Being king had been so much easier when Bill Compton was on the throne. All the time Bill had reigned over Louisiana, Eric had mocked him – behind his back and to his face. King William the Righteous. King William the Humble. King William the Noble. He'd sneered at Bill's appearances at Old Folks' Homes, his interviews in local newspapers, his tedious attention to the minutiae of bureaucracy, both vampire and human. If Eric were ever to deign to become king, he would rule royally, like the kings he'd known in the 17th century, or rule feudally, like his own father, who'd killed four men to ascend his throne. Eric would be a real king, a proper king. Not a wincing, mincing bureaucrat like Compton.
However, that was the trouble with a theoretical reign: it had proved to be so much easier than a real one. Eric had quickly found that it was far more satisfying to criticise someone else's efforts than to deal with the realisation that your own were so much worse: because Eric was not a good king. He was a passable king, but he was not a good one and certainly not a great one. Back in the days where he might have wielded absolute power, he could've reigned in the broad strokes he preferred, but in the early quarter of the 21st century, his role of monarch was to execute laws, not peasants.
And Pamela was no help. She'd been more excited about his ascension to vampire royalty than he had been and although she liked to behave like a princess, she had quickly become frustrated at the restrictions placed upon her by her new rank. It had taken her a long time to find a role in the New Orleans administration that was not beneath her dignity (as she saw it) but in line with her abilities (as Eric saw them.) Even then, she rubbed people up the wrong way; she used the kind of vulgarities she'd learned in her life as a whore, something that had amused him no end when she'd been behind the bar in Shreveport. Now, rubbing shoulders with high-ranking politicians, famous celebrities and members of royalties, living and undead, she seemed crass and brassy and she sometimes made Eric cringe.
He sighed deeply when he heard the rap on the door. It was Mr Montgomery, who looked around hopefully, searching for Maggie.
"Eh... your Highness?" he said in his modulated tones.
"Yes?" Eric snapped and dropped his pants, then whipped off his top, so he stood naked in front of his retainer. Mr Montgomery, if he'd still been able to, he would've blushed but instead went into a state of rigid shock, his eyes fixed on an object above his master's head. Eric, irritated by the other vampire's prudishness, pulled on underwear, the suit pants that had been laid out over the back of his chair.
"Yes?" he repeated, as Montgomery stared at the ceiling.
"Madame, I mean, Ms Kennick has not yet returned?" he asked softly.
The old fruit loved Maggie. Adored her. He was supposed to be Eric's manservant but he was Maggie's right-hand man, something she attributed to the fact that Eric apparently scared him witless.
"She's coming back with Ms de Beaufort," he snapped.
"It's just that ... well, Ms de Beaufort returned an hour ago but Ms Kennick is as yet unaccounted for."
Eric didn't answer, just grabbed his phone and rang her number. It rang out. He rang again, but she didn't answer. Irritation growing, he typed her a short message, his fingers fighting with the predictive text to produce something logical. If Maggie had been here, he would've handed her the phone to do it; she was faster at that kind of thing than he was and she couldn't bear to watch him clumsily pounding on his phone screen.
He finished buttoning his shirt and grabbed his jacket.
"Summon Ms de Beaufort," he ordered, striding out of the room. Outside in the corridor, two or three of the palace administrators were waiting. But not for him, he realised, when they melted away at his approach, apologising for being there. They were waiting for Maggie. He didn't know whether this made him annoyed or proud: to his surprise, both his and Pamela's talents for ruling had been vastly outshone by Maggie's talent for reigning. All of his staff liked her; in fact, all of his staff respected her. She was even-tempered, fair and kind. She knew everyone who worked in the complex, vampire and human, and with her own knowledge of vampire protocol and Mr Montgomery's unerring sense of vampire propriety, they ran a tight ship. It was common knowledge that most supplicants turned to her first and he was well aware that she filtered out most of the most grievous annoyances before they got to him. Over the course of the past few months, Eric had developed a feeling for her that he was entirely unfamiliar with: he admired her. Not just physically – she was attractive to him, of course, though that red hair of hers unnerved him still – but he admired the way she worked. The way she ran the business of the monarchy. The way she ran him.
Because he wasn't stupid enough to think he was the boss in their relationship. Quietly, calmly, she'd kept the worst of his temper at bay. When the red rage rose behind his eyes, when the desire to see heads roll made him crack the knuckles of his fingers, she only had to lay a hand on his skin and he felt the surge of warmth run through his cold blood. On his throne, ready to order the staking of another stupid fucker who'd transgressed in some stupid, fucking moronic way, she only had to brush her fingers against the skin of his wrist, smile at him beatifically and mouth the word, Seda – be calm – in Latin and he would pause, wait, till the worst of the fury had passed. And when he passed sentence, she inevitably beamed proudly, applauding his wisdom and judgement.
