Page 16 of Given to the Black King

Then I look at the wall. Four fresh gouges surround the place where her head had been. Tomorrow I negotiate peace from the far end of a table.

IONA

The next morning, the first treaty session is held in the audience hall. A twelve-foot oak table runs across the black line below the dais.

The Black King sits at the far end.

Very far.

He has placed Callas, Perr, two councilors, and a stack of grain ledgers between our chairs.

I look at the distance. He looks at me looking.

“Shall we begin?” Callas asks.

“We began when you crossed my border,” the king says. “Now we write down the price.”

His voice is steady. His hands are flat on the table. No claws. The bandage around his forearm is hidden beneath a fresh black sleeve.

I open the first schedule. For an hour, we argue about forts.

He knows every weakness in Serath’s northern defense. Which piers have rotted. Which garrisons exist only on paper. Which river lord has been selling army horses to pay gambling debts.

I know his western granaries are half empty.

“You took Vessel because you needed grain,” I say.

“I took Vessel because its lord stole from me.”

“You rode three thousand men across the north for an insult?”

“For seven hundred sacks of grain.”

“So you did need it.”

One corner of his mouth moves.

Callas shifts beside me. “Envoy⁠—”

I hold up a page. “Your tribute accounts list four hundred cattle from four different hill estates.”

“They are fertile hills.”

“They are the same cattle.”

Ghenn coughs into his fist.

The king’s gaze sharpens. “Prove it.”

“The ear marks are copied in the same order on every list.” I slide the page toward Perr. “Read the first six.”

Perr does.

I open the second schedule and read the same marks back to him.

Silence.

Ghenn stops pretending to cough.