The boy who sat upon the velvet chair was draped in the heavy, stiff silks of the Romelian silks makers, watched Alpheo with a gaze that flickered between profound gratitude and the wide-eyed recognition for a child who had just seen his father hunt a lion and presented him with his pelt.
Alpheo took his seat, the leather of his travel-worn chair creaking under a weight that felt heavier than it had a week ago. Outside the royal pavilion, the newly conquered "Fingers" loomed, he was tired to look at it.
So he did not.
For the last seven days, the spoils of the siege had been sorted, measured, and divided among the participants of the war. It was, by all accounts, a lackluster bounty. In any other campaign, Alpheo would have been besieged by a horde of southern lords, their faces red with indignation, howling for a fairer share of the gold or additional rewards, they believed their "duty" had earned them.
