Chapter 4 - The Iron and the Oath
The Great Hall was no longer a place of court gossip and silk-rustling; it was a mustering ground.
The long oak tables where the lords had once feasted on roast boar and spiced wine had been dragged out into the courtyard to feed the mountain levies. In their place stood racks of pikes, barrels of black powder from the southern mills, and long benches where armorers hammered out dents in breastplates with rhythmic, deafening blows that shook the dust from the high rafters.
Clara sat upon the raised stone dais, not in the old wooden chair of her grandfather, but upon the Throne of the Seven Stars—a seat carved from a single block of meteoric iron that had been dragged down from the peak of Mount Aurel three centuries ago.
Below her stood the representatives of the seven houses.
To the left stood Duke Raymond of Westmere—a massive man with a beard like a copper scouring-pad and shoulders that strained the seams of his leather jerkin. Beside him stood the representatives of the merchant guilds from the river-cities, their fingers heavy with gold rings, their faces sour with the calculation of lost tariffs and disrupted trade routes.
And to the right—closer to the dark stone of the northern wall—stood the delegation from the southern temples: three priests in high conical hats of black felt, led by High Inquisitor Malakor, a man whose skin was the color of old parchment and whose eyes were small, black, and wet like a beetle’s.
“A kitchen-girl,” Malakor said, his voice carrying the dry, nasal resonance of a man used to shouting down heretics in public squares. He didn't bow; he kept his hands tucked deep into the sleeves of his black wool robe, his chin tilted up toward the dais. “The laws of the Sun-Giver are clear, Majesty. The crown may be touched by an accident of birth, but the rule of the realm requires the approval of the sacred council. We have not consecrated your accession. The oil has not been poured upon your hair.”
Clara didn't move. She rested her hands on the iron arms of the throne, her fingers curved around the seven-pointed stars carved into the metal.
“The oil?” her voice was quiet, but it cut through the din of the armorers outside like a silver blade. “Whose oil, Inquisitor? The oil bought with the gold Lord Garrick stole from the southern mines?”
Malakor’s thin lips twitched. “You speak of a dead man who cannot defend his honor—’
“My uncle’s honor is currently feeding the eels in the lower vaults,” Clara said smoothly. “Let us not speak of dead men. Let us speak of the treaty of the Red Ford.”
She signaled to Master Almon, who stood in the shadow of the pillar with his pigskin ledger. The old archivist stepped forward, his dry fingers flipping the leaves until they stopped at a yellowed parchment stamped with seven red seals.
“In the three-hundredth year of the Aurel line,” Almon read, his voice rattling like dry bones, “the temple of the Sun-Giver renounced all claim to temporal taxation in exchange for the perpetual guardianship of the Northern Gate. A guardianship which, according to the audit of the royal wardrobe, has not received a single jar of pitch or a single load of charcoal in twenty-two years.”
The merchants in the center of the hall stirred uneasily. Duke Raymond crossed his massive arms over his chest and let out a short, bark-like laugh that echoed off the granite walls.
“Where is the pitch, Inquisitor?” Clara asked, leaning forward slightly. The diamonds on the crown caught the torchlight, throwing seven sharp needles of white-gold fire across the Inquisitor’s face. “Where is the charcoal that my grandfather paid for every autumn to keep the fires burning in the seal-rooms?”
Malakor’s face darkened from pale parchment to a dull, bruised mahogany. “The northern pass is clear. The wild men have not troubled the border in a generation. The money was used for... other works of mercy.”
“The money was used to buy votes in the council and swords for Lord Garrick’s private guard,” Clara said. She stood up.
The green velvet gown swept down the steps of the dais with a sound like a breaking wave. Because she was wearing the star-iron crown, her presence seemed to fill the vast, drafty hall until the twenty-foot pillars looked like toothpicks and the lords shrank back involuntarily as she passed.
She stopped two paces from the Inquisitor. She was shorter than him by half a head, but she looked up at him with the absolute, unblinking stillness of an executioner’s axe.
“You have three choices, Inquisitor,” Clara said. Her voice was no louder than a conversational whisper, yet every man in the hall heard every syllable. “You will sign the instrument of re-allocation before the noon bell; you will return the gold you took from the border-levies since my uncle’s regency began; or—”
She paused, lifting her right hand.
The silver crescent on her wrist seemed to pulse with a faint, cold light through the green velvet sleeve.
“—or you will go down to the Northern Gate yourself and see what it is that keeps the wild men quiet in the dark.”
Malakor stared at her. For a second, defiance flickered in his small, wet eyes—the stubborn pride of a man who had ruled the consciences of kings for forty years. Then he looked past her shoulder toward the great iron-studded doors of the hall, beyond which the grey peaks of the mountains rose against the winter sky like the teeth of a trapped beast.
He slowly pulled his right hand out from his sleeve. His fingers were shaking as he reached for the iron pen Almon held out on a silver salver.
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“The temple,” Malakor choked out, his voice sounding like dry grass under a boot, “serves the realm above all things.”
“The realm serves the crown,” Clara corrected him. “Sign.”
