Free and fair elections

 Asquith, known as the Iron Scourge throughout many of the lands of Appoloron, walked into the throne room of Concord Keep.  There were two guards on duty outside the door, and two inside the door.  As he looked at the interior guards one of them squeaked and fainted.  The other, who had turned as pale as wood-ash, trembled like a leaf in a strong breeze.

“Pick him up,” said Asquith, trying for patience.   It seemed like the guards in the keep didn’t know how to do anything without being told.

“Sir!” said the guard quickly, saluting.  He hit his helmet so smartly that it fell off his head and bounced twice before resting up again his unconscious partner.  “Sorry sir!”

Asquith sighed, not bothering to hide his disgust with the guards, and stalked over to the other side of the room.  There were tapestries hanging on this wall in blue and red; on the entry side they were green and purple.  Merrilla, a sorceress who’d been adventuring with him for nearly fifteen years, was holding a corner of one of them and talking about it with Menelouse.  Menelouse was arguably more of a merchant than an adventurer though he could be handy with a dagger when no-one was looking at him.  He was also tonsured to try and hide the fact that he was balding from the middle outwards, had a straggly greying beard and a paunch that suggested he preferred ale to combat.

“What’s wrong with the guards?” asked Asquith, adding “this morning,” as an afterthought.  “I think one of them just fainted when I came in.”

“We did kill a whole bunch of their colleagues,” said Menelouse.  “Well, I say we, but I mean you.”

“And?” Asquith was genuinely puzzled.  In order to kill the previous King, Erich III, they’d had to storm the castle and collateral death was a natural side effect of this.

“And so they’re all worried that you’re going to do the same thing to them,” said Menelouse.  “Or maybe ask Merrilla to turn them all into toads or ferrets.”

”Capybaras,” said Merrilla.  “Toads are icky and ferrets run off and get into things.  You lose count of them, and the next thing you know is that you’ve dispelled all the magic in a room and there’s a dead guard squashed into a box or hamper.”

Menelouse raised an eyebrow and Merrilla shrugged.  “It’s happened before,” she said.

“I haven’t killed anyone in days,” said Asquith.  He felt a little aggrieved that the guards trusted him so little.  “What makes them think I’m going to start now?”

“Well,” said Menelouse, “they don’t know you, do they?  They just know that you turned up, killed a bunch of people, killed the King, and haven’t left yet.  They’re going to be a bit worried about you deciding you’re bored, killing everyone else, and leaving.”

“I could just leave,” said Asquith, but Menelouse was shaking his head.  “I could!”

“But you wouldn’t leave anyone alive who might think that you’d done something illegal, would you?” said Menelouse.  “I mean, leaving is one thing, but leaving with someone putting a bounty on your head is another, isn’t it?”

“They wouldn’t dare!”

“The guards don’t know that.”

Asquith stared at Menelouse for a few seconds then turned away.  He walked to the throne and looked at it carefully.

“Don’t,” said Merrilla, raising her voice a little.  At the door the conscious guard looked up, then looked hurriedly back down at the floor.  “We agreed.  Free and fair elections for a new ruler.  If you sit on it, you’re acting like you’re in charge.”

Asquith grunted and sat on the topmost of the three steps that lead up to the throne.  “Last thing I’d want,” he said.  “That just sets you up as a target for the next regicide to come along, doesn’t it?”

“It doesn’t pay all that well either,” said Menelouse.  “I mean, sure, there are taxes to be gathered but there’s a lot of work goes into that, and there are a lot of expenses for a country.  I mean, here, for example, you’ve got recruitment costs to rebuild the army as a priority, and the weather’s been poor for years, so it’s not like there’s a lot of food around.  Now, if you—“

“Shut up!”

Menelouse looked sulky.  “Just saying,” he muttered, but stayed quiet after that momentary rebellion.

Merrilla let the tapestry fall from her hand and walked over to sit next to Asquith.  She was wearing a satin off-white gown that draped over her and caught the draughts of air so the she seemed a little like a swan sitting on the currents of a river.

“The elections should be over,” she said.  “We’ll get the results in soon, and then we can go.”  She looked over the throne room; stone walls and floor like all the rooms of the keep, and solid, aged-looking floorboards of a brown wood so dirty you couldn’t tell what tree it had come from.  Apart from the guards, the throne, and the tapestries the room was bare: it was used for audiences with visitors and handing down judgements and didn’t need much furniture, but its emptiness seemed to echo the way Asquith looked: as though waiting for something.  “I was thinking we might go back to—“

“No,” said Asquith.  “I’ve heard tell that there’s a small border war to the east; I think we’ll go there and kill a few more people.  Relax a little.”  There was a squeak from the guard at the door but he managed to stay conscious.

“But—“

“No,” said Asquith.  “This has all been rather more stressful than I anticipated.  I need something mindless to do.  Something that will take my mind off all these other things.”

“Menelouse will—“

“No.”

Merrilla fell silent though her face wrinkled and smoothed as thoughts ran through her mind and she tried to find a way to broach them with Asquith and then decided not to bother.  Seconds turned into minutes, then into a half-hour.  Only then was the silence broken by the creak of the door opening.

“What do you want?” snapped Asquith without looking up.  Merrilla and Menelouse however watched curiously as the Lord Chamberlain entered.  He was a surprisingly young man dressed in a brocade robe of brown and green and carrying a black staff that was the official symbol of his office.

“A word or two, my Lord,” he said, sounding deferential.  Something in his tone appeared to soothe Asquith, who looked up and rearranged his scowl into something approximating a smile.

“Make it quick,” he said.  “Wait, the election results?”

“Indeed, my Lord,” said the Chamberlain.  He smiled, and Merrilla was struck by how cold the smile was, and how genuine.  It was the smile of a man who knows he’s delivering bad news and is actually quite pleased by it.

“The results of the free and fair elections have been tallied.  And recounted, and then checked a third time.  There can be no mistake in the outcome.”

Merrilla found herself rising to her feet.  She looked over: Menelouse was on the balls of his feet and looked as nervous as she felt.

“Who?  You’re being awkward; it is Count Vrech?”  Asquith had had to be stopped from cutting the Count’s throat when the Count had denounced them as regicides.

“No, my Lord,” said the Chamberlain.  “The Count, however, has been informed of the outcome and wishes it to be known that he is leaving the country as we speak.”

“Good,” said Asquith.  “Which way?  I think I might just follow him.”

“Ah,” said the Chamberlain, and Merrilla felt a cold hand stroke her soul.  “No, my Lord, you will not.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!”

The Chamberlain’s smile became icy indeed and Merrilla sank back down to sit on the stairs.  Suddenly she knew what he was about to say.

“You have been elected King, my Lord,” said the Chamberlain.  “Though an elected King is perhaps an oxymoron, so we should call you President, or Leader, or something similar.  You will be busy learning statecraft I think.”

Asquith just stared and the Chamberlain waited a moment, then carefully, artistically, shrugged.  “Free and fair elections, my Lord,” he said.  “You are clearly someone who can defend themselves, and know all about sieges and warfare.  You are probably what we need to lead us to a new golden age, and if not, you can probably lead a war that will make us all rich.  The people appreciate that.”

“I don’t know how to run a country,” said Asquith in a small voice of horror.

“Who does, my Lord?  We all just make it up as we go along.”