Neext one... we are getting closer :)

18.

A Man Of Mysteries

If Rolanda had barely slept the previous night, she even slept less in this one.

She found herself too afraid to fall asleep, she was thoroughly regretting what she had done. But sometimes, she just found herself unable to control her tongue and keep her mouth from spilling out her opinion unfiltered.

However, the damage was done, she had enraged the king, something she had been advised to avoid, and all she could hope for now was that there were no consequences. Maybe he would look over this slip of her tongue? After all, she had been his servant for a mere day, and she still had to get used to all of this, being devoted to him against her personal beliefs and intuitions and obeying to everything he said. Her opinions and her desire to find out the truth about everything that was going on were not important to him and she was sure that he did not really intended to ever tell her what she wanted to know.

Surely Ronan had not said this without a reason. Maybe it had been meant to her protection, and if not, she should at least take this advise seriously, no matter how hard it was going to be for her.

The next morning, she felt horribly drained of energy and as she watched the first rays of the rising sun creep over the stone floor, she asked herself what would happen.

Would her small false step be enough to cause King Severus to send his men down into the dungeons to Alannah to show Rolanda the hard way that she could not afford any other reckless actions?

"In case you are already awake, I would like to have my breakfast served as soon as dawn is over. No bath today," the calm voice of King Severus suddenly broke the silence, causing Rolanda to wince slightly. She had expected him to sound aggressive and glare at him as she stood up and turne to look at him, but he simply appeared relaxed and rested, as everyone who had just woken up from a night of undisturbed sleep would.

"Uhm... sure, as you wish...," she nodded and walked out of the room, down the stairs and out of the king's chambers. While walking, she ran a hand over her face, wiping away the slight crumbles of sleep as she released a breath. Looking out of a window of the hallway as she made her way towards the kitchens, she realised that she would have a lot of time until she had to have the breakfast ready and served in on the king's dining table.

Had he done that on purpose, giving her enough time to have a relatively relaxed morning herself? Or was this just a coincidence, that he just did not wanted to get up right now, being way too comfortable in his warm and soft bed?

Thinking closer about it, she decided that she had other things to worry about and that she did not care about the why, as long as she had some time for herself and was not walking right into any trap of his.

Down in the kitchens, she met Sturgis, and smiling lighthearted for the first time since the last time they met, she greeted him:"Do you ever sleep?"

"To be honest, no," he winked, offering her a slice of bread that was still warm. Rolanda took it with a grateful expression, just as the small cup of goat milk, feeling her stomach churn in protest.

"The king's breakfast will be ready soon," one of the cooks notified Rolanda as he walked by, too busy to do more than to acknowledge her mere presence with a friendly nodd.

"Everything still okay up there?" Sturgis asked while they ate the delicously tasting bread, sitting next to each other on the edge of one of the long tables, watching the maids and cooks who were already busy so early in the morning, mainly occupied with baking fresh bread for all the inhabitants of the castle. Rolanda tried to imagine how many people lived in Blackdown Stronghold, seeing the huge bowls of bread dough the women were preparing, but she soon gave up – she was not a dumb person, not at all, but some things or numbers were just too big to imagine.

"I don't know, I think I will be able to evaluate that during the day... if you don't hear anything from me by dinner time, my tongue probably slipped again and he snapped at me...," she answered with a sigh after finishing off her milk, unceremoniously wiping her lips with her sleeve. Sturgis raised an eyebrow and said:"You better control yourself. I already witnessed how vicious he really can be and I assure you, you don't want to stand on the wrong side of his sword."

"Guess I should be a little bit more cautious then," Rolanda muttered darkly, feeling a lump form in her throat as the cook came back, carrying the king's breakfast tray. This morning, he would have fruits, one bowl with corn mash with honey and a bowl of sweet semolina – one of Rolanda's secret favourites, therefore her mouth was watering, even though she had already eaten something only a minute ago.

Telling Sturgis that they would hopefully meet again in the evening, she took the tray and carried it up the many stairs and through the hallways, always eyeing the mash inside the pull, trying to prevent it from touching the rims of the bowl while she walked.

Coming back to the chambers, King Severus was already seated in his chair at the head of the dining table, fully dressed, looking suspiciously patient as Rolanda placed the tray in front of him. She half expected him to have a complain of some sort, but he only nodded at her and she took a step back as the unbelievable happened. Had she not heard the words coming from his mouth with her own ears and had she not seen his lips move, she would not have believed that this was really happening.

