At a grand table that spanned twenty seats, Kenna looked around at the companions of Lord Erin. They were mostly older men, some of them greying, some of them long grey or bald. Twelve seats were empty. She suspected Erin could have filled them by now but had left them empty to show her how many of his closest advisors he had lost.
"Lady Kenna." One man spoke from two seats down. She nodded. "Asgard has suffered greatly from the war. And rather than rebuild, King Thor has hosted a grand celebration on your behalf, he has welcomed new alliances with Vanaheim with revelries and there are even rumors there was a bacchanal last week. And yet, Asgard suffers. What do you make of it?"
Kenna frowned. There had been no bacchanal. The celebration of her coronation had been remarkably simple knowing Thor. "Your sources are incorrect, my lord. There have been no other revelries of late and my coronation was necessary in order to allow me these responsibilities. Asgard does not suffer. In fact, we are experiencing a remarkable expansion within the industrial and agricultural fields."
"Asgard prospers because of our sacrifice!" Another man interjected. "Because we suffer, you stand tall."
"You speak as if you are not Asgardian, sir. You cannot exclude yourself from the rest simply because your situation differs. Tell me, what-"
Erin waved her away from the head of the table. "Enough of your business. I am concerned with the welfare of my people. Asgard is not my responsibility. Arn, you brought your worries here. Tell us."
Arn, a man Kenna has watched fiddle meticulously with his silverware throughout the dinner, straightened. He tugged on his sleeves and shot searching black eyes down to her.
"I haven't the supplies I need for some of my patients. Svand requires an elixir I import from Alfheim but the roads in are so bad, the couriers have been refusing to come this far. Navli, in Goriston, tells me he is lacking much as well. And the children..." His wrinkled hand rubbed slowly at his forehead. "I have lost four children just this month. The mothers are too weak to carry them to term. I fear it is the illness, still."
"Illness?" Kenna leaned forward. "What kind?"
Erin nodded and huffed. "I will arrange for some of my guards to retrieve your supplies from the royal city."
"Lord Arn?" Kenna tried. The man turned to her. "What illness do you speak of?"
He opened his mouth but Erin had dismissed them already. "Sigvat! What have you brought to the table?"
Must he be so obvious?
Kenna glanced at Merek, finding her friend sitting well back in the massive chair, his hands leisurely draped over the arms. He blinked slowly, watching Erin with dull eyes. Catching Kenna's gaze, he rolled his eyes and sighed. His thoughts poked at hers again.
He has made his point. You will get no where with him present.
Nodding, Kenna followed his example and sat back to listen. Arn was the medical man who lacked supplies and feared an epidemic. Sigvat, a hulking man with a twisted beard and a booming voice, could not afford the metal he needed for construction and lacked the help to haul timber. His sons had both died early in the fighting. Bjorn, a man with vibrant clothes that had long lost their luster, shifted nervously, wringing his hands as he spoke to the nicked and scuffed table. He was hesitant to do his duty as he could not afford to give any more loans from Erin's stores and hated to demand interest and collateral from people already stretched too thin. Erin, though troubled by the depletion of his bank, patted the man's shoulder.
"Your kindness will serve you well, Bjorn."
Kenna turned to Merek. He is kind to his own people?
So it seems.
Perhaps we've approached this the wrong way...
But before she could speak again, the meeting was adjourned for the night. The men scraped their chairs back and filed out, none of them stopping to speak to her or answer her questions. Sighing, Kenna tipped her head to Erin in goodnight and retired to her rooms. Merek followed at her side. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and sighed.
"I don't know how you do it. They make my blood boil when they step around you like that."
She shook her head and pressed a calming hand to his side. "They resent us. And can you blame them. Don't start any fights, Merek. You're a peacekeeper, remember?"
He closed his eyes. A humorless laugh shook his chest. "I never wanted to be." She tilted her head and frowned. "A warriors blood and a peacekeepers genes." He muttered. She hugged him tightly.
"Then I will be the peacekeeper. And you can be my champion." He pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head and left her at her door. Kenna watched him go and then turned her attention to the servant girl waiting.
Emmi looked at her with questions in her eyes. "Who is he?"
"A good man." Kenna said quietly. So much of Merek was a secret, so much hidden under millenia of grief. How could she condense all that she knew of him into a statement of character? "And my best friend."
