Indomitus Vivat (The Fovean Chronicles) Read Online Free PDF Page A

probably been going on since I left.  We’d gone way past scandal.
     
         Glennen lay on his bed, sodden and freezing.  The room had been built to be lavish, with gigantic bay windows and real glass to look through.  The hard wood floor had been polished to a shine, except where our steel-shod boots had marred it.  His four-poster bed came with a canopy, piled high with quilts.  A table stood by the door and couches by the window, the bed and the far wall, where a gigantic mirror hung.
         He hadn’t shaved in several days, but he had been drinking regularly.  His son, Tartan, stood to one side of his father as two royal healers tended him.  His Oligarchs and I spoke quietly at his tables.
         “How long has this been going on?” I asked.  I had just dispatched the captain of my guard to bed down the men and stable the horses. 
         “Since All Gods’ Day,” one of them said – the one I had met first, who had come to Shela and me in our hotel room.  It occurred to me that I either didn’t know or didn’t remember any of their names.
         “He began drinking early, he drank all day and into the night.  Then he started to break things, until he passed out.  Two days later he started again.”
         “This is what he does now,” another said.  They were all male, all Men, and all old.  “He drinks, he attacks, and he tells us things that are on his mind.”
         “Sometimes they are terrible things,” the third said.  Of the four of them, he was the only one with short hair.  Like the others, his was white, his robes were white, and he wore sandals.  They all carried a twisted oak staff as a sign of office.  I didn’t know why.
         “He cannot cope with the loss of the Queen,” the first said.  “And of course, we can hardly hold him responsible for his actions.”
         “Except that we must,” the fourth Oligarch said.
         Couldn’t argue with that.  I knew alcoholism when I saw it.  He wouldn’t stop if he didn’t have to, and he didn’t have to unless his kingdom revolted or someone assassinated him.
         This could play right into War’s hands, I thought.  No point in taking the King out if he was going to do it for us.
         I had seen some sailors go pretty far down this road.  Drinking yourself to death is real.
         “There is no way to get Tartan to take over in his place?” I asked.  Tartan, hearing his name, looked up at us.  “Even just as reagent or something, for the duration of his treatment?”
         All four shook their heads as one.  “Eldadorian law in unique, in that the monarch has all power to rule.  Glennen always feared that somehow his Dukes would rise up against him.”
         “Can he proclaim a new law?” I asked
         They nodded.  “You are wise, your Grace,” the second said. “When he is sober, or just a little drunk, we must get him to proclaim that the Heir can assume power in a crisis of health.”
         “I will commence the document,” the fourth said.
         “No, I am the Heir,” I said.  “It should be Tartan – “
         “Tartan has no standing to rule,” the third said.  “If he were to suddenly take power, it would look like a coupe.”
        “And it will look exactly like that if I take over,” I said.  “And do you really want me to be in control of Eldador right now?”
         “Your recent attack on Outpost IX,” the fourth said.
         “You fear that it will be a direct affront to the Trenboni,” said the first.
         “I fear that they could use it as justification to retaliate against anything Eldadorian that they want, and legitimize it before the Fovean High Council, which I just royally pissed off,” I said.
         They all nodded, and then I realized that my use of slang has been interpreted as I intended.  Had they adapted or had I?
     Tartan approached us with a