Page 1 of Given to the Black King

TORGAN

The north gate breaks before noon. I am standing under it when it falls.

Stone strikes the street hard enough to shake the boots of every man behind me. Dust rolls over us. My soldiers wait for the order.

I point through the breach.

“Granaries first. Leave the houses.”

They go.

Vessel’s garrison comes off the walls into smoke and finds my spears waiting. The fighting is short. Most men lose interest in dying once they understand the city is already taken.

By dusk, their lord is on his knees in his own hall.

His wine is in my cup. His blood is drying on my sword from the men he sent to hold the stair.

“The harvest failed,” he says. “The tribute would have starved us.”

“You sold the grain to the coast.”

His eyes lift.

“My collectors found the contracts in your counting room.” I set my cup down. “You lied about raiders. You kept the silver.”

“Great King, I can explain⁠—”

“Say what you did.”

The hall is full. His gray-haired wife stands beneath the gallery with both hands locked around the shoulders of their two grandsons. His captains line the wall. Every lord who helped him cheat me is watching.

He looks at them before he looks at me.

“I gambled,” he says.

“On what?”

“That you wouldn’t come this far north for one season’s grain.”

I rise.

He swallows.

“You came.”

“Yes.”

I take his head with one stroke. His widow makes one sound and stops it with her teeth.

“Open the granaries,” I tell Ghenn. “Count what remains. Nobody eats from them until we know how much winter is left.”

A murmur moves through the hall. They expected fire. Slaughter. Something simple. Ghenn wipes a drop of blood from the table with his thumb. “And the lord’s household?”

“The debt is paid.”

The widow looks at me then. I leave her husband’s head on the floor and walk out into the city.

Smoke hangs low between the houses. My soldiers have the main square, the wells, and the storehouses. No one is looting. They know my rules.