"He's very strange. But he sticks close to you. You are lucky to have someone like him."
"I know. I'll be going into the town tomorrow morning. Will you guide me?"
"Yes, miss. Goodnight."
.............
The next morning, Kenna woke early and ate breakfast in her rooms. She refused the servant who came to tell her Erin requested her presence three times. Emmi emerged at her side and pulled out a walking dress. Kenna allowed her to help dress. She nodded as a servant came and told her Emmi was needed. "Go ahead. I'll finish." The door closed and a knock came a moment later. Kenna looked up in the mirror. "Come in." She said. Merek came in and leaned on the wall. Kenna smiled a good morning to him and brushed her hair. He fiddled with something under his shirt collar and she caught a glimpse of gold chain. She frowned but didn't ask about it. He seemed preoccupied with his thoughts. She poked his mind, grazing the surface to leave him his privacy. He merely shook his head, a silent answer to her concern. Meeting her gaze, he smiled briefly and so she left him to his thoughts as he trailed behind her into town.
Once Emmi returned, she took Kenna to each and every family. Kenna spoke to the family heads and then to the members in their turn.
Grief and resentment gripped these people too tightly to let them see her genuine concern. So she listened only, letting their trials and tribulations wash over her. Those that would allow her to comfort them, cried to her, begged her for help. She touched each of them in turn when they would allow it, saying nothing but letting her peace act on them as best as it could.
She gained their trust slowly through the days and finally, after the first month, they began to listen. Kenna had to make sure to do her job now. She had to get these people to see that there were wiser, peaceful ways of getting what they wanted. And for now, she was succeeding. As far as Erin, the month passed before she got any decent conversation or action from him. Diplomacy had little to no effect on him, at least not when it came from her. But if she could get the people to side with her, if she could win over his men, he would listen. She had one more month. They would return to the palace then and a second hearing would be held. She smiled when she thought of the time left. She could finish this. Marriage would never come. She felt the weight of that threat lift a little more from her shoulders everyday as she gained more trust.
She wrote home often. One letter always went to her mother and another to Rowan. He responded with enthusiasm every time. He tried to reassure her that he was coping just fine but she wondered if he really was as well as he seemed. And when there were setbacks among the people - prejudice and bloodthirst mixing into stubbornness - she wished desperately that he were with her. When she felt hopeless or uncertain, she wanted to be able to go to him. But that was impossible. Still, Merek was always a source of comfort and she stayed close to him when she could.
Offering up the store of calm that sat within her left her heavy and beaten down by the evenings. She could do little more than cry some nights, so filled up with the grief she lifted from these people. Merek never left her side on those nights.
It was the last night when it all seemed to come crumbling down. She checked her notes before making her rounds. Everything should have been in order by now. She stared at Arn's house, smiling when he opened the door.
"Arn! Did your supplies come?"
He huffed. "You know as well as I do that you never sent for them. Do not play games with me, Princess."
"Wha-" the door slammed. Kenna turned to Merek but he only frowned. She tried Sigvat but he merely shook his head, his massive chest puffing up as he breathed to dispel a burst of anger.
"The metal never came?" She frowned.
"Was there any to be brought?" He turned back to his work.
Bjorn refused to even speak with her. She tried the butcher, the tailor, the teachers, the cooks, the shoemakers, and the farmers. All her requests for supplies, for extra hands, for money... none of them had been granted.
"I think I know what happened to your letters." Merek muttered. Kenna looked up at him and followed his gaze to where Erin was making his own rounds. He started walking but she snatched the back of his coat and pulled.
"Wait. Let's not cause a scene." She led the way back to the manor, her hand snagging in Erin's coat as she passed him. He paused in his conversation and met her gaze. She glanced towards the manor and then kept walking, expecting his impatient demands the moment the doors closed behind them. He followed them in a few minutes later and met them in his study.
"You're leaving in a few hours, surely you haven't any more requests." He huffed. Kenna shook her head, sitting slowly in the seat opposite his desk. He leaned back in the chair, his hands draped lazily over the arms, his eyes narrowed as he studied her. "Then I have one."
"I expected as much." She felt Merek draw closer to her back.
