Chapter 6: King

STEVEN AND SERGEANT arrived at the castle and the busy metropolis that surrounded it just minutes after the twin soldiers the sergeant had sent ahead arrived to announce they were coming. The soldiers had taken the road through the forest instead of the shortcut, and still managed to get lost on the way home. As a result, no one was ready for Steven’s sudden arrival. He was treated as an obstacle in the way, as the castle prepared for “an important guest,” and thought perhaps he had been summoned to meet someone else who would be there.

Eventually, Sergeant started ordering people around and everyone jumped at his voice to do whatever he said. Steven was taken to a fine room and a servant was assigned to see that he ate, slept, ate, and dressed in time for the King’s banquet the next night.

The bed was so soft that Steven scarcely slept all night. During the day, he was allowed to wander about the castle, always with the servant in tow, so he would not get lost. Of all the places in the castle he visited, Steven liked the kitchen the best. He tried not to get in the way, but commented on the seasonings and suggested herbs for the stew. Until he ate his noon meal, he was welcome to dabble with the kitchen help, but when the chief chef arrived to prepare the banquet for the evening, Steven was summarily shooed out as an army of kitchen help moved in to wash, chop, boil, sauté, roast, fry, and bake.

The servant assigned to Steven suggested they spend some time in the “game” room, which Steven assumed was a place where trophies of the hunt were kept. Or perhaps it was a zoo in which living species were on display from the King’s Forest. Instead, he found a room in which the children of the castle gathered to play.

There were various toys, including balls for the children to play with. Some—made from the bladder of a pig, he was told—bounced off floors and walls, as laughing children threw them from one to the other. Other balls were smaller and harder and were used to throw at various targets. Steven was enthralled with the happiness of the children in the room and waded right in among them to play as well.

He was thrown a ball and threw it to another, hardly having it out of his hand before he had to catch a different ball. The children, happy to have a little boy who was as big as an adult playing with them, soon evolved a new game where every ball was passed to Steven as quickly as it was thrown back. Several of these, unfortunately, went uncaught. Steven did his best to dodge the balls as they came upon him at an ever-increasing speed.

The servant had taken refuge behind some stacked bales of straw, behind which were huddled a variety of nurses and servants who peeked out cautiously to watch the children.

Steven discovered there was a rhythm developing in the children’s throws. Allowing one ball to hit him squarely in the chest and bounce off, he reached in the pocket of his vest and quickly put his whistle in his mouth. Although he couldn’t play much of a tune with both hands involved in catching and throwing balls, he started to pipe the same rhythm that the sergeant had used to enforce his march through the forest. The children, easily influenced by the rhythm, matched it with their throws and were soon taking orderly turns, as Steven caught and threw balls with both hands. He began to step to the rhythm of the music in a pattern reminiscent of Selah’s dance he had watched for the past seven years.

At one point, a nurse popped out from behind the straw to call the name of a child and usher her out of the room for “dressing.” She threw her ball to Steve, and then vanished out the door with her nurse. Steven, not knowing what to do with the abandoned ball now that there was no one to throw it to, tossed it into the air while he caught and threw another, and then caught the ball again before it fell to the floor.

Apparently, it was time for the children to be bathed and dressed for dinner, for they were subsequently called by their nurses and servants, threw their balls to Steven, and rushed out of the room. Steven lost track of the number of balls in the air, but the rhythm he had established allowed him to keep many in the air and only a few fell to the floor.

At last, he was faced with just one child, whose nurse had taken another and just returned for this one. Steven looked at the child and the child looked at Steven. Steven threw the balls into the air and caught them automatically as he watched the child. The child threw the last ball to Steven.

All the balls fell to the floor as Steven reached to catch the last ball. The child laughed with glee as though this had been the best part of the day. He ran off with his nurse and there were no more children in the room.

Steven’s servant appeared from behind the straw bales and called to him, as if he were one of the children. He led Steven away to be bathed and dressed for the banquet with the King.

Montague Magnus the Fourth, King and Liege of Sylgale, Puissant Paragon of Mariria, and the Simple Pride of Arining, was a jovial monarch. Some said he was simple of mind. Others whispered that the King’s simplicity was a front that allowed him to get the best of his enemies and to negotiate shrewdly. Certainly, the most recent victory over the King of the Southern Reaches in Byzantium seemed to be testament to this latter opinion.