with it – the queen with her crown and her throne and the people with their shovels and ropes. Hacking away at the heart of their land – and hacking away at the farms and the green wealth of his people – from the neighbouring hills.
She had treated them with no guilt and he had answered with none – from his artful pretence of false friendship to the hilt of his dagger peeping out from between her bloody robes. There could be no traces of guilt now – staining the cold throne.
And yet he shut his eyes as he finally sat, his fingers barely brushing against the armrests, still clutching his sword, as if afraid of the blood-debt that was etched into the stone – through ages and ages of fallen kings and kingdoms, of superstitions and stories, of greed and treachery.
And night fell, cascading darkness on a dark dull terrain – on men sitting atop freshly dug mounds, silenced by the sudden completion of labour, on a king in a stone throne, his head bowed by the weight of a heavy crown, on the dust that settled and rose – in inane circles – on and off and on and off.
His body was heavy, weighed down into the stone.
The gold would change the lives of his people. It would all be worth it – all be justified in the end. They wouldn’t have to live like they had lived for all of their squalid history – they would be real people now – real men and women who mattered in the world.
His heart felt heavy – no, that couldn’t be right – it was his head, and the bloody crown that adorned it. How had she managed? How had they all managed – the long line of tyrants that had claimed the crown before him?
It didn’t matter – he was here. He remembered his childhood, in these very mines below his throne, a dark life with glimpses of treasure none of them were ever meant to own. He had known her since the day he was sold into the mines – they all had – a beautiful queen whose voice was so dear that they’d give her everything – they already had – their lives, their days, their sun and their sweat. All for a beautiful queen with a golden crown.
The weight was seeping through his body – spreading to his limbs – his muscles groaning with the strain of it, sinking into the stone.
The day he’d been sold was the day he’d grown up. When he’d fallen from the riggings and lost his left hand – and his beautiful queen had given him up for a few pieces of gold to a neighbouring village of farmers who were short of manpower. He had cried for his bondage – pleaded to her that he’d work without his hand as well as anyone else – but while the slow line of mules had carried him away to the neighbouring hills, his tears had been replaced by the silence of disillusionment and a quiet aching rage.
His chin was resting on his chest – the crown would soon fall. There was something exhausting about the weight of it – that brought out every weakness in his tired body. He was almost one with the stone seat now – and he wasn’t sure that he could move if he tried.
He had vowed to himself that he’d be back – not in so many words but in his deep-set anger. And he had – if not for himself but for his adopted village. And when he’d thrust his sword into the folds of her gown, he’d seen the glimmer of recognition in her eyes as she tried to grip the left hand that wasn’t there.
The left hand –
His eyes swivelled down to the left armrest of the throne. A hand was resting on it, dark red in the light of the waning moon. A hand with five fingers, a wrist and a forearm, pressed tightly against the stone.
He leapt out of the seat in shock. Or at least, he thought he did. His body, weighed down heavily by the crown, didn’t respond to him. The crown was boring into his skull now – or was it his thoughts? Sinking down from the golden circlet into his head – the deadweight crushing his brain. And all the while – his eyes were transfixed on the left hand that rested on the stone arm of the throne. Five long slender feminine fingers stared back calmly at him.
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The farmers from the hills woke up to the dull silence of the land they had conquered. Their king had been awake since the early hours – long since the first of them had opened their eyes to the new day. They had been farmers the day before they’d set out on their quest, soldiers till the day the old queen had fallen to the sword of their king, grave diggers the whole of yesterday. And today – from today – they’d start being gold miners. Their prospects were good – their king was young and strong in his ideals, and they’d followed him knowing he’d bring them good fortune.
He was standing in front of his throne, his crown shining in the morning sun, his eyes surveying the land that was now his to rule. He turned towards them when they gathered, tired men, fresh from their first disturbed night on a conquered but unfamiliar battlefield. His face – rugged and youthful, looked unusually handsome against the early light. He smiled quietly – and stretched out his arms to his soldiers – the fingers of his right hand splayed in warm welcome – and the broken stump of his left arm also extended – as if it ended in a similarly warm gesture.
As he stood like that, proud and handsome in the morning light, his people forgot about themselves – about their fortunes and their prospects and their gold. All they knew was that they would die for this beautiful man – that they were ready to give him everything, their lives, their day, their sun, their sweat – mining gold to fill the coffers of their beloved king.
And as they knelt before him in awe, for a split second his smile turned cold and superior – and the long feminine fingers of his left hand circled into a gesture of triumphant achievement.
She was smiling. Nothing had changed.
