Reminiscence of a King

An ancient king reviews life events to determine who should be the next king, but he is confident that no one could ever match his caliber.

Reminiscence of a King

As the golden Sun began to retire behind the rolling hills of the countryside, the castle maids began to serve the Grand Feast to the Royal Family, sitting complacently in their padded chairs while patiently waiting for the nighttime jubilee to begin.  Outside on the top patio, which loomed over the gnarly spires of the fortification, King Frédѐric of Rambonia and his kin were congregating to celebrate the resignation of the King as the nation’s supreme Warlord.  This ceremony of transaction of power was held every generation as a more qualified warrior rose up to succeed the previous General who usually served the Army for thirty years or more. 

This particular ceremony was supposed to be the most controversial one since the Great Void of 942 which almost divided the Country permanently.  This year, there was a great debate over which new soldier should become the Warlord; this debate had caused many arguments both in and out of the Great Hall.  King Frédѐric had served a wonderful term in this position, for all of the Nation’s people�"peasants and nobles alike�"fully supported his every move and decision, but he had a very tough decision to make.

The first candidate was Maghea, a very diplomatic leader that used his wit and charm to inveigle anyone into doing his will.  The second candidate was Douke, who was a very noble warrior�"strong, skilled, loyal, and hardy.  Finally there was Kithea, a very intelligent and learned scholar who could think and reason to solve almost any predicament he might find himself in.  The King looked at every strength and weakness of every candidate, and he found no one that shone as outstanding, which disappointed him greatly.  He decided that he would have to make a decision on one of them, though, so all throughout the night, Frédѐric could never really enjoy the festivities. Instead, he spent all those hours trying to decide on the Warlord that would determine the fate of Rambonia for the next 30 years.

“Perhaps, dear,” suggested his dear wife, Queen Elise, “you should compare the candidates to yourself.  Because you served such a magnificent term, the one that resembles you most should do the greatest as Warlord.”  The King had always listened to his spouse’s opinion, which was never the slightest bit wrong, and this time was no different.  At first glance, none of the potential Generals even compared to his credibility as King, but he decided to entertain the idea and consider their likeness to himself.

Starting with the earliest moment of his career, Frédѐric first remembered the years he was learning and training to become a warrior as a boy.  He had been training at the Barracks since he was just a lad of 9 years when his father, Arch-King Xavier, sent him away from the castle to learn how to be a real man in the Kingdom.  None of

 

the candidates, he noticed, had been trained nearly as vigorously.  When Frédѐric graduated from the School of War in 1357, the Kingdom fell into rebellion and civil war due to malcontents and unrest in the lower classes.  The populace split into Three Nations against each other�"the Bairun-chie, the Ahrgo-roths, and the Nondo-feza�"and the Capitol. Students from the school were scattered about because much of their allegiance did not lie with the Crown. Frédѐric wondered where these candidates’ allegiances lied.  He joined his father’s ranks as a lieutenant of the cavalry and they liberated many of the Capitol’s cities held captive by rebellious rogues.

He vividly remembered his first battle against the Bairun-chie in 1359 (a galling 38 years ago).   There was an especially formidable militia of vigilantes in the town of Ched, a very prosperous port on the coast of the Hordien.  Xavier had sent Frédѐric with several thousand men under his command to siege and loot Ched, ultimately teaching the rebels a lesson in loyalty.  Using brute force to disintegrate the measly fortifications and sentries, he marched his small but powerful army into the city, destroying everything and everyone in his path.  Every woman, child, man, or animal that professed rebellion felt the wrath of punishment for what they did to their protectorate, who demanded ultimate loyalty.  The screams and cries of pain from civilians and warriors alike would have been heart-breaking to a normal man, but Frédѐric was a warrior, and he would prove himself worthy to his King Xavier no matter what.  Could Barren Douke, known for his brutality, withstand the same agony and genocidal evil that the King did?  He wondered how Douke would fair in a situation like his when forced upon him by dire circumstances.

Next, he fondly remembered his solution to the puzzle during the winter of 1360.  With his worth proven as a leader, Frédѐric was promoted to Colonel of the 4^th Division in the Imperial Army, which was committed to restoring order to the Kingdom.  Kreist, a mountain city known for its rich resources in ores and metalworking, was another stronghold of the Bairun-chie; this city needed to be taken to stop the supply train to the rebellious guerillas throughout the land.  Knowing there was no way to barge through mountain walls with a sword and spear, Frédѐric came up with an ingenious but maniacal method of exterminating the city’s populace.  With his extensive knowledge of chemistry and alchemy, he decided that if his sappers burned the coal with other toxic minerals in the caves beneath the city, he could release a poisonous miasma in the city that would silently kill everyone in their sleep. With that plan of attack, his men waited until everybody in the city was dead and the gas subsided, then they rushed in to claim their prize.  Prince Kithea was acclaimed for his wit and strategic genius, but Frédѐric doubted he could have developed a plan as simple, easy, effective, or evil as the one he developed at Kreist.

 

As a final memory on that celebratory evening, King Frédѐric thought with a grimace about how he came to be Warlord during the meeting of the Council of Nations in 1367.  After a little more than ten years of civil war and anarchic uprisings, the leaders of the Three Nations and his father, Arch-King Xavier, decided to make peace with each other and finally resolve the conflict that had plagued the Kingdom for a decade.  Meeting in the Imperial Hall of Court in the Capitol of Rambonia, the four leaders and their ambassadors talked and reasoned with one another for several painstaking weeks.  When they could not make a peaceful decision that suited each faction after a whole month of heated debate, Frédѐric decided to intervene with his diplomatic skills.  Within the first hour of the intervention, he had inveigled all of the Rebels into agreeing to a peace treaty involving separate States of the Kingdom, but King Xavier did not agree to anything that did not involve him as the Arch-King.  With those parameters obviously not going to be met, Frédѐric united the Three Nations and threatened his Father with death if he did not agree. When Xavier refused the contract, Frédѐric ’s men assassinated him immediately.  With the title of Warlord vacant and Frédѐric ’s support from the masses unchallenged, Frédѐric  crowned himself the Warlord of the Kingdom of Rambonia.  Frédѐric questioned whether Maghea could achieve such a devious and deceitful diplomatic transaction as that.

With the final course of the Grand Feast, mashed and frozen carrots, being presented to the courtiers and the Royal entertainers, the Troubadour Trio, counting off their final number, King Frédѐric summed up his thoughts and estimations about the candidates.  With his past reminisced and the Kingdom’s future considered, he made a decision that would set the precedent for all subsequent Nomination Ceremonies.  Denying every law set before him and ignoring the three prospective men standing before him, Frédѐric stood from the great oaken dinner table and addressed the merry crowd.  The songs slowly died to a silence and the spoons of attentive subjects ceased their clattering against the bowls as all attention was given to the venerable old King.  With his characteristically loud, booming voice that had commanded tens of thousands of soldiers in foreign lands, he announced to the attendants,

“There shall be no Nomination of Warlord this evening.  Thank you for your kind and jubilant participation in tonight’s Festivities, but there shall be no new Master General.  I have decided, with my ultimate executive power, that I, Arch-King Frédѐric the Guthix of Daemonhim, shall indefinitely be the one and only supreme ruler of the Kingdom of Rambonia!”

Author's Note

I wrote this awhile back for a class assignment for 10th grade, but it is one of my favorites; a classic of my repertoire.