Alliance chronicles · Smailik
Kings or Pawns?
A story about those who think themselves players, unaware of the true design.
Prologue
Night.
Three kings sit in a small room in an old castle.
And wait.
It is an unfamiliar position for them.
Usually, others wait for kings.
Their bodyguards stand at the doors. In the corridors are advisers, ambassadors and generals. In the courtyard, three armed detachments wait beneath cold rain and three different banners.
Armies stand beyond the castle walls.
Only a few months ago, they fought one another.
In a few days, it could happen again.
A large map lies before the kings.
Fortresses.
Roads.
Rivers.
Wooden army figures.
And three little crowns.
Each stands upon its own lands.
No one touches the map.
The youngest king drums his fingers irritably on the table.
The eldest slowly drinks wine.
The third is silent.
He alone has met her before.
And he alone does not ask how much longer they must wait.
At last, footsteps sound beyond the door.
The kings fall silent.
The door opens.
A woman enters the room.
She is beautiful.
Not with the fragile beauty praised by court poets.
She has the calm of someone who long ago stopped needing others' approval.
She wears long travelling clothes, pale yellow, almost golden. Raindrops still shine on the fabric.
No crown.
No coat of arms.
No retinue.
A large ginger cat follows her in.
The woman takes off her gloves.
“Forgive me, gentlemen. The roads are dreadful.”
None of the kings reminds her that she is late.
She takes the empty seat.
The cat jumps onto the neighbouring chair.
The young king looks at her.
“Did you receive our letters?”
“All seven.”
His fingers stop drumming.
He sent two.
The woman notices his look.
But explains nothing.
She takes several letters from her travelling bag and lays them beside the map.
The kings recognise the first seal at once.
The second too.
At the sight of the third, the eldest stops drinking.
She lays the fourth letter face down.
Its seal is hidden.
For some reason, all three look at that one.
The woman takes the glass prepared for her.
Tastes the wine.
“Well, then.”
She looks around at the kings.
“Which of you would like to lie to me first?”
Silence hangs for several seconds.
The ginger cat closes its eyes.
The eldest king is the first to smirk.
“Now I understand why you're disliked at court.”
“I'm very well liked at court.”
She sets down her glass.
“Just not always by the people who rule it.”
The old man laughs.
The young king does not.
And negotiations begin.
At first, she hardly speaks.
The kings do the talking.
The first accuses the second of breaking a treaty.
The second lists burnt villages and demands two fortresses back.
The third insists their war has nothing to do with him.
She listens.
Sometimes asks a short question.
“How many men are in the northern fortress now?”
The king answers.
She nods.
“And how many of them were paid last month?”
A pause.
She is already looking at another.
“Does your general still command the eastern army?”
“Of course.”
“How strange.”
She takes out a letter.
“Yesterday evening, he thought otherwise.”
The smile leaves the king's face.
She asks the third only one question.
“And you still have nothing to do with this war?”
“Nothing.”
She lays a trading ledger before him.
“Then explain why both armies buy your arrows.”
The eldest king laughs.
This time at his neighbour.
She lets him.
For now.
Gradually, the conversation changes.
The kings begin choosing their words more carefully.
They no longer look at each other before answering.
They look at her.
Because whenever someone lies, the right letter appears on the table.
The right number.
The right name.
She knows how much grain remains in the fortresses.
Knows which generals owe moneylenders.
Knows which duke sleeps with his own ally's wife.
Knows which heirs dream of getting their crowns a little ahead of time.
And no one understands how.
At last, the young king leans back irritably in his chair.
“Do not forget whom you are speaking to.”
Silence.
The eldest king stops smiling.
The third slowly turns his eyes to the woman.
She is not angry.
“Your Majesty, if I ever forgot whom I was speaking to, I'd have been hanged twenty years ago.”
The old man laughs softly.
But the third king looks at the young one almost with pity.
He has already understood what the other has not.
She has not forgotten who stands before her.
Quite the opposite.
She knows it all too well.
Now she speaks.
The first king needs a fortress.
She moves a wooden figure.
The fortress stays with the second.
But the first gets a road to the sea.
The second wants the foreign army pushed away from his border.
