Page 8 of The Orc Warrioress and the Elf Lord

IAHIR PRESENTED HIMSELF to High King Findas with as little fanfare as possible. He bowed, of course, and he said all the standard greetings, but then he began fumbling about in his waist pouch for his pipe. He packed it with tobacco as the High King looked on.

“I could have her sent to Arzakh, you know,” said the High King. “Your orc woman? I could do that.”

Iahir stuck the pipe between his teeth and began fumbling for a match. “You could,” he said, his voice muffled.

“I know why you’re doing this, however,” said the High King, “and it’s not about me. I know it’s about your father.”

Iahir rolled his eyes. Everyone assumed it was about his father, all the time. They could not understand that his father had washed his hands of Iahir a very long time ago, that there was no reaching his father, and that if he had ever thought that behaving badly would get some kind of reaction out of his father, he’d been disabused of the notion rather quickly.

No, it wasn’t his father who reacted to his antics, it was everyone else.

He had grown a bit addicted to that, he supposed. It was power, in its way, the ability to shock and horrify. However, he realized it was not power he had control over, not truly. It was power he tapped into, but it could easily get away from him.

“So,” said the High King, “I have, of course, dictated a letter to be sent to him right away about this latest incident.”

Iahir had found a match. Now, he needed something to strike it against. He looked about the room, the pipe still clenched between his teeth.

“No reaction to that?” said the High King.

There. Iahir crossed the room to the marble mantel and struck the match there. He lit the pipe. The smoke filled his lungs and he felt that sharp feeling of relaxation and alertness combined that the tobacco smoke always seemed to make him feel. He blew out smoke and regarded the High King. “My father won’t be pleased. But he also won’t want me around. He’s stuck you with me, and you and I both know that is the way of it. If you want rid of me, you’re going to have to order him to take me back, and he won’t like that.”

The High King’s mouth twitched. “Well, none of them like doing my bidding these days, I’m afraid. I can’t believe how many people do not see how much I’ve improved this country. I have restored it to its former glory, to an age of greatness that was long past, generations ago. It is a pure land of elvish might and elvish ingenuity and elvish toil. It is the most beautiful of accomplishments.”

Iahir knew there was discontent. There wouldn’t be a revolution brewing else. It was a kettle boiling with all different sorts, however. Those who hated what Findas had done to trade, for instance. Those who disliked the state of the country’s economy, where everything was growing more expensive by the day. The Larhilists, who wanted to make the world entirely fair for everyone. Those who thought the orcs ought to have better treatment than they currently did. Those who thought that wealth should not be inherited, but distributed to everyone equally. Those who wanted a democratic government instead of a monarchy. They ran the gamut, but they all had one thing in common: they hated Findas.

Iahir blew out smoke. “Beautiful, Your Majesty,” he echoed noncommittally. He personally found Findas sort of pitiable. The man was delusional and sad. He didn’t hate the High King, however.

“So, is your father amongst those who would see us go back to the dark, sad world of before?” said Findas. “Does your father only pretend to support me?”

“I haven’t any notion,” said Iahir. “I have not spoken to him in years. I only hear from him through the responses he sends back to the frequent missives you send him of my behavior.”

“Ah, of course,” said Findas. “Well, he seems loyal, anyway.”

Findas was brutal to orcs, to dwarves, to anyone who wasn’t an elf, but he had not turned his anger on the elf noblemen who grumbled about him. If he had, perhaps they would be too frightened to grumble.

However, Iahir thought that it might make them very angry, and it might make them act, and the noblemen had access to their own standing armies. So, Findas’s lack of acting against them, of even making real threats, may have been exactly the right strategy to preserve his position on the throne.

Iahir did not think it was really strategy, however. He thought it was borne of Findas’s desire to be liked by the other elvish noblemen. Findas did not wish to anger them, hoping this would mean they would eventually appreciate what he saw as his accomplishments.

Findas had been third in line for the throne, and there was a time when it looked as if he would never be the king. During that time, he had been sort of laughable, a failed businessman who was able to get more loans and start more ventures because he was a prince, after all. He had a number of mistresses, most of them courtesans, and he was the kind of man who was all gaudiness and no substance. He liked flashy things—jewels, gold, women with very large breasts, purple clothing, furs…

Then, the second-in-line prince had died in a swimming accident.

So, for a time, Findas was second in line himself. But then his elder brother, the heir apparent, got a boy child on his wife, and Findas was back to the spot of third in line for the throne.

Findas’s father died. His brother took the throne. Findas continued buying up ships and funding doomed expeditions for spices into the lands of the dragons in the east. He hated the dragons, considered them abundantly stupid, thought they would be easy to double-cross. In this, he had learned that the dragons were slow to anger, quite honorable, willing to hold tight to the tradition, but that they were rather ruthless when they thought someone else was not playing by the rules. Findas had lost so much money in that whole debacle that he was the laughingstock of Lothnehil, unable to find anyone who would partner with him in business anymore.

His brother died from an infected wound he got after taking a bullet in a hunting accident. His nephew took the throne at ten years of age. He lasted two years before succumbing to a fever.

Suddenly, Findas was High King, something he had clearly never thought possible. He was stunned and surprised and rather pleased at the turn of events. He thought it meant something, that he had come to the throne against so many odds, having been third in line for so long. He thought that he was meant to do something important for the country.

Why he’d decided on purifying the country, throwing out all the non-elves, Iahir could not say. Iahir knew that there had been some business transaction gone wrong with orcs when Findas was quite young. He had been a landlord to some orc farmers in the country. There had been a flood and it had destroyed their homes, and Findas had done nothing about this. He’d been taken to task by his father, the old High King, chided for his negligence as a landlord.

Since then, Findas had hated orcs.

Or perhaps, Findas had always hated orcs, and this was why he did not care if they all died of exposure after flooding.

Whatever the case, Findas was small-minded sort of man, one who had a picture of himself in his mind that did not match the reality of what he was, one who had more power than he likely should have had, and one who had failed so often in life that he felt the need to prove himself worthy of his position as High King.