Maggie played her role of consort so well, he felt she should be given some kind of award – an Oscar award for acting, perhaps. She was obedient and subversive, doing what she was told while actually doing what she wanted. When Pamela, through some sleuthing – calling in some favours and delicately applying blackmail where it hurt – discovered that Patrick Montgomery was not, as he had claimed, a former valet to the Royal Houses of Windsor, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Hannover, but instead a petty thief who'd fled to the United States to escape conviction for robbery with nothing more than the rags he wore on his skinny frame, they'd rubbed their hands in glee. Before finding a place with Queen Catherine, the closest the pompous vampire had ever gotten to a monarch was playing one in comic interpretations of Hamlet and King Lear in Chicago's vaudeville theatres. He was a fraud, Pamela had sneered, a jumped-up little royalist who watched too much Downton Abbey. Delighted at the leverage, Pamela and Eric decided to file the information away with other juicy tidbits that were stored for the purpose of blackmail or coercion, something Maggie had found distasteful. She'd shaken her head disapprovingly as Pamela cackled at the idea of revealing Montgomery to be a fake.
But Magdalena Kennick had other plans. When Montgomery came to serve them their blood and tea during one of Eric's meetings with his consort and his progeny, Maggie had cleared her throat and said, "I heard you had a wonderful career in the theatre, Mr Montgomery."
He'd started, freezing in that way he did when horrified, but she'd ignored his discomfort and said, "Do you know, I even found a likeness of you on an old playbill. You were very handsome, oh my! And playing Hamlet, no less!"
Then she'd pulled out her tablet to show the older vampire the scan of a playbill from the 1890s, with an ink drawing of Eric's valet's gaunt face, wearing the Scottish king's crown. Montgomery took the tablet and Maggie stood up to look over his shoulder, peppering him with questions. Was the role hard? Did they perform the entire play or only extracts? What was his favourite Shakespearian role?
And rather than it being something Eric could use to keep him in his place, her flattering interest in Montgomery's vaudeville career had made their servant quite loquacious on the subject. Pamela had glared at him, willing him to intervene, but Maggie wouldn't even meet his eye. She led Montgomery to the door, still asking him about his stage career. The older vampire, suddenly animated, delighted to have found a fan, answered her questions and even promised to perform some of his favourite speeches at a later point in the evening. He'd taken his leave with a more theatrical bow than usual, his normally solemn face almost flush with happiness.
Maggie leaned with her back against the closed door and raised a finger at Eric.
"You are a king," she said sharply. "Be magnanimous, not vindictive."
Her words could hit their target unerringly. She'd spent her entire life on the fringe of the European emperor's court, she was measuring him against the old Emperor Charles and finding him lacking. She wasn't assisting him; she wasn't ruling with him, she was teaching him how to reign. And Eric Northman didn't know how that made him feel.
He strode down the corridor.
"Where is my consort?" he said loudly. "Someone get her on the phone."
And he thrust his mobile at Mr Montgomery, who was scurrying along beside him. Montgomery looked at the device as though it were radioactive and handed it over to the little female vampire that was hurrying along behind them. Eric didn't know her name; Maggie no doubt would. The vampire said, "No answer, sir, she's not picking up."
He snatched back his phone and put it in his pocket.
"Where's Maggie?" he demanded of Pam, as she came towards him.
"She's not here yet?" she asked, astonished. "But she took my car, she should've been here before me – "
"Why didn't you travel together?" Eric said, trying not to shout.
"Because she took my car," Pamela said in that defiant tone of hers that she hated. "I need my fucking car back here, Eric."
Eric smacked her across the face and the assembled company, vampire and human, hissed in reflex. He balled his fists, trying to control himself. Pamela rubbed her cheek, her eyes glittering with anger.
"She was supposed to come back this evening," he said in a low, deadly voice. "Where is she?"
"I'll phone Jessica," Pamela said sullenly. "Let's first establish whether she even left Bon Temps."
Eric couldn't believe his ears. "Whether she even left?" he repeated. "She was ordered to leave after one night."
"Yes, well, good luck with ordering Maggie Kennick to do anything," Pam said. "We both know how that goes, my liege lord."
He resisted the urge to smack her again and she knew what he was doing, stepping out of his range. She pushed the door to a conference room open and stepped inside, the phone to her ear. Eric followed her, closing the door in the faces of the vampires that were behind them.
"Jessica," Pamela snapped. "Where is she?"
Eric heard the high pitch of Jess's excited babble.
"No, he did not know and no, he did not allow it," Pam growled. "Keep the fool out of harm's way, Sheriff, or your head will be on a plate. I'm leaving New Orleans now."
"We're leaving now," Eric said shortly.
He whipped open the door, almost treading on the feet of Mr Montgomery, who didn't even pretend to be ashamed of getting caught eavesdropping.
"I need a plane," Eric commanded. "Now."
The faces around him gaped, uncomprehendingly.
"NOW!" he roared and, as though someone flicked a switch, they all started to move, running in all directions.
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