She moves another figure.
The army retreats.
But in return, a trade route opens for the third kingdom.
The third demands payment.
She names a sum.
He protests.
She names a merchant who has already agreed to lend him half that amount.
The king falls silent.
Armies move across the map.
Fortresses.
Roads.
Borders.
Sometimes, crowns.
At first, the kings argue with her.
Then with each other.
Then they begin asking her what will happen if they make their next move.
And no one notices the moment it stops being their negotiation.
The ginger cat wakes.
Stretches.
Jumps onto the table.
Walks between the letters.
Steps across a river.
Brushes a small wooden crown with its paw.
It falls from the table.
A clack.
The crown rolls across the stone floor.
Everyone falls silent.
The young king looks at the fallen figure.
So does the woman.
The cat calmly sits in the vacated place.
She bends down.
Picks up the crown.
Puts it back.
“Careful.”
She strokes the cat.
“These are kings, after all.”
The eldest king laughs.
A moment later, the second laughs.
Even the young one allows himself a smile.
And negotiations continue.
But the third king watches the little wooden crown for several more seconds.
For some reason, it is no longer funny to him.
An hour passes.
Then the second.
Then a third.
Beyond the windows, night begins to retreat.
The army figures disappear.
Numbers appear in their place.
Tolls.
Guarantees.
Hostages' names.
Rights of passage.
Deadlines.
Men who a few hours earlier meant to send thousands of soldiers against each other now argue fiercely over two villages and a bridge toll.
The woman listens to them.
And for the first time all night, looks pleased.
Because when kings begin arguing over money instead of blood—
the war is almost over.
A scribe brings the final treaty.
Silence settles.
The eldest king reads it first.
Sets his seal.
The second rereads two clauses.
Sets his own.
The young one remains.
He does not move.
The treaty lies before him.
Beside it, his little wooden crown.
He looks at the woman.
“You have left me very little choice.”
“No.”
She shakes her head.
“I left you the best of the choices you had.”
He smirks.
But there is no amusement left in his eyes.
“And if I refuse?”
No one moves.
Even the old king stops drinking.
Dawn begins outside the window.
Hundreds of the young king's riders wait in the courtyard.
His banners hang from the towers.
His army stands a few days' march from here.
Thousands will carry out his command.
The woman has no army.
No lands.
No fortresses.
No crown of her own.
Before her are only letters.
A map.
A glass of wine gone cold.
And a ginger cat.
She looks at the king.
Calmly.
“Then I'll have to speak to the person who replaces you.”
Silence.
The young king looks into her eyes.
She does not look away.
The eldest king slowly lowers his glass.
The third looks at the little wooden crown on the map.
The very one the cat accidentally knocked to the floor a few hours earlier.
Now no one smiles.
The young king takes his ring.
Holds it above the wax for a few seconds.
And sets his seal.
The third.
There will be no war.
The woman gathers the letters.
Leaves some with the kings.
Returns others to her bag.
She never opened the fourth letter.
The eldest king notices.
“What's in that one?”
She looks at the letter.
Then at the young king.
“Nothing important any more.”
And puts it away.
The young king follows the letter with his eyes.
He will never know what was inside.
Perhaps that is why he will remember it for the rest of his life.
The woman puts on her pale cloak. The ginger cat jumps down from the table and follows her.
At the door, the eldest king calls to her.
“Whom do you serve, after all?”
She stops.
Turns.
Looks at the three men.
Three kingdoms.
Three armies.
Three crowns.
“Today?”
A brief pause.
“All three of you.”
And leaves.
The kings remain alone.
For a few seconds, no one speaks.
Then the eldest king approaches the window.
Below, the woman crosses the courtyard.
A pale golden figure among soldiers, steel and dark banners.
The ginger cat runs behind her.
The gates open.
She rides away.
Without an army.
Without a coat of arms.
Without a crown.
The young king still stands by the table.
He looks at the map.
At the armies.
At the borders.
Then takes his little wooden crown.
The very one the cat knocked to the floor.
Holds it in his hand for a few seconds.
Only now does he understand what the other two understood much earlier.
There really were three kings in that room.
But the game was not theirs.