Leaning forward, Erin spread his hands in what she assumed was meant to be a benevolent gesture. "You see what has come of your diplomacy. The palace does not care for us here. They will not send the supplies we need or the help. But if we had more weight in the court, if our voices carried a heavier say..."
"Your population is too small for a weightier vote."
"Aye, but if we were aligned, Princess." He smiled slowly, a wolffish smile that only made her back tighten and her stomach twist. Merek's hand touched her shoulder.
"Aligned." She said flatly.
"Married." Erin laughed softly. "If we married you would hold far more respect in the court. Married women always do. And you'd have tamed the troublesome eastern fiefs, what an accomplishment for one so young. We would have the respect of royal ties and the aid we need to rebuild. Surely, Loki would never allow his precious daughter to live in these conditions."
"He has thus far." She muttered. "I sent my letters for request and was told they had been filled. I do not believe the palace has ignored you but that you have withheld the supplies in some way. Perhaps for this, so you could persuade me to try another way to help your people. I am neither naive nor gullible, my lord. I will return home and the court will hear my report. You'll make no bride of me and your people will see you for the power hungry mongrel you are."
Erin's meaty hands gripped the edge of the desk with bloodless knuckles. His face flushed a patchy red and his lips thinned. She smiled humorlessly.
"Your responsibility is to keep the peace here, Princess."
"I have."
"Have you? The people are weary and angry. They have been ignored, cast aside, and now mislead by your promises. They want palpable change and I am willing to offer them their chance. If King Thor is unwilling to give us what we deserve, we will take it. And-"
"Your threats hold no water with me, Erin." Sighing, Kenna stood and straightened her dress. "I will rectify your meddling when I return to the palace and I will ensure the relief I requested arrives. You will receive your court summons soon enough. Good day."
She made her last notes in her journal before packing it away as the last item to be taken care of. Closing her bags, she checked over her shoulder. Merek had followed her back to her rooms, where he'd left his only bag on her chair. He smiled.
"What?" He shook his head and she laughed, watching his smile widen. "What?!"
"Nothing." He shrugged. "I'm proud of you."
"Oh that." Rolling her eyes, she stacked her bags and pulled the cord to call Emmy. She gripped the doorknob and turned, frowning as it caught. Releasing it, she tried again, tugging at the stopped door. "I see." She muttered. "Well."
"Princess Kenna?" Emmy's voice came from the other side. The door shuddered and the knob turned uselessly. "Give me a moment, m'lady, I'll find -"
"Emmy?" Kenna pressed her ear to the door and listened to a muffled scuffle, the muted protestations of Emmy as someone murmured to her. "Emmy!"
Merek's hand pulled her towards him and he stepped beside her, meeting her gaze. Breathing deep, she nodded.
"Don't kill him."
"You're no fun." He smirked. "Very well."
Lowering into a crouch, Kenna swept her hands out from her chest and towards the door, feeling thin slices of energy burst from her and crack into the door. Merek tugged the heavy wood, pulling it from the weakened hinges. A guard stood on the other side, sword unsheathed and ready.
Kenna watched Merek's form waver until the man faced a tall, grey creature with blood red eyes and fanged teeth, smiling as the color blanched from the guard's face.
Twisting her foot, Kenna opened the stones beneath the man and closed it back over his hips as he fell through. She waved Merek on.
"Don't waste your time." She watched him go before snatching her journal out of her bag and stuffing it in a pocket in the folds of her dress. She passed the guard, glancing down at him. "Someone will dig you out, I'm sure."
"But-"
"Good luck." She waved, turning to follow after Merek. The sound of a struggle reached her from down the hall and she followed it, turning a corner as it grew quiet to find Merek gently rubbing Emmi's arms.
"She's unharmed." He said without turning around. Kenna glanced at an unconscious Erin laying face down on the stones, a patch of blood blooming in the back of his head and matting his hair. "He's breathing." The gentleness slopped from Merek's voice, a cold hiss rising in his throat as he regarded the fallen lord.
"Good enough." Kenna shrugged. "Shall we go before he wakes? Emmi, should you wish, a position just opened up at the palace for lady's maid to the new princess. What do you think?"
Smiling even though she was still shaking in Merek's grip, she nodded. "Thank you, miss. Thank you so much."
"Wonderful. Time to go."