"You may sit down at the table, if you like," the king told her, gesturing at the chair right next to him. She could not believe that he was actually acting as if nothing had happened the previous evening and she could not help but shiver slightly as she sat down as he had told her, her fingers gripping the edge of her seat for a short moment as he actually took the bowl with the semolina and placed it in front of her.

"Eat. You must be hungry. And if you should desire some of the fruits, don't hesitate to serve yourself," he continued, ignoring her shocked expression – yes, he surprised her so much that she forgot to hold up her facade, if she had ever had one. In any case, she had to look odd in this moment, and a lot less confident. But who could blame her for this – nobody would ever expect to be offered to sit with the king and share his noble breakfast after openly opposing to him for the second time since they met.

"Ronan paid me a visit while you were down in the kitchens to fetch my breakfast," he started to chatter casually after a few minutes as Rolanda finally dared to eat something from the semolina – it tasted wonderfully, better than any of her own creations and if her stomach were a cat, it surely would have purred in delight in this moment.

"He told me he visited Alannah in her cell yesterday night."

Rolanda stopped chewing, staring at the structures and lines of the wood while waiting for him to give her the final blow by telling her that he had punished her sister.
"He notified me that she is quite alright and enjoys the extra food she is provided with."

It did hurt in her throat as Rolanda forced herself to swallow the too big portion of food she still had in her mouth and she had to take a deep breath to keep herself from yelling at him if it really was necessary to scare her that much. However, she used her now empty mouth to bite her tongue without the danger of spilling her food and just remained silent, nodding to express her relief.

Obviously though, the king was not done with his casual run down of what had happened so far and what was going on in his mind.

"It must appear cruel to you. What I am doing, I mean. Sending my soldiers out to capture and kill people who were living in peace for all these years, loyal men who seemingly never did any harm to anyone. Ripping families and lovers apart, burning villages down whose inhabitants lived in freedom for as long as you can think."

He did not sound as though he was just talking about being responsible for the deaths of countless people, Aurora's husband and Aurora herself, though having comitted suicide out of grief, being among them. In fact, he sounded like he was just explaining how good the roses in the castle gardens were growing. Rolanda really found this gruesome – not only because she had known some of the victims for most of her life, but also because she could not imagine how anybody could be so insensitive that ordering to have maybe hundreds of people killed did not bother him at all.

"You are allowed to answer openly and freely express your opinion concerning this topic," Severus added, eyeing her sceptic face that she did not bother to hide. Just yesterday, he had hit her for speaking out loudly what was going on in her mind, which questions were important for her at the moment, and now he suddenly wanted to hear what she was thinking about his methods?! Was this a trick to find an excuse to treat her badly?

"I... I don't..."

She shook her head, but his expression, obviously supposed to be encouraging of some sorts, caused her to answer faintly:"I don't believe that killing people is the right way to achieve anything."

He did not directly react to her statement, but instead asked her:"Do you like books, Rolanda?"
Popping a white grape into his mouth, he looked at her with an odd kind of interest and she did not dare not to answer.

"Yes, I indeed like to read..."

"Oh, it really is nothing common for women. Do you happen to have read one of the tales about the ancient cities that were the centres of worldly and religious powers? Thousands of people were roaming the streets and the rememerable markets, travellers were visiting the cities to experience their glory and carry the stories about what they saw there to all the other places they would travel to in their life. However, in nowadays, the folk is spread out over the whole kingdom again, there rarely are big cities as they all decided to have small settlements.

"Also, the once huge empires that were spreading over continents did disappear. I do not understand why we made this backwards progression, but it happened and I intend to change this. What I dream of is to bring the Kingdom of Ulidia back to the glory it deserves. Our culture shall rise and spread over the whole world, gathering all the treasures that can be found."

Rolanda could see a enthusiastic gleam in his dark eyes and as he continued to talk about foreign or ancient cultures and some kinds of literature and she could not keep herself from thinking that she was sitting in front of an fairly interesting and intelligent man. He seemed to be reading a lot and was, despite his open disagreement towards diplomacy, very well polished in politics.

For some minutes, she was actually hanging on his lips, listening to him with interest, sometimes even nodding if she found herself agreeing to some things he had thought about.

But still, as he just went on, seemingly barely needing to breathe as he talked, she could still notice his slightly maniac regards behind those well-chosen words, spoken with good manners. For somebody who did not fall for his big words, his greed and his unlimited craving for power was more than obvious.

She was seeing that he must have been disturbed by something in the past and she asked herself if there perhaps had been an event in his childhood that had droven him into madness, causing him to become as greedy and ruthless as